They should nerf Cov gear

[Yarathir]

Because not everyone plays the game the same way as you?
Covenant gear is a reward for completing the "single player" story, more or less.
There are many people who play the game and don't partake in organized group content, believe it or not.
Having them effectively max their gear so early on (people have had 197s for a month and a half, if not more) effectively ends the path for them, outside of a few WQ items and maybe LFR filler for off pieces.

The point of the thread is that casual players don't have a gear progression path outside of non-organized content, so my suggestion was a way to stretch that progression path into a longer cycle so you don't max 197 on what, 8 or 9 pieces, within a day or two, thus offering a progression path instead of an instant finish line.

Sounds unnecessary to me. Are you one of these players that only do that? Or are you somebody from the outside looking in dictating that this would be better for them?

[arkanon]

Whenever there is a "casual loot" discussion, when asked "why would you need heroic raid or better loot for WQ? they always say the same thing "I just want something to work towards slowly". Shouldnt a suggestion like this, one i have made myself multiple times, be praised as a fantastic idea?

Obviously its too late for this tier, but how is it not solving the "problem" as they see it? Slow, meaningful progression progression, and so long as the end set is 20ilvls or less below mythic raid gear, there should be no problem.

[ippollite]

It strikes me as odd that people think covenant gear is a casual progression system. Its not. Its an alt catch up system. The only thing that made it a 'casual progression system' was timegating. If the timegating didnt exist and the renown was unlocked from the start, casuals would be done for the tier in somewhere between 1 to 2 weeks. I even include the leveling to 60. A weeks worth of content isnt a progression system, its a catch up system. It should be blindingly obvious to people that's what it is, but whether they simply dont engage with and thus dont understand what theyre looking at, or they have massive blinkers on preventing them from seeing how it fits into the rather obvious objectives of shadowlands to encourage alt play (catch up system, leveling revamp, customisation options, torghast, locked covenant systems (need 4 alts to play it all *assuming you arent up for continually resetting your progress), i dunno? But thats where covenant power fits into the wider scheme of things.

So yeah, i suppose. Ive said before i would actually be happier if renown was a bar i filled up like ap through the course of a week instead of just being handed it in 2 hours of gameplay post reset. But that sounds a lot like AP right? And you guys dont want that kind of grind as i understand it (and were very vocal about the impact it had on leveling alts in bfa prior to 8.2). This was blizzards 'compromise'.

[Razion]

As casual for SL I did all honor and conq pre rated I could and that's how I geared until I hit the M+ wall. Nerfing Cov gear does nothing for me. It wouldn't send me back to any of that content I already wasn't doing for gear anyway. It doesn't fix wanting to do M+ and getting less gear for the time spent in it feeling horrible and fruitless.

[gaymer77]

As others have pointed out, the anima cost to upgrade ALL of your pieces to 197 is much higher than you're making it out to be and a person won't have full 197 gear that's been fully upgraded "in 5 hours or so" because the anima cost alone is so high that unless you were farming anima while you were leveling, you won't have anywhere near enough anima to upgrade all your pieces to 197. The anima cost to upgrade everything to 197 is around the 2500-3000 range.

No need to do normals that grant 158.

Normals still drop memories for legendaries that are BIS for several classes and specs so yes people will still run normals.

No need for heroics that grant 171.

Heroics still drop memories at a higher rate for legendaries that are BIS for several classes and specs so yes people will still run heroics.

No need for mythic 0 that grants 184.

Mythic +0 still drops memories at an even higher rate for legendaries that are BIS for several classes and specs so yes people will still run mythic +0

No need for LFR (besides the sire quest, or 1 boss for a specific lego) that grant 187

Covenant gear doesn't provide necks, rings, or trinkets which are obtained in LFR for your casual player. Outside of running a M+2 which awards 187 gear (and 200 weekly vault choices) with a CHANCE that a ring, trinket, or neck even drops for your group let along YOU be the one that ges it, LFR is a valid choice to get rings, necks, and trinkets.

The next step for them to get gear drops, is normal raids that only drop 200/207

Last time I checked, 200/207 is better for a player than 197 if the secondary stats are better on the 200/207 gear (and actually the 207 is better even if the secondary stats AREN'T ideal).

[Kalisandra]

Apparently you forgot with crafters mark 2 you can have a full set of 168 gear right out the gate, tailor suited for your spec, as well as weapons until you finish your covenant campaign.

That won't get you weapon and shield, and can be very expensive on some servers.

[froschhure]

they should remove kindergarden caps and your thread is delusional since this gear is gated

[Kalisandra]

Trinkets I'll give you, but weapons are covered by the 187 tokens you get from completing the campaign.

That covers one weapon. Many specs need two, or weapon plus off-hand.

[paxen]

As others have pointed out, the anima cost to upgrade ALL of your pieces to 197 is much higher than you're making it out to be and a person won't have full 197 gear that's been fully upgraded "in 5 hours or so" because the anima cost alone is so high that unless you were farming anima while you were leveling, you won't have anywhere near enough anima to upgrade all your pieces to 197. The anima cost to upgrade everything to 197 is around the 2500-3000 range.

Which you get from running Sanguine Depths, Theater of Pain and Sire once each. (Just remember to the short chain outside ToP to get the quest).

[ellieg]

As others have pointed out, the anima cost to upgrade ALL of your pieces to 197 is much higher than you're making it out to be and a person won't have full 197 gear that's been fully upgraded "in 5 hours or so" because the anima cost alone is so high that unless you were farming anima while you were leveling, you won't have anywhere near enough anima to upgrade all your pieces to 197. The anima cost to upgrade everything to 197 is around the 2500-3000 range.



Normals still drop memories for legendaries that are BIS for several classes and specs so yes people will still run normals.


Heroics still drop memories at a higher rate for legendaries that are BIS for several classes and specs so yes people will still run heroics.



Mythic +0 still drops memories at an even higher rate for legendaries that are BIS for several classes and specs so yes people will still run mythic +0



Covenant gear doesn't provide necks, rings, or trinkets which are obtained in LFR for your casual player. Outside of running a M+2 which awards 187 gear (and 200 weekly vault choices) with a CHANCE that a ring, trinket, or neck even drops for your group let along YOU be the one that ges it, LFR is a valid choice to get rings, necks, and trinkets.



Last time I checked, 200/207 is better for a player than 197 if the secondary stats are better on the 200/207 gear (and actually the 207 is better even if the secondary stats AREN'T ideal).

So 2/3 of the dungeon difficulties are useless if u need a memory. 3/3 if ur memory doesn't come from there. SD and ToP are useful exactly 1 time for the anima quests which is about all ull need to fully upgrade the gear along with sire quest. I know this because I've done exactly this 3x. And normal raids are not queued content. Which was my entire point that if you are the type of player who only solos or queues up, you can hit your progression wall within a few hours

[paxen]

That covers one weapon. Many specs need two, or weapon plus off-hand.

and your best source for weapons and trinkets, after getting full 197 from the covenant, will be to get your renown up a few points more and then get 194 from world quests.

[ippollite]

Or, if youre super smart, going threads of fate at 50, levelling up through bgs, then using your massive pool of honor to cap out your non covenant gear spots.

[Kalisandra]

Or, if youre super smart, going threads of fate at 50, levelling up through bgs, then using your massive pool of honor to cap out your non covenant gear spots.

In my experience levelling through BGs is comparatively slow compared to chain-running dungeons, though if you're DPS the wait between dungeons might change that. So the question is whether pooling honor whilst levelling saves more time than doing dungeons and then farming honor at L60.

[paxen]

In my experience levelling through BGs is comparatively slow compared to chain-running dungeons, though if you're DPS the wait between dungeons might change that. So the question is whether pooling honor whilst levelling saves more time than doing dungeons and then farming honor at L60.

Running dungeons also let's you get a big chunk of the zone quests done for 4 renown, which is a nice starting boost when going for covenant gear.

[Zantera]

197 ilvl is nothing though? You get higher from weekly vault for doing a +2.

[Soon-TM]

How about no. Let people enjoy things even if they're not as hardcore as you are.

It's also good alt catchup stuff.

This. Also covenant gear could use a buff in 9.1, e.g. make it upgradeable to idk, 220 without being excessively grindy. You could even use valor to upgrade your covenant set.

- - - Updated - - -

Dude what are you even talking abouuuuuuuut
Dear lord how is covenant gear deserving a nerf, and why is that even important.
I would literally be fine after you finish campain to give people ilvl 205 or 210 just to let them play with friends.
The gear won't make them good players.

The funniest part is that you can get 210 gear at the vault by completing braindead content such as an M5. But God forbid that outdoors content can yield anything like it once or twice a week (inb4 open world bosses, those !@#~$%& never dropped anything in my experience).

[Glorious Leader]

They should nerf mythic raid gear. Don't like that? Then stop trying to fuck with everybody else's rewards ffs

[gaymer77]

So 2/3 of the dungeon difficulties are useless if u need a memory. 3/3 if ur memory doesn't come from there. SD and ToP are useful exactly 1 time for the anima quests which is about all ull need to fully upgrade the gear along with sire quest. I know this because I've done exactly this 3x. And normal raids are not queued content. Which was my entire point that if you are the type of player who only solos or queues up, you can hit your progression wall within a few hours

Not sure why you see 2/3 of the dungeon difficulties being useless as that's the OPPOSITE of what I said. Normal dungeons at level 60 can drop memories just at a lower chance. That means that even normal difficulties have a chance at memories dropping. Grats on doing the covenant gear upgrade 3 times. I've done it 6 times on the Horde side and 3 times on the Alliance side (picture below for my Horde 60's). My Alliance still haven't upgraded their covenant gear because of not enough anima and 2 of my Horde haven't either for the same reason. So your claim that simply doing the SD & TOP gives you enough anima to upgrade the covenant gear is bullshit. I've also completed the Sire Denathrius quest from picking up Remornia which rewards 1250 anima. Even with all three of those quests done, you don't have enough anima to upgrade every single piece of covenant gear to the 197 max. You still are failing to address the fact that rings, necks, and trinkets are ALL needed to be obtained OUTSIDE of covenant gear quests as covenant gear does NOT include those needed slots.

[jazen]

Blizz and the 'hardcore' and 'wannabe hardcore' crowd should be pushing for the casual crowd to have a path to higher ilvl gear, not restricting it. The casual crowd is who pay the bills at Blizz, not the hardcore boost sellers.

[Dakara]

Covenant gear, WQ rewards, Mission Table loot, they've all replaced the LFD Spam (Heroic Dungeons + Badge gear) of old as a form of soloable (solo queue) catchup gear. The problem is, after the initial launch time gating has lapsed, players can achieve 200 ilvl (give or take) in a few days or less.

This is a mistake IMO as Blizzard need to recognise (or accept) that some players simply do not want to step into M+ or Raiding and by replacing LFD with Solo WQ gear these players quickly run out content an unsub.

I raid and run keys on my main, but I've never really been bothered trying to keep an Alt up with my mains progress, so I to enjoyed the old LFD gearing on Alts and find the Solo WQ gearing system incredibly boring.