Covenants will ruin Shadowlands.

[DazManianDevil]

If only these abilities were strictly usable in world content/unrated BGs but not M+, Raids/Arenas?
:thinking:
I personally would like to see a lot of these as extra action buttons in zones similar to WoD Garrison spells or QoL stuff or even how Legion handled order hall followers.
Just a nice bonus for world content. Lord knows I'd be willing to sink way too much time into a follower to make World Quests just a hair faster.

I already race changed from Troll to Vulpera for cosmetic reasons which was a small dps loss so I'm willing to pick any cov I want for aesthetic reasons, would be a shame to have 2 instances of lesser dps due to race + cov combo though

We're still at a stage where, to my knowledge it hasn't been announced if these spells will become core rotational spells as THAT sounds like disaster in the making.
"Oh you like Crucible of Flame major in raids? Well CLF is better but you can't swap now cause it's tied to your Cov. Sucks to suck!"

[Easo]

I have decided that my paladin will be with Kyrians and that's it. I could not give two shits about whatever is the best, I am not in the top guild who only cares about world firsts.
Let the minmaxers deal with that, absolute majority are not in the 1% (duh).

But if the question is, will Blizzard fail to balance ir? Yes, yes they will. We as players also have an experience with this and our thoughts cannot be dismissed just because we are not game developers - BfA's azerite powers and Legion's legendaries already showed that they can't do it.

[DemonDays]

We're talking about an otherwise perfectly well-optimized character who has made a covenant choice that gives him 2% less DPS or the like.

You keep quoting this completely bullshit 1-2% number.

Are Essences within 1-2% of eachother?
Are Azerite traits within 1-2% of eachother?
Are Talents within 1-2% of eachother?


What a fucking laughable thing to try to argue.

We aren't talking about excellent balance in Dota 2 here. This is World of Warcraft. They're fucking awful at balancing things.

- - - Updated - - -

Imagine believing that a covenant is going to give you a 20% DPS advantage. You'll be lucky if it's 2%. 20% is absolutely wild, outrageous fantasy.

Infinite Stars.
Twisted Appendage.
Twilight Devastation.

LOL.

[Hitei]

That really depends. Are you and all your friends competitive? Are you on your 50th attempt of a boss and it's no longer fun to just screw around and fail?

Fun is subjective. Don't be so quick to assume people are shitty friends just because they aren't YOUR kind of friends. :/

Are you and all your friends part of a top ~100 guild? Because if 0.1% DPS is what is stopping you from downing a boss 50 attempts in, and you aren't pushing world first, you have other concerns as a group to deal with. If you have wiped 49 times at 0.1% boss health of an encounter, by all means, be annoyed over that covenant choice.

But I find "competitive" here (here being, "competitive people", rather than people who are actually in some sort of real competition) is usually a synonym for shitty. Those obnoxious people who aren't anywhere close to actual competition but will project and obsess over inane shit, like that 0.1% DPS loss because someone picked a nonBiS covenant, when the actual problem is that the entire raid is not skilled, or geared, or doing what they should be doing to down an encounter. You wipe at 50%, or 20% or even 5%, and they don't have anything else to blame so it becomes that. But the fact of the matter is that you would have wiped at 4.91% instead of 5% and it really didn't matter which covenant they picked.

[SirCowdog]

I know you like to assume you're a wise old dude and stuff, right?

OK, I'm done arguing with you. You just don't want to even try to understand different viewpoints. Have fun.

[DemonDays]

Are you and all your friends part of a top ~100 guild? Because if 0.1% DPS is what is stopping you from downing a boss 50 attempts in, and you aren't pushing world first, you have other concerns as a group to deal with. If you have wiped 49 times at 0.1% boss health of an encounter, by all means, be annoyed over that covenant choice.

But I find "competitive" here is usually a synonym for shitty. Those obnoxious people who aren't anywhere close to actual competition but will project and obsess over inane shit, like that 0.1% DPS loss because someone picked a nonBiS covenant, when the actual problem is that the entire raid is not skilled, or geared, or doing what they should be doing to down an encounter. You wipe at 50%, or 20% or even 5%, and they don't have anything else to blame so it becomes that. But the fact of the matter is that you would have wiped at 4.91% instead of 5% and it really didn't matter which covenant they picked.

What an insanely pathetic strawman argument.

"If you aren't in a top 100 guild you don't need to care about your performance."

Try to view things from a different perspective than your own pigeon holed one.

Imagine you have friends. Imagine you like competing with said friends. Imagine you actually enjoy optimizing your build and DPS.

[Eurhetemec]

I've already given an example on page one of this thread for a BIS option that will be 100% mandatory if you want to be an even semi-serious DK in Shadowlands PvP.

PvP? Really? That's what this is about? I'm not going to have an argument about PvP, because people are utter maniacs about what they think makes them win, and funny how the people getting really upset about that stuff are never the ones with the serious Gladiator titles. It's almost like there's a connection.

I don't have a problem with options being better than others when it's within a reasonable frame which can either be accomplished through thorough balancing so the overall difference becomes very small or by allowing the players to switch easily (like in the case of talents). Neither of those things seem to be the case with covenants so I think it's disingenuous to throw around numbers like 0.1% or 1%.

Wait.

This argument doesn't make any sense.

You're saying that you're fine with abilities that are easy to switch. Okay, yes that makes sense.

Then you say, that it's disingenuous to say 0.1% or 1% if an ability isn't easy to swap. What? That literally doesn't follow. That's not a logical or rational argument. I'm sorry, this is completely proving my point about "People who can do math" vs "People who are cargo cultists/checkboxers". Either an ability gives some kind of advantage you can quantify, or it doesn't. A lot of these abilities, maybe most, are going to be quantifiable numerically in a fairly reasonable way. That means that it won't be in any way disingenuous to say "2%" (the number I've been using most), if they indeed give you a 2% DPS advantage or the like.

Now if you're back on PvP, which is harder to quantify, and full of people with very extreme opinions and almost no proof to back them up, well, I dunno, I can't really engage with that.

[Zyky]

As others have already pointed out.

We've seen previews of ALL four DK abilities for the Covenants.

There is one that is must have for tanking. One that is must have for PvP etc.

This is completely idiotic.

What's idiotic is people believing information from over 5 months ago to still be accurate when Alpha hasn't even started. I can't even count how many things have changed from a Blizzcon preview/floor test to the Alpha or how much changes over the course of Alpha to the expansion hitting live.

[Eurhetemec]

You keep quoting this completely bullshit 1-2% number.

Are Essences within 1-2% of eachother?
Are Azerite traits within 1-2% of eachother?
Are Talents within 1-2% of eachother?


What a fucking laughable thing to try to argue.

We aren't talking about excellent balance in Dota 2 here. This is World of Warcraft. They're fucking awful at balancing things.

- - - Updated - - -



Infinite Stars.
Twisted Appendage.
Twilight Devastation.

LOL.

I notice none of those are character abilities. Funny that. Your fantasy about a single character ability giving people 20% more DPS is completely wild nonsense.

[callipygoustp]

No kidding. It can't be worse than the shit show we got in bfa

Great, now you jinxed us.

[Eurhetemec]

OK, I'm done arguing with you. You just don't want to even try to understand different viewpoints. Have fun.

I understand your viewpoint perfectly well. But it's not mathematically valid. It's something people engage in because they don't understand the realities of the situation.

[Nerovar]

PvP? Really? That's what this is about? I'm not going to have an argument about PvP, because people are utter maniacs about what they think makes them win, and funny how the people getting really upset about that stuff are never the ones with the serious Gladiator titles. It's almost like there's a connection.



Wait.

This argument doesn't make any sense.

You're saying that you're fine with abilities that are easy to switch. Okay, yes that makes sense.

Then you say, that it's disingenuous to say 0.1% or 1% if an ability isn't easy to swap. What? That literally doesn't follow. That's not a logical or rational argument. I'm sorry, this is completely proving my point about "People who can do math" vs "People who are cargo cultists/checkboxers". Either an ability gives some kind of advantage you can quantify, or it doesn't. A lot of these abilities, maybe most, are going to be quantifiable numerically in a fairly reasonable way. That means that it won't be in any way disingenuous to say "2%" (the number I've been using most), if they indeed give you a 2% DPS advantage or the like.

Now if you're back on PvP, which is harder to quantify, and full of people with very extreme opinions and almost no proof to back them up, well, I dunno, I can't really engage with that.

Is it that hard to understand that those are two different points. I don't have an issue with power differences if you can swap them easily OR if they're very minor (ideally both). The other point is that it's disingenuous to simply claim that it will be 0.1% or 1% when we generally have no actual knowledge about that and can very clearly see that it will be far worse in some cases (my example from the last post).

[SirCowdog]

But I find "competitive" here is usually a synonym for shitty..

Again, this is a perspective issue. Is it shitty to expect everyone to show up, fully optimized, geared, with pots, enchants, food, etc? To me that's NORMAL.

I fully understand that there's super-casual approaches to the game. Where this sort of thing literally doesn't matter. But that's not EVERYONE. And the claim that people who don't share your view of playing as being "shitty" is just wrong. It's xenophobic and narrow minded to call someone "shitty" because they don't play the same way you think they should. It's everything that's wrong with this game.

[deenman]

You don't know shit.

he is 100% accurate actualy,we know for a FACT one of the covenants will be better,and everyone will feel like they have to pick the best one,but unlike azerite this system will be harder to respec therefore if you make a mistake or they get nerfed/buffed its gonna be a shitshow,they REALLY need to rethink this system

[Uko]

It will suck if your best ability for dps is in one covenant and best one for tanking/healing is in another. The covenant abilities should just be like an extra talent tree you can pick an ability from and have it skinned based on your choice.

[SoulSoBreezy]

ARguably, WoW is nothing but a series of 1% progressive increases. Piling up tiny bonuses over time to get stronger and stronger. You say it messes with people's heads, but it's also kind of what the entire game is about too.

I'm talking more about people dissing on each other for making the "bad choice," or otherwise not making the choice or path that's most optimal.

[Kyphael]

At least we'll get cool back transmogs!

[Eurhetemec]

Is it that hard to understand that those are two different points. I don't have an issue with power differences if you can swap them easily OR if they're very minor (ideally both). The other point is that it's disingenuous to simply claim that it will be 0.1% or 1% when we generally have no actual knowledge about that and can very clearly see that it will be far worse in some cases (my example from the last post).

You're the one who typed "so", explicitly linking the arguments, so you literally wrong that they were not different points. Thus it's a bit rich to complain about that!

No, we can't "see that it will be far worse". We have some examples from several months ago, far pre-alpha, of covenant abilities they were considering. How many of those do you think will make it into the game, based on Blizzard's history? I'd go with between 0 and 2. How many will make it in unchanged? That's 0. How many will make it in unchanged and somehow go all through alpha and beta unchanged? Yeah that's still 0 because negative numbers make no sense here.

Could it be worse? Sure. Could it be far better than what you're claiming? Sure. We don't know. For all we know they'll remove the PvP-oriented stuff entirely, or separate it out somehow. They've certainly done precisely that before.

Historically, a lot of stuff people have lost their minds over in alpha or beta has actually translated to tiny gains. Especially actual abilities characters have. Procs, Tier Set Bonuses, and so on have, historically, been worse. I don't dispute that. But character abilities? My main worry is that they'll be completely inconsequential, not that they'll break the game.

[docterfreeze]

From the two classes we've seen, covenant abilities are clearly designed for either AoE or ST and one is designed for PvP. I have no idea how they expect to balance them in a way that players won't regret their decision based on the content they find themselves in.

[Azerate]

What we know right now is what they told us. Until we see the actual systems, it's all speculation. If it helps you and makes you happy, feel free to assume the absolute worst scenario, against all logic.

Also:

Are Essences within 1-2% of eachother?
Are Azerite traits within 1-2% of eachother?
Are Talents within 1-2% of eachother?

Did anyone ever claim those things were supposed to be almost equal in power? Of course not. Quite the opposite, the whole point of those systems is to give better and worse options for different situations and for overall performance.

Covenants were right from the start stated to be mostly a cosmetic/plot feature. The goal is not to make any particular covenant give a meaningful advantage. Claiming covenants won't work "because essences" is like claiming someone is unable to drive a car because they can't pilot a helicopter. There is absolutely no logical connection