#PullTheRipcord The covenant class abilities must be untied to the covenant choice

Community General Discussion
483

For resto druids right now, we’re looking at a 20-30% increase in hps from worst to best covenant. Kyrian will literally do 30% less hps than night fae. Night fae puts 16 rejuvs out on the raid in four seconds. Do that into a wild growth into a tranq into a flourish and you can solo heal pretty much any mechanic, not to mention the mana that it will save by not having to cast a rejuv for another ~28 seconds… Kyrian replicates 50% of the healing you do onto a target. In raid 99% of that healing will be overhealing because it will be so much that they will be topped instantly and then just overhealed to eternity.

In dungeons the necrolord one will allow me to heal through really heavy single target dmg because my hots will be increased. But the nightfae one will just mostly be overhealing again…

If I pick venthyr and step into an arena match then if the enemy is able to stop me casting for 1.5 seconds during it (very easy) I instantly get stunned and chunked for like 30% of my hp. So I’ll just take it off my bars.

Do you really think it will feel good to have your main ability of the expansion feel absolutely worthless in some forms of content? The tuning will not be within 5% it’s literally impossible to do when trying to balance across 3-4 specs and 3 forms of endgame content.

And you picked one knowing you were going to suck at the other. It felt awful then and it will feel awful now. How do you think surv hunters felt in raids knowing their huge button couldn’t be used?

It won’t be a small % difference… and how would you feel if you knew you could be doing 20% more damage to the boss but you just really liked to PvP so you had to have this dog poop ability.

Classes =/= covenants this has been an awful argument since the first person who made it. Knowing a shaman is doing more healing than me is different than knowing a druid is doing more healing than me, but I could be doing his healing if I hadn’t chosen wrong.

484

Actually, Vanilla had 2 endgame activities. PvP and Raiding. You’re raiding build was not your PvP build. It cost loads of gold to swap if you wanted to be optimal in both forms of content. I wager most just learned not to be optimal in both forms of content.

You realise that vanilla content compared to now is a joke right? the race to the first kills is about optimising your trash clearing. The optimal rotation for most classes is two buttons. you can get away with playing any spec in vanilla you cannot get away with it now. That’s the whole reason why we are able to switch our talents whenever now. Vanilla is dated, people don’t play the game like the used to old man.

edit - hell on a side note, there wasn’t even a way to know boss abilities iirc. You didn’t even know what was optimal before setting foot in raid back then.

Edit 2- Just remembered fear ward from dwarf priest. It is basically considered trolling to not roll a dwarf priest on alliance, which can actually stop you from doing certain content in classic and thats less powerful then some of these covenant abilities.

485

Lol… just no. There is FAR more spec/build imbalance in vanilla than in retail.

486

Raids aren’t tuned to need optimized. If that were the case, we’d see everyone in Mythic clears on warcraft logs playing the same race, class, spec combinations for their given roles.

You, like everyone else, is making a value based judgement with only 1/3 of the information, and also not taking into account player skill, which has it’s own huge variation in performance. You still need to know how soulbinds and legendaries will contribute. It could pan out where the soulbinds and legendaries reduce the disparity between abilities.

487

You’re right, the raids are easier in Classic than they are in Retail, yet the elitist attitude still is prevalent in Classic. It’s rare to see a “meme spec” and as you say, if you’re an Alliance priest and not a dwarf, people may raise their eyebrows at you.

People like me, and there are many based on the amount of responses we’re getting on the topic, are tired of players like you gate-keeping content with requirements that just aren’t necessary for content completion. Optimal? Sure, but not necessary. So we’re all fighting back on this, because Blizzard sounds like they’re finally starting to listen to the players who have been complaining about their trend of homogenizing classes and taking meaningful choices out of the game that we had in the earlier days of WoW.

488

Did you read the top of my post about how the druid Kyrian ability will be 99% overhealing? Where do you see a skill difference there? A good player will get 400k more total healing out of that than the worst player to step into a raid. Night fae a good player will get 10% more healing out of than a bad player, and a bad player will get 20% more healing out of it than the best Kyrian druid in the world. This seems like good design to you? Instead of just being able to use Kyrian in an environment where it’s good? PvP and m+? I’m making these judgement not based on numbers at all, but based on how encounters and the class itself work.

So prolonging prog by a month because everyone in the raid is the wrong covenant can be the only solution then! Good idea lol. You’re forgetting m+ is infinitely scaling. Yes, that is tuned to need optimization. Yes, PvP requires optimization. 1% in PvP is the difference between getting a kill and potentially wasting your go and losing.

You’re right, heroic raids are not tuned to need optimization. But is it fun to be doing way less damage than your friend of the same spec because you have a different covenant? Especially if you know you’re the better player?

489

Like right now just thinking about it, the stuff I’ll be able to do with night fae in raids is going to be amazing. There’s so much cool stuff I will be able to do. There are so many ways a good player will be able to utilize it better than a bad player.

Kyrian? Not really… I’ll throw it on the tank off CD and forget about it.

Same thing with necrolord in dungeons. There’s a plethora of cool combinations of stuff I can do with it. Not so anymore with night fae…

Limiting me to never be able to try out 3/4 of these awesome combinations of stuff seems fun to you? Locking you into one covenant for an entire expansion so that you can make one arbitrary choice at the very beginning of an expansion?

490

Kind of hard to determine when the expansion isn’t even out yet. And why are you using BFA numbers instead of Shadowlands numbers anyway?

Hyperbole, thyne name is Corbenzos. You’re information is so skewed because you’re not even using Shadlowands numbers, just slotting everything into BFA and going hysterical.

491

I did read the top of your post, but I don’t player healer at the highest level, so it really doesn’t make perfect sense to me. I do understand throughput though, and I know what overhealing is. Overhealing is only a problem when mana conservation is an issue. I don’t know what mana issues healers have these days, but when I dabbled with one in 5 mans a couple of years back, it was like I had a limitless mana pull. Unlike in Classic, where I needed to worry about efficiency.

I just don’t know where you’re getting your numbers from, because you haven’t cited any sources. It’s also still alpha, and Blizzard has deliberately said they’re still tuning things and could still scrap things and remake them. We also don’t have the full picture on how our builds will look. Overhealing may not be an issue in most forms of content. Even if it is an issue, then choose the other ability if you’re that worried about it. We’ve already went over why players should be the best in every form of content. Everyone plays alts. Use an alt for the other content.

I also think Mythic+ in its current form should of never made it into the game. This isn’t Diablo 3, it’s an MMORPG. I don’t want the game balanced around a feature that shouldn’t even be in the game. Not to mention, it’s your choice to push past a +15. You don’t need to be optimal to complete a +15 and +15 is the last key that grants you rewards.

As far as how long it takes to complete a raid taking longer, who cares? You wait how many months for a new raid tier and you’re wanting to rush it when it comes out. You have over 6 months to complete the raid most of the time before the next tier comes out. Calm down.

492

People like me, and there are many based on the amount of responses we’re getting on the topic, are tired of players like you gate-keeping content with requirements that just aren’t necessary for content completion. Optimal? Sure, but not necessary

I worded this poorly when i said it i should have specified the level of content. for me, that level i want to play at is somewhere in the top 500 world (in terms of guilds). For that content, i need to be playing the best spec i can possibly play. I’m not playing survival hunter in raid anymore because i wanna push as high as i can and the opportunities for me to raid at top 500 mythic as survival don’t exist. Should i be forced into limiting the options i have available to raid at a high level just because i like the armour sets of a certain covenant? I don’t think thats fair at all my dude, i want pick my covenant for its aesthetics not for its ability just because of the content i’m doing. And yes for the content i’m doing im expected to bring the best abilities, that will be required from where i want to go.

493

I respect that. Being in the top 500 isn’t an easy task. However, I don’t want game design decisions made for such a small amount of players. It’s just unfun. Besides, even in the top 500 I’m willing to bet the difference in DPS numbers between the different dps specs represented is substantial, yet people still do it. People can learn to do it with covenants too.

494

I’m using BFA numbers solely because I don’t know the health pools for SL.

Doesn’t matter what the numbers are in SL - 16 rejuvs on a raid, combined with rdru mastery is going to be infinitely better than replicating 50% of healing onto someone. Not to mention the mana that it will save.

I mean think about that for just 2 seconds. Using BFA numbers, if I’m doing 80k hps on the raid, and 50% of it gets replicated onto one target… how fast do you think that target is going to be topped and then proceed to overheal?

Exactly. So in order to account for a lot of people having the terrible covenants, either prog is going to be extended or the bosses are going to be way easier so that people who accidentally chose awful stuff can down the boss too. Neither seem like a good option to me.

Allow me to explain.

In raids, you never want to overheal because your mana is an issue and it’s wasted healing. So a covenant that is going to be 99% overhealing is going to be absolutely useless. But blanketing the raid in hots for free and then not having to cast a rejuv for 28 seconds is amazing. Not only does it save me 16 rejuvs worth of mana, my mastery increases the healing someone receives by a percent per hot on them. Let’s assign 10% mastery to me. So now 16 people in the raid have a hot on them, which automatically increases the healing done to every one of them by 10%. If I do this right before I wild growth and efflo into a tranq, the entire raid is going to take at minimum 10% extra healing, and most of them 20-30%. Then I flourish so my hots are extended another 8 seconds. The whole raid now has all my hots on them for 20-40% increased healing for no mana cost for at least 20 seconds, when usually it would take me an excess of globals and mana to do this.

Now let’s look at my first talent row. I have a talent called abundance. It reduces the mana cost and increases Crit chance of my regrowth for every rejuv I have active. So I now have 96% mana reduction and 96% Crit chance on my regrowth. Tree form makes my regrowth instant cast and cost 35% less mana. So I now have instant free regrowths that are buffed by 20-40% on all targets for minimum 20 seconds. Or I could replicate 50% of my healing onto a target once per minute.

Now dungeons are a different story. Mana doesn’t matter that much since I can drink often. So that mana saving thing doesn’t matter. I no longer need abundance, I’d rather take one of the other 2. 16 rejuvs now turns into 5 rejuvs and then 11 regrowths which will all overheal. Overhealing in dungeons is still not ideal because you could be doing damage during that time, which is the most important factor. Now with necrolord, I can press overgrowth on the tank into necrolord ability which increases the strength of all my hots, and then go cat form and start dpsing knowing that he will not be able to die for ~15 seconds.

This is not including any numbers, just looking at the way the spec works.

Also, if m+ was not in the game I would no longer be playing it. It is easily the most fun and does not require me to be on a schedule like raiding.

It’s not being optimal. It’s having the choice to be optimal. I will play twilight dev in some keys instead of mastery % because I won’t need the healing throughout and would rather have damage. It’s those kind of choices that make the difference between fun content and content that I won’t do more than I have to

495

I respect that. Being in the top 500 isn’t an easy task. However, I don’t want game design decisions made for such a small amount of players. It’s just unfun. Besides, even in the top 500 I’m willing to bet the difference in DPS numbers between the different dps specs represented is substantial, yet people still do it. People can learn to do it with covenants too.

one thing you have to realise is not everyone can play all specs and may only be able to play one of two. These people aren’t bad players, they just only excel at a class. I only play hunter cause thats all i’ve ever really raided mythic with and my experience means i’ll perform overall better on that class on a spec i’m familiar with then on say fire mage, which i kinda suck at. People only switch when they know they’ll perform better, not when they could potentially perform better, is that hard to understand?

496

We don’t know how everything is really going to pan out or how the encounters will be, so things could end up differently than you’re explaining. However, you’re reasoning is sound. It comes back to having pros and cons to choices, which is what many of us want in the game. It’s fun for many of us to have to think of ways to compensate for imperfect choices. It’s part of what I enjoyed about older Wow and older MMORPG’s.

Allowing the freedom to choose between abilities makes it a non-choice for everyone, just like talents have become in modern WoW. In the old talent systems, which many people prefer, you chose your talent build and had cons to those choices. You would capitalize on the pros of your spec, and compensate with group/raid composition to cover the cons of each spec. That’s a more fun system to me than being forced to choose the optimal ability for each content type I’m doing.

497

EVERYONE is capable of raiding on world first level. ANYONE can follow a guide and play their class as it best performs. There is no real skill in this game outside of PvP and even that is debatable. This is not an FPS that requires a combination of judgement, reflexes, and aim while moving. This game is scripted (raiding) and it does all the aiming for you. All you need to do is position yourself correctly and push the right button. What everyone does in this game is based on what they want to do and how much time they want to devote to it. Many players balance their real lives with their game lives and that will hinder someones ability to be a ‘world first’ raider or a ‘top ranked’ PVP person.

Labeling me a ‘Heroic’ raider because I chose not to devote any real time to this game is exactly what you were chastising me for while labeling only the ‘world first’ players spectacular. I call them spectacular because they CAN and/or DO commit the time needed to be that good. That is what makes them spectacular.

498

I don’t believe it’s a non choice, as long as each one is beneficial for a different scenario. I think that’s where the real lean should be. To make every choice a hard one. Do I take venthyr in this dungeon because I need the utility or do I take necro because of its really strong single target dmg because one of the bosses is really hard?

To me those are meaningful choices. Choosing one at the beginning of an expansion is not a meaningful choice.

Being able to capitalize on the pros of your covenant does not mean it needs to be locked. There has to be a way to make the choices meaningful without locking them in.

If it were me I would make each covenant really strong in a specific situation. A really strong aoe one, a really strong ST one, a really strong utility one and a really strong resource one (gives mana/energy back). This way when you do content you are making a choice - I can keep the group up for this trash mechanic that does raid wide dmg, but I’m really going to suffer when the boss is smashing the tank later. Would you agree?

499

It’s not hard to understand and I already knew that, which brings me to my next point. By the sound of it, we have a lot of marginal Mythic raiders who can only complete Mythic by the skin of their teeth by specializing in one class/spec and min/maxing. So not being able to choose their covenant abilities hurts their chances of actually completing that content.

Whereas Mythic raiders who are highly skilled can make do with whatever and still down the content, even if it takes longer than if they could min/max everything.

There are those types that are marginal players in every level of content and min/max in order to be able to compete with those who are truly skilled for that level of content. Such as truly skilled normal raiders, who are barely passable in heroic raiding because they min/max.

It’s all relative, and if people relaxed and just played the way they want to play, maybe they’d find that Heroic raiding is challenging enough to be satisfied with. Or normal raiding, lower keys, lower arena rating and etc. depending on skill level.

500

Spoken like someone who has never done high level keys. Can’t speak to mythic raiding but I imagine it would be the same

501

I would agree in a game like Diablo 3 or a MOBA like League of Legends. But not in a RPG or MMORPG. Part of what I enjoy about RPG’s in general is that you can’t build a character that’s perfect in everything. You may be viable in everything and can beat every boss in the game, but you’ll excel at some bosses and struggle on others. It’s the same with MMO content. You’re choices allow you to shine in some areas, and in other areas you lean on others as they leaned on you in other content, to shine in the content that you’re not specialized for.

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502

That’s what Blizzard should be aiming for; multiple builds of a spec that can, in tandem with all the other classes, achieve any form of content regardless of the difficulty slant. Of course there will be an optimal curve, but that’s not the intention of the developers.

I find it perplexing that you want to remove the Covenant restrictions for variety solely for the purpose of picking only optimal talents for the task at hand, thus restricting anyone who wants to do end game content.

‘Lift the restrictions so the players can enforce their own later.’

I’d rather have the former than the latter, because the former is known; Blizzard will do what they think will better the game a s a whole, compared to the individual ‘skilled’ player who dictates what is and isn’t acceptable using their own standards.

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