Covenants are not Meaningful choice/Talents are

[SecretAgent]

Covenants are not meaningful choice , you know what is meaningful choice? Talents

If they really want people to have meaningful choices

1) Replace dead talents with good ones so that we really have a choice
2) Make spec have more than 1 Optimal rotation using talents
3) Delete all lower effort talents that are X dmg/heal increase , make new interactive ones



All talents should be useful in ATLEAST ONE TYPE OF CONTENT

We should Experience And try All talents possible and not be stuck with 1 talent per row for all content

There is Talents that Have no USE ever since LEGION

Im not talking about min-maxing , just having more diverse rotations with fun talents and many possible choices

A meaningful choice is when i decide what is best for me from a list of talents

For ex : Mage

Rune of power : This would be good for fights with very little movement/ burst window

Incanter flow : easier to play talent and passive , Better on fights with too much running

Now both of this talents have their use and you get to Experience all of them

It is your choice : Does my group need to kill An Add in very short time? Then maybe i should choose rune of power .

Does this encounter have too much movement? You can still use rune of power but it may be harder to use so you can go for the easier choice

This is meaningful choice

Compare to Mirror images : Unfun spell , and is never taken at all in any form of content , dead talent that should be replaced or redesigned

Druid :

Mighty bash / Mass root / typhoon

I get to choose what suits me , for ex in arena stun is better while on mythic+ maybe i need typhoon to help my tank kite/interrupt but even stun is viable if i want to use it on a priority target.



Compare to alot of rows where there is only 1 VIABLE choice... its pathetic

And when i say viable not that i mean This talent is 2-3% better

I mean its like 10% or more better than the other

- - - Updated - - -

And iam sure they will keep the mess with covenants

In 9.1 ) WE FIXED COVENANTS GUYS ! THANKS US WE LISTENED TO YOUR FEEDBACK !

[Aigilas]

i feel the problem between players of skill and blizzard, along with casuals. is that they have different meanings for what is a meaningful choice

Camp A, looks at everything and makes a choice based off of informed decisions, from sims and testing and so make a choice for whats good for what content they are doing

Camp B doesnt care about being good, they just want to play whatever they want, however they want and not be penalized for making that choice.

The issue i have between the 2, is blizzard tunes their content around how Camp A plays, but then implements systems based off of camp B's style, which makes camp A suffer.

The reality is camp B doesn't do the same content camp A is doing, so they wont be penalised if they allow choice, but camp A WILL suffer when things are locked behind camp B

Sure camp B may have a harder time trying to pug content, but then again they should. this is an MMO RPG, not a single player RPG. if you choose to be not just be "sub optimal" but to do around 40% less then others, then you dont deserve to be skulldragged through that content by players who are willing to do what is required.

the long and short of it is. if blizzard wish to implement systems around camp B's position, then they need to tune the content to that ideology. you cant tune it to require 100% optimisation and then demand people not be optimised in order to do the content

[Cyanu]

a bit all over the place... you say convenants are terrible and you mostly complain about talents...

Convenants are huge addition to the classes and there's no clear cut winner, for example i main mage, Kyrian with Radiant Spark might be the most obvious choice at first look BUT the Kyrian ability is strictly single target while the necrolod is a cleave and the night fae aoe, venthyr on the other hand is mostly PvP, already there's choice involved but there's another ability that comes with the package so it goes like:

Kyrian: single target increase + heal/self purge for non-magic effects, the 1st skill is mostly for raiding while the second seems more PvP oriented (dispeling rogue poisons/bleeds without ice block for instance)

Necrolord: a cd that's a tiny increase to single target but a considerable increase to our cleave (especially for arcane), also a huge absorb shield that could serve greatly at certain boss encounters when big damage is incoming yet feels unfit for PvP (remember it scales based on nearby corpses and in arena if there are corpses you probably have won already)

Night Fae: big aoe+cd reduction seems great for M+ and specific raid encounters, completely out of place in PvP as it's melee range and you need to stand still while channeling, comes with a handy movement skill

Venthyr: cc + mobility, almost certainly the prefered convenant for arenas

i can't find a single skill from all those 8 i wouldn't want and they all seem to excel in different situations, not to mention that convenants will bring even more passives to the table which will complicated the decision even further

[Segus1992]

Covenants ARE meaningful choice the way they are. Are they a GOOD type of meaningful choice? That's the question.

I mean, their ENTIRE purpose with Covenants being a tough choice of power is to NOT be like talents that you can switch at a whim. They want there to be a choice you have to commit to.

In theory, the idea is great and interesting. What truly bothers people is the balance of such a system, especially between different kinds of content (good luck balancing something like Priest Mindgames and Unholy Nova for PvP AND PvE at once).

[SecretAgent]

a bit all over the place... you say convenants are terrible and you mostly complain about talents...

Convenants are huge addition to the classes and there's no clear cut winner, for example i main mage, Kyrian with Radiant Spark might be the most obvious choice at first look BUT the Kyrian ability is strictly single target while the necrolod is a cleave and the night fae aoe, venthyr on the other hand is mostly PvP, already there's choice involved but there's another ability that comes with the package so it goes like:

Kyrian: single target increase + heal/self purge for non-magic effects, the 1st skill is mostly for raiding while the second seems more PvP oriented (dispeling rogue poisons/bleeds without ice block for instance)

Necrolord: a cd that's a tiny increase to single target but a considerable increase to our cleave (especially for arcane), also a huge absorb shield that could serve greatly at certain boss encounters when big damage is incoming yet feels unfit for PvP (remember it scales based on nearby corpses and in arena if there are corpses you probably have won already)

Night Fae: big aoe+cd reduction seems great for M+ and specific raid encounters, completely out of place in PvP as it's melee range and you need to stand still while channeling, comes with a handy movement skill

Venthyr: cc + mobility, almost certainly the prefered convenant for arenas

i can't find a single skill from all those 8 i wouldn't want and they all seem to excel in different situations, not to mention that convenants will bring even more passives to the table which will complicated the decision even further

Mage venthyr Ability is one of the issues
Its good for PvP but Useless for PvE
Not to mention , The Utility ability is going to be a most for skips in mythic+ and it will be abused as hell
This is not fun or meaningful choice

Plus what if the Night fae ability is good for arcane but sucks for frost , its not fun to be hindered by decision i made for the ARCANE spec

[Segus1992]

The covenants fight is lost. They are going to do it, and it's going to be shit. Just like azerite. Just like essences. Just like legiondaries. Just like WoD and MoP legendary quests. Our choice for now is to decide whether the other parts of the game that are good are worth suffering through another shit system.

I hope it is lost, and I hope Blizzard is extremely worried about how heavy the backlash will be if they don't either achieve some kind of balance, or create some kind of compromise.

Legiondaries are the closest comparison, if we compare to how they initially worked and dropped - though Legiondaries were worse since you couldn't swap at all before they fixed it.

Azerite and Essences was never as big of a deal to balance, since it was never a huge deal if some of the traits were worthless. There were, what, 220+ major Azerite traits, and for them to be balanced they had to be balanced in different combinations across 6 slots. That was never going to happen (and the pressure to do so was much lower). Essences was in the same boat, except you had completely free reign over which one to use, so the pressure was even smaller still.

With Covenant abilities, there's 48 class abilities and 4 generic abilities, and they HAVE to strike an acceptable balance or peoples' choices will feel shitty. Blizzard is aware of this, the only question is if Blizzard thinks the fallout of if they fuck it up is worth the experiment or not.

[SecretAgent]

Covenants ARE meaningful choice the way they are. Are they a GOOD type of meaningful choice? That's the question.

I mean, their ENTIRE purpose with Covenants being a tough choice of power is to NOT be like talents that you can switch at a whim. They want there to be a choice you have to commit to.

In theory, the idea is great and interesting. What truly bothers people is the balance of such a system, especially between different kinds of content (good luck balancing something like Priest Mindgames and Unholy Nova for PvP AND PvE at once).

Covenants is basically the new incarnation of a mix of Azerite/Class halls(which had mounts + xmog sets too and even better weapons) . It should not be considered a new feature. The abilities we should have gotten from lvl up/ or like artifacts/Talents

They are just putting these abilities behind covenants to declare it as a new feature and give an illusion of choice

This is an EXAMPLE OF A BAD CHOICE

No way they are gonna be balanced ( and you cant nerf them at launch when people choose their abilities)
How you gonna balance Venthyr teleport for mythic+ ? It cant be numerically balanced... even a 3min cd would make it still good

[Thelyron]

The easier it is to change or revert something, the less meaningful it is. So talents are really the exact opposite of meaningful.

[SecretAgent]

How is choosing what is better for you , for ex :

Do i need to take treants to help my tank survive
Or i want to do more overall dmg

Is NOT meaningful choice?

You do it MORE OFTEN and not HINDER you in other types of content

- - - Updated - - -

The covenants fight is lost. They are going to do it, and it's going to be shit. Just like azerite. Just like essences. Just like legiondaries. Just like WoD and MoP legendary quests. Our choice for now is to decide whether the other parts of the game that are good are worth suffering through another shit system.

They are keeping it as it is for 9.0 so that
9.1 patch biggest feature is "fixing covenants"
Even ion said they will most likely do it

[Aigilas]

I hope it is lost, and I hope Blizzard is extremely worried about how heavy the backlash will be if they don't either achieve some kind of balance, or create some kind of compromise.

Legiondaries are the closest comparison, if we compare to how they initially worked and dropped - though Legiondaries were worse since you couldn't swap at all before they fixed it.

Azerite and Essences was never as big of a deal to balance, since it was never a huge deal if some of the traits were worthless. There were, what, 220+ major Azerite traits, and for them to be balanced they had to be balanced in different combinations across 6 slots. That was never going to happen (and the pressure to do so was much lower). Essences was in the same boat, except you had completely free reign over which one to use, so the pressure was even smaller still.

With Covenant abilities, there's 48 class abilities and 4 generic abilities, and they HAVE to strike an acceptable balance or peoples' choices will feel shitty. Blizzard is aware of this, the only question is if Blizzard thinks the fallout of if they fuck it up is worth the experiment or not.

you are very wrong about what you say in regards to balancing azerite, it was a huge deal is some where worthless. the ENTIRE point, was that every trait would be viable and that NONE would feel like a bad choice. Ion himself even stated that was a goal recently in one of the beta stream discussion/QandA's.

thats why everyone is worried, they said they would balance legion artifacts and legendaries, they failed
they said they would balance azerite, they failed abysmally

now they want to balance 5 systems which all compound upon each other and synergise differently with no recourse to change and which even at the base design are clearly unbalancable. eg. Venthyr teleport, necrolord shield (if you cant design around everyone having the teleport then it becomes OP, if you cant design around everyone having the shield then it loses a lot of value. thats a doublewide gulf of imbalance)

Blizz struggles to balance class's between pvp,raiding, m+, just in talents alone, then you want to lock in covenant specific legendaries, conduits, class abilities all which will change drastically between specs. It's a balancing hellscape, i like the idea, but i cannot fathom a world in which they will be able to do this successfully

[dcc626]

How is choosing what is better for you , for ex :

Do i need to take treants to help my tank survive
Or i want to do more overall dmg

Is NOT meaningful choice?

You do it MORE OFTEN and not HINDER you in other types of content

- - - Updated - - -



They are keeping it as it is for 9.0 so that
9.1 patch biggest feature is "fixing covenants"
Even ion said they will most likely do it

both sides are right. choosing a covenant is a meaningful choice. not being able to swap isnt fun.

blizzard will make the final call. they will loosen up the restrictions and let us change, but not anytime so you can swap between bosses. and people will still be upset. because people dont want to be able to swap covenants, they want to be able to swap the abilities whenever they want. and that isnt going to happen.

[Segus1992]

Covenants is basically the new incarnation of a mix of Azerite/Class halls(which had mounts + xmog sets too and even better weapons) . It should not be considered a new feature. The abilities we should have gotten from lvl up/ or like artifacts/Talents

They are just putting these abilities behind covenants to declare it as a new feature and give an illusion of choice

This is an EXAMPLE OF A BAD CHOICE

No way they are gonna be balanced ( and you cant nerf them at launch when people choose their abilities)
How you gonna balance Venthyr teleport for mythic+ ? It cant be numerically balanced... even a 3min cd would make it still good

How is it an example of a bad choice, beyond "cuz I say so"? Yes, the balance is a huge issue right now, but the choice is in theory great, and it's definitely meaningful even WITH the current shitty balance.

Saying it's an "illusion of a choice" and "not be considered a new feature" are both nonsensical and completely irrelevant. It's a choice. It's meaningful. Is it good? Not as it stands right now. Can it be? In theory, obviously yes.

[Aigilas]

How is it an example of a bad choice, beyond "cuz I say so"? Yes, the balance is a huge issue right now, but the choice is in theory great, and it's definitely meaningful even WITH the current shitty balance.

Saying it's an "illusion of a choice" and "not be considered a new feature" are both nonsensical and completely irrelevant. It's a choice. It's meaningful. Is it good? Not as it stands right now. Can it be? In theory, obviously yes.

your right in theory this system is great in ideology. the reality of the system is it's a hot pile of unbalancable garbage

[SecretAgent]

you are very wrong about what you say in regards to balancing azerite, it was a huge deal is some where worthless. the ENTIRE point, was that every trait would be viable and that NONE would feel like a bad choice. Ion himself even stated that was a goal recently in one of the beta stream discussion/QandA's.

thats why everyone is worried, they said they would balance legion artifacts and legendaries, they failed
they said they would balance azerite, they failed abysmally

now they want to balance 5 systems which all compound upon each other and synergise differently with no recourse to change and which even at the base design are clearly unbalancable. eg. Venthyr teleport, necrolord shield (if you cant design around everyone having the teleport then it becomes OP, if you cant design around everyone having the shield then it loses a lot of value. thats a doublewide gulf of imbalance)

Blizz struggles to balance class's between pvp,raiding, m+, just in talents alone, then you want to lock in covenant specific legendaries, conduits, class abilities all which will change drastically between specs. It's a balancing hellscape, i like the idea, but i cannot fathom a world in which they will be able to do this successfully

People are relying on Blizzard Balance

But is it acceptable to Nerf an Ability after players have already made their choice of covenant cuz of that ability?

Would not that be unfair and pushes you to change which has alot of restrictions ...

Balances should occur before launch ONLY

[Cyanu]

Mage venthyr Ability is one of the issues
Its good for PvP but Useless for PvE
Not to mention , The Utility ability is going to be a most for skips in mythic+ and it will be abused as hell
This is not fun or meaningful choice

Plus what if the Night fae ability is good for arcane but sucks for frost , its not fun to be hindered by decision i made for the ARCANE spec

Frost has some builds with multiple CDs, imagine running forst mage with Rune of Power, Comet Storm, Ray of Frost and the already baseline Icy Veins+ Frozen Orb and having the night fae ability reduce the cd of ALL of those abilities while dealing good aoe damage at the same time, sounds like a solid build for M+ at the very least...

Venthyr seem to be the arena convenant true but that can change with souldbinds/passives etc, imagine for example if they get the best raiding passives to counterbalance...

[Hitei]

People are relying on Blizzard Balance

But is it acceptable to Nerf an Ability after players have already made their choice of covenant cuz of that ability?

Yes. They have been doing it for 15 and a half years with classes.

[Cosmic Janitor]

i can't find a single skill from all those 8 i wouldn't want and they all seem to excel in different situations, not to mention that convenants will bring even more passives to the table which will complicated the decision even further

- The night fae class ability is easily the most boring and uninspired of the 4. It's questionable if the CD reduction will even offset you just standing there scratching your balls while you channel it, not to mention the obvious range issues that make AoE already a pain for arcane.
- The venthyr mirror is downright broken and useless for anything that isn't PvP or group content. In group content you at least have a chance that it might trigger because the mob will be in rage of something to maybe spam its abilities on, if we are honest it's an obvious PvP ability though; I agree with that.
- Kyrian is probably the most mechanically interesting ability, as it requires a bit of thought weaving it into your normal rotation, sadly it's afaik still the kinda meh because it gets eaten by everything currently (correct me if they changed that).
- Necrolord cleave is only relevant for acrane atm, because frost bolts or fire bolts that afaik trigger none of the special effects of the main bolt (also correct me if they changed that) are practically useless. For arcane it's god tier broken with more than trippling your burn phase dps.. for the other two it will just be another stupid spell effect that gets stacked with all your other cooldowns to use the 10% extra dmg while dancing around RoP again.. As if the preparation time to line up CDs wasn't already bad enough.

I could easily do without the night fae ability. Especially as a mage you already have tons of aoe options which are far from weak, adding another clunky one to the mix does barely anything other than give you a pretty spell effect to spam in resting areas.

The amount of people that drool over the shield and the roidowl are also in a stark minority atm. Everyone is practically talking about becoming a fox and blinking around or the venthyr portal which will either be completely broken in some scenarios or practically useless, depending on how Blizzard will balance it. The choice is almost binary here, especially in M+, either you can do a skip with it, or not. The biggest ambiguity here will be by the number of possible skips. For raiding it's probably a no-brainer as well though, especially in mythic with contagious and pulsing effects, that might be way easier to deal with.

[Cosmic Janitor]

both sides are right. choosing a covenant is a meaningful choice. not being able to swap isnt fun.

It depends on how you define "meaningfull choice".
Will it be a choice that has meaning? Yes, absolutely.
Will it be meaningfull because you made a concious choice here instead of just gambling for having made the right one? After the first balancing patch, probably no, it won't.

You also have to decide between the mechanical fun of gameplay and the fun of aesthetic and storytelling, which unless both of those happen to align for you is probably a loss either way for many.

[G3 Ghost]

Meaningful and bad are not mutually exclusive.

Also, how are talents meaningful choices? I have a libram if I screw up my talent choices. The fact that talents are swappable with a small cost makes them inherently meaningless (outside of situations like M+ where changing talents on the fly is impossible).

[SirBeef]

i feel the problem between players of skill and blizzard, along with casuals. is that they have different meanings for what is a meaningful choice

Camp A, looks at everything and makes a choice based off of informed decisions, from sims and testing and so make a choice for whats good for what content they are doing

Camp B doesnt care about being good, they just want to play whatever they want, however they want and not be penalized for making that choice.

The issue i have between the 2, is blizzard tunes their content around how Camp A plays, but then implements systems based off of camp B's style, which makes camp A suffer.

The reality is camp B doesn't do the same content camp A is doing, so they wont be penalised if they allow choice, but camp A WILL suffer when things are locked behind camp B

Sure camp B may have a harder time trying to pug content, but then again they should. this is an MMO RPG, not a single player RPG. if you choose to be not just be "sub optimal" but to do around 40% less then others, then you dont deserve to be skulldragged through that content by players who are willing to do what is required.

the long and short of it is. if blizzard wish to implement systems around camp B's position, then they need to tune the content to that ideology. you cant tune it to require 100% optimisation and then demand people not be optimised in order to do the content

You also have Camp C, those that make informed decisions based off information, chooses what's best for how they want to play and don't mind if it penalizes them in other areas.