Best looking mount or transmog. Stats and min/maxing are for nerds who don’t like fun.
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I’ll go Black Dragonflight if it is an option.
But honestly player power from things like covenants can go to hell. Just leave it as a cosmetic / story choice and I’ll be fine with it.
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The unsubscribe button.
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I’d just hope that it isn’t another thing that’s restricted to the addon. If I expect it to be the gameplay feature of the addon and be forgotten after it, like class orders, champions of azeroth and covenants… Yeah, I’ll only choose based on the rewards offered. Why wouldn’t I? Hard to get into the fantasy of making an actual character decision with lasting consequences, if Blizzard doesn’t.
But if they were to actually make it a project that will affect the content I do on the character for the long term? Bronze, probably.
Ooof… not me. I was NF for too long, thinking I was going to get accepted to m+ groups in 9.0
No… Ill be going with whichever has the most fun ability. And Ill be ignoring any cosmetics.
Actually, if I could suggest anything for future covenants, you could do them thr same, but just make the gear sets dungeon sets.
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If the system is to return it will be is a lesser capacity that it had in the x-pac before.
Consider the way the mission tables shrank from WOD to Legion to BFA.
Although I thought Legion was the best one.
Idk do the frostwyrms get a seat? What about that cool new undead dragon model I don’t think we saw outside of Exile’s Reach and KT just conjuring one in Maldraxxus.?
Either way I’d be pretty pointedly disinterested. One of SL’s troubles is that it was pretty hard to get invested if you’ve a more mundane character.
This is WoW so a mundane character is still an undead cowboy with a zombie tyrannosaurus. But it was hard trying to picture him caring about any of this weird BS. Only this Priest, my DK and Druid didn’t seem completely out of place.
And Dragonflights are even more specific. Granted going into BFA I was very disinterested in the Loa. Because between the Titans and Eternal Ones they’ve been the only time Blizz wrote fun deities and I’m unsure that wasn’t on accident. But those wound up being my favorite part. So who knows.
Really my hope would be this would serve as an Anti-Cata with a story more about rebuilding Azeroth, and the dragon stuff is just background noise for when we need a bombastic boss fight.
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Bronze, without a doubt. I love time travel shenanigans.
The Many Deaths of Chromie was the one of the best Legion rep grinds, so much to speculate about. I think I know who tries to kill her.
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Green dragon flight for me. Anything nature based is a must for me 
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It is too early to say, for me.
Before Shadowlands went live, after we got some previews, the Venthyr looked the most fun. It was the worst for Warlocks though, in all 3 specs. I went Venthyr anyway. And I don’t regret it. The music, style, NPCs, and general vibe was awesome.
The Kyrian Warlock ability is much more intuitive and more powerful and more fun to have in the rotation. And the phial can be sort of a speed boost with Burning Rush. My Alliance Warlock Alt is Kyrian because of Gameplay - their active abilities are just better for me.
But my heart is with the Venthyr. They are arguably among the most stylish and fancy groups in Warcraft. The music makes me feel like I am in a Tim Burton movie.
As things stand now, I have always been a fan of the Blue Dragon Flight. I would gravitate towards them. I always liked the brief moment we met a mirthful, happy Malygos. I always had a soft spot for them, maybe because they had a big tragedy and were almost wiped out, and Malygos got all sad.
But I would have to wait for more thorough previews to see what their vibes and themes will be. We might think we have a good idea right now, but they could rearrange the deck chairs, or retcon stuff, or just make up new stuff to throw everything off. And then we have the Gameplay effects to consider.
They might rearrange the whole order, and make new flights that are less color based and more thematic - meaning we might have various members of the flights we know now, except rearranged into new flights, based on things other than color.
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As a Kaldorei Druid I am literally contractually obliged to go Green Flight if that is what they do.
I suspect they might give new talent row this expansion for each class, with abilities that are themed based on your chosen flight.
Otherwise, the 9.2 cypher system experiment seems like it has panned out well enough they might make that a thing they roll into 10.x as part of their core systems.
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If I had to choose a dragonflight, it really depends on if there’s a dragonflight campaign or if it’s just cosmetic with one major max level campaign. Like when it came to picking covenants, I mainly choose to be a Night Fae because Vol’jin’s story continuing in the campaign. However if it’s just cosmetic then it, it would depend what bonuses are given from joining a flight, and which I like best.
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The leak from February that got the expansion name right said the “covenants” are the Silver Hand, Uncrowned, Kirin Tor, Valarjar, and Black Harvest. Not class-bound like back in Legion, functionally they’re like covenants.
I don’t honestly think the leak is real but it did get the expansion name right, so food for thought.
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I’ve always liked the idea of the Black Dragonflight, if not the execution of them. I feel Blizzard almost got the concept right but as usual went off the rails just a bit too much. Dragons that are greedy and ambitious, manipulative and cunning, but not necessarily evil. Not good either, but they have plans and a goal, and play favourites with mortals they want to succeed purely because they like them.
If they’d made all the stuff in Stormwind the result of a proxy war between Onyxia and Nefarian, where the former considered Stormwind her ‘hoard’ and wanted it to become powerful, and the latter being a more ‘true believer’ in Deathwing who kept plotting to ruin it, that I think would have been way healthier for the story long term.
So depending on if they actually have Dragonflight covenants and the Black Dragonflight is it and not pure evil… probably that.
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I would probably lean toward Bronze for the magical, sandy desert aesthetic; time-travel shenanigans; and Chromie. Possibly toward Blue if they nail the arcane aesthetic. And also possibly toward Black if the story of Wrathion, Ebonhorn, and the rest of their flight is really compelling.
1 Like
Everything in Revendreth was great, but I couldn’t go Venthyr for one reason. That is, that my limited art education made the venthyr race glaringly ugly (artistically). The proportions were just technically “bad”.
Why dump the Tirisgarde for the Kirin Tor?
Well the Blue Dragonflight has a member of the Six. But he was a Mage Champion for the Tirisgarde.
Wrathion being involved with the Uncrowned wouldn’t surprise me but which of the remaining 3 dragonflights would be involved with the Black Harvest if not Wrathion?
So here’s the thing… I actually have faith they can do covenants well.
Covenants weren’t inherently a bad idea. In fact, if the rewrite leak was true, they might have been better recieved. Obviously, you dont want to be stuck with a borrowed power that you don’t like, because you chose a covenant for RP or lore reasons, so borrowed power should be tied to gear. Even Azerite traits weren’t that bad. Even with the RNG. (Though I think covenants showed they understood we didnt want playstyle determined by random number generation.)
In the absence of meaningful factions, a covenant system should exist, and those covenants shouldn’t be friends in the open world. I think it makes sense that they werent originally designed to be working together, and they shouldn’t in a future expansion. That is very risky though. It could feel meaningless, which will be unsatisfying, and make people feel like you should just be able to switch at will, or it will be too weighty, which will make people feel trapped by the system. It could also unnecessarily divide a dwindling playerbase. Thats why the 2 faction system was so good. Dividing by 2 is superior to dividing by anything greater than 2, and anything less than 2.
That said, I think a covenant system in 10.0 could work in a narrative and mechanical way if done properly, and I am in a hopium induced fog of optimism. I think that there should be “covenant” themed transmogs, but they should be accessed through the dungeons of the relevant zones (or dungeons themed after each covenant but around the various zones). You should be able to collect each set. The covenant choice should be a matter of narrative preference, a few exclusive world quests, fun home base features, and a warmode feature that I’ll make a suggestion for later. The borrowed power shouldnt really be covenant themed, nor exclusive. It should be class themed maybe, like all armor has a slot for a dragon scale, and socketing a dragon scale in said slot applies different effects based on the color of the dragon scale, and the class/spec.
The warmode feature should be a major feature of the expansion and the overall narrative going forward. I fantasize that it pits you against members of one other covenant regardless of faction. Members of that covenant are only flagged as enemies to members of your covenant, and you can communicate with members of the opposite faction if they share your covenant, to organize strategies for dealing with player enemies in the open world. There should be wpvp world quests including activities that do not involve killing the enemy covenant, but instead supporting those who enjoy killing the enemy covenant, giving people who do not have otherwise enjoyable means of interacting with enemy players and instead opt out of warmode, a means of enjoying the conflict. The game would need new sharding infrastructure to make this feel good. Perhaps locking sharding when you arrive in the zone of your covenant or the enemy covenant.
The game needs to reframe player conflict in the context of the game world. Warmode as an optional feature, should be tied to an optional allegiance, and should inherently be fun enough to attract players of all 4 of Dr. Bartle’s player types. Covenants provide an opportunity to do that and that should be the most important function of covenants. For the narrative going forward, transmogs dont matter. Borrowed power doesnt matter. Reframing the way we view members of the various races of Azeroth, and tying conflict to groups instead of races could be powerful medicine for this horribly broken fan base.
Edit: like, I imagine a future where Ainhin-thorium-brotherhood and Renautus-arathor are tearing into me for supporting the horrible things that my Uncrowned did to the Silver covenant, and I’m trying to argue that it was justified…
Well, just to go off the top of my head based on personal appeal I’d go for the bronze as a mage.
I would imagine the Green Dragonflight would have everything I’d want in terms of theme, but I’d definitely be weighing it on transmog sets/mounts/collectibles since that’s my main priority as a non-raider.
Green or potentially Bronze thematically though.
2 Likes