Will Blizzard nerf your "meaningful choice"?

[Sevarin]

in other words: it doesnt affect me so it can stay... yeah, soooo selfless...
whatever, if it makes you feel better keep lying to yourself i dont care...

thats better than the jackhole people that say:

it doesnt affect me, so remove it. fuck everyone else that likes it.

there are tons of people that seem to have this thought process on these forums.

[Aggrophobic]

more likely, they wont nerf a single thing about covenants after launch, instead they will buff other covenants to similar power levels. this is the one time that they would probably do this.

so people wont be upset about getting nerfed and instead will be angry that other people got things they didnt. further reinforcing the playbases shitty attitude.

That does not at all sound like Blizzard. They promised they would not nerf artifact weapons after people put in time and effort grinding them up. Ask a rogue how they felt.

They will most likely nerf and buff things like crazy and you also have to remember that it's not just one abliity now, they have 3-4 systems that are looked this way. There is no way they'll get this right and it sure as heck is not balanced atm.

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Over 15 years? Yeah, sometimes they did, pretty rarely.

So chances of this here are slim when commitment is involved. They will certainly pat things that go too out of hand, but make sure not to break them once this is live.

Not going to happen, not a chance.

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Indeed. That comment about Blizzard nerfing/buffing stuff by "5%", or whatever number they pulled out of some body cavity, was so naive that I couldn't help but to feel some tenderness towards the poster. I still remember my holy priest pulling some decent numbers in Uldir, only for Blizzard to arrive with the sledgehammer in 8.1 and DECIMATE it. From then on, hpriest has been nothing but a crippled paladin.

And the same happened (in reverse) with Shadow BTW. So, "5% adjustments" my ass.

Yeah, I still remember Legion and the legendaries. Oh and the artifact. And that was not even close to the complexity of the Shadowlands systems and alos a lot more balanced with just a month or two till release.

[ydraw]

and nobody actualy said that... people said only 1% of people play on the level where it would have ACTUAL impact, not that only 1% care...

This is something people always say and it's just not true.

Your talent choices (and that's basically what covenants are), impact every level of play. You don't have to be doing cutting edge raiding for them to matter.

[Ryzek]

Yes, Blizzard will probably nerf you covenant, just like they nerf classes all the time during an xpac. People will changes classes when the one they are on is nerfed, so people will change covenants once the powerful one is nerfed. Not much difference imo.

[MakeMeLaugh]

Every time blizz balance classes, it's for those that actually do pvp/raids/m+. So yes, 100% they will nerf/buff covenant shit during the expansion.

If blizz only cared about bad casuals, they would not bother balancing anything.

[WowIsDead64]

So how likely is it that you will make your "meaningful choice" of choosing a covenant with a strong ability and then Blizzard will just nerf that ability 2 weeks later right before the raid is released?

Is it really a "meaningful choice" if Blizzard can just change the baseline of your choice?

Most likely - they will. Hasn't it happened with classes/specs in the past? It works this way. Player make choice X, that is considered to be meta. Blizzard "collect some data", allowing player to play his meta for a while. Some players whine, that "It's obviously OP, why don't you see it?" Then Blizzard say "Nope, we gonna nerf it, as 99.99% of players choose it and we want choices to be equally viable". X is nerfed, but pendulum swings to other side and now choice Y is OP and meta. Player has to regrind Y. Same thing happens in the next patch. And guess what? It's good for Blizzard, because player is busy and has "content" to do! By the end of xpack they say, that they've collected enough data by now and admit, that this system is broken, so they nerf it and will NEVER make same mistake again. More precisely, till next xpack, when amnesia will hit again.

[Super Kami Dende]

TBH I'm kind of looking forward to the first round of nerfs and buffs to Covenant abilities. Just for the absolute flood of tears that will ensue lmao.

[Snowfunk]

I think Blizzard will be seriously reluctant, to nerf any particular Covenant ability post-launch.
Minor adjustments, sure, but unless something turns out to be bugged, have some glitched interaction, I don't think they will "nerf" any one ability.

Since they basically went all in on this being a sticky, "meaningful" choice (lol), I think they will try real hard, to ship them with reasonable balance.

Buffs on the other hand, more likely, if some ability turns out to be "to weak", they will probably push some buffs. But will probably be cautious, to not put it ahead of the other ones.

TL;DR, I have some faith.

[Armourboy]

I think Blizzard will be seriously reluctant, to nerf any particular Covenant ability post-launch.
Minor adjustments, sure, but unless something turns out to be bugged, have some glitched interaction, I don't think they will "nerf" any one ability.

Since they basically went all in on this being a sticky, "meaningful" choice (lol), I think they will try real hard, to ship them with reasonable balance.

Buffs on the other hand, more likely, if some ability turns out to be "to weak", they will probably push some buffs. But will probably be cautious, to not put it ahead of the other ones.

TL;DR, I have some faith.

You probably shouldn't. Blizzard hasn't ever really been known for buffing things, at least not enough that it matters. They are pretty well known for sledgehammering things though.

My expectation is that they will keep nerfing the Damage component of each one until the utility outweighs any of the damage. At that point they can't do much because hitting the utility basically means redesigning spells. At that point they will " pull the rip cord " sometime around 9.3 and then head into the next expansion talking about how they have learned from their mistakes. 10.0 arrives and we figure out they didn't learn a thing, they just changed the name to protect the innocent.

[Tyris Flare]

I think the weirdest thing about these convos to me is that some people act like the covenant abilities are all very simple, pure ST abilities, which is really the only way they could ever be "within 1%" of each other or something.

It's not going to be a 1% difference. Some abilities don't even work in a lot of situations, while others are totally dominant. Many only function once you insert the proper conduit, which casual players won't even know about because you literally don't get conduits until you have already committed to a faction.

I know a lot of folks have convinced themselves that this is somehow a 1% issue and that "triggering them" means the system is good for everyone else, but the problems are much bigger than that. This system is just not what so many people seem to believe it is.

Honestly, if I cared about lore or was an RPer, I would still dislike the system because it's not even good for that. The choice doesn't impact the story at all. These are not Legion Class Halls - they are like the budget movie version of those.

[Sharnie786]

Not just WILL THEY but WHEN WILL THEY, it's inevitable

[froschhure]

sharkbait 10c

[Redroniksre]

Can i complain about something that has always bothered me? When arguing about this, for example, you say that there could be a 10% difference between the right and wrong choice. Now is that a theoretical difference of 10% between players of the exact same skill or all players? If all the covenant abilities were passives, than it would be cut an dry, but they are not, they are all active abilities. That means, that even with the "right" choice, players who are, lets say using it in LFR or aren't the best players, might do less dps than a "worse" ability solely because they lack the skill to use it properly.

I can tell you right now from playing my DH on the beta (going through levelling right now, on to Ardenweld) that irregardless of what is the "best" covenant, i am not going Kyrian or Necrolords on them. The Necrolord ability just feels bad for DH and the Kyrian one just feels kind of lackluster. So even if one of those is the "best" why would i choose it, if like some are saying, it is not fun to press? If you choose it anyways for the dps are you not at fault for making your own gameplay worse when there are more interesting options?

[Tharendil]

I don't get it, for anyone that play WoW or any modern video game it should be obvious that devs can change number via hotfix/patch. So if you care only about number output, sure, switch your covenant, talent, class, spec, PC, whatever, I'm not your mother.

I just said I don't want to switch.

Switching talents is fine, it's just a matter of one click in your faction city. Switching covenants will take a lot longer and won't even be able to be done immediately.

[Clozer]

If you play for the highest number that sucks. But for anybody else, number tuning won't impact their choice.

[Volatilis]

If that's true then isn't there also only one correct race, class, spec, talent, and profession choice for you? If you aren't already maximizing all of those choices then why does this one bother you?

well I do all of those except constant race changes.

My race has a skill that is good for all content anyway.

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No once forces you to be a slave to min maxing

I main a warr currently, there are classes that do more dps than warr in 8.3 - should I reroll?

classes are different because even if say DH is stronger. You dont want 20 DH's in guild. You need a bit of balance across the classes in guild otherwise you miss out on buffs and waste a lot of loot.

[Xalea]

Since it’s 100% guaranteed that all these things will change, I’m just picking the one I like aesthetically the most.

[Echo of Soul]

Meaningful choice doesn't mean picking whatever is strongest, it's about picking the one that appeals the most to you regardless of the reason.

If one is significantly stronger I'd want them to bring it in line with the rest.

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I just said I don't want to switch.

Switching talents is fine, it's just a matter of one click in your faction city. Switching covenants will take a lot longer and won't even be able to be done immediately.

If you don't want to switch you shouldn't. Doing things you don't want to do doesn't make much sense

[goldlock]

Meaningful choice doesn't mean picking whatever is strongest, it's about picking the one that appeals the most to you regardless of the reason.

If one is significantly stronger I'd want them to bring it in line with the rest.

I mean you can't... Its a nice thought but it doesn't work that way. You can't balance single target around aoe around utility... especially not in multiple layers of the game. You pick your covenant based on what you want to do in the game.

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Can i complain about something that has always bothered me? When arguing about this, for example, you say that there could be a 10% difference between the right and wrong choice. Now is that a theoretical difference of 10% between players of the exact same skill or all players? If all the covenant abilities were passives, than it would be cut an dry, but they are not, they are all active abilities. That means, that even with the "right" choice, players who are, lets say using it in LFR or aren't the best players, might do less dps than a "worse" ability solely because they lack the skill to use it properly.

I can tell you right now from playing my DH on the beta (going through levelling right now, on to Ardenweld) that irregardless of what is the "best" covenant, i am not going Kyrian or Necrolords on them. The Necrolord ability just feels bad for DH and the Kyrian one just feels kind of lackluster. So even if one of those is the "best" why would i choose it, if like some are saying, it is not fun to press? If you choose it anyways for the dps are you not at fault for making your own gameplay worse when there are more interesting options?

Between equal skill we are talking simmed differences. Also ten percent is a rather small margin though we haven't seen the tuning pass yet. DH for example will always pick venth because its hands down the best in every situation beyond perhaps nightfae for pvp.

[Tharendil]

If you don't want to switch you shouldn't. Doing things you don't want to do doesn't make much sense

Then I'm locked into a covenant that gives me an ability I don't want. What do you not understand here?