Can we discuss the real elephant in the room?
Why cant these replace some abilities outright? In the Alpha Warriors and Death Knights so far get a replacer but some of these are just new abilities, with added abilities that were removed…
The reason I came at you hard is because you’re ignoring the negative effect that keeping these abilities locked will be like, i apologize. I’m a little tired ahha. The way the covenants are set up now would be so frustrating and toxic it would be 10x worse than azerite because at least if ur az got nerfed you could swap to a diff trait on the piece or you could get other pieces sooner than 2 week.
The thing here that the issue may lie more in the sudden and heavy-handed hotfixes than the abilities themselves. Regardless of how the covenants work out you are still in a bad position if that happens to your class or spec.
Problem is now its two fold. classes arent suddenly not going to be nerfed. imagine how bad it would feel to have your cov and spec nerfed at the same time…
I don’t think that translates to 3-weeks
They said its going to be several weeks
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not sure what you mean… you want the covs to replace an ability? I feel like we need more abilities not less, especially since essences are gone
Could you tell me where that information is? Because if true I would agree with you. That’s a pretty stupid restriction.
The info I have from a Q&A (paraphrased by wowhead) is below
“It has been confirmed that it will be possible to change Covenants if you find you dislike the one that you’ve chosen. Leaving one Covenant to join another will not be a difficult process; however, re-joining a previously abandoned Covenant will be much more arduous.”
I guess if you switch from one to another to another in a short span that you might find yourself in a position where it takes a lot of grinding to get back to one of them. But that would be a pretty avoidable blunder. Weeks still feels overly punishing though. Maybe some hours grinding currency in the tower for your penance.
I think/hope people who don’t want to switch covenants mainly mean that we’d rather not have the option to switch (and therefore feel the need to switch) between different types of content several times in a single play session. That shouldn’t mean more hardcore players get stuck re-rolling because of balance pass.
So it’s intended to get people to play less…
…and care about less of the game. So why is it a good thing to push that to the limit?
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I dont really think it matters all that much.
If you want to claim to be a min/max type great, go for it choose based on ability.
If you want to be a story/lore driven type great choose by aesthetic.
Either way YOU decide what is important to you and make your decision based on that. Blizzard shot themselves in the foot by saying “no no we will balance them or scrap them”.
It is what it is and always will be, the community mathgods will sim them and decide which one is best, the world first guys will have 4+ of each character just in case blizz buff/nerf and the rest of us will go to raidbots/icy-veins and blindy do whatever it says.
This issue is just overblown at this point.
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It is essential to performance at high ends of play to be able to swap without restrictions. The azerite not being able to swap was bad because one was determined to be the best and then you never swapped for single target OR aoe… that’s just wrong. If I were to do a 20 KR today with covenants, I would like to use Night Fae because the healing requirement on the axe lady is so high that I need seriously intense burst healing. If I’m locked into venthyr on that instead, I’m not even going to press the button because of the damage portion of it. I probably wouldn’t be able to heal through it. That is incredibly punishing for me. If I have to choose venthyr for dungeons I will take it off my bar in PvP because it will just get me killed if I press it. That is degenerate gameplay. The ability to swap abilities is essential.
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Please see my post above this one. It matters a lot. Just because you won’t change does not mean that it will not be a major hindrance to the rest of us.
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Preach has definitely already outlined the obvious issue we can all see. Hes just moved his content to covering the current “best covenants” and classes/specs because what are you really going to do when a company has decided its going to make a bad decision? regardless of your feedback.
you kindof just have to throw your hands up in the air try and produce good content and wait for the eventual train wreck… that again WE ALL KNOW is going to happen.
well atleast most of us know its going to happen there seems to be a strong contigent of LFR-RPer’s with either there head in the sand or a complete lack of foresight who will not accept the path of failure the covenants are on.
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This circle twerk again?
Not a talent row, it’s a sub class, meant to have disadvantages, can’t be a warlock in raids and a rogue in m+, etc.
Horse is glue now.
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Great overcoming challenge is what wow is all about. If thats how you choose to play more credit to you.
Choices should have consequences, thats what makes them meaningful. From what I have seen there is a not a generic “bis in every situation talent” choice… there is the usual “patchwork bis”, and if thats your only metric for measurement wow doesnt need to be based on it.
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This here, might be the best suggestion i have seen about covenants yet… fitting both a utility and RPG element.
Choices should have consequence when the consequence is not - wow ok I guess I can’t do this content because my hps is 10% lower than that other identically geared same spec heals just because he’s a diff covenant. Meaningful choice should be awesome cosmetics or stuff like that, not player power. Then it might actually be a hard decision. Would also reduce the toxicity in game.
Patchwork bis is not what I’m talking about. Venthyr for druid will be excellent for heavy aoe and dps, and night Fae/ necrolord will be heavy ST. Why is my healing being neutered in a certain situation because you want a choice that doesn’t really matter to you because you don’t push content?
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The number of assumptions you have to make to get to this point is ludicrous.
The assumptions that one covenant is going to be better for ST and ones going to be better for aoe? Yeah… I’m sorry you think that’s an assumption… Maybe try reading the spell text and then using your brain
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i’m still gonna pick a covenant based on the covenant, not the ability. meta be damned.
besides, you can expect they’ll change them around about 1000 times so it doesn’t matter. watch the top pick for hunters become complete garbage later on, for example.
Imagine thinking this is the reason your group won’t kill something.
Also remember frost mages have parses on mythic Nzoth.
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Actually, if its 10% in every situation, raid/m+/pvp, ST tank healing with period big hits vs high dot, AE healing, healing with high movement, burst healing requirements, being able to heal and dps hybrid for important progression dps checks etc… if you are telling me there is one ability which in all those cases means you have 10% more healing throughput … either you need to look at them again or blizzard need to balance pass them.
I think each has their place to shine, even if one is “generic best tank healing choice or emergency tank save or 10% more raid healing” thats a choice, I dont care if its the most useful a high majority of times, letting each have a place to shine is a choice.
It’s an assumption. And a bold one. From what I’ve seen, the soul binds are going to be way more impactful than the covenant gimmick cd. 10% is ludicrous, maybe half of one percent, if that.
The choice between covenants is not a choice between four CDs or buffs, there are dozens of permutations you could have in each covenant. They will be largely balanced by virtue of being complex like that. If there are outliers, they will be buffed nerfed.
You be much better served playing the subclass you enjoy the most.
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Timed a 20 last week by 0.2 seconds with 0 deaths. If I had been playing the wrong covenant in SL we wouldn’t have timed. I’m sorry that you don’t think it matters. It does.
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