What about the guys right now who are struggling to key their first +15? Do you think that they can afford a 20% dps loss?
1 Like
I do not understand how you can accept a one time choice at the expense of hundreds of other far more meaningful choices throughout the expansion
1 Like
I think the people struggling on a 15 probably have room to improve in their knowledge of the run and the precision in which they execute their class. But for arguments sake, assuming the above is not a fault of their own, then I’d push for a closer balancing of the abilities. I’d never advocate for swappable covenant abilities. The game isn’t Diablo 3 and I dislike the recent trend in forcing its mechanics into WoW
Those “meaningful choices” should’ve ended after the character selection screen. Which you can easily change in current WoW. Its called alts. Your main isn’t sitting there with their arms folded with plywood covering the “Enter World” button just because you made the choice to play a different class. And here’s the fun part of this too, I can change my spec whenever I want with no punishment.
All of these are a bad comparison to what’s actually going on with Covenants.
They’re not one time choices. Blizzard is allowing you to swap covenants at a price of your time, which is the way MMOs work.
Absolutely they do. But it still feels like crap knowing you could have timed the key if only you were necrolord.
There’s no possible way to balance these within 5-10% across multiple specs and all 3 major forms of endgame. Literally impossible.
It’s a multiple week grind. It’s a one time choice unless you get nerfed so bad you’re either forced to do the grind or reroll
1 Like
Just a fun note the majority of the playerbase might not even engage in this system in the way its designed at all. Its being designed of you pick some grand choice join this convenent get their power their cosmetics be part of them. New players and super casuals who barely know much of the inter workings of the game are literally just going to pick the one with the highest numbers that they see. Warriors will be a great example of this most are just going to pick Venthyr not because of there theme or story or any of that stuff thats intended. Nope they will pick it because their highest damage ability now lights up at the start of a fight and things die and they go wow thats fun i can just murder things.
There you go theres your meaningful choice not story not real design of choices of whats good or bad just hey this does big numbers imma pick it so i can click it and do big numbers all the time. So having the system restricted just annoys people who do know how to play the game and does literally nothing for newer or inexperinced players who aren’t even going to play the intended choices matter way anyway.
This system is just a nightmare and really the abilities part of it for this choice stuff should have never seen the light of day because more time blizz spends trying to make this really dumb system work. The less time is done to make alot of classes/specs not feel awful to play.
it does suck that the ability is tied to every other aspect of the covenant, like maybe i want to play mage and enjoy the Night Fae theme but hate its ability (last i saw you charged up and dealt damage to things next to you) while the Necrolord ability sounds more interesting (become a skeleton and your basic ST ability will now cleave) but i don’t want to commit to full on edgelord mode with their story/transmog theme.
They directly own up to being an RP based player.
They also are willing to admit that they would be able to play the game, and currently do, in a more strict “RPG” fashion without needing to force others to play in the same way.
OMG, you’ll have to make a HARD choice and live with not being able to min/max everything.
Some person recently wanted the ability to change talents/gear/abilities per trash mob for M+ (or similar, can’t remember exact details).
Messy as it is, lore is still an important part of the game. Covenants expect loyalty for privileges and rewards. Ditching a Covenant will p*** them off and getting back into good graces will be difficult (at a guess, unfriendly instead of neutral rep reset).
Before I checked your armory I knew you’d never done any content even close to difficult. I estimated about 450 ilvl and 4 timed dungeons. I was wrong 
444 and 3 timed dungeons
I just laugh at statements like this now
No it isn’t. Beyond pushing the hardest content early, min/max isn’t necessary and never has been. Once your raid has started to acquire gear from the latest content you begin to push through the content.
If the few thousand dps extra that is squeaked out by min/max is make or break, there is a skill deficiency somewhere that can be overcome with practice. If you can’t get a boss close to death you probably have a combination of skill issues and gear. Both of which is overcome by running the raid again and again. But to say you need to have the optimal everything is total garbage.
What you’re saying is that only the highest end of players need to min/max?
This is false. Allow me to explain.
If your entire heroic raid used this philosophy, then progression would be 2 months slower for most heroic guilds. Most guilds are already propped up by 5-6 really good players. If those players now prefer m+, then progression is seriously affected because they all lose massive dps.
You always have players that min/max at every level, and they are the ones carrying the rest of the raid through the content.
Why does it even matter if it was true that only the highest end of players actually need to min/max anyway?
Assuming only the top 1% need to do that, you still have 10 or even 20% of the players who actually care about being good at the game so they’ll want to optimize their set up
should we disregard those players just so some of you can feel happy that the game is an rpg once again ? (Which it would actually remain if the class abilities are untied btw, so why is there anyone against it in the first place)
Completely missing the point. Which is players are wanting to perform as best as they can. A game design that denies that is stupid.
Thats quite an assumption you’re asking there. I believe based off of what Blizzard has stated that they’re trying to attract players back who left, in summary, due to RPG elements being taken away. Things noticed by the massive response of resubs when Classic came out.
Well guess what? I’m one of those who left due to the current design direction catering to Diablo 3 players, not MMORPG players. This new direction appeals to me, which is why I’m back playing through the BFA story. I’m choosing my covenants based on what makes most sense to me if I was personally that class.
Pally is going with the angel guys
DK with necro guys
Shaman with nature guys
Warrior with Vampire guys
If those choices are OP then great, if not, who cares. Ill still try and complete the hardest content I can by being the best Frost DK Necrolord character I can in all of the content I can. Even though I think having an extra appendage is gross/disgusting as an ability. Ill live with that choice to have my undead DK join an undead covenant
What you’re saying is regarding efficiency. The content can still be successfully completed without having to min/max. So nothing I said was false.
Because the game should not be designed around the lowest percentage of players. They dont ignore them completely because they have content that scales to their preferred difficulty. Bit if you want to play the game to the extreme then play it to the extreme, stop asking for ways to cut corners.
It isnt denying it. You simply have to put in the effort if you want to be the best.
That’s the way it was before. This new system creates a wall to deny that.
This really isn’t a min-max issue.
Take Paladins for an example. Venthyr ability is a worse coscencrate. Kyrian ability causes you to throw Avengers Shields / Judgements at every target around you, applying their respective debuffs.
So a Prot Paladin can silence and bounce a shield between an entire group. A ret Paladin can apply their judgement debuff to every enemy around them.
Not only is that better by not even tiny margins, but laughably large ones, it’s also more fun.
This doesn’t require you to have the best everything.
I’m sorry, were you looking for an echo chamber filled with voices that say everything you want to hear? That was hardly necessary or constructive kiddo.