As I feared a few minutes after Covenants were announced....it will get worse

[Perkunas]

Imagine having a remotely balanced game on launch. You must have missed every expansion since TBC

This was a completely self-inflicted wound that they had ample warning was coming.

[chiddie]

If you want to progress in SL, stick with 1-2 characters. Do the weekly stuff. Do dungeons/pvp at a normal pace. You get well geared easy enough.

SL requires LESS time online than BfA did to gain power progression on your character.

Given you can still basically progress again only via M+, raiding or PvP I fail to see how SL will require less time to gear up. It’s even worse if you only do m+, with the new genius idea of 1 loot only for run.

[Rinaul]

This was a completely self-inflicted wound that the had ample warning was coming.

I've heard this line about as often as I've heard "WoW is dead".

[Perkunas]

I've heard this line about as often as I've heard "WoW is dead".

so you didn't read the beta feedback forums or watch any WoW Youtuber content during beta... got it.

[Rinaul]

so you didn't read the beta feedback forums or watch any WoW Youtuber content during beta... got it.

Oh we're just making assumptions? OK. Well when you start playing the game you'll see this happens every expansion beta /release cycle. But you haven't played either and blindly follow YouTube commentary like asmogold? Got it!

[Krakan]

World rank 200 is not non-mythic guild. It's a mythic guild. Non mythic guilds starts at ~2000 depending on tier.

Right and that goes with what I am saying. We are making arguments based on degrees world first and world 100th is usually a couple of ilvs apart. I just don't agree advice for a new player should be to go whatever because it doesn't matter when in most cases it does

[Perkunas]

Oh we're just making assumptions? OK. Well when you start playing the game you'll see this happens every expansion beta /release cycle. But you haven't played either and blindly follow YouTube commentary like asmogold? Got it!

2 patch cycles before they admit they were wrong again... yeah yeah.

[kaminaris]

Right and that goes with what I am saying. We are making arguments based on degrees world first and world 100th is usually a couple of ilvs apart. I just don't agree advice for a new player should be to go whatever because it doesn't matter when in most cases it does

No, its not. It whole worlds apart.
Jaina method avg ilvl: 405.8, hoa: 42
Jaina guild 100: avg ilvl: 410.8. hoa: 44 (+1 month vs method)
Jaina guild 200: avg ilvl: 412.3, hoa: 42.9 (+1.7 month vs method)

difference between 5 item levels on whole raid is astronomical.

[crusadernero]

Given you can still basically progress again only via M+, raiding or PvP I fail to see how SL will require less time to gear up. It’s even worse if you only do m+, with the new genius idea of 1 loot only for run.

If you only do pvp & M+, why do you need better gear than required for that content? If you want the very best gear, raiding is there. Or if you are really good in pvp.

[chiddie]

If you only do pvp & M+, why do you need better gear than required for that content? If you want the very best gear, raiding is there. Or if you are really good in pvp.

This is completely another topic. A guy was saying that gearing in SL was to be really faster than BfA, I simply doubted (and doubt) about this. Sources of gear aree again the same, so gearing time will again be more or less the same.

[korijenkins]

over 75% of frost dks disagree with you, as they did not choose night fae which is when it comes to performance best... actualy, most (almost 40%) chosen necrolords, who are thematicaly best fit but worst when it comes to performance...

cant realy speak for other classes as i dont play them so i dont check their meta, but i really doubt everyone but frost DKs chosen their "best" covenant and ignored theme/aesthetics of their class...

so it seems people who care about performance are in minority, and hence people who have chosen on other criteria will have no issue finding groups... same as we didnt have any issue finding groups with "underperforming" specs for 16 years now...

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if you check his character you will find out he did not log in since a prepatch (or actualy longer given his nazjatar gear), but he sure knows more about whats hapening ingame than people who actualy play and see the differences between covenants are minimal and can be ignored unless you go for hall of fame...
very bad troll, i give him 2/10

You're assuming people are picking covenants solely for pve benefits.

DK's Necrolord ability is god-tier in PvP.

[Echo of Soul]

I actually took one of the covenants that I prefer over the 2 best. It sucks ass and my performance suffers terribly from it because the idiot dev team can't balance for shit and doesn't listen to reason. You defend bad ideas that are unnecessary. Who would it hurt to make the powers into a talent row?

How much DPS do you do on a target dummy and how much would you do if you chose the optimal covenant?

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No, its not. It whole worlds apart.
Jaina method avg ilvl: 405.8, hoa: 42
Jaina guild 100: avg ilvl: 410.8. hoa: 44 (+1 month vs method)
Jaina guild 200: avg ilvl: 412.3, hoa: 42.9 (+1.7 month vs method)

difference between 5 item levels on whole raid is astronomical.

It's really unfair to bring facts to a feelings fight

[Lolites]

You're assuming people are picking covenants solely for pve benefits.

DK's Necrolord ability is god-tier in PvP.

im not assuming anything, i said multiple times people choose depending on thousand criteria, their prefered content being one of them
for pvp, necro is good (agains casters, not so much against melee) but still its not best "overal" which according to OP "Everyone is taking"

[LordVargK]

I actually took one of the covenants that I prefer over the 2 best. It sucks ass and my performance suffers terribly from it because the idiot dev team can't balance for shit and doesn't listen to reason. You defend bad ideas that are unnecessary. Who would it hurt to make the powers into a talent row?

If you care more about performance than about appearance, why did you choose the underperforming one? Also no, if your performance sucks terribly it's your fault. The covenants are not that impactful. You sound like someone who wants to blame everyone and everything except yourself for your own shortcomings.

[OMGTwitchTV]

I actually took one of the covenants that I prefer over the 2 best. It sucks ass and my performance suffers terribly from it because the idiot dev team can't balance for shit and doesn't listen to reason. You defend bad ideas that are unnecessary. Who would it hurt to make the powers into a talent row?

So your big complaint is that the Covenant you prefer is not the best? Seriously? That is your whole gripe? You picked the one you liked more and are still not having fun? I am beginning to think the problem here is not Blizzard, but rather individuals who are not happy unless they have everything their way.

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If you care more about performance than about appearance, why did you choose the underperforming one? Also no, if your performance sucks terribly it's your fault. The covenants are not that impactful. You sound like someone who wants to blame everyone and everything except yourself for your own shortcomings.

If I could upvote this comment, I absolutely would. Good on you mate.

[Malania]

I actually took one of the covenants that I prefer over the 2 best. It sucks ass and my performance suffers terribly from it because the idiot dev team can't balance for shit and doesn't listen to reason. You defend bad ideas that are unnecessary. Who would it hurt to make the powers into a talent row?

Stupidity on this level should never be allowed to breed. I'm perfectly content with one performing above another. One is always going to perform above another and if you converted the covenants to talents I have no doubt people would bitch about one talent over performing.

[ihate2beapessimist]

The problem with picking Night Fae as FDK is in order to maximize it you have to stand in D&D, you have to have another GCD before you can start dpsing, so more ramp up, then you have to worry about movement and timing of it.
So if you look at Patchwerk sims of it, I'm sure it beats out Kyrian. But in reality, Kyrian is an instant 40 yard DoT that doesn't punish you for using it first that can cleave onto other targets even when things happen to be getting repositioned. You don't see this on sims, this is an experience and knowledge type of thing.

Night Fae is basically a noob trap in raids unless you know all the fights and/or have them all on farm. But I'd wager a gamble that most people are selecting based on dungeons dps. The little critter teleport thing isn't as useful in dungeons as it is raids and Death's Due isn't as useful in raids/pvp as it is in dungeons.

I agree with your sentiment that sims dont account for poor play.
Blindly following sims is a huge mistake for most players.

[Krakan]

I agree with your sentiment that sims dont account for poor play.
Blindly following sims is a huge mistake for most players.

How?

This " logic" always confuses me. If someone is playing poorly they are going to perform even worse using a setup that does less damage.

This is what we call a non argument your just murdering pixels without making a point.

[Josyel]

1. To choose a Covenant because of looks means during raid, mythic or pvp you are purposely choosing to gimp your team. On DPS check bosses or any boss for that matter this is easily the difference between an easy kill or struggling for 4+ hours.

2. These numbers prove that far more then min/maxxrs care about optimizing their specs. That argument has been wrong from the day I made this thread and has always been wrong since day 1 of WoW. Nobody picks up WoW and intentionally tries to be subpar and non competitive.

3. No. Signatures are very limited on this site compared to what they used to be and this information is there. As an FYI I have not touched Shadowlands since launch due to this fear of pigeonholing and constantly never being able to optimize my class while also playing the Covenant that I wanted. Paladin for example if forced into Kyrian but I would personally prefer to play Revendreth but I would bein purposely gimpimg any group I entered and wasting my time on renown in the long run that gives me meaningless returns compared to someone who picked Kyrian because they saw it on Icy Veins.

lol

thats why i hate raiders and hardcore no-lifers

[Xath]

Dude what are you even on about? Are you seriously trying to say that you got CE first week or two? Because otherwise its not the same level.

I USED to be at that level. What Limit Echo etc are doing now is not a one to two week event. It's 5 plus weeks of 10 hours or more a day on expansion launch. To give you some idea their main tanks got to 2100 and the full honor cap in rated events along with 10 14s they also this week did 4 full splits and 1 rat splits that didn't kill final boss. They also level more than just the characters they use for those splits in case of changes. They did something like 50 M0s each in the first two weeks. Then you have the maw farm where thd will be able to buy sockets in a day or two which was another several hours a day.

When I was playing at a competitive level it was nowhere near this insane in terms of prep I'll take getting my ce done in the first few months and then just chilling now thanks. I can deal with playing 14 plus hours a day during prog but the weeks leading up to prog just nah. Also I flat am not at the level of skill that people have reached now it's legit insane how good the players in echo and limit are even without stuff like snapshotting to differentiate them there is such a huge skill gap it's not even funny.