Been reading up on all the covenants. From what I understand it’s not only the covenant and class abilities that are different, but also the conduits and soul-bind effects.
Some are really good for one spec or another. Some more suited for pve and others for pvp.
For someone who plays all three specs in raiding, and also in pvp, it seems that the hybrid classes are at a disadvantage, with each covenant abilities and conduits suited only for one or two of the different specs we play.
All classes are being fed hard by this system. For instance, 2 out 4 covenants for Warlock, which is a pure dps class, suit well affliction specs, whereas the 2 others are pretty meh for destro and demon.
So for paladin, if you want to play all 3 specs, with the most versatile spell, you sadly have to go necrolord (Which in terms of RP is just nonsense) because Kyrian is good for Aoe situations, not single target, night fae is still iterated upon and Venthyr just sucks.
That being said, Blizzard screw most of specs because they are pushing so hard for classes at expanse of spec, which is badly done in a way.
I’ve got around the issue by creating 1 for raiding 1 for mythic plus and 1 for PvP
No you might say that’s ridiculous and I’m going to have to level 3 paladins but normally I’d be bringing two alts up anyway for their professions at the start of an exp. And if needed they can very easily be swapped into three different holy paladins for raiding. Keeping them well geared it’s my only concern
But in all honesty outside of the very cutting edge of each activity I don’t think it will matter if your covernant is optimised. I expect any covenant class combo will be more than capable of clearing heroic, getting their weekly mythic plus chest and pushing to an ok rating. But for people pushing higher rating higher mythic plus and people pushing let’s say the second half of a mythic raid. You can get your a** you’ll need to be optimal
Side bar your off spec will be gimped to a few weeks anyway as you work on your legendaries
Blizzard pushes for the class focus
Blizzard also gives the Covenant abilities that may be good for one spec and absolutely useless or even harmful to use for other two.
I hate the implementation of it. SL isnt class focused expansion. Covenant System aggressively punishes the people who want to play all three specs, i.e. the whole class.
Yeah but how many dps you know that regularly swap between their 3 spec available? If they swap, is mostly between patches to follow the meta cycle, it’s rare for a pure dps to run multiple spec unless they do both pvp and pve at very high level.
The performance gain is normally limited but the hassle in gearing is not.
We instead will suffer the most as usual, it’s the hybrid tax. Double the gear, more costs and hussle for what usually is not a great reward (unless you’re a monk or a war)
You can level 3 chars, but then you need to farm 3 times as much.
I am one of the main tanks in my guild. But on occasion I will join as a dpsr or a healer as needed per the signups. And sometimes I will switch specs during a raid. Especially when I work with new tanks in raids. Or on progression if for instance I join as a dpsr, and switch to tank on bosses where 3 tanks make the fight much easier, until we get geared up and don’t need it.
The whole beauty of the paladin class is the ability to switch between three prominent specs and be useful at each of them.
At least if conduits and soulbinds were per the spec. You could then choose a covenant (for better or worse), but then have the best tree per your spec. Without needing to farm excessively more, just to be able to play the different roles.
I don’t know about other classes but playing my lock i had to be able to swap to all 3 specs depending on the content, sometimes i had to use all 3 in the same raid swapping between bosses.
Saying that i am very concerned about my paladin and druid which are the classes i was looking to continue maining in SL, the system seems rather screwed atm and it does look as if i will have to have at least 2 of each class for the tanking and healing.
I hear you. I think what will happen is most of us will pick the least bad covernant for all 3 specs. For paladins that probably means ashen hollow. Or Divine toll spending on which one dose the most
Then that’s not a “choice” if you’re basically forced to pick a meh covenant if you don’t want to screw up your other specs.
Regarding Paladins, I feel like it’s necrolord that’s going to fill that purpose since Ashen Hollow is a bad spell.
Correct. If you want to play offspecs the choices you have are limited. In the current system you cannot play an os and also be optimal. Likewise even if you only play 1 spec. You either made the decision to go middle of the road for all of the different activities you enjoy doing or pick and ability that’s good for one and deal with being sub optimal in the others
Take me for example. I’m a ce mythic raider but I also like to push keys. I do both as holy. For me my middle ground ability is going to be Divine toll. But I would much rather have blessing of seasons for raids.
I think that the problem largely with Covenants is that they are being added now.
If this was WoW 2 where you picked your covenant before you even entered the game a lot of this discussion would not be happening.
Its a bit like arguing that I should be able to choose my racials because Tauren’s have better tanking racials, Blood’s have better DPS racials, Human’s have better PvP racials, or that realistically everyone should just be Zandalari because their ability to choose a racial is pretty much that.
The differences in the spells we are gaining from Covenants are hardly more impactful then the differences in the racial abilities we have… and all of them remain useful regardless of whatever spec you choose.
No body (well except maybe a very small subset) expects you to turn up for raiding being a specific race, but then expects you to be a different race for the mythic+ runs the next day…
Why? because you can’t… this should be no different.
There are several differences between the racial talents and the covenants.
The one being that the racial talents are good for all the specs. The Tauren 5% health is good and useful for all three specs. Humans “Every man for himself” is useful by all three specs.
The covenants class spells, and the covenant conduits are not like that. The Kyrian Divine Toll is very useful for Holy. Amazing for Prot vs groups. And almost useless for Retribution.
The conduits talent trees are also very spec specific. Although I understand they are reworking it so it’s more viable for multi specs. So will needs to wait and see what is new.
The Kyrian Divine Toll is very useful for Holy. Amazing for Prot vs groups. And almost useless for Retribution.
But it is comparatively no better or worse then the other abilities:
Ashen Hallow -> 5 extra Holy Power every 4 mins. (plus a bit of extra damage and healing)
Vanquisher’s Hammer -> A free TV/DS, SOTR, LoD every 30 sec. (for Ret probably about as much as that single Judgement in ST)
Blessing of Seasons -> Probably will require an addon to actually be effectively usable in its current state.
Divine Toll -> great for AoE situations, not so much for ST, most of the others are just as naff in a ST environment, and irrelevant to AoE.
For Holy Divine Toll does seem to be obvious lead thou, mainly because it will generally always be able to trigger 5 Holy Shocks.
racial talents are good for all the specs
But some are clearly better then others for different specs. A Tauren’s extra Health is helpful to all, but much better for a Tank Spec then a Blood Elves 1% crit… the fact still stands no one takes only Tauren Paladins as tanks.
This is a very extreme scenario.
99% of the playerbase of only dps won’t swap spec, talent at best, especially because for most classes, 1 spec is performing and the others aren’t, and there is the whole gearing process to mind.
As example, i remember to have read about gingi who went into some boda bosses as bm just because he didn’t have the azerite to go mm which would have been the better pick.
SL feels much the same: covenant, legendaries, conduits, it feels pretty much everything done to lock you into a single spec.