As I feared a few minutes after Covenants were announced....it will get worse

[Tesshin83]

Do you PvP?

Does anyone?

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It's not an either/or decision, and pretty much anyone progression minded would be best served by doing both. As an example, you could get Gladiator last season without any PvE trinkets on a Rogue, but the Drestagath & Motorcycle trinkets would make the journey a LOT smoother.

I explained earlier why this is flawed thinking because players arent machines.

[kaminaris]

While mostly true, even a heroic guild will have a much easier time with everyone picking the "right" covenant versus a bad one.

It does matter.

Well they might as well pick someone else with wrongest covenant possible but better mechanical skills and they would have even easier time.

[LedZeppelin]

Do you PvP?

yes. he was asking from a pve perspective.

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They had months of beta and left a bunch of Covenant skills completely useless although there were tons of feedback. Then there are the majority of Covenant skills that are not terrible, just severly undertuned. And then we have the clearly overpowered skills. The result which class / spec is favoring which Covenant we are seeing now.

E.g., Condemn, the Venthyr skill for Warriors contributes to 15-25% of their overall damage. Does that sound balanced?

considering condemn extends the execute phase + the changes to mastery it doesnt surprise me at all.

[Mightytasty]

So all PvPers, mythic raiders, mythic+ key pushers, and players who care about their performance in general (but those don't exist apparently), shouldn't participate in this discussion.

Got it.

[A Chozo]

Why Blizzard why did you do this?

Because they don't design this game for your kind. You will buy the game regardless, they don't need to cater to you at all. As you forfeit your only leverage (your wallet) by pre-ordering and playing anyway, your opinion becomes weightless.

They make this game for themselves (as artists) and for the overwhelming majorities who don't want stale min-maxing focused shit to play. They make this for the players that care about performance and style, feel, gameplay, etc.

For all of those who care, the designers must do something interesting. The designers and fans are the lifeblood of this game, not you.

[clevin]

^ Those people were wrong and the people who have paid attention for 16+ years realized that the WoW community would gravitate to the FOTM/Min/Max specs.

Right. Tryhards.

[Orange Joe]

So all PvPers, mythic raiders, mythic+ key pushers, and players who care about their performance in general (but those don't exist apparently), shouldn't participate in this discussion.

Got it.

If you only care about performance why does it matter which covenant you pick?

[Jastall]

I know that and it was just an example. 10% for a Covenant skill is a lot, but there are several outliers that are so much better than their counterparts. And again, it doesn't explain why several classes have completely useless Covenant skills (Nightfae Paladin and Priest for example, which is ironic due to Nightfae being the best Covenant for a lot of classes/specs). The balancing just isn't there and with huge gaps of 10-20% from worst to best you just can't brush it away like "it doesn't matter only for the 1%".

The absolutely terrible ones are outliers themselves are also 100% inevitable; if a spec has a purported best Covenant and 1-2 viable options, then yeah the 4th will barely see play at all. Again, same shit with talents (new and old), items, anytime there's 3 or more choices there's a high likelyhood at least 1 will be left in the dust.

Plus, some Covenants really, really don't mesh with some classes and will inevitably see less play. Necrolord Druids are a good example, as is the fact that Guardian has a plurality of Night Fae players despite Kyrian and Necrolords being favored. Frost and Blood DKs have a healthy amount of Necrolord players despite the ability not being BiS for them because Necrolord DKs just make sense.

A 10% gap is quite acceptable when there's four choices. The top echelon will gravitate towards the best whenever the gap is 2 or 20% anyway, and 10% less DPS for the rest of us plebs is well within the margin of error brought upon by lack of skill. Sure, it could be better, it could always be better in theory, but in practice most specs work out pretty well.

[clevin]

So all PvPers, mythic raiders, mythic+ key pushers, and players who care about their performance in general (but those don't exist apparently), shouldn't participate in this discussion.

Got it.

Not at all. But those people aren't the majority. For the top 5-10% of the people in those groups this MIGHT be enough of a difference to matter. But for the vast majority of players in those groups, it just doesnt. Most people don't sim themselves to tun their gear to the nth degree, don't play all of the other facets of the game close to perfectly and sure as hell don't play optimally.

Even if we're talking about the above folks, by definition 9 out of 10 players aren't in the 90th percentile or better (duh) so they have room to improve. Even if we relax that, 3 of 4 players aren't in the top 25% so they will get more performance out of improving their play. Yet most won't because it means simming, refining rotations on target dummies and the like.

Instead, they're tryhards. Their guild is 2073rd in the world or something. They hear something is a little better and because it requires no effort, they'll blindly adopt it. And then you have all the people who don't' care about min-maxing at all because they're just running low key mythic and goofing with their friends.

And then there are all the people who aren't in the above groups - the heroic raiders and normal raider and hell, even the LFR crowd. And the people who don't raid at all. For them, the covenant performance difference doesnt matter either.

Blizzard designs for ALL of those people. Not just the tryhards posting here.

[Jonnusthegreat]

It's really interesting that they can tell you what spec these characters are. My character is not a Brewmaster, Windwalker, or Mistweaver. She is a Monk. I wonder how they determined these stats.

[rhorle]

While mostly true, even a heroic guild will have a much easier time with everyone picking the "right" covenant versus a bad one. It does matter.

Of course it has an effect but rarely do even Heroic guilds play optimally. So it can help but it might also not be the thing that is holding them back in the first place. If the content is not balanced around everyone having the best simmed covenants then it won't be a real barrier to progress. But as most of us realize people don't play optimally and look for crutches or other things to prop up the places that are lacking.

If we all played the best the game allows we would all be world first, or at the very least, Mythic raiders. But we are not. So covenant choice isn't really that big of a deal. It just requires the difference to be made up elsewhere and those other parts are the bigger issue guilds content with. Because while you can pick the best covenant you can't change the actual player.

[Lei]

Not at all. But those people aren't the majority. For the top 5-10% of the people in those groups this MIGHT be enough of a difference to matter. But for the vast majority of players in those groups, it just doesnt. Most people don't sim themselves to tun their gear to the nth degree, don't play all of the other facets of the game close to perfectly and sure as hell don't play optimally.

Even if we're talking about the above folks, by definition 9 out of 10 players aren't in the 90th percentile or better (duh) so they have room to improve. Even if we relax that, 3 of 4 players aren't in the top 25% so they will get more performance out of improving their play. Yet most won't because it means simming, refining rotations on target dummies and the like.

Instead, they're tryhards. Their guild is 2073rd in the world or something. They hear something is a little better and because it requires no effort, they'll blindly adopt it. And then you have all the people who don't' care about min-maxing at all because they're just running low key mythic and goofing with their friends.

And then there are all the people who aren't in the above groups - the heroic raiders and normal raider and hell, even the LFR crowd. And the people who don't raid at all. For them, the covenant performance difference doesnt matter either.

Blizzard designs for ALL of those people. Not just the tryhards posting here.

Have you ever heard of the thing "influencers"? It can be anyone: your guildie, your friend, a streamer you watch, a guildie that watches a streamer... You think just because someone themselves don't go out of their way to look for information, the information wont come into their faces. The playerbase is not just elites vs. lollers.
In any case some adjustment will come in the next week. I don't think the devs care too much about one covenant being this underrepresented. But they sure care about outliers in performance.

[Darththeo]

Honestly, I don't care if I picked the best Covenant for my role. On my Paladin, I went Kyrian because it fit Paladins, I went Venthyr on my DK because my DK is a Blood Elf and I went Necrolord on my Forsaken warrior. People choose things they lit far more often than things that are the best in terms of raw numbers.

I have which alt I'll have go Night Fae.

I play the game because I want to have fun ... if I am not having fun, I am not going to play. It is really that simple. If it bothers someone that I do not choose to play "optimally" I don't care.

[Donald Hellscream]

Venthyr might not be the best choice for blood dks, but its easily the most thematic spell and so thats what I went with.

Not to mention that the Red tint on the Venthyr plate set looks soooo amazing.

[ldev]

Please familiarise yourself with the straw man argument and how it applies to your post.

My argument is viable, good bye. Don't need sheep parroting straw mans and ad hominems in every thread, change your markov chains to something more original.

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Exactly. Skill trumps all, if you lack the skill to succeed, it doesn’t matter what covenant or gear you have...

One person has the same amount of skill. 300 dps gain in pre raid gear just for opening icy-veins.com, not even simulationcraft.org, does matter...

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Not at all. But those people aren't the majority. For the top 5-10% of the people in those groups this MIGHT be enough of a difference to matter. But for the vast majority of players in those groups, it just doesnt. Most people don't sim themselves to tun their gear to the nth degree, don't play all of the other facets of the game close to perfectly and sure as hell don't play optimally.

Even if we're talking about the above folks, by definition 9 out of 10 players aren't in the 90th percentile or better (duh) so they have room to improve. Even if we relax that, 3 of 4 players aren't in the top 25% so they will get more performance out of improving their play. Yet most won't because it means simming, refining rotations on target dummies and the like.

So your argument is that covenants suck, because "players make mistakes and instead of extra 300 dps right now, they will get only 200 extra dps by chosing the correct covenant".

I agree wholeheartedly - these stupid arguments that "skill matters" are so fucking useless. Yea, you have bad skill with good covenant. But you will also have bad skill with bad covenant. And that's right there is the fucking dps difference by just clicking a button to the right or left from Necrolords two weeks ago and why people don't like covenants.

Boom, mind = blown.

[Niwes]

Original thread 10 minutes after Covenants were announced
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...nts-now/348779

and now the results:
https://www.wowhead.com/news=319716/...io#wowranks-io

As has been predicted from the day this feature was announced even with heavy nerfs people would have to be willing to purposely gimp themselves in PVP and PVE just for an aesthetic choice. Once Raider IO takes over the expansions tomorrow this will get far worse not including raiding.

Out of the source information I can count 10 specs (not at 50% concentrated) that have an option on what they want to play but some of those are before impending nerfs that will force the players to optimize their Covenant choices.

Why Blizzard why did you do this? For those of you enjoying the expansion I say great and have fun but the freight train is coming in the form of FARRRR more power unlocks, gear scaling making the differences far more stark and far more access to meaningful abilities.

Yeah, nothing special here.

A trizillion ppl (including you and me) said this from day 1. it was obvious from the very first day.

so the question is not NOW: why they decide to go with it (what they learned for the better nearly a decade ago).
the question is: why they even considered that design at day 1, when they should know better.

dont get me wrong here: you are completely right. i agree 100%. but there are millions of ppl realizing that since over a year. INCLUDING the ppl at blizz. they are not stupid.

no offense, but wondering NOW or going like „we told you so“ let you look like somebody still having a least bit of fate in blizz.

and i assume thats the difference between you and me. i say exact the same you say. but i will never open a thread for it, because i was 0 suprised in any way, or disapointed, because i know what will happen exactly (because its not dificult) and expected exactly this. the reason: i learned to trust blizz ZERO in any game design promises.

its always the same marketing bla bla „...and if it not works out, we will invest all power we have to balance it, and if it is not possible we have knobs here, here, here and we can scrap it, because we have plan b“. know what: they have zero plan b and zero interests in fixing it. and they never had. because the game design is tailored to marketing and mostprofit aspects and they just try to find the perfect midground spot to keep players playing as long as possible, do not fear them away with too much treadmill, instant gratification but not tooooo much, build the illusion of a well featured game, belonging to players wishes, while they produce it as cost effective as possible, by recycling a lot, a million cheap quests, „systems“ instead of real content, because „systems“ are just database entries and a few well scalable independent UI pieces, and so on. its the same route every smart sw/game developer go these days. at least in my industry (SW).

in short:
all of what you see is just a best spot midground search result, to make most profit with least possible investment.

even shorter:
it is just a perfectionized milk-the-cow mode.

so, what can we learn out of all this? when it comes down to WoW and game design, do not trust Blizz.

just for clarification: nothing here is in any form a offense at you. i agree to you 100%. its just my point of view, i shared.

[Tesshin83]

So all PvPers, mythic raiders, mythic+ key pushers, and players who care about their performance in general (but those don't exist apparently), shouldn't participate in this discussion.

Got it.

After reading couple of your posts I have to ask you what you believe what stats or factors that decide what constitutes performance.

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Yeah, nothing special here.

A trizillion ppl (including you and me) said this from day 1. it was obvious from the very first day.

so the question is not NOW: why they decide to go with it (what they learned for the better nearly a decade ago).
the question is: why they even considered that design at day 1, when they should know better.

dont get me wrong here: you are completely right. i agree 100%. but there are millions of ppl realizing that since over a year. INCLUDING the ppl at blizz. they are not stupid.

no offense, but wondering NOW or going like „we told you so“ let you look like somebody still having a least bit of fate in blizz.

and i assume thats the difference between you and me. i say exact the same you say. but i will never open a thread for it, because i was 0 suprised in any way, or disapointed, because i know what will happen exactly (because its not dificult) and expected exactly this. the reason: i learned to trust blizz ZERO in any game design promises.

its always the same marketing bla bla „...and if it not works out, we will invest all power we have to balance it, and if it is not possible we have knobs here, here, here and we can scrap it, because we have plan b“. know what: they have zero plan b and zero interests in fixing it. and they never had. because the game design is tailored to marketing and mostprofit aspects and they just try to find the perfect midground spot to keep players playing as long as possible, do not fear them away with too much treadmill, instant gratification but not tooooo much, build the illusion of a well featured game, belonging to players wishes, while they produce it as cost effective as possible (by recycling a lot, a million cheap quests, „systems“ instead of real content, because „systems“ are just database entries and a few well scalable independent UI pieces.

all of what you see is just a best spot midground search result, to make most profit with least possible investment. or in short: it is just a perfectionized milk-the-cow mode.

so, what can we learn out of all this: when it comes down to WoW and game design, do not trust Blizz.

just for clarification: nothing here is in any form a offense at you. i agree to you 100%. its just my point of view, i shared.

Your entire argument here can be anwered with that this is a community problem and not a Blizzard one.

Blizzards job is to make everything viable and also entertaining. They don't regard their own game a competition where people should minmax because most people dont play the game that way.

[jiih]

After reading couple of your posts I have to ask you what you believe what stats or factors that decide what constitutes performance.

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Your entire argument here can be anwered with that this is a community problem and not a Blizzard one.

Blizzards job is to make everything viable and also entertaining. They don't regard their own game a competition where people should minmax because most people dont play the game that way.

covenant statistic show otherwise what a surprise.

Its the basic of a mmorpg to gather better gear and make your toon as strong as possible of course people minmax surprised pikachu face

[Tesshin83]

My argument is viable, good bye. Don't need sheep parroting straw mans and ad hominems in every thread, change your markov chains to something more original.

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One person has the same amount of skill. 300 dps gain in pre raid gear just for opening icy-veins.com, not even simulationcraft.org, does matter...

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So your argument is that covenants suck, because "players make mistakes and instead of extra 300 dps right now, they will get only 200 extra dps by chosing the correct covenant".

I agree wholeheartedly - these stupid arguments that "skill matters" are so fucking useless. Yea, you have bad skill with good covenant. But you will also have bad skill with bad covenant. And that's right there is the fucking dps difference by just clicking a button to the right or left from Necrolords two weeks ago and why people don't like covenants.

Boom, mind = blown.

Thats not even remotely how people or this game work. Which makes your entire comment pointless.

In your flawed misconception a bad and a good player at mechanics gains the same amount of performance by picking the same covenant.

They do not.



All covenant abilities requires perfectly optimized play to be used to their maximum potential.

Someone who is good at the game and can execute mechanics and stay alive, will have a much greater benefit of using the best covenant because he will be optimizing everything else as well which will multiply the effect of the covenant.

The bad player in attempt of using the the best covenant for damage would be far more succesful in picking a choice that helped him stay alive and worrying about staying alive.

To this player the gain of using the best covenant will translate to zero or almost zero gain compared to using a covenant/soulbind/talent that would help him avoid death and to execute mechanics.

If you agree that performance gain is important you cant agree with your own post since what constitutes gain in performance is very different from two different players at different skill levels.

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covenant statistic show otherwise what a surprise.

Its the basic of a mmorpg to gather better gear and make your toon as strong as possible of course people minmax surprised pikachu face

And how many people particiated in that statistic compared to the total number of people playing the game?

Making toon as strong as possible means different things for different people. Why arent everyone doing split runs to funnel loot. The answer to that can be used to why not everyone is minmaxing.

There is a cost/benefit ratio you have to consider.

Also the question is not if people are picking considered the best option or not. We allready know most people do.

The question is if they should, if its even the right choice for them and of it actually matters to them.

[Lei]

There is 110 million downloads for recount damage meter, 64,997,361 downloads for Details damage meter, and 37,512,477 downloads for Skada damage meter. Do you guys think it's all the "elite minority" that did this?

In fact, the top 3 downloaded addon on curse is DBM with 303.4 million downloads, then raider.io with 113.3 million, then recount with 110 million, and then weakauras with 87 million, details damage meter is next, and then bagnon.
This is all the <10%, right?