The "coming soon" talent ...

[Kadenzza]

The talent has been datamined apparently. It's called Premeditation, but it's not what you'd think.

Premeditation Talent
Requires Rogue (Subtlety)
Requires level 15
After entering Stealth, your next Shadowstrike grants up to 10 sec. of Slice and Dice, and generates 2 additional combo points if Slice and Dice is active.

[shoegazing]

I originally posted this in the larger Subtlety Rogue thread, since the new talent was under discussion there, but since this thread is specifically about the new talent, I'll repost here where it is more appropriate:

What I wrote to the devs after this was announced:

Regarding new Premed: I appreciate that you guys are *trying* but I really don't want to have to use a terrible Shadowstrike opener, forgoing Cheap Shot, in order to use Premed. Just give us the button back PLEASE.

Opening with Ambush/Shadowstrike in PvP has ALWAYS been a trap that noobs fall into. Please don't encourage this. T_T

Opening with Ambush / Shadowstrike just results in instantly getting Nova'd, HoJ'd, Feared, etc by ANY PLAYER WHO HAS EVEN A MODICUM OF A PULSE.

Nobody who knows that they are doing wants to press that button first.

Again, I appreciate the effort, BUT please display some PvP literacy and rethink this.

The talent, as currently implemented, is USELESS to the audience that desires it most.

This round about way of trying to give us Premed back without introducing a keybind is not going to work out. Just give us the button please, it's better for a lot of reasons.

BTW, if your reasoning is "lots of players just macro'd Premed into Ambush", please rethink that. Good players most certainly did not. I would appreciate if the game did not treat me like a dummy.

P.S. SoD gets macro'd into Dance with ZERO downside. But there is in fact large downside to Premed's passive implementation.

A much better solution, if you are concerned about button count, is bake SoD in and implement Premed as an active button. No net change in ability count.

[Kaver]

I originally posted this in the larger Subtlety Rogue thread, since the new talent was under discussion there, but since this thread is specifically about the new talent, I'll repost here where it is more appropriate:

What I wrote to the devs after this was announced:

I 100% agree with you.

It makes no sense that they have to bake premed into shadowstrike... this is just a classic example of Blizzard being Blizzard. Instead of just taking the simple road and giving us the old premed they have to pull some shit like this and try to be "creative". It's so frustrating that they never just do what make their customers happy.

Also Blizzards crusade against macros is just ridiculous. I know this doesn't necessarily apply to premed, but in general. They keep making our gameplay worse to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist. So what if people want to use macros... why does it matter as long as the game is fun..

[Volatilis]

Oh look they brought back an old spell but not in the way people wanted.

What a shocker.

They couldnt even be bothered making a new spell/ artwork for the icon rofl.

Pinnacle of lazy.

[StillMcfuu]

Might be a little more interesting if it worked with Subtlety.

[Fantazma]

I posted this in a topic yesterday:

"They gave us Slice and Dice ... but without Premeditation (old skill that gave us 2 CPs for the opener) I can't imagine how to use SnD without being forced to choose Marked for Death. Spending combo points on SnD maintenance will hurt a lot ... "
(note: I'm talking about openers in PVP content.)

And now I enter Wowhead and see this:

"Blizzard has posted upcoming changes for Outlaw and Subtlety in Shadowlands, including the return of Dreadblades and Premeditation"

https://shadowlands.wowhead.com/news...in-shadowlands

Now I (finally) can use SnD in my PVP openers. Thanks Blizzard.

I also posted there that I was not optimistic about the "talent hide in the shadows" .... but as you can see I was quite mistaken.
I really thought that we would have another talent 100% useless or that it would be another sad "AOE improvements" ...! At least it is something that since I knew SnD was back I knew we would need it. What a delight this smell of feed-back that was heard ....

Edit: Dear Blizzard, now please just give us GOUGE or Shadow Reflection as new "PVP talents" and I promise never to complain about anything again...

Edit2: Dear Blizzard, it would be wonderful if the new Premeditation also works on the first SS we use Shadow Dance. Think about that. Ty.

[Volatilis]

Shoegazing talking about pvp in 5...4...3....2....

[Saltysquidoon]

I'm not optimistic about it at all.

They made a problem by giving back SnD to sub and muti when they clearly needed new interesting spells, now to fix the problem instead of giving sub a new talent we just get FW and premed shuffled around instead of the actual work the spec needs.

Also, why would you think a 15 row talent would be aoe focused at all? The 15 row talents are always 'interesting' choices that have an immediate impact on gameplay (because it's the introductory row).

[Delano]

Premeditation is back in name, but not really in spirit.

[Fantazma]

Also, why would you think a 15 row talent would be aoe focused at all? The 15 row talents are always 'interesting' choices that have an immediate impact on gameplay (because it's the introductory row).

Because we have 2 "aoe focused" talents in row 100 and that traumatized me a little. It was quite clear to me that the intention was to transform a spec that had its days of glory in the PVP single-target into a spec only useful in PVE multi-target.

On the fact that the new Premeditation talent is not a BIS I agree. However I have spent the past few months asking back:

- Premeditation (so I can use it as an opener in PVP).
- Gouge (also PVP).
- Shadow Reflection (in my opinion the best talent of all time. It would be a dream if it came back ...)

And I'm satisfied that at least 1/3 of my feed-back has been heard. It seems little but it is a lot.

Of course, I see in some forums that some are already asking for this talent to also work in Shadow Dance (like first dance) and I agree. Let's see if more of this feedback will be heard.

[Kaver]

Shoegazing talking about pvp in 5...4...3....2....

Well often he is actually right. Like when saying that opening with shadowstrike is a noobs move. He is just usually very rude about it, but that doesn’t make him less right.

[Lodravel]

Well often he is actually right. Like when saying that opening with shadowstrike is a noobs move. He is just usually very rude about it, but that doesn’t make him less right.

Agreed. His message is often obfuscated by his lack of manners, but I find myself agreeing with his arguments 9/10 times.

That being said, this is functionally the same as old premed. Maybe even better?

I generally prefer active over passive talents. The upside of a passive, though, is that it doesn't have a CD. You can get much more use out of it within a shorter timeframe.
E.g., premed in opener, 15 seconds later premed on vanish. Old version just allowed premed every 30 sec.
This quirk won't be of much consequence for PvE with its longer fights but in PvP, it will be very useful.

[Drub]

Can't say I like the lack of control of my own character but it's progress... !

[Kadenzza]

I'm wondering how well it's going to work for sub rogues that go Venthyr. Premeditation would seem to preclude any use of Slaughter out of stealth, so would that limit Slaughter to dance use only?

[Fantazma]

Someone posted this on another forum and it really seems to be a good alternative for those who are not very happy with the new Premeditation:

"Plz, don't force me to use Weapon Master.
The description of the new Premeditation proposal has to be like this:
Premeditation:
After entering Stealth (or in Shadow Dance), your next Shadowstrike grants up to 6 sec. of Slice and Dice, and generates 2 additional combo points if Slice and Dice is active.
Yes, give us just 6 seconds SnD but make this passive also work in Shadow Dance. It is enough and it would be fantastic."

In fact, coldly looking at Premed just working in Stealth only benefits the player in some situations in PVP but is totally weak in PVE.
It seems that the general feed-back after the announcement of the new Premed is very similar to most Rogues saying that the talent as it is at this moment is broken ... mainly because it doesn't work in Shadow Dance. And I totally agree.

[Saltysquidoon]

Even if it worked with dance it's probably a loss to weapon master except maybe between trash packs in M+.

Sub' entire 15 row just sucks.

Weapon master is completely boring and entirely passive but at least it's free dps.

Gloomblade is a pvp talent with no pve applications at all.

Premed is best case a QoL buff for m+ and worse case also a pvp talent.

The 15 row is supposed to be exciting and impactful and make you want to get these talent things, sub's, however, is just shit.

[ttylol]

After entering Stealth, your next Shadowstrike or Cheap Shot grants up to 10 sec. of Slice and Dice, and generates 2 additional combo points if Slice and Dice is active.

isn't that the simplest fix? i did assume shadow dance counted though

[Seliar]

Even if it worked with dance it's probably a loss to weapon master except maybe between trash packs in M+.

Sub' entire 15 row just sucks.

Weapon master is completely boring and entirely passive but at least it's free dps.

Gloomblade is a pvp talent with no pve applications at all.

Premed is best case a QoL buff for m+ and worse case also a pvp talent.

The 15 row is supposed to be exciting and impactful and make you want to get these talent things, sub's, however, is just shit.

Agree. I just played around a bit with sub on ptr and this new premed sucks imo. Even in m+ there will rarely be times when you don't have some spare cps between pulls that you can use to refresh snd, after the opener it only gives 2 extra cps when using vanish in a fight.

Another concerning thing is that we get a new aoe finisher (shadow vault) which does less dmg with 6(!) cp than the cp builder shurriken storm (according to the spell book). I don't know, how much the shadow dmg part is against targets with find weakness, but even with 50% extra dmg it will only deal slightly more at 5 cp...

[Mozu]

Another concerning thing is that we get a new aoe finisher (shadow vault) which does less dmg with 6(!) cp than the cp builder shurriken storm (according to the spell book). I don't know, how much the shadow dmg part is against targets with find weakness, but even with 50% extra dmg it will only deal slightly more at 5 cp...

I'm confused, did they do damage tuning already? I figured we should still be in the phase where talking about damage of any ability is ridiculous as we should be focusing on how a skill plays rather than its damage.

[StillMcfuu]

Agree. I just played around a bit with sub on ptr and this new premed sucks imo. Even in m+ there will rarely be times when you don't have some spare cps between pulls that you can use to refresh snd, after the opener it only gives 2 extra cps when using vanish in a fight.

Another concerning thing is that we get a new aoe finisher (shadow vault) which does less dmg with 6(!) cp than the cp builder shurriken storm (according to the spell book). I don't know, how much the shadow dmg part is against targets with find weakness, but even with 50% extra dmg it will only deal slightly more at 5 cp...

Does it work with Subtlety?