Nah. Not for my gameplay. I don’t do anything hardcore in this game and I just like messing around with different specs and builds. The Shadow Priest is an exception since the class isn’t really that well made and doesn’t offer a lot of flexibility in order to just work.
I would definitely not stick with one Covenant ability, even knowing if one is the best, if I’m just playing BGs with my friends wanting to try to do some cool stuff.
The things we are talking about are being talked about because Blizzard does or doesn’t want to do them??? 
Hey, remember what happened when D&D launched a new version of the game that most of their customers didn’t want? 4th Edition? I 'member, because Paizo ate WotC’s lunch with Pathfinder, based on the version of D&D that people actually did want to play.
That’s where your cute “my way or the highway” attitude will land you when you’re on the business side of the company-customer relationship.
I agree with you. But my post isn’t about raid encounters, even in the slightest. I like that classes have certain strengths and weaknesses. Those inherent weaknesses don’t need to extend to gated abilities/talents. DKs are immobile but do a lot of damage, Warriors are super mobile and do a lot of damage but are squishy, etc etc.
So I get punished because a Mythic raider will switch abilities on the fly in a raid? I can’t go day to day trying to design a fun build with the Covenant abilities for random Battlegrounds because someone else will use the system a way people don’t see fit? I don’t understand that.
I’ve been saying that these “mEaNiNgfUL ChoIcEs” have had disaster written all over them from their announcement.
Not only do these abilities just flat out not work for specific content they are even worse for people who choose a class that has multiple specs.
God forbid you’re an undead warlock like myself and you’re only functional covenant is with the wood fairy’s…
It’s absolutely not only a rp decision, I love pets, so I am inclined to play hunter, but if the enjoyment i found in all three specs was the same as i have right now with MM I wouldn’t play hunter.
iirc they said they want people to be able to swap them between tiers, those “certain limitations” seem pretty strict.
so healthy for the game they are the only reason I haven’t pre-ordered the expansion.
I dont want to resign myself to anything. Meaningful choice is do I want x y or z on this dungeon, not this expansion. Its a game not real life.
No I couldn’t if I decided to PUG raids this expansion, which I’d like to. The community has a tendency to shame, bully, or force a player to play a certain way when the choice is easy to select at will. Whereas, far less players exclude when those choices aren’t reversible. I point to classes as an example of the latter. You have some specs so much worse than top specs, but they still have mythic clears. Players have proven to be more lenient on someone’s choices when they’re hard to reverse.
That’s simply false. You seriously don’t think you’re going to see
“LF RDPS for X dungeon +10, Venthyr only!”
Again, incorrect. I’ll bring up 8.0 when I played a Spriest and the class was the worst DPS spec in the game at that time, or one of the worst. It took me such a long time to find a guild that raided even heroic because no one wanted to take a Shadow Priest.
Yes, when they completely outgear the content and thus the choice to bring a certain class doesn’t matter at that point.
You are using completely null points just to support your argument that actually aren’t true in the slightest. How many times do you see in LFG people looking for Rogues in a low level key, or DHs, or discriminating against class choices because the top players don’t run with those classes? I sure as heck see it all the time.
how often do people get kicked or shamed for having the wrong essences or azerite traits in a mythic plus pug group? honestly curious. i’ve never seen it. covenants will more resemble essences than specs is why i ask for that example specifically.
preist trying to do m+ would probably have something to say here.
you can have mythic clears with someone dying at the start and it would still count as him killing the boss, so yeah, everyone can have mythic clears.
(X) doubt
You have done 0 research on Covenants if you think that 2 abilities, a complete talent tree, and specific conduits that are gameplay altering are similar/comparable to essences.
I’ve stated numerous times that covenant choice will have an impact on gameplay. I don’t really know how to make that more apparent to you folks.
Their most recent statement on the matter was the changing your covenant will be easy while swapping back to a covenant you already selected will be difficult.
azerite traits and essences combined? is that better? still different from specs. i have people asking me now ‘boomie or feral?’ i do not have people asking me ‘you running 3 streaking stars and vop?’
There’s no reason you can’t stick to one choice for your RP needs while others could have freedom to swap. Everyone should be able to enjoy their preferred playstyle.
Raiding is an example, don’t get hung up on it. The point is that the following shouldn’t happen:
“Hey, wanna do some arena?”
“No problem, let me just swap to venthyr real quick.”
or
“Alright, this fight is pretty movement-heavy. Hearth out and pick night fae, we’ll summon you back.”
Swapping back and forth won’t be easy because it shouldn’t be.
again, discourages player experimentation and over all expirience. I repeat if you value a choice more than having something your values are kinda skewed on this matter.
Also point still stands that if you regret your choice because maybe you will, you’ll have so much catching up to do that they say to do it in-between raid tiers instead of when you are progressing. Seems easier to just level another pg seeing as leveling is way faster in shadowlands and right now takes something like 12h or so to reach 120.
so whats the problem exactly with this type of behavior? its the players choice to do so, so what’s the big deal? isn’t this kinda more fun?
right! it should be:
“hey wanna do some arena?”
" yes let me swap this new talent to the one that helps me in arena"
tadaa still venthir and I can also enjoy more than one type of content without feeling less powerful than other people that play my same class and spec 
Well I agree with that, which is why the idea that the abilities should be tied to Covenants is absurd.
You seem to be misunderstanding, I don’t want the abilities to be tied to Covenants, which are easily swappable. I think that abilities should have absolutely no affiliation to Covenants and should be 55 and 60 talent rows.
Exactly this. They shouldn’t have been Covenant specific in the first place. They should be talents.
Remember when we got new talents and abilities that were simply tied to our class, and not a third party system? Pepperidge Farm Remembers 
Yes you could. You’re a warrior, stand up to peer pressure. Or lead your own group into battle.
Or as my mother would say: if the RL told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?