Premed was fixed today. The way it seems to work is as follows:
-generates the premed buff every 4 sec while in dance (so 2 per dance)
-you can save the buff for your next dance (3 premeds total)
I don’t mind the sound of this in theory. But in practice it is very bad for the spec. With Enveloping Shadows you are in dance almost constantly. This simplifies the rotation down to shadowstrike > evis to infinity. The only other thing you need to do is maintain rupture and use cooldowns.
One of the defining elements of sub, for me, has always been the high skill ceiling. This talent, in its current state, turns sub into a fire mage that is always combusting. I don’t want to spend 90% of every fight pressing two buttons.
At the risk of sounding stupid, I still can’t find anyone that knows whether this is a bug or not. I’ve linked the beta rogue forum below. The only mentions I’ve found are
from before, when it wasn’t applying the buff in dance
after the change, where people are unsure whether the current state is intended.
Tool tip reads “first” and the bug is applying it on all. Tooltips don’t have a great track record for accuracy in wow but multiple minutes of banked slice and dice points to it being a bug
Sorry, I should have been clearer in the OP. I’m referring to the combo point component of premed, not S&D.
Here is the current tooltip on PTR:
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.
I agree the S&D stacking infinitely is a bug, so I’m sure it’ll get fixed. The part I’m concerned with is the combo point generation.
As it stands you get the premed buff every 4 seconds (not every ability cast) while in dance. The buff is then spent on your next SS. The tooltip is rather ambiguous on how its meant to work within dance, so I’m not feeling too comforted =\
Also from a programming standpoint, this seems intentional. If you want to make the talent apply once per shadow dance, the most logical way would be:
-Shadow dance activated, grant 1 charge of premed buff.
Instead we have:
-While shadow dance active, grant 1 charge every 4 seconds.
The stealth state machine probably has a few layers of duct tape on it to cover exceptions for Shadowstrike teleport and such. It could be they’ve added an ICD, but has a logic gate getting tripped up by an exception and looping. Or they used an xor when they should have xnor’d or something instead.
You might be right. I think the strongest case for “is a bug” is that you can carry the buff over from one dance to the next. Seems a little odd. Time will tell =P
I’m fine with dumbing it down. I’m old and my hands hurt and don’t move as fast as they used to. I like to play pickup BGs and this sounds like a good change for me.
“Everyone” includes people who like complex rotations. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. There are plenty of simple specs in this game… its not too much to ask that some of the few complex specs remain as they are. Sub is one of the hardest/most engaging… turning it into a 2 button mash would be terrible.
If you prefer simple, assassination is pretty easy to pick up. If you want to try other classes then pally, dh, bm hunter, fire mage (esp now that their cds are simplified), etc, all offer a low effort rotation. Most classes do.
I agree, the slice and dice portion is definitely a bug. But I’m referring to the combo point generation, as described in the OP. They are the two different components of this talent, and they can be bugged or not bugged independent of one another.
More premeds is exactly what you’d do if this is how the talent is going to work. Dance = more damage and premed = more dancing… hence the problem. You essentially just pop dance, SS > evis. When dance is over, its either off cooldown again or just a few seconds from being off cd, so you repeat this incredibly braindead process over and over. Not fun =\
