I want to go Necrolord on my orc warrior alt for cosmetic and RP reasons, but I keep reading the covenant is “really bad” for Fury/Prot
Is this like meaningful bad (5%+) or doesn’t actually matter for all intents and purposes bad (like 2-3%)?
I checked but wasn’t able to find this info anywhere else, just “lol go venthyr condemn op”
I don’t have numbers for you, but it’s not a good choice for warriors right now and I’ll list you some reasons.
The banner is stationary, so in a high movement fight or during trash in M+ you won’t get the full effect because you’re gone.
Having a health boost is ok, but the crit is not a high priority stat for any of the current warrior specs. So really it’s only useful to buff someone that needs more crit. The fact that that banner chooses 2 random players from your party means you don’t even get to be smart about that. This is all on a 3 minute CD which is just insane for how little it provides.
You’re other covenant choices provide tangible benefits that make them a better choice.
Now this could be a moot point, if you’re not planning on running high keys or doing mythic raiding then you’ll probably be just fine to play the game happy with your cosmetic choices.
The Necrolord ability will be useful.
Strong? A bit
The best? No.
But if this is an alt, if this is an aesthetic you’re interested in. I say go for it. Blizzard said they are planning to adjust covenant abilities. Not immediately but down the road.
The banner isn’t bad. It’s just outshined at the moment by the other skills. It’s still a cool ability. There seems to be a pretty even spread between the 4 abilities. No reason not to pick the banner.
I’m gonna disagree here, but admittedly its a subjective disagreement. Banner does have a tuning component that makes it weaker than the others, which is of course easily fixable. But its just not fun or intuitive to use.
We see the same kinds of feedback over and over as people try out the four abilities when levelling. Kyrian and night fae abilities largely meet expectation, and they were expected to be good/cool. Venthyr’s Condemn surprises a ton of people who didn’t think they’d like it. And banner is disappointing people left and right and not just numerically. When I leveled Maldraxus, I didn’t even use it. Kept forgetting I had it because the few times I did use it, using it didn’t really make anything feel different.
Unfortunately I believe if you go Necrolord right now, you’re not just taking a small performance hit (which is fine for 99% of people). You’re basically passing up the chance to have a fun and engaging covenant ability, which is a huge part of this expac imo. I love Condemn so much, but damn I wish I could have that kyrian spear too, and while its not exactly what I’d hoped, night fae is very similar to the shockwave I’ve begged for on these forums before. Everyone in kyrian or night fae is saying the same things about the other two faction abilities largely. I’ve yet to see anyone disappointed they couldn’t get banner.
Spear is love, spear is life. The only way Condemn could compete with the glory of spear, is if the animation was changed to NBA Jam on fire dunk animation circa 1990s.
This is totally fair and you’re right, the ability is objectively worse than the others. Honestly its just sad to see people unable to choose the Aesthetic they like because an ability is being left by the wayside at the moment. I hate the idea of people picking something they don’t want.
Ya, I’d have gone Necro if the banner had even been a little competitive.
I’ve been enjoying Necro bonuses. I went for the aesthetic, but I do enjoy the banner and the shield for engagement/ using it at opportune moments during boss fights to take a bit of burden off the healer for a moment.
Thats great! play what you want. Tuning will come. If you’re having fun with it, thats the most important thing.
It will be buffed it’s just up to you if you wanna wait for said buff. If it’s as bad as everyone says it will be hotfixed; if it’s just mediocre you’ll have to wait for a patch.
Arms top stats right now are haste and crit.
Banner might get better with more haste too but we’ll have to see. Removing the ramp up on it could be a good change.
Just hope they adjust the covenant ability down the road if it’s an alt.
I don’t have the choice.
The feedback has been universal that the Covenant abilities are awful for NL, so in 6 months they’ll probably do a radical change and completely upend all the Covenant balance. It’s not a bad long term choice to go Necrolord. Just not right now.
https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/arms-warrior-pve-dps-stat-priority
As of 11/23/2020 Crit is 3rd in stat priority. Now Icy Veins is only one opinion so take my data with a grain of salt.
Ya I was looking at blood mallet, but info is changing so much by the day right now so it’s hard to say.
Can someone versed in machinima make this happen, hopefully to the tune of “Space Jam.” lol
I feel like an easy buff to it would be to make it so the flag is on your back like a Blademaster style thing, and moves with you for it’s duration.
Having bad numbers is one thing, but having bad numbers and being stationary is really the killer for this ability. I think if they changed the numbers on Conquerer’s Banner it would still (unless they way overbuffed) never be quite as good as the abilities that you can use on the move, just by the nature of the game. So making Conquerer’s Banner travel with you would go a long way to fixing it without having to worry too much about numerical balancing.
The thing barely lasts at all anyways, it doesn’t persist longer than most other stationary AoE abilities on shorter cooldowns.
Crit is still arms beat stat ATM, but like you said. Can change really fast esp once more gear is out.
“He’s on fire!”
I went necrolord as arms for the flavor, story and asthetic. I dislike that my fun choice conflicts with power. I’m in a CE guild and I do get a bit of shade with regard to picking a suboptimal covenant but I can say Despite my choice I still do well in content but the things mentioned above in the thread are things I definitely feel we would benefit from. - mobile banner, - tuning but another piece I want to add is how often its available. Other covenants have abilities that are routinely available and feel more present.