But don’t you need to know which passives apply where? It could get confusing with 12 to pick from.
Wait you’re correct, I remember now.
I got confused. Soul Binds, the characters themselves just sit in your order hall and don’t actually follow you anywhere, which is disappointing.
I’d get stigmatized regardless, but at least I would have a lighter workload if we were locked.
Unless you’re pushing mythic raids, high lvl pvp and 20+ M+ runs then you don’t need to worry about it.
There will be a general build that the theorycrafters will come up with for every class that you can use for the majority of scenarios and not be to far behind.
I would be far more worried about the M+ covenant bonuses than the soulbinds personally lol
2 Likes
I totally agree with you but the community at large doesn’t think that way sadly.
They watch a streamer or MDI and think all mages need to be fire. I get crap for being frost on a regular basis. Though it does help that some good players I know think those guys are idiots too. I’ve had some good performance moments as frost.
That is generally what I aim for; the one size fits all “good enough” setup.
I think there are ways, but the point of no return was crossed a long long time ago in alpha. The devs aren’t known for backtracking… and particularly not this close to a release. But at this point locking covenant abilities creates more problems than it solves (if it ever really solved any). I don’t really believe that the devs ever truly thought that they could get away with this, hence the dungeon buffs for each covenant. I really want to avoid a few scenarios:
- Someone playing something they don’t like because that’s what they have to do
- Someone joining a covenant they don’t empathize with
- Someone feeling obligated to play X covenant because it helps their friends
All of these are locked to the current design… and that just feels horrible to me. Why can’t classes just be classes…? Why do we need systems on systems of complexity?
4 Likes
I have NEVER been criticized for being Frost. And I mean never as in literally never. If anyone does, then just leave the group, they’re not worth your time.
2 Likes
Thankfully when it comes to soulbinds guides exist for a reason if you find those trees too complicated. The spells themselves are either cooldowns you’ll pop when you use most other cooldowns for DPS or a single spell added to your rotation. If you managed to play Legion with the single spell added to our rotations it won’t be hard.
That stigma will be there whether covenants are swappable or not. Choosing an ability or talent that gimps you in certain specific content will make you less effective. Why would people choose you when there are people who have made the choice to be more effective?
People gong after you for being Frost are just uninformed. A quick google search of simmed Frost Vs Fire spec shows a whopping difference on average of 1k dps lol.
Just ignore the folks who hear that Fire is the best without actually looking at what the difference is between the two.
Edit: Also think of it this way. If the covenants are locked, and you pick the bad one then you’ll get turned down and have no easy way to fix the problem. If they are unlocked then at least you’ll be able to semi quickly solve the problem lol
2 Likes
I would hope its because I’m not trying to do a mythic raid or a +20, and my choice is still sufficient for the content I am actually doing.
Aren’t covenants already going to be swappable though, and just hard to swap back? Should be sufficient for people in those situations.
There are two covenants I personally hate though and would never swap to. I just hope those two aren’t the “good” mage ones, lol.
Blizzard has shown that their ability to balance is questionable at best, horrible at worst lol
There will absolutely be the better covenants for each class/role. So lets say the venthyr one is garbage for mage, and you go venthyr because you love everything else about them.
Do you really want to be in the situation where the group says “Lol we’re not bringing you when we can wait 1 minute for a Maldraxxas mage that will deal 10-15% more dps than you?”
I guess I should just resign myself to heroic dungeons and LFR now.
While I feel for you, and I get where you’re coming from as a player who felt like he was carried through Legion raids:
I don’t think “I don’t want to learn things” is a very good argument for stopping other players from learning and taking advantage of freedom.
So you play all 3 specs, and want to be suboptimal in 2, because you’re locked into a covenant that’s only good for one of your specs? Because that’s the reality of the situation.
You’re the person that this system is hurting. This system affects every player who plays every spec in their class, and it affects players who play all aspects of the game. If you play all 3 specs, and every element of the game, the Covenant system will severely punish you.
It’s less “I don’t want to learn things” and more “I fail spectacularly when I try new things”.
This is my personal fear of the covenant lock. Since I play all 3 monk specs with my focus being on Mistweaver, what happens if the mistweaver BiS choice is terrible for the other two lol.
Again I feel you, but, “I’m incompetent” also isn’t a good argument for restricting others.
I don’t mean that in a confrontational way either, in a lot of ways I’m incompetent. But learning to be competent is one of the things that keeps me driving forward in this game, and if there’s an arbitrary mechanic that keeps me from doing that, it kills a lot of what makes the game fun.
Yeah this is a pretty real and serious concern. Right now DK is favoring Night Fae across the board, which is a total and utter lore/fluff failure, as well as an absolute balancing failure. I’m just hoping that the covs for DK will be able to thematically represent our classes, and that we won’t be pressured to play Kyrian or Night Fae due to tuning.