This is a raid consisting only of paladins, right?
See this userâs posts in discussion (well, more like one-sided verbal shooting fish in the barrelâŚ) here https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/do-i-have-to-pick-one-covenant-in-shadowlands/183513 and tell me straight-faced itâs not trolling. Go ahead. People kept busting their garbage arguments for days. That the system happens to be kinda OK for some people doesnât change the fact that itâs going to be QUITE BAD for lots and lots of others. And if someoneâs opinion in a discussion on a topic that concerns pretty much everyone playing WoW is based on theirs and only theirs subjective âfeelingâ, Iâm calling BS.
Visit r/grimdank. Be (pleasantly, I hope) surprised.
Considering that Necrolords cov ability increases Arcane Blast (yâknow, that spell that does like 90% Arcane Mageâs damage now and hardly less in SL) by another 20% for 20 seconds on the top of x1,4 RoP and x1,5 AP and everything else we can stack with it? HELL NO. If anything, itâs understatement, because as long as Covenants grant different sorts of abilities, they WILL be unbalanced, and they WILL synergize better in some cases than in others. Extreme cases like DPS warriors all going Venthyr for their uber execute, faerie DKs (that btw got nerfed recently) etc. will always be there as long as this âmeaningful choiceâ crap exists. And it will lead to people with âwrongâ cov not being invited to X activity, or being benched in favor of people with X cov because they got Y recently nerfed into uselessness, etc. Do you now see the futility of this house of cards? Itâs inherent in the system, it cannot be fixed by numbers tuning, because the very idea is wrong on the basic level.
The only solution to this corruption is destruction: Unbinding player abilities from cov choices. Aka ripcord.
I already have and I plan to never, ever, ever go back there. I get enough unfunny jokes from Warhammer fans in the Stellaris community
Yes the one solution, just donât do it,
just
Trolling or not, engaging in stuff that isnât âup for debateâ as to regards whether itâs meant cordially or not (like describing people as subhuman) probably isnât the optimal way to engage in discussion. A troll can argue the point, however âI think theyâre a trollâ is no mitigation against that sort of stuff.
Itâs not worth a ban arguing over a video game. No matter how obstinate the opponent is.
Look, Iâve tried every approach I can think of for far longer than I should have. His is at the very least fun to read and will possibly prevent someone elseâs headache and wasted time in the future.
Jumping into threads shouting âit wonât affect you because it doesnât affect me and I do world quests and if you strive to in any way improve your performance youâre obsessive and are playing the game wrongâ isnât constructive, productive or objectively true.
Personally I look at its comments to keep my âHow low can the forumâs IQ goâ chart up to date as well as laugh as I see people lose their minds trying to apply common sense to them.
Nerfed or not, a reliable 70% movement speed increase on the spec that doesnât even use Wraith Walk when they give potions a 5m cooldown combined with preemptive dmg reduction from D&D is like a wet dream. Its just fundamentally an amazingly good addition to the toolkit. Even without the class ability Iâd still pick it for the covenant ability itself on my DK. I am Groot! (trying to preemptively apply my coping mechanism for the next 2 years)
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I do not believe she is a stroll either, but one could question her intelect or atleast manners. With arguments like âIt doesnt affect me so you shouldnt care aitherâ or âMinmaxing is evilâ , and lets not gorget my personal fvorite âIts just a 1% dps increase for the 1% of peopleâ, its really hard to take her side.
Dumb choice yes, barelly effect gameplay- hardly. Im tired of explaing this so feel free to check the countless videos on youtube made on the subject of player power and covenants. For na RP-er i would like to think so that the system will berelly exist, however for someone that even remotly cares about performance this system is another dumpster fire.
Grimdank stuff is mostly not funny only if you donât understand it. Mostly. Can be fixed by reading 40k fluff or playing games. If grimdark military sf isnât your thing though, youâre not likely to do that anyway. Not everyoneâs cup of tea.
Yes, Blizz could just do the OTHER thing and make Covenant abilities cosmetic! Indeed, that would be even better! Imagine bone-winged DK fairies, zooming around! Fox trains wreathed in blood-red mist, speeding between AH and the nearest mailbox! Meaningful choice of getting the story you want and the ability you want, all in one! And if someone doesnât like your appearance, itâs on their bad taste!
About appearances
the forum shows your character as red/blue flower girl again. Iâd advise you to go for mainly blue transmog or finding some red flowers but itâs your character and your uncoordinated accessories 
In the face of Blizzâs stubborn resistance though Iâd settle for straight-out removal as it would once and for all finally solve the covenant story/power problem. They seem dead-set on âmeaningful choiceâ until it bites them in the backside like everything else since 8.0 that was repeatedly pointed out as bad, why itâs bad, how to fix it or replace it and then promptly ignored until they had to admit itâs unfixable by design. So until around 9.2, when they will admit it was âkindaâ failure, but donât worry, they will fix it in 10.0! Like they said about 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, and every other patch!
Indeed, flexing the flowery Elizabethan English, where any given word can have up to 10 meanings and all of them are negative/vulgar while the word itself is A-OK in a polite company, can sometimes be better. I prefer being direct though, saves time.
Also these days people rarely get the full impact of âget thee to a nunneryâ etc. because foreign language, archaic form & wording, no context, (at least) double meaning, and the fact that strangely enough Shakespeareâs mile wide dirty streak somehow isnât being discussed in schools if youâre not specializing in this stuff.
All it takes for trolls to spread is for other people to do nothing. Not on my watch. And I just happen to love the smell of roasted troll in the morning. It smells like a forum becoming a tiny bit better.
And itâs not like they ban people for aggressively ridiculing others. Some quiet time, tops.
Why thank you! Secondary objectives achieved 
Well this does cause me to question a personâs intellect, logic, and their spoken objective untruths that someone else seems not to mind at all. Also all of this taken together makes me think such beings are either 1) serving Blizz as PR agents, paid or otherwise 2) trolling to get attention and/or annoy people for lulz/some other purpose 3) both.
And this is how it starts: First you donât call BS on their one little lie.
Then several little lies, theyâre so innocent white lies after all.
Then you are OK with a bigger lie. It happens!
Then a BIG FAT OLD LIE and you keep deluding yourself thereâs still good in them while itâs manifestly clear the dark side will forever dominate their destiny.
And then you get a POTUS that is proven to lie on average 15 times per day and meets the medical criteria of narcissism & sociopathy and also could not be proven innocent of collusion with foreign intelligence. Because you didnât mind them lying once. Or twice. Or over 9000 times. Because it would be oh so unforgivably RUDE to call them out! But when they keep BSing you, itâs all nice and pleasant! âMannersâ, my butt! Isnât lying considered a breach of good manners nowadays? Because to me it is! They start the fire, makes sense for them to burn in it.
Letâs be honest, the problem exists, so people thinking it doesnât are either ignorant or trolling on purpose. Not knowing things can be remedied. Trolling cannot.
And this here is a reason why Covenants cannot be balanced, ever, as that system is flawed from the start. DKs NEED that mobility because almost everyone else and their companion pets have it and the game environment sets that mobility as standard. So DKs will go for that mobility. But classes/specs that already are good in this regard will instead go for performance increasing abilities. So DKs will be kinda up to speed⌠while others are already getting ahead of them. And this will have to be balanced too. See the problem inherent in the system?
No it would not.
Azerite armor was boring at its core. And bad for basically ALL players.
Covenants are only âbadâ for certain people.
âJust because you donât like it, doesnât make it a bad thingâ.
(and yes, I know the opposite is also true. So letâs just call it 'agreeing to disagree).
I agree with that, but you shouldnât compare something that is TRULY bad with something that is âin the opinion of some playersâ bad. Thatâs just over the top to a reckless degree.
/wave
142 IQ not enough for you? DamnâŚ
Thank you!
Yeahhhh no. Quite the opposite. My logic is very, very sound.
And you my abusive friend, are very, very reported. 
Tahra. My characterâs name is Tahra. And I, the person behind the character, is not a troll. I have an opinion. Based on facts.
Feel free to disagree with my opinions, thatâs fine. But what you are doing is really, really not fine.
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Because I disagree? Right.
Never said that.
Never said that.
Never said that either.
So⌠Done spreading lies?
At least use things I ACTUALLY said when youâre bashing me. Thanks.
And no; paraphrasing will not do. Because you bring your bias and your own interpretation into it, which youâre clearly not good at. Stick to ACTUAL QUOTES. Pretty please.
No thanks. They also shouldnât let people change covenants at all. Itâs an RPG and choices should matter. The constant switching garbage isnât gameplay, itâs essentially the same as using a calculator for hours which is boring. I hope blizzard doesnât give in to the meta crybabies with this. People should not be able to have the perfect stats, builds, etc for every single step they make. Thatâs unrealistic and boring.
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Both prevent spec swaping without hindering either main or alt spec, both prevent fun exeperimenting.
Iâm pretty sure we will see massive complaints when weâre 3-4 weeks into the expansion. Thatâs my bet.
Letâs do some abstraction, breaking covenant system into different piece :
-Cosmetic rewards are fine. I mean, this is a way of farming stuff.
-Conduits are not fine : Imbalanced in terms of performance, only swapable once a week. Fortunately, conduits loadout change for each spec : if it was not, then it would basically mean SL is going to be really against playing multiple specs (What an irony when they design around classes at expanse of spec)
-Signature abilities are not fine : If Iâm a low mobility class, then Venthyr and Fae are too strong, because it gives me what I need the most. And on the same time, necrolord give a strong shield, which is nice for squishy spec. But being a kyrian is pretty meh, more especially after consummables changes.
-Class abilities are not fine : Either they suck for all specs, either one is too good for a spec that it would hinder the other specs you wanna play. How is preventing people switching spec fine ?
-Thatâs again a borrowed system : Weâre enjoying stuff thatâs going to be taken in a couple of year, hence why weâre going to feel weâre missing something.
1 Like
It doesnât prevent spec swapping.
You have 1 skill that will perform either a bit less or is useless.
Your class still functions fine without it, let alone âa bit less wellâ.
We shall see. Iâm sure there WILL be complaints; mostly from the pro ripcord people. They just canât seem to let it go.
Agreed.
Why do you need to swap? You can change your conduit loadout.
Yeah this means you might not be âthe absolute bestâ with a certain spec in specific content. Does that matter? Are you going for world first?
I get told all the time âyou donât need better gear to do world questsâ. Well⌠you donât need to be min-maxed to the extreme to perform fine in content other than the very, very high end.
Because you feel you NEED some things and not others?
Then pick what you think you need.
If you want to pick what you LIKE, then do that and youâll discover that youâre probably going to perform fine with that too. Thatâs truly what I believe.
Firstly, again: Nothing is preventing you from switching specs.
This 1 ability does NOT make or break your class or spec. Itâs just an extra button to press (or not press).
Well this is a totally seperate issue and itâs not at all limited to covenants, so letâs leave this for what it is.
Look, I get why some people donât like it. I do. I just donât agree with them.
Just like a smoker might get mad he canât smoke at a certain place. But for anyone who doesnât smoke, itâs only logical that he canât do that there. Itâs harmful for others too.
Wondering what other RPG you played that locked content like this. Nothing âRPâ about picking a side when you are supposed to be neutral, anyway.
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It does, in the same way azerite did.
Thatâs so wrong, because classes and specs are being designed around those borrowed powers. Knowing this time they are class oriented instead of spec, then yes, whatâs seems good for a given class might suck for a given spec of said class.
I tought about the casual playerbase that does not rush to level cap in the first reset. And I do think that casuals who are seeing someone with a super cool spell would certainly try said spell, but they canât, becauseâŚNOPE, they have to wait 1 reset in order to have a taste about that spell that seems so cool in their eyes. Only to then see that there is another player with another covenant and here we go again.
No, but even in heroic raiding, squeezing the highest dps possible is a thing, yes, even in HC raiding. Why ? Because raids are hard (Itâs not classicâs 1 mecanic) in the way that there are a lot of soft enrages. What is a soft enrage ? Itâs just a set of mecanics that are either too hard to deal with either they just kill your raid group 1 by 1. Nobody wanna deal with those soft enrage or combination of harsh mecanics.
Raiding and M+ above +10 and pvp above 2k require that. But letâs be honest here : Itâs just about 10% of playerbase, at most. So I donât see why not swapping would hinder those who donât raid, donât do M+ nor pvp. Really, thatâs the part I donât get.
Iâm gonna pick what I need, fore sure.
Blizzard and tunning, long story short : they canât balance those, they shown they couldnât with talents.
Then it means the whole system sucks balls and should not have passed brainstorming phase.
Your example is wrong.
No swapping hinders the 10% that does high end content. But does nothing to those who donât care.
Whereas swapping hinders 0% of player.
Seems no brainer for me.
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No. Not around them.
Not with covenant powers anyway. Conduits and such; I could agree with.
But Blizzard themselves made it clear that they donât want you to switch this skill around for different situations. So wouldnât it be very foolish if they then build âaroundâ such a skill? Yes it would. Itâs an extra. You can utilize it; or not.
Youâre just repeating Preach.
I donât think casuals will feel like that. 
âA thingâ, yeah. âNeededâ, nope.
- Raiding: only mythic.
- +10 only at the very start; this stuff becomes easier.
- 2k; maybe. Canât judge that.
Youâre countering yourself now? Iâm not sure what youâre saying here.
Thatâs your choice.
And that choice has consequences.
Thatâs the whole idea.
Water under the bridge.
Give them a chance. But⌠Letâs be honest; even if they were able to balance it to a small percentage difference, there would STILL be people complaining. Because some people are just obsessed about their performance.
Your opinion.
I disagree. Itâs a funny extra bonus and thatâs fine with me.
My example is extremely on point.
True.
Nope. Not true. Trickle down effect.
Those âobsessedâ will set the tone and that behaviour will trickle down to the masses where even the most menial of group content will get insane requirements set by those who âthinkâ they know âhow things should be doneâ. But whatâs really happening is that obsessive behaviour is being copied. Bad for everyone involved except those âobsessedâ.
Your honor i would like to present exibit A.
Dont let me pull up your other memorable quotes, this one took quite some time to find, instead you can try to make an effort to remember your BS statements.
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Stating my OPINION, which I VERY CLEARLY DID by starting that sentence with IMO, is not BS statements. Itâs my opinion. Iâm not claiming they are facts whatsoever. That context makes a huge difference.
Props for looking though. 
So my original remark stands; donât paraphrase please.
No it doesnt.
I proved to you that those words came out of your mouth (keyboard really).
No because you are fundamentaly wrong and using things as âMy opinionâ to argue facts. You are only looking at this from a solo player perspective, you have no idea how end game content actually works, you have no clue how impactfull just 1 single ability or passive can be, you just are defending a very flawed system just because you like it wihtout looking at it objectively and are blaming minmaxing, you are also misslabeling anyone that wants to play optimally as a minmaxer (which really isnt). Overall you have no clue whats going on, and im not saying thats bad, you play your way and thats fine, but dont say that people are âobsesiveâ just because they care about their character and performance, no one is asking about a phyche evaluation from you.
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Not in the context in which you provided them.
I never literally said âmin-maxing is evilâ.
I said 'IMO terms like âmetaâ and âmin-maxingâ are evil.
Thatâs a difference that matters.
You disagree. Doesnât mean I am wrong (doesnât mean Iâm right either, sure).
No Iâm not.
The only thing that Iâm not doing is looking at this from an obsessive playerâs point of view. Because I really believe that that type of gameplay is unhealthy, both for the player as well as for the game itself.
You can disagree with that all you like, but donât say things that arenât true.
Yes I do. And Iâm not saying that Blizzard canât make a mistake with balancing this; itâs totally possible that will happen. But they will fix that. And if you then feel slighted, you only have yourself and your obsessive behaviour to blame.
If you just pick what you like and donât look at the abilities, it can only end positively.
No one is looking at this objectively, so expecting me to do that is silly and unfair.
Iâve clearly described the type of behaviour I consider obsessive. That is the type of behaviour Iâm labeling, not anything else.
You are wrong.
Then donât whine when that kind of behaviour bites you in the butt (like this system does). If you act in an unhealthy way, deal with the consequences yourself and donât expect the game to cater to that unhealthy way of playing. Simple.
EDIT: Look, weâre never going to agree.
You think that kind of âgameplayâ is fine. I donât.
Letâs drop it because continuing this is just useless.
Told you one cannot have a normal discussion with this showpiece of a troll. When someone else states facts, itâs their opinion, but when THE TROLL states their opinion, itâs facts⌠And when the troll is proven wrong (which is very often, a childâs play really to find just one logical fail) itâs time for ninja editing posts. Such a shame that quotes remain and they canât remove them! So moving goalposts already? Letâs speed it up, to the point of thorough owning so they never return to this thread.
Really, just this is enough. Tahra, ye troll of little reason, thou art not fit for any place but Hell! Get thee hence!
And speaking about evaluations, Iâve come across a 3rd possible answer as to why itâs such an enemy of logical reasoning, others being a troll and/or a PR agent. It starts with âAâ and belongs among mental issues some people suffer.
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