They really should only make gear sets/profession/ mounts/pets/titles achievements available through covenants. What I am tired of in wow is borrowed power. Covenant based abilities is just another form of that. If they really cared about player choice in power, they would allow players to alter how their class performs based on a good talent system. They need to fix that system if they want to help players feel in power of their characters again. A special gear set that i can get from my covenant would be more than enough “character reward” for most people I would assume. Maybe make the items we wear on our backs alter the way our spells and abilities look. I.E. a Venthyr Paladin would have black and red corrupted holy spells. Or maybe a Kyrian warlock had access to a different set of pets called spirits? Basically copies of their current pets but more angelic with their spells looking more holy. That is the kind of breathe of fresh air I want in wow. The ability to make my arcane mage play more like a channel caster with arcane missiles as the primary charge builder, like a shadow priest plays. There are so many things that they could do with the talent systems that would be more helpful than abilities locked to a choice outside of your normal race/class. What about when the new expansion comes out? We will just lose all that Covenant power again, like we did with legion artifacts, and we will with the necklace. It already leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I am NOT excited about abilities coming from the choices of what covenant I pick.
It’s not even a matter of “borrowed power”, considering Blizzard insists on revamping specs every expansion no matter how much players enjoy them.
If anything, entire specs could be considered “borrowed power” with how much they change sometimes.
Covenants as a whole shouldn’t be a thing, they should just be the typical 4 big major factions that pop up in an expansion you work together with for rewards and reputation to help fix troubles in a zone
I’m not pledging myself to one of these stupid cults.
But Nyaria the Kool-aid is so refreshing.
It does make it hard to care about a class or spec when they’re constantly being remade every couple of years. All too often we end up with something fun being demolished with an expansion pre-patch.
Not everyone cares for cosmetic items.
I agree about the borrowed powers being stupid, and that we should have a robust talent system that lasts from expansion to expansion instead, but with 8 expansions now (Shadowlands) there would be severe bloat in such a talent system too. Which would lead to pruning.
I think they get around that by making each expansion’s system thematic to that storyline, with the drawback that it’s temporary and we’d need a new one with each new expansion and it’s respective story.
Giving me more abilities to choose from to customize my gameplay is a good thing. “Borrowed” is a silly term because we get them for 2 years.
It would be kinda cool if we took the powers we gain in this expansion on with us into the future. Like the first steps towards Paragon paths from D&D that let you customise your playstyle past just class lines.
If they bake in covenant stuff into our abilities, like they’re baking in azerite traits/essences into our abilities in Shadowlands, then that would be another route to take.
So, would you rather Blizzard keep adding abilities and talents every expansion until our entire screen is an action bar? Or maybe you’d prefer that nothing ever changed except the borrowed power of tier set bonuses that disappeared every patch?
Blizzard has instead decided on a sustainable path to where the core class remains intact, and every expansion we get a new progression/talent path that lasts a couple years, with aspects being carried forward into the next.
You can of course debate what the core class should be, or whether that core should ever be altered, but what you’re asking for is either insane ability bloat with no balance and/or maybe complete homogenization, or you’re asking for stagnation where nothing changes except borrowed tier set bonuses that do nothing for non-raiders and only last a few months.
I’ll take the current system.
I think the drastic changes are a good thing. Keeps it fresh every expansion. Borrowed power is such a stupid buzzword floating around now.
Is a new talent row too much to ask for? Havent gotten once since WoD
Why doesn’t bliz do something truly unique and keep us part of the covenants permanently through future expansions.
#makechoicesmatter
Is that going to be a choice? From what I’ve read so far, it seems interwoven with the leveling process.
Unfortunately, it appears they’d rather give us a row of talents through Covenants than our characters. I guess our characters from a lore standpoint have reached maximum potential for their class and now seek relics and outside sources for power? Maybe?
Last thing that’d make me care about my covenant choice is silly fluff cosmetics. The fact that they give you ways to earn it with your covenant is IN MY OPINION great and how cosmetics should work.
I’m fine with choosing abilities with regards to Covenants.
They’re interwoven in the storyline (i.e you start with Bastion, then Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, and end with Revendreth), but after you finish the storyline, you are given the choice of pledging 1 covenant above the others. And then you begin that covenant’s deep dive and gain its abilities.
You know we had spells 15 years ago that are gone now. I suppose those were borrowed power too? Everything could be considered “borrowed” if enough time passes
Borrowed problem has literally nothing to do with these problems lol. And the current talent system is fine and would allow for the stuff you mention easily, it has done so in the past with glad warriors for example, but it’s pretty hard to actually balance something like that.
The old talent system was 100% trash.
The covenants pseudo-talent system is trash too.
Yeah, Moonkin’s existence is borrowed power.
I could deal with leveling weapons in Legion. But leveling all this crap with the heart after taking a long break just isn’t going to happen. I am just not playing. If they reintroduce something along those lines I will probably not play much of shadowlands. I miss just running raids and getting gear. Not having to also level my necks abilities also so I don’t suck.
To be honest there’s a soulbinding trait that makes your character look sexy without the cost of a battle elixir.
I am hoping some aesthetic traits should remain permanent.
A battle elixir without the cost of character looking less attractive sounds like a dream come true.
