How off-spec hostile is shadowlands?

[shuubu]

As I was browsing through all these covenant abilities, souldbinds and whatever powers you get in shadowlands, I started wondering how off spec hostile is it going to be? I was thinking of playing a druid for shadowlands because I need to be able to heal/tank/dps because I'm a solo player who is at the mercy of the lfg tool. Then I realized that all these conduit things are spec specific? As in if I want to empower my feral stuff, I will be a gimped tank/healer. I admit that I'm not exactly in the loop anymore how things are in slands, but to those in beta: How off-spec hostile is it looking to be?

Ps. Boy there's a lot of keybinds needed for druids now.

[Dreen]

From experience i'd say ur not really "gimped" but if your planning on performing the max potential in evry specc in evry content you'll be disappointed, it varies alot from class to class since some have the same BiS covenant for multiple speccs while others have terrible combinations where ones specc's BiS covenant is unplayable for another. On top of that u have to differentiate between pvp/pve, take druid for example, while the venthyr covenant is good/bis for evry druid specc in pve, its reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally bad in competitive pvp.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...vWOlTSy9IlcszA
This is a good reference point but obviously dont trust evrything you havent researched yourself
Oh and to comment on the conduit issue, its not that bad really since you have 3 seperate "talent" trees(soulbinds) per character so you can pick one for dps one for healer one for tank for instance, usually they are catered that they each fill a specific role

[Dakara]

No Hybrid is ever so much at the mercy of PUG’s that they need to gear all specs.

IIRC, Legendaries take about 4 weeks. As a Druid, especially if you pug M+ and are happy to play any spec, then just focus on Resto and you’ll always find a group.

You’ll never need to spec Feral or Balance to find a pug.

-edit-

You also have the option of focusing on multi-spec legendaries if you really want to.

[Clozer]

For a casual who just wants to switch role every now and then to do some random dungeons, any covenant any soulbind will be 100% viable and you will not see any big change in performance switching roles. Don't worry about these kinds of things until you start doing endgame content more seriously. Just enjoy the game and go for whatever covenant you like the most!

[vlange]

Reading all the stuff on covenants I do feel it's a bit worse than it was in BFA, but not terrible. Wowhead shows some guides about the best covenant choice per spec, but what i'm missing is the amount you lose on one spec by focussing on the other and the information to take the middle option and know your at ~90% of optimal on both specs. I think there was a spreadsheet a few months ago that tried to do this by grading each spec/convenant combo with 'bad', 'neutral', 'good', 'best'. This wasn't updated with the latest changes tho. I'm probably gonna pick whatever is best for mythic+ as individual performance is more important than it is in raids.

But really, it's not like in any point of time where I played wow that it was really fun and rewarding to play multiple specs. It usually costs loads of time which I don't always have. So I don't really mind that I have to take a choice which is rather permanent and sacrifice some off-spec performance.

[shuubu]

Reading all the stuff on covenants I do feel it's a bit worse than it was in BFA, but not terrible. Wowhead shows some guides about the best covenant choice per spec, but what i'm missing is the amount you lose on one spec by focussing on the other and the information to take the middle option and know your at ~90% of optimal on both specs. I think there was a spreadsheet a few months ago that tried to do this by grading each spec/convenant combo with 'bad', 'neutral', 'good', 'best'. This wasn't updated with the latest changes tho. I'm probably gonna pick whatever is best for mythic+ as individual performance is more important than it is in raids.

But really, it's not like in any point of time where I played wow that it was really fun and rewarding to play multiple specs. It usually costs loads of time which I don't always have. So I don't really mind that I have to take a choice which is rather permanent and sacrifice some off-spec performance.

Well yeah, you've always had to make a certain choise which spec to put your main focus on, but there was a time when it was just about switching your gear. In fact there was a time when it was only about switching your trinkets/rings/weapon. Just wondering how this one relates to that time. From what I've gathered gear itself is also a lot of scarce in shadowlands, so I guess getting your off spec gear is also going to be challenge. Last time I mained a druid was in vanilla.

I mostly just need the feral dps stuff to do solo stuff. In group content I will tank/heal as I really got no clue how to do real damage as feral. Even in this prepatch my warrior moves stuff down way quicker even though the ilvl difference is just 6.

[vlange]

Well yeah, you've always had to make a certain choise which spec to put your main focus on, but there was a time when it was just about switching your gear. In fact there was a time when it was only about switching your trinkets/rings/weapon. Just wondering how this one relates to that time. From what I've gathered gear itself is also a lot of scarce in shadowlands, so I guess getting your off spec gear is also going to be challenge. Last time I mained a druid was in vanilla.

I mostly just need the feral dps stuff to do solo stuff. In group content I will tank/heal as I really got no clue how to do real damage as feral. Even in this prepatch my warrior moves stuff down way quicker even though the ilvl difference is just 6.

Really? What time was that? I've had a gap during WoTLK end-game and didn't do much during cataclysm. Actually BFA has been my most active expansion so far (yes, i'm apparently one of the few who liked the current content a lot). I remember gear that had either int, agility, spirit or strength. At some point they changed that, but secondary stats became way more important so you still had to grind gear with the right secondary stats.

Anyway, I doubt the choice of covenant will be gimping you a lot if you need to do solo content. As long as you get some great gear on your main I bet you can handle most solo content by just changing to the right weapons etc. It's not like covenants make you worse or do nothing at all. Let's say that if you can do any solo content without any covenant at all you could still do it better by choosing the worst one for that spec. If that's not the case then we'll see less tanks and healers and that would be terrible.