Because they punish experimentation and spec switching, because they tie class power to an un-balancable system, because a lot of classes have worthless conduits.
I hate them because they are another unnecessary and unwanted addition to a problem that was solved back when RPGs were first made. They increase the power of an ability by a small amount and or add another bit of functionality to it.
Do you know what else does exactly that and has stood the test of time for decades? Levels and stat points from new gear.
If my ability, Shield Bonk, does 100 damage at level 50 then it should naturally do more damage at level 51. Maybe when I reach level 55, Shield Bonk receives an additional 5% chance to critically strike. If I get a new helmet with more main stat on it after I collect ten bears pelts then it should do more damage still.
Why you would introduce something like conduits is completely asinine and akin to changing the wheels on a car to square objects. Sure they will do the same thing, but itâs less effective and you are just going to have to throw them out and replace them sooner or later. Say, in two years when the expansion is done.
In fairness they didnât start out that way, players complained and the system was changed to what it is now.
This game is never going to be perfectly balanced, it never was and never will be. Being upset about a lack of balance is 100% a problem that we the players have created with damage meters.
Why do people hate conduits:
- theyâre acquired based off rng
- you canât target ones for your main spec
- swapping them takes energy which slows you down and stops you from being competitive with multiple forms of content.
- theyâre not terribly balanced - some classes have absolute garbage ones
- They also force you to pick really only 1 soulbind per spec
- within a class theyâre not balanced. Some conduits are 50%+ better than others, making it not a meaningful choice, but the only option
- upgrading them is tedious and redundant. I feel 0 joy - and in fact detest- when I loot one. Looks like gear or something cool! Oh⌠Itâs pos conduit Iâll never use
- I can only adjust them in my sanctum
- they take up bag space until I get to a sanctum
- there is no memory on ones Iâve looted. There have been times where Iâve had 3 of the same conduit at the same ilvl in my bag because I didnât want to go to my sanctum.
Thereâs 10 reasons off the top of my head, easy.
2 Likes
Conduits are borrowed power.
Conduits are tied to renown which is another word for rep grind.
Conduits coulda been great but they implemented them wrong.
- They make catching up on an alt extremely difficult.
- The upgrade items are also based on RNG. Slightly less now but itâs still possible to upgrade the least-useful conduit for your spec.
- They will be disabled and meaningless after SL.
- There is no way to mitigate bad RNG if youâre missing a key conduit.
1 Like
The conduits are fine
The rng manner of obtainment is not
No one likes their character power being based on rng save for gear drops (which some still hate)
Energy is also not fine. I shouldnât be forced to go re-socket my binds for wanting to run a m+ dungeon after raid.
And before anyone says nothing is forcing me to do that, by not being in viable conduits for raid tanking I would be doing a disservice to my guildies and actively hindering that groups progression. The same goes for potentially wasting that dungeon key because I wasnât effectively optimized for that group.
The mere presence of that energy needing consumed is negatively effecting potentially 29 other people on raid and minimally 4 other people in m+. Plus myself for having to take 2 trips to change them.
Literally everyone loses.
its 1 soulbind good for all specs. whats the point of the other 2 soulbinds? why even have this system? why drop random conduits for specs people dont play. Just to fill up bag space with more crap.
I donât like conduits any more or less then any other systems. Systems are systems and they make the game alt unfriendly and are annoying to keep up with.
Checked my warrior yesterday and I have two soul bind trees with no conduits added. At full conduit energy I canât fill them all in.
mEaNiNgFuL cHoIcEs though!
I keep trying to imagine what the pitch for conduit energy sounded like
Probably something like: âHey, imagine changing talents, but we put a limit on it!â
And then someone agreed and it was made 
For me, it is nightmare on alts. If you need the second or third hero for your class it is a grind. Makes it hard to play some alts. I am not a min or max guy. I just like to pair them up with those I find intresting.
When the system was made on the premise of âTrust us, weâll balance this perfectly :)â itâs a perfectly valid complaint that was pointed out very early on.
Well after a tierâs Mythic 0 it almost entirely RNG rolling on random upgrade tokens that require you to upgrade a complete set before upgrading to a new tier and in 9.1 the easiest way of getting those tokens requires grinding out Rank 6 of archivist, and the alternate way of conduit progression is more RNG on getting it to drop from a Flawless Torghast.
Probably advertised as a âfeatureâ to help ease players into understanding how impactful their decision is, and to make sure they donât try out too many too fast⌠Canât hurt deir widdle brains (never forget blizzard hates you on a personal level and thinks youâre an idiot that canât breathe and press buttons at the same time)
1 Like
Conduits arenât fun. They are simplistic power scales that get simâd and the BiS is specâd into.
All Conduits and Soulbinds should have simply been Class Tier Set bonuses over the course of the expansion.
Blizzard would have easily had enough powers for a Mythic+ Set, PvP Set, and a Raid set.
- Make tier sets instead of conduits, soulbinds and domination sockets.
- Make Torghast more fun by adding more proc damage abilities and movement abilities.
- Make Renown and the Campaign Account Bound since itâs already time gated.
- Let Players freely swap covenants.
This. is. not. hard.
The conduits themselves are fine, IMO. My only gripe is the weird upgrade system - spend research, get item to upgrade to 252 but oops! Your conduits are 226, so now you need to buy upgrades for them all to get them to 239, then it will grace you with 252 conduits on the next round.
Itâs a complete dumpster fire of a system, but it might not be so bad if theyâd at least update the tooltip to be a little more specific; maybe âboosts a random conduit up to the next upgrade item level, to a maximum of 252â or something. âUpgrades a random conduit, up to ilvl 252â is somewhat non-specific and misleading IMO.