Covenant Campaign Item Upgrades are Ridiculous

[Unlimited Power]

If anything, this is great for me as it'll allow me to get all my alts to near-200 ilvl very quickly upon hitting level 60. I've already spent more than enough time getting my main to 214, I'd rather not put the same amount of effort into my alts. But having a decent ilvl still makes me want to play me alts more than having to deal with freshly dinged 138-148 geared characters.

[Rangifer]

Yeah thats an actual problem.

The weapon thing is just pure bs.

I'm 212 equipped atm with no pvp done. I should probably upgrade my worst items(203 main hand and 207 offhand) to a 233 pvp weapon but i just dont like it.

Feels kinda crappy as someonewho otherwise try and do what i can to better myself.

How in seven hells would you just upgrade your items to 233? You know you need to have 2400 rating for that ilvl? It's not something that average joe can push themselves.

I'm also a bit confused how you will get 220 ilvl with only pvp as the amount of gear via pvp is capped to 1.75/week (one for vault IF there is slot which you don't own & buying with conquest, but you get 550 conq/week and most of the items is more expensive than that).

[Beastiel]

I read this somewhere as a comment on real life, and I feel it applies here as well:

There are two kinds of people:
1. "It was hard for me, so I want it to be as hard for everyone else"
1. "It was hard for me, so I want to ensure everyone else has an easier time".

If you're the first type, then you are the problem, not the system.

it absolutely does not apply here. Trying to apply it here makes you look incredibly stupid.

So you'd be okay if they just allowed everyone in current gear to go back and 1 shot the mage tower challenges and get their special artifact appearances for free?

No, ofcourse you wouldn't, because this is a video game where you play to accomplish goals so that you're better equipped to accomplish other goals. It's not a real life system of government.

[owbu]

Everyone who grinds the anima required to actually buy those items has endured enough pain doing the most boring content the game has to offer to deserve them IMO.
I got my 200ish itemlevel having fun in normal raids and lowish m+. So I dont really feel like I'm the one who got cheated here.

[chiddie]

benthic and black empire gear was for underdeveloped twinks and didn't invalidate people with mythic gear. sure, benthic gear had some special effects and immensely upgraded with a lot of currency COULD fill a spot or even BiS for some classes. but visions of n'zoth awarded ~415 gear whilst mythic 2 already awarded 435.

i wouldn't go as far as saying that the covenant armor is catch-up. you still have to grind 1.050 anima per piece, so no fresh twink will have 9/9 ilvl 197 covenant armor as opposed to sendable tokens in BfA, legion.

Not all the pieces start rank 1, so it’s not exactly 1000 anima per piece, but the point is true, upgrading them all to max require a hella lot of farming (I barely stand farming the 1000 anima for the weekly quest).

[cparle87]

You made one very good point. What's the point of even gating the LFR? Like seriously, what is the point beyond "this scrub may not look upon the real pro raiders"?

The point is for real raiders to get their AotC, see the final boss and all that, before someone who just afk's through LFR.

[Meanshield]

Expecting campaign to give 220 ilvl almost 2 full months post-release is just daft.

[Barzotti]

Do the complainers realize that the weekly event gives 750 anima for 20 WQs?

[Noctiphobia]

Mythic plus is pretty worthless now.
PvP is the much faster way to gear up.

The PvPers in our guild are sitting at 220 ilvl now.
They haven't even finish a +12

Everyone who spammed mythics is at 210 to 215

Posts like this are exactly why item level is a terrible measure of anything. At least gearscore weighed slots. If Blizzard hadn't implemented item level (the worst possible version of gearscore) as something that shows up in game, by now the widely used thing would at least take stat priority into account.
My 217 PvP equipped shadow priest sims 20% lower than a 210 PvE shadow priest with non-versatility gear. Versatility is the worst stat for most specs (the only specs that like it are the ones that scale very poorly and become trash in next patch, like WW monk). Are you sure you'd like to have 25-30% versatility just so that you can show off a high item level?
And let's not forget that people who gear purely through PvP had half of their slots filled with 184 item level stuff last week (having ~4 conquest pieces and 5 vault pieces); only this week they can upgrade them to 197 (and replace 1-2 items).

[Lucifer Morningstar]

It's crazy to me how this week's covenant campaign upgrades are ilvl 197. I've been playing every day for the last month gearing up from campaign->normal->heroic->mythic->m+ and this week's covenant/PvP gear basically replaced everything except for a few pieces and now everyone is running around with the same gear and ilvl.

You've been playing for a month, and are still at their level? People are hitting 190-200 ilvl within the first hour that they level 60 through the Auction house 2 weeks ago.

I used to start the week by running some low-mid mythic+ to raise my ilvl so I would have an easier time getting invited to higher m+ but this gear has put everyone on even footing and completely killed my motivation to do any m+. I feel like gearing up was a complete waste of time and I could have just bought the game a month later and been in the exact same spot I am now.

What you gained is experience and a raider.io score that they will not have. Gear alone will not get you a faster invite nowadays, you also need a good score/xp to be invited. You spent that 1 month learning and gaining those scores/xp.

I signed up for an LFR today and was thinking what is the point of even doing this now? Why are the last 2 wings still time gated when the gear is completely worthless and replaced by doing a quest? There's also no point running mythics, low-mid mythic+, LFR, PvP for PvE, or World Quests for gear anymore.

Super disappointed.

The whole point of LFR is not as a catchup gear mechanic. It's main purpose is there to allow people who do not engage in guild activities or are super super super casual, a chance to witness the fight mechanics, experience bosses, and live the raiding experience without the challenges of being in a guild/pug or the bosses being hard.

I get it, you're upset people are catching up to your gear level that you worked so hard for. However, in reality, you're behind the curve my friend.


The average curve is no longer low-mid mythic+, LFR, or world quests. The average curve players have been doing normal raids, some heroic bosses, and m10-13.
That's what will give you 200-213 ilvl gear and that's where the "average" players are at the moment.

[Nivram]

It's not even cheap to get the upgrades, so it's not a problem. It probably takes as much time as you've invested in instances for a person to collect the anima required to upgrade....

[rrayy]

Exactly this. Upgrading those early pieces to max probably costs over 1k anime power...which is needed for upgrades on your covenant base, a thing that's more important in the long run.

Except your base upgrades are not needed at all. They have no importance at all.

- - - Updated - - -

It's not even cheap to get the upgrades, so it's not a problem. It probably takes as much time as you've invested in instances for a person to collect the anima required to upgrade....

Umm, you have to get 1K anima each week for renown. If you have done that quest every week since it started you should have enough anima to pay to upgrade all pieces.

[D3athsting]

Is it, though? Isn't most of the upgrade stuff cosmetics?

No, you get an astounding amount of 3 fishes from a spirit in queen's conservatory

[Accendor]

First time, eh?

These kind of short-term loot catch-up mechanisms have been in the game the last three expansions. If anything, you should be excited that more people will have higher item levels now as it means there will be more qualified players applying to the groups you're looking to push. But hey, you're free to have a cynical "dey tooked my loot" outlook too.

It actually means there are much more people applying for the same spot he is applying to. It would only be beneficial to him if he would be playing tank, which he is clearly not.

[Aggrophobic]

It's crazy to me how this week's covenant campaign upgrades are ilvl 197. I've been playing every day for the last month gearing up from campaign->normal->heroic->mythic->m+ and this week's covenant/PvP gear basically replaced everything except for a few pieces and now everyone is running around with the same gear and ilvl.

I used to start the week by running some low-mid mythic+ to raise my ilvl so I would have an easier time getting invited to higher m+ but this gear has put everyone on even footing and completely killed my motivation to do any m+. I feel like gearing up was a complete waste of time and I could have just bought the game a month later and been in the exact same spot I am now.

I signed up for an LFR today and was thinking what is the point of even doing this now? Why are the last 2 wings still time gated when the gear is completely worthless and replaced by doing a quest? There's also no point running mythics, low-mid mythic+, LFR, PvP for PvE, or World Quests for gear anymore.

Super disappointed.

If you're not above 197 at this point, you're way behind.
That is the main issue with Shadowlands - You can't get good gear unless you raid.

Go raid or find some other game if you want to keep up with gear. Simple as that.

[Soimu]

It's crazy to me how this week's covenant campaign upgrades are ilvl 197. I've been playing every day for the last month gearing up from campaign->normal->heroic->mythic->m+ and this week's covenant/PvP gear basically replaced everything except for a few pieces and now everyone is running around with the same gear and ilvl.

I used to start the week by running some low-mid mythic+ to raise my ilvl so I would have an easier time getting invited to higher m+ but this gear has put everyone on even footing and completely killed my motivation to do any m+. I feel like gearing up was a complete waste of time and I could have just bought the game a month later and been in the exact same spot I am now.

I signed up for an LFR today and was thinking what is the point of even doing this now? Why are the last 2 wings still time gated when the gear is completely worthless and replaced by doing a quest? There's also no point running mythics, low-mid mythic+, LFR, PvP for PvE, or World Quests for gear anymore.

Super disappointed.

That's why you should play wow like me at the beginning of the xpac to see the story and the new zones and at the end to do all stuff quick with the best gear in the game ))
Struggling to get gear is just a waste of time unless you want to compete for something.

[Azerate]

benthic and black empire gear was for underdeveloped twinks and didn't invalidate people with mythic gear. sure, benthic gear had some special effects and immensely upgraded with a lot of currency COULD fill a spot or even BiS for some classes. but visions of n'zoth awarded ~415 gear whilst mythic 2 already awarded 435.

i wouldn't go as far as saying that the covenant armor is catch-up. you still have to grind 1.050 anima per piece, so no fresh twink will have 9/9 ilvl 197 covenant armor as opposed to sendable tokens in BfA, legion.

WQs and game content in SL is much more demanding and time consuming though. It's perfectly fine for casual players to have an out-of-dungeon progression system.

it absolutely does not apply here. Trying to apply it here makes you look incredibly stupid.

So you'd be okay if they just allowed everyone in current gear to go back and 1 shot the mage tower challenges and get their special artifact appearances for free?

No, ofcourse you wouldn't, because this is a video game where you play to accomplish goals so that you're better equipped to accomplish other goals. It's not a real life system of government.

It does apply exactly to this kind of situation.

Yes, I believe mage towers should have been left in the game. On principle, I am against making anything unobtainable just on the basis of people not playing at a certain date. It's silly and shouldn't be a thing. It's also very random - mythic raids for example remain in the game forever and retain all the transmog as well as mounts you can get there. No reason the same can't happen to solo challenges, challenge modes, etc.

Having said all that, your mage tower example is completely invalid since that is content from 3 expansions back. Of course getting it now would not carry any prestige with Bfa/SL gear, but it should still be available nontheless.

[Philomene]

If you're not above 197 at this point, you're way behind.
That is the main issue with Shadowlands - You can't get good gear unless you raid.

Go raid or find some other game if you want to keep up with gear. Simple as that.

OTOH why would you need raid gear if you don’t raid? If you’re only doing WQs and legacy raids you should stay at WQs item levels. You can perfectly start raiding with 184 mythics, some covenant gear and the rewards from the weekly quests.

[kamuimac]

Shouldn't have played the game then. Everything you do to get equip will always be invalidated when the catch-up mechanisms start working. The only permanent things are cosmetics and achievements.

and its one of crucial problems with retail for years now

nothing what you do in game matters - as each new patch completly invalidates previous ones.

now even leveling dont matter because its likely levels will be reset to 60 ach expansion

[Baine]

Well they are BIS for me. I sit at 185 ilv at the moment. Will enjoy those upgrades.