Shadowlands - Covenant Class and Signature Abilities Preview

[Biomega]

So people are either forced to choose their "main" spec and accept that others will kinda suck

This seems to be a prevailing design choice of late, and I cannot for the life of me understand why. It seems so counterproductive and wildly infuriating - is their goal just to destroy all alternative specs and shift them to entire alt characters instead so people need to do the entirety of the work and thus play longer?

[Frolk]

Its early alpha. They have plenty of time to figure it out.

Its early Beta. They have plenty of time to figure it out
Its early in the pre-patch 9.0, They have plenty of time to figure it out
Its early in the expansion, its just 9.2, They have plenty of time to figure it out
Its late expansion, they will sort it out for next expansions Alpha/Beta phase.

[Relapses]

That is true, I would like to have the system scrapped right now and instead have a new talent row.

There you go. And while they're at it, they can bring back Tier sets. They can also get rid of M+ because nobody important plays that anyway. Just replace it with a version of dungeons that gives you cosmetic rewards. They could call them "Challenge Modes" or something like that. Then they can bring back 10 and 25M Heroic raiding because everybody agrees that it was better than what we have now. And maybe we can make the big bad guy an Old God corrupted faction leader. Oh, and maybe they can add a new class that can DPS, heal or tank. And aren't there, like, Pandas or something in Warcraft? I think people might want to play those too.

Alright guys. We figured it out: Just re-release MoP and the game will be good again!

[javierdsv]

Oh, so chosing a covenant will not be based on what you like, but what you sim best for your spec.

This is going to suck, unless you can pursue a different covenant allegiance after you're done or advanced with your first.

They NEED to let you go for all covenants and let you switch between them if they want this to be appealing.
And even so, it will be very non alt friendly... but we are already used to this right?

My suggestion to them would be to: Make the class specific abilities an unlockable TALENT in the same row if you complete all that covenant content, and let you unlock them all. So when you finish the content of all 4 covenants you have 4 talents to choose on the same row.

[skumnasty]

Make the covenent abilities a special row in the talents interface, and make players unlock them each, and then be able to switch between them exactly like other talents.

Furthermore, make each unlocked covenant account unlocked.

[Crixes1]

Its not that they don't have things ready, its that they don't have things ready to share just yet.

[NineSpine]

I’m just here for the salt of spreadsheet nerds being forced to use a specific covenant for their 1% dps gain while they are fighting bosses after 2 waves of nerfs and with 15 item levels over what it was originally cleared with.

This guy knows what’s up.

This is why the game is shit now: because every time they have anything remotely interesting a bunch of people whine and scream and cry that if they are forced to make even a single decision it will destroy their ability to any content beyond LFR.

[mrtharck]

I am fine with this as long as it is only usable in outdoor content (world pvp, questing etc.) much like pvp talents with warmode on. Then people can still pick whatever covenant they like the most without being weaker in arenas/m+/raiding.

[Galathir]

Thank GOD they overhauled the signature abilities after Blizzcon. The old Necrolord one would have been a dealbreaker for me.

[Nobleshield]

This is what I was afraid of, covenant abilities degenerating down to min-maxing rather than aesthetics so fuck you if you like the Kyrian the best if the Venthyr give you the "better" ability. The fact they think this design is good is ridiculous.

[Lurker1]

You'll be singing a different tune when you roll up to groups in the "Wrong" covenant and get removed. Or when you can't clear much of Torghast because Blizzard decided to nerf your covenant into the dirt.

Getting these right is good for ALL of us. Not just good for the people that do WQ's and pet battles and call it a week.

We as a community need to REALLY test these things out and do everything we can to help them succeed with these, because if we don't - They'll screw it up and SL will be another monumental failure. If it goes well - Everyone's happy.

Nice you think i care about those content.And your feelings is still not my problem.

[Azerate]

Not very happy about this.

Maybe I imagined this, but during Blizzcon we were told that the abilities and perks of choosing a covenant will not be significant enough to affect gameplay very much. Based on this list it seems that this will not be so. Even the signature covenant abilities...it's pretty clear which roles should pick which covenant based on just that.

I'm interested in how this pans out but this is not what I expected and I'm kinda disappointed.

[Frontenac]

This just feels like it will fuck over people who play several specs. For example priest: as a holy, your biggest weakness is heavy single target healing. Trying to do grievous weeks is absolute pain. So Boon of the Ascended sounds like a perfect way to deal with it, and it might even be half decent in raids, although Unholy Nova sounds like it could be a lot like monk's revive, or at least halo, fitting right in to holy's role. And Mindgames seems pointless for a healer, unless it allows you to negate large raid damage spikes, but if that's true, all priests will be required to use that.

But at the same time, as shadow, you will have other priorities. Let's say they will leave shadow as it is now, with void form and ramp damage (I hope not, but they already did it once...). Boon of the Ascended sounds like a horrible choice, as I assume you won't be able to cast your other skills while it is active, meaning you have to use it outside of void form, when your stats are at the lowest and you deal the least damage. Or you can still cast your other spells (not sure how they will handle adding 2 spells for you to use without it being a pain to bind), but then you can barely use the ability, as you need to keep casting your insanity generators, and even missing one GCD can be a huge impact on void form duration, and your overall damage. So as shadow you might be looking to Mindgames, given it does good damage, and it fits better into hectic pace of void form. Or even unholy nova, if the range is good (probably will be go to spell for m+).

So people are either forced to choose their "main" spec and accept that others will kinda suck (and I'm getting a feeling they are going big on the covenant abilities, at least several of them feel like major power increases) and will not be able to take advantage of major QoL improvements, or people will feel obliged to level new chars for the other spec, like we had in early legion.

Which is ironic, considering they keep talking about class identity over spec.

I don't know. Seems to me like each of these abilities can be used by both healers and damage dealers, since each are doing both damage and healing. Isn't Discipline healing based on healing while dealing damage? Also it seems to me that Ascended Nova and Ascended Blast will replace Holy Nova and Mind Blast. Meaning that Ascended Blast will generate Insanity.

It's like the druid's abilities. Kindred Spirit can be useful for all specs. Depending on the fight or situation, you may want to bond with a tank, a dps or healer. Now, what will the effects be, we don't know yet. Ravenous Frenzy could be great when you need faster healing or a burst of dps. Of course you would want to time it well, for there is a price to pay. It goes well with the Venthyr. Adaptive Swarm could have a great synergy with our HoTs and our bleeds or other dots in packs of mobs. Or in PvP. Convoke the Spirits looks lackluster to me, but again each spec can find a use for it.

[Tatakau]

It's just a reshuffle and reskin.

[Kataroku]

Oh boy! More borrowed powers! Can't wait!

/s

[EyeOculus]

I’m just here for the salt of spreadsheet nerds being forced to use a specific covenant for their 1% dps gain while they are fighting bosses after 2 waves of nerfs and with 15 item levels over what it was originally cleared with.

You speak out of my heart.

[SynDethroc]

DEFINITELY still going Venthyr on my rogue because 1) vampires and 2) Slaughter sounds brutal as hell, but damn the Serrated Bone Spike ability is tempting...

[Frontenac]

This is what I was afraid of, covenant abilities degenerating down to min-maxing rather than aesthetics so fuck you if you like the Kyrian the best if the Venthyr give you the "better" ability. The fact they think this design is good is ridiculous.

Everything degenerates down to min-maxing. They reformed the talents to diminish min-maxing and we all know what happened: min-maxing happened. So just take whatever Covenant you like for whatever reason you like (min-maxing, aesthetics, storyline, etc.). Just don't complain because you don't get it all. That's life. The choices we make force us to sacrifice some options. As for myself, I will probably just choose the Covenant that offers the most compelling story and feel. I couldn't care less for a trivial increase of whatever for choosing option A instead of option B.

[Very Tired]

Blizzard doesn't really seem to like to acknowledge that there is a meta in there games. Same reason they left that boring GOATs comp a thing in Overwatch for so long. There is no "pick what best suits your playstyle" because this game isn't balanced around enough to support that.

[woofpup]

Blizzard: Here's some pre-Alpha information.

MMO-C: WTF, why isn't this information complete?! Lazy Blizzard.

Ok, cupcake, you go do it then.