In-depth discussion on Soulbinds

[Sunslayer]

When I first heard of Soulbinds and saw there were 3 different trees. I assumed 1 tree would be DPS one would be utility (healer) and one for defensive (tanks).
Instead, after scrutinizing the trees it seems more like there is a "viable tree" and 2 pointless trees.
I don't understand what's going on. If you haven't gone through the Soulbind trees in-depth, I encourage you to do so and add your input.
So many Soulbind trees seem to be...lackluster at best.
When you watch YouTube videos on Soulbinds you hear a lot of "ugh, not exciting", "not liking that" etc.
Why are there so many fall damage Soulbind traits? Why? I've never cared about fall damage to this extent of even close.
It feels like Blizzard has put way too many systems on their plate...again. We've all seen this before.
It feels like they are beginning testing from such a poor state that there is no way these are going to be balanced for launch.

I want to hear your thoughts on Soulbinds.

[MrLachyG]

I think you're getting opinions on Soulbinds when the system isn't finished yet. Looking at the soulbind calculator on wowhead the soulbind talents seem to be mostly centered around your covenant ability, with the conduits being enhancements to your active spec. The abilities themselves seem pretty good to me, i've just had a quick look on the calculator though I haven't actually played with anything yet

[Sunslayer]

I think you're getting opinions on Soulbinds when the system isn't finished yet. Looking at the soulbind calculator on wowhead the soulbind talents seem to be mostly centered around your covenant ability, with the conduits being enhancements to your active spec. The abilities themselves seem pretty good to me, i've just had a quick look on the calculator though I haven't actually played with anything yet

Should we wait until Shadowlands goes live to give input? Honestly?

[Nerovar]

Yeah, I've only checked Necrolords so far and saw like one or two interesting Soulbinds. I mean, if you expected anything else than Azerite 2.0 then you were setting yourself up for disappointment.

[MrLachyG]

Should we wait until Shadowlands goes live to give input? Honestly?

of course not. but the system is still evolving. hell, it received some major changes just in the last few hours alone. so it seems premature to give it a pass or fail mark right now.

[CalamityHeart]

So I went over to Wowhead to look over all the Soulbinds, and... I don't see the big deal.

None of them look particularly remarkable compared to each other.

There is a grand total of three fall damage related Soulbind traits, on one of the Kyrian Soulbinds, on one of the Necrolord Soulbinds, and on one of the Night Fae Soulbinds. When I read "so many" fall damage traits, I was expecting more than three. True, it's a curious trait to consider. Maybe there's going to be more enemies and encounters that have knockup mechanics. Maybe it's for those who are more inclined to use treacherous terrain. The amount of times I've fallen off cliffs and taken fall damage to get somewhere faster than taking the road is not substantial, but it's not zero, either. And those traits don't saturate the Soulbind trees or anything. As said, for every Covenant except Venthyr, between all three Soulbinds of each Covenant, there is only one fall damage related Soulbind trait. I don't think that's worthy of grief or complaint.

At a glance, I cannot pick out a "viable" tree over the "useless" ones. For the most part, all of them seem fine to me. Theotar in particular, I can see as maybe being kind of silly and lacking in utility compared to the other two Venthyr Soulbinds. If asked, I would say he needs the most work. But beyond that, yeah, there's really no standouts. There are some Soulbinds traits that look neat, some that are fair enough, and a couple that made me raise my eyebrows and want to try it, particularly the Kyrian trait that turned the Phial into a passive that triggers automatically at 35% health. That sounds like something I could see myself taking. But not a single trait I looked over really made me go "This looks fucking broken." And that's good, I would've been worried if I felt that way.

Nothing on the Soulbind tree looks complicated. None of it looks game-breaking. But (almost) none of it really looks less substantial at a glance than their two brethren Soulbinds. And isn't that exactly where stuff like this should be? Nestled somewhere in the middle between "Why would anyone take this?" and "Why would anyone not take this?"?

I'm not a good player. I consider myself slightly above average at best. I don't take this game that seriously. I look at WoW and its development through a pretty casual lens, and only care about my performance insomuch that I feel like I can pick what I'm thinking will most comfortably up my game, rather than what Icy Veins tells me will. If there are people out there who are really taking an atomic microscope to these Soulbinds and their traits and doing all these calculations and predictions on what's gonna be better than what, and by how much, and why, then... cool. More power to them, I guess. That's not me. And looking at the Soulbind traits as they are now has not really made me shrug my shoulders or raise my brows. So as far as I'm concerned, it looks like they're doing alright so far. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on them and playing around.

My thoughts on Soulbinds? "Cool." That about sums it up for me, from what I've read.

[taishar68]

So here is a path I worked on in the Venthyr, using Nadjia: https://shadowlands.wowhead.com/soul...wOEgUiuQ4lJL8O

The curious thing about the trees are the way the abilities and conduits flow; a potency soulbind does not always lead to a DPS ability; in my example, I chose to use the ability that buffs, well, your buffs, which made me use a finesse conduit over a potency one, because the potency conduit led me to a utility ability.

So which way is better? Say your flask, Food, and enchant add 350 main stat, 100 best secondary, and a proc for 100 spell/attack power, respectively. With the ability I chose, Now those stats are 15% better, and will that offset the other path that would have given me a cooldown on icy veins? Theorycrafting will obviously winnow that down to an optimal number, but what we don't know is how impactful this will be.

[SecretAgent]

When I first heard of Soulbinds and saw there were 3 different trees. I assumed 1 tree would be DPS one would be utility (healer) and one for defensive (tanks).
Instead, after scrutinizing the trees it seems more like there is a "viable tree" and 2 pointless trees.
I don't understand what's going on. If you haven't gone through the Soulbind trees in-depth, I encourage you to do so and add your input.
So many Soulbind trees seem to be...lackluster at best.
When you watch YouTube videos on Soulbinds you hear a lot of "ugh, not exciting", "not liking that" etc.
Why are there so many fall damage Soulbind traits? Why? I've never cared about fall damage to this extent of even close.
It feels like Blizzard has put way too many systems on their plate...again. We've all seen this before.
It feels like they are beginning testing from such a poor state that there is no way these are going to be balanced for launch.

I want to hear your thoughts on Soulbinds.

Being linited to 3 soulbinds over covenant is wrong and will just make it easier for min-maxers to figure it out. Better to open up all 12 soulbinds and untie them from covenant
So we have more choices

Plus 80% of the traits are just dmg/stats increases that sont alter playstyle
The conduits is even worse... like relics.

Only the legendary items have effects that feels fun and good, frankly which is 80% of them from legion/old sets

I hope they stop with all these convoluted systems and add MINOR talents. Which would be a collection of Artifact traits/Azerite/legendaries/tier sets/soulbinds etc all packed into 1 system . Remove what dont work each expansion and keep what works and introduce new ones...

Better than restarting from 0 each expansion

But well... they want to sell covenants as big feature when its not. And must throw all these systems into it to show its big

[Sunslayer]

I'm going to bookmark this post as Blizzard just announced 1 week Cool down on Conduit respecting.

Pretty sure we all know by now Blizzard comes out with absurd changes then pretends they listened to the play base and lower the Conduit CD to 1 day.

Classic, good cop, bad cop. Seems pretty obvious though.

[taishar68]

I'm going to bookmark this post as Blizzard just announced 1 week Cool down on Conduit respecting.

Pretty sure we all know by now Blizzard comes out with absurd changes then pretends they listened to the play base and lower the Conduit CD to 1 day.

Classic, good cop, bad cop. Seems pretty obvious though.

I was curious to ask, are you going to play the new expac?

[Sunslayer]

I was curious to ask, are you going to play the new expac?

I think so, yes.
There is a lot about Shadowlands I do like.

[taishar68]

I think so, yes.
There is a lot about Shadowlands I do like.

That is good to hear! I hope that the devs can iterate to a place you feel good about.