#PullTheRipcord

Yeah, as i’ve discovered more about the covs (such as the respec being only 2 days, and the fact they send you to do WQs in the other covenants) it does seem a bit arbitrary to me in honesty.

At current it’s feel like a halfway house of “you’re ours and ours only, so you only get our toys, except when you’re not, which you’re not sometimes but you don’t get to use those toys sometimes”

As with many things, if you try to please two very different playerbases at the same time, you end up with a result that doesn’t work for either.

The respec cost is jarring to those who want to change.
The fact you can rejoin a “betrayed covenant” in 2 days and they send you to do WQs for their “rivals” is jarring to someone invested in the RP angle of their antagonism.

shrug

The Ashes of Creation also uses a subclass system. Lineage II had 2 subclasses I think.

I’m certain it has them, but I don’t remember how they work. :sweat_smile:

There was a quest chain at 40, then you basically leveled it from 1. Can’t remember the second one, it was available at 80 I think.

1 Like

do you know what is a core aspect of basically every single RPG game that has ever existed, stats and character progression, why shouldnt someone who is playing a game based around a specific character want their character to be the best it can be? why is that all of a sudden a bad thing?

even if you go back to pen and paper games like Dungeons and Dragons. there have been stats and character progression in that, is someone wrong for trying to build the stats correctly in DnD to make their character strong? no they are not, because people should be able to play that way if the choose to.

which is the main problem, our choice is being removed from us, this expansion we are basically told we are not allowed to play the game the way we want, we are told we are playing the game wrong, and something that we find fun is being removed from us, which is a problem.

if the covenant abilities were swappable then it would barely affect anyone who doesnt care about it being locked, because they can still play the exact same way with absolutely no difference to them, but with it being locked those who actually care about player power are being hardly punished and there is absolutely no good reason for it

regardless of how blizz push anything there will lawyas be min maxing, the only way to stop it would be to have all numbers turned off, not give us access to anything and stop things like logs and DPS meters from existing, because then we wouldnt be able to tell which is best. which is also a stupid idea.

thats only for rejoining a covenant you have previously left.

if you swap to a new covenant you have to farm renown, and there is a system in place that allows for catch up to the upper limit that is currently set, but if you swap back to a covenant you have previously left you will still have the same renown that you had when you first left.

in some cases it will, you might just get lucky and pick the correct one though, its difficult to tell before all of the tuning is finished. im not familiar with monk stuff myself but i know for warlock its basically pick necrolord or you will never be invited to anything as the other 3 are essentially useles, other than venthyr having some use in dungeons,

specialisations are sub classes, there are plenty of abilities for basically every class that are shared across all specs, and then specs have their own abilities that are unique to that sub class. covenants are not a subclass, they are just a system that forces a choice that should be aesthetic and for story, but lock player power behind it for no reason to make it “important” and screw over people that care about player power.

blizzard design all of these things and they implement the numbers so its absolutely blizzard creating this issue, because if all the giga brains that theorycraft had any say in it they would be swappable and this wouldnt be a problem. regardless of what players do or think there will always be a better choice because thats how math works, and its up to blizz to figure that out, because we dont have that power.

vote kicking people from queueable content wouldnt make any sense at all, people are just being d*cks at that point, but it will absolutely make people not get invited to pugs for M+ and they are perfectly justified in making that decision.

so you are more than happy to invite people that are going to make the content you are trying to complete more difficult for the sake of it, you are going to be willing to potentially waste a couple hours of your time because blizzard cant design systems like this correctly even though plenty of people are giving them the solutions and have been for months.

same as previous response, if you have a choice between 2 of the same class where one of them has the best covenant and one has the worst, when some of them are a good 10-20% dps difference which would you pick, and why should people pick the person thats going to be doing less?

2 Likes

Yes, I do, I really do. And you are correct, there is nothing wrong with wanting your character to progress, heck I’ve just spent Xp for a Videocall Tabletop RPG tonight to improve my character. I know that full well.

Absolutely agree. I’ve just put points into ‘Piloting’ for my character in an RPG game. Why? Because I -chose- to play a Pilot. Would that have been the most useful skill for the party? No, probably Firearms or Persuasion would have been, but I chose Piloting, even though it will have no impact upon our gaming session tonight. Why? Because it is -my- character and the rest of the group don’t get to decide what is the best skills for me to have. Trust me, I’ve done pen and paper for more than 30 years as GM and player, I know how it works. (And still find it devilishly good fun!)

Thats the dichotomy I’m driving at here, I completely get people’s point, Blizzard are making some Covenants more desirable in terms of -abilities- and so people want to be able to choose those abilities, especially as people are saying that certain abilities are more desirable in PuG’s, but the thing is, you -can- choose those abilities, however at the cost of the ethos of your character. I’m going Ardenweald on my main, because it fits the character, not because it maxes his stats.(It really doesn’t) Now admittedly I am an RPer, not a Raider by any means, but the point I am trying to make is that the instant we make character choices based on what would be desirable to -others- is it really our character anymore? Do I need a streamer to tell me how to make my character for peak performance or should i just make my character the way -I- want to, it being ‘My’ character.

Do people forming Pug’s have the right to go “Wrong Covenant for this Dungeon/Raid” and kick me? Sure they do. They’d be Jerks for doing so, but they have the right to. I equally have the right to consider them absolute jerks for letting the stats play them, not actually playing the game.

Thats fine.

But that is -us- as players making that choice, not Blizzard.

To use your analogy, this would be like a player in Dungeons and Dragons going “Yeah, you can’t come on our Dungeon party, we already have one Rogue, we don’t need another” “Oh, thats fine, I’ll instantly become a Priest instead!”

It takes time and xp to multiclass, and you can’t even change class in D&D (Unless that has changed with 5th edition), just the same as it takes time and effort to swap Covenants.

No, it isn’t. Every player has the agency to make their own choice, and you should always go with “What is fun?” rather than “What will top the DPS meter?” because at that point, you’re not playing for fun, you’re playing for peer pressure .

I agree with you there.

I agree. The Covenant system does seem to be flawed, because they are so different in nature that of course the abilities will be different, and so some will have better utility in different ways, but there does have to be a certain restriction. I can re-spec from Marksman to Survival if the situation needs it, but I can’t re-spec from Hunter to Paladin just because it is more desirable for a PuG.

These things have always been in place, so what I’m driving at is “Why is this suddenly a problem -Now- as opposed to having been a problem since the game started?”

so what your are saying is, it would make most sense for people to get the choice to play the way that they want to. and yet your are disagreeing with someone that is asking for the choice to be able to play my way… that makes sense.

im not trying to make decisions based on what other people will want, im trying to make a decision based on what i want, thats what im being told im not allowed to do. thats where my problem is, i couldnt give a crap what other people are expecting of me, i want my character to be the best it can be, and now im being told im not allowed to. the simple solution here is exactly what everyone is asking for, lock us in to our covenant choice, because no one really has a problem there, just make the class abilities seperate and add them to as a talent row, so that we can change them. that is the easiest solution and solves the majority of the issues here, soulbinds are still somewhat problematic but thats a completely different issue.

for a lot of players those 2 things are one in the same, for me i want my character to be strong, so which ever the stronger choice is will be the most fun, unfortunately thats where we are hitting a brick wall because different choices are better and therefore more fun in different situations and we are only allowed 1 choice,

these class abilities are designed exactly the same as talents are, some of them are even old talents being reintroduced in some ways, so why cant we swap them around like we can with all of our other talents.

no one is asking to just be able to press a button and all of a sudden be a different class, imagine covenants are classes and the abilities are the specs, im more than happy to stick with venthyr as my class, but i would rather have the necrolord spec for a given piece of content, and there is absolutely no good reason why i shouldnt be able to, the whole RPG element argument makes no sense within the context of the game, because of the way blizz have written it.

Monk situation on Covenants is bit spec dependent atm.

For WW Kyrian and Fae are pretty trashy in terms of output. They are mainly about offering more resources (Chi, Energy) which is exactly what WW does not need. WW needs way to spend Chi, not gain it. As icing on the cake, the Kyrain one buffs your mastery (which rests upon you not spamming the same ability twice) whilst also flooding you with Chi which means to get rid of it you either need to spam the same ability twice, or use suboptimal abilities (like an aoe ability in a ST situation) to offload the chi and save mastery.

Venthyr is okay for output for WW, but it’s pretty boring and not very interactive. The adds cast fists of fury, so basically it’s a “summon pets that deal damage” cd. Easily best for ST, probably best for small target as well, but where more and more adds, join, i’d argue bonedust probably gets a bigger advantage depending on how dumb the pet ai is.

Necro can be decent in cleave/aoe situations but again, it’s not very exciting. It essentially just makes your abilities have a chance to hit harder, and makes your primary spammable aoe cheaper (but spamming violates mastery…so we have this problem again) but it will pull numbers in higher target situations, potentially more than ven

So for Ww it looks like Venthyr (ST) Necro (AOE) with Fae and Kyrian being niche picks where the gains they could have (the Kyrian mastery buff is pretty big) create too many issues in capitalising on that gain smoothly, whereas Venthyr just gives you free numbers, no questions asked.

Regarding BRM. Kyrian is actually pretty good as mastery can be useful, the reset on keg is alright and the extra damage taken makes it a good aoe dps cooldown

Venthyr is a bit meh, the monk adds cast breath of fire. If they interfere with targetting this may be a no go. I’d say Kyrian is a more reliable source of damage and has defensive benefits.

Necro has same damage benefits as WW, but it makes your energy spenders refund your brews quicker too. I’d say this one offers potentially less damage than kyrian, by more defensively by allowing you to quickly chain a couple of Celestial Brews. Would probably work nicely in a Blackout Combo build.

Night Fae is a another source of AOE damage and the additional effect is it casts breath of fire on damaged targets. The uptime for BoF is already quite high, so I wouldn’t say this is super essential. BrM do have lots of abilities that hit many targets however, so chaining the Faeline should realistically be quite easy. Primarily an offensive cooldown (probably one of the better ones) but the defensive benefits aren’t amazing.

I’d say the better ones for Brewmaster stand as Kyrian/Necro, followed by Night Fae, then Venthyr

Mistweaver kyrian gets a free essence font on their use, and it heals more at start and finish. at 2 mins this is a pretty big cooldown what is essentially a “refresh essence font” cooldown, although the power of the bonus heals may make it worth it. The thing about it is Mastery is generally good for Monks in dungeons (which this ability buffs) but Essence Font is your raid spamming ability, so the two components of this ability don’t match up perfectly. Raiding Monks prio crit over mastery given it buffs essence font in addition to buffing gust of mists healing (by allowing it to crit)

Venthyr shadow monks heal with enveloping mists. This could be a nice additional throughput cooldown in situations where the group will need some stable recovery. As EM causes all of your other heals to heal for 30-40% more, this almost behaves as a raw healing buff given the adds will semi-reliably spread EM around for you. Could be decent in raids but i think dungeon more.

Bonedust brew makes gusts of mists heal for more on affected targets. This will be a nice small (1 min) cd which is pretty nice for dungeons I figure to give your general ST and AOE a bit of a pop, but will not save anyone from death instantly, which Kyrian could situation depending.

Faeline Stomp causes you to heal nearby allies with one bolt from Essence font when you stomp. This will be nice for Fistweaver builds as it will build some gentle aoe healing in your dps rotation and give you some decent aoe damage.

MW is probably most balanced imo. Each one has some use somewhere, and the main difference between them is whether you fistweave or not, and whether you value having a party triage button, an easy to use “healing boost” which is location bound, or a potentially higher healing boost overall but requires you to smart target for the duration.

Faeline is good for fistweavers (in whatever content they’re in).
Kyrian is triage cooldown for aoe, giving instant aoe healing and then buffing mastery for vivify. Could see use in raids or dungeons
Venthyr will give you “free” healing without you having to do anything, so decent for PvP situations or situations where you may have to move around a bit or can’t afford to cast. The free healing will be weaker without you working “with it” to capitalise on the EM 30-40% buff however so I think this cooldown could be very good in hands of a skilled MW as it will allow you to benefit from EM without wasting time on casting it if you prio the targets and check who your disciples are targetting. Kyrian is more intuitive to use however, as is Bonedust. They will “heal more” if you “do less”, but Ven will probably heal more if you “do more” in a multi target situation at least. I think Bonedust will still beat it ST.
Necrolord is better for easy ST healing than the other three due to the flat mastery boost, plus the trigger chance on the proc being flat and Monks generate a lot of “ticks” on focus targets a second, meaning you’ll get a lot of mileage on this trait. It has some aoe applications due to the base effect, and the mastery buff doubling with with font’s “double proc” effect. It is location bound however, which is a limitation. I’d say this will probably be better than Kyrian for “general” throughput in similar situations, but it is not a triage cooldown, you have to anticipate in advance when you’ll need it, whereas Kyrian offers you an instant “heal the party!” button. In situations where you don’t want to play with disciples and tracking them, this will be better.

Thus ends my monk speculations.

Unfortunately this will fall on deaf ears for those who prefer to min-max their characters. For many of them fun = performance rather than gameplay choices that may suit their playstyle better.

Player agency is nice (and I do like the idea of it) but those higher and top end guilds (and some lower ones too) will be requiring absolute conformance when it comes to picking the “right” covenants etc. You can’t stop it now that WoW players have become so heavy in theory crafting and simulating their characters before they do anything new like enchanting or equiping gear.

Okay i’ll list each ability as taken from the in-game spellbook(talents excluded as they are spec specific):

Retribution: Avenging Wrath, Blade of Justice, Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Protection, Cleanse Toxins, Contemplation, Crusader Strike, Divine Shield, Divine Steed, Divine Storm, Flash of Light, Greater Blessing of Kings, Greater Blessing of Wisdom, Hammer of Justice, Hand of Hindrance, Hand of Reckoning, Judgment, Lay on Hands, Rebuke, Redemption, Shield of Vengeance, Templar’s Verdict, Art of War(passive), Heart of the Crusader (passive), Mastery: Hand of Light (passive

- 25 total Retribution abilities

Holy: Absolution, Aura Mastery, Avenging Wrath, Beacon of Light, Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Protection, Blessing of Sacrifice, Cleanse, Consecration, Contemplation, Crusader Strike, Divine Protection, Divine Shield, Divine Steed, Flash of Light, Hammer of Justice, Hand of Reckoning, Holy Light, Holy Shock, Judgment, Lay on Hands, Light of Dawn, Light of the Martyr, Redemption, Heart of the Crusader (passive), Infusion of Light (passive), Mastery: Lightbringer

- 27 total Holy abilities

Protection: Ardent Defender, Avenger’s Shield, Avenging Wrath, Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Protection, Blessing of Sacrifice, Cleanse Toxins, Consecration, Contemplation, Divine Shield, Divine Steed, Flash of Light, Guardian of Ancient Kings, Hammer of Justice, Hammer of the Righteous, Hand of Reckoning, Judgment, Lay on Hands, Light of the Protector, Rebuke, Redemption, Shield of the Righteous, Grand Crusader (passive), Heart of the Crusader (passive), Mastery: Divine Bulwark (passive)

- 25 total Protection abilities

The abilities shared between all 3 specs are: Avenging Wrath, Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Protection, Contemplation, Divine Shield, Divine Steed, Flash of Light, Hammer of Justice, Hand of Reckoning, Judgment, Lay on Hands, Redemption, Heart of the Crusader (passive)

- 13 abilities shared between all 3 specs

Abilities shared between Ret and Holy: Crusader Strike.

Abilities shared between Ret and Prot: Cleanse Toxins, Rebuke

Abilities shared between Holy and Prot: Blessing of Sacrifice, Consecration, Divine Protection

Also in Shadowlands there will be even more baseline abilities: Word of Glory, Hammer of Wrath, Turn Evil, Sense Undead, Consecration, Shield of the Righteous, Blessing of Protection, Retribution Aura, Crusader Aura, Devotion Aura, Concentration Aura.

As you can see, for ret and prot more than half of their abilities are shared with the class and for holy almost half and in Shadowlands even more.
That is the paladin class, specs are its sub-classes. :slight_smile:

We’re obviously talking about the issue here, which is rejoining a covenant.

You went through all of this effort to argue semantics, not what is actually being said.

Not quite. I’m saying that we -have- the option to play the way we want, but that it is other players who are dictating whether that play style is ‘correct’ or ‘desirable’ in a PuG. You can choose whatever Covenant you want, and get those abilities. It is other players who form groups. Not Blizz.

You argued that there is no class, that there are only sub-specs which would make them the class.

I proved you wrong with actual data.

Now… let’s go back to the original issue.
The covenants are not sub-specs, they are mini-factions with power benefits.

This is stupid, this is wrong, this goes against players playing how they want to play.

This affects gameplay, it constricts it to arbitrary rules set by Blizzard, rules which are actually just time-gating the fun out of the expac.

1 Like

No, you’re arguing about semantics because that’s all you have.

I’m talking about having the ability to attach a new set of skills and talents to your current character, having options and you’re all about “but fury is already a subclass”. Who CARES, mate, engage with the damned ideas that are being talked about, forget about semantics. So much of this discussion was wasted on your inability to engage with ideas.

I’m saying this - covenants are a subclass, where you have 4 subclasses, each of which requires some time spent to level it up, and you can swap them with small hassle. Each subclass gives your class new skills and new talent trees. And if you insist on being dense, we can call them sub-subclasses.

If you want, call that idea wrong, criticize it, do all of that, then we can have a discussion. This, the thing you’re doing right now, is a waste of time.

I was thinking about this and I’m not sure if 8wqs is good. While making it take 2 days (or more) would be fine, the limitation shouldn’t be imposed by the game. Imagine wanting to switch back to your old covenant, and you do what you can today… and that’s it, you can’t do more. You don’t want to play your current covenant… you don’t want to play the game for today.

I’m not really sure how I feel about it taking 2 days, but in reality 2 hours of playing. While leveling Legion reps, I would often clean all of a zone’s WQs before doing the questing there. Then I would get a quest to do X amount of WQs and there wouldn’t be any WQs up so I was left with nothing to do in the zone… and I hated that.

its not specifically WQs you just have to complete activities in the given zone of the covenant you want to rejoin, killing rares, looting treasures and other such things will also count towards it.

Honestly Blizzard should have just given the four covenants all 4 ability sets from the start and let us talent between them.
But they’d make it work if they just changed the visuals to look like they belong in each covenant. For example the Night Fae DK move is basically a blue circle on the ground, for Necrolords it would be green, white for Kyrian and red for Venthyr. It would keep the “feel” of each covenant while letting players choose between the abilities.

2 Likes

As long as you can just… power farm it and the game doesn’t stop you, it should be fine. I need to see it for myself, it can be a slog. I was predicting Blizz would ask you to do the covenant’s emissary before you could rejoin it, but from what you’re saying they’ve done double that, which may be too much.

i dont know if they found some more information since the post i saw on wowhead last night, it said something about activities including world quests, rare, and treasures, but at the time only the rares were working properly on beta