Slice and Dice back seems like 3 steps backward

[shoegazing]

SnD is just another ability to click every 36s.

Symptoms of Patchwerk Brain include an inability for the affected PvE player to see anything outside of an idealized spreadhseet scenario where there are no mechanics to dodge or play around and you have perfect 100% uptime on the target while you do nothing but tunnel vision an idealized PvE rotation.

This one looks like an advanced case. It may be terminal.

[ymirsson]

Symptoms of Patchwerk Brain include an inability for the affected PvE player to see anything outside of an idealized spreadhseet scenario where there are no mechanics to dodge or play around and you have perfect 100% uptime on the target while you do nothing but tunnel vision an idealized PvE rotation.

This one looks like an advanced case. It may be terminal.

And we're back to "hurr durr, pvp iz best". Come on, shoebaby, i had so high hopes this time!

[Celfydd]

Slice'n'dice sucks not because it would be hard to maintain, but because it takes away from other finishers.

No, it sucks because it has basically zero synergy with any of the spec-defining assassination abilities (poisons, bleeds, etc) or with stats that feed into them (e.g. haste).

[Dextar]

It was nice not having it but it's not a big deal. Manage your resources and know your class, you'll be fine.

[Pandragon]

I actually like having it back. I like seeing the attack speed increase on my Rogue, plus the energy regen makes things flow smoother, and the specs now have stuff that benefits from the increased AS, like sub gaining combo points.

No, it sucks because it has basically zero synergy with any of the spec-defining assassination abilities (poisons, bleeds, etc) or with stats that feed into them (e.g. haste).

ummm... Haste increases attack speed, SnD increases attack speed, attacks apply poisons. Haste increases energy regen, SnD increases energy regen. More energy is more mutilates which apply poisons, and more mutilates means more chances for a crit which gives more combo points which gives more envenoms and applies more poisons. It all works out.

[Eazy]

Symptoms of Patchwerk Brain include an inability for the affected PvE player to see anything outside of an idealized spreadhseet scenario where there are no mechanics to dodge or play around and you have perfect 100% uptime on the target while you do nothing but tunnel vision an idealized PvE rotation.

This one looks like an advanced case. It may be terminal.

I actually used a few arguments against that on the WoW Rogue Forum. I meant my comment that SnD is only one ability to click every 36s.
The worst thing I pointed out was that Assassination rogue will be balanced around it. The burst will be weaker if you don't have it and for doing maximum you'd need to put garrote, rupture and SnD, making it harder to swap especially in the PvP environment.
I, of course, don't mean that you won't be able to, because mostly you'd have to use a few GCD and putting rupture and SnD would be kinda stupid. But it's a situational problem.
I'd be still able to play PvE and PvP fine, it's not a game-breaking thing(I was playing with it before without any problems). I just find that ability boring and bland. Most of the time it seriously is a button that you click once in 36 seconds.

[shoegazing]

And we're back to "hurr durr, pvp iz best". Come on, shoebaby, i had so high hopes this time!

How damning is it that I'm specifically criticizing "my damage rotation in a vacuum with no mechanics and perfect uptime is boring with SnD" and you interpret that to be an attack on all PvE players?

Does it not occur to you that the argument I am criticizing is not even an accurate portrayal of real PvE gameplay? That indeed is the very point I am making when I call out "Patchwerk Brain" which is an over reliance on spreadsheets and unrealistic, idealized scenarios like tunneling a training dummy for 5 minutes that don't match actual gameplay.

Do you always cast SnD every 36 seconds with 5 combo points every time you attack a mob in the world? In every dungeon pull? On every boss, no matter the phases or mechanics that you are playing around? Come on Ymirsson! I think you have better reading comprehension and game experience than that.

[ymirsson]

As usual i am not criticising your argument but your implied inferiority of PvE players. I thought you have better reading comprehension than that.

[shoegazing]

I'd be still able to play PvE and PvP fine, it's not a game-breaking thing(I was playing with it before without any problems). I just find that ability boring and bland. Most of the time it seriously is a button that you click once in 36 seconds.

We are living in different universes, then.

First of all, the slow attack speed when SnD is down feels TERRIBLE. Feeling the slowness of my white attacks and watching my energy regen slow to a crawl is like an itch that I must scratch to apply SnD. When Blizzard pruned SnD and made this awful gameplay the baseline, I was despondent. THAT is what is totally boring and bland.

Secondly I would hardly call it skill-less. Outside of a raiding environment there can be more nuance to deciding how to prioritize your damage. Perhaps overall throughput is not the most important thing. Maybe you will accept less total throughput but more burst during a key window. Maybe you expect that you won't have a lot of uptime on your target and you devalue SnD in that situation.

Thirdly, PvP has required lots more setup and preparation for swapping in the past and it was completely fine. Subtlety at one point needed Recuperate, SnD, Find Weakness, and a bleed for optimal damage on a swap, AND ON TOP OF THAT, you had combo points on the target vs. on the Rogue so you had the options of Redirecting or timing your refreshes of buffs like SnD/Recup specifically around target swapping in order to do so without wasting combo points.

Here's the thing, it wasn't impossible then, you just had to use your brain and plan ahead. I am totally unsympathetic to arguments about "it's too difficult to swap with all these things to manage." We had more to manage in the past, and no it wasn't too difficult. It was fine.

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As usual i am not criticising your argument but your implied inferiority of PvE players. I thought you have better reading comprehension than that.

Where is the implied inferiority of PvE players?

Because I pointed out that one particular PvE player is looking at the rotation on paper, on a spreadsheet, vs. a training dummy, and making an inaccurate assumption that it's reflective of gameplay in a dynamic environment where mobs fight back and perfect uptime is not assumed?

How does that imply inferiority of PvE players? Quote the part of my post that implied that or admit that you misread me. You are very sensitive and quick to take offense about totally imagined insults. My post was a good, lighthearted joke and you should be laughing with me.

[ymirsson]

My post was a good, lighthearted joke and you should be laughing with me.

Well, maybe we have different opinions on light hearted jokes. Especially on digital media where fine nuances of communication are missing.
Also, i'm biased against PvP players.

[Eazy]

First of all, the slow attack speed when SnD is down feels TERRIBLE. Feeling the slowness of my white attacks and watching my energy regen slow to a crawl is like an itch that I must scratch to apply SnD. When Blizzard pruned SnD and made this awful gameplay the baseline, I was despondent. THAT is what is totally boring and bland.

I must say that I really liked BFA Assassination(after Uldir and before corruptions, though it was still fine in Nyalotha with the +haste%). It was slow-paced, chill and very forgiving. And for me it was fine. If I wanted to play harder spec, I'd choose subtlety. If I wanted more DoT centered class - I'd play affliction or Shadow Priests. More APM? DH is also there.

Secondly I would hardly call it skill-less. Outside of a raiding environment there can be more nuance to deciding how to prioritize your damage. Perhaps overall throughput is not the most important thing. Maybe you will accept less total throughput but more burst during a key window. Maybe you expect that you won't have a lot of uptime on your target and you devalue SnD in that situation.

I didn't say that it is skill-less. And about the rest of this quote - I totally agree with it and I already wrote that.

Thirdly, PvP has required lots more setup and preparation for swapping in the past and it was completely fine. Subtlety at one point needed Recuperate, SnD, Find Weakness, and a bleed for optimal damage on a swap, AND ON TOP OF THAT, you had combo points on the target vs. on the Rogue so you had the options of Redirecting or timing your refreshes of buffs like SnD/Recup specifically around target swapping in order to do so without wasting combo points.

Of course, been there, done that. Been playing sub before Legion, loved it in WoD, especiallt in the last patch.
Though my point still stands.

Here's the thing, it wasn't impossible then, you just had to use your brain and plan ahead. I am totally unsympathetic to arguments about "it's too difficult to swap with all these things to manage." We had more to manage in the past, and no it wasn't too difficult. It was fine.

Well, me also. I was just stating fact that with SnD it's just harder to swap targets. Nothing more. Didn't write that it's HARD(like actually hard that requires 500IQ and PhD in WoW) or that it was easier in the past. Just wrote that it's harder now compared to the situation we had in BFA.

Because I pointed out that one particular PvE player is looking at the rotation on paper, on a spreadsheet, vs. a training dummy, and making an inaccurate assumption that it's reflective of gameplay in a dynamic environment where mobs fight back and perfect uptime is not assumed?

But it's truth in like 90% of the scenarios.

[Celfydd]

Haste increases attack speed, SnD increases attack speed, attacks apply poisons. Haste increases energy regen, SnD increases energy regen. More energy is more mutilates which apply poisons, and more mutilates means more chances for a crit which gives more combo points which gives more envenoms and applies more poisons. It all works out.

Well no, not really. The main benefit of haste for assassination is that more haste makes your poisons and bleeds tick faster, not that it allows you to apply poison more often (since applications are fairly slow in any case). SnD has no effect on poison and bleed ticks.

[Saltysquidoon]

Here's a question for the 'snd is actually a galaxy brain class defining ability that requires you play tracendental 4d chess with on a higher plane' (despite a spec literally never actively maintaining it since cata) people.

Why is huton a better-designed version of SnD then SnD is? Not only does it increase your attack speed but it lowers the gcd on your abilities (so you can feel its impact). Because it competes for mudra charges with have a set regeneration and not CPs you essentially never want it to fall off in or out of combat*. Finally, there is a weapon skill that extends the timer at the cost of dps, so there is a constant tension of riding the refresh timer against mechanics and downtime (oh look active gameplay).

It's almost like if blizzard gave a shit they could give SnD gameplay for muti and sub but they didn't bother because they knew people would gobble up trash because 'muh 'nilla'

*Edit: I'm not implying anyone lets snd drop. My point is CD's offer more flexibility on refreshes at a cost of less dps. Whereas a good nin can cast huton once a dungeon a keep it ticking the whole time so no dps is lost to mudra charges being wasted between packs of trash.

[orsraunia]

For me at least its not about difficulty, cause refreshing a buff isn't difficult. It has a couple of different problems.

1. It doesn't feel fun to spend combo points on a maintenance buff. Maintenance buffs are by definition not directly impactful so pressing them doesn't feel good. They also eat into the amount of Eviscerates/ Envenoms I can do so they basically make me press my juicy buttons less often.

2. It's very constraining in PVP. There's much more target switching and CC in PVP so having to go through two cycles of building up combo points and spending them on maintenance every time is more annoying, especially because you might get CC'd and then never get your juicy payoff eviscerate or kidney shot.

3. A bunch of your damage is tied up into SND so all your other abilities are less impactful. Every button you press does less than it would if S&D didn't exist.

Given those facts I'd prefer no slice and dice.

Exactly and mostly about your 1st point. But anytime this is brought up, enough people go "you are a bad player that don't wants more difficult gameplay, etc"...

How can one explain to these people that too much maintenance = unfun? You either get it by playing the spec or you don't....

And ofc, when there's enough downtime, like there's in dungeons and PvP, too much need for maintenance becomes from unfun annoying.

[Kaver]

Symptoms of Patchwerk Brain include an inability for the affected PvE player to see anything outside of an idealized spreadhseet scenario where there are no mechanics to dodge or play around and you have perfect 100% uptime on the target while you do nothing but tunnel vision an idealized PvE rotation.

This one looks like an advanced case. It may be terminal.

Mate you haven’t played the game for the last 5 years... you have no idea how the game works currently and how SnD interacts with the current rogue rotations. Earlier this year you used examples from vanilla to argue for the significance of SnD which is absolutely irrelevant for the modern Rogue. The way SnD impacted the specs back in the days is not the same as how it impacts the specs now. Everything you say about perfect uptime is based on outdated knowledge especially in PVE which makes your arguments absolutely redundant in relation to current Rogue gameplay.

I do +25 mythic dungeons and mythic raiding (also in the current pre-patch with SnD) so and know that keeping 100% uptime on SnD in high-end PVE is an absolute non-issue. Which by your own logic (your signature) makes my opinion much more valid than yours since I have actual practical experience with how SnD function with the modern rogue gameplay in PVE. It doesn’t matter if it’s a target dummy or a mythic boss... SnD is use-and-forget because of all the CPs the rogue specs generate. There are no interesting decisions around SnD in the modern gameplay in PVE. Please understand that.

And even if your arguments about PVP were true, then SnD should clearly be a PvP talent. It has no constructive place in PvE content. Just drop it.

[shoegazing]

Mate you haven’t played the game for the last 5 years... you have no idea how the game works currently and how SnD interacts with the current rogue rotations. Earlier this year you used examples from vanilla to argue for the significance of SnD which is absolutely irrelevant for the modern Rogue. The way SnD impacted the specs back in the days is not the same as how it impacts the specs now. Everything you say about perfect uptime is based on outdated knowledge especially in PVE which makes your arguments absolutely redundant in relation to current Rogue gameplay.

I do +25 mythic dungeons and mythic raiding (also in the current pre-patch with SnD) so and know that keeping 100% uptime on SnD in high-end PVE is an absolute non-issue. Which by your own logic (your signature) makes my opinion much more valid than yours since I have actual practical experience with how SnD function with the modern rogue gameplay in PVE. It doesn’t matter if it’s a target dummy or a mythic boss... SnD is use-and-forget because of all the CPs the rogue specs generate. There are no interesting decisions around SnD in the modern gameplay in PVE. Please understand that.

And even if your arguments about PVP were true, then SnD should clearly be a PvP talent. It has no constructive place in PvE content. Just drop it.

I don't advocate for returning SnD in a vacuum with no other changes. I mean I do, but not because I think that alone is a good change, but because it's one step closer to what I want to see overall.

If unpruning SnD inconveniences you in the short term and makes further changes towards pre-Legion Rogue design necessary in the longer term, I consider that a feature not a bug.

Hope you enjoy playing with SnD in the coming expansion, buddy

[Kaver]

I don't advocate for returning SnD in a vacuum with no other changes. I mean I do, but not because I think that alone is a good change, but because it's one step closer to what I want to see overall.

If unpruning SnD inconveniences you in the short term and makes further changes towards pre-Legion Rogue design necessary in the longer term, I consider that a feature not a bug.

Hope you enjoy playing with SnD in the coming expansion, buddy

That's fair. But SnD will only become relevant if they reduce our overall combo point generation. They need to reduce the amount of combo point spenders we use per minute to make each spender more relevant. But I don't see that happening based of the way they currently design classes. I admire your persistence and the time you keep spending on a game you have hated for almost 5 years. I think everyone in here can acknowledge your love for the pre-legion sub rogue (which I also liked myself) but I don't think your dream will every become true. Unfortunately.

Also, thank you. I enjoy Rogue very much currently in the pre-patch. And I'm very much looking forward to playing Rogue in Shadowlands especially when Subtlety gain access to it's new AOE finisher and AOE spread of Find Weakness. Although I also like the pre-legion Sub Rogue I do also think that the Shadowlands version is very fun. SnD doesn't really make any difference for me. I would prefer it if they removed it, but in the end it's a button I press every 50th second when my weakaura indicates it, so for my sake they can leave it in the game. It's no big deal. But it's still currently a pointless ability because of our combo point generation. And as I said, I don't think Blizzard will reduce our compo point generation.

Hope you enjoy not playing WoW, buddy

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Do you always cast SnD every 36 seconds with 5 combo points every time you attack a mob in the world? In every dungeon pull? On every boss, no matter the phases or mechanics that you are playing around? Come on Ymirsson! I think you have better reading comprehension and game experience than that.

See this is an example of you not understanding how the game currently works.

To your question: "Do you always cast SnD every 36 seconds with 5 combo points every time you attack a mob in the world?"

The current answer is: Yes, almost always. Because do you know how much time it currently takes to generate 5 Combo Points.... 1 second.

You're describing scenarios which are not relevant for the current game. And then you try to make @ymirsson sound stupid when he is actually evaluating the ability based on the current game.

If you want to evaluate the ability based on how you want the class to be in the future, then fair enough, but say so! Because your arguments are completely misplaced in relation to the current class design. And the worst thing is that you're being condescending about it. You're being condescending based on your own knowledge being outdated.

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Outside of a raiding environment there can be more nuance to deciding how to prioritize your damage. Perhaps overall throughput is not the most important thing. Maybe you will accept less total throughput but more burst during a key window. Maybe you expect that you won't have a lot of uptime on your target and you devalue SnD in that situation.

If you feel that way, then advocate for SnD to be a PVP talent. I don't understand why you feel the need to comment on SnD impact on PVE content when it doesn't matter to you.

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How does that imply inferiority of PvE players?

Because the post you were quoting didn't mention anything about a target dummy. That was all you. You brought that up. You took the comment of @Eazy and answered in your usual condescending manner by saying that his argument is based on "Symptoms of Patchwork Brain". And you're not only condescending, you're also wrong. Because when it comes to PVE content, then SnD is a bland "use and forget" ability.

[shoegazing]

Hope you enjoy not playing WoW, buddy

What do you mean? I'm having a lot of fun playing classic. I miss queuing arenas with my friends of course. And classic Rogue isn't as good as TBC, Wrath, Cata, MoP, and WoD Rogue were. But at least it's not Legion/BFA and I can recognize my character as a Warcraft Rogue on a basic level, unlike recent retail editions

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If you want to evaluate the ability based on how you want the class to be in the future, then fair enough, but say so!

How is it not obvious? I shouldn't need to say so. If you have any familiarity with my arguments about Rogue design over the years, you already know this is the case. Everything I have ever posted on this forum is formulated from that exact point of view and it has always been obvious. I've already sat out most of two expansions -- it's abundantly clear that I am looking at the big picture, future thinking point of view.

The truth is, Blizzard unpruned these abilities in order to say "look, we listened and we did something about your feedback!" but of course they didn't actually listen and of course they didn't unprune the abilities in the way that those asking for unpruning wanted. (Rupture but no Sanguinary Veins, Find Weakness but it's not really Find Weakness that synchronizes all core Rogue concepts with strong burst, energy pooling, and ties those to openers from Stealth/Dance -- our core mechanic -- which also happens to be when CC potential is greatest, Premeditation but it's a stupid passive, 2nd Dance charge is gone but CDR remains which anyone with mathematical literacy understood was always the bigger culprit in excessive uptime, etc)

Still, we have to start somewhere. I'll take it for now, and let's see what further changes are coming down the line in the expansion after Shadowlands. ("We've learned it's important not to disrupt those who have found a level of comfort...")

BTW, your argument appears to alternate at times between "SnD is horrible, it doesn't fit with the current kit, it should be removed" and also "I barely notice it, I only have to press it every 36 seconds, I can keep it up basically for free because CPs are so abundant". It sounds like your feelings in that 2nd statement are stronger. You don't really mind the fact that SnD was unpruned -- great, then! We are on the same page that it's at worst a very small annoyance for your camp that you can easily overlook, and at best a very large step in the right direction for mine. In that case when you weight each point of view by the amount that each camp really cares, it's a net positive change.

[JoeGood]

I felt lige the rogue got a bit slow when they removed it, and for me the rogue should have very fast attacks, buts ofc not as hardhitting as warrior etc. So i like SnD

[Kaver]

What do you mean? I'm having a lot of fun playing classic. I miss queuing arenas with my friends of course. And classic Rogue isn't as good as TBC, Wrath, Cata, MoP, and WoD Rogue were. But at least it's not Legion/BFA and I can recognize my character as a Warcraft Rogue on a basic level, unlike recent retail editions

That's great. And hopefully TBC will be out soon enough.