Genuinely worried about the "ripcord" being pulled

Community General Discussion
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Going to admit straight up that I am not a great player. There’s a great many things I struggle with in this game, and it’s a miracle I’ve gotten through any of the achievements I’ve earned. The heroic raids I’ve cleared, the PvP achievements I’ve earned, and the +15s I’ve timed. I struggle greatly with confidence issues and I can never shake the feeling that I was carried through all of them.

A bit of background with me and the mage class; I main Frost in raiding/group PvE and Arcane in WQ/PvP stuff. Frost I main because it’s very simple; stack mastery, get a brain flurry proc, build up a GS, and fire both. That’s literally it. I’ve achieved some decent enough DPS with that, enough to at least be over the tanks, but I have a hard time with any more than that. There’s a reason I do not play Fire. It involves a complex rotation that greatly punishes failure, and with more complex stat priorities. So little surprise that I’ve failed spectacularly every time I tried that spec.

Oh, and I play Arcane for the other stuff because it allows me to escape easier in warmode. I never get to kill people, but I can ice block, blink twice, and instant invis for a clean escape most of the time. I’m just that bad at the game PvP-wise unfortunately.

So I am really worried about the “ripcord” being pulled.

I’ve mentioned in other threads that what worries me is, if all four covenants are opened up to everyone, that I will be forced to memorize and master not only all four covenant powers, but also have to memorize four combinations of soulbinds and conduits for each covenant as well.

It seriously scares me. That sounds like a hell of a lot for me to take on. As I said in another thread, I feel like I would have greater success memorizing the entirety of the periodic table of the elements than taking on that challenge.

Please alleviate my fears somehow and tell me it won’t be that bad?

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It won’t be worse than mastering a talent row. Moreover, if you’re the kind that don’t play offspecs or chose what he plays without feeling the need to min/max you don’t need to switch to other “talents”.

And there are solutions to soulbinds, but even then people are not asking to get acess to all of them atleast so far, just the abilities.

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Is it not more than that though? Aren’t people asking to open up the class powers, soulbinds and conduits of each covenant to swap at will? That sounds like a hell of a lot more than just a talent row.

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It’s not more than what I’ve written.
Like I said we’re not asking for all soulbinds, but no matter the soulbinds system will probably get reworked a bit before release. And they can make it when you change spec that your soulbind/conduit setup change with that.

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But then how would it work? Say you pick Kyrian, but want to use the Venthyr power, would you be pairing that with a Kyrian soulbind as well?

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If the abilities are a talent row, covenants could still stay lock. And that means not having acess to all soulbinds.

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I’ll admit I don’t know everything about the system yet, but aren’t soulbinds meant to work in tandem with the class powers? I’m not entirely sure how that’d work if you’re using a Necrolord power, but with a Venthyr soulbind that’s meant to power up the Venthyr power.

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Good news. No one can force you to do that. Also, at the moment, a lot of covenant abilities aren’t even worth using, so you won’t even have to worry about those till they’re reworked. A lot of covenant abilities look like they were designed by people who haven’t ever touched or even really looked at the class the ability is for. Gameplay desperately needs to be separated from covenant choice if they want the system to succeed at all.

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Yes the system currently buff the signature abilities with the soulbinds, but that isn’t much a game changer as just not having acess to all abilities. So it could stay as a specialization. Atleast that’s how I see it.

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There would still be stigma involved with swappable covenants, much as the same way as there is with me not able to play Fire on my mage.

I’d be sitting here, struggling just to master what I get as Night Fae, and be ridiculed when I say that trying to swap to and learn Necrolord “just for this dungeon” would be very tough and not something I really want to do.

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Covenants are launching swappable. There are restrictions, sure, but do you really think that’s going to stop people from expecting others to switch?

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Same thing can happen when you try another spec or class, I don’t see the issue.
Or when you try a different talent you don’t play normally.

it’s not a big issue.

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You say you understand fire is better and that you’ll never be able to master it or even play it proficiently, so you stick with frost/arcane and do decently enough with it. - so why not have that same mentality with the 4 covenants?

Pick the one you enjoy the most…

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It’s not an issue for me at least, I’m an OCD completionist and I don’t play more than one character.

Except that rogue I used the boost on, but she’s just there to put stuff on the AH and to open lockboxes lols.

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I would like to, just scared that I wouldn’t be really allowed to without serious consequences.

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I think anyone will have more fun if they have acess to the 4 abilities, as you wouldn’t want to be locked into a talent.

And like I said I wouldn’t trouble myself too much with soulbinds, they’ll probably get reworked a bit.

If anything even without pulling the ripcord, the amount of systems at the start of the expansion is really big so I understand that most people are gonna have a rough time if they aren’t starting before the expansion to learn them.

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I might as well be, there’s only a select handful of talents I’m really able to use. Even with Frost I don’t use Ice Floes for instance. And I do a hell of a lot worse every time I try to do the Freezing Rain build.

It’s why the covenants worry me, there’s a lot more with each one than just a few rows of selections it looks like, is all.

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Then you’ll just do like now and pick the one that’s most simple to you. It’s not that different.

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Life would have been a great deal easier if all these layers of complexity had not been added into the game with Covenants. Had they been simply a cosmetic or relatively lightweight choice for your character, and if the soulbinds/conduits had been available in some form of talent system once learned, it would have made life a lot easier imo.

I suspect it will take me some time, lots of reading and some form of add on to figure out what is best, as it stands.

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I just fear the stigma will be a lot greater than what I face for not playing Fire, if covenant swapping was the norm for everyone of every class.

Combine that with me not playing FIre, with me not able to swapping covenants, and I feel like I might as well just resign myself to not playing any SL content and rather just run old raids all day.