No!!! Don’t wreck my fantasy!!
I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say here.
Yes you won’t ‘turn into’ one of them, but you’ll get stuff that’s accordingly themed. I for instance will pick Night Fae, because that’s the only thing that I think makes sense for my hunter and the fantasy I have for that character.
I also happen to like nature stuff, so that’s a win/win.
If I want to have another theme or fantasy, I’ll have another character join another covenant.
And btw, I do think that eventually (probably after the expansion or maybe in Shadowland’s last patch) you’ll be able to use all the cosmetic stuff you’ve earned without actually being in that covenant. It would be weird for future content if you couldn’t, imo.
Just for this expansion’s fantasy and theme, I think it makes sense to be restricted.
Literally the only new feature in Shadowlands and already it’s full of more holes than swiss. 
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Well there will be so many with the same 4 themes, that it would be of-putting if i was wearing the same thing.
I’ll probably just mix and match the new stuff with the old stuff to come up with my own.
Ok, pineapple pizza is an italian delicacy 
Oh I get THAT, but there’s so much more to covenants than just that.
I won’t wear ANY of the covenant’s transmogs. Not on my main anyway. None of them are my main fantasy, which is a sort of adventurer/treasure hunter type character. I’m not going to run around in ‘fairy wood’ armor.
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I’m currently trying Mayo on the Beta
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Well this is another reason why i want to explore all of them, i’m not too big on alts, i want to see what all the Covenants have to offer on my main.
I’ll get all the mogs eventually and see what i can do with them.
If it’s theme locked for one covenant, well c’est la vie, but gameplay is more important to me since there are already so many mogs in the game for themes than there are covenants, which are just 4.
I do get that and I’m main-character-focused too. But… to experience the different content I don’t mind playing an alt. Like I did in Legion; I leveled up almost every class just to see and experience that specific content.
Granted, it was a mixed bag for me… Some class fantasies appeal to me, but the way they play is just very ‘meh’ to me (like mages for instances). So I loved the mage order hall and the flavour of the quests and such, but I actually disliked doing most of that because I just think mage plays horrible.
But anyway… this should be way less painful. It’s ‘just’ 4 covenants.
And I can play 4 hunters if I want to (though I’ll probably go DK for the Necrolords).
Gameplay should be overal balanced, so just pick the aesthetic you like, is my advice.
And hey, if you REALLY want to experience them all on your main you can… Just max out a covenant and then switch. Over the lifespan of the expansion you should then be able to do and see it all.
You’re misunderstanding, it’s not even about balanced gameplay.
It’s about the difference in gameplay between the Covenants, you may think that 2 abilities won’t matter, but they do matter how you approach situations and how you resolve them.
Blizzard even made a feedback thread in regards to how players use the different covenant and class abilities in relation to each other.
I don’t want to be stuck under 1 gameplay version due to this restriction.
I want to have my options open to try them all in different situations.
Having them being rigid will not help at all, it’s counter intuitive to lock 6/8 new abilities from players. This is not to even start on the multitude of combinations with soulbinds from them.
Switching them once they are max won’t help, i don’t want to rotate them at all, i want to try them when i feel like it. For 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, it’s my choice to make.
Just salt please
‘‘Sir … you have to take pep-’’
III SAAAAID
Just salt please
‘‘But si-’’
AM I STUTTERING?!
SAAAAAAAAALT PLEEEEAAASEEEE!
Well, I think you’re approaching it from the wrong angle.
You don’t have to be. You CAN switch. Just not all the time and not back and forth. You CAN still try out different stuff.
This falls under the ‘optimization issue’ which I addressed earlier. This freedom comes with a set of problems which I personally think are worse than what it ‘gives’.
The soulbinds are a mix of things, none of them give you an answer to EVERY situation. And that’s ok. They give enough flexibility to try stuff out and have different variations for different builds/specs.
I don’t view them as locking 6/8 abilities.
I see it as having 2 extra abilities. I’m not losing those 6 other abilities, because I never had them to begin with.
Well… you can, but not ALL THE TIME. Consequence of a choice you’re going to make. You make choices like that all the time in life, so why is this such a problem?
You’re basically describing the soulbinds that come with them.
You want Salt and not Pepper, that’s soulbind 1, sir.
Pepper would be 2.
Soulbind nr. 3 is a secret one that we won’t talk about right now.
@Tahra
How do you play during the day? What do you do usually?
I do dailies and visions and then i do raids, i do m+, i do old raids or maybe even arenas/battlegrounds rarely or for caps.
I switch my essences multiple times per day.
Restricting myself to one type of activity with only 1 gameplay option is not fun.
If i use the same essences as i do when i do dailies, it’s seriously gonna make the others feel bad.
I don’t want to use reaping every 15/45 seconds during a raid, it messes up my rotation. I don’t want to use vision of perfection during dailies, it procs when it wants and it procs rarely, if it procs when i’m ending a random mob, it’s a wasted proc, it does not feel fun.
This is just an example i can give others, during M+ i take vision sure, but i take secondary as lucid dreams… why? Because it refunds me holy power and i can cast Divine Storm more, i use my aoe button more and it’s more fun for me.
This isn’t even going into effectiveness for them, it’s about how they feel.
If i’d be restricted to only 1 major and can switch it but hard like covenants? I wouldn’t even bother with a choice for fun, i’d go for effectiveness 100% of the time because i don’t want to be weak either, that would be having NO choice, it’s the logical answer.
Even if you say, well use what you find fun, i find fun in switching them depending on situation, even if i find Reaping fun for dailies, i don’t find it fun for raids.
I want to have fun, restricting abilities is restricting fun.
So when you said it’s not about optimizing, you lied.
Because the above is NOT ‘normal’ behaviour.
It promotes exactly the problem Blizzard is trying to get rid of.
I’ve given the reasons and explanation on why such a mindset and such a way of playing is damaging to the game, to the playerbase and to the very genre.
This is not a moba where everyone starts on equal footing every time.
Here you have your own character, fueled by your own experiences, choices and skill. People who are ‘following a guide’, honestly are ‘doing it wrong’.
It’s time the RPG was put more on the forefront again.
I can’t tell you anything otherwise; your ‘fun’ is damaging to the game. So Blizzard are taking steps to remedy that. And they have my full support.
Is it optimizing or is it me having fun with different abilities?
If i use Reaping in arenas is it more optimizing than using vision of perfection?
Well is it? Who can tell me if it’s optimizing or i’m having fun with the choice that i made, because i could make that choice.
Maybe Blizzard can just make the covenants locked in the Role Playing realms and you can go there and enjoy the game like that.
That way we both can enjoy the game how we want.
Also that’s a pretty big claim that blizzard does not like us switching essences, last time i checked they allow us to switch them freely.
Watch this:
I have watched it, it doesn’t say anything about essences and how they don’t like us switching them.
You’re so sweet I won’t kill you now.
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He definitely mentions the problems that arise from this ‘obsessive optimizing’.
He explains that there’s already enough to optimize and that Covenant abilities are not meant to be part of that equation. That’s more of what I meant. I didn’t claim ‘they don’t want you to switch essences’ specifically. It’s just a part of a bigger overal problem.