https://www.wowhead.com/news=319270/vg247-interview-with-johnny-cash-and-ely-cannon-borrowed-power-and-secrecy-surro#p4609313
Game Director Ian Hazzikostas stated that there’s been an acknowledgement within the dev team that the game has a ‘borrowed power’ issue. Going from expansion to expansion levelling up an artefact – like weapons in Legion, or the Heart of Azeroth in BfA – and then throwing it away at the end and feeling powerless again. Aren’t Covenant abilities, Conduits, Soulbinds, and crafted legendaries just more of the same?
you know when someone has a problem…the correct choice is to get help to not need it anymore. Caving in over and over is not healthy.
Ely Cannon: I mean, there’s certainly a ‘power’ element that we’ve talked about, and that’s going to play a part in the gameplay of Shadowlands. But beyond Shadowlands, there’s quite a few things that you’ll take along with you. There are so many systems in so many parts of the game itself that are wrapped up in your Covenant choice, whether that’s cosmetics or mounts or pets – all these wonderful things you can collect and take beyond Shadowlands with you. I think there’s value beyond the expansion for that reason specifically.
so defending borrowed power by sayign u can take rewards with u?
we had this b4 borrowed pwoer…rep rewards, achievements, rare spawn drops, etc.
Don’t need gate stuff behind a borrowed power system.
Over the years, as we saw with the old talent tree system, it begins to stack up to something that becomes pretty unwieldy. So, letting us say ‘okay, Azerite items are now gone’, we have all this new space we can explore and do cool new things in, and not have to worry about those things confounding each other and fighting for players’ attention.
then prune it every few xpacs…devs have pruned a few times already. and every borrowed pwoer is effectively pruning anyways.
so whats the difference?
But at the end of the day, I understand your point and as we have in the past with these systems, we’re of course open to the idea of letting things persist forward. No, you’re not going to bring your Soulbinds with you through adventures beyond the Shadowlands, but if you look at something like the Mage Phoenix ability from Legion from the Fire Mage artefact, that was something where the player response was really strong, with people saying, ‘we love this ability, the Fire Mage rotation would not feel correct without it, we can’t live without this ability,’ and we agreed and so it’s a talent now.
class-ism.
locks, druids, hunters, and more have all had stuff that was greatly loved removed by whim of the devs.
for example:
locks enjoyed meta form for example (it gave an interestign way to play in both of its prior iterations)
I liked it casue it was somethign different (and im one of ppl who didnt really mind it goign away). I understand with DH’s would be odd for 2 metamorphs, but you baked in an npc who uses the skill (and even included it in Legion).
also still only dps class (think maybe also spriest?) that has a huge restriction on spell interrupt not being in their base kit. (its tied to a specific pet)
with as important as interrupts are now-a-days for all content this forces them to run a specific pet. (why have multiple demons when you are nearly forced to run 1 specific one?)
druid had tree form removed from an actual form for resto druids…casue “we want to show off druid armor”…casue lets remove a spec form instead of adding a glyph option that just keeps you visually looking liek a non shapeshifted form 
(this was basically doen for boomkins to have astral humanoid form recently…)
also lost ability to properly pick what travel form you wanted (was this ever harming anyone??)
bears lost MoU entirely. Was it too strong? yes. was it right to remove it entirely? no. Bears have NO way to deal with magic damage. Magic damage also tends to be THE msot lethal of stuff and if a boss is mainly magical…bears will suffer more than the other tanks. (and this doesnt count the fact that bears identity as high hp/armor tanks is no longer true and they are in a place of identity crisis)
hunters lost soem stuff they enjoyed and entire spec lost access to weapon types (they fix that this xpac? honestly cant recall as not played 1 in a long time)
back on topic borrowed power systems don’t NEED to exist for taking stuff with you into future.
They’re trying to make sure that players have many options to choose from, and that the most powerful choices will vary enough for there not to be one true way. For example, a Kyrian Death Knight might be able to absorb a blow a Night Fae Death Knight can’t, but the Night Fae Death Knight will have the advantage of mobility. Every choice should feel like it was the best one to make in at least some situations.
again why with a borrowed power system?
Bake the choice into the class by default. Let the player CHOOSE which they find more useful for their play style.
How many talents do you have that are seen as useless in 99% of situations?
get rid of em and add something different. or even add a 4th row of choices (as choices should be up to individual viewpoint)
and last bit
- Extra time from the delayed release date was spent on polish and balance - particularly with regards to fine-tuning Covenant systems such as the Covenant abilities and Soulbinds.
you mean the thing where a mere 3% vers is the best choice for majority of specs?
imagine the defining “reward” being a 3% vers.
that alone shoudl show how weak the system is and should maybe BUFF the other options instead of nerfing 1 repeatedly.
