Anyone who thinks they will balance Covenants is dreaming.

[Flantini]

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Yes. And if you think you need that edge you have to take it.
Don't get me wrong i would like to switch the abilities like normal ones (not covenants themselve, just the ability) but i also don't think it will have an effect on most of the players anyway. I never asked someone whch way he is skilled before inviting him into a Mythic+ for example-

I mean you kind of prove the argument of the free swappers. Covenants are game-play wise the same as azerite essences, an active ability and some dmg increases (covenants also offer movement/utility as well). So even in a system where you can freely swap azerite traits (covenants) you, and most people, dont require switching even when there are obvious BIS slots for these.

Covenants offer even more player power than azerite essences. Do you people that want to be locked in to a covenant think BFA would have been better if you could only pick one essence at the start of 8.2 and have been stuck with it even across specs? I don't see how game-play wise covenants should be treated any differently.

And again, it would only mean more grind for people who want to do the content. On my main if its free swap, ill try unlock all I can do be just a bit better, on my alts... meh ill just stick with one for what I mostly do with them.

Now for story/cosmetics?, I think being locked in would be a cool way to customize your char/story and make leveling an alt of the different covenant meaningful. Just don't tie player power to them.

[Sinte]

From the conduit poll, here are the results: 1019 votes

Question: Should Conduits have a week timer, lower or none for changing them?

A) One week cooldown is fine ==> 34.9%
B) Less than a week would be fine. ==> 12.6%
C) Changing without a cooldown would be fine. ==> 52.5%

As you can see, the results show that the majority are against constraints such as these.
I'm willing to bet another poll for Covenants would bring about similar numbers.

People may think that 1019 votes, doesn't tell much, but it's a good sample (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sample) for what the playerbase is like.
As such, this doesn't look good for Ion if more than half don't like the new systems restrictions.

This just in , people would rather not have restrictions than have restrictions,anywhere in life. Oh what other fires of knowledge do you bring to us this day,our Prometheus?

[deenman]

they wont..

ok nostradamus

[ElsaHosk]

To be honest, at this point, I don't care. My HC raiding guild doesn't care. The memo we got from our raid leader was "Just pick what makes you happy. Happy raiders preform better than min/maxed raiders."

I'll go Bastion for the cloak-wings that best suit my transmog. And that'll be it.

[Inukashi]

Yeah its why dps shamans rogues and frost mages dominate the mythic n'zoth kills...

I grow weary of normal mode raiders talking down to mythic

Yeah, but I'm a cutting edge raider and I'm pretty sure every bosskill that took us really long wasn't due to bad balancing and class choices of my guild.

I just don't like it when people make their perconal perception into something that should change the game for everyone.

Shamans/Rogues/Frost Mages are neither the most played classes on n'zoth kills, nor the one with the most dps according to warcraftlogs.


@Biomega
Well some classes are easier, some are harder to play. I think this is more of a class choice and not a balancing choice.

If you sort M+ runs by class and 20+ keys and only pick the best players ( > 90% parse) BM and Enhancement Shaman are pretty close
BM scoring 96.42 and
EH Shaman 96.15

If you pick 99% parse, EH Shaman is the strongest class.

The Score is calculated from how many runs they did in time and how long it took them.

So I don't really see a Problem here.

So if you don't get invited into a group as a EH shaman it's not because they are really bad. It's because people are exaggerating how bad they are.

Usually classes are pretty close balanced. If you take the best 10% of players, the best class is ~5% better than the worst class in the current state of the game in M+20 dungeons.

As long as you have someone with the required utility it really does not matter what class they play.

So comming back to covenant abilities.

They will be balanced close enough. Yeah, some might parse worse than others and some people will be like "omg, this is so bad. The ability that makes 15% of my dmg is parsing 10% worse on a dummy, than the other one, (that's 1.5% in your overall and we are completely ignoring any other effects like the utility of the abilities). Blizzard please fix or I'm not inviting any Venthyr Paladins into my group!"

[goldlock]

Yeah, but I'm a cutting edge raider and I'm pretty sure every bosskill that took us really long wasn't due to bad balancing and class choices of my guild.

I just don't like it when people make their perconal perception into something that should change the game for everyone.

Shamans/Rogues/Frost Mages are neither the most played classes on n'zoth kills, nor the one with the most dps according to warcraftlogs.


@Biomega
Well some classes are easier, some are harder to play. I think this is more of a class choice and not a balancing choice.

If you sort M+ runs by class and 20+ keys and only pick the best players ( > 90% parse) BM and Enhancement Shaman are pretty close
BM scoring 96.42 and
EH Shaman 96.15

If you pick 99% parse, EH Shaman is the strongest class.

The Score is calculated from how many runs they did in time and how long it took them.

So I don't really see a Problem here.

So if you don't get invited into a group as a EH shaman it's not because they are really bad. It's because people are exaggerating how bad they are.

Usually classes are pretty close balanced. If you take the best 10% of players, the best class is ~5% better than the worst class in the current state of the game in M+20 dungeons.

As long as you have someone with the required utility it really does not matter what class they play.

So comming back to covenant abilities.

They will be balanced close enough. Yeah, some might parse worse than others and some people will be like "omg, this is so bad. The ability that makes 15% of my dmg is parsing 10% worse on a dummy, than the other one, (that's 1.5% in your overall and we are completely ignoring any other effects like the utility of the abilities). Blizzard please fix or I'm not inviting any Venthyr Paladins into my group!"

Likely it was otherwise you wouldn't be a CE raider...

N'zoth is the most tbc style boss fight ive done in a very long time. Super easy mechanics. The entire fight is stack kill adds dont stand in bad. However the fight is tuned so heavily that if you do not have an entire group with strong dps while on the move you are simply going to lose to the soft enrage.

You being unaware of how composition and class balance effects your raiding isn't really an issue so long as the people forming your raid know what they are doing.

[Inukashi]

Likely it was otherwise you wouldn't be a CE raider...

N'zoth is the most tbc style boss fight ive done in a very long time. Super easy mechanics. The entire fight is stack kill adds dont stand in bad. However the fight is tuned so heavily that if you do not have an entire group with strong dps while on the move you are simply going to lose to the soft enrage.

You being unaware of how composition and class balance effects your raiding isn't really an issue so long as the people forming your raid know what they are doing.

Well tbh I didn't raid N'Zoth yet. I made a break from raiding some month ago and focus on writing addons/creating interfaces for SL.

If you had formed a raid once you would know, you are picking the people by performance and not by class. There isn't any special skill to be the one forming the raid. You open the logs, sort by dps and 'stand in fire deaths' from the last time and here is your list of people you invite. You are not looking at the spec and say "Oh no, he is a fire mage, I'd rather invite the frost mage, because frost mages parse 3% better"

The only thing you avoid is certain pitfalls like "Too many single target healers" "Too many melee dps" and that's it. If you are not raiding for money there is no need to bring 18 destro locks to the raid or whatever the fotm is.

[goldlock]

Well tbh I didn't raid N'Zoth yet. I made a break from raiding some month ago and focus on writing addons/creating interfaces for SL.

If you had formed a raid once you would know, you are picking the people by performance and not by class. There isn't any special skill to be the one forming the raid. You open the logs, sort by dps and 'stand in fire deaths' from the last time and here is your list of people you invite. You are not looking at the spec and say "Oh no, he is a fire mage, I'd rather invite the frost mage, because frost mages parse 3% better"

The only thing you avoid is certain pitfalls like "Too many single target healers" "Too many melee dps" and that's it. If you are not raiding for money there is no need to bring 18 destro locks to the raid or whatever the fotm is.

Except your wrong,

A fire and frost mage will do massively different in z'noth due to the nature of the fight. A frost mage will be lucky to break 50k sustained dps while a fire will be upwards of 90.

Z'noth isn't a hard fight but its tuned like a tbc one. There isn't any rogues, dps shammies and there are only a set number of slots for utility classes.

Most raids you are right but n'zoth is almost a throwback fight. YOU NEED a certain comp to kill it you have wiggle room for only one or two subpar classes or the fight just won't die.

[Rayzen17]

This just in , people would rather not have restrictions than have restrictions,anywhere in life. Oh what other fires of knowledge do you bring to us this day,our Prometheus?

This just in, most players want to try out new stuff in a game without being restricted.

What kind of other bullshit restrictions would you want in the game?
How about no spec switching? Sounds good, no?

[Demeisen]

So if you don't get invited into a group as a EH shaman it's not because they are really bad. It's because people are exaggerating how bad they are.

No, it's because if I'm a group leader and I'm looking for ranged DPS, the likelihood is that there are 10+ other DPS players with similar or better r.ios and meta classes and specs who're competing for the same slot. There's a reason why there are 723,519 m+ BM hunter parses and 6,955 m+ sub rogue parses.

[goldlock]

No, it's because if I'm a group leader and I'm looking for ranged DPS, the likelihood is that there are 10+ other DPS players with similar or better r.ios and meta classes and specs who're competing for the same slot. There's a reason why there are 723,519 m+ BM hunter parses and 6,955 m+ sub rogue parses.

You won't be able to explain this concept to someone who only raids heroic and he will just return to spamming " nO oNE iS FORzing yOu tO PLay MyIthIC"

[callipygoustp]

Trying to think of a time when classes and/or specs were balanced...... never.

If anything, the new systems seems to be even more prone imbalance. I think we're in for a big shit show the first 6 months, if not longer.

[Lolites]

Who care if they balance them. Games are meant to be fun. Not Spreadsheets.

pretty much this
and even if they balanced them, unless its balanced to be EXACTLY the same, not even 0,01% difference, people will bitch and moan...

[goldlock]

pretty much this
and even if they balanced them, unless its balanced to be EXACTLY the same, not even 0,01% difference, people will bitch and moan...

This is a rpg... the entire game is a spreadsheet..

[mrsohta]

I think by now everyone already knows they aren't gonna be balanced at all and things will be problematic until the last patch. People know Blizz. No point in repeating the same on forums continuously and hoping god will intervene I mean, do you feel like you are actually doing something or you are woke while everyone else is a blind sheep when you say this?

[roboscorcher]

Agreed that covenant abilities will never ever be balanced.

They should make special 'covenant enchantments' for weapons, that require weeks of basic farming to create. Your covenant's enchant is always free. If your current weapon has the enchant, you will have access to those abilities.

This is a solid middle ground for balancing 'meaningful choice' with balance concerns.

[Lolites]

This is a rpg... the entire game is a spreadsheet..

maybe for you, ill pick up thematicaly best covenant and wont give a fuck if i could do a tiny bit better with other covenants

[Biggles Worth]

Isn't this a carbon copy of your old thread on the exact same issue?

We get it, you're sceptical. Now we wait and see, no need to remind us what you think on weekly basis

I don't think skepticism is needed on this one. Pretty sure it's a matter of fact.

[Sluvs]

People really like to complain about blizzard's balancing but the fact is that WoW's balancing is very good compared to other MMO's

That being said, They will not be able to balance the covenant abilities.

There is just too much difference between them. I think it's downright impossible if I am going to be honest.

[Vakna]

I wouldn't be that mad if they don't manage to balance them - let's face it they wont, because I'll pick what's best anyway, because winning is fun. The real shitshow will be if they start doing balance changes to covenants after release.

IMO - The second game goes live, no balance changes to covenants ever, unless we are given the ability to switch freely between them and keep progression.