Ah, man, imagine if there was kyrian druid forms to unlock. those numbers would skyrocket. Same with necro (the one I will probably go with)
Lets both agree that you’re just speculating and there’s no facts to back up what you’re saying. There’s opinions, but no facts. We don’t have a definitive clue of how balanced the abilities will be. Obviously the system will be like rock/paper/scissors since some abilities will be better suited for certain situations while others are better suited for different situations. It’s not like you can say “X ability is best for raiding, Y ability is best for m+ and Z ability is best for PvP.” They’ll all have a specific role to play and honestly, unless you’re a top 10 world first mythic raider, R1 gladiator or .01% of m+, it won’t matter what you pick.
The whole speculation that there’ll be these huge differences in performance is PURE speculation and honestly, quite a bit of bias. I too was a little upset when I first heard about covenant abilities because I too obsess about min/max and like to put myself in the best possible position that I can be. I’m at the point where I’m just waiting for SL to release and I’ll see for myself how balanced abilities are.
Personally I believe it won’t matter much because there won’t be one ability that is better than the rest across the board. One might boost my trash dps in a m+ and another could boost my ST for boss fights. During fortified week, X ability might be more preferred due to having superior AoE, but Y ability will pull ahead during tyrannical week when the ST damage is more preferred. Even then, we don’t know how large/small the margin is between these abilities when you look at the end result. But to speculate right off the bat that it’ll be a failure just showcases bias.
I think they’ve commented that the dev’s are split in this approach as well.
What’s surprising is that they’re pushing this risky approach after bfa.
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And what happens if the unsubbing happens before then?
I though Night Fae would be the least popular. I guess I’m not the only weeb who plays WoW.
Unless that Venthyr teleport changes, it’s Venthyr or nothing.
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I don’t get the posters in this thread that are against the point of view that if the abilities affect performance then there must be an ability to switch and make choices.
having that choice doesn’t affect anyone that only cares about the rp aspect. In that case do what you want as well. If you wish to stay in a covenant till the bitter end then no one can stop you but to not want anyone else to play differently seems like an agenda is on the table.
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Multiple people like myself, across many covenant threads have stated that the benefit we get is from others being punished for not being able to change covenants.
Very odd that blizzard would design a system that is supported by people that enjoy seeing others suffer. Especially when there’s no offsetting benefit or reward. But from our point of view, we win specifically because others can’t enjoy the game the way they want to play it.
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Whichever has the ability that sims the highest for my spec.
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Funny that you say that…since you don’t fit into any of those categories and yet still think you know what will and wont matter.
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I can’t pick a good one because you have mixed too many ingredients into one nasty sticky mess of dough rather than baking a tasty cake. I have to chose between too many incompatable vectors.
Each covenant brings:
- Aesthetics
- Lore
- World Gameplay
- Mini Talent trees via the soulbinds
- Class specific abilities tuned for a specific game mode (PvP, PvE, Healing, Dungeons, AoE etc)
- Signature abilities like the teleport.
As a result I want on my main priest to:
- Be bastion for the Aesthetics
- Anything that isn’t emo vampires for the lore and world
- To be able to flex between DPS and Healing in both Mythic+ and Raids without one being penalized by worthless powers.
- To have a signature ability that makes a difference for a slow lead footed class like priest so that means taking the teleport.
There is no covenant that lets me get close to all this so rather than being excited I will spend most of my game time thinking I got screwed by the devs. I will probably be forced to take the teleport for mythic+ but I won’t be happy.
At the very least please separate the player power from the lore and aesthetics. Mixing them only really works in a single player game where you have no peer-pressure to be the best for the team.
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People already ruined it, those people being Blizzard developers who decided adding systems to take away player agency were a good idea.
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Psst. They’re literally giving you options.
The community is trying to take away your options by shoehorning you into the “best” covenant.
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This is something I have felt for a while about the Covenant system. I totally agree with Ion when he said that there should be impactful choices because this is an RPG. But there is also the fact that this is an MMO that drastically affects how that choice is made for many people, myself included. I think Preach had a really good point in one of his videos when he said that it felt strange that we are currently at a point were some people don’t understand why someone would be willing to pick the strongest option for the sake of it being the strongest option especially when characters getting stronger is a core component of RPGs.
For me its more than just character progression that makes me love RPGs. I specifically enjoy the aspect of my character getting stronger and all other forms of character progression are secondary to that. Unrelated to the discussion at hand, this is why over the years I have come to accept that I have the most fun when I play DPS and have never been able to truly enjoy tanking or healing as much as being a DPS. If I am given a choice that has multiple outcomes, and if one of those outcomes is my character’s power, that is the one I care about the most. I should be totally justified in saying that the other aspects of what a Covenant provides aren’t relevant to me when there are legitimate consequences in an MMO for my character not being the strongest it can be in the content I like to play.
If you take character power out of that equation then we would be having an entirely different discussion. I would totally go all-in on whichever covenant resonated with me the most and helped immerse me in the setting of Shadowlands. Unfortunately, I am not at all worried about how my character looks in the Covenant transmog or what the lore-related implications of picking my Covenant will be due to there being character power on the line. As long as I have the chance to make my character stronger by taking a specific Covenant then I will do that and pay little to no attention to any other aspect of the Covenant.
If Blizzard intended for this to be an outcome for myself and many other people, where everything past picking the strongest Covenant for my character is irrelevant, then I guess I don’t have an issue with the current design of Covenants. But I also think they should expect there to be many people who end up picking the strongest one due to this being an MMO when that player would have actually preferred picking another Covenant for the roleplaying portion of MMORPG.
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I’m in favor of the current system - but that’s because it actually takes away a lot of the potential options players could have.
They give you one “choice”. But for a lot of players - that isn’t really a choice if they play for performance.
The community “taking away options” is irrelevant since they’ll discriminate people in less optimal classes/specs/talent-builds/covenants either way. It’s not like raid leaders are going to be like “oh, yeah - because everyone can’t swap covenant abilities around we’ll go ahead and take this player that chose a sub-optimal covenant.” No way, they’ll still decline him in either scenario.
No, they’re not giving you options. They’re forcing you to make choices and penalizing you for making the wrong choice. Blizzard is the one implementing the system in a way that penalizes players for making choices, the community is just reacting to the poorly designed aspects of the system. The community is not responsible for designing the system.
It is ridiculous to blame this on the community when Blizzard is introducing the entire point of conflict.
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Necrolords gear looks cool, but yea I’m going with the Vampires.
Exactly this. Options and player agency are being taken away - not given.
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Being taken away by the community, not Blizzard. The community is doing the gatekeeping here.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Whether or not the covenants are restricted or easily changed, the community will still treat players the same way.
But by Blizzard making the covenants restricted - they’re taking away choice and player agency from players over the course of the expansion.
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