9.0 General Discussion

[Voidism]

WOOO! Hype! I had wished for a datamined info dump today though! But still; hype!

[Yarathir]

WOOO! Hype! I had wished for a datamined info dump today though! But still; hype!

Eh, regardless of what Towellieee says, it can still happen.

[Obelisk Kai]

Bullshit.
Pick the covenant you want and enjoy playing with and ignore all those who don't invite you to your "+17 3k r.io score" groups. Noone is forcing you to choose the covenant that gives you 2% better DPS at perfect play except yourself.

Blah blah you see a preview of a system and already sh*tposting.

A lot of these class abilities for Kyrian are already different from the Blizzcon demo, so they may change again before live lol.

Ya’ll wanted some info and its BARELY coming out, please keep hate away from here until you actually get to see stuff in action

Bullshit right back at you.

Like it or not these devs failed us in Battle for Azeroth, so their capacity to deliver shit, unfun systems has been proven. They don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore when it comes to gameplay and anyone who gives that to them is foolishly inviting a repeat of the last two years.

They have never, and will never, be able to balance four separate abilities across all specs. One will always sim out as being the best ability for the best spec and then that becomes the mandatory choice for the top end. And what the top end does, those lower down will follow because it will become the 'correct' choice. This is how it has always been, and we don't need an alpha cycle to tell us that is how it will be when we've fifteen years of experience behind us telling us how it will be.

The Covenant power ability should be unshackled from the Covenants themselves. Covenants should be chosen for aesthetic and transmog rewards, as well as their unique campaign, with the signature utility ability remaining locked to that Covenant choice. The major power abilities should be separated from Covenant choice and easily switched between as if they were talents. That is the ideal outcome.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Bullshit right back at you.

Like it or not these devs failed us in Battle for Azeroth, so their capacity to deliver shit, unfun systems has been proven. They don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore when it comes to gameplay and anyone who gives that to them is foolishly inviting a repeat of the last two years.

The Min max thing really shouldn't be worried about so much, its almost inevitable. Just pick what you want and leave it at that. If you are worrying about biS thats on you not Blizzard are we going to design things by mythic raiders again.

[Chickat]

Who said that?

Towelliee said no chance of datamining. Stop looking for it today. He thinks its going to be Wednesday.

[Yarathir]

Towelliee said no chance of datamining. Stop looking for it today. He thinks its going to be Wednesday.

That's great for Towellieee, I guess.

[Kralljin]

Use the time to consider which covenant you would rather be spending time with, or which ability looks the most fun. If you insist on picking a covenant solely for DPS then you will likely have to spend the entire first half of the expansion changing covenants and getting burnt out quickly.

I want to PvP after raids:
Radiant Spark is clearly designed for ST.
Mirrors of torment is desinged for PvP.

I'm basically screwed.

So yeah, it's not just about dps, but those are clearly designed to fill different niches, which comes at a serious detriment of people that just not play one type of content.

[Jastall]

Bullshit right back at you.

Like it or not these devs failed us in Battle for Azeroth, so their capacity to deliver shit, unfun systems has been proven. They don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore when it comes to gameplay and anyone who gives that to them is foolishly inviting a repeat of the last two years.

They have never, and will never, be able to balance four separate abilities across all specs. One will always sim out as being the best ability for the best spec and then that becomes the mandatory choice for the top end. And what the top end does, those lower down will follow because it will become the 'correct' choice. This is how it has always been, and we don't need an alpha cycle to tell us that is how it will be when we've fifteen years of experience behind us telling us how it will be.

The Covenant power ability should be unshackled from the Covenants themselves. Covenants should be chosen for aesthetic and transmog rewards, as well as their unique campaign, with the signature utility ability remaining locked to that Covenant choice. The major power abilities should be separated from Covenant choice and easily switched between as if they were talents. That is the ideal outcome.

I agree. Everything else- mogs, storylines, signature abilities, soulbinds- makes Covenant choices meaningful. Locking abilities behind them is a step too far. Some of them look quite powerful; for example, Arms warriors being able to Execute from 100-80% is very, very good. But if I don't like the Ventyr otherwise, I'm SoL if I wanna play Arms and perform well. The Necrolord ability is hugely thematic and I like both it and the covenant, but if it ends up being undertuned I'd have to make a choice that I frankly do not want to make.

At most, make the chosen Covenant slightly empower the ability, or give it an enhanced appearance. That's a decent compromise. But the base abilities should be available to all.

[rhode310]

any sign of alpha invites gone out yet?

[Ticj]

I want to PvP after raids:
Radiant Spark is clearly designed for ST.
Mirrors of torment is desinged for PvP.

I'm basically screwed.

So yeah, it's not just about dps, but those are clearly designed to fill different niches, which comes at a serious detriment of people that just not play one type of content.

Yeah, I think i'm just going to be hardstuck lichborne, as burst is decent enough in PvP and PvE.

[Harbour]

Basically Essences.
Some of them touch the wrong strings in me. Shadow damage for paladins and arcane damage for warlocks and shamans sound heretic.

[Valysar]

any sign of alpha invites gone out yet?

Not yet, in a day or 2

[Loreguy126]

I'm gonna have to run with this. I don't wanna jump the gun, but precedent makes this a scary idea. Especially if we get another case of Azerite system where it's too late to overhaul or fix.

Ok as much as it sucks to go against my own initial feelings I agree.

I now remember when covenants were previewed and how the emphasis on how important they are scared me, all this criticism is valid, but shouldn’t we have known? Idk... :/

I wish they were just cool story elements and cosmetic stuffs, not including class abilities tbh

[Chickat]

That's great for Towellieee, I guess.

Another reputable person like Marlamin is fair to come in and disagree with what towelliee said, but until that happens that the latest info we have.

[Wangming]

And they could have always focused on placing the advancement system in the craftable legendaries instead and kept the Covenants for cosmetics (which is reason enough to play multiple characters). Heck they could even combine it by making some legendary affixes (or however it works) unique to certain covenants, making it much easier to balance them since they'd always have to compete with non-covenant abilities.

I do not mind making hard choices. But I do not want to be punished for a choice I made. It is OK to make hard choices in a CRPG or an ARPG because it will not get rebalanced every other month (and my choices don't affect anyone else) and even if it is, my choice will only affect me.

EDIT:
The saving grace is that beyond these covenant abilities there are also the soulbinds. Which means that each covenant offers so much unique gameplay that they have multiple levers to balance this out. It will still be very hard to do so and we have every right to be suspicious on what they can achieve.

Well if Shadowlands ends up being any good, I'm sure we will have loads of private servers with the patch that had everything balanced and fun till the next hotfix ruined it.

[Merryck]

It's interesting the "signature abilities" have diverged from being all movement based like what was announced. If Blizzard wanted to homogenize the covenants, making all the abilities the same except for cosmetics... then they are going in the opposite direction. The Necrolord signature ability is something all high-end tanks will want. But, I'm confused as to why that matters? are the cosmetics and aesthetics of a covenant really that important to someone focused on optimization?

I mean, Blizzard could always make the cosmetic rewards account wide to appease the people having difficulty choosing between cosmetics and power. Do people just not want to make that choice? I guess that's fair enough.

[Marlamin]

Another reputable person like Marlamin is fair to come in and disagree with what towelliee said, but until that happens that the latest info we have.

Towelliee clearly has better contacts than I do. I was apparently working off of outdated information as the plans seem to have changed from everything today to "this week". I'd say there's a good chance he's spot on. Still keeping watch tonight and all nights this week, though.

[Wangming]

Basically Essences.
Some of them touch the wrong strings in me. Shadow damage for paladins and arcane damage for warlocks and shamans sound heretic.

Oh yeah? And what will the Church do? Send us to Hell?

[Yarathir]

Another reputable person like Marlamin is fair to come in and disagree with what towelliee said, but until that happens that the latest info we have.

Marlamin will probably agree with you, Towellieee, but until that point, /shrug.

[Edward Wu]

The Min max thing really shouldn't be worried about so much, its almost inevitable. Just pick what you want and leave it at that. If you are worrying about biS thats on you not Blizzard are we going to design things by mythic raiders again.

That's a pretty ridiculous take. A lot more players than mythic raiders choose BiS when gearing up and choosing talents. If the covenant abilities are north of 5% performance difference, most of the playerbase will just pick what is best. It's absolutely a valid concern and trying to downplay it is nothing short of damage control.