Ooo that’s a very excellent point. The covenants make for an interesting way to personalize our character in how they are.
1 Like
This looks very concerning to me.
You can tell for many classes, there are clear choices depending on the content you do. Raid/M+/PVP have different “bests”.
I want to choose my Covenant based on aesthetics and lore, not power.
I hope this is completely reconsidered, as is, it is a horrible idea.
108 Likes
Yeah, this will be worse than azerite unless Blizzard lets people swap whenever they want. Think people complained about needing new sets of azerite gear when they changed specs? That’ll be nothing compared to what we get over this.
I can already see the usual Blizzard defenders oiling themselves up and getting the fireplace going for a nice months-long session of telling us how horrible and wrong we are.
56 Likes
Then do it. You aren’t being FORCED to pick one over the other. The abilities aren’t the only thing each one has. There are still the Soulbinds.
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In before all the kneejerk doomsayers judging an entire system before seeing it will play with the other changes coming such as the level squish and soulbinds.
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I like the concept of the Covenants providing distinct paths. It should be great for alts.
There will be some bumps in the road, and complaints about balance, but it’s worth it for the gameplay variety, story component and replayability, imho. (Azerite gear had nothing comparable to this.)
If particular players absolutely must have the best Covenant for gameplay purposes, they can always explore the other options on alts. I will probably choose according to a combination of factors.
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How about no? The point is that your choice is meaningful. The only fault is with you if you are not satisfied with your choice. You shouldn’t pick based on power, pick the one you like the most based on looks and the lore.
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Okay, but if you’re going to make some better than others from power perspectives, or even divided based on content, people who are spreadsheet obsessed like myself are going to pick things based on spreadsheets and sims. That’s my favorite part of this game. However, I would also like the transmog of my choice.
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If you think this will be balanced by adding even more stuff on top then I think you’d better wear a helmet when you eat your cream of wheat - you might hurt yourself.
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Okay, I like the abilities. But I’m really worried about the balance of all this. I just hope it works out.
And nobody is forcing you to play the game at all. But you like to, and want to perform as best you can and also choose the aesthetic/lorepath you like most. There’s no reason to have a negative and a positive rather than just having both positives.
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Will you be able to change Covenants easily? I don’t want to level 4 characters of one class.
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No, the point is that your choice is MEANINGFUL. Changing between them is designed to be difficult or else it’s pointless.
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So when there are inevitably balance issues the answer is just to reroll?
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This is one of the poorest attempts at trolling I’ve seen in awhile. We don’t have numbers just yet. Other things are still coming into play. Show an iota of patience before screaming the sky is falling.
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i am not someone who does mythic anything so i’ll be choosing what i like the looks of the best. the mog etc. the cool stuff that goes along with it. i probably won’t change my dudes at all honestly. min maxing ruins everything fun in this game. 
11 Likes
This is not the early 2000s anymore, gameplay systems like this will always be treated as a mathematical problem in the modern era. People will not be choosing their covenants based on what they like, rather it comes down to sims. In the same sense players will largely prefer to play with people that are choosing to play with the highest simming covenants for the content that they are doing.
This is easily the biggest point of failure for shadowlands, tying player power to this system is a massive issue. Please consider adding these onto a new talent row rather than constricting player choice.
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The answer it to pick the one you like the most, not the one that is strongest.
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Not screaming, not trolling. Just pointing out the painfully obvious based on more than a decade of watching Blizzard implement new systems.
You want Shadowlands to succeed, or do you want Blizzard to spend the first several months dealing with negative feedback and then wasting live development time trying to fix this?
15 Likes
This don’t sound too fun man!
I just wanna play my class with my classes power not some abilities that have anemia power.
My lawd PVP vendors was a good start but this just sounds like AZ traits 2.0
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While, as a causal player, I think this is all very cool and interesting, I am concerned that these abilities will be locked to a specific covenant and will cause players to choose what covenant is optimal for their character, rather than the covenant they want to play for themselves.
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