Covenant Class Abilities (Early Look)

[Beefhammer]

You absolutely have to pick based on ability. What concerns me more is that these seem absolutely required for your path of progression (PvE/PvP/M+). You're going to be forced to choose between one of those paths, and you're going to have to stick to it to be competitive at the high end.

With Blizzard's "Do all of our content" design philosophy over the past 4 years (And most recently with essences), are we really thinking that they're going to allow people to choose one path and be viable at the highest end of content? Not a chance with how broken some of these look (Banner is absolutely REQUIRED for prot tanks from the looks of that initially).

This has me much more concerned than I was a week ago with Shadowlands. It's already looking like they're just going to replace the Azerite grind stay-subbed loop with change your covenant every 2 weeks to push M+ or Raid or PVP loop.

It's another fundamentally broken system like Azerite. No matter how much they buff/nerf these, it simply won't work with the way they've made this game since Legion.

Says who? I'm clearly going specific Covenants based on how they look.

[PointerToAddress]

They remind me of essence abilities more than anything.

Imagine being locked into one of those for the duration of the expansion. Say you get blood of the enemy from 30k honor grinded in BG's and then later decide to get conflict and strife. Well if you want the Blood of the Enemy back you have to regrind it from scratch.

That would be fucking terrible.

That's essentially what covenant abilities are, with the added bonus of them coming with a bunch of cosmetic items. You really like the Bastion set? Too bad, Night Fae have your BiS ability and it's a 5k damage increase over the woefully under performing Bastion one. But don't worry, once you're settled 9.2 will roll around and boom, Bastion is the best. Oh wait, now it's 9.3 and Bastion got nerfed, time to go necro.

It's gonna be a nightmare.

I get your point but I honestly don't think they are going to be that game-changer as people think, the difference isn't gonna be that much, probably like racials.

Let me ask you then, would you prefer to have a talent row with those abilities so you can change them anytime but still be tied to your Covenant including the Soulbinds and Conduits knowing that possibly those 2 things will have a higher chance of giving you more differences than your Covenant ability?

[Accendor]

Higher power that would be far more effectively achieved by their players learning how to play better, rather than gear or a miniscule gain from playing a different covenant, which might not even end up a gain at all if the player can't handle the new ability.

The covenant is almost definitely going to be the smallest out of those unless it's completely out of whack, and that'd just get it nerfed anyway.

Also, no, for 2 months your claim isn't correct anymore. There's plenty of raids in that range that don't require it.

I never said there are no such raids.

Besides that you assume that "learning to play better" is always an option. It is not. There is a skillcap for everybody where you simply not improve at a relevant speed anymore (or your skill even declined because of frustration). So yeah your base assumption is already not checking out IMO

[Aeula]

I get your point but I honestly don't think they are going to be that game-changer as people think, the difference isn't gonna be that much, probably like racials.

Let me ask you then, would you prefer to have a talent row with those abilities so you can change them anytime but still be tied to your Covenant including the Soulbinds and Conduits knowing that possibly those 2 things will have a higher chance of giving you more differences than your Covenant ability?

Imo covenants should be purely cosmetic. We haven’t seen enough of soulbinds yet but those sound terrible too.

[FelPlague]

Uh oh they changed the general abilities of the covenants... necrolord looks BiS for PvP now... they should've kept the old ones. Now if your best PvP class specific ability happens to be with necrolords (DK) you'll be even stronger.

what? how will necrolord be BIS for pvp?
They require a dead body
in arena by the time someone is dead, the match is over.
the best will prob be the movement speed boost.

[Big Thanks]

what? how will necrolord be BIS for pvp?
They require a dead body
in arena by the time someone is dead, the match is over.
the best will prob be the movement speed boost.

I do random Bgs as an endgame It looks good to me
The shield is just "better" if someone is dead nearby...but it gives a shield always (no need for a dead person)

[tyrlaan]

Imo covenants should be purely cosmetic. We haven’t seen enough of soulbinds yet but those sound terrible too.

This mentality sounds a lot like someone that should stop playing the game.

[Aeula]

This mentality sounds a lot like someone that should stop playing the game.

It's from someone who's seen Blizzard walk into a wall way too damn much and would like them to stop.

[tyrlaan]

It's from someone who's seen Blizzard walk into a wall way too damn much and would like them to stop.

Whatevs. I stand by my statement and care little about how you got there.

[Jamie081]

You're saying that class choice or gear doesn't matter over skill. Then why is it that there are more fire mages and destro warlocks killing N'Zoth than the next 4 specs combined? Why do dks and monks comprise over 90% of the tanks used on the fight? Why are there 800 holy paladin parses and only 22 mistweavers?

Class choice matters, and most top guilds have people constantly re-rolling or keeping highly geared alts so that they can use the overpowered ones to get the job done. Essence choice also matters, and covenant choice is going to matter too.

It's weird that people say class choice doesn't matter. Class choices definitely trickle down from top players. Bad players will be less bad if they choose a good spec/class that makes up for their shortfalls. DHs are a perfect example.

Gear choice also definitely matters. It's the whole reason why so many people want a proper BiS list back for gearing. Players want the best gear they can get for what they play. That's just standard RPG character development.

[huth]

You're saying that class choice or gear doesn't matter over skill.

Wrong. I'm saying that at the level Accendor is talking about, other things matter more already.

There's also that many raids will mimick the top raids with no regard as to why they even chose those specs.

Get those absolutes out of your head.

Gear choice also definitely matters. It's the whole reason why so many people want a proper BiS list back for gearing. Players want the best gear they can get for what they play. That's just standard RPG character development.

No, that's not the reason. People want easy. They don't want to sim each piece, they want a fixed list they can refer to.

[Lucavian]

But here is the situation.

I will play a Brewmaster Monk no matter what. Because of the class fanatsy.

A covenant ability i will pick for the performance.

And the problem is...every single person in the world that picks a cov ability for the performance will eventually get punished if it gets nerfed.
Everyone will have to jump ship and pick another one...again...and again...and again...and again

And how punishing is jumping ship? We dont know.

Yet you're already assuming how punishing any 'nerfs' would be, you're also assuming how relevant to the toolkit the ability would be, ect, etc. More often than not a focus on performance, additional attempts at seeing ability combinations from bosses, etc are going to be a factor far more than any singular additional ability for a class because most damage/healing profiles are made up of the core spells/abilities rather than anything new. We have no idea the cooldown or stength of any of these abilities yet, so jumping ship because a pebble hit the boat is silly. Wait and make sure the boat is sinking first.

[Big Thanks]

Yet you're already assuming how punishing any 'nerfs' would be, you're also assuming how relevant to the toolkit the ability would be, ect, etc. More often than not a focus on performance, additional attempts at seeing ability combinations from bosses, etc are going to be a factor far more than any singular additional ability for a class because most damage/healing profiles are made up of the core spells/abilities rather than anything new. We have no idea the cooldown or stength of any of these abilities yet, so jumping ship because a pebble hit the boat is silly. Wait and make sure the boat is sinking first.

I dont know why people think im "doomsaying"...or even if im "crying" about it.

Im just pointing out possible flaws.
Im not in panic

[huth]

Nobody said anything about absolutes.

So you say, and then proceed to talk absolutes.

[Wheeler]

Says who? I'm clearly going specific Covenants based on how they look.

As long as you don't mind when you show up to the party in your Night Fae transmog, and it ends up being sub-optimal by 20% and you get thrown from the group. Don't come crying to the forums about it - You made your choice.

If you play the game solo (which I don't think is how WoW should ever be played - Evidence being raid content, dungeon content, M+ content, and the inability to queue for solo arenas), I guess it isn't a big deal.

[Beefhammer]

As long as you don't mind when you show up to the party in your Night Fae transmog, and it ends up being sub-optimal by 20% and you get thrown from the group. Don't come crying to the forums about it - You made your choice.

If you play the game solo (which I don't think is how WoW should ever be played - Evidence being raid content, dungeon content, M+ content, and the inability to queue for solo arenas), I guess it isn't a big deal.

It won't. And you obviously have no clue who the people my wife(and I years ago) raid with. It's nice when you don't care about anyone else and just have fun. So you guys can clutch your pearls over this shit, while the wife, myself, and our group of friends have fun playing a game.

[Wheeler]

IAnd you obviously have no clue who the people my wife(and I years ago) raid with.

You must be one of those "just go die in the corner" groups that a major raiding guild carries through Heroic once a week.

Good thing those players care about the people they raid with, or that setup wouldn't be possible for you.

[Beefhammer]

You must be one of those "just go die in the corner" groups that a major raiding guild carries through Heroic once a week.

Good thing those players care about the people they raid with, or that setup wouldn't be possible for you.

Nope. Nice try. But keep making ass assuming things. Never cared about being in a progression raid team. Our group has been together since late Wrath and we just, well them since I stopped, would get on drink and have fun. No pressure to progress. But hey, we never gave a fuck about what "major" raid teams did. We were in out own little universe having fun. Because that's what games are about. Many of us did the hardcore raiding bullshit from EQ and through TBC. Relaxing with friends and family is much more fun and relaxing.