Constantly switching spec/talents/trinkets is not fun?

[Blorgo]

It's fun because doing well is fun. Being competitive is fun. Taking a golf club to a baseball game because of a poor choice, then being told to "do your best with what you got!" is not fun.

I agree. But...

If there are too many systems i swap around for too many situations it gets annoying pretty fast. Especially if respeccing involves unnecessary burdens.

I don't think shadowlands lock-in system with the covenants is the best way of dealing with it, but i also agree with blizzard that there has to be a balance between systems we can micromanage and systems we cant change all the time - especially if it's a system that is build from the ground up with that in mind.

I don't mind switching some items including legendaries and some talents from boss to boss.
But swapping gear/legendaries, talents, covenants, soulbinds, conduits will feel bad pretty quick.

[Lolites]

Either I choose the right loadout and perform, or I don't and I suck.

if you suck with ONE SINGLE suboptimal ability, i have bad news for you - its not the ability, you just suck...

[Hero2Zer0]

I just play what i like most. I don't follow the "meta"

yea like me playing survival in BFA.

[Levidor]

It is a choice but not a meaningful one because there are no consequences. You can just make a different choice 2 minutes later

Being locked into a bad choice with no way to get out of it is disempowering, an arbitrary system is preventing you from playing the game the way you enjoy playing it, by optimizing for different situations. For example, what if 1 soulbind is the best for 2 different specs in 2 different situations? I can't play optimally in both those areas because of an arbitrary 1 week change CD. Whats the point of that? Whos gaining from that? Whats the fun in being able to do less content in the game at a good level now than what we've been able to for the last 10 years? How can it be that me being locked into a suboptimal soulbind for lets say PVP enhances someone else sense of RPG in the game? It's baffling for me.

[Lurker1]

I don't understand how anyone think it's fun to bring a stack of switch-any-talent-for-1min in their bag and between every single boss fight, they switch to the optimal talents for that boss. I have even seen people switch for trash mobs then back to boss talents. How is choosing a talent a choice, if you change them around every fight?

Same goes for Arenas. You see you meet a certain 3s matchup? Switch up those talents before the match starts. Always the perfect talents.

Always the perfect trinkets.

In BfA it's even worse with the azerite traits resepcing people do. Some are good at AoE, some are good at single target, some are good for PvP... And you keep them all switching all the time by respecing in the city, or, even worse, have bags full of them. Playing a Shaman, raid leaders demand I switch from Ele to Resto for certain bosses. Yes I want to be helpful but I chose Ele, not Resto. Noone asked me to switch from Resto to Ele on a certain boss in TBC. It was way too big of a hassle, and the gear would not fit at all either. And that was a good thing.

The right corruptions for every situation. The right essenses for every situation.

How is that fun?

The whole reason Classic WoW has increasingly more expensive respeccing costs is to explicitally discourage this. You are a PvE resto shaman, that's what you are. You don't shine in BGs, you don't shine in duels, you don't shine in solo world PvP. And people used to be OK with this. Yes I know people are so good at making gold now, that this respec barrier is nothing and people respec all the time anyway, but I personally think that is not fun. It's not interesting.

Even in WotLK with the dual spec introduction. People wanted to finally have 1 Resto spec and 1 maybe PvP Ele spec. But already back in WotLK, guilds wanted 2 differently focused PvE specs in both those spots.

Until we hit today, where mythic raiders gear out 5-6 characters just to make sure they can play the flavor of the month spec for every boss. Where people can't seem to enjoy playing a main and needs to "main 4 different characters". How about designing the game to make playing 1 character what's fun?

Blizzard try to bring a tiny bring-back of this kind of choice in Shadowlands Covenants. What do we see? People complaining like never before.

At what point do you realise you changing your talents and trinkets to the spreadsheet-perfect ones on every boss, and you see that other Ele shaman do the exact same thing, that you are just doing chores?

Not being able to switch everything in game is not the end of the world people keep reaching here.i see covens as the non min and max system the rest is min and max once people get tru there damm heads then maybe they can move on already and stop worrying about covens then.

[Aggrophobic]

I don't understand how anyone think it's fun to bring a stack of switch-any-talent-for-1min in their bag and between every single boss fight, they switch to the optimal talents for that boss. I have even seen people switch for trash mobs then back to boss talents. How is choosing a talent a choice, if you change them around every fight?

Same goes for Arenas. You see you meet a certain 3s matchup? Switch up those talents before the match starts. Always the perfect talents.

Always the perfect trinkets.

In BfA it's even worse with the azerite traits resepcing people do. Some are good at AoE, some are good at single target, some are good for PvP... And you keep them all switching all the time by respecing in the city, or, even worse, have bags full of them. Playing a Shaman, raid leaders demand I switch from Ele to Resto for certain bosses. Yes I want to be helpful but I chose Ele, not Resto. Noone asked me to switch from Resto to Ele on a certain boss in TBC. It was way too big of a hassle, and the gear would not fit at all either. And that was a good thing.

The right corruptions for every situation. The right essenses for every situation.

How is that fun?

The whole reason Classic WoW has increasingly more expensive respeccing costs is to explicitally discourage this. You are a PvE resto shaman, that's what you are. You don't shine in BGs, you don't shine in duels, you don't shine in solo world PvP. And people used to be OK with this. Yes I know people are so good at making gold now, that this respec barrier is nothing and people respec all the time anyway, but I personally think that is not fun. It's not interesting.

Even in WotLK with the dual spec introduction. People wanted to finally have 1 Resto spec and 1 maybe PvP Ele spec. But already back in WotLK, guilds wanted 2 differently focused PvE specs in both those spots.

Until we hit today, where mythic raiders gear out 5-6 characters just to make sure they can play the flavor of the month spec for every boss. Where people can't seem to enjoy playing a main and needs to "main 4 different characters". How about designing the game to make playing 1 character what's fun?

Blizzard try to bring a tiny bring-back of this kind of choice in Shadowlands Covenants. What do we see? People complaining like never before.

At what point do you realise you changing your talents and trinkets to the spreadsheet-perfect ones on every boss, and you see that other Ele shaman do the exact same thing, that you are just doing chores?

Respec is fine. Being forced to have 2-3 of every class you play is not fun though. The new system in Shadowlands is absolute trash. It's a shame becuase the expansion looked like it was going to be fun at first.

[Lolites]

Being locked into a bad choice with no way to get out of it is

... not how the covenants work AT ALL

[Levidor]

For the record, i'm not the most into the RPG elements of the game, but my first reaction to the idea of covenants was actually super positive. The idea of creating sub-factions which people would adhere to was interesting to me and actually scratched an RP itch i didnt know i had. That said, it all went away when i saw that there would be close to permanent power attached to each one, that thing in me that was excited for an RPG aspect of the new expasion died instantly because i know since theres power involved my urge to optimize will always surpass the RPG aspects of the game. If the abilities for example werent locked into the covenants i would be able to enjoy both parts of the new expansion. I'd be able to optimize for the content i enjoy and i would also feel really good about choosing a covenant for the lore immersion into that covenant, but now i will have 1 of those aspects, with annoying asterix's attached to it still.

[Lolites]

1 week change CD

that part IS stupid and will most likely be changed

[Levidor]

... not how the covenants work AT ALL

Functionally that is the case. I grant you though it's not technically permanent so bad choice of words but it might aswell be no?

[Spacewalrus2010]

I mean, of course thats not fun, but if you nolife the meta and want the best of the best numbers for your wowlogs then do what you gotta do? ima sit over here and make snowcones and pew pew.

can i have a snowcones o:

[Lolites]

Functionally that is the case. I grant you though it's not technically permanent so bad choice of words but it might aswell be no?

if you mean the CD on soulbinds, im 99% sure that will go away even before release
if you mean covenant as whole, unles you are going back to covenant you "ghosted" before, as far as i know its just a simple q to change soits not a problem to change covenant if you find out your choice is "bad"

[Thorcall]

if you mean the CD on soulbinds, im 99% sure that will go away even before release
if you mean covenant as whole, unles you are going back to covenant you "ghosted" before, as far as i know its just a simple q to change soits not a problem to change covenant if you find out your choice is "bad"

Yes its as simple as that... if you change the first week of the release. Then you have to re-earn renown (the azerite of shadowland), which is higly timegated. Right now on the beta you can get 2 renown per week with two daily quest (+ some with the campaign), and you need 40 to get the last trait on the soulbinds. If you change covenant in the week where you get your 40 trait, the best you can get is 2 per day with the catchup, so its gonna take you a bit less than 20 days for unlock it again... And during this time, no conduit, no soulbind.

Very easy and convenient right?

[Levidor]

if you mean the CD on soulbinds, im 99% sure that will go away even before release
if you mean covenant as whole, unles you are going back to covenant you "ghosted" before, as far as i know its just a simple q to change soits not a problem to change covenant if you find out your choice is "bad"

Okay, im not sure the soulbind cd will be removed, but lets say it will be, good.
Just because i can switch 1 time free of hassle between covenants doesnt begin to solve it tho does it? Fact is there's going to be a better in pvp covenant and better in pve, if i want to optimize in both areas of the game i cant, 1 switch doesnt cut it since i will need to consistently switch it to play at the level i want to. Solution to this? Make another character of the same class but of the different covenant. Very boring tho

[Tortuga234]

if you suck with ONE SINGLE suboptimal ability, i have bad news for you - its not the ability, you just suck...

Do you even know what a loadout is?

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It is a choice but not a meaningful one because there are no consequences. You can just make a different choice 2 minutes later

And that's what the definition of choice is.
I choose these gear/talents/traits/etc. for this boss, and I choose other ones for another one.
Removing the option to do that is actually depriving the player of choice.

[Cosmic Janitor]

You don't raid very high up do ya lad?

I doubt people like that raid at all tbh. Raiding in your AoE spec when doing a pure single target boss will always gimp you to the maximum and vice versa. If anyone thinks their whole talent choice only amounts to a 0.833% (especially if everyone did it) then they either never used a dps meter or they don't know how to read it.

[Unholyground]

I hardly switch talents up much at all once I find the ones that fit my play style the most with each spec, but I do see how it would be beneficial to people running higher end content to be able to swap things so that is why they should allow to be changed for a hefty cost outside of the free re-spec once per week because anyone pushing the highest end content will be in a guild that can afford it.

[Mozu]

nope, their performance is what makes them good, you would be surprised how many good players choose suboptimal talents just bcs they like the playstyle they bring, and still perform better than morons with optimal builds

I wouldn't be surprised at all. Want to know why? Warcraftlogs exists and shows an overwhelming adherence to meta talents. Almost nobody strays from it.

If you want to keep living in this fantasy that good players stray from being optimal, yet somehow overcome all odds, go ahead -- but it's not an idea rooted in reality.

[jellmoo]

I don't really have dog in the fight, but I do lament the fact that choices don't really have a meaning anymore. I get that figuring out the optimal loadout is fun, but when there's no restriction at all, the impact of choice is lessened to such a great degree that it becomes superfluous. I would rather see something akin to having to pick your loadout per raid, juggling strengths and weaknesses as a whole. Do you pick talent A knowing that it's better on the second boss, but worse on the third than talent B? Do you pick the talent that helped you juuuust beat the last boss in progression on your last one, or do you pick the one that you think will be the one to help on the next fight?

Choice then has more meaning. You actually have to make meaningful decisions, rather than just being optimal at all times.

[Krakan]

nope, their performance is what makes them good, you would be surprised how many good players choose suboptimal talents just bcs they like the playstyle they bring, and still perform better than morons with optimal builds

Do those good players kill.mythic the last boss on mythic though?

It's hard to say do what you want when mythic end bosses are always tuned tightly to the most optimal builds.