I use both. WoF and LS, in almost every duel. Stomping paladins get screwed if you drop one under your feet (in this case its a defensive measure), and sorcs and necs (etc...) get caught by wof just like against ghosts.
One point where a gotta say that a hybrid will be defensive is when she is low on life.
Lets say I duel a necro and am left with 300 life so 1 BS/spear kills me. He has got more than half life left. I'll try to trap with LS, chip away his life and eventually try to catch him in a full stunlock if he decides to go offensive to finish me off.
So, a hybrid probably tends to become defensive or at least more defensive as usual when she is on low HP. The reason for this is imho pretty clear. Hybrids got traps which can be used as a defensive damage dealer, ghosts dont.
As long as you are not really low on life, I just personally say that ghost and hybrid can be equally offensive.
It may be true that many hybrid players play more defensive than most ghost players. They heavily rely on their traps (just like Summerfun told us) because trapping is easier than whirling (at least its safer).
I played (in chronological order) c/c trapsin, kicksin, wwsin, ww/ls/kick sin, and got to know all the basics with kicks and whirlwind before I started to play a hybrid.
If I hadnt played kicksins and wwsins before I would not play the same way as I do now. People who played trappers before, or no assassin at all will play defensive and very trap based.
I love playing offensive and I love wwing and kicking. Really often I say to my friends: ''Hey, lets make some fun duels. I need to practise my offensive play with whirls and building up stunlocks against casters and I wont use LS. I'll play like ghost.''
So I duel that necro with wof only. I make mistakes, I learn from them. I die because I whirl too long or namelock too slowly. You get a feeling how to teleport while chasing and where and when to place traps.
The next day I duel the same person with traps only, without ww at all. I try catching him in a stunlock and kill with LS. Or I use kicks but no ww.
Just for fun.
Or dueling hammerdins with wof only, incase I get fully sorbed. [etc]
Please do not see this as bragging, really please dont. But I have put very much effort in practising different facets of my assassin. Triwhirling, teleporting, trapping, namelocking. Over and over and over.
But after all, I would like to say that I have become an offensive kind of player that tries to put pressure whereever it seems not too foolish, and I'm am usually successful. And many other hybrid assassins are not offensive because they just go to pub duels and try to win.
I duel to improve and have fun, not to win. Sometimes I jump in to triwhirl and die, get to know where it's possible and senseful and where it's not.
I'm sure you, Dave, and you, Ollie, have done the same as I do (practise wise) and I respect your work (great guides) and your opinion.
But a hybrid is not forced to play defensive against any caster.
I dont neglect my build. I use LS and WoF in an offensive way. Sometimes, against certain individuals, I even like LS even more as offensive trap vs casters because it shoots faster after placing. It's all about catching them usually, interupting them from teleing with that one LS hit to get in. Stunlock is not THAT important against sorcs and necros. You just outtank them 95% of the cases.
Basically MY idea behind hybridizing a wwsin with traps is not because I find traps a necessary backup against casters (I mean damaging traps). It's more like I sacrifice some ww damage to get more defensive power against paladins and barbarians.
So basically you agree with lower ww dmg because you can outbalance this loss with technique really well. OW dmg on hybrid and ghost is the same, venom damage is (depending on build) pretty much the same (I got lvl46 venom field-casted on my hybrid), physical damage is clearly a good bunch less.
Physical damage comes in handy where you hit often (TienJe explains it in his guide pretty well. Venom in hell = 0.8 sec, ww hits every 0.16 sec. So you often just reset your poison timer as it doesnt stack.), i.e. when you triwhirl, that's most likely against casters, but those can be killed with low physical damage as well. Almost all sorcs that I know play 95% ES, making physical dmg not so viable, and many necros play high DR and got bonearmor. IMHO venom plays the major role in those duels.
Against paladins, you usually do not triwhirl for obvious reasons. In those duels I'd say that the wws are almost equal (dmg-wise), at least no significant difference, out of my experience.
This should be no comparison to point out which build is better. I find ghost and hybrid equally good, they are just very similar but still totally different.
But both got high offensive power, even if ghost might be able to go a tad more offensive.
Hybrid is in no way defensive, it all depends on the player that uses it.
. One of my huge disappointments upon coming to NL was to find that every hybrid I faced played the "lay a trap field and WW around in it" game plan, which just sucks(/props with the exception of Supra who was /endprops suicidally offensive against my barb). I do think that WW/LS can be really good in its own way, but it CANNOT be as offensive as the Ghost, simply because the ghost is capable of winning a bat**** nuts charge against a lot of chars whereas the WW/LS needs to bring its trap field with it to keep the damage potential there. WW/LS can indeed play a constant pressure game, but it's more slow and deliberate than the ghost, who often only needs 1 or 2 trap casts and mbs or even none at all to close with the enemy.
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