"Only the top 1% will pick covenants based on performance" :S

[Malania]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correl...and_dependence

The data clearly shows a correlation between the strongest cov and people's cov choice. Quite easy to understand actually. Hopefully, you can get it now, too.

It offers no such thing. That’s an interpretation not a conclusion. Multiple data sets of classes and specs do not have that correlation. It does not factor in logouts on dual specs.

[Addiena]

it's not as much as the other abilities are worse for dungeons or raids , they are just worse all around in some cases.


As paladin pressing divine toll feels WAAAAAAY better than any other covenant ability.
As a DH nothing really screamed game changing potential , so i went night fae because at it does something unique with that 50yd charge.
As DK i went venthyr but i'm probably going to switch him to necrolords
My Warrior will probably be defaulted to venthyr at this point so that i have each character into a unique covenant, regardless of it being good or not.

I went with Venthyr for my Prot Pally, the stupid amount of on demand burst it provides just can't be beat, and I like the campy vibe of that whole zone.

The AOE crowd control Mirror provides is also great too, and using it to get my pally into places no paladin should ever be able to get to.

[Dervrak]

Well that's clearly not true. We can already see from the numbers, that most players clearly are picking covenants based on what performs best in raids and dungeons.

As an example, the vast majority of Rogue players are either Night Fae or Kyrian. And if you for some reason think that Rogues like to be fairies or ascended angle-creatures then you're absolutely delusional.

People are in general abusing the 99% vs 1% "argument" to create pictures of WoW which are clearly not true. WoW consists of many many different groups of players and most of them care about performance to some degree. The statistics clearly show this.

Yeah, it's a bit amusing that a lot of players that will never raid any higher than maybe Normal and don't even have a solid grasp on the optimum way to play their class, take it as gospel that they MUST pick the covenant and soulbind that top tier mythic raiding guilds have determined could add a couple DPS assuming you are playing everything else to the peak of perfection. Sort of like the 5' 8" kid in high school that thinks if he buys the same brand of shoes, he will suddenly play basketball like LeBron James. The truth is that for 99% of players, Covenant choice won't matter. Pick what feels right for you, pick whatever faction you enjoy the lore in, ignore the simcraft optimum numbers and what Chad McElitist is using in the mythic tier race, (good advice for what class and spec you decide to play as well).

[Tojara]

Hope people realize that you have a 25% chance of landing on the 'correct covenant' by shear chance, thus inflating the numbers for those to argue 'concrete' statistics with. If there were like a dozen covenants you might have a more of a leg to stand on, but currently the data spewed by people on this forum doesn't really say much.

Paladins and Hunters are some of the most popular classes in WoW and you would be utterly retarded or disingenuous to argue that the strongest covenant for either of those classes isn't also thematically linked as well. If you made those covenants the absolute worst you would absolutely see migration, but the real question is, how much? Paladin and Kyrian from an aesthetic stand point go hand in hand, and I'd argue it's the same for Night Fae with Druids/Hunters.

Again you can't look in the data with utmost confidence and claim that people are just flocking to the strongest covenant thus far, especially when some of the most popular classes in the game are picking the one that both aligns from an aesthetic nature and with performance.

Does performance dictate what people do? Absolutely but I don't think the picture is anywhere close to accurately painted yet.

Also is it a fucking surprise that people do what they see the best players doing? There's also a heavy case of monkey see monkey do.

[Lolites]

Paladin and Kyrian from an aesthetic stand point go hand in hand, and I'd argue it's the same for Night Fae with Druids/Hunters.

this, most disparity is on classes/specs that have thematicaly and performance best for the same covenant

[valax]

I went with Venthyr for my Prot Pally, the stupid amount of on demand burst it provides just can't be beat, and I like the campy vibe of that whole zone.

The AOE crowd control Mirror provides is also great too, and using it to get my pally into places no paladin should ever be able to get to.

On the paladin i mainly play ret but also prot , divine toll + it's conduit as prot is insane too , both from damage burst and utility (aoe silence / mob stacking/snap aggro) perspectives, the problem I have with ashen hollow is a 3 point one : first is the cast time, second is 4 minute cooldown, third is hammer of wrath long cooldown. In a 30s window you use HoW 4 times.

I planned at first to go venthyr too but then fell in love with divine toll , as prot i love the sound of a car smashing into a drums set when you click that ability

[Rinaul]

I went aesthetic based. Unholy and Necrolord theme are perfect! I think vampires are supposed to be better for us but their theme just screams blood dk. I do like their sinstone mog but the skeletal theme of necro sold it for me

[Ticj]

If you are a casual and dont have access to top end gear why would you set yourself even further behind with the wrong covenant ?

If you are a casual what does it even matter? Just pick what you'll have the most fun with. The power differences between each covenant are hardly enough for it to be reasonable to hamper your enjoyment of the game for two full years.

Unless you're raiding at a mythic level, there is no reason to pick based around min-maxing unless that's how you want to play. There will be more of a performance gap based around skill than covenant choice anyways.

[ZazuuPriest]

what you meant to say is that Only top 1% guilds will require certain talents based on preformance. For anyone else it doesnt/shouldnt matter. That doesnt keep the larger population from picking optimally.

[Mercarcher]

Shows the opposite for me.

Blood DK
Venthyr 23,863 50.36%
Necrolord 10,962 23.13%
Kyrian 9,138 19.29%

With Kyrian being the optimal choice for Blood DKs this is showing a lot of people chose flavor over numbers.

Protection Paladin
Kyrian 64,910 77.44%
Venthyr 14,419 17.20%

Same goes with Prot pallies. Kyrian fits the theme, Venthyr preforms better.

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I went aesthetic based. Unholy and Necrolord theme are perfect! I think vampires are supposed to be better for us but their theme just screams blood dk. I do like their sinstone mog but the skeletal theme of necro sold it for me

Nah, Necrolord is optimal for unholy DK, and Kyrian is optimal for Blood DK.

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As paladin pressing divine toll feels WAAAAAAY better than any other covenant ability.

It's less optimal than choosing Venthyr and having crazy burst windows of 7k+ DPS. That's not even mentioning how good the soul binds for Venthyr are for prot pallies.

[Amsden]

I had settled on Venthyr before I even knew it was the best ST choice for frost mage... Now though I really don't want to give up mirrors when SL ends, I love knowing I have 3 guaranteed procs.

[Aydinx2]

I had settled on Venthyr before I even knew it was the best ST choice for frost mage...

Yeah but you are playing frost mage, so you already don't care about top performance, making this a moot point.

[BetrayedOf52]

I did choose whatever I wanted for my third alt, but my two main chars I choose which was best.

[ZazuuPriest]

Shows the opposite for me.

Blood DK
Venthyr 23,863 50.36%
Necrolord 10,962 23.13%
Kyrian 9,138 19.29%

With Kyrian being the optimal choice for Blood DKs this is showing a lot of people chose flavor over numbers.

Protection Paladin
Kyrian 64,910 77.44%
Venthyr 14,419 17.20%

Same goes with Prot pallies. Kyrian fits the theme, Venthyr preforms better.

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Nah, Necrolord is optimal for unholy DK, and Kyrian is optimal for Blood DK.

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It's less optimal than choosing Venthyr and having crazy burst windows of 7k+ DPS. That's not even mentioning how good the soul binds for Venthyr are for prot pallies.

Venthyr preforms better as far as ST Dps goes but i wouldnt trade Divine Toll with Ringing Clarity for all of King Midas' silver

[Kharadin]

I didn't think that was ever the argument, from what I read it's mostly that people don't need to pick the optimal covenant for their spec unless they're in the top 1%. Obviously, the community being what it is everyone is gonna optimise and demand that everyone else do the same so they can do 1% more damage while failing mechanics in a heroic pug.

[Sunblaze]

I think that by gutting covenants that were "good" for most classes, the problem is really only the extremes (some classes have ONE covenant that is shit).

As a mage or warlock i can pick almost anything (except necrolord) and the performance is not that different. I guess its sad if you like necrolord.

[Sativ]

Imagine expecting such good Balance that 'best talent' was only so marginally 'best' that only world first push would care.

[Sithalos]

I picked what covenant I liked, because I'm going to get Cutting Edge regardless.

[Not A Cat]

No one was saying that only the top 1% will pick covenant based on performance.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with picking the optimal covenant for your spec if that's what you want to do. However, there are some who feel like they are "forced" to pick a covenant they don't like because it performs better. To that we say the optimal choice is really only going to make a difference in the hardest content, so unless you're doing that content you can pick a covenant you actually like and won't have to worry about not being invited to groups.

Yeah, there will be normal/heroic pugs that will have ridiculous requirements. There always are and they're allowed to do that for their group, but chances are there will be plenty of other groups with lower requirements, and worst case scenario you could just start your own group.

[Nuba]

"I choose my covenants purely based on aesthetics, they just happen to be BIS for whatever activity I do"