I’m loving a lot of what I’m hearing about shadowlands.
I’m pumped about class changes.
I’m pumped about the zones.
I’m digging the art.
Hell I’m even IMPRESSED and OVER THE MOON about the philosophy and changes to how we acquire legendaries and the changes to weekly chests.
What I’m not hyped about is this whole Covenant thing. Now…don’t get me wrong, the Covenants themselves look cool. Amazing even. What I’m annoyed wither however is that ONE choice ties up your decision on so many things.
Covenant Ability
Soulbinds
Questline
Mogs
I’m a simple dude. I only play 3 characters. Assassination Rogue, Restoration Shaman, and Destruction Warlock. You know what sucks? Right now It’s looking like I may be going Necrolord on all damn 3 characters.
I DON’T WANT TO DO THAT.
But I also won’t be knowingly selecting a horrible ability to avoid that either. I really don’t want to repeat the same campaign 3 times. I want to be able to enjoy the content.
My plan as of a week ago for my main was to play as Venthyr on my rogue (cause it looks BADASS and I just got off a Castlevania binge…sue me) earn all the cool amazing armor and back pieces and then swap to Night Fae for the actual ability…
OOOps…TOO BAD! You can’t even use appearances from a covenant you aren’t in.
So what the hell do I do now? Pick the Night Fae and feel like I’m screwed out of any visual armors I like? Play a story I don’t care for? I guess I’ll have to if I want a decent ability to play with.
So what’s my point?
Take a look at the Covenant systems. PLEASE. Consider breaking up some of this stuff so people don’t have to play through the same questlines over and over just to be “viable”. Don’t make us choose between effectiveness and aesthetics…
…because many players are going to either choose effectiveness and hate you for it because they can’t have pretty things…
or they will choose aesthetics and hate you for it because they are seen as “unviable” and can’t get groups…
I mean, you could just go with whatever covenant you want. You’re not forced to go just one covenant. If you’re not pushing for top mythics or cutting edge content just go with what you think sounds fun.
If players as a community and/or large majority decide to pick the covenants based on taste and not numbers then it’s more likely there will be groups requiring specific class/covenant combos cause everyone will know that the “norm” is to just pick what you like, similar to class.
Sadly I doubt things will play out this way, but in theory this doesn’t have to be a problem if collectively people stop or at least lessen the amount of meta-chasing that goes on in the game.
For me, it isn’t even just “viable” with it, It’s simply what’s fun. For my DK, The whole kyrian everything is just generally not fun. Even the buff bird doesn’t seem interesting to have, however I love the zone aesthetic and the plate armor for it even if it doesn’t fit with the class.
The most fun for my DK is Night fae, zone, quests, and a few other things kyrian, but the plate armor of necrolord. Conduits, ability aesthetic, and theme of venthyr. This is my identity crisis issue lol. however, I can just play kyrian on an alt.
At the very least, I’d like to be able to use whatever armor I unlock when I want to, as long as I’ve maxed out that covenant. Once I max them all out, I can swap, saves all progress, however I don’t get maybe… the ultimate ability unless I do a small grind. I’m ok with the penalty between swapping if that’s the case since it would still reward you for the effort you’ve done. If they’d at least make my soulbinds be locked per spec not over your entire class, so I could have 3 soulbinds per spec, I’d be fine with even the conduit system.
I get that maybe one covenant skill may be TRASH for one spec but amazing for another as well as my favorite covenant having the WORST feeling ability and soulbinds, since I could just play those on an alt or something and go for gameplay first.
I am not excited and haven’t even bought the x-pac yet. First time I didn’t buy as soon as I could.
I think I am going to make yet another new DK to play through Wrath and right into the new area to keep some lore continuity gaining without jumping to pandas or flying in space.
Either that or make a panda and just do all of MoP again as its one I miss.
I don’t really have any issue with the gameplay designs, but Torgast and covenants don’t scream “come play me”. More Sylvanas is going to make me hold my nose and try not top puke as I have t deal with her in this x-pac though.
I get frustrated about the number of threads sometimes, although I get it. After about 500 or so posts in the thread what you want to say gets lost. People like knowing what they said gets read. Otherwise why take the time to write it?
I thought Night fae’s soul shape was a bad ability for resto shamans and druids to use(we already have ghost wolf and travel form) but they buffed it to work like blink, which sounds pretty cool
Edit:Idk why it replied to you, sorry! It was meant for OP
I don’t know about the other two specs but I’d like to understand why you need to go Necrolord on all 3 characters because I can think of a couple reasons why it might be necessary and I don’t want to assume anything.
I had issues with the covenant abilities for a number of classes despite knowing ever since last Blizzcon that it was highly unlikely for them to be balanced. I had to swap around 4 toons so that I had the best covenant ability for each of them across all 4 covenants. For the storyline alone. I’ll only be playing 2 of those characters in actual content (i.e. raid and m+). I’ve been able to cope with making compromises to enjoy the game while still being strong for content ever since I had to give up my demo lock, and I’ve come to enjoy other classes through this as well, so the covenant issue doesn’t phase me as much. I can understand though why it might be annoying for some people, like yourself. I’ve been there. One way to solve your problem would be to pick one you like better among the 3 classes you currently play and learn a different class to access a different covenant.
Another way to solve this would just be to pick the 3 different covenants for your characters, disregarding any and all meta builds, just so you can enjoy the aesthetics and the story. The reason this will not have drastic consequences is because of the new weekly cache system design. You can choose to actively participate in only one type of content without feeling punished for it. There are, however, certain areas where this fails:
If you’re an active mythic raider and your raid lead benches you because you didn’t choose the bis covenant for your class. I do not think it should be much of a problem for heroic and normal raiders unless you’re unlucky with your raid team/guild.
If you’re both an active raider (heroic difficulty and above) as well as a m+ enthusiast. If your class’ covenant isn’t best for both those types of content, you’re forced to make a choice. But then again, the choice factor has been stated many times as one of Blizzard’s intentions for the game.
If your chosen covenant ability makes you handicapped when running Torghast for legendaries. This is one of the more thorny side effects of choosing what you love over what’s best because you can only go so long without starting to feel miserable for it.
In retrospect, I do think that Blizzard eventually will pull the ripcord, but it’s unlikely to happen until after a couple of months into the expansion, in much the same way as azerite essences for alts. I hope I’m wrong but if not, I won’t be surprised.
I think you’re right, and I think it’ll be a lot sooner than people think. I don’t want them to-- I want them to get the system right, because it seems cool, but I think you’re probably right.
