Covenant Abilities... this looks BAD...

[Zephire]

This is wrong.

These abilities will NOT be balanced. Not because it is Alpha now and not because it will be Beta later. These are absolutely irrelevant. The abilities WILL NOT be balanced. They cannot be. There are 12 classes, 48 abilities. Each does a different thing and thus one will always be better for a specific situation. You cannot pick more than one. You pick one. If it is too good, it will be nerfed. If it is too bad, it will be buffed. But they will never be balanced. Forget about that. It is not possible.

Even if Paladin's Kyrian ability was:

1 min CD, 1 sec cast time, 40 yard range, deals 10 000 damage to 1 enemy.

And Mage's Venthyr ability was:

1 min CD, 1 sec cast time, 40 yard range, deals 10 000 damage to 1 enemy.

It would STILL NOT be balanced. Because of how differently those classes play and how well those abilities synergize with the rest of their kit. It is simply not a possible calculation. So stop crying about stuff being OP or unbalanced. That's not the issue here. The issue would be, being unable to switch between these abilities at will. Because that will piss people off. Not them being OP or weak. So stop giving the wrong feedback, stop crying about the wrong things. You're just creating NOISE.

Well put!

Also, what was really wrong with BFA gearing? I only see the neck level being what burnt me out a bit. Having to grind it to dust to unlock powers in armour or neckless. Except for that, I really enjoy the gear in BFA, especially corruption which in my opinion is the best item system we've ever had (albeight not flawless).

[Wangming]

What's wrong with the curent one? It is easy to understand. If you want to kick ass you go Necrolord. I mean they ARE the army of the Shadowlands. If you want extra flavour you pick Night Fae or Venthyr. If you are boring you pick Kyrian for your human warrior. You did pick human warrior haven't you?

[shise]

It is not even Alpha, relax.

[Lahis]

How do they intend to balance this? The abilities have such HUGE differences that will result in one being far better than the other three. Did Ion not see this coming?

After the disaster of BfA class design, this has got me worried. Will Shadowlands also have massive issues with class design now?

Probably as well as they did Corruptions.

[Arkthugal]

They are fine, if they can ONLY be used in world content. No raids, no dungeons, no battlegrounds.

The entire point of them is you can use them everywhere.

[Harbour]

There are players Billy and Timmy.

Player Billy chose Kyrian that sims better than Venthir chosen by player Timmy. Player Billy is casual but even casuals want to be as powerfull as possible with such a low cost as choosing Covenant. Its not getting through Mythic Raids or something.

So player Timmy does 10%+ more DPS or better in PvP because a Covenant ability.

Player Billy is unhappy, because he liked Kyrian's cosemtics. He has an option either stay being legitimately weaker or reroll new character to pick up Venthir. He rerolls.

Then the new blanacing patch comes in and since Blizzard cant balance things (fact! look at BFA and 8.3), they make Venthir too weak or Kyrian too strong.

Now both player Billy and player Timmy are unhappy. They shit all around the internet. And there are hundreds or even thousands of such palyers.

Or shockingly Blizzard perfectly balance Venthir and Kyrian abilities and still player Billy is reasonably unhappy because he put most the time into Venthir character while loving Kyrian aesthetic more. He feels himself fooled.

So, moral is - current system was set up to FAIL. Change it now into talent row or something, so you dont have to make Pikacu faces and promise angry players to fix everything in 9.2 or 9.3 with introduction of another bullshit system or something.

Do it right now, untill its too late, and save yourself some resources on some other things, like content.

[Raven]

Was about to say exactly that!
Can also be followed by :

It's just the first patch, it'll be fine
It's just the second patch, it'll be fine
It's third patch, they wont change it, wait for next expact.

Crazy idea i know its important to be first to say something is bad, but maybe atleast wait until anybody actually tried it ingame.

[Alvito]

well there is this thing called "testing" which will be done over the next few months before the expansion is released. I mean we don't even have them all yet. I am guessing Blizz will try to make them attractive to the type of content that you enjoy doing, whether that be M+ or Raiding or PvP

It is a valid concern since they did no testing of azerite gear in the last alpha/beta and took zero input on various systems. Sure they said they realize they should have listened more, but they say a lot of things and never act on them. For some of the new things it is far more complicated than just increasing or decreasing the numbers. It would be insane if they made each group for one feature of the game in a sense forcing all pvpers to go one route, dungeon runners another and raiders somewhere else. This would shit on people that do all or most of those things at a higher level. If something is going to leave you going down one path or make it extremely expensive in both time and resources to switch it shouldn't have character power tied to it. You can also look at people that want various cosmetic features they are stuck picking the item they want and potentially hamstringing their character or doing what they can to make their character stronger and having to pass on the items they want.

[owbu]

I know people like to just throw phrases around, but "I don't think this can be balanced" can really not be countered with "it is just alpha."

The numbers don't have to be balanced right now, because it's alpha, but the problem here is that the basic idea behind the system is flawed. We have seen over and over again how the community deals with choices. We have seen how blizzard reacts to imbalances. Both of that doesnt work with a system where you tie yourself to a faction.


This will just the up as the constant source of anger that blizzard will try to balance for two patches until they finally give up and open up the restrictions.

[Raven]

I know people like to just throw phrases around, but "I don't think this can be balanced" can really not be countered with "it is just alpha."

The numbers don't have to be balanced right now, because it's alpha, but the problem here is that the basic idea behind the system is flawed. We have seen over and over again how the community deals with choices. We have seen how blizzard reacts to imbalances. Both of that doesnt work with a system where you tie yourself to a faction.


This will just the up as the constant source of anger that blizzard will try to balance for two patches until they finally give up and open up the restrictions.

It will never be the balance people want, only way to get that balance is to make every class the same, Blizzard should focus more on making classes fun and unique to play then trying to balance them perfect.

[Flarelaine]

Blizzard: *exists*

People: OMG the sky is falling

[Captain Marvel]

Blizzard: *exists*

People: OMG the sky is falling

Your gib. I like the cut of it.

[PaladinBash]

I just wanna go Bastion because I like it and think it's cool. I don't care if the ability is good or not. Chances are it'll be good and get nerfed to shit because of crying and I get fucked over. I'd rather the try-hards just all play my stupid faction than everyone cry it's too awesome and get it nerfed and then they all just go some other faction anyway. It's what happens. Just let some shit be imbalanced. It's going to be all the morons going the same shit anyway no matter what it is so let the chips fall as they may.

[Delekii]

lmao what, "why is this early, not-balance-tweaked version of the abilities so out of whack?" <- This is you.

lmao what, "its only alpha, its only beta, its only just released, its only 9.1, its only 9.2, its only 9.3, its only 9.4, don't worry they'll fix it next expansion!" <- This is you. In the future.

Nothing will be fixed to any real degree in the future. This is even more evident in BfA than in the past. Their way of fixing it is adding more systems on top and pretending it doesn't exist anymore.

[Zendhal The Black]

I'll just patiently wait here for people who marked BFA as the worstest expansion everer to start posting stuff like "BFA was miles better" or "I actually loved azerite armor and corruptions instead of this xyz shit"

[Craaazyyy]

lmao what, "why is this early, not-balance-tweaked version of the abilities so out of whack?" <- This is you.

is this your first alpha/beta cycle?

but with that said also fuck balance, though in this regard balance is the only thing that matters since you cant choose every single one of those abilities which would be optimal tbh

[Beatman]

They are fine, if they can ONLY be used in world content. No raids, no dungeons, no battlegrounds.

No thank you.

[Malic]

Who the fuck asked for this kind of crap system????

[Raven]

I just wanna go Bastion because I like it and think it's cool. I don't care if the ability is good or not. Chances are it'll be good and get nerfed to shit because of crying and I get fucked over. I'd rather the try-hards just all play my stupid faction than everyone cry it's too awesome and get it nerfed and then they all just go some other faction anyway. It's what happens. Just let some shit be imbalanced. It's going to be all the morons going the same shit anyway no matter what it is so let the chips fall as they may.

But if you think like that and pick what you feel is cool you might loose 1or 2 % on damage done and then everyone will think you have a small pee pee and your life will be ruined, i mean play a game and play it how you like instead how other think you should play, such madness.

[Lahis]

But if you think like that and pick what you feel is cool you might loose 1or 2 % on damage done and then everyone will think you have a small pee pee and your life will be ruined, i mean play a game and play it how you like instead how other think you should play, such madness.

Playing with suboptimal talents has always been a reason to remove underperforming people from groups. Covenant Ability will be no different.