Covenant Abilities... this looks BAD...

[aceperson]

The problem is the WoW community considers a 1% difference to be "extremely imbalanced".

Listening to Dratnos's podcast, they talk about being worried that they'll be "forced" to have 3 alts of the same class. If this is the mentality that people take because they are so obsessed with being optimal, there is no pleasing them. The game should not be catered to these people when they will engage in any sort of unhealthy behavior to get eke out that marginal performance increase.

there is a difference between the covenant abilities and regular balance. regular balance just leads to flavor of the month classes. it's not great but the situation can be a heck of a lot worse. with covenants, some abilities grant an insane bonus that just can't possibly be balanced around. resonance arrow for hunters is my go-to example. being able to ignore los in pve isn't that amazing of an ability. sure, you can throw it down and still dps while you need to los for a boss mechanic but you'd be better off with a more output related ability. though in pvp, this allows you to ignore the the most core part of arenas. los dancing has always been a core of arenas and suddenly a class can ignore it for 10 seconds while you can't. that either means you get beat up with no way to fight back or you have to throw yourself into the open so you can. it's either lose or be at an equal playing field.

[Hctaz]

They are, and they did. For every change Hardcore People complain about Casuals causing, far more shitty changes came from the Pseudo-elitists crying about a few % of DPS balance in things every fucking time.

Profession Bonuses like +stam for miners, Socket for Blacksmiths etc? Gone because pseudos complained about being "forced" to be a certain Prof for optimal raiding.
Profession Master Gear? Gone because Pseudos complained about being force into certain Professions to get good Pieces of Gear.
Reforging? Gone because pseudos constantly complained about having to spread sheet everytime they got some new gear.
Talent Variety outside of pure output? Gone because Pseudos complained they were force to use specific talents in Talent Rows.
Legendaries? Constantly changed and nerfed.

Literally name me something casuals got changed that wasn't also for the betterment for the number crunching Idiots.

I'll refute some of your claims and then give you a list of my own.

Profession Bonuses are something that did get changed, but I don't think it had anything to do with hardcore players complaining whatsoever. Blizzard themselves didn't like the fact that the majority of the playerbase was choosing specific professions based solely on the fact that they were good for raiding. There were other specialties that could have existed similar to the various types of specializations that Alchemists had. Why did the bonuses need to be related to stat increases when they could have been as interesting as what Alchemy had?

Profession Master Gear is always a concern because it locks certain classes into certain professions in general. That wasn't a complain exclusive to raiders at all. There are plenty of non raiders in Classic WoW who had complained that they needed to go learn tailoring up to 300 just so they could craft their special Priest of Mage chest piece when they also already had to farm the mats anyway. Plus that piece of gear doesn't even require that you keep tailoring either. It's just BoP so nobody could trade it.

Reforging was not gone because of any complaints. The "pseudos" as you put it (which I would fall into since i was always top 200, but never world first contender) liked reforging because it gave us the ability to do something useful with the shitty pieces of gear we inevitably encountered in the starting weeks of the raid tier. It actually made the loot drops better because you were no longer just DE-ing the shitty offpieces that weren't BiS for any class because they could at least be reforged into something better than last tier's BiS. Before reforging, those pieces never saw ANY use because last tier's BiS was always better than next tier's shitty pieces.
Reforging was removed because BLIZZARD didn't like it, not the playerbase. They had the dumbest argument for it as well. They claimed that reforging was bad because you needed to use a spreadsheet to figure out how to reforge your pieces because of stats like Hit and Expertise. Because of that, they decided to remove reforging!... and also hit and expertise... They could have just removed Hit and Expertise and then kept reforging and literally everybody would have been happy.

For talents: I actually have zero idea what you're talking about. You mean like putting one talent in a row that gives you a straight damage buff and another in the SAME ROW that doesn't? That was just bad design in general LOL. Not even a casual player would look at taking "10% chance to not die when you die" over "Summons a Frost wyrm to pelt your enemies with big dick AoE."

Legendaries: Legion Legendaries? Those were also poorly designed. They wouldn't have been such a big deal if they weren't entirely random, but when ONE ITEM out of dozens of incredibly rare pieces of gear increases your DPS by over 15% of baseline and it's put into the same pool as items that are ONLY utility/survivability for a DPS class...? Cmon, man. All they had to do was create a system where you could specifically build towards the legendary item of your choosing (like they are in Shadowlands) and the system would have been fine.

Name me a single benefit to ANY of those things (or in the case of reforging: show me a hardcore raider who complained that the system sucked instead of saying that Hit and Expertise sucked).

As for things casuals complained about that hurt "number crunching idiots": *Lack of meaningful content*

Hello AP grind. Hello Legion Legendary system. Hello WF/TF. Hello time gated content. Hello Daily and World Quests.

"We want you to be able to log in and do something at any time to increase your character's power"

Great, so we now have to play 24/7 to be optimal.

"We want Legendaries to come from EVERYWHERE so you'll never know when you might get that next upgrade!... also they're super random and unbalanced"

Great, so we now have to play 24/7 to be optimal.

"We want mythic raiders to feel like they can go into a normal raid with their friends but still have that excitement that they might get an upgrade!"

Hello Mythic raiders not going into any shitty normal mode pugs and instead doing split runs on their alts for more gear.

I don't know who the fuck thought time gated content was interesting or beneficial in ANY WAY.

"Players often complained that they didn't know what to do when they logged in, so NOW THEY HAVE A LIST OF CHORES TO MAINTAIN WHEN THEY LOG IN"

Yeah fuck that. I liked Classic better where if I wanted to farm gold or rep I just went out into the world and killed things that gave me gold or rep on my time. Having to log in once a day to complete some daily quests sucked, and it only got worse in Legion when you literally open your map and have 40 different bubbles showing you where and how to play the game.

[LionSinMaikeru]

lmao what, "why is this early, not-balance-tweaked version of the abilities so out of whack?" <- This is you.

You do realize people had the same complaints about: Azerite abilities and class abilities / mechanics in BFA alpha / beta, and there was someone just like you saying the same thing. Right?

[FlubberPuddy]

there is a difference between the covenant abilities and regular balance. regular balance just leads to flavor of the month classes. it's not great but the situation can be a heck of a lot worse. with covenants, some abilities grant an insane bonus that just can't possibly be balanced around. resonance arrow for hunters is my go-to example. being able to ignore los in pve isn't that amazing of an ability. sure, you can throw it down and still dps while you need to los for a boss mechanic but you'd be better off with a more output related ability. though in pvp, this allows you to ignore the the most core part of arenas. los dancing has always been a core of arenas and suddenly a class can ignore it for 10 seconds while you can't. that either means you get beat up with no way to fight back or you have to throw yourself into the open so you can. it's either lose or be at an equal playing field.

The outplay to that is moving to another pillar or side of pillar. Simple. The radius isn't that huge for resonating arrow that it can't be outplayed to where you may only be in it for 1-2 secs instead of acting like someone has to eat the extra dmg for the whole 10 secs.

[aceperson]

The outplay to that is moving to another pillar or side of pillar. Simple. The radius isn't that huge for resonating arrow that it can't be outplayed to where you may only be in it for 1-2 secs instead of acting like someone has to eat the extra dmg for the whole 10 secs.

not all pillars are made equal. the nagrand pillars are basically a mile apart, the undercity pillar is just one in the middle of the area, etc. simple counters aren't always simple.

[Laughingjack]

The outplay to that is moving to another pillar or side of pillar. Simple. The radius isn't that huge for resonating arrow that it can't be outplayed to where you may only be in it for 1-2 secs instead of acting like someone has to eat the extra dmg for the whole 10 secs.

It gives a tool that someone else has and can't be balanced around...

I fully expect covenants to implode I just hope they keep their word and flick the switch that will let us change freely rather then adding broken system atop broken system like they did in bfa when azerite imploded.

[FlubberPuddy]

It gives a tool that someone else has and can't be balanced around...

I fully expect covenants to implode I just hope they keep their word and flick the switch that will let us change freely rather then adding broken system atop broken system like they did in bfa when azerite imploded.

Say they make covenant abilities talent like.

Soulbinds datamined so far have insane perks. You gonna then start asking for every soulbind to be available to switch between too?

Then Covenants do literally become cosmetic and nothing more than that. That's like saying you should just create your own trinket and let the only thing matter be cosmetic effect when it goes off.

Makes specific items/features less meaningful/interesting. All in the name of "balance" that would swing farther based on player skill than sub 1% differences.

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not all pillars are made equal. the nagrand pillars are basically a mile apart, the undercity pillar is just one in the middle of the area, etc. simple counters aren't always simple.

Again, the radius isn't so huge that you can't run out of it. I was thinking of the undercity one as well and literally you can move to another corner. Same for Nagrand, people plan their movement abilities around getting from pillar to pillar quickly anyway when someone plants an AoE (the same size AoE of resonating arrow).

No difference other than an extra thing to play around (but which the opposing players will have their own tools too).

[Logwyn]

Honestly I"m just picking what I think goes with my character in my mind. If its BIS hurray. If not then oh well. Then again I'm not a min-maxed or hardcore raider/pvper.

[Laughingjack]

Say they make covenant abilities talent like.

Soulbinds datamined so far have insane perks. You gonna then start asking for every soulbind to be available to switch between too?

Then Covenants do literally become cosmetic and nothing more than that. That's like saying you should just create your own trinket and let the only thing matter be cosmetic effect when it goes off.

Makes specific items/features less meaningful/interesting. All in the name of "balance" that would swing farther based on player skill than sub 1% differences.

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Again, the radius isn't so huge that you can't run out of it. I was thinking of the undercity one as well and literally you can move to another corner. Same for Nagrand, people plan their movement abilities around getting from pillar to pillar quickly anyway when someone plants an AoE (the same size AoE of resonating arrow).

No difference other than an extra thing to play around (but which the opposing players will have their own tools too).

Like I said I have my own preferences... worst case it looks like i will play but will just hold off on serious pvp till im done with raiding and in a comfortable sales postion.

We are going to argue on buzz words like meaningful a lot. I don't find a blind choice meaningful. I find planning out a fight to its fullest and adapting to the encounter to be the true meaningful choice. I would love to have covenants be cosmetic as it stands it is unlikely i will ever join the covenant I would most like to.

[FlubberPuddy]

We are going to argue on buzz words like meaningful a lot. I don't find a blind choice meaningful. I find planning out a fight to its fullest and adapting to the encounter to be the true meaningful choice. I would love to have covenants be cosmetic as it stands it is unlikely i will ever join the covenant I would most like to.

You're not making a blind choice at all. Just like you can easily look up what is fotm class, and either pick that class, or not if you prefer to pick a class you actually want to identify with. You can do the same for covenants as well, either look up what is the meta covenant for your chosen class or pick the one you would like to identify with instead.

Both informed choices, and just as class balance changes that shake up the meta tier from tier, it's no diff if covenants shake up from tier to tier as well. Likely we will have both class and covenant shake ups in meta between raid tiers, as per usual.

Also "adapting to the encounter" has multiple meaning, 1) picking what min-max tools you have available or 2) making do with your locked in class/talents/covenant ability/soulbinds and adapting your playstyle to the fight. Both are "adapting to the encounter" with very different end results from a player enjoyment pov.

[Laughingjack]

You're not making a blind choice at all. Just like you can easily look up what is fotm class, and either pick that class, or not if you prefer to pick a class you actually want to identify with. You can do the same for covenants as well, either look up what is the meta covenant for your chosen class or pick the one you would like to identify with instead.

Both informed choices, and just as class balance changes that shake up the meta tier from tier, it's no diff if covenants shake up from tier to tier as well. Likely we will have both class and covenant shake ups in meta between raid tiers, as per usual.

Also "adapting to the encounter" has multiple meaning, 1) picking what min-max tools you have available or 2) making do with your locked in class/talents/covenant ability/soulbinds and adapting your playstyle to the fight. Both are "adapting to the encounter" with very different end results from a player enjoyment pov.

Arguing ketchup or catsup now.

[FlubberPuddy]

Arguing ketchup or catsup now.

Right so overall doesn't matter. Thank you.