#PullTheRipcord Blizzard, the flaws of Covenants have already been exposed

The nerf to night fae having access to a Shadowmeld should be a warning sign of what we expect to have going forward going into release.

In case you’re not in tune of what the #PullTheRipcord movement is about, during the interview that took place between Ion Hazzikostas and Preach, Ion talked about in the scenario where Covenants became too big of a mess to deal with that they had a system where they could open the system up and make everything easily swappable - He referred to it as pulling a ripcord.

In my opinion, based on Blizzards track record of balancing features in previous expansions including BFA - Blizzard has not demonstrated they have the required manpower or knowledge to handle balancing the below systems fairly.

  1. Tank Balance
  2. Healer Balance
  3. DPS Balance
  4. 4 separate Covenants powers and signature abilities.
  5. Conduits
  6. Legendaries

In a genre and game where the meta has existed for 15 years, trying to crush it by forcing players to become a specialist in one form of content where Blizzard will do sledgehammer nerfs after the fact (Thunderous Blast + Other azerite traits and Corruption nerfs like -50% Damage done by Echoing Void + Ineffable Truth).

It’s a no matter of if the pulling will happen, it’s if it’s going to happen before 9.3, I think the game would be much more healthy, fun to play and enjoyable for all if we pulled it before release.

Sincerely, a concerned veteran of 15 years and current 12/12M raid leader.

#PullTheRipcord

Edit: Reporting for spam isn’t the same as a dislike, come on guys.

-------------
This forum post has been locked by a Forum Moderator as the conversation has gone off topic and some behavior in the thread has been reported as inappropriate, trolling and harassing. We are okay with others having differing opinions on this topic, but differing opinions can be had without insulting, trolling or being inappropriate on the forums.

351 Likes

Blizzard, some of your covenant abilities just straight up don’t work in certain forms of content. How am i supposed to use Vesper totem in arena when it dies so quickly and has a range of 8 yards!

I’ve just started doing arena. Currently I have a second set of gear with my correct stats, correct gems and correct corruptions. Not everyone wants to do this to be the best in two forms of content but I was willing to put in the work to do this.

I’m losing the ability to do this in Shadowlands.

#PullTheRipcord

50 Likes

This hashtag doesn’t mean anything anymore.

29 Likes

To you!

#PullTheRipcord

44 Likes

If you don’t have anything constructive to say about the system people leave the thread. This low quality trolling is not welcome here.

#PullTheRipcord

38 Likes

Hashtags are inherently meaningless.

It’s post filler.

17 Likes

They will let you swap covenants, no? I don’t get the issue here.

14 Likes

So… Does that mean your post doesn’t belong either? You didn’t say anything constructive at all.

This whole thread is dumb.

33 Likes

One to two patches max. I predict all the covenants will have to combine to take on the big bad.

Given how the writing has been as of late.

10 Likes

It’s designed as a mean to swap if you don’t end up liking your faction and such. It won’t allow swapping enough to do it as often as azerite traits or talents or like old glyphs, etc. effectively rendering this swap mechanic useless.

6 Likes

You can swap once easily, but are going to make it significantly difficult to swap back. Conduits are also on a week cooldown. For someone who raids Wed/Thur/Sunday that means I can’t swap to do my preferred content then swap back easily.

Maybe if you knew more about the system you could understand the issue.

I knew we’d see eye to eye eventually Eretflex.

#PullTheRipcord

10 Likes

Because we don’t agree on everything… Doesn’t mean we’ll disagree on everything my dude.

4 Likes

Weird. It’s almost like they’re designing it that way.

#ReeThePullcord

8 Likes

I don’t know much about this system, I stopped playing retail because I didn’t like what they turned it into. Why would you ever want to switch covenants anyway? It makes you seem like a traitor. How would your sorority/fraternity feel if you joined and quit and joined and quit and so on?

2 Likes

and for what?

what is to be gained?

I really don’t understand what massive value more arbitrary restrictions bring. This completely destroys players who enjoy playing hybrids… like myself. It makes it difficult for players who enjoy doing pve and pvp and everything else. even M+ vs raiding… each has it’s own requirements to be successful.

and for what…

can someone tell me what I am supposed to be gaining by being locked out for a week?

34 Likes

Great, I’m glad after 15 years of playing the game they’ve decided I’m no longer allowed to be optimal in all forms of content If i want.

Because it’s giving access to an ability that depending on the content can be the best or the worst. If i want to be competitive in arena and raiding. I will need access to both, I already play a non meta healer and going into content at an objective disadvantage over someone else because ?? Is insane.

33 Likes

Pull the ripcord, off Ion’s golden parachute.

14 Likes

That’s not the issue

The issue is the player powers associated with the covenants

All classes (no exception) has the option to pick a covenant that contributes to upwards of 50-60% of their characters power, or that contributes to as low as 2%.

It’s that bad.

11 Likes

After getting beta access a couple of weeks ago I have seen firsthand how imbalanced covenants are. We’re not talking about a percent here and there, we’re talking double digits.

When a covenant ability, which did about 40% of your HPS before, gets a 97% nerf, making a 10% mana cost ability not even worth to press and instead taking valuable mana away from rotational healing spells that do more healing than a 2 minute cooldown covenant ability…

To me, that is more proof (on top of the past 4 years of imbalance across all roles) that all these abilities and their interactions are impossible to balance within even 10% of each other.

I beg you Blizzard, do not let the Covenant system go live like this. Meaningful choice is supposed to be a key factor, but is it really meaningful when you have an ability that’s way stronger than others so much that it becomes the default pick? What if people want try out a different covenant in content that they don’t have access to before actually choosing a Covenant? What if they don’t like it and want to swap back?

“Oh hey that ability looks so cool, too bad I can’t try it out without having to level a new toon from scratch because it would cause me to lose all Covenant progress.” Please Blizzard, do not let this become reality. You will hurt all players who like to explore their specs and class.

48 Likes

Yeah, sounds good to me. Let the PvPers have an advantage in PvP, let the M+ players have an advantage in M+, let the raiders have an advantage in raiding. I’m fine with it. I don’t really see a problem with doubling down on your content choice. You don’t have to be the best at everything all the time.

10 Likes