There's no choice in Covenants - they will be min-maxed anyway

[Big Thanks]

Ion explained that they were going to address this by having a multitude of different traits and abilities in every covenant, that way it becomes a lot more situational which is better for what. Example below:

Covenant A:
- increased AoE damage by 5%
- increased multi-target damage by 3%
- increased single target damage by 2%
- increased burst damage by 5%

Covenant B:
- increased AoE damage by 2%
- increased multi-target damage by 6%
- increased single target damage by 3%
- increased burst damage by 3%

Obviously it won't be as plain as that, but when you have multiple modifiers like that (traits and abilities) it becomes a lot harder to determine which one is better. It'll depend from raidboss to raidboss, from dungeon to dungeon.

Very smart post BUT i will Hate if the different choices available will be as simple as that.
I hope all trees cover things such as

utility
survivability
Support
buffs
burst window
DPS

[Alcsaar]

Covenants sound like a shit show.

Multiple things to consider, and you have to pick only one unless you're very lucky:

1) Which covenant has the cosmetic rewards you like the most?
2) Which covenant has the ability that is most interesting / useful?
3) Which covenant has the best bound abilities/passives for your class/spec?

If you're lucky, you will get two of them to match up. If you're very luck, you will get all 3. If you're an average luck kind of person, well, have fun only getting to choose one that you like.

[StyxzTheSage]

If we're to hard commit to this system (and we shouldn't) then I'd hope that the balance is similar to facials for these cov. Abilities.

5-8% throughput difference. Less preferably.

9% or more and they're going to create a situation where they'll need to buff cov. Abilities...which would really suck since you can't easily switch between them.

[Khrux]

In summary, the vast majority of the paying customers won't give 2 shits about min/max nor do they push keys and/or raid beyond LFR.

Despite contrary to belief, Blizzard don't create all systems around the top 10% of players and even when they put in obstacles to prevent people min/maxing - the ones that want to do it will do it regardless of the effort.

The AP grinds are intentionally horrible in the early days to curb people progressing too fast or to deter mindless grinding, didn't stop people playing Islands 12hrs a day to grind their neck.

Legendaries were intentionally rare, but it didn't stop people grinding LFR/heroic dungeons for a chance at more.

Racials are all within 1% or less of each other, it still doesn't stop people dropping $20 (or whatever it is) to race change for a theoretical gain. Even though the potential gain from one racial over another is less than the variance in crit % over the course of a fight...

Will covenants have a theoretical "best" for each class/spec? Yes

Will people re-grind to swap covenants even if its intentionally painfully to do so? Yes

Are Blizzard going to change the system to support the minute percentage of players who would do it? No

[OldPerson]

Pro WoW players: I'm gonna research the shit out of the covenants
95% of WoW Players: Which one has the owl people?

Exactly this! Thank you

I play WoW like I do any other game. TO PLAY A GAME.
To me this does not in any way require me to min-max my character. I can chose a class/spec/covenant just because I like the lore or because I think they look pretty.
Some people absolutely will go with whichever covenant will give them the greatest mathematical advantage. This is their CHOICE. They choose to play in this fashion because they consider that to be fun. I can see people of this mindset feeling that they have no choice. However that feeling is due to already making a choice to chase the math and not the lore or visuals of the game. The OP disappointment is due to his own choices and mindset.
Not everything needs to be the best of all worlds at all times. Some saying about having your cake and eating it too...

I think these days people confuse the word "optimal" with "acceptable". You can be sub-optimal and perfectly acceptable.

[Alcsaar]

Racials are all within 1% or less of each other, it still doesn't stop people dropping $20 (or whatever it is) to race change for a theoretical gain. Even though the potential gain from one racial over another is less than the variance in crit % over the course of a fight...

I'd love to see where you're getting this proof that racials are 1% or less between eachother for every single class, cause that seems awfully incorrect.

[Stormcall]

Wow. I really didn't know we had so many absolute cutting edge raiders here who are pushing content at the level where that tiny percentage will actually make a difference to them.

[Bhanzai]

I'm going to pick one that has the owl people.

[scubi666stacy]

May i interest you on the obvious edge lord choice about Vampires and a Tombstone as a backpack?
Join the emo kids.

If there is Kael'thas in it, my BE characters will go there and nowhere else!
Since I will be playing 100% casually due to family reasons, I don't need to care about anything else than RPG and fluff.

[Charge me Doctor]

Or people will pick whatever they like, because most players won't be obsessed with 1% difference from a thing they don't like using. Look at RoP vs IF in a mage case - most players pick IF, because it's easier and more convenient, even tho RoP is "mathematically best skill"

[lummiuster]

People will take the one with the mathematically best skills and that's it. I don't get why Blizzard thinks this gives choice to the players. It absolutely does not. Especially with this 'you can only choose one, so choose wisely' crap. This will only make me look up a guide on what's providing the best DPS/HPS/Utility.

Am I missing something here or is this system a really dumb idea?

I think the game started going bad ever since people started max-min things. It is because of youtube/guides that are so accissible. But Blizzard is also to blame because they created hard pve content that requires people to do so. I liked the Vanilla approach where the challenge was to coordinate 40 people. In retail the challenge is to do more dps.

[Big Thanks]

Or people will pick whatever they like, because most players won't be obsessed with 1% difference from a thing they don't like using. Look at RoP vs IF in a mage case - most players pick IF, because it's easier and more convenient, even tho RoP is "mathematically best skill"

Lets be honest, in deep customization systems....is never a 1% difference

Unless ofcourse Blizzard decides to make exclusively "utility trees" and ALL the damage options will be identical.
I sure hope not.

[Khrux]

I'd love to see where you're getting this proof that racials are 1% or less between each other for every single class, cause that seems awfully incorrect.

Take bloodymallet for example.

Arms Warriors - https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#w...ata_view=races

Best Race - Gnome (41,456 dps)
Worst Race - Nightborne (40,940 dps)
Difference of ~500 dps

Sin Rogues - https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#r...ata_view=races

Best Race - Troll (40,998 dps)
Worst Race - Orc (40,669)
Difference of ~400 dps

This patterns continues across all class/race combos, its all 1% or less between every race for every class.

[Charge me Doctor]

One complaint I've seen is that for classes that have more than one role, it'll be hard to choose one because one Covenant may be better as dps but bad at heals.

It can't be "bad" at something, because it doesn't have a negative component to it. By picking a covenant you make your character stronger, ability that you get may give your role zero benefit, but your other role still benefits from it. You kinda can't have both things at the same time, off course of "offspec" role will be weaker than your "mainspec" role is.

[pewpmeiser]

there will always be min/maxing for the 1% of the playerbase, the other 99% of us will play what we want, because we enjoy it.

[Moose184]

Did they ever say they can be used in raids or dungeons? I heard somebody say that they may be usable in certain zones only like the garrison ability's in WoD.

[Big Thanks]

Did they ever say they can be used in raids or dungeons? I heard somebody say that they may be usable in certain zones only like the garrison ability's in WoD.

Can be used everywhere. Confirmed yes.

My biggest fear is the constant Blizz-like nerfs....

[Charge me Doctor]

Lets be honest, in deep customization systems....is never a 1% difference

Unless ofcourse Blizzard decides to make exclusively "utility trees" and ALL the damage options will be identical.
I sure hope not.

Well in my case dropping RoP would result in a 5% DPS loss according to sim (maybe more, maybe less, depends on how well i time my firestarters and meteors, and if i fuck up at boss timings)
Comparing covenant abilities is very easy, you just compare one ability against another
Comparing soulbind trees is difficult, because there are multiple rows of choices, which is a point where blizzard can balance different covenants out. You know, "this covenant has a +5% crit passive in their tree, but further choices are garbage, but THIS covenant has multiple DPS enhancing choices in their tree which result in the same net gain as +5% crit passive" - that kind of balancing)
At any point it's impossible to judge right now, because we don't have anything to compare

[Krille]

Well in my case dropping RoP would result in a 5% DPS loss according to sim (maybe more, maybe less, depends on how well i time my firestarters and meteors, and if i fuck up at boss timings)
Comparing covenant abilities is very easy, you just compare one ability against another
Comparing soulbind trees is difficult, because there are multiple rows of choices, which is a point where blizzard can balance different covenants out. You know, "this covenant has a +5% crit passive in their tree, but further choices are garbage, but THIS covenant has multiple DPS enhancing choices in their tree which result in the same net gain as +5% crit passive" - that kind of balancing)
At any point it's impossible to judge right now, because we don't have anything to compare

They might make it so convoluted that not even a sim can handle it. Thats the direction they want to move in at least, to get rid of all the simcraft lads.

[Big Thanks]

Well in my case dropping RoP would result in a 5% DPS loss according to sim (maybe more, maybe less, depends on how well i time my firestarters and meteors, and if i fuck up at boss timings)
Comparing covenant abilities is very easy, you just compare one ability against another
Comparing soulbind trees is difficult, because there are multiple rows of choices, which is a point where blizzard can balance different covenants out. You know, "this covenant has a +5% crit passive in their tree, but further choices are garbage, but THIS covenant has multiple DPS enhancing choices in their tree which result in the same net gain as +5% crit passive" - that kind of balancing)
At any point it's impossible to judge right now, because we don't have anything to compare

But you agree there are too many variables, correct?
There are 36 specs...

Some ones like crit? Some others like haste? Some like mastery?

Is impossible to balance all this, like in your fortunate example. WHich i bet was a "happy coincidence" (the difference being so small)