No, what we’re talking about here is this claim of yours:
Which is just FALSE.
You can’t even come up with THREE PEOPLE who are stating their intent to do this, and you claim that a “MAJORITY” of people are planning to blacklist others?
That’s ridiculous!
Are people concerned this could happen? YES. That’s the whole point.
Are tons of people PLANNING to do this? NO. You’ve found one. If that.
I did, you’re just being dense.
Which is odd since every time you create yet another thread, it’s always about fondling numbers at the ‘progressive’ edge of the end game.
You’re not even reading or replying to actual posts, you’re just making stuff up that you wish people had said.
It’s like debating in the Kingdom of Make-Believe. Say hi to King Friday for me.
I think you’ve missed the point where I’ve already got three shamans and I will have four. At every possible scenario I’ll have the strongest covenant ready to go 
I am reading and replying to actual posts. That’s what I’ve been doing this whole time. That’s why I usually cut each thing I read into its own section so I might reply to one thing at a time.
I’m not making stuff up. You’re being dense.
Lmfao
I’m more than casual and I don’t think the sky is falling.
Until the other shoe drops and something else is wrong in the land of semi-important raiders. I honestly can’t wait to see you come back to the forums bawling your eyes out about Legendaries or Torghast on behalf of yoursel–Cough I mean, the casuals.
This is a peak Ralph reply.
Things I’ve made posts about on the forums:
People WILL deny you into groups for being the “wrong” Covenant. Like I mentioned before some Covenants are massive gamechangers, and making it hard to swap between the two won’t fix that.
If you’ve got two otherwise equal players, same class, same spec, same gear, same experience, and the only difference is their Covenant, then people will make their decision based on that.
Saying that they won’t is just denying reality.
Which is precisely why I believe Covenants should either be cosmetic with their power moved to a system like talents, or they should be able to be easily swapped.
Rated PvP is casual play. You don’t have to spend 30 hours a day to do some 2’s.
You misread. Let me rephrase that.
If you pick a Covenant for Frost, you will be less Tanky when you play Blood.
If you pick a Covenant for Blood, you will do less DPS when you play Frost.
If you play both specs at a high level, whether you’re the “flex” third tank, or simply DPS mainspec but tank for M+, people will feel like they’re being penalized for not sticking to one spec or one role or one form of gameplay.
Alright, numbers are always going to be up in the air as it is beta and people are reporting a 30-40% DPS spread. I doubt it’ll be that high, but considering how tight enrage timers on fights like Ashvane and Fetid were during progression, even a 10% spread would make a huge difference.
So I’ll use the actual utility examples.
The two we’re going to compare are Fleshcraft (with CC Immunity Soulbind) and Door of Shadows.
Having access to Door of Shadows allows you to replicate many of the strengths of a Warlock Gateway without any of the prior setup needed. And you don’t need to choose between one or the other and they stack.
One VERY important detail of Door of Shadows is that it is a Teleport, so you can teleport through stuff that would otherwise kill you if you Warlock Gateway’d across it, or used something like Heroic Leap, nor will you aggro any mobs you Teleport past, so long as you Teleport past their aggro range.
So some examples of where Door of Shadows would have been good within BFA.
Whereas the CC Immunity only lasts as long as you have the shield, and 20% of your HP (the minimum) is not a whole lot in either Raids or M+ as most CC abilities do significantly more than that of your HP, such as the stacking freeze on Jaina, or the stuns that Carapace and Drest’gath like to do.
But a CC immunity, even if it’s for a window of only 2-3 seconds is gamechanging in a PvP context. As a Healer it would allow you to escape being stunlocked while your partner gets mauled, and as a DPS it allows you to murder the healer with no fear of being peeled.
I’m not saying that. Tewa is.
I’m saying that they will; I just don’t agree with the reasons as to why.
I don’t think I was descriptive enough. I was talking about Rated Battlegrounds that are usually pre-made groups and such. I’m not talking about just normal rated 2’s.
True, but that’s getting into some seriously small numbers I imagine. You’re still going to do plenty of DPS as a geared Frost DK; You just might not be doing, overall, more DPS than a guy who picks the optimal covenant for Frost. I can agree that picking your covenant based on spec alone will be complicated.
Is there a video or something of this? That seems substantial for a single on-use ability and some passives.
Right, so I see what you’re getting at. You’re hi-lighting how two different utility abilities could make a difference when it comes to PvE and PvP content. Yes, the door seems super power but couldn’t you use it within PvP as well and use that for some strategic plays? If not, explain how.
I suppose I’m mostly convinced on the CC immunity when it comes to PvE, but I feel as though it could still be used in certain instances come Shadowlands, particularly in M+. Raids are difficult to balance anyway - I see Raids being the biggest example of how content will force a player to pick a certain covenant.
Even then, you could just take two Warlocks and find the player who chose the door over the CC immunity.
I play a minimum of 4 hours a day, usually more. I certainly consider myself casual. I don’t raid, do dungeons, pvp, island stuff. I do WQ emissaries, assaults, Darkshore. My cloak stays at 5. No need to go higher for the things I do. I have 15 characters that I work on if upgrades are available.
…and therefore will make a post about it on the GD.
It’ll be an issue in all forms of end-game content really, the only difference is whether you play at a level high enough that it’ll personally effect you.
Whether that be Raiding, RBG’s, Arena or M+.
It all comes down to the numbers. No-one has anything solid yet, because half the Soulbinds aren’t even finished. Utility is the best comparison we can make, because that’s far less likely to change than Blizzard buffing or nerfing something by 50%.
However, I think it’s a pipe dream that Blizzard will balance these effectively considering their failures to do so with Legiondaries, Azerite Gear, Essences and now Corruptions.
It might have been the difference between the Covenants themselves, not an overall. I.e Covenant one gives a net 10k DPS increase, Covenant 2 gives a net 14k.
Rather than Covenant one means you do 100k vs 140k.
I don’t think the numbers will be ridiculously off base, not before the launch of the first raid tier at least. But I do think there will be a big enough gap that Covenants will make a serious difference on DPS checks like SL’s version of Fetid Devourer or Ashvane, which tend to be the first, and biggest stumbling block of most guilds each tier.
You could, but the average gain of doing so is unlikely to be better than the average gain of a CC immunity.
For every one melee-cleave you manage to Benny Hills, you’re probably gunna fight like 5 RMX comps that you’d love to have the CC immunity when they Poly/Sap you into oblivion.
The biggest problems with Fleshcraft as a CC immunity are threefold.
If you’re a Tank, you’ll get a much larger shield, true. But you’ll also be taking damage from other sources (like the boss smacking you in the face), so the CC immunity will be even less valuable.
Ultimately it comes down to what I described earlier, the average value of Door of Shadows in PvE will be ridiculously higher than the average value of Fleshcraft.
You can do both. I compare Doorway to Gateway a LOT, they’re very similar abilities. But you won’t be benching your Warlocks just cause it exists, you’ll be using both abilities in tandem, especially for fights like Carapace, N’zoth and Azshara.
As a filthy casual, don’t presume to speak for my enjoyment of min/maxing.
I’m most definitely planning to do this.
I dont consider that casual but I get your point.
Edit: for perspective theres only 24 hours in a day if you spend 8 hours sleeping and 8 working and 4 playing wow and 4 doing other things it can easily be seen as a very big commitment. I’m not perfect I definitely play more than that just simply putting numbers asscoiated with casual/hardcore.
You’d think casuals would prefer to be able to swap covenants given it will be more fun and variety.
If they want covenants to be meaningful choices then feel free to not swap them at will.
The diverse reasons why people play this game is enough of a reason to understand why people - regardless of time invested, content done, skill level, knowledge etc - would care about potential flaws that hinder the way they play.
People will want to swap for different reasons. Power, gameplay, aesthetics, story, identity and none of those are tied exclusively to one definition of a player or another. Obstructing and punishing players for something that can be detrimental to their experience in the game - notably power and gameplay - isn’t ideal. Meaningful choices can still be achieved, simply through other means outside those two key areas.