There's no choice in Covenants - they will be min-maxed anyway

[Valysar]

Pro WoW players: I'm gonna research the shit out of the covenants
95% of WoW Players: Which one has the owl people?

At Blizzcon :

Kyrian : meh
Necrolord : meh
Night Fae : yeah
Venthyr : YEEAAAHH

I think for 90% of player base it'll only for aestheticism

[huth]

Sorry, but it IS in fact useless. You spend 2 seconds casting something that might do 0 damage AND it has 2 min CD?

"Can be used incorrectly" != Useless. If you use it on a target that won't use abilities for the next 6 seconds, that's at least partially your fault.

[justandulas]

One is the actual, literal army of the dead, the same way the US Army is the army of the US or the Bundeswehr is the army of the BRD.

The other is a group of "vampires" whose job it is to handle sinful souls and redeem them.

Does that really sound evil to you?

Let's not forget that evil doesn't mean "not good".

Yes. One sounds like the army of the dead and the other hell raiser. Nothing about them is good

[Gaidax]

"Can be used incorrectly" != Useless. If you use it on a target that won't use abilities for the next 6 seconds, that's at least partially your fault.

Boss has a shitton of auto attacks and cast ability once in like 10 seconds... your uber powerful covenant ability did same damage like Radiant Spark minus all the 100% damage boost bonuses to spells... "hurr durr you did not use it right!"

[blackblade]

People will take the one with the mathematically best skills and that's it. I don't get why Blizzard thinks this gives choice to the players. It absolutely does not. Especially with this 'you can only choose one, so choose wisely' crap. This will only make me look up a guide on what's providing the best DPS/HPS/Utility.

Am I missing something here or is this system a really dumb idea?

More likely they'll be so minimal in difference it won't matter. Like being an orc instead of a goblin.

[KaPe]

Boss has a shitton of auto attacks and cast ability once in like 10 seconds... your uber powerful covenant ability did same damage like Radiant Spark minus all the 100% damage boost bonuses to spells... "hurr durr you did not use it right!"

And then another boss is like Jaina and constantly spams spells. Or maybe has some sequence of chained abilities which is perfect moment to use this particular skill. Or maybe everything else about this particular Covenant makes it better than the alternative.

It’s funny how this is LESS flexible than classic. In classic if your spec is bad you can pay some gold and switch (as long as you don’t do it often). On live you’re gonna have to grind it up every time you switch.

In Classic, if you're spec is bad, your spec is bad, end of story. Going from Retribution to Holy did not magically fix up anything about the old spec, you just dumped the old trash and changed your role completely.

And this more like complaing about "not being Race X for extra 1% crit = totally useless".

[Woobels]

It’s funny how this is LESS flexible than classic. In classic if your spec is bad you can pay some gold and switch (as long as you don’t do it often). On live you’re gonna have to grind it up every time you switch.

Yeah unless you pvp or something and need to switch specs often, I doubt it'll be anywhere near classic spec changing restrictive bro.

[Gaidax]

And then another boss is like Jaina and constantly spams spells. Or maybe has some sequence of chained abilities which is perfect moment to use this particular skill. Or maybe everything else about this particular Covenant makes it better than the alternative.

Jaina casts about 3 spells in 6 seconds. So you still did less than Radiant Spark with effect combined at 4 times the CD... niice...

"U dint uzz ir right lulz".

[Skorpionss]

The choice is whether you care about Min Maxxing or having fun with abilities you enjoy.

[KaPe]

Jaina casts about 3 spells in 6 seconds. So you still did less than Radiant Spark with effect combined at 4 times the CD... niice...

"U dint uzz ir right lulz".

It's still an example of spell effect working on a boss. Besides, they already dealt with such things in the past, using the "does 5 time more damage against targets that cannot be stunned/rooted" bonus modifiers. Seeing how this one is clearly meant to be more PvP oriented, it can easily have extra damage against bosses, where the root effect won't work anyway.

[brt2pp]

yeah i agree. ive been wondering why people feel like that they have a choice when clearly certain things just flat sim better than others. thats not choice. maybe in SL there will be more unique balance between talents that will actually GIVE choice as opposed to the illusion that there really is one that they pushed so hard the past few expansions.

game shouldn't be designed for min-maxers thats 1st
2nd, from what they've said , the solution for that is having many diffrent talents so sure there will best conventant for particular fight, but in another one , other will sim better

[Harbour]

People saying "oh, its difference between min-maxing and what is fun for you", duh, like there will be the variety of dozens skills with all unique effects.

No, people, its just the choice between 4 damage abilities that either do direct damage, dot or aoe. They will be the same shit when it comes to "fun".

So, no, its going to be min-maxing for 90% of people.

[KaPe]

People saying "oh, its difference between min-maxing and what is fun for you", duh, like there will be the variety of dozens skills with all unique effects.

No, people, its just the choice between 4 damage abilities that either do direct damage, dot or aoe. They will be the same shit when it comes to "fun".

So, no, its going to be min-maxing for 90% of people.

You conveniently forget to mention everything else in the Covenant that can be min-maxed and make up for this particular skill being inferior. And the general appearence/story, which be more appealing to player than tiny difference in performance.

[pinelakias]

Bitch please, we already know the pop will be 99% vampires, 0.5% the Scourge, 0.5% the valkyrs or whatever :P

[brt2pp]

People saying "oh, its difference between min-maxing and what is fun for you", duh, like there will be the variety of dozens skills with all unique effects.

No, people, its just the choice between 4 damage abilities that either do direct damage, dot or aoe. They will be the same shit when it comes to "fun".

So, no, its going to be min-maxing for 90% of people.

read about convenants before shitposting, they don't only give you one ability

[Kathranis]

I am not sure it will. And the reason is complexity.
The Soulbinds talent tree seems fairly large and you get multiple soulbinds per covenant. So I don't really think min-maxing will be that simple and different covenants and soulbinds will be best in different situations. If changing covenant is as hard as aldor/scryer, everyone except for the top 10 guilds will just suck it up (and the top 10 guilds will just run 4 characters per class so they have access to all covenants).

Exactly. They have compared Covenant choice to class choice. They want it to be the kind of thing where some Covenant abilities and Soulbinds may perform better in certain situations, but when taking into account all the different types of encounters, it should roughly balance out.

And if you want to min-max to the degree where you only play the top performing class and the top performing Covenant, that's also a choice.

[Kalarm]

That's one of the things that bothers me a lot with this new system. It feels too much like a big choice that will really just be annoying. People were really happy when they made changing specs easier and seamless. Maybe they took too much of a page from Classic and thought people liked being locked into a choice, so we're gonna do that for shadowlands!

Do they want us to go back into the era of "I got 3(now 4) shams each in a different spec(now covenant)"?

Then there is the transmogs. How will people be able to collect them? I love the Night Fae identity and it feels like the logical choice for my main (enh sham) lore wise. The plate set tho, I'm not impressed. We sure didn't see all the sets but the Kyrian mail set is looking really good. And I really like the necrolord and venthyr plate sets. What happens then? Do you join one and get the mogs, then join another? So then the sets are not truly a mark of belonging to a covenant but just a sign that you grinded it...

In short, the covenants seem like a headache to choose. You gotta choose one, and do the plus and minus of those:

1: Covenant abilities you prefer in day to day (both the standard ones and the class one).
2: Covenant abilities you prefer when raiding (or PVPing or WTV your main end-game activity is/will be).
3: Transmogs.
4: Lore wise which fits the most with you... That is not for everyone I admit. I just don't see my enh sham joining the necrolord or venthyr.
5: Other perks, mounts, etc.

You gotta think of all these things and make a choice... It feels like too much IMO. It feels like when you had to choose between armorsmith and weaponsmith back in the days and you really didn't know which would pay off the most later on. It doesn't help how "volatile" balancing is. Maybe you'll choose Venthyr because in 9.0 their ability is so much better for your character. Then they nerf it in a hotfix and suddenly you would of preferred to be Kyrian because you actually like the ability more and it's now a negligible DPS loss.

We can't really know until we see the beta and play with the stuff, but the concept for now feels a bit like... a prison. Maybe Sylvanas was trying to warn us exactly about that hahaha.

[Lurker1]

read about convenants before shitposting, they don't only give you one ability

yep it's also armor and weapons and more! so anybody who only goes for one thing for picking there covenant is a derp imho.

[Kathranis]

People saying "oh, its difference between min-maxing and what is fun for you", duh, like there will be the variety of dozens skills with all unique effects.

No, people, its just the choice between 4 damage abilities that either do direct damage, dot or aoe. They will be the same shit when it comes to "fun".

So, no, its going to be min-maxing for 90% of people.

You essentially get two active Covenant abilities (utility + combat) and a choice of one of three Soulbinds, which are basically talent trees.

[serendipity11]

Not if you don't give a crap about min/maxing because you play the game for fun, not to be 1% better than everyone else.