I think the idea is to make the abilities swappable - and the soulbinds go along with them.
But the ability you choose (flexibly/freely) could change in aesthetics to match the covenant you picked - which could still have the existing restrictions.
This way you can pick a covenant based on the identity that fits you - but still be able to make meaningful choices based on the content/role you choose to play.
My point is that I did just this and making them swappable won’t help my situation where just nothing will compare to the CD reduction of the Night Fae Mage covenant ability. I’m always going to be gimping myself because I just do not like the Night Fae and chose Necrolords instead.
It’ll help others if it’s swappable sure. But for Mage ya gotta turn down a 10s CD reduction on all your abilities on a minute CD itself.
So you could choose Necrolord’s for the aesthetics, and pick the Night Fae ability - and when you use the NF ability, it would just be reskinned with a look that matches Necrolords.
You get the covenant you want and the ability that makes sense for your gameplay.
This is my point. I don’t want to be associated with the Night Fae at all. I don’t like their ability. I don’t like the annoying blue wave it sends out at all. The ability itself is just lame in general. I dislike it a lot. I’d rather be a giant skeleton boy.
Making them swappable will not help me. It’s my point.
It would be reskinned to look like a Necrolord ability.
The abilities would essentially be dumped into a talent row of “Shadowlands” abilities.
Forget that they’re associated with any covenant because they’d automatically match the covenant you choose.
So instead of blue - it would be blackish/green.
But I don’t like the ability in general. I need Blizzard to work on the other covenant abilities. I mean at least Deathborne is king on cleave fights every 3 minutes, but I could instead shave 20 seconds off all my CDs to setup more cleave fights if I went Night Fae.
Liking or not liking any ability in particular isn’t the issue being talked about.
It’s the tie to the covenants that’s the issue.
You’re in the wrong thread if you exclusively don’t like one ability.
It is relevant though because I need Blizzard to work on all the other covenant abilities. Making them ez pz swap doesn’t fix a core issue.
I went venthyr for thematic and transmog… but the adaptive swarm dot absolutely MELTS bosses/torghast… so I had no choice but to swap to necro, lol
I wish frenzy from venthyr wasnt on a 4min cd 
That’s a topic for another thread.
That’s another issue all together. I love the classes that have short CD’s on their abilities simply because they usually look pretty cool.
Covenant ability balance is definitely on topic on a thread talking about min/maxing the abilities.
Throwing a new coat of paint on the ability doesn’t help it become better than a CD reduction ability. It’s just like the debate against Incanters Flow vs. Rune of Power.
It’s hard for me to care about the garrisons. It drags on, it’s monotonous, and I’m tired of looking at a dozen different system interfaces trying to discern what’s going on.
Apparently they are fighting a cosmic, intergalactic war to save the WoW afterlife, but they can’t be bothered to put up a portal between them???
And no, I don’t want to play Hearthstone at the command table.
That wasn’t the topic - the topic was about how the restrictions soured the covenant system:
I mean why not? We only saved their covenant from one or multiple major threats?
And the covenants are constantly helping one another out. AND we’re the MAW WALKER there to save them all.
The question is - why WOULDN’T they bind with us???
If Superman came to earth and we could bind with him - it wouldn’t matter what covenant he chose. I SURE AS HECK would want to bind with him - especially if it meant it would help him save the human race.
It’s funny, Preach did this with his wife who never plays WoW and gave her his mythic geared, full set of corruptions druid and queued her for LFR.
She hadn’t a clue how to play a Balance druid, was pressing random abilities, and she wrecked everyones face in LFR by a good 25% margin. That’s not to say much (it’s LFR) but to show how powerful properly geared characters are over non-geared characters.
This wasn’t my issue. My problem was choosing between an ability I found fun and cosmetics I loved. It took me two days to decide and I’m still not happy.
Not to mention, some of my characters don’t fit with the Covenants they’re going to end up in, not because of player power, but because I have to put them somewhere so that I can waste my time trying to get all of the storylines that should have NEVER been locked behind Renown for a specific Covenant.
So what im getting is that there could be instead of each covenant having, what, 12 abilities? One per class?
Just have like 12- 24 general Shadowlands abilities to pick and choose from.
Maybe themed to tank/hlr/melee/range.
And then those abilities get colored or flavored by the Covenant.
So a Necrolord/Kyrian/Venthir themed version of Convoke would be available?
is that what this is about?
A character with passive that were probably doing most of her damage as long as she was doing any action was beating people in LFR.
More news at 11.
Yes I understand that, which is why I specifically outlined it.