Booming Blade being reprinted and nerfed in Tasha's [New Preview Release]

[bendking]

I have. It isn't.

Are Rogues Wizards? No. Can they excel at social and investigation pillars while making a strong contribution to the combat pillar? Yes.

If you do the math, you're better off attacking with an offhand weapon for the accuracy boost and greater likelihood of landing a sneak attack. The only time a BB is always the best choice for a rogue is if they took war caster and get an OP attack; which is a niche case.

Even if you have BB available, you're often better off making a regular attack so you have the option of a bonus action offhand attack - assuming maximizing SA damage is the goal.

Anyways back on the main topic, this change doesn't actually affect arcane trickster that much. Getting sneak attack on reactions is still the bulk of their extra damage.

I did do the math. And it's a considerable difference. Let's break it down.
Level 20 AT, Shadow Blade casted at 3rd level, against an AC of 19, with Elven Accuracy, assuming you used your Owl to do a Flyby Help, giving your first attack triple-advantage.
Main-hand uses Shadow Blade, off-hand uses Shortsword.

Here are the numbers (produced by LucidSavant's DPR calculator):
Booming Blade - 73 DPR
Booming Blade + Rider Triggers - 91 DPR
Regular Attack + Bonus Attack - 61 DPR
Regular Attack + Bonus Attack (+3 Shortsword) - 65 DPR

Keep in mind, using just Booming Blade also keeps your bonus action free to use Cunning Action which is a staple of the Rogue. This makes it possible to use the Bonus Action to disengage, thus practically ensuring the rider triggers. Personally, I prefer taking Mobile and keeping my bonus action free for other things such as Dash, making you even harder to pin down. Also, staying in place (the result of not being able to Disengage as a bonus action) also makes you much more vulnerable, which isn't great for squishy characters such as Rogues (unless MCed to get better AC).
And of course, if you want to cast Shadow Blade for maximum DPR, your Bonus Action is taken on the first round of combat, dipping your DPR to 53.

Your unsupported, general, and overly broad statements warranted about that much effort in response. Since I don't need to point out to you that the game was not designed for power gamers, not in this edition anyway, I think we are about done. (Ah, I see that cutlery and stoutstien have offered a similar response, so I'll retire from this line of discourse).

As I said, it's fine not to play high-op. I am discussing high-op here, which is clearly a discussion we two shouldn't be having.

Booming Blade could definitely stand to be toned down. It's a very powerful cantrip for any melee attacker except GWM users. And maybe PAM.

Well, it's definitely not a "very powerful cantrip" for any class that has Extra Attack, not just GWM users. It's mainly useful for classes without Extra Attack.

In any case, I'll stop the discussion (on my part) here since I don't want this to escalate further. Hopefully, some of what I said made sense to some of you, and if it didn't, that's also fine.