"Only the top 1% will pick covenants based on performance" :S

[Zentail]

This is confirmation bias. I chose my covenant purely on aesthetics and lore compatibility and it happened to be the top performing Covenant at launch. In beta it was simming like 3rd a week before it launched. If it gets nerfed i'll still keep the Covenant.

This is exactly how me and every person in my guild is too. A lot of the time, it just so happens the most aesthetic choice for a lot of people happens to also be the top-performing covenant. Not to mention there are literal 1-case scenarios to pick each of the 4 covenants for many of the classes. So when OP refers to "top 1%" he really should specify if he's referring to top 1% of raiding, or mythic+, or PvP, or AoE, or Single Target, etc. because for Havoc DH, for example, Kryian = best Mythic+, Venthyr = best Raiding, Necrolord = best burst, Night Fae = best survability.

Ironically, and unexpectedly for me because I don't play Rogue, but I've had a few Rogue friends that were really looking forward to being Night Fae long before parses came out in beta. They just like the atmosphere of that zone and the characters.

[chiddie]

Every covenant is a horrible pick for shamans “class wise” so I ended up with Necro for my resto shaman and I’ll probably pick Venthyr with my enha shaman. Still not sure about my ele shaman but I’ll probably pick Kyrian since I hate Ardenweald (yes, I have 3 shamans, I know I’m retarded).

[Zyky]

your "overwhelming majority" for some specs is less than 40% (the most chosen spec, in some cases its not even the "best")

highest disparity is actualy on specs where thematicaly most fiting covenant is also "best" - like all druid specs have mostly chosen night fae and all paladin specs mostly kyrian despite not being "meta" for some of them...
on the other hand, for specs where meta and aesthetics are not aligned for "the best" its waaay lower - holy priest necrolord for example is roughly 44% "only" so obviously MAJORITY picked based on something else than meta...

Except Night Fae for Druid and Kyrian for Paladin is meta, look at the sims that came out a week and a half ago lol.

[Dakara]

The point is if you don't like Kyrian and don't want your paly to be Kyrian then don't be Kyrian and you'll still be viable so long as you aren't progressing mythic raids or doing 15+ keys.

All this being said, I have no problems with them just allowing people to freely switch between covenants without penalty. I'd stay in my covenant regardless, but I'll always advocate for more choices.

Holy Paladin, especially in Prideful keys, is a total train wreck without Divine Toll... unless you’re a masochist of course.

I’m not sure what experience you have with the spec, but Divine Toll plugs a major hole in the Holy Paladins toolkit... on Demand AOE. It synergises with Talents/Legendaries and provides a minor Cooldown for a spec dependant on CD’s to Heal big damage.

Do I think pugs demanding X covenant for all specs will be a thing? No... but for Holy Paladins? Absolutely.... if you take an unknown Holy Paladin who went Night Fae to your prideful key then it’s likely going to be a dead key.

For most specs I agree, play what you want... hopefully your preferred gameplay aligned with your preferred aesthetic. But for Holy Paladins, not so much.

[Krakan]

Looking at stats do not show this, but obviously saying 1 percent of the decision making does confirm it.

The problem isn't that people thought 99 percent of players wouldn't do it.
Its that only 1 percent of players NEED to do it.

Most people who chose the "correct" covenants are being out DPSed by me as a tank with the "incorrect" covenant.

It isn't like covenants abilities are all that unique or interesting to justify not picking the best. Mine boil down to toss stuff on the ground for pve and a cd for pvp with necrolords being useless.

Everyone and their mom knew how covenants were going to go down there is never a time when " more damage for free" isnt the best option.

[Hero2Zer0]

This is confirmation bias. I chose my covenant purely on aesthetics and lore compatibility and it happened to be the top performing Covenant at launch. In beta it was simming like 3rd a week before it launched. If it gets nerfed i'll still keep the Covenant.

I was delighted to find out from a friend the covenant I had chosen back when they were announced ended up going from competitive to top performing.

[Krakan]

I thought the complaint by the "ripcord" people was that no covenant was best for all activities: Raids, M+, PvP, whatever. But now you're saying that there actually IS a "best" covenant for every spec? Good, guess we don't need the ripcord then.

And for what it's worth, I'm Night Fae on all my toons because I like the aesthetics of the covenant and love Soulshape. Couldn't give a damn about if it's "best" or not. Also, the Kyrian sanctum really plays hell with my vertigo so I couldn't do that one even if I want to.

Not every class and certainly not every spec. My class has a pvp covenant and a pve one though it doesn't have a mythic plus one.

Some classes lucked out balancing was pretty much a joke. All people are waiting for is to see if blizzard does a patch before mythic opens up it's why a lot of players haven't crafted leggos yet.

[FuxieDK]

I (Prot Paladin) chose my covenant when they anounced them (Bastion).

I rather unsub than pick any thing other than Necrolords on my DK, But thankfully the necro DK ability is very nice

Hehe..
I did it the other way around: My Prot Paladin went Necrolords and my Unholy DK went Kyrians.

And to make things even better, my Warlock (formerly Demonology, now Affliction) went Night Dae and my main, Troll Moonkin went Venthyr.

I'm pretty happy with my choices.

[carlos9949]

Well that's clearly not true. We can already see from the numbers, that most players clearly are picking covenants based on what performs best in raids and dungeons.

As an example, the vast majority of Rogue players are either Night Fae or Kyrian. And if you for some reason think that Rogues like to be fairies or ascended angle-creatures then you're absolutely delusional.

People are in general abusing the 99% vs 1% "argument" to create pictures of WoW which are clearly not true. WoW consists of many many different groups of players and most of them care about performance to some degree. The statistics clearly show this.

you forgot to add that the rest of players, 99% will follow the 1%.

[Orange Joe]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correl...and_dependence

The data clearly shows a correlation between the strongest cov and people's cov choice. Quite easy to understand actually. Hopefully, you can get it now, too.

Lets go back to your claim shall we?

My argument isn't based on unprovable assumptions its based on the statistics posted on wowhead a day ago. Nice try tho.

For this to be true you would need statements from people as to why they picked what they did. So yes your argument is purely based on unprovable assumptions, and it won't be PROVEN until you get the people themselves to answer.

[Clozer]

Lets go back to your claim shall we?



For this to be true you would need statements from people as to why they picked what they did. So yes your argument is purely based on unprovable assumptions, and it won't be PROVEN until you get the people themselves to answer.

So you didn't understand. Feelsbadmen. I posted the link. Try to understand it. Very helpful for the future.

[Orange Joe]

So you didn't understand. Feelsbadmen. I posted the link. Try to understand it. Very helpful for the future.

Your link doesn't prove what you say. Feelsbadman.......

FYI correlation =/= proof

[Lucavian]

It is conflating because they mean two different things although they absolutely goes hand in hand...
I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "only top 1% will pick based on performance" which is a misrepresentation of what has been said.

Yes, community has a problem as you point out that the standards are too high for trivial content which pushes people more into top picks. Doesn't change the fact that it matters less for them even if they believe it matters. I'm not saying that "it only matters for 1%" is a correct statement, just that OP is twisting what have been said according to my experience on these forums.

If you've never heard people say it only matters to the top 1% based on performance or more likely as "it only matters to the top 1% pushing for world first" then your experience on these forums is lacking because that's precisely what people have meant with that phrase. They are trying to say that the difference will mean much less than skill and that directly translates into only the highest or most bleeding edge of players will see the difference in play come from the covenant pick rather than their skill itself. Ultimately, it matters and will matter to more than 1%. I'd go so far to say that it'll matter to at least a standard bell curve average number of players because they focus on the meta too much.

[Clozer]

Your link doesn't prove what you say. Feelsbadman.......

FYI correlation =/= proof

Big true. It was a little fairy that told people to choose the best performance cov. Correlation? Ignoring facts? Hell yeah, I'm in.

[NineSpine]

If you've never heard people say it only matters to the top 1% based on performance or more likely as "it only matters to the top 1% pushing for world first" then your experience on these forums is lacking because that's precisely what people have meant with that phrase. They are trying to say that the difference will mean much less than skill and that directly translates into only the highest or most bleeding edge of players will see the difference in play come from the covenant pick rather than their skill itself. Ultimately, it matters and will matter to more than 1%. I'd go so far to say that it'll matter to at least a standard bell curve average number of players because they focus on the meta too much.

These two statements are not mutually exclusive:

"It will only make a difference in completing content for the top 1%."
"The social issue of meta slavery in wow means it will effect lots of other people"

Those can both be true and, while 1% may be a bit of an exaggeration, they are true.

[Orange Joe]

Big true. It was a little fairy that told people to choose the best performance cov. Correlation? Ignoring facts? Hell yeah, I'm in.

So there is no other reason people could have choose that cov?


*mind blown*

[NineSpine]

Big true. It was a little fairy that told people to choose the best performance cov. Correlation? Ignoring facts? Hell yeah, I'm in.

Do you genuinely, in real life, in the real world, as a human being with some sort of functioning brain, think that every Druid that picked Night Fae did so because of performance and not because players who play Druid might be attracted to the most Druid-like covenant?

[Asrialol]

Can someone explain to me how any of this is any problem whatsoever.

It's not. People on this site just enjoy whining about everything.

[Clozer]

So there is no other reason people could have choose that cov?


*mind blown*

Yes the "other reason" just happened to be the best performing one. Happens you are right. Definitely coincidence. I mean once a year someone wins the lottery.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I can't recall anyone saying only the top 1% WOULD choose covenants based on performance.
I recall a lot of people saying that nobody that's NOT part of the 1%, should feel pressured to pick based on performance.

Small difference. But people gon' do what they want.