i rarely make my own manual groups, by the time that happens i am desperate enough to enlist anyone. otherwise i am at the mercy of the group finder algorithm.
edit: it was easy getting groups to joust and down chillmaw 10 years ago because icecrown /who was never ever empty
another edit: i wonder if someone will go ‘DoubleAgent’ and go thru the expansion without picking a covenant. i had one alt get to HoA level 80 before i caved and unlocked essences. the item level of HoA jumped up like 50 points
You’re answer implied that races aren’t significant enough for you to care, so you also won’t care about covenant.
The point I’m making is the covenant’s as they are now are much more than the 1.5% difference races make. It would be very hard to expect a hunter or rogue without the pvp covenant abilities to even remotely compete against teams whose players do have them, because the abilities are currently that game changing. Likewise, the dps cooldowns are far more powerful than any in game racial by many magnitudes.
If you don’t care and will still take the player, that adequately answers the question. If you don’t see why covenants are far more impactful to performance than racials, hopefully I’ve explained it well enough.
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It’s really too hard to say right now without knowing more specifics are testing, but I think the answer is no; at least to begin with
People are going to choose the covenant they like more often than not without knowing which is better or worse.
That said, once it becomes common knowledge, it could become more restrictive on DPS on the top end I’d say. I feel Tanks and Healers will kinda get a free pass, since those roles are in more demand regardless of covenants…
I hope Blizzard can balance the covenants in a way that they’re impactful but not too impactful that X is better than Y 100% of the time. Blizzard is confident they can, but it’s really too hard to see into the future. And previous attempts… make me a bit nervous, but still, curious and hopeful.
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If you’re not shooting for world first mythic, covenants won’t matter that much. I’m sure Blizzard will work on balancing them, too.
So what you’re saying is we should split the playerbase into EIGHT sections.
Goodness, if it took forever to fill the Hall of Fame before…
when i make a party im only accepting bastion players
not because of any abilities or anything but bastion is objectively the giga chad covenant where all the manly men and woman hang out. i don’t want no scrub vampires or necrolords in my party
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Some covenant abilities already in place annihilate on aoe, making a huge difference at any M+ key level. In pvp, an extra 15% heal debuff or the ability to shoot through walls does not require “top tier/world first” level players to be a must have for even entry or mid level groups.
I agree that blizzard will do balancing, I am not sure they are setting very good starting points if balance is intended.
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I’d shun them from the community
No, I won’t take anyone that chose wrong. AKA anyone who didn’t choose Venthyr.
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If player skill is any factor I’m not worried about ability/race percentages.
How much of a dps loss are non orc players suffering?
Oh, I’m supposed to take Kyrian, eh? Well, heck with that. Xialla would hate everything they stand for, so that’s not happening. Good thing it won’t matter for me.
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Someone always says this lol, it doesn’t matter what you do in the game, what matters is how the community perceives it. If one of the covenants becomes known as the trash covenant then anyone with that covenant is going to be considered trash and won’t be invited to do content. I’m willing to bet 10k gold that within the first 2 months you’ll see “LFM M+10 checking covenants” 
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Are you trolling me? There are no questions about race.
The dps loss of a non-orc is less than 1%.
The performance gap between covenants is easily over 10% on many abilities.
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Sure but I won’t take someone with the wrong Tmog. Maldraxxus leather set is banished.
Well maybe not the boots, boots are okay but you have any other piece we may need to chat.
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Does Kaurmine’s helmet get a pass?
Sure. It didn’t matter before, why would it matter with this borrowed power.
Give people a method to exclude others and they’ll do just that. It’s sad, but its true.
We can only hope that they’ll balance them so that “on average” they’ll be “fairy equal” and it’ll be a matter of “how do I want to specialize?”
Perfectly balanced is impossible. All we can hope for is “fairly equal”
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I’d say yes! I’m not a big old Tmog yatzi or nothing… just that one set, bleh.
Edit: This is very embarrassing, he’s not even mogged! Man I was too slack now, need a middle ground.
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This from personal testing or extensive global testing and this is the conclusion already?
I don’t think there is enough data out there to know the tradeoffs of eachother yet in certain scenarios.
For one, the current iteration of borrowed power has much less active choice. We can’t choose what azerite drops, and the cost of buying specific azerite is months of residium.
Two, sometimes discrimination is based on opportunity. because azerite and essences have so many degrees it’s very difficult to discriminate. a rank 1 essence has about 2/3 the power of a rank3. a person might have partly optimal azerite gear. But many of the existing covenant choices are pretty black and white, and much easier for players making groups to review.