Would you prefer to have to choose 1 or 4 abilities or just given 1?

[hitman84]

The biggest discussion surrounding shadowlands is having to make a choice that gives you 1 of 4 class abilities.
Would you prefer to not have any choice and Blizzard simply said here's one ability for your class after you join a covenant or to make a choice of the 4 options we have now?

[A Chozo]

I like the current proposal.

[Great Destiny Man]

At the moment the choices for my chosen class aren't really that exciting, its mostly the generic covenant ability that's a big factor for me (Door of Shadows heavily mitigates DPS loss from heavy movement).

So in terms of class abilities I'd be just as thrilled with having one fixed ability vs choice of 4.

[facefist]

I prefer choosing as long as the balance doesn't suddenly change mid-expac (unless I get free reroll).

[Razion]

An important part of the discussion is how temporary the ability is. If abilities keep getting added in a permanent fashion, eventually classes get pruned. People discussed class pruning to death when it was done the first time around. I think avoiding class pruning again is a generally safe move to go for. The temporary abilities, even if they don't seem as thematic, are good for the future of the game in the LONG run.

[shade3891]

Covenants should have been on a weekly rotation... The abilities rotate per week and you can progress each storyline.... Spend more time unlocking cool stuff.

[Wondercrab]

Permanency aside, I think it would be a whole lot better if the choice of gameplay mechanic wasn't also tied to thematic flavour, story content, and cosmetic rewards that you might prefer more than the ability associated with them.

[Great Destiny Man]

Permanency aside, I think it would be a whole lot better if the choice of gameplay mechanic wasn't also tied to thematic flavour, story content, and cosmetic rewards that you might prefer more than the ability associated with them.

Very much agreed. The abilities hold more sway for me on choices but I'd be lying if I said I was happy with being tied in with a theme/story hub that I couldn't give two shits about.

[Wheeler]

Preferred option: 4 choices, all balanced appropriately and usable in any situation.

Actual option: 1 actual choice, 1-2 wrong ones, 1-2 unusable ones.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

I've already picked my Covenant so any changes they make to the abilities won't affect that.

[Lurker1]

Nah op i love the blizzard idea of player agency coming back role playing game for the win!

[schwarzkopf]

The more uniqueness the better... far too much homogenisation in the last few expansions.

However - I think that after you max out your covenant and whilst it is still maxed out (e.g. in new tiers) - you should be able to research components of other covenants via quest lines or activities - but in a more limited fashion.

My main is going Kyrian, but I plan on having a mechagnome riding my mechanical wheel going Venthyr - just to annoy the natives

[Doffen]

The choice is superior for me at least.

[Cosmic Janitor]

The thing is not all these abilities are good in the first place. Each class has like 1 or maybe 2 really good ones and the rest is somewhere between okay and "seriously?".

As for the thread question, there are advantages to both. Let me just say that a single new class ability might just be flat out better designed for the class as a whole compared to 4 different ones, especially if they have to fit an utterly random theme. Personally looking at some of the abilities I can clearly smell the design-rot of stopgap solutions.

My personal preference would be a compromise solution. You can easily scrap one ability for each class, make them all talents with a new permanent talent row, have the UI team draw a nice spooky boarder around that talent row and when you mouse over it, the tool tip reads: "The chosen ability will be powered through the bond with your chosen covenant". Now all you need to do is create a few more spell effects (with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 most them are rather generic anyway) and you have a solution that allows me pick the covenant I want while playing with ability I want and Blizz can get rid of a bunch of superflous niche abilities that only very few people would have liked anyway.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

As much as I like the min/max of the game it’s the players who are making this a problem for themselves. 2% dps or the ability to move quicker once every 3 minutes and so on won’t make or break any content you’re doing.

[Biomega]

Honestly they should just use the legendary system for that - something you can gradually achieve, with the same spectrum of non-exclusive choices for each class/spec. You choose the order in which you want to get them, and you can only use 1 (maybe 2 later in the expansion) at a time, but you can get them all.

The whole RPG shtick about Covenants you can just make flavorful and/or cosmetic, but tying it to power this directly is something I'm just so over at this point.

[Snowfunk]

Given one at random, that seems fucking awful...

[WhiteWolf]

The biggest discussion surrounding shadowlands is having to make a choice that gives you 1 of 4 class abilities.
Would you prefer to not have any choice and Blizzard simply said here's one ability for your class after you join a covenant or to make a choice of the 4 options we have now?

What do you mean? Randomly get one of the 4 covenant abilities? What kind of a stupid suggestion is that?

[Drusin]

In the context of what we're talking about and not to infer from that choice that that's the choice I would make in all situations.

1 ability, no choice.

If you reply to this with "so you never want any choice in wow?" you have a fucking brain disease, get off mmo-champ and call 911 ASAP!

[d00dles]

As much as I like the min/max of the game it’s the players who are making this a problem for themselves. 2% dps or the ability to move quicker once every 3 minutes and so on won’t make or break any content you’re doing.

This is, perhaps, the most important point of the entire discussion.

Not only that, but there are many encounter situations to take into considerations as well:

1 -- What if the boss fight that requires heavy movement is the single EASIEST fight of the whole raid? 2% dps increase seems a lot more appealing now.

2 -- Many of the passive abilities from the soulbind talent tree offer increased movement speed. What if moving during a boss fight is much more common in Shadowlands? What if a multi-phase boss requires constant movement during the fight? Wasting 1.5 seconds to teleport seems a lot less appealing vs constantly moving faster.

3 -- What if Blizzard nerfs the range of Door of Shadows(venthyr) down the line? Soulshape looks much more appealing now due to the blink component.