9.0 General Discussion

[Sondrelk]

Well, if we go by the amount of raids from the last expansion, you could be right. We have three Covenants plus Maw left and Legion and BfA each had 5 raids (four big ones and the small one). So this could indeed happen.

Mostly I think it would work because Covenants are such a major part of the experience that each one deserves its time in the spotlight where all the quests are about building up to a raid that will fix whatever problem is plagueing that area.

For Venthyr there is obviously the class divide and general problem created by Denathrius, we solve it by defeating him in a raid.
For Necrolords there is the infighting, at least partially caused by Kel'thuzad, and I am pretty sure he isnt fully defeated at the end of the Necrolord campaign.
The Night Fae has the Drust, which fits perfectly as a 9.2 "breather" patch in a similar vein to how 8.2 was all about Naga, or 5.2 was all about the Thunder King.
The Kyrians are the most vague, but with Uther damning Arthas in the Afterlives short I imagine a raid would be a perfect capstone to that story.

In short it isnt necessarily about just giving each covenant a raid just because, but rather that they are each important enough that even a player that only picked a single covenant deserves to have a truly epic moment in the expansion dedicated to their choice, and nothing is quite as epic as a raid.

[Syegfryed]

Why in the ass elemental shaman still have this garbage mechanic of maelstron, i though they had removed this shit?

[Nyel]

Why in the ass elemental shaman still have this garbage mechanic of maelstron, i though they had removed this shit?

And then they brought it back because they couldn't make Fulmination (the WoD mechanic) work with AoE / Earthquake. It isn't too bad, but Elemental Shaman has the same problem as many other specs, a) lackluster Covenant abilities, b) bad talents, c) some skills that scale really badly (Earth Shock should be the finisher but hits like a wet noodle) and d) horrible Potency Conduits (for Elemental pretty much all of them suck).

The bigger problem is though, as we progress towards 60, we all get weaker. This was a huge problem of BfA and it will be a huge problem in Shadowlands, were you'll be the weakest at max level because bad (leveling) gear, no Azerite traits / Essence anymore and lack of Legendaries / stats.

[sensei-]

Serpentstalker legendary just got -deleted- today. Good riddance.

[Sondrelk]

Serpentstalker legendary just got -deleted- today. Good riddance.

At least the new version means the Serpent sting talent will see some use.
Not as a choice anyone will actually pick of course, but at least the ability will be seen as anything but the current "pick anything but this" talent.

Honestly though, I really don't get why the first MM row is not being changed, nothing short of a complete spec overhaul will make those talents thematically fitting or even good

[Yunzi]

Well, if we go by the amount of raids from the last expansion, you could be right. We have three Covenants plus Maw left and Legion and BfA each had 5 raids (four big ones and the small one). So this could indeed happen.

There's a lot to say it won't happen. The raids are not equal, especially the mini-raid that's placed either 2nd (Legion) or 3rd (BfA). So which Covenant gets to be screwed and have their raid only have 3 bosses? Also, the final raid in an xpac is much more prominent than the others. Uldir only lasted four and a half months before BoD was released, while Nyalotha will last close to a year before Nathria opens. So which Covenant gets special treatment, thus ruining the Blizzard value of balance?

This also places a creative limitation on Blizzard, where they otherwise can tell a story that spans the entire expansion not restricted to a certain zone or covenant per story beat.

Either the Maw or a place not yet released would be a logical destination for a final raid, the culmination of the xpac's story.

The inspiration behind Shadowlands and Covenants is the Lovecraft-infused Dark Souls. What that should tell us is that Blizzard wants to move in a more creative direction, and the not terrible, but somewhat cheesy idea of "one raid per zone per covenant" would not impress Hidetaka Miyazaki.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

There's a lot to say it won't happen. The raids are not equal, especially the mini-raid that's placed either 2nd (Legion) or 3rd (BfA). So which Covenant gets to be screwed and have their raid only have 3 bosses? Also, the final raid in an xpac is much more prominent than the others. Uldir only lasted four and a half months before BoD was released, while Nyalotha will last close to a year before Nathria opens. So which Covenant gets special treatment, thus ruining the Blizzard value of balance?

This also places a creative limitation on Blizzard, where they otherwise can tell a story that spans the entire expansion not restricted to a certain zone or covenant per story beat.

Either the Maw or a place not yet released would be a logical destination for a final raid, the culmination of the xpac's story.

The inspiration behind Shadowlands and Covenants is the Lovecraft-infused Dark Souls. What that should tell us is that Blizzard wants to move in a more creative direction, and the not terrible, but somewhat cheesy idea of "one raid per zone per covenant" would not impress Hidetaka Miyazaki.

Dark Souls when it comes to story is basically make it super vague as fuck, Warcraft is anything but that.

[sensei-]

At least the new version means the Serpent sting talent will see some use.
Not as a choice anyone will actually pick of course, but at least the ability will be seen as anything but the current "pick anything but this" talent.

Honestly though, I really don't get why the first MM row is not being changed, nothing short of a complete spec overhaul will make those talents thematically fitting or even good

Frost mages need to get deleted next. Then beta m+ starts to make some sense again.

[Nyel]

The inspiration behind Shadowlands and Covenants is the Lovecraft-infused Dark Souls. What that should tell us is that Blizzard wants to move in a more creative direction, and the not terrible, but somewhat cheesy idea of "one raid per zone per covenant" would not impress Hidetaka Miyazaki.

I honestly don't see any resemblance of Dark Souls in Shadowlands (funny enough, just finishing Dark Souls 2 SotfS right now).

A plausible thing would be the Maw raid as the final raid of the expansion, akin to the Argus stuff in Legion. The other Covenants / raids... I don't really think it matters much. Nightfae could have the small raid (2-3 bosses) with Gorak Thul as the end boss. Bastion could have some kind of angelic raid where something with Uther and Arthas happens (to be honest, I have zero interest in that story) and Necrolords... no idea.

[razorpax]

They don't we do but....shitposting is more popular.






...No they didn't say that and stop with this self unnecessary bitterness.

They actually did say that for the m+ cache in BfA beta

They changed how azerite gear was awarded in it about 3 weeks before the beta went offline then when the first reset hit live the players noticed and were told by devs on Twitter “the change was in for weeks on beta and nobody complained so it’s not a problem”

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If it it's not a bug it may be encouraging people to congregate in their covenant halls instead.

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The prize is Anduin. There's also a mention that Anduin is being turned into a weapon somehow.

I mean the point of the dummies being there was to test the covenant abilities before choosing and since some require targets the dummies were used.

Now we can’t use them.... because they decided to make the change and the reason doesn’t matter

[Xilurm]

Well I know Blizz wanted more diversity in SW and stuff but I didn't expect them to go this far.

[razorpax]

There comes a time when Blizzard needs to make the changes for what the game will actually look like though. The Flaskertaur needs to be removed eventually, even if that screws up someones testing process.

So does that mean we won’t be able to test covenant abilities before pledging ourselves to one?? The change actually goes against what the entire room was supposed to be for

[Aeluron Lightsong]

They actually did say that for the m+ cache in BfA beta

They changed how azerite gear was awarded in it about 3 weeks before the beta went offline then when the first reset hit live the players noticed and were told by devs on Twitter “the change was in for weeks on beta and nobody complained so it’s not a problem”

Which clearly wasn't an issue or not important enough so again not something to moan about.

So does that mean we won’t be able to test covenant abilities before pledging ourselves to one?? The change actually goes against what the entire room was supposed to be for

I mean there are other places to test covanent abilities other then test dummies.

[razorpax]

Which clearly wasn't an issue or not important enough so again not something to moan about.


I mean there are other places to test covanent abilities other then test dummies.

1. It was actually a big deal and it’s why we got residuum in 9.1 because blizzard realized they screwed up by making that change and had bad PR....you realize that the change they had in on that week was actually a big deal for most ppl who enjoyed m+ and even raiding so to those groups it was a big deal. Criticizing dumb decisions from blizz and calling out their BS isn’t whining it’s actually how shit gets fixed.


Name one place that you can test the covenant abilities in the same fashion as that room with the dummies
Meaning
Instant cd reset for the long ones
Swappable in about 5 seconds for quick tests

The answer is there is none and you just don’t wanna say “yeah the change is dumb”

[zantheus1993]

we never know anything about sylvanas plan lol
need more expansion for Sylvanas' genius plan

nobody told taelia the pronoun game sucks balls

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Which clearly wasn't an issue or not important enough so again not something to moan about.


I mean there are other places to test covanent abilities other then test dummies.

it was enough of an issue to cause the residuum system to exist

i get it dude you like blizz but the devs make dumb moves and need told when they do something dumb otherwise we would have
no flight
the original azerite gear
no residuum
no essence vendor
no azerite vendor
the old m+ affixes
the requirement to grind champions rep on your character for the heart ilvl boost instead of the account wide unlock
the same requirement for islands
no islands vendor
TF on gear still which leads to more dead loot

id rather be called a whiner by people who want to agree with the devs if it means getting things fixed

[huth]

Well I know Blizz wanted more diversity in SW and stuff but I didn't expect them to go this far.

[IMG]

I mean, i know they say "never skip leg day", but i think these two are overdoing it.

[zantheus1993]

ok so launch day speculation
book pushed back again undoubtedly to tie into the launch (book before the launch because it somehow ties into the shadowlands according to T&E)
this means possible launch on the 8th of december
mythic raid launches the 4th of january
this allows the RWF to be over by the blizzcon replacement(the bosses even on mythic are not that tough especially with the fact players will now have the more powerful soulbind traits earlier)
9.1 announcement on the 19th or 20th of february
9.1 hits ptr maybe 2 weeks after
9.1 launch around july

[Nyel]

I mean there are other places to test covanent abilities other then test dummies.

No, there are no other places you can do that.

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9.1 launch around july

Either they shorten the duration of tiers, cut one tier or we're looking for the longest expansion ever if this would be the case.

The first patch of an expansion usually comes quite fast after launch, 7.1 came 2 months after Legion's launch and 8.1 came 3 months after BfA's launch. I'd say 9.1 is more likely to be here around May (that'd still be 5-6 months after SL' launch) because an announcement in February during Blizzcon seems reasonable. If we go by the usual duration of ~ 6 months per mid tier, we're looking at something like:

9.1 May '21
9.2 November/December '21
9.3 May/June '22
10.0 February/March '23 (the earliest)

[Sondrelk]

There's a lot to say it won't happen. The raids are not equal, especially the mini-raid that's placed either 2nd (Legion) or 3rd (BfA). So which Covenant gets to be screwed and have their raid only have 3 bosses? Also, the final raid in an xpac is much more prominent than the others. Uldir only lasted four and a half months before BoD was released, while Nyalotha will last close to a year before Nathria opens. So which Covenant gets special treatment, thus ruining the Blizzard value of balance?

This also places a creative limitation on Blizzard, where they otherwise can tell a story that spans the entire expansion not restricted to a certain zone or covenant per story beat.

Either the Maw or a place not yet released would be a logical destination for a final raid, the culmination of the xpac's story.

The inspiration behind Shadowlands and Covenants is the Lovecraft-infused Dark Souls. What that should tell us is that Blizzard wants to move in a more creative direction, and the not terrible, but somewhat cheesy idea of "one raid per zone per covenant" would not impress Hidetaka Miyazaki.

I don't think the slight injustice of some players getting a more "important" raid really justifies the injustice of only some covenants being deigned important enough to actually get a raid.
Besides, I think the one raid per covenant idea fits all too well.

Nathria obvously.
Necrolord themed raid, likely in a necropolis. Fits both as a great capstone to the Mldraxxus storyline, as well as fitting perfectly with all the other WotLK nods in Shadowlands, especially if we defeat Kel'thuzad.
The Night Fae have the Drust, which is not directly tied to the Maw, but is nonetheless fitting thematically with stuff about Sylvanas and her bargain with Helya, as well as tying back into BfA. This would all make it perfect as the 9.2 raid which as I have mentioned before usually goes for a more focused narrative about a specific antagonist.
Finally there is Bastion which has the Forsworn, and by extension ties the most heavily into the Maw, especially when you consider the Val'kyr that helped Sylvanas. Not to mention it has Uther, and therefore a direct link to Arthas, the golden poster boy of the WotLK homages.

There is of course the mini-raid, but that could be anything. It could have half of the Bastion themes and then leaving the rest of the bastion themes in the final raid. It wouldnt necessarily be equal for all covenants, but as I said, neither is just one or two covenants getting their big raid moment.

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No, there are no other places you can do that.

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Either they shorten the duration of tiers, cut one tier or we're looking for the longest expansion ever if this would be the case.

The first patch of an expansion usually comes quite fast after launch, 7.1 came 2 months after Legion's launch and 8.1 came 3 months after BfA's launch. I'd say 9.1 is more likely to be here around May (that'd still be 5-6 months after SL' launch) because an announcement in February during Blizzcon seems reasonable. If we go by the usual duration of ~ 6 months per mid tier, we're looking at something like:

9.1 May '21
9.2 November/December '21
9.3 May/June '22
10.0 February/March '23 (the earliest)

I could see 9.1 come out earlier. Just because 8.1 had the announcement precede the PTR by quite a bit doesnt mean that 9.1 needs to. We could be looking at a case where we go straight from announcement to PTR, in which case 9.1 could be out by the end of March, which would leave quite a bit of breathing space, possibly even making it so 9.3 could be out by the same time 2022.

[Nyel]

I could see 9.1 come out earlier. Just because 8.1 had the announcement precede the PTR by quite a bit doesnt mean that 9.1 needs to. We could be looking at a case where we go straight from announcement to PTR, in which case 9.1 could be out by the end of March, which would leave quite a bit of breathing space, possibly even making it so 9.3 could be out by the same time 2022.

Just 4 weeks of 9.1 / raid testing for a 8-10 boss raid (I just assume this amount of bosses, BoD had 9, NH 10 and BRF 10)? I'd say mid/end of April sounds like a safe bet if 9.1 goes to the PTR directly after Blizzcon.

(I think we both agree that 9.1 won't introduce a new zone and most likely just improve the Maw and maybe Torghast with more stuff to do, don't we?)