Why are they bringing back conduit grinding in 9.1

[Kehego]

I mean talking about balance while playing a dead spec isn't a terriblely compelling argument.

If you didn't cherry pick you more or less got the weakest spec conduit wise off the bat...

funny enough, rn BM and MM do identical damage.
Logs are skewed towards MM because they had a patch riding a bug that got fixed from BM immediately, but since 9.0.5? fight by fight basis.

"dead" is an exaggeration, but you sound like a metaslave so this will fall on deaf ears

[DazManianDevil]

I mean talking about balance while playing a dead spec isn't a terriblely compelling argument.

If you didn't cherry pick you more or less got the weakest spec conduit wise off the bat...

Which is fair, however the person I was initially responding to made no such arguments so I ran with what I had.
If he had said "I play Fire mage and my conduit ilvl going up from 213-226 is a 1% dps increase, that's actually a big deal" I would have agreed wholeheartedly.

As for my spec being dead that's quite true compared to 8.3, balance druid is the new kid on the block, though for spec participation/performance BM isn't exactly the bottom. As of typing this BM is right in the middle of total Mythic logs in the past 2 weeks and very popular in heroic because beast cleave is easy.

Even when this patch was fresh BM wasn't that far behind MM, and MM was only really good for burst which BM lacks. On fights that reward consistent sustained damage the spec does fine and even scales better than most so I'll stay optimistic.
We'll see how 9.1 treats us all!

[schwarzkopf]

How can they bring back something which never was ?

Hint - mandatory grinding died several expansions back.

[Azerate]

Quality > quantity. Also all covenant mounts seem to be basically recolours of a single model.



And here I was thinking that I was never going to find someone who actually cared about pets



Whoa, won't you look at that, ONE damn recoloured set that takes AGES to farm. So thrilling... /sigh

Sorry, but there's no arguing there is much, much more content in covenant sanctums than there was in class halls. Feel free to dislike the content, but there's heaps more of it. I liked class halls very much, and own the Legendary Campaign FoS (all class halls done on all classes) but in the end they were nothing more than a single quest line , some class flavor + like 2-3 class halls had something akin to a minigame. There's no comparing between the two.

Oh, and more people care about pets than raids, you're welcome.

[huth]

Now comparing the sanctum to the class hall
Class hall is the monk starting island which IMO is way better

It's the big exception, though. The only one remotely close is DH, which also shares doubling as a starting zone.

The rest are far smaller and much closer to Covenant Sanctums but unlike DH and Monk, are actually purposely created for that.

Monk is by far the least-effort Class Hall, they just plonked down the necessities on the Pandaren starter zone.

[Krakan]

funny enough, rn BM and MM do identical damage.
Logs are skewed towards MM because they had a patch riding a bug that got fixed from BM immediately, but since 9.0.5? fight by fight basis.

"dead" is an exaggeration, but you sound like a metaslave so this will fall on deaf ears

You are not getting ce unless you are getting carried with BM... hunter isn't a strong class later into the tier regardless but given how burst windows are massive this expansion and how your best conduit scales heavily with burst your in a weak position making yourself weaker.

It's just annoying when someone with six mythic boss kills who is never going to hit dps checks starts talking about balance is all.

- - - Updated - - -

Which is fair, however the person I was initially responding to made no such arguments so I ran with what I had.
If he had said "I play Fire mage and my conduit ilvl going up from 213-226 is a 1% dps increase, that's actually a big deal" I would have agreed wholeheartedly.

As for my spec being dead that's quite true compared to 8.3, balance druid is the new kid on the block, though for spec participation/performance BM isn't exactly the bottom. As of typing this BM is right in the middle of total Mythic logs in the past 2 weeks and very popular in heroic because beast cleave is easy.

Even when this patch was fresh BM wasn't that far behind MM, and MM was only really good for burst which BM lacks. On fights that reward consistent sustained damage the spec does fine and even scales better than most so I'll stay optimistic.
We'll see how 9.1 treats us all!

It might be alright in 9.1, 9.0 heavily not just preferred burst it requires it.

BM has the advantage of being a fully mobile spec while having better scaling them MM. While hunter isn't really in a good spot it's likely you will see bm too spec eventually.

- - - Updated - - -

How can they bring back something which never was ?

Hint - mandatory grinding died several expansions back.

Depends on what you do in the game. I'm fine with you believing that if your progression dies at mid mythic raid tier or 2100rating.

If it doesn't liar,liar part it's on fire.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry, but there's no arguing there is much, much more content in covenant sanctums than there was in class halls. Feel free to dislike the content, but there's heaps more of it. I liked class halls very much, and own the Legendary Campaign FoS (all class halls done on all classes) but in the end they were nothing more than a single quest line , some class flavor + like 2-3 class halls had something akin to a minigame. There's no comparing between the two.

Oh, and more people care about pets than raids, you're welcome.

Neither had much content to be honest. A quest chain each and arguably the class halls had it better there. Covenants offer a fill the bar weekly that isn't really more content just more repetition.

[Azerate]

Neither had much content to be honest. A quest chain each and arguably the class halls had it better there. Covenants offer a fill the bar weekly that isn't really more content just more repetition.

????

Let's see:

Covenants:
1) Unlockable transportation network in their respective zones, in at least 2 out of 4 cases it also includes a minigame/activity with cosmetic rewards tied to it
2) Mission table, with the most complex and nuanced gameplay in the history of mission tables, with good power progression and numerous cosmetic rewards which inclue mounts
3) Conductor - a building that you can upgrade every day that unlocks bonus content around the zone the sanctum is in, again, usually with a vast reward structure consisting of anima, cosmetics and items
4) Covenant feature / minigame - covenant specific activities of varying degrees of depth, with again, lots of progression, unlocks and rewards
5) Campaign quests, with actual plot to play through and items to unlock, that you can then progress to basically normal raid ilvl gear
6) Massive cosmetic shop with transmog, pets, toys and mounts, requiring literal months of gathering anima to exhaust the collectibles
7) It's debatable whether to include soulbinds as covenant sanctum content, but if we do, that's another massive piece of content.

Class halls:
1) Campaign quests that take about 1/10 of the SL campaign, one for each artifact for your class
2) Some class halls had mini-games (like warrior had a mini-arena a'la gurubashi arena - that was very cool, think also rogues had something, and maybe some other class - others nothing of the sort)
3) Place to upgrade your artifact (again debatable if that even counts as a class hall feature)
4).....? Maybe the 7.2 class hall mounts, if you really wanna stretch it, but it could be argued that's really more of a broken shore feature than a class hall feature
5) Mission table that was only good for making money

So yeah, class halls were cool flavor, but they were nowhere near as content rich as sanctums are

[LordVargK]

I assume your math is wrong or perhaps your spec simply gains little from conduits both possible but you strike an interesting point by accident.

Why bother having ilv on conduits rather then a single base one? The increase is so small only CE and gladiators are going to care about it and both see the system as an annoyance not a benefit.

The rest of the player base doesn't seem to care either and simply tosses in whatever conduit a guide says then forgets about it.

If the only people invested in a system are those who are actively annoyed by said very system...what point is there in having it?

The math of @DazManianDevil is probably right.

look at bloodmallet, fire mage, switch to Night Fae and Nodes/Conduits. Infernal Cascade is probably the best conduit in the game, scaling wise, and ranking it up gives you ~0.8% more damage. Compared to a +13 ilvl upgrade on a piece of gear, that's nothing. Most other conduits scale way worse than this, so assuming 0.1%-0.2% per rank is no chery picking.

And yes, it is interesting why it's even in the game. Maybe to teach players not to get annoyed by such minor things?

[Krakan]

????

Let's see:

Covenants:
1) Unlockable transportation network in their respective zones, in at least 2 out of 4 cases it also includes a minigame/activity with cosmetic rewards tied to it
2) Mission table, with the most complex and nuanced gameplay in the history of mission tables, with good power progression and numerous cosmetic rewards which inclue mounts
3) Conductor - a building that you can upgrade every day that unlocks bonus content around the zone the sanctum is in, again, usually with a vast reward structure consisting of anima, cosmetics and items
4) Covenant feature / minigame - covenant specific activities of varying degrees of depth, with again, lots of progression, unlocks and rewards
5) Campaign quests, with actual plot to play through and items to unlock, that you can then progress to basically normal raid ilvl gear
6) Massive cosmetic shop with transmog, pets, toys and mounts, requiring literal months of gathering anima to exhaust the collectibles
7) It's debatable whether to include soulbinds as covenant sanctum content, but if we do, that's another massive piece of content.

Class halls:
1) Campaign quests that take about 1/10 of the SL campaign, one for each artifact for your class
2) Some class halls had mini-games (like warrior had a mini-arena a'la gurubashi arena - that was very cool, think also rogues had something, and maybe some other class - others nothing of the sort)
3) Place to upgrade your artifact (again debatable if that even counts as a class hall feature)
4).....? Maybe the 7.2 class hall mounts, if you really wanna stretch it, but it could be argued that's really more of a broken shore feature than a class hall feature
5) Mission table that was only good for making money

So yeah, class halls were cool flavor, but they were nowhere near as content rich as sanctums are

Agree to disagree I suppose. Covenants pointless filler and send one champion with four guard npcs mission table wasn't thrilling to me. The cosmetics are arguably stronger for class halls as the recolored challenge mode sets and artifact weapon skins were both of higher quality and came from more varied activities.

[schwarzkopf]

Depends on what you do in the game.

It does not ... there is only grinding if you choose to do it, or you are working and not playing a game.

[Krakan]

It does not ... there is only grinding if you choose to do it, or you are working and not playing a game.

I deal in practical examples not vagueness or abstract concepts.

Unless you are buying a carry you are grinding trivial content to some extent on retail. You can debate how much ( for me for example everything beyond the first layer of torghast for me was a trivial grind) but your not able to debate if there is a grind.

[Samuraijake]

it was brought back so that you KEEP PLAYING THE GAME

now get your ass back on the 15 dollar treadmill

[Tojara]

The difference between conduit iLvLs is way overblown. People posted some math, yet people ignore it completely.

There's plenty of R1 players in arena who hit gladiator or R1 without even getting conduits that would benefit them, let alone go out of their way to get sockets (which give way more power). Every single 'competitive' player who finished the raid content first were operating on conduits that were way lower than what people have right now. Meanwhile in previous expansions prior to a new patch coming out, you saw people slaving away grinding fucking AP doing world quests or island expeditions in BFA.

The whole point of what I'm saying is that it barely matters and in competitive play it doesn't make a difference. It's there and your OCD is probably getting triggered thinking you 'need' to get it. It offers less benefit than sockets and they offer less power than a single level up on artifact neck (BFA) or weapon (Legion) did.

It's just a way to slightly augment your character that you can basically ignore if you really want too.

[Krakan]

it was brought back so that you KEEP PLAYING THE GAME

now get your ass back on the 15 dollar treadmill

Yet it does the opposite... I just wanna mythic raid and pvp on the side. These system are what had me quit most of bfa. I just wanna do the content I enjoy not daily chore simulator

Don't get me wrong I don't think I'm better then those that enjoy it... I'm just tired of power rewards being tied to trivial content I would rather skip over.

- - - Updated - - -

The difference between conduit iLvLs is way overblown. People posted some math, yet people ignore it completely.

There's plenty of R1 players in arena who hit gladiator or R1 without even getting conduits that would benefit them, let alone go out of their way to get sockets (which give way more power). Every single 'competitive' player who finished the raid content first were operating on conduits that were way lower than what people have right now. Meanwhile in previous expansions prior to a new patch coming out, you saw people slaving away grinding fucking AP doing world quests or island expeditions in BFA.

The whole point of what I'm saying is that it barely matters and in competitive play it doesn't make a difference. It's there and your OCD is probably getting triggered thinking you 'need' to get it. It offers less benefit than sockets and they offer less power than a single level up on artifact neck (BFA) or weapon (Legion) did.

It's just a way to slightly augment your character that you can basically ignore if you really want too.

Can you link one of these players?

I don't want to sound crass but this sounds like the guy who said good players don't need corruption but then always went silent when asked to show a log without it...

[Mafic]

Artifacts vs covenants
Covenant win all day in terms of the cosmetics and visuals which is what that comparison was but ok let’s go for class halls too

Class halls vs covenant sanctums
Edge to the class halls because they had fun little treats

Doesn’t change the fact that you had artifact abilities that weren’t always noticeable compared to the soupbinds where one summons a freakin megazord
Or the fact that you get unique pets and mounts before the .2 patch and the armor isn’t reused and dumbed down MoP rewards

Artifacts offered better visuals. Covenants do not.

- - - Updated - - -

Plus artifact mogs are still available today. I don't think the fleshcraft visual will have that longevity.

Exactly.

Covenants can not be considered "cosmetics" if they all can't be used in the next expansion.

[Revamp Man]

Artifacts offered better visuals. Covenants do not.

- - - Updated - - -



Exactly.

Covenants can not be considered "cosmetics" if they all can't be used in the next expansion.

subjective
personally my rogue weapons are garbage but generally yes the artifact weapons are better than the covenant weapons

now if you want to compare fleshcraft to the artifact weapon you should compare it to the ability which for most are now gone

if you compare looks then the covenant gear likely isnt going to disappear

[Kehego]

You are not getting ce unless you are getting carried with BM... hunter isn't a strong class later into the tier regardless but given how burst windows are massive this expansion and how your best conduit scales heavily with burst your in a weak position making yourself weaker.

It's just annoying when someone with six mythic boss kills who is never going to hit dps checks starts talking about balance is all.

- - - Updated - - -



It might be alright in 9.1, 9.0 heavily not just preferred burst it requires it.

BM has the advantage of being a fully mobile spec while having better scaling them MM. While hunter isn't really in a good spot it's likely you will see bm too spec eventually.

- - - Updated - - -



Depends on what you do in the game. I'm fine with you believing that if your progression dies at mid mythic raid tier or 2100rating.

If it doesn't liar,liar part it's on fire.

- - - Updated - - -



Neither had much content to be honest. A quest chain each and arguably the class halls had it better there. Covenants offer a fill the bar weekly that isn't really more content just more repetition.

MM got carried to CE due to exploiting a bug that was removed from BM week 1.

Neither spec are good. Neither spec is better than the other.