Bringing it back for all 3 specs is such a weird design decision to me. Is a maintenance buff that moves more of our damage to passive sources really the answer to making Rogue more fun? I feel like every post I see is praising the return of Slice N Dice, but (other than the nostalgia quality) it doesn’t make any sense as a way to make Rogue more fun to play. I feel like the excitement comes from a rose-tinted goggles effect.
Also, does Slice N Dice benefit from Pandemic on the alpha right now? Would be a tragedy if it did not.
If you’re excited for SnD’s return, please let me know why? Would love to see what people on this forum think.
It benefited from pandemic before it was removed so I don’t see why it wouldn’t in this iteration.
As to why I like that it’s back. I only PvE but sub in WoD was incredible fun because of the complexity required. I may remember things wrong but I think it had:
1 min burst windows which needed you to play smart and prepare for (pooling, dots up, SnD on)
I cannot find evidence of this anywhere but I swear there was a mechanic that had backstab criticals shortening the duration of bleeds by a tick and applying it instantly. Added complexity which to me is enjoyable.
Whack a mole specs where you hit glowing buttons on cd are boring and aren’t what a rogue is about.
A rogue is about preparation, cunning, and intelligence. They aren’t meant to be warriors.
It definitely will have an impact on Subtlety’s ability damage due to the higher autoattacks. But, it’s not like our ability damage is anything special in BFA. Something they could do is just gut autoattack damage. I’ve always seen daggers being about precision strikes and not wildly spam stabbing, anyways.
Right now I don’t feel like any of the specs hit hard with their yellow attacks. So going back to SND makes sense along with better poison application.
Please, do tell me more about where my excitement comes from. /eyeroll
As a PvP advocate of the exact same designs, it is awesomely cool and refreshing to see a PvE player that is on our side. Please stick around and keep voicing your perspective.
Because it’s a button that made you use your brain atleast a little bit.
Symbols of Death? All you do is press it and you instantly gain a damage bonus with no thought whatsoever.
The reason why Slice & Dice is an amazing return is because it actually required a little thought and provided some skillcap to Rogues, especially in PvP.
You used to have to do things like get Rupture up for Sang Veins, Have Slice & Dice going for pooling energy, & getting FW applied. All these mechanics gave players the OPPORTUNITY to see better results as opposed to a Rogue who was not as good and wouldn’t get these going.
The skillcap in Slice & Dice is having the foresight to get Slice & Dice up preemptively before a setup because you realize that there is an opportunity arising where you can kill someone due to a mistake they made.
While a few Rogues will try to make the argument that Slice is just a “maintenance buff”, it’s not the case. Its much more. It makes Rogue in general (Sub especially) feel more whole because it adds an additional complexity to the class/spec, maybe its not huge, but its something, its already more than we have in BFA. Slice returning is a giant move in the right direction.
Another way of putting this different is that SnD is interactive with our resources in a way that SoD isn’t. With energetic recovery, SnD is basically a vehicle to convert combo points into energy, which yields more combo points overall in the long term. This makes it particularly rich when PvE-focused players complain about having to “waste combo points on a maintenance buff” – do these rotation obsessed, spreadsheet obsessed, “simming” obsessed galaxybrains even understand the math of their own class?
I doubt they do, they probly use some sort of guide that tells them what to do instead of learning for them selves.
Slice also adds a shedload of poison procs, but they forget about that, it also helps your weapon enchants proc if you have them if thats even a thing now.
No, it’s not on the alpha. We all need to be pushing for it to come back, and Premeditation as well.
There is a good reason Subtlety had these abilities to pair with Slice and Dice in the past. The unpruning isn’t going far enough and the devs need to do better.
So, in the end, it might not be a vehicle to convert combo points into energy if they decide to not bring it back. It might actually just be a maintenance buff.
Obviously, I hope it’s more than that and that Energetic Recovery returns but your argument above relies on something that is not currently in the game.
I do like it as a method of adding complexity and additional set up to damage windows.
My argument above is an argument in favor of returning Slice and Dice, Premeditation, and Energetic Recovery to Subtlety, as I have argued for YEARS on this forum.
This conversation about Slice and Dice isn’t new just because Blizzard made some slight progress by putting it back. The arguments about “I don’t want to waste my combo points on it” have been made by a certain clueless group of PvE Rogues for YEARS.
Let me be clear: I am NOT arguing in favor of the Shadowlands design. It looks terrible. They aren’t doing nearly enough. Their so-called unpruning is just lipservice. Subtlety Rogue was a MASTERPIECE spec before Legion, and the Shadowlands changes aren’t sufficiently repairing the damage yet.
I am likely not going to play Shadowlands at all if the direction doesn’t improve.
As far as I can tell, it will still be that vehicle for energy. If I’m not mistaken, Sub still has Shadow Techniques and Outlaw is keeping Combat Potency.
It will be in a different way. We still have Shadow Techniques in the alpha from what I saw. So, we’ll still have those +1 combo point and 8 energy procs. With Slice and Dice active, you’ll get more frequent procs.
The only issue between that and Energetic Recovery is that Shadow Techniques requires you to hit your target a few times to proc. Where as, Energetic Recovery could be used just to bank energy during a restealth, Vanish, or just kiting.