Otherwise they would have known from the beginning that Assassination’s rotation is cluttered.
Assa got a flat 20% buff since it was shipped as a finished spec. That is insane. Rogue had a rough time in beta, it got everything last. There were missing talents, covenant abilities, even anima powers for torghast for a looong assa time. Our honor talents are still kind of a mess. Announced pickpocket addition (the reason crimson vial got nerfed) is hanging out with a dance studio in a nowhere land. 9.0.5 is looking nice for an assassination venthyr rogue at least, some cool qol changes. Shame that sub is pushed aside again though. Almost no changes for the bursty boys. Oh well, i guess there always a next patch, right? Excuse my nervous laughter.
My suggestion to fix RtB, while still maintaining the unpredictable nature of it, would be to reduce the number of possible buffs to 4. Also, if you could only ever have 1-3 at any given time (minimum 2 with Adrenaline Rush active), this would mean each buff would feel much more significant, and we could get rid of the weakest ones at the same time. It would also lessen the spikynes of RNG, giving you a more consistent damage profile, instead of feeling like you have no control over your performance. It is imperative for good Class design, to give Players a sense of being in control.
What SnD? It is also best to keep it up 95% of the time in mythic+. Only time you would allow SnD to drop in an M+ is during AoE, but even then it is preferred to have it running (sub rogue example) since it will generate more CPs (which is especially important on 4 mobs so you hit Black powder on 5 rather than 4 CPs) and to increase dmg towards focus mobs.
Sure, in PvP you would normally not SnD over using another finisher.
it’s hard to tell because SnD increases the damage done by auto attacks and as a Sub rogue SnD generates more combo points, which increases dmg done by finishers. I mean, I could try 5 min on a dummy with and then later without SnD to see the difference… but that would have to be much later xD
Without doing the math/target dummy testing to show IF it pans out this way, here’s why SnD is a good design philosophy:
It’s an ability that aims to reward a player for uptime on a target. The idea being that, per combo point, it adds more damage through white swings, poison procs and combo-point-and-Energy gain attacks. The depth that adds means that good players benefit planning the fight ahead of time.
As such the damage, per combo point, across your finishing moves should look something like:
Slice’n’Dice > Rupture >> Eviscerate
You may not like this, however it’s unavoidable that Eviscerate is the easiest finisher to use, and is almost like a “rage dump” for rogues, e.g. it’s use to get rid of extra combo points after SnD+Rupture.
This is also good for PVP as it means the Optimal DPS rotation isn’t realistic in Arena/BG’s, therefore you can’t “Onyxia DPS” people and bludgeon them to death with a rotation that is Easy, Completely Optimal and mechanically aligned to PVP’s playstyle (burst over sustain).
Sub rogues are even well designed in that they have shadow dance, so for a short period they can push a sub-optimal DPS rotation to take advantage of fight mechanics like Sludgefist Charge. This means that the balance of best DPS over time then dumping large burst during a short window Vs saving cooldowns for a burst window is an extremely challenging set of mechanics that benefit experienced players and adds depth to the class.
All of that being said: Almost no other class has to make these forms of sacrifice. They are all based around burst windows and the strategy of “Press it on cooldown” sim’s amazingly well while also being absolutely devoid of any thought process. This also feeds into PVP where people push all their buttons and blow people up in seconds.
TL;DR
SnD is good game design and we need more abilities like it across all classes.
To be honest, they should make SnD into a PvP talent.
Because while I can recognize a lot of your arguments, the ability type of SnD just doesn’t fit the M+ meta. High end keys are design around controlling the dungeon by taking advantage of the right utility and planning CD usage for each pack. In this scene, abilities like SnD just seem outdated because they don’t add any value to the complexity of high end M+. The damage rotations of classes become secondary parties while utility and CD management play the primary roles. When I play M+ on my Rogue, I focus very little on doing damage. 99% of my brain power goes into controlling multiple mobs at once with the CC toolkit of the Rogue. The only difference SnD add is that I need to store CPs at the end of the pack to enable a refreshed version for the next pull. But in the grand complexity of M+ pulls, this thought-process becomes absolutely redundant.
Perhaps you misunderstood what i meant - SnD is NOT a pvp ability. It’s explicitly for long encounters like Bosses with marginal PVP use.
And asking for SnD be removed because it doesn’t suit exactly your playstyle/content type is ridiculous. Imagine if Cheap-Shot/Kidney Shot/Blind where removed because Mythic Raiders didn’t use them on bosses? If you are being taken to M+ for your CC then that’s fine, but I don’t understand why you think you should be able to CC multiple enemies and still do 100% DPS at the same time?
I recognise some classes can do this, but that indicates they are overtuned and need pulled back, not that rogue abilities should be baselined. Baselining/Baking-in was done years ago and undone because it ended up being lazy, boring and added nothing to the game.
sometimes I feel like people are stuck in a loop and jut repeat the same class design/change arguments every other expansion.
Where you are wrong is that you seem to think that class rotations are what add complexity to the game. This used to be the case in earlier versions of WoW, but the difficulty of the modern edition is much more based in the content mechanics. The complexity of a high end M+ dungeons is not based around doing a dps rotation and therefore abilities like SnD have only a very small imprint in the overall scheme of high performance. The difference between a good and mediocre Rogue is not how they do their rotation or how they use SnD. The difference is based on how they manage their utility and how they plan the usage of both offensive and defensive CDs. The consequence of making a wrongful use of SnD - as for example refreshing it at the end of a pull - is almost insignificant in the greater picture.
I appreciate your contribution to this chat, but you seem to lack some insight of what makes the Rogue class complex to play in high end M+. It’s definitely not abilities like SnD.
I had a fairly large reply typed out but I realised it boils down to this: Every time you have a choice in a game, you have an opportunity to excel or set yourself apart by making better choices in-the-moment that other players. Conversely you have the chance to fail and have an opportunity for growth.
You’re arguing to simplify the class and make it easier. I’m arguing there should be more complex choices for all classes to deepen game balance and diversify content-types away from a one-size-fits-all type of build.
SnD does not add complexity. It is incredibly easy to maintain and as your large example suggest there is some type of smart calculation required to optimize your dps where sacrificing SnD may be part of that equation. This is just not true, you keep up SnD throughout 98% of a boss fight and you only let it drop during RP ^^
I think something like this would add the desired complexity in the game that you are looking for. SnD is not situational and not so much of a choice as it is just something you wait to maintain at all time.
If you don’t agree with me, tell me when you would ever allow dropping SnD.
I’m aware of a few examples such as: in a 5+ target AoE situation or perhaps the last few % of a pride if you healer is struggling. I would certainly never drop SnD in a raid, except for e.g. a situation like consume during hungering where I would refresh Rupture Hungering over refreshing SnD before running out. However, as soon as you are back in the first thing you will do and focus on maintaining is SnD.
Sure removing SnD without giving rogues a new ability would clearly simplify the class. However, my core point of this thread is how SnD is not the complex ability as some people say it is and it is more of a boring chore that needs to be maintained.
Slice and Dice runs out in 1 seconds
Sludgefist will charge in 1 seconds
Rupture will expsire in 5/10/15/20 seconds
You have 4 Combo Points and 80 energy
What’s the optimal use of combo points you’ll achieve for each of those rupture durations?
You can say it 400 times, but SnD requires decisions to be made whether you think so or not.
if your SnD has 1 second left before the charge it only shows that you are not playing your rogue correctly, it is as simple as that. I would never let myself be in that situation.
I would rephrase that as “SnD is good engineering.” However, there is more to game design, than just engineering. It’s crucial for the player to get feedback from the game, and using different abilities or tools should feel meaningful. The psychology when experiencing the game, be it long term or moment-to-moment, that is more important. SnD completely fails in terms of providing a psychological incentive in gameplay.
Optimal use of combo points is refreshing SnD with Envenom as Assassination. Because setting up SnD is a loss of resources and time during the increased damage phase. SnD uptime and melee uptime should be aimed to be as close to 100% as possible.
But other rogues would. And cutting an evis, or using a low CP SnD knowing charge is coming to maximise DPS is an example of a decision you made, using your ability as a player, to determine what was optimal.
Those decisions are what set apart bad and good players. And as previously stated, it’s also good PVP balance, which sadly doesn’t seem to be the case for most other classes abilities.
I mean yes, we all know that SnD requires Decision making to a certain extent in some situations. However, in reality it is a dull ability that is just something you will make sure to keep up 100% of the time. What we are all saying is that it is boring as hell and that we would rather it see it replaced with something more interesting.
I don’t get it, do you enjoy the way it feels to play with SnD?