Yeah, I think we’re in agreement on this. Sorry for the confusion over that one.
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Haha that is my bad as well. Simply opposite sides of the same coin 
But yes I agree. Realistically that seems the best way to keep the balance and the interest in the system whilst also making it flexible.
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Pretty much we didn’t get the answer what we wanted at all which in reality the truth is they made covenant system so convoluted and intertwined with other systems it kinda ruins the point of things
You younglings never learn… 
The signature ability is not the issue, it’s the class ability.
You can simplify conduits and soulbinds. Frankly, Ion is a little disingenuous when he claims that Covenants absolutely need a “player power” component : they don’t. I don’t think anyone would really care if the game had much simpler systems at this point, so long as we had Renown to farm for transmogs.
It’s not like the players rant and rave about the Artifact Power progression system and the Azerite Power progression system.
I mean, that one is easy to understand : Pre-patch is earlier than the expansion and classes need to be ready day 1 of pre-patch, whereas Covenants have an extra month or so.
That’s why the focus was on classes first, covenants later.
Mmm…I suppose. But at the same time, we’re coming on the third expansion where Blizzard has implemented a borrowed power system that was unsatisfactory, was told it was unsatisfactory, but then dug their heels rather than change it, only yielding much much later after the damage had been done.
I don’t think Shadowlands can survive going through another example of this…
I don’t think you are quite understanding the whole system.
Class abilities are just one part of it, soulbinds then affect those class abilities, soulbinds also affect conduits and acquisition rate, and conduits also affect class abilities.
It’s all very multilayered. It isn’t as simple as saying “just give everyone every class ability” because then you would be missing out on important parts of those abilities like double activation on Kyrian DH or 30% increased duration on the dps cycle of Blessing of Seasons.
That’s why I discussed an alternative that disassociates power from covenants whilst also keeping their interactions in place.
Because you know, soulbinds can’t instead affect some other ability or just the signature ability… We sure as heck have never had artifacts that affected different class abilities rather than some new fangled thing they will never get to balance and that will affect our armor transmog choices. Why is armor transmog tied to player power anyhow ?
… or you know, all of that can’t simply just yanked and leave Covenants to be what they need to be : a choice of armor, weapon and mount designs.
Give no one no abilities.
Create a level 60 talent row.
Call it a day.
They can’t balance 36 specs, no way are they going to be able to balance 144 of them. It will suck when the best covenant for your spec is your 4th choice as far as esthetics go, and you’ll be stuck with it because of Blizzard Balance.
You get choices between things like channelled whilst moving, movespeed after cast, changed to instant cast etc. They don’t directly translate across.
What you are suggesting is just literally pulling 90% of the design of SL, honestly that would just be pretty boring imo.
So are the level 60 talents all going to be passives in your design?
To a point I don’t disagree, but typically a lot of that class balance has been very similar to these covenant choices.
Outlaw for example isn’t exactly the best performing ST raid spec, however it is almost unparalleled in lots of AoE situations.
Specs like Destro Lock are really good on council style fights, but fall behind in most AoE situations etc.
Each spec has its strengths and weaknesses, much like covenants do.
A spec that is good at ST could take a covenant that really boosts their ST making them truly excel at that style of damage but be less effective at cleave/AoE, but maybe instead they take a more AoE/cleave focused covenant that strengthens their poor AoE but doesn’t really help them further excel at ST.
That’s the whole point of it. It’s not meant to be “when I sim these they are all equal”.
That’s very true, and it’s also going to suck when you pick a covenant you don’t like because it’s obscenely strong but then it gets nerfed to put it in line and now you have a none OP covenant for an aesthetic you don’t like.
I can honestly say though, unless you are pushing 20s or doing CE mythic raiding in like the top 200 your covenant choice should not affect your ability to complete content.
the thing is, if you read and listen to all of what ion has said in the last few months it becomes clear he is at best misleading people.
Right now, you could also get increased Templar’s verdict damage or reduced CD on Divine steed. There’s nothing in the system that forces soulbinds to only interact with the specific covenant class ability.
YES! YES I am. Let’s do it.
No, they can be the same as current talents : a mix of passives and actives. You know, a new talent row.
The problem is that now, my transmog choices are tied to their bad balancing ability. And that is not something that’s fun in any kind of way.
This is so wrong. You don’t need to top 200 to need that little edge of push. Anyone in the HoF race (which is not top 200 since Alliance doesn’t close at the same time as Horde) and even beyond the first wave of nerfs still needs that edge.
The players playing at top 500 or even top 1000 don’t play as good as people at top 100 level. They use FotM same as top 100 for different reasons : to pad their inefficiencies. Mythic bosses are still hard and still require hundreds of pulls and it’s dumb to purposefully gimp your toon when you’re still trying to beat those encounters.
No one wants to do an extra 50 pulls on a boss because Jimmy is special and Jimmy refuses to play what works best and Jimmy sure as heck ain’t Method material.
I think you are thinking more conduits, although they do have things that directly affect class abilities, like replicating the ability, spreading the DoT every tick, increasing duration of a specific buff by 30%, increased duration, reduced cd, increasing periodic damage, increasing crit per stack etc.
It’s more their interaction with singature abilities, although there are interactions with the class ones.
But I’d say they do have interact with the specific one otherwise they wouldn’t make sense.
One of Fleshcraft’s gives you buffs depending on the corpse you consumed, there is physically no way this would work, nor make sense for any of the other covenants to replicate etc.
Fair enough, it’s just you said give no one abilities so that’s why I questioned it.
Agreed, that sucks. That’s why I’d like to see the covenant and soulbind stuff kept interacting but separated from the actual aesthetic and story choice of picking a covenant.
Which means they have room to improve more significantly than simply taking a stronger option 
I digress, I do agree with that statement. 100%. Although in all honestly those people are already potentially picking classes/specs based on competitiveness in the first place as opposed to aesthetics, RPG feel, or simply enjoyment of the playstyle.
Covenant choice for competitiveness seems like a rather small cost comparatively to what they are already doing.
No, I’m not. I’m thinking they can change soulbinds to do something completely different than what they do, you’re limiting your thinking to the current design, I’m saying that design can be turned on its head 100%.
Nothing in this whole design makes sense anyway.
That’s not how WoW works. Have you ever killed a CE boss pre-nerfs ?
Not all of them do it because they enjoy it though. At the more semi-hardcore level, there are a lot of lore junkies who enjoy WoW for its story and esthetics but prefer to play in a more challenging setting, which often classes. Covenants really stick out as something that should’ve been esthetic only.
Seriously. Is this a surprise.
Let me tell you how this is going to go. Spoilers. They will take a hard line to defend their systems as they exist now because they have to:
A) defend their work against criticism
B) justify the enormous amount of work that it likely took developing these systems
Regardless of the viability of these systems, or whether they make sense, A and B still hold.
Additionally, yeah, it is going to logically take an enormous amount of work to just strip off layers of…just layers upon layers of business that they have added on top of existing systems. Think of it like a pasture, and there is a patty. And on top of that patty is another patty, and so on. Beneath all these patties is a flower. Imagine the amount of work that it would take to extract the flower.
The first step is to acknowledge the difference between a patty and a flower, which is already difficult for most dev teams to acknowledge. Then imagine the amount of work and wherewithal it would take to actually extract the flower from underneath all the business.
Alternatively, imagine someone who started tying himself up. Then imagine he just kept tying, and then continued tying himself. To try to extract himself from the situation, he began tying new knots in the existing threads. And ultimately started adding new and complex new arrangements of knots out of new pieces of rope. Then imagine Ion Hazzikostas right smack dab in the middle with a parachute pack and you’ve got a pretty good depiction of what happened.
Good, now the whiners can feel free to just quit and leave everyone else in peace. So tired of this topic (both sides).
See you in the next sweeping round of realm merges.
He’s not worth your time, either a blizz shill or a bad troll.
Don’t worry Covenants will be replaced by a new system in tier 2 and then another in tier 3. We’ll have nothing but convoluted systems we constantly have to grind the same world quests and dungeons for the entire expansion with only one new raid each tier being the only worthwhile content. YAAAY I love how damn awful this game is going to be.
No wonder the developers get paid in honor points. That’s literally all their work is worth.
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please don’t give them any ideas of adding more systems