My sentiment on Covenants and why i might get dissapointed

[Swnem]

Doesnt look like there is a solution to your problem.
Blizz tied power to these things and there will always be one better than the others.
The question is how big is the difference and how much you care.

I am looking at Kyryan for a few of my characters as well. The ones i play the most i will pick what's best. I will use the rest to cover what i've missed.

[Redroniksre]

Your view is completely black and white i see. Let me add a little color.

The covenants offer:
Covenant ability and class ability
Soulbinds and their benefits + conduits
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Covenant dungeon bonuses
Legendary recipes
Zone hub themed to the covenant
Flavored transportation and other benefits within the zone
Dailies for the Covenant + specific quest/event like: Venthyr party
Transmog
Mount
Pet

You see the split there? We unhinge power from aesthetic.
Now you can pick your covenant aesthetic and power how you want.
How exactly does this make you bored? You have more choice than before, you lose absolutely nothing.

Maybe actually read the benefits of covenants before arguing, here's a helpful link:
https://www.wowhead.com/guides/shado...lities-rewards

Also what's this regarding my sub 500 guild? You're too generous, maybe i'm in a sub 5000 or even sub 50000 guild.
Does it matter? Would it increase my guild ranking? No m8, because everyone would get the same "benefits", so my guild wouldn't get an edge since everyone gets it.
Maybe don't try to make a point if it's an invalid premise? Don't throw logic away in the trash...

So you have a problem with abilities not being freely selectable, but have no problem with locking the dungeon bonuses which some people argue is now "Mandatory" or Legendary recipes which might mean your BiS is in a specific covenant? If you want to have no power difference then those have to go too. Leaving your covenant....glorified rep? (Oh and those specific events? Just zone specific dailies, whoop dee doo)

[Rayzen17]

Unless you are a progression mythic raider or pushing MDI, your Covenant is personal choice.

My personal choice is to switch covenants and soulbinds/conduits based on what activity i am doing in the game at that point in time.
It could be dailies (some world pvping because why not), raiding, M+, running old raids on Monday.
Tuesday it could be M+, arenas, dailies.... strange
Wednesday it could be raiding, dailies, random old world rep grind, or maybe some battlegrounds!
etc etc etc and repeat the week

Now each of those activities, or almost all have a certain covenant ability/class ability and soulbinds/conduit build.
And as a personal choice to how i like to play this game, i would like to switch, thanks!

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So you have a problem with abilities not being freely selectable, but have no problem with locking the dungeon bonuses which some people argue is now "Mandatory" or Legendary recipes which might mean your BiS is in a specific covenant? If you want to have no power difference then those have to go too. Leaving your covenant....glorified rep? (Oh and those specific events? Just zone specific dailies, whoop dee doo)

I'm glad you asked that Steve, can i call you Steve?
The Legendaries are another set of rep(renown in this case) where you can buy the recipe and it stays with you forever, regardless of your covenant allegiance.

For the covenant dungeon bonuses, it'll take 1 person to unlock that(out of 5). So what's the worry, you can't force people to join a certain covenant, but you can find one if you want.
If you got a beef with that, make your own post about it. Okay?

[StillMcfuu]

My personal choice is to switch covenants and soulbinds/conduits based on what activity i am doing in the game at that point in time.
It could be dailies (some world pvping because why not), raiding, M+, running old raids on Monday.
Tuesday it could be M+, arenas, dailies.... strange
Wednesday it could be raiding, dailies, random old world rep grind, or maybe some battlegrounds!
etc etc etc and repeat the week

Now each of those activities, or almost all have a certain covenant ability/class ability and soulbinds/conduit build.
And as a personal choice to how i like to play this game, i would like to switch, thanks!

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I'm glad you asked that Steve, can i call you Steve?
The Legendaries are another set of rep(renown in this case) where you can buy the recipe and it stays with you forever, regardless of your covenant allegiance.

For the covenant dungeon bonuses, it'll take 1 person to unlock that. So what's the worry, you can't force people to join a certain covenant.
If you got a beef with that, make your own post about it. Okay?

Well I'd like to have fireball on my rogue, but thats not a game design option.

I'm not ignorant to your sentiment, but I don't think they are going to open it up to that kind of manipulation. The system is meant for it, its rigid as classes, and I don't see an issue with that.

[exochaft]

Playing on the alpha/beta is way more informative that most of the videos you'll see out there right now. That's not to say there isn't good (or bad) information in said videos, but they generally aren't focused on the things you personally might want to know.

After going through the end-game content that is available right now, it's extremely obvious that Blizz is trying to making niche situations where being X covenant is a clear advantage over being one of the other covenants. They can't make the scenarios impossible, but they'll heavily favor certain covenant signature abilities. This can extend more broadly to many of the class abilities, where in some scenarios they'll be great... and others they'll be inferior to other choices. All this will likely apply to the vast majority of the player base, the only exceptions will be those who will want to min/max to the nth degree for every scenario at any given time.

Only concern I can see at this point is if Blizz tunes mythic raid mechanics in this expansion to where movement is too necessary/frequent and heavily trivializes encounters... which is one thing they're really bad at as of late. If we get more mythic encounters like G'huun, that will be a failure on Blizz's end when it comes to encounter design.

[Rayzen17]

Well I'd like to have fireball on my rogue, but thats not a game design option.

I'm not ignorant to your sentiment, but I don't think they are going to open it up to that kind of manipulation. The system is meant for it, its rigid as classes, and I don't see an issue with that.

They aren't classes. You know, that thing you picked at the character creation screen.
It's fine if you don't see an issue with it, plenty of others do.
#PullTheRipcord

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Playing on the alpha/beta is way more informative that most of the videos you'll see out there right now. That's not to say there isn't good (or bad) information in said videos, but they generally aren't focused on the things you personally might want to know.

After going through the end-game content that is available right now, it's extremely obvious that Blizz is trying to making niche situations where being X covenant is a clear advantage over being one of the other covenants. They can't make the scenarios impossible, but they'll heavily favor certain covenant signature abilities. This can extend more broadly to many of the class abilities, where in some scenarios they'll be great... and others they'll be inferior to other choices. All this will likely apply to the vast majority of the player base, the only exceptions will be those who will want to min/max to the nth degree for every scenario at any given time.

Only concern I can see at this point is if Blizz tunes mythic raid mechanics in this expansion to where movement is too necessary/frequent and heavily trivializes encounters... which is one thing they're really bad at as of late. If we get more mythic encounters like G'huun, that will be a failure on Blizz's end when it comes to encounter design.

Well if there's another Mythic N'zoth, Shadhar, Vexiona, Ilgy, Wrathion, Hivemind, Xanesh, Ra-den, Carapace, i'm bored of thinking of more where the Venthyr teleport absolutely trivializes or at least helps a lot with some of their mechanics where if you reposition fast, you evade that completely or you make sure there is zero(or close to) chance of failing it.

[StillMcfuu]

They aren't classes. You know, that thing you picked at the character creation screen.
It's fine if you don't see an issue with it, plenty of others do.
#PullTheRipcord

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Well if there's another Mythic N'zoth, Shadhar, Vexiona, Ilgy, Wrathion, Hivemind, Xanesh, Ra-den, Carapace, i'm bored of thinking of more where the Venthyr teleport absolutely trivializes or at least helps a lot with some of their mechanics where if you reposition fast, you evade that completely or you make sure there is zero(or close to) chance of failing it.

And on the same hand that they aren't as rigid as a class choice, why can't you accept that they aren't as flexible as 4 spec trees for you to swap around?

[Rayzen17]

And on the same hand that they aren't as rigid as a class choice, why can't you accept that they aren't as flexible as 4 spec trees for you to swap around?

Because they aren't classes or even sub-classes, specs are the sub-class and you can change that at will.
Covenants aren't a meaningful choice like classes are, they can't be unless they are permanent and not even just for this expac.

Also, because it's more fun to swap around them than if i was locked?

[facefist]

If you prefer role-play, then you pick what fits you.
If you prefer optimization and being invited to high-end content, you pick what is best (unless the balance is really close, but I doubt that).

Best case you can have both, but it seems very I likely. So in reality you prioritize between two things: role play or power.

[MrLachyG]

Firm believer in this sort of thing only matters to the top 1%

Just pick whichever you want, you'll be able to clear everything in the game if you're a decent player regardless of which you choose.

this times a million. unless you're in the world first race, where even the slightest advantage is needed, then you should just pick whatever you want. sure, you might be doing slightly (and I mean very slightly) less dps than another but is it going to impact progression for you and your guild? no, not really.

[Lolites]

Nice man, can you tell me some lottery numbers... since you saw the future and all that bullshit?
Maybe you should wake up from dreamland, you will and Blizz will when the system comes crashing down when it hits live.

mocking others for "Seeing future" and then saying what WILL DEFINITELY HAPPEN...
cant decide if its hypocrisy or irony...

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what people who use this argument fail to realize is that for some, optimization is a big part of the joy of the game.

actualy, people do realise that
on the other hand it seems people who like optimization dont seem to realise for others its chore and actualy takes a lot of fun to have to optimise for every activity...

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this times a million. unless you're in the world first race, where even the slightest advantage is needed, then you should just pick whatever you want. sure, you might be doing slightly (and I mean very slightly) less dps than another but is it going to impact progression for you and your guild? no, not really.

sadly a lot of people think they can bypass skill by using "meta" clas/spec/talents/covenant, and have "if im no 100% optimised for every situation the game is unplayable" mentality...

[Rayzen17]

mocking others for "Seeing future" and then saying what WILL DEFINITELY HAPPEN...
cant decide if its hypocrisy or irony...

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actualy, people do realise that
on the other hand it seems people who like optimization dont seem to realise for others its chore and actualy takes a lot of fun to have to optimise for every activity...

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sadly a lot of people think they can bypass skill by using "meta" clas/spec/talents/covenant, and have "if im no 100% optimised for every situation the game is unplayable" mentality...

I was actually dramatically saying what >>>will<<< happen, was acting the same, maybe i should have switched the phrases to make it more obvious?

[Yvern]

I min-max. I don't understand anyone who plays an RPG and doesn't try to min-max for the end game.

However, there are others who don't min-max. They don't even know the word min-max. Or some of them do and they just don't care. They are playing the game but don't consider incremental benefits to their character's power to be measurable when grouping with others.

The basic argument between these two types of gamers, as best I can ascertain, is what classifies as measurable. There are many, even non-casuals, even members on this very forum, and even developers, who don't think that any utility difference and most dps variance is relevant at all. This occasionally stems from concept that since most players are so unoptimized to begin with, their covenant choice will make little difference. Afterall, what good is a 10% increase in aoe on one boss for someone who only plays their class to 60% efficiency?

However, community perception in WoW is quite often incorrect. Particularly about things concerning the current meta. It trails, and some ideas get stuck in the mainstream which are no longer relevant. Community perception is much more powerful than the actual meta, because it affects the only portion of WoW(arguably) that player power actually matters, group content. Because covenants are such a ubiquitous, large feature of the expansion, and because of the controversy surrounding them, and also due to each individual's own cognitive dissonance about their own choice, covenant choice could become a factor when choosing pugs group members.

Furthermore, those with the confidence to make a group themselves, may be predisposed to have stronger cognitive dissonance, or more assertive opinions about what the right covenant choice is, for a certain class. For example, you mentioned fire mages perhaps having only one serious option. On MMO-champ this is often discussed generally for all classes, but a group leader who perhaps is heavily invested in the game and who perhaps invests heavily in the current meta of their spec, say, fire mage, may see a mage apply who is in a covenant that said person knows is the least beneficial for fire mages. This could be perceived as a choice by that player, but more likely it will be perceived as an incorrect choice by an unknowledgeable player(even if that is completely untrue). It is also possible that said person with the "wrong" covenant is never given the opportunity to defend their decision or even to explain that the decision was made due to role playing choices(a legit reason), instead of ignorance of the meta.

It is easier to explain by simply making up quotes that one may hear in LFR.

One snide comment might be: "Don't listen to them, they are fire and in Maldraxxus, lol."

I just made that quote up, but I would imagine that such comments will not be completely unheard of when covenants go live. Of course this is all just imho. Also, I know nothing about Maldraxxus or Fire mages(besides playing one heavily in Legion) so the above quote is not based off any covenant or class knowledge, just the contents of the OP. I'm attempting to ad context to the types of comments I would expect for straying from community perception in group content. IMO, comments themselves aren't a huge problem, but the ideas they portray may be, if they are drawn from or into the larger community perception.

Very interesting take, not only do i agree with your statements. This is also where my fear resides, wanting to have fun and enjoy the best abilties the expansion can provide. While right now it feels i have to penalize myself everytime i need to change to another covenant.

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actually for Arance Necrolods seem better (another DPS cd to pair with AP and cleaving AB) and in general the Night Fae look quite promising for M+ or AoE scenarios (burst aoe +cd reduction, if you grab the CD dependant talents there's some pretty obvious synergy here), but if all you care about is single target dummy DPS then yes, i guess Kyrians are the winners, is it so bad that in a specific scenario one convenant excels?

Venthyr is the only odd one, feels more like a pvp talent than a convenant ability tbh... for this one mages have a reason to complain i guess... but the other 3 are fine

Hey Cyanu, thats interesting i havent really explored the different specs yet only fire mage! I just hope blizz will soften up the restrictions so we can have fun with all the specs and are not tunneled in ''go to brokenly the best covenants for this spec''

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I particularly liked the "just" part there.

There is no "just", this is how it's going to be and you better wake up and smell the reality. At the very most, what I DO expect them to do is offer a "multispec" somewhere in 9.2 to allow to switch between 2 or more covenants on the flight.

''Multispec'' covenants would be an amazing solution later in the patches. This would mean that after the initial covenant allegiance i could explore the other options later in the content. Nice idea!

[Dakara]

Unless you are a progression mythic raider or pushing MDI, your Covenant is personal choice.

True, but I'd also prefer to not have a dead button on my bar because I chose my Covenant for Aesthetic reasons.

Literally, for some specs, their Covenant ability isn't worth wasting a GCD (or channel time) on, while other abilities are clearly built for PvP (or PvE) and have little to no use in the other.
If Blizzard can sort those issues out then great, but so far they seem very reluctant to re-design any of the abilities (except for the Paladin Night Fae one iirc).

[Gaidax]

''Multispec'' covenants would be an amazing solution later in the patches. This would mean that after the initial covenant allegiance i could explore the other options later in the content. Nice idea!

I'm pretty confident that this is exactly what they have in mind for later patches.

We're already given a way out that retains progress in the very initial patch, I'm pretty sure down the road given the expansion setup they will lift that for good.

They will still keep separate renown and such, but I bet switching covenant will at most require to visit Oribos.

[Lolites]

True, but I'd also prefer to not have a dead button on my bar because I chose my Covenant for Aesthetic reasons.

are there covenant abilities that are useless in ALL situations? bcs if not, how is this different from talents in M+?
i mean, if you choose AOE talent and run M+, and its useless on bosses, isnt that virtualy the same?
majority of abilities is usefull only in some settings...

[SirBeef]

Playing on the alpha/beta is way more informative that most of the videos you'll see out there right now. That's not to say there isn't good (or bad) information in said videos, but they generally aren't focused on the things you personally might want to know.

After going through the end-game content that is available right now, it's extremely obvious that Blizz is trying to making niche situations where being X covenant is a clear advantage over being one of the other covenants. They can't make the scenarios impossible, but they'll heavily favor certain covenant signature abilities. This can extend more broadly to many of the class abilities, where in some scenarios they'll be great... and others they'll be inferior to other choices. All this will likely apply to the vast majority of the player base, the only exceptions will be those who will want to min/max to the nth degree for every scenario at any given time.

Only concern I can see at this point is if Blizz tunes mythic raid mechanics in this expansion to where movement is too necessary/frequent and heavily trivializes encounters... which is one thing they're really bad at as of late. If we get more mythic encounters like G'huun, that will be a failure on Blizz's end when it comes to encounter design.

Maybe in Mythic raids, which is fine. Having specific comps/specs and stuff is fine and sort of the intention behind Mythic. It's not supposed to be for just anyone or everyone. Raid testing as Prot pally with all three, the only one I felt was at a slight disadvantage was the Night Fae. It really should be a group wide buff. They can even reduce it to 15 sec with the 30 sec CD or keep the 30 sec length and make it a 1min CD to be more useful. Right now, as a tank, it's a pain to have to buff someone else other than yourself every 30 sec. Others might get better use from certain seasons in certain situations. Not once did I ever feel I needed one of the other ones in any given situation. Yes, large packs the Venthyr would be great but that 4 min CD makes it totally situational, sure the teleport is nice but really not needed for raiding. What prot pally doesn't want more SotR? But at the cost of 3 HP, especially if you don't need it, and that shield, while useful in solo content, isn't that great in raids plus the CD. Kyrian bell is nice, an extra Avengers shield, wasted on single targets, and the steward is meh.

I know what I'm picking, and it's just about cosmetics, since the abilities really do not matter that much.

[Dakara]

are there covenant abilities that are useless in ALL situations? bcs if not, how is this different from talents in M+?
i mean, if you choose AOE talent and run M+, and its useless on bosses, isnt that virtualy the same?
majority of abilities is usefull only in some settings...

Ok firstly, a talent you can easily swap so it’s a bad example.... if you’re using an AOE talent on trash then it’s not a dead button.

And secondly, to answer your question, yes, yes there are. Particularly abilities which don’t work across all specs of a class. What’s good for healing becomes a dead button when you DPS as it’s not worth the GCD, or it’s not worth interrupting your rotation to channel because it doesn’t synergise with any of your abilities. Unlike a talent, it’s locked in for all your specs.

Other abilities also have a very obvious PVP focus. If you don’t PVP, then it’s a dead ability... because again, it’s not a talent you can simply spec out of. I’m sure the opposite is also true for PVPers.

If Covenant abilities were as simple as AOE or ST, you might have a point. But they aren’t.

[WowIsDead64]

I would like to discuss the ''new'' covenant system thats coming soon to us in the new Shadowlands expansion.
As a player i like to play my character to the best of my knowledge and i enjoy getting as strong as possible.

While reading guides about the covenants for mages i have come to the conclusion that the only viable option for PvE are the ''Kyrians''.
I made this conclusion from reading a mage class post for shadowlands from ''Preheat'' a fire mage player:
Iam not allowed to link yet its called: ''Fire Mage State on Shadowlands Alpha - Spell Changes, Covenant Abilities, and Combustion''

Now let me state why iam worried and what i would like to know: Iam worried i won't have a choice in choosing which covenant i will be able to play. While i was looking forward to play maldraxxus i will choose Kyrian if this is the only viable PvE option, because i enjoy optimalisation. It seems iam at a crossroads. How do you guys feel about this and the balance around covenant?

Ps: i will only have time for 1 character (my main) in shadowlands, people with alts have more options in experiencing all the covenants.

Dunno. May be at the end players should be able to make wrong choices, even if it hurts their gaming experience and can potentially drive them away from game? Back in WotLK I wanted to play Enh Shamans, but they were complete crap. Should I have been playing OP Paladins instead? Or should Blizzard have balanced all classes to be 100% equal? Or should they have split power and visual choices, like choosing class means choosing visual effects and spell names, but powers are chosen separately?

Removing ability to make wrong choice, like removing ability to choose wrong armor type or weapon type - is one of that things, that killed spirit of this game.

[Aggrophobic]

I would like to discuss the ''new'' covenant system thats coming soon to us in the new Shadowlands expansion.
As a player i like to play my character to the best of my knowledge and i enjoy getting as strong as possible.

While reading guides about the covenants for mages i have come to the conclusion that the only viable option for PvE are the ''Kyrians''.
I made this conclusion from reading a mage class post for shadowlands from ''Preheat'' a fire mage player:
Iam not allowed to link yet its called: ''Fire Mage State on Shadowlands Alpha - Spell Changes, Covenant Abilities, and Combustion''

Now let me state why iam worried and what i would like to know: Iam worried i won't have a choice in choosing which covenant i will be able to play. While i was looking forward to play maldraxxus i will choose Kyrian if this is the only viable PvE option, because i enjoy optimalisation. It seems iam at a crossroads. How do you guys feel about this and the balance around covenant?

Ps: i will only have time for 1 character (my main) in shadowlands, people with alts have more options in experiencing all the covenants.

You're right. You'll be forced to pick one of them and if you pick the wrong one, you'll be way worse than players that picked the right one.
Not letting people respec is a huge mistake and it'll most likely make an expansion that looks really cool, be just worthless and boring.

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Ok firstly, a talent you can easily swap so it’s a bad example.... if you’re using an AOE talent on trash then it’s not a dead button.

And secondly, to answer your question, yes, yes there are. Particularly abilities which don’t work across all specs of a class. What’s good for healing becomes a dead button when you DPS as it’s not worth the GCD, or it’s not worth interrupting your rotation to channel because it doesn’t synergise with any of your abilities. Unlike a talent, it’s locked in for all your specs.

Other abilities also have a very obvious PVP focus. If you don’t PVP, then it’s a dead ability... because again, it’s not a talent you can simply spec out of. I’m sure the opposite is also true for PVPers.

If Covenant abilities were as simple as AOE or ST, you might have a point. But they aren’t.

No, covenants and soulbinds are just talents. talents you can't respec. If you're serious about the game you might very well be forced to have 2, 3 or even 4 different characters of the same class.