Can we finally get some balance for Covenants?

[A Chozo]

They are balanced enough for the part of the playerbase that matters (the casuls), Blizzard won't devote dev time into something so useless like fringe balancing for the 1% that actually benefits from more balance.

[Kaibhan]

This is utterly false. Answer this question:

Can you complete all content no matter which covenant you use? Yes or No?

If you answer the question honesty, my point becomes clear and you prove it. What you said is nothing more than a ton of words to say "I haave no argument, so I just declare myself correct by demeaning the other person". Do you have an actual argument against it?

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THey are not a failure. People equate "Covenant I want is not god mode" to failure.

Are the coveants perfect? No. Are they a failure? Absolutely not. People are letting their min/max obsession cloud their judgement.

In order for them to not be a failure there would have to be no wrong choices. There of course is always going to be an optimal choice but there should not be a wrong choice. A choice so bad that picking it puts you at a significant disadvantage. Currently there are classes and specs that do indeed have wrong choices. This system will continue to be a failure until that is no longer the case. Tying covenant to player power was a bad choice.

[Lucetia]

Can we get some kind of balance patch between covenants for crying out loud!? Even outside Necrotic, Kyrians are so much better for tanks that you have to consciously handicap yourself to play anything else! Player's choice my ass!

They've already stated they weren't going to balance anything with Convenants in terms of abilities until the next patch. That way they didn't force players who were min/max'ing to swap every other week with balancing.

While the Phial is good, it's not "omg I need Kyrian for it". The main draw should be if the ability is worth it, that is if you are trying to min/max. You say it isn't player's choice, but it is. You can play any covenant on any tank and still do fine. Each has their perks and advantages. Plus you have to look at soulbind use as well.

[banadona]

It's fine for some choices to be best, and others not to. That doesn't mean other options aren't viable as well. Not sure who made you the speaker for the vast majority of tank playerbase, but my personal experience is different. There are 3 tanks in my guild, one is venthyr, one is night fae and one is kyrian. Two of them are reliably doing 10-11 keys and pushing further consistently (funnily enough not the kyrian one) and as far as the raid goes, we recently got to 9/10 hc. Somehow they are doing fine in the covenants they currently are. Stop being overly dramatic.



So are we talking about specs or about covenants? You seem to be a bit confused here.

Some classes are a bit underpowered still, which Blizzard clearly recognizes because they are buffing them all the time recently. Covenants seem to be in a good place for the most part. Once again, everything not being exactly the same does not mean it's not balanced.

The fact that you and your buddies from the guild are in the minority when it comes to their covenant choice does not negate the principle that the vast majority actually did go Kyrian.

I never said I am now speaking for the entire Tank population. I'm simply commenting on a fact that one of the Covenants provides a clear advantage against at least one M+ affix while I cannot really find any other covenant abilities that would provide an equal advantage in any content.
Maybe except Venthyr teleport which in certain super rare situations would indeed provide an advantage against the Phial.

If you know one covenant ability that can be compared in terms of usefullness to the Kyrian steward and Phial, feel free to share.

[Orwell7]

They are balanced enough for the part of the playerbase that matters (the casuls), Blizzard won't devote dev time into something so useless like fringe balancing for the 1% that actually benefits from more balance.

SERIOUSLY GTFO with this 1% narrative!

WoW's playerbase IS NOT an 1:1 representation of the real world. Most WoW players ARE going to do M+, maybe not 10-15's, but they WILL get to it at some point.
Don't believe me? Go and find someone with more than 2 months of playtime who DOES NOT want to raid or do M+.
I know a few people who play with the AH, hunt for transmogs, mounts, and the like. But you know... those are the absolute minority. And besides, they don't really care. Do you know any Anima farmers for tmogs and mounts? Nope, they are already fed up on everything costing 100's of WQ's to get.

And besides this, what do you see that we are not? Where is this huuuge "development time" gone then? The art team has less-and-less work to do, we have less dungeons and less zones THAN EVER.

Numbers tuning are not as delicate as Blizzard tries to brainwash you with their narrative. It's not easy to get it at first, OK, but could Blizzard did it right EVER? Not really, and that's fine. But buffing specs by 3% when they are 20% behind is ridiculous.
Also the thing with balancing right now is that a few god-tier specs have it "all".

Balance, fire, outlaw, marksman are not the only ones doing top-notch damage, oh no. But! They are the ones blessed with amazing utility WHILE being top dps'ers.
Cutting their utility (or spreading them to lesser played specs) is more than enough balancing.

PvE has trash balancing and PvP has trash balancing at this point.
But, ultimately, it wouldn't matter at all if the content was "easy enough". Risk vs reward. Rn doing high M+ has a lot of risk but miniscule rewards, as all PvE content.

It's also fkin hilarious that in one of their interviews they said that the PvE and PvP gearing teams are NOT talking to each other. COME ON! For freaking YEARS they knew PvP gearing was faster than PvE, how could they miss that?!

Blizzards stance on everything nowadays is undefendable.

[clevin]

What you seem to be missing OP, is that balanced doesn't equal everything being the same. The covenants are balanced. It's just that some of them have slightly better performance for certain things, which is more than fine. If you want to maximize a certain aspect of your character, use the relevant covenant. If you don't care about minmaxing, no one forces you.

Bolded part is key. What many of you want isn't balance, it's equality. But if all of the covenants were completely equal across all of the class/spec combinations there would be no need for them in the first place since they'd not change anything and they don't for the vast majority of players.

Yeah, if you're doing higher keys or mythic raiding the small differences might become really important. But, so? People talk all the time of the things you need to do in order to do high level content - rolling certain classes, taking certain talents, etc. This is no different. In low keys, normal or heroic raiding... it won't matter. +15, mythic raiding? It might. And if you want to do that content, you need to min-max this, just like other things. "But muh RP!!!" Well, what's more important to you?

[intenz]

NO. People need to have to live with their choice and the consequences that comes with it. People should never be handed everything.

Right so people who make an intelligent decision and then get their covenant nerfed into the ground should just live with that? Can't tell if you're trolling or if the activision sycophants are just getting worse.

This expansion is going the same way as BFA if they don't do something about covenants. But at least they will have their loud minority of bootlickers defending their stupid designs and systems on forums.

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If you can't survive kiting off your stacks, you are in a key that is too high for your gear/skill level.

Yep demon hunters are just more skilled than other tanks. Dumbest post of the day.

[Tyris Flare]

This is utterly false. Answer this question:

Can you complete all content no matter which covenant you use? Yes or No?

If you answer the question honesty, my point becomes clear and you prove it. What you said is nothing more than a ton of words to say "I haave no argument, so I just declare myself correct by demeaning the other person". Do you have an actual argument against it?

Can you make a billion dollars being born into poverty? Technically yes, even though the odds are astronomical, therefore there is no problem with income distribution.

Can you become [x] despite loads of systematic factors stacked against you? Yes, even though the odds are astronomical, therefore everything is perfectly fine.

This is an insane argument. Being able to accomplish something despite having the deck stacked against you does not mean that we shouldn't try to rearrange the deck to be more fair.

[markos82]

NO. People need to have to live with their choice and the consequences that comes with it. People should never be handed everything.

Well then that should also apply to faction change, right? But hey its a payed option so I guess in blizzard mind it's ok

[Makabreska]

Well then that should also apply to faction change, right? But hey its a payed option so I guess in blizzard mind it's ok

Oh you can change factions np. The consequence is you have to change race, plus you leave your buddies behind. Also, this choice is not really affecting your power lvl.

[markos82]

Oh you can change factions np. The consequence is you have to change race, plus you leave your buddies behind.

And? Same can be said with covenants, you lose mounts, pets.... Most people that played alliance for years went horde and by thousands, my bnet list was 80:20 in alliance favor 5 years ago now its 10:90

[Eli85]

My answer: no. It's not for the reason you might think.

Covenants cannot be balanced across the board. They just can't. Blizzard, at no point in their history, ever had a situation where everything was "reasonably well balanced." And what I mean by that is: when players are filling spots in dungeons or raids, no consideration was given to the spec itself (obviously role consideration went to play). No matter what Blizzard does, how good their balancing is, players metrics for "spec viability" can at times be literally 0.1% better than the other options.

Now, obviously, the covenant problems are more than just 0.1%. The best example that I like to give is this: 87.65% of Restoration Druids choose Night Fae. Yup, that looks really balanced. It's a miserable feeling. I'm a Resto Druid, and while I love the Night Fae covenant, it's ... depressing that this alleged meaningful choice with consequences for me is ... utterly meaningless, unless I want to deliberately play a weaker character.

Honestly, when we get to near the end of this expansion, the covenant system will be abandoned and never heard of again, like so many past systems which we all knew were doomed to failure. It's just aggravating that Blizzard does not have enough self awareness to say, "We couldn't balance before, we can't balance this now."

[T-34]

They are balanced enough for the part of the playerbase that matters (the casuls), Blizzard won't devote dev time into something so useless like fringe balancing for the 1% that actually benefits from more balance.

I know plenty of casuals - players that don't play a lot - that care about their performance and quite a few of them are unhappy about the covenant system as they can be forced to chose between performance and aesthetics and lore.
It is not a problem for me as I value performance very high and aesthetics/lore very low, so I just pick the best, but it is problem for those that place an equal value on performance and aesthetics/lore, and those people can be found both among the hardcore and the casuals.

[Samuraijake]

Kyrian phial clearing nectrotic...

normally i dont complain about this kind of thing but... that IS pretty busted compared to other covenants. And its not even the class cov ability.

[A Chozo]

I know plenty of casuals - players that don't play a lot - that care about their performance and quite a few of them are unhappy about the covenant system as they can be forced to chose between performance and aesthetics and lore.
It is not a problem for me as I value performance very high and aesthetics/lore very low, so I just pick the best, but it is problem for those that place an equal value on performance and aesthetics/lore, and those people can be found both among the hardcore and the casuals.

Those casuals can care about performance as much as they want to, their own performance will still be trashy regardless of good or bad class balance. Balancing more or less won't have any effect on those players.

Most WoW players ARE going to do M+

Bullshit. Almost no one raids or does M+. You think they do because you are in an echochamber. Balance could be impecable and almost everyone in the playerbase would still suck regardless.

Hence why it's pointless to spend even one more second on such problem. I don't know where Blizzard is putting such manpower but anywhere is better than "reee I want Arcane mages buffed by 9% so I can still do less DPS than the Tank and complain on forums".

[Echocho]

Sigh...I wish I would not be forced to go Kyrian on every Tank toon I have except Druid for the freaking Phial.

Who exactly is forcing you? It's a game, if you don't want to do something you don't do it.

[Tumile]

If a 3 min cooldown "potion" is what prevents you from doing well then i think their are other bigger issues.

If tank is dying and its not due to your playing then the healer is not healing well enough or the DPS is lacking...real tanks blame everyone else!

Too many people these days worry about min/maxing, its really only for the people who like other people watching them play and win money for it

you have no idea about anything in the game you are currently playing, please keep ur un-informed opinion to yourself.

[Echocho]

I know plenty of casuals - players that don't play a lot - that care about their performance and quite a few of them are unhappy about the covenant system as they can be forced to chose between performance and aesthetics and lore.

And I know plenty of hardcore players who are very happy about having to make a choice. Neither of our anecdotes matters one bit though since they can't be verified.

[T-34]

Those casuals can care about performance as much as they want to, their own performance will still be trashy regardless of good or bad class balance. Balancing more or less won't have any effect on those players.

Do I understand you right that for you casual = bad at the game?

Bullshit. Almost no one raids or does M+. You think they do because you are in an echochamber. Balance could be impecable and almost everyone in the playerbase would still suck regardless.

Hence why it's pointless to spend even one more second on such problem. I don't know where Blizzard is putting such manpower but anywhere is better than "reee I want Arcane mages buffed by 9% so I can still do less DPS than the Tank and complain on forums".

No, it is you who lives in an echo-chamber. Let us find some statistics. Luckily raider.io has some we can look at.

So far in SL more than 250,000 unique MM hunters have timed a mythic+. Almost the same number of unique balance druids have timed a mythic+. You can add up all the other unique characters of different classes that have timed a mythic+ in SL.

If you add them all up we are close to 2 million unique characters that have timed a mythic+ so far in SL. Of course some accounts have more than 1 character, so this less than 2 million accounts that have timed a mythic+, but that clearly shows that mythic+ is very popular amongst both casuals and hardcore.

Mythic+is not a "niche" activity.

https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankin...MythicLevel=99

[A Chozo]

No, it is you who lives in an echo-chamber. Let us find some statistics. Luckily raider.io has some we can look at.

Are you really trying to use an unreliable source like fucking raider.io of all things as your statistical basis?

This conversation is pointless.