Do you even play this game? Having different essences changes exactly how you approach the bosses/mobs and how you fight them.
It literally also changes your rotation.
Tell me how keeping only Vision of Perfection would diversify my gameplay.
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If you want to check whether I play this game, check my profile. Done? Alright, fantastic. Moving on then.
It would do if you actually chose different essences, but you do not.
What you are doing is you are mapping an answer to each problem, so the amount of diversity is equal to the amount of problems. Everyone else is mapping the same answer to the same problem.
In the Covenant system, you there are 4 different answers to each problem, and people of the 4 Covenants are each mapping a different answer, due to being forced to do so, to said problem. Thus the amount of solutions increases 4-fold, and this will show as you look across the population.
The danger is that everyone always converges on the same solution for everything. That is the problem Blizzard will have to contend with.
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That’s something that is impossible to solve though.
I don’t think you can speak for any group of people unless you are elected by them to speak for them. You can speak for yourself. But you can’t presume to know what other people want.
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We, between us, have diversity in how we solve the problems, because we are a different class. Clearly it is not impossible - it has been done.
And thus ends that debate
can someone pass this along to youtubers claiming to speak for everyone too please instead of applauding them
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I my book more tools to solve a problem is always welcome over limitations.
And then there it is the whole offspec debacle. Some Covenant abillites just dont work well across all the specs.
I don’t see how those two are even remotely comparable.
I remember in vanilla, when this guild was trying to jump to 40 man raid our officer wrote in our website a list of BiS blues to get in order to be able to raid.
Also mandatory specs like resto Shaman, resto Druid, MM Hunter, Protection Warrior, etc.
When you go to raid you need pots, enchants and food.
Why it is even a surprise that Guilds ask for certain builds ?
That also applies for pugs.
In TBC I remember Prot Warriors asking in LFG chat: “LFM 2 mages.”
Double sheep made heroics much easier.
Good luck to Ion to try to change this.
He was the leader of “Elite Jerks”, a top end guild in TBC.
Did he took fun specs in his raids ?
I don’t think so. Otherwise his guild wouldn’t had got to where it was.
Having being part of two failed guilds in vanilla, another one that vanished during TBC, I can say people like to play fun specs, until their social guild isn’t clearing content than they leave for a better guild.
That’s the sad true.
If you are trying to clear content you want the best.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a guild or a pug.
None wants to stick around in a guild that fails to clear content and none wants to waste their time in a failed pug.
People will leave in both cases.
People can chose what ever they want.
That’s fair enough.
But they have only themselves to blame if they are not picked over others that did.
I still remember one guild member changing from NE to Pandaren, in MoP just so the guild could get the achievement.
We were told to reforge our gear and check Mr. Robot site to determine what was our BiS in bags.
I watched Asmongold reacting to Preach interview and it was depressing to see.
I disagree on his approach to remove LFD and LFR but I agree on his views during the interview.
Basically the developers are out of touch.
They are not the ones applying for groups and getting declined.
I only play LFD and LFR and I always check icy veins, for the choices I need.
I don’t have time to waste since my game time is limited to the point I was watching YouTube boss guides while my LFR was clearing trash.
Fact is the game became more competitive.
I struggle to keep even in LFR.
Usually everyone already knows the tactics.
Activision Blizzard wants to promote e-sports. They all have cookie cutter specs than they get admired, can’t understand when players emulate it.
My opinion: they can’t have both ways.
It simple doesn’t make sense.
I don’t like cookie cutter builds, because I want to play all my specs to their full potential. But I only do TW and LFR.
So I can play as MM/Surv Hunter, Arms Warrior all I want.
This is content none bothers.
But people have the right to chose the best players for their group/raid, when it’s not LFR or LFD.
You can’t advocate for harder content and competitive gaming and wanting fun diversity specs because those two things don’t go along.
If Activision Blizzard developers want people to play fun specs than they should remove competitive gaming all together, which will never happen because Bobby Kotick, wants to implement it.
It’s profitable.
In conclusion:
Yes people can play what ever Covenants they want. I will do the same if I buy this expansion.
But I won’t be here complaining when I don’t get invited for Normal raiding or Mithic +.
Cheers.
It shows you have no understanding of basic game mechanics.
It also shows you make stupid assumptions that people don’t change their essences depending on lots of factors, like haste levels, corruptions, or exactly what they’re supposed to be doing during a specific fight.
You literally don’t have any idea of player behavior and use of essences. You don’t only change them because it’s x boss, you change them according to your current setup and possibilities.
I am choosing what is best for my gameplay and how i chose to approach different situations based on what i have and i can currently experiment doing this freely with the essence system.
Locking yourself into only 1 removes all thought into thinking up strategies with multiple choices.
You will be literally a sheep, choosing one covenant and sticking with it, the same as every other player, no experimentation, no choices to be made.
You can keep spouting nonsense that this diversifies anything, it won’t.
Never respec, never change your talents, stay like that forever and tell me how you’re diversifying. 
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I don’t think it’s trash. Most of the loudest voices in the community don’t think it’s trash either, and people like Preach, Sloot, Fleks and Thdlock who are constantly quoted around here as dumping on the covenant system all agree that if they just made covenant abilities free to swap SL would end up being the best expansion in a decade.
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No diversity? I play around with all kinds of corruption too. I got a full IT-build. Lotsa twilight dev build, high stat amplifyers (with void ritual), tentacle-build. How is that not diversity of play?
Like i am at this moment totally interested in glimmerplay with the 5 holy shocks from kyrian. Or finding out what i can do with blessings from night fae, with the 50% cooldown reductions, sort of ineffable play. Or using doors of shadows from venthyr. 3 diverse playstyles.
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He would have preferred if you would check a box for what kind of corruption you wanted to use at the start of the Patch and you’d then only receive that.
That would make us soooo diverse… i can’t even say that with a straight face. 
I honestly don’t care what some of the “loudest voices” say.
It’s gonna be the same as corruptions, a nice system with horrible implementation which is gonna make the whole system trash.
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In what way are they not?
Are they not both permanent or near-permanent choices?
Are they not both providing you with tools that are different between them?
Are those tools not providing you different solutions to solve the problem?
The only difference is the impact of the choice. The class choice is far bigger and even more permanent.
Do you truly mean always? As in always, always? Or is there a little more depth to it?
If not, then I suggest you stop playing video games. They are inherently defined by limitations. These limitations are called rules.
Now that’s a real design flaw, and that needs to be looked at. Make the abilities work properly, don’t ruin covenants.
Oh, and you’re a genius I suppose, aren’t you?
That wasn’t what you were talking about. You were talking about using 3 different essences for 3 different encounters, one for each.
Be precise.
So now I put something in play that restricts your current setup and possibilities, forcing you to make a different choice to every other Paladin.
I have not limited your options compared to not having the system at all. I have merely chosen not to provide you with all the options at present time. Like a piece of loot not dropping, and another one dropping, except this time you get to pick what dropped.
Unfortunately, due to your total freedom, your experiment easily leads you to the exact same solution as every other Paladin. Someone has already done your experimentation for you.
Only if you never thought about a choice at all.
Tell me, does a game of Chess have less options because you lost a Rook halfway through the game and cannot recover it?
You will be literally a sheep, choosing only Memory of Lucid Dreams, the same as every other player, no experiementation, no choices to be made.
What you have hit upon is not about how permanent the choice is. You have hit upon a balance issue.
Assuming not everyone has picked the same talents as me, I am causing diversity myself.
Finding the balance between bringing my gameplay diversity and making me diversity in the world is what they’re trying to do, and you’re arguing for pushing world diversity completely to the side, not for increasing my diversity of gameplay. There are loads of systems providing that already, and if we want, we can just slap these abilities into one of those systems. Put 'em on my necklace and be done with it, yeah?
That’s fine. The Covenant system allows you to try all 3 and pick whichever one you prefer. It just won’t let you run all 3 at the same time.
Furthermore, have you considered glimmerplay without the 5 holy shocks from Kyrian? No - right? You linked them together, because in your mind the two are tied together as one choice. One does not make sense without the other.
Pressing more individual buttons to make a choice does not more choices make.
There will ofc always be an exception to the rule. But punishing ppl for a couple of faulty choices for the entire expansion to come seems wrong. And I would love to lenghtely play with all the abillities provided by the different Covenants at a reasonable powerlevel. And it would really suck it I couldnt. Especially if u do a lot of cross content with a single character. Like it would be really cool to have X abillity for pvp, Y for m+ and C for raids. I dont like taking handicaps in one of these to be on par for other content.
Yes i did. But i get a bigger smile on my face WITH the kyrian 5 holy shocks on 1 minute cd. How crazy is that? I want to play around with it. It seems really fun.
But they aren’t tailored to all the specs of the class, and people will still take the best one, unless they’re close enough to each other that it doesn’t matter, which I doubt will be the case.
Completely normal. Doesn’t mean anything, though.
Oh.
And you know they won’t be close. The empirical evidence states otherwise.
I want them to be close, because I want to join the Necrolords, but right now that covenant can’t compare to venthyr or night Fae for DKs.
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