Assasination rogues should not have S&D. Change my mind.

[Alexplode]

It seems a step forward for Outlaw/sub.

For Outlaw removing the RNG of RtB finisher and replacing it with S&D feels very smooth. on top of that you can still roll for buffs and adjust your rotation/playstile accordingly.

For subtlety it really helps to amp up your single target dmg in pve and sustained dmg in pvp. A very welcomed ability back for subtlety. Really there is nothing to argue here, the spec is famous for juggling your buffs since what? WotLK?.

When it comes to assasination... well, it feels unrewarding, a shore you need to maintain with little impact, boring and not very impactfull. It.just feels like it's sucking the damage proportion out of poisons/bleeds which is your bread and butter.

[Schattenlied]

Spec that gets fair amount of it's damage from passively applying poisons, mostly through auto attacks, is somehow getting"very little impact" from S&D, which makes you auto attack faster, but it's somehow "really helping" for sub?

I don't follow your logic, it's very obviously more impactful for Assassination than it is for Sub.

[AlmightyGerkin]

nice try steven crowder

[Moggers1990]

Latest build changes the rank 2 from an extra 20% attack speed, to 10% increased energy regen. I guess it's something? In AoE/cleave this change does nothing and it's still an annoying/boring maintenance spell for the sake of... nostalgia or something? Except Assassination has been without Slice and Dice for longer now than it did with it. It's a very, very small minority that welcome the spell back but it really doesn't fit into the modern version of WoW at all and not having it doesn't effect them anywhere close to the amount it effects everyone else by bringing it back.

It just frustrates me how boring they've made Assassination. They've done nothing to accommodate the loss of Azerite Traits, which the spec was designed around going into BfA. It's just left very bare bones and all they've done is copy paste Slice and Dice and Ambush back in.

There's not a single new or interesting mechanic/spell or synergy between spells. They made baseline the single talent that adjusted your rotational gameplay (Toxic Blade), which is good, but instead of replacing that talent with something that maybe buffed another part of our kit or a whole new cool talent, they again just pasted back in Alacrity which just makes that whole row now obsolete because Exang will never compete and Venom Rush is the most garbage talent that no one has touched for the whole of BfA.

The amount of passiveness in the spec is mind boggling.

Nearly all our legendaries are passive (they even just changed the Toxic Blade one to not spread bleeds, and instead just do more damage.. another passive). They're also mostly just copy pasted from Legion and we have a talent/legendary which do the same thing, i'm pretty sure no other spec has that?

All our conduits are passive. Other specs have some cool interactions between spells via their Conduits or change how their prioritize certain abilities, we don't.

We still have boring passive talents like Master Poisoner, now Alacrity and Poison Bomb which is a shadow of it's former self from Legion and you never actually pay attention to it or feel anything when it does proc.

I swear during the Assassination "meeting" the ice cream man came round outside and they all went "OOH ICE CREAM" and ran out, then forgot what they were doing.

[StillMcfuu]

Spec that gets fair amount of it's damage from passively applying poisons, mostly through auto attacks, is somehow getting"very little impact" from S&D, which makes you auto attack faster, but it's somehow "really helping" for sub?

I don't follow your logic, it's very obviously more impactful for Assassination than it is for Sub.

SND for Sub procs more Relentless strikes which increases cp and energy generation.
Outlaw gets the off hand passive strike for energy.
Both of which work nicely with SND
Assassination gets neither, considering white dmg is 15% ish of dmg and instant poison is less than that, SND does very very little for Assassination. Considering that you give up potential envenom windows, the overall effect of SND is pretty neutral.

I think SND should be removed and a proper fix for the low energy gen should be implemented.

[Moggers1990]

Spec that gets fair amount of it's damage from passively applying poisons, mostly through auto attacks, is somehow getting"very little impact" from S&D, which makes you auto attack faster, but it's somehow "really helping" for sub?

I don't follow your logic, it's very obviously more impactful for Assassination than it is for Sub.

All it is for Assass is more white damage and poison procs, does nothing gameplay wise.

For Outlaw they gain energy from off-hand attacks, granting more actual ability uses.

For Sub they gain energy and combo points from auto attacks, again leading to more ability uses.

I'd say there's more to Slice and Dice for the other two specs than Assassination. Just having slightly higher auto attack and poison damage isn't anything worthy enough to add in the clunkyness of a maintenance spell. Especially as we're already maintaining uptime on 2 bleeds and 2 other short-duration buffs.

[jellmoo]

SnD is just bad design regardless of spec. Buttons should feel impactful. They should be visual. You should have a sense of accomplishment or one of anticipation when using an ability. SnD is just this button you press because the devs needed a way to slow down your energy use. It's shitty design that should have been done away with and a far more elegant solution used. RtB was supposed to be it, but when that sank they just went back to the old standby instead of working out something better. Even worse, they spread it to all the specs... you know... cuz.

[Malkiah]

All it is for Assass is more white damage and poison procs, does nothing gameplay wise.

er, Venomous Wounds would like to have a word with you.

[Calfredd]

er, Venomous Wounds would like to have a word with you.

Is that the right ability? Because unless I'm reading that wrong, that says you get energy back when your bleeds deal damage which isn't related to poisons or auto-attacks.

[Wheeler]

It seems a step forward for Outlaw/sub.

For Outlaw removing the RNG of RtB finisher and replacing it with S&D feels very smooth. on top of that you can still roll for buffs and adjust your rotation/playstile accordingly.

For subtlety it really helps to amp up your single target dmg in pve and sustained dmg in pvp. A very welcomed ability back for subtlety. Really there is nothing to argue here, the spec is famous for juggling your buffs since what? WotLK?.

When it comes to assasination... well, it feels unrewarding, a shore you need to maintain with little impact, boring and not very impactfull. It.just feels like it's sucking the damage proportion out of poisons/bleeds which is your bread and butter.

It was a cool setup when Envenom extended it automatically. A rotation-starter and you were rewarded for playing appropriately and continuing to envenom (Not like you were doing much else, honestly).

Now, it feels tacked on. Then again - a lot of the stuff they "added back" feels tacked on.

[OFiveNine]

More haste = more smooth checkmate atheist

[Biomega]

Who even got it into their head that we somehow "all wanted" SnD back?

Is this just them looking at Classic and going hmmm people seem to like what we did back then let's just put it into Retail then I guess?

SnD feels boring and pointless, ANOTHER automatic source of damage and maintenance buff. Terrible.

[Moggers1990]

er, Venomous Wounds would like to have a word with you.

Maybe read it again. Slice and Dice has no effect on bleed tick rates nor poison up time. If it was the other way around, poisons ticking on bleeding targets then fair enough.

Outside of just more passive damage Slice and Dice does nothing for the spec. They've just bolted on 10% energy regeneration now instead of extra attack speed but its again a ridiculously lazy "fix" for a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

[Eazy]

I can't, because I hate SnD just as you do.

[Kaver]

More haste = more smooth checkmate atheist

It’s not haste

[Twdft]

Tacking on energy reg is a step into the right direction, not enough anyway. Can't change OP mind, I think we don't need SnD either.

More haste = more smooth checkmate atheist

SnD does not give haste.

[exsanguinate]

attack speed. it's not the same as haste

[Knslyr]

The ability just feels out of place for specs that are forced to use daggers which are already very fast weapons. It feels even more out of place in a spec like Subtely that are about precise strikes, and not just flailing their weapons around.

For outlaw you can at least notice the difference besides on damage meters due to the slower weapons, but for Sin and Sub rogues it should be replaced by something else.

[Sunderella]

SND back is good for Outlaw and Sub but yeah, for Assa it just doesn't seem to do much for the spec

[Saltysquidoon]

Muti has had a talent (Cut to the Chase) that removed having to actively maintain SnD for the majority of the game's lifetime. Having to maintain SnD in shadowlands is not just neutral spec development it's backward spec development.

There is actually no argument why Muti should have to fiddle around with SnD, not even an appeal to nostalgia.

Edit: I'm not actually against SnD returning for Combat, it's not only thematic but it fills the hole left by RtB (and even interacts with roll the bones, blow me down). The problem is this lazy blanket appeal to nostalgia in lieu of considered, meaningful spec development.