Octothorpes
Yeah, I voiced my concern during beta and it’s unfortunately as bad as I thought it would be.
I picked venthyr for blood DK M+ tanking, and every time I walk into a RBG or arena I am reminded just how useless venthyr for DK is in PvP. I’ve been declined from RBG too, despite having higher CR than requested.
Time to #PullTheRipcord.
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I wonder how many of them succumbed to the influence of the 1% metaslaves.
I know Khaelyn did, going Venthyr on their priest.
Heck even Stevie Wonder could of seen this coming.
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I did RBGs to get 2400 and I can count the amount of DKs we played against that didn’t have slappy hands on 0 hands because they literally all had slappy hands.
In fact playing against people with the best covenants was actually such a sure fact that I don’t even know what some other classes have outside their bis
Priests - Mindgames
DK - Slappy hands
Druid - Convoke
I’m truly shocked that nobody could see this coming apart from everyone.
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I saw a Boomie without Convoke the other day.
I spent the entire arena match waiting for him to convoke and he just never did it, and when he died he popped up as that Necrolord thing.
I was extremely confused.
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LOL…
I’ve had one game about that too, I felt like I was walking on ice the entire game then we just… won.
Pressure never came, must feel awful to not be meta.
I’m sure it’s a meaningful choice to have the option between deleting people and not.
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I picked necrolord on my druid to play boomy and off heal in arena. Long story short, I don’t play my druid anymore. Not regrinding that.
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I mean in essence, yes, I concur. It’s not salvageable because it was never feasible or even a good idea.
However there are ways to fix the problems. Strip powers/soulbinds/conduits from the covenant affiliation. It’s even doable in-game:
“In light of Denathrius’ activities, and the actions you’ve taken Maw Walker, the covenants have put aside their goals in favor of focusing on the danger of the Jailer. Since your calling is beyond their specific realms, they’ve built a forge of bonds in Oribos and each sent over one soulbind.”
Disable the soulbinds in each covenant. Each will have their own “flair” to match their origins, and then just add a small talent choice we can reset. Heck I know this is crazy talk but even let us change our soulbind, conduits, talents, whatever else with those fun inscription tomes.
If players are annoyed they picked the covenant for the powers and now want to change - I completely understand. Good news is that the renown catch up mechanics are actually pretty good (literally I just hit 60 on an alt two days ago and I’m already done with the covenant campaign and renown ~25). The anima / buildings aspect is a different story. Outside of some sort of one time only swap I don’t know what they can do within game that isn’t really silly.
Knowing they could do something like this I expect … 9.1 they double down on the current system adding some new feature named “spirit macguffin” that they try to reverse balance by making the best ones for each class/spec in the worst represented covenant for each class/spec and this macguffin is even more powerful thereby pissing everyone off.
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Regardless of everything else you said, they will absolutely double down on it because Blizzard always double down before giving up.
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Maybe I feel like the backlash during beta and then still going through with it was the double down. But we could see a hat-trick, wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
Shame cause this expansion would’ve been so good without player power tied to covenants and a bit more loot for the PvE boys now.
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I’ve thought that from day 1.
Interesting to see so many guilds disband/ pend recently because the game just isn’t enjoyable.
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I snipped the rest for brevity.
I see what you are saying but can’t agree that it will actually work because of the inherent nerf involved in doing it the way you are describing.
People love their OP covenant power for example. Taketh away and do not replace means bad juju incoming.
There would have to be a significant power increase to replace it…or such an overreaching nerf to absolutely everything in SL to account for it.
Or it will be another WoD moment anyway. People will walk in the same numbers or more as did about flying.
If you keep the powers, just decoupling the meaningfulness of the choice?
It all flows into something fairly involved no matter which way you go…and most ideas end up with a large player power reduction with no remedy.
In 9.1 they are going to have to do something about gear ilvls and availability, anima intake and costs, and covenant borrowed power across all of its forms.
That’s essentially gutting the whole enchilada for SL.
Or they’re, as you say, going to double down and watch the exodus accelerate.
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While the ripcord being pulled would be a good improvement, as we’ve all been saying since beta…it will take a lot more than that to save shadowlands at this point.
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Wrong cord, wrong knot.
Delete torghast too 
Yeah doesn’t mean they love their covenant . There were more people opting for different covenants because at first they saw cool this looks like it will work with this content or that content. Then because of the fact that when Blizz balances anything it all goes out of balance and creates the metas.
But Chumpion don’t you like going to the Meh to climb Snorghast ?
But since the power is married to the choice in the first place…decoupling them does make the whole concept of the covenants be nothing more than end game faction hubs…which aren’t really going to be the pillars on which the expansion rests.
IOW…without any power, there’s no reasons for most players to go there outside of having the story locked behind them. AND for that to still work, you don’t need 4, because the one that is easiest would be the default quest completion path.
it’s a cascading failure. Which is why I used the word “gut”.
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Yeah - I’m not suggesting it’s a perfect solution.
I just meant if covenant abilities functioned - in essence - like a talent tier that we could just flip through, meh. A Druid could be a Kyrian and still get Convoke the Spirits (but get to have the special buildings and transmogs).
Just trying to make lemonade out of it. Or chicken salad depending on your analogy preferences.
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