Covenant Abilities... this looks BAD...

[Laughingjack]

if you have the power to swap then there is no devotion.
people want class fantasy, but they also want to be able to do everything.
they want specs to matter, but then they want to be able to swap between them easy
they want your choices to matter, but then want to be able to change every fight.
they want "something unique" but then want to have that removed.

You should say "Im a demo lock allied with maldraxsus"
not
"I am a player"
all this "I want to be able to switch classes in 2 seconds, then specs, and talents, and covenents" ruins any player identity.

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except it wouldnt, some classes would still be far better then others in X Y and Z.
this would just make it easier to change and give us less choice overall, as idk how you wanna put 8 abilities into the talent tree.

I don't see how that makes the case that certain classes of the same spec would perform better makes more sense. It is also 4 abilities and a baseline one that works like s spec.

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Re-experiencing Classic might have rekindled that flame for some.

Did they actually play classic? It doesn't have anything like that beyond maybe racials?

[SLNC]

Classic racials could be a comparable example, yeah. Optimizing players choose their optimal race, others don't care. They still are able to clear content.

Just like people, who might choose their optimal raid Covenant, will be able to complete their weekly +15 key. And vice versa, people pushing high keys (>+15), and thus choosing their Covenant like that, will be able to clear raids. If you want to change your focus, you either suck it up and change your Covenant or level up an alt.

[Mikhas]

I am hoping that Blizzard makes these abilities only usable on world content and Torghast, so nobody feels like they made the wrong choice. In that way only the Soulbind you choose matters on raid and rated content.

[Laughingjack]

Classic racials could be a comparable example, yeah. Optimizing players choose their optimal race, others don't care. They still are able to clear content.

Just like people, who might choose their optimal raid Covenant, will be able to complete their weekly +15 key. And vice versa, people pushing high keys (>+15), and thus choosing their Covenant like that, will be able to clear raids. If you want to change your focus, you either suck it up and change your Covenant or level up an alt.

Sounds like a terrible retention killing monster like AP was. Telling someone to go pound sand because they dare enjoy more then one aspect of end game seems like a truly awful idea to cater to... people who really love rp it seems or more then likely have a weird hatred for people who strive to be the best they can be at a game for reasons that escape me.

[SLNC]

Hatred? Lol.

Besides, it's gonna be easier than ever to get an alt endgame ready, because you can choose your covenant and work on it at 50 on alts.

[Wheeler]

Telling someone to go pound sand because they dare enjoy more then one aspect of end game seems like a truly awful idea to cater to...

Especially since they just spent an entire expansion telling people they need to do every aspect of the game to succeed.

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Hatred? Lol.

Besides, it's gonna be easier than ever to get an alt endgame ready, because you can choose your covenant at 50 on alts.

Do you honestly think that choosing the covenant isn't going to require the same Anima grind that you've had with AP1.0 and AP2.0?

This is AP3.0. Same car, different coat of paint.

[Not A Cat]

Definitely impossible to balance, especially since balance isn't Blizzard's forte.

Granted balance won't matter to 90% of the playerbase who will simply choose the one they like the best so it's probably not a priority for the devs.

[tyrlaan]

No there is far more then enough information I am afraid. Looking at the list I can tell what abilities you cannot afford to have should you strive to be a gladiator or do a mythic 20+ or beyond.

Mythic raiding is a different beast as choices open up more depending on how late in the patch you expect to full clear but if you are a person who wants it down in the first month to six weeks there are clear choices you can not afford to make either.

I remain unconvinced based on the sliver of data we have.

However, let's start talking percentage of players that fall into the bucket you've outlined here. From there we can have the age old argument of catering for the small percentage vs the majority.

And again, even if you're right, then just pick the one you want for the dps gain and consider your "forced" choice the cost of being top tier competitive. Problem solved.

Side note: I think the fact that you can swap talents between fights to have been a terrible design move for the game. Let choices matter. Decide if you want to be strong for AoE situations or boss fights. Let your raid team coordinate these decisions before diving into the raid. Making a choice for every encounter is meaningless compared to making a choice that you actually have to live with for a notable period of time.

And with that side note in mind, I'm going to assume we will never agree on this covenant abilities discussion.

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Do you honestly think that choosing the covenant isn't going to require the same Anima grind that you've had with AP1.0 and AP2.0?

This is AP3.0. Same car, different coat of paint.

I mean, they've explicitly said its not.

You can choose to believe they're telling the truth and see what comes, or you can choose to believe they're lying and then maybe it's time to step away from the game.

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Definitely impossible to balance, especially since balance isn't Blizzard's forte.

Granted balance won't matter to 90% of the playerbase who will simply choose the one they like the best so it's probably not a priority for the devs.

Indeed, but we'll suffer endless whining on forums over it. Hopefully they'll ignore it and deal with more important things.

[FelPlague]

I don't agree with this at all. People want to swap to be as effective at fights as possible. I honestly have never heard of this weird RP version of playing the game until this week.

I find the notion that people would rather not have agency over their own choices hard to reconcile.

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No there is far more then enough information I am afraid. Looking at the list I can tell what abilities you cannot afford to have should you strive to be a gladiator or do a mythic 20+ or beyond.

Mythic raiding is a different beast as choices open up more depending on how late in the patch you expect to full clear but if you are a person who wants it down in the first month to six weeks there are clear choices you can not afford to make either.

Well i encourge you to go try out classic, as many of us players remember back in classic, tbc, and even wotlk and cata.
"I am a demo lock" then becoming "i am a demo lock with a destro offspec"
It wasnt until mop that spec identity was lost, and then wod with EVERYONE NEEDING alts to be as geared and as strong as their mains right away, that we lost class identity, and it just became "i am me"

i prefer it the way of "i am X" class, my perfection would be "i am Y spec" but with people wanting everything so easily changed, that does not exist.

back in vanilla, tbc, wotlk, and even cata, if your spec/talents were bad for 1 or 2 fights? who cared, yeah you were a bit worse, but you would be good on the next fight. now everyone needs to be the best of the best for ever single fight.

back in my day on vicidius you literally had people sit back and do nothing for a fair part of the fight, or casters just stabbing at the boss with weak frost proc weapons.
now adays they would force everyone to frost mage and frost dk, or else they are not invited.
its fucking pathetic.

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Did they actually play classic? It doesn't have anything like that beyond maybe racials?

yes, you cant respec every single night, it costs WAAAAY too much, nor could you respec every boss, that was impossible.
you had your spec you used for raiding, pvp, dungeons, and world content. you couldnt swap between every single one, or else you would run out of gold in days.

[Elias01]

Just watch this https://youtu.be/t5lWxo3rjvM?t=1063 This will give you clear idea why being locked to specific power is good thing. So pls all of you so called amazing dvs with your bright ideas. Take your covinience and entilted ideas and go ruin some other game.

[Laughingjack]

I remain unconvinced based on the sliver of data we have.

However, let's start talking percentage of players that fall into the bucket you've outlined here. From there we can have the age old argument of catering for the small percentage vs the majority.

And again, even if you're right, then just pick the one you want for the dps gain and consider your "forced" choice the cost of being top tier competitive. Problem solved.

Side note: I think the fact that you can swap talents between fights to have been a terrible design move for the game. Let choices matter. Decide if you want to be strong for AoE situations or boss fights. Let your raid team coordinate these decisions before diving into the raid. Making a choice for every encounter is meaningless compared to making a choice that you actually have to live with for a notable period of time.

And with that side note in mind, I'm going to assume we will never agree on this covenant abilities discussion.

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I mean, they've explicitly said its not.

You can choose to believe they're telling the truth and see what comes, or you can choose to believe they're lying and then maybe it's time to step away from the game.

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Indeed, but we'll suffer endless whining on forums over it. Hopefully they'll ignore it and deal with more important things.

The problem with arguing about percentage of people this effects is that it is a flawed argument from the start. You know who loses out from having covenants acting like normal talents in terms of respecing?

That's right no one!

You keep struggling to advocate for a change that does nothing but limit game play for other people. It is getting hard to suspect that you have reasons beyond malice.

[Lahis]

Just watch this https://youtu.be/t5lWxo3rjvM?t=1063 This will give you clear idea why being locked to specific power is good thing. So pls all of you so called amazing dvs with your bright ideas. Take your covinience and entilted ideas and go ruin some other game.

Action RPG is different beast than MMORPG. What works for Diablo doesn't work for WoW.

As is evident with many systems already...

[Not A Cat]

Indeed, but we'll suffer endless whining on forums over it. Hopefully they'll ignore it and deal with more important things.

To be fair, it will be important to those that like to optimize their characters. It's not like the "whining" is baseless. There's no way in hell the covenants will be balanced. Of course it will be frustrating if someone makes the "wrong" choice.

I just have a different opinion where I think covenants are a cool idea because it offers four different paths to explore. But I'm also pretty casual, if I was more hardcore I'd probably be pretty annoyed by this feature.

[Laughingjack]

Well i encourge you to go try out classic, as many of us players remember back in classic, tbc, and even wotlk and cata.
"I am a demo lock" then becoming "i am a demo lock with a destro offspec"
It wasnt until mop that spec identity was lost, and then wod with EVERYONE NEEDING alts to be as geared and as strong as their mains right away, that we lost class identity, and it just became "i am me"

i prefer it the way of "i am X" class, my perfection would be "i am Y spec" but with people wanting everything so easily changed, that does not exist.

back in vanilla, tbc, wotlk, and even cata, if your spec/talents were bad for 1 or 2 fights? who cared, yeah you were a bit worse, but you would be good on the next fight. now everyone needs to be the best of the best for ever single fight.

back in my day on vicidius you literally had people sit back and do nothing for a fair part of the fight, or casters just stabbing at the boss with weak frost proc weapons.
now adays they would force everyone to frost mage and frost dk, or else they are not invited.
its fucking pathetic.

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yes, you cant respec every single night, it costs WAAAAY too much, nor could you respec every boss, that was impossible.
you had your spec you used for raiding, pvp, dungeons, and world content. you couldnt swap between every single one, or else you would run out of gold in days.

So... how does locking the talents address or fix any of this beyond offering you a way to say fuck you to those people?

Every argument for this is honestly a bit depressing... on the surface they say its "for RP" but once you scratch the surface its always about getting one back at the group that wouldn't invite them...

[Elias01]

Action RPG is different beast than MMORPG. What works for Diablo doesn't work for WoW.

As is evident with many systems already...

He said specialy in ARPG no jsut ARPG this desing works in all RPG games only show you did not really listen jnust watched.

[Beefkow]

What are you smoking? "Nothin has changed since beta", They added more azerite to help certain specs and they added essences on top of that.

What are YOU smoking?

They added all of that crap about 2 patches into the game, when we should've gotten of those features on launch day. Nothing was changed during alpha and beta, azerite armor and the neckpiece was introduced and a bunch of other crap such as ability pruning and GCD change.

Unless you're talking about PTR? That doesn't count.

[FelPlague]

So... how does locking the talents address or fix any of this beyond offering you a way to say fuck you to those people?

Every argument for this is honestly a bit depressing... on the surface they say its "for RP" but once you scratch the surface its always about getting one back at the group that wouldn't invite them...

its not for rp.
its for actual gameplay.
if you can just be any talents at any time, any spec at any time, any class at any time.
what is the point of any of these?

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What are YOU smoking?

They added all of that crap about 2 patches into the game, when we should've gotten of those features on launch day. Nothing was changed during alpha and beta, azerite armor and the neckpiece was introduced.

more azerite was 8.1
azerite being less required 8.1
azerite vendor 8.1
also only 3 months into the expac.

[Laughingjack]

its not for rp.
its for actual gameplay.
if you can just be any talents at any time, any spec at any time, any class at any time.
what is the point of any of these?

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more azerite was 8.1
azerite being less required 8.1
azerite vendor 8.1
also only 3 months into the expac.

What is the point to needing alts to play the same class at a high level (well a very high level)?

It's a talent point. It works like any other talent point. This just screams pointless grinding and I can't see that as a positive.

[Elias01]

its not for rp.
its for actual gameplay.
if you can just be any talents at any time, any spec at any time, any class at any time.
what is the point of any of these?

There isnt sorry i had to asnwer. Just look at talents how muuich do you people care about picking ceritain talents? Are you really like oh mmy god cant wait to play this build it will be so cool. Or you just pick what Ice VEins told you and play with it? Ofc its second option becouse there is no pernamency in making your builds you just follow what is best. And fact nobady talks about specific talent builds here but coevenant spiked discusion means you all alredy care about it far more than talents just for the fact choice is moreless pernament.

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What is the point to needing alts to play the same class at a high level (well a very high level)?

It's a talent point. It works like any other talent point. This just screams pointless grinding and I can't see that as a positive.

No it isnt becouse current talents can be respeced at anytime for no coist which means your talent choices do no matter and are not impactfull or even your choice how you want to play game. When game forces you to pick and be locked to specific talent than there is choice to be made and its definitly not meaningless one.

[Korrah]

INB4 comments saying, "Got to wait for fine tuning and testing".

Look where that got us in BFA, nothing has changed since beta, we were given shitty azerite armor and horrible class design.

Don't get your hopes up, expect these "rental" abilities to be absolute shit. There will always be a bis ability and a go to for pvp.

They said they intend to listen this time!