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

[Sorshen]

Going through a few of these really fast...

Okay, 400 DPS.

For the vast majority of people, this should not matter.

Lol, it definitely matters, 400 dps is a lot on progression... even for casual guilds.

[Lei]

Mhm, you didn't see my edit I guess. Because, I do agree with you, people do care about their performance, so they install damage meters. But my point is, not so many care about it so much that it affects how they play the game, and do choices with other things than minmaxing in mind.

There is a big difference in caring about performance and minmaxing. Significant difference. Most players, I think, like you, care about performance. But a minor portion of the player base care about minmaxing.

I can agree with anyone's point of view except the black and white binary ones (ie everyone must pick the best or else the sky will fall or nobody cares about performance, they only care about the looks). Mostly because the initial porposition and advertisement for the covenants were much more meaningful and impactful and strict. Now if you don't like it, you can switch, the abilities and soulbinds were nerfed etc. For everything else: just level an alt and unlock stuff on that char, probably the covenant restrictions will be lifted at some point down the line.

[Eldar45]

Lol, it definitely matters, 400 dps is a lot on progression... even for casual guilds.

Except it is 400 DPS between the absolute best and absolute worst. I don't think many people are taking the absolute worst just cause they can. The difference between actual covenants on a lot of these is 200 or less.

And that is assuming BIS gear and maximum renown which you won't have for months.

Sims are great, but they don't really take into account real world applications.

[roboscorcher]

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.

While I agree that lots of people pick aesthetics over power, Kyrian is arguably still better than Venthyr, regardless of sims. The utility of silencing 5 targets at once is amazing, and isn't really something you can factor into a sim.

[kaminaris]

Again I have raided at that level I don't anymore but I still get CE in a decent amount of time on a couple day a week. It has nothing to do with being a "wannabe elitist" it has to do with not making my raid carry me as you seem fine with. If you aren't taking the best options you are being actively detrimental to your raid compared to what you could do and making others pick up your slack. If you are taking a covenant that does 500 less dps you specifically are being detrimental to your raid compared to what you could be. I don't understand the selfish mentality that players like you and the other one have you are playing a group based game and are actively choosing to be worse. In the cases where it's 50 to 100 dps difference sure choose rp but when it's 500 plus you are kind of being a jerk to your raid not to take it.

Then you haven't raided at that level. Simple as that, to take top 10 you actually have to play a lot because lack of dps caused by shit gear, will hit a real wall.
Raiding couple days a week is already not even close to that level.'

Also don't pull numbers out of your ass because its not 500dps. At least not for vast majority of classes. And still mechanical skill is more important.
I would take mechanical god with wrongest covenant over normal player with best covenant all day any day. Any competent RL would tell you the same.
And no, people don't have the same skill, there is no such thing as two people with same amount of skill and different covenant.

[rhorle]

Lol, it definitely matters, 400 dps is a lot on progression... even for casual guilds.

But most of these groups have other factors impacting performance where covenant choice won't be there. Skill. Specs. Gear. Etc. Most people who raid try to be "optimal" but in my experience that also only goes so far. Is the guild willing to force a person to switch to a higher dps spec? How much do they work with lower skilled members to improve their rotation etc.

Of course every little bit matters but the covenant choice when compared with everything else is of little importance. It is why something that sims as best isn't always the best choice for everyone to do because the ability to play as perfect as that sim is a major factor. Lower simmed options might be better for some. Take the Legendary effects for example. Reading the Demonology Warlock guides it has recommendations for a few with one recommended as the best passive option. Does it sim lower then others that require you to react? Sure.

But in practice some may play better with the passive impact that you can largely ignore. The same exists with trinkets. Equip versus on use. Even something like that requires a person to actively be aware and hit the trinket at the right time for the best benefit. In reality does everyone do that? Or do they forget to use it, use it at a bad time, etc.

So yes while 400 dps is 400 dps. There are still plenty of other factors that need to be overcome before the covenant choice is the only issue. And if Blizzard doesn't balance encounters around picking the best covenant then it is not really a factor. It only exists as a small boost to an already struggling group.

[schwank05]

That a whooping 75% of those DKs did NOT choose what performs best, but what they thought was coolest or most fitting, even though people here claim all the time that "Literally everyone" chooses performance over everything

I was planning on Night Fae until I leveled my DK and quickly realized that the DND ability sucked in general and I don't want to use it. So I went with Necrolords because the AOE is great and I love that it pulls adds in to me. It felt the best and the looks of the zones and armor were so much cooler.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

this, if you check the disparity its highest mostly for specs that have aesthetics and performance best corresponding, like most druids go night fae and most paladins go kyrian (actualy i dont think its best for some of the specs)
when you take holy priest, where necro should be best, its "only" 44%... almost like the performance was NOT the most important criterium for majority...

but what arguments you can expect from people who dont care about reality but only about their narative...

If you're playing Holy instead of Disc, performance was probably not your top priority to begin with.

- - - Updated - - -

"Restoration Druid has a massive 87.65% of players as Night Fae, and Holy Paladins also has a massive 89% of players as Kyrian. This is likely due to the strength of these Covenant abilities for their spec"

It's probably due to both of those matching lore and aesthetics to the covenant. People that min-max are a minority. Moat people I know went for their covenant due to story, aesthetics or how fun the ability was.

Possibly it is due to lore/aesthetic, however Night Fae is also best for Feral and Boomkin. So anyone who plays Resto and any spec other than Guardian on 1 char really only had 1 viable Covenant choice.


The hunter breakdown is probably the most obvious: The vast majority of hunters went with performance, over 90% of BM/MM hunters are Night Fae or Kyrian.

Ironically Surv does prove a point that players who don't really care about performance do split much more evenly between the Covenants, and how few people play Surv goes to show that it is a minority of players that ignore performance when making choices.

[NineSpine]

If you're playing Holy instead of Disc, performance was probably not your top priority to begin with.

- - - Updated - - -



Possibly it is due to lore/aesthetic, however Night Fae is also best for Feral and Boomkin. So anyone who plays Resto and any spec other than Guardian on 1 char really only had 1 viable Covenant choice.


The hunter breakdown is probably the most obvious: The vast majority of hunters went with performance, over 90% of BM/MM hunters are Night Fae or Kyrian.

Ironically Surv does prove a point that players who don't really care about performance do split much more evenly between the Covenants, and how few people play Surv goes to show that it is a minority of players that ignore performance when making choices.

You are assigning motivation where you have no evidence for it whatsoever.

[Danuel]

About fun. I have fun when I do completive dps with my mates from raid and I don't hinder my guild. So yeah for "fun" I will force myself in best covenant.

[Ielenia]

If it's the entire raid at an average of 400 dps across 16 players averaging out tank and heal damage that's around 6400 dps which is basically having an extra raid member lol

Yeah, no. Even if the entire raid has the """wrong""" covenant, it still won't be anywhere near the difference between "one-shot kill and 4+ hours of wiping" on a boss.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

You are assigning motivation where you have no evidence for it whatsoever.

Right, it just so happens that literally the worst hunter spec has a fraction of the players of the other two specs and a much more even Covenant distribution.

My speculation is very reasonable considering just how bad Surv is compared to other melee, and how bad it is relative to BM/MM. If fantasy were the major deciding factor then we wouldn't see such a large gap in Covenant distribution between MM+BM against Surv because the Covenants are relatively close in value for all 3 specs.

The breakdown: Night Fae/Kyrian/Necrolord/Venthyr

BM: 75/15/5/5

MM: 60/32/4/5

Surv: 48/22/17/12

I'm aware they don't all add up to 100%, I'm rounding for the sake of making it easier to read and to highlight the obviously enormous discrepancy in the Covenant choice distribution. It is speculation, but it isn't groundless speculation.

[Sagenod]

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.

You, along with the rest of the players who can't handle not being 100% optimized in every facet of the game, are letting yourselves be affected in a negative way by a video game. A video game. Players like you take it too seriously and for your own sake, you should quit the game.

[Lei]

You, along with the rest of the players who can't handle not being 100% optimized in every facet of the game, are letting yourselves be affected in a negative way by a video game. A video game. Players like you take it too seriously and for your own sake, you should quit the game.

You know, this comment is kind of funny after reading your signature and checking out that thread about that imaginary wow race.

[Jonnusthegreat]

So you leveled to 60 without selecting a spec? Odd way to play, but whatever floats your boat.

(Your armory shows the spec you logged out as, the site acknowledges that the numbers are likely skewed to some degree by people logging out in off-specs).

I almost always log out in windwalker spec, because that's what I use to do dailies. That's my point. What people log out as isn't their 'spec.' It's what they log out as.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes she is a "monk" but she is also a brewmaster MONK or windwalker MONK or a mistweaver MONK not simply a MONK. They determined your spec based on what pulls from armory when you logged out as that spec. As far as what specs are listed under mythic dungeon progression, that's locked in when you finish a mythic as a certain spec and records all of the 5 people's specs once it registers you've completed it. Its the same way that even the WoW website shows the leaderboard for each of the specs all 5 people were when the mythic finished. WoW website as in the official WoW leaderboard listed.

My point was that she is brewmaster, windwalker, AND mistweaver. Picking one is simply wrong. I am pointing out a flaw in the research method.

[rhorle]

My point was that she is brewmaster, windwalker, AND mistweaver. Picking one is simply wrong. I am pointing out a flaw in the research method.

It isn't a flaw in the research though. Because the statistics do not require 100% accurate results to draw conclusions. You playing 3 specs equally on a character doesn't really change much. Because your covenant choice is still the same. So at least one choice is accurate for that specialization and since covenants do not change on spec switch it means that all the breakdowns apply to all 3 specializations anyways.

[Jonnusthegreat]

It isn't a flaw in the research though. Because the statistics do not require 100% accurate results to draw conclusions. You playing 3 specs equally on a character doesn't really change much. Because your covenant choice is still the same. So at least one choice is accurate for that specialization and since covenants do not change on spec switch it means that all the breakdowns apply to all 3 specializations anyways.

But my character is only in ONE of those data points. That's what flaws the data. If every single death knight logged out as blood, this website would assert that there are zero frost and zero unholy deathknights playing the game. That is demonstrably false.

[gaymer77]

My point was that she is brewmaster, windwalker, AND mistweaver. Picking one is simply wrong. I am pointing out a flaw in the research method.

But she's not though. She's either a brewmaster MONK or she's a windwalker MONK or she's a mistweaver MONK. You can't be all 3 at one time. THAT is the point.

[Jonnusthegreat]

But she's not though. She's either a brewmaster MONK or she's a windwalker MONK or she's a mistweaver MONK. You can't be all 3 at one time. THAT is the point.

So when I play all 3 every day, which one am I? The first one? The one I play most? The one I log out as? All of these questions do not have a single correct answer. The website has decided one (incorrectly).

[gaymer77]

But my character is only in ONE of those data points. That's what flaws the data. If every single death knight logged out as blood, this website would assert that there are zero frost and zero unholy deathknights playing the game. That is demonstrably false.

No it would show that 100% of DKs logged out while in a blood spec but the data for the M+ figures would show what spec was used when the last boss in the dungeon was used because it calculates/pulls that data from the Blizzard site/data for the leaderboards which logs the class and spec used for those timed & saved runs. I think you're failing to see that. If your brewmaster MONK ran a M+ Plaguefall it would register it on the site as your brewmaster MONK running it and add to the numbers listed for brewmaster while if your misteweaver MONK (which happens to be the same monk who was a brewmaster in Plaguefall but using a different spec) ran Mythic Theater of Pain it would be registered as a mistweaver MONK in those data. I don't understand how you don't get this.