Covenant Abilities... this looks BAD...

[Alaenore]

I mean I love people.

"Why no new abilities ? So lazy Blizzard, we want new stuff"
"Omg nothing is balanced why can't you understand that adding too many abilities makes it impossible to balance"

[Lolites]

Who the fuck asked for this kind of crap system????

who the fuck asked for mythic+ system? and it turned out great and succesful...
or should they know what system will be good and accepted before making it? then they shouldnt hire developers but seers and prophets

[Twdft]

problem is that these non-competitive players blindly copy what cutting edge people do .

and thats the problem

The players who blindly copy are still in the 10% copying from the 1% who copy from sims.

[Lolites]

Playing with suboptimal talents has always been a reason to remove underperforming people from groups. Covenant Ability will be no different.

you are absolutely correct, it have ALWAYS been like that - yet some people treat it like some huge change to the game...

[Orwell7]

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

This is freakin EVERYONE who saw at least one alpha.
We do not need "balanceable" abilities - we need the freedom of choice. If there is even a miniscule chance that "the best" players feel the need to level up multiple chars of the same CLASS just because Covenants are locked, then the system is BAD BAD BAD.

Hell, why not make the Covenants RNG? You are assigned to one and be done with it. Maybe your 10th mage has finally the right Covenant yaaay!?

[Shinrael]

Indeed, it's the grind then? Not the gear in it self?

I once had a meeting at work. We were talking about things to improve and I asked "Okay, so what if we had said system without these bad things, would that work?" and they answered like "No, because then the bad things would cause this and that". I replied: "Yeah, but I said that the bad things would not exsist". After some back and fourth they finally realized that yes, they wanted the same system but without the bad things. It was very difficult to get to that point.

Also, I forgot about essences… Loved the challange some presented, hated the timegating. Like, why would I not be able to do hardmode Mecha as many times as I'd want during a week? It was fun, but instead of playing it more, I just waited. Quite boring. I mean, I'm paying and still I have to wait.

Yeah, people are dense.
It's the same reason why so many cool ideas that are proposed on this forum or by WoW YouTubers get shot down. Because people just hurry to tell them how bad they are and how many problems they will cause. They do not know that problems can be fixed.

I disliked having to grind for any of the essences. I think that the ranks should have been achievement/difficulty based, not time/grind based. You complete Heroic EP? You get Rank 3 instantly. You complete Mythic EP? Rank 4 instantly. Respectively Rank 2 is Normal and Rank 1 is LFR (and you can skip them if you do a higher difficulty).

And don't even get me started on the Rep and Honor grinds Those could've been done better. I liked the Crucible of Flame one because it involved story and because we already had to grind the Azerite anyway so that Essence came as a bonus.

[Rucati]

They are fine, if they can ONLY be used in world content. No raids, no dungeons, no battlegrounds.

I agree with this completely. If they want it to be some little perk you get that you can use out while doing world quests or leveling that's perfectly fine and I see no issues with this.

If it's something that's going to be available in M+, raids, and arena then they absolutely need to make it insanely easy to switch between covenants. What's best for M+ will almost certainly not be best in arena or raids and it's going to feel really fucking bad getting locked to a skill that's trash in one form of content but required for another.

[Alaenore]

This is freakin EVERYONE who saw at least one alpha.
We do not need "balanceable" abilities - we need the freedom of choice. If there is even a miniscule chance that "the best" players feel the need to level up multiple chars of the same CLASS just because Covenants are locked, then the system is BAD BAD BAD.

Hell, why not make the Covenants RNG? You are assigned to one and be done with it. Maybe your 10th mage has finally the right Covenant yaaay!?

They already said you could change covenants, but it would take a bunch of time to do so. So no, you won't have to create multiple characters.
Besides, i'm quite certain most people could have any ability and wouldn't be able to use it to their fullest. Just look at how many people beg for infinite stars when that trait is dogshit for almost every classes.

[Raisei]

Blizzard: *exists*

People: OMG the sky is falling

Exactly this.

I read through the abilities and then opened the forum, knowing that at least one of the haters has already opened a thread like this one.

You are sooo predictable. Blizzard could have written a page of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and you would have criticized them for the font, Blizzard could announced a gift of 1 million gold for everyone and you would complain that it is not 2 million and call them "greedy Actiblizzard" in the same paragraph.
If you need a target for your hate try someone that actually deserves it for a change, stop playing this game if every little thing is suuuuch an inconvenience for you and then stop posting here, because it is getting soooooo old to see a hate thread every bloody day when any word come from a dev.

\Rant

As for the actual abilities. Let me start with one question: When in the history of the game was it every 100% balanced? Just look at the classes in the World First Race or the MDI.
Look how Monks are the kings of Tanking raids and Warrior beats every other class in M+ Tanking, for a long time now.
Look how Rogues destroy damage meters and BM hunters do more damage with their 3 buttons then an UH DK with 10.
Look how Pala Healers do more damage then low end DPS without dropping healing.

This is not an accident. It is simply impossible to perfectly balance 12 classes with several specs. The only way for perfect balance would be, if all classes have the same abilities, which no one in their right mind could want. The complexity of balancing hundreds of spells and spell combinations so that 12 class do exactly the same damage and healing is ludicrously high.

People should stop looking at Balance as a deciding factor. Blizzard will keep things in check and move the sliders if one class gets completely out of hand, but expecting a completely balanced meta is simply unrealistic.

And I am now telling you: So what?

Apart from highest level Mythic raiding and +20 keys is the 5000dps you do more or less then the next guy really gonna matter? No. No it won't. Sure every class needs to reach a certain minimum of dps so they are viable for Heroics, but I have yet to see any competent player that invested the time into a class not reach this minimum. Every class is viable until you go for the really really difficult stuff and 95% of the playerbase will never reach that level anyway.

The reason you should be playing your class is simply ENJOYMENT. You should love your class for it's cool concept, theme, backstory and animations not because you would do a bit more dps with it.

And this is exactly what these Covenent abilities represent. They are not going to be 100% balanced. They are made to give you a flavourful cool experience. I looked at the DK abilities mainly as that is my main and I know now that I will be siding with the Necrolords (baring radical changes), their theme fits perfectly and their abilities sound quite simply FUN.

[ArenaDk]

For all the people , who claim blizzard wont balance it / wont change it anyway. What are you doing here? Just wanting to rage and cry? Looking for validation? Maybe make a chat group for such and let people discuss the new system in peace

[Kumorii]

I like the idea of becoming a skeletal mage.

[Harbour]

For all the people , who claim blizzard wont balance it / wont change it anyway. What are you doing here? Just wanting to rage and cry? Looking for validation? Maybe make a chat group for such and let people discuss the new system in peace

Maybe you should rethink what are you doing here if the only thing you are doing here now is bitching about what other people are doing here.

Right now people doing the right thing - try to not let BFA testing shit to happen again. New system looks as bad of a system as were Azerite on alpha/beta. And people must make Blizzard hear it everywhere: on reddit, mmo-champion, 4chan, twitter, oficial forums.

Its that simple. So stop bitching about it and go do your horrific vision. You would be fine with anything Blizzard would serve you anyway.

[niztheundead87]

Lots of mouth breathing raging kids already

[Azerox]

Looks good to me.

[Elias01]

They are fine, if they can ONLY be used in world content. No raids, no dungeons, no battlegrounds.

Whats the point wasting developers time on abilities what can be only use in world content what can be facerolled by basic 3 spell rotations? No people seems to forgeting that this is mmorpg not compettive raid simulator and if you force yourself into min maxing thats your choice. Blizz and game do not forces you to min max thats all on you. BUt I WonT bE InVaTED inTO GroupS. Then create your own group.

[ArenaDk]

Maybe you should rethink what are you doing here if the only thing you are doing here now is bitching about what other people are doing here.

Right now people doing the right thing - try to not let BFA testing shit to happen again. New system looks as bad of a system as were Azerite on alpha/beta. And people must make Blizzard hear it everywhere: on reddit, mmo-champion, 4chan, twitter, oficial forums.

Its that simple. So stop bitching about it and go do your horrific vision. You would be fine with anything Blizzard would serve you anyway.

No. The right thing would be, waiting for aplha go live ——> Test abilities——-> give feedback——> see if they agree or disagree

Not raging like children and being all negative about a game. Also azerit was looking really good as a system , just came far too late to the test server and got fixed quickly enough durring the expension. This time it seems they test them even earlier, so i would compare them more to the artefact abilities which were quite balanced.

Also , again. stop with your passive agressive comments directed at me. If i would care about what you say, I would have asked for your opinion.

[Nerovar]

As for the actual abilities. Let me start with one question: When in the history of the game was it every 100% balanced? Just look at the classes in the World First Race or the MDI.

This is completely irrelevant and it just shows that you simply don't understand the issue. People aren't complaining about imbalances because imbalances have always been and will always be a part of the game. What people are pointing out is that Blizzard deliberately creates unnecessary imbalance by making it very hard to switch between these covenants just because they think it would make the choice more interesting. They are creating new problems that wouldn't exist if these abilities were e.g. another talent row that you can switch out whenever you want to.

It's also a ridiculous and stupid choice to make. Do I choose what's actually useful for the performance of my class or do I choose what is most aesthetically pleasing/thematically fitting for my character? Why would you design a system in which hypothetically, players who care about their performance would be forced to join the nature themed Fae covenant or Paladins would be forced to join the Undeath themed covenant in order to be most effective?

The reason you should be playing your class is simply ENJOYMENT. You should love your class for it's cool concept, theme, backstory and animations not because you would do a bit more dps with it.

This is such a stupid non-argument if you've ever played any game competetively. Most people don't ENJOY shooting themselves in the foot performance wise because they want to look good which is why cosmetics are usually not tied to actual power increase.

Crazy idea i know its important to be first to say something is bad, but maybe atleast wait until anybody actually tried it ingame.

Damn, it's almost as if the problems with this systems weren't due to its implementation but are flaws at a conceptual level.

[Lahis]

Whats the point wasting developers time on abilities what can be only use in world content what can be facerolled by basic 3 spell rotations? No people seems to forgeting that this is mmorpg not compettive raid simulator and if you force yourself into min maxing thats your choice. Blizz and game do not forces you to min max thats all on you. BUt I WonT bE InVaTED inTO GroupS. Then create your own group.

Letting this wildly uncompetitive system to be active in competitive environments will make the game worse for everyone.

You might not care about playing with subobtimal flavour spell, but your raid leader will. Have fun warming the bench.

[Ninix]

This is wrong.

These abilities will NOT be balanced. Not because it is Alpha now and not because it will be Beta later. These are absolutely irrelevant. The abilities WILL NOT be balanced. They cannot be. There are 12 classes, 48 abilities. Each does a different thing and thus one will always be better for a specific situation. You cannot pick more than one. You pick one. If it is too good, it will be nerfed. If it is too bad, it will be buffed. But they will never be balanced. Forget about that. It is not possible.

Even if Paladin's Kyrian ability was:

1 min CD, 1 sec cast time, 40 yard range, deals 10 000 damage to 1 enemy.

And Mage's Venthyr ability was:

1 min CD, 1 sec cast time, 40 yard range, deals 10 000 damage to 1 enemy.

It would STILL NOT be balanced. Because of how differently those classes play and how well those abilities synergize with the rest of their kit. It is simply not a possible calculation. So stop crying about stuff being OP or unbalanced. That's not the issue here. The issue would be, being unable to switch between these abilities at will. Because that will piss people off. Not them being OP or weak. So stop giving the wrong feedback, stop crying about the wrong things. You're just creating NOISE.

This is MMOC forums, please stop being relevant.
Thanks.

[CiccioBello]

Certainly before saying if the system works or not, it is necessary to see it as a whole, that is to understand how they intertwine with the talents given by the covenants and with the unpruning of the classes, etc.
So before I say it's shit, we need to wait for more information.
Although the Covenant idea is not bad, at first glance I have some serious doubts.
It is clear that the skills given by the covenants find space in different contents, that is, given a class, some covenants are very convenient if you want to do PVP while another is convenient if the main focus is the M + or in the case of multi role classes maybe the covenant that has been chosen is good for DPS but bad for Healer .. I think this approach can cause significant problems especially if the blizz really decides that changing covenants dynamically, based on the role and type of content, is a very rigid and expensive.
It is clear that the players will most likely choose not the convenant they like best in terms of lore and appearance but the one that based on what they want to do is the most convenient.
In my opinion, if this is the path decided and taken by blizz, making the change covenant rigid would be a big mistake.
This system can have a lot of potential if and only if I don't have to get stuck on one choice.
It would be nice if I could choose all of them even at the same time and then carry on faster the covenant that best suits the type of role and content that I have chosen to do. For example I chose the Paladin DPS as the main but I also actively play the offSpecs, let's say the Potection. Why can't I choose covenant A for dps and covenant B for tank at the same time?
Or I choose the convenant A for the Raid and the Covenant B for the M +