Shadowlands: A Look at Covenant Class and Signature Abilities *Updated 5/13

[Grondash-kazzak]

Thats why there are no rpg elements in wow anymore. Once they try to put one in, most people go wild rampage hur hur zug zug mode.

[Paxmillian-argent-dawn]

A choice is not meaningful if that choice is not really a choice at all.

Lets say I am a raider and I’m picking a covenant, one will stand out- it is the obvious choice if I’m using performance as my metric. The others do not compare.

My choice is meaningful because I can’t go back on it, but I never made it in a meaningful way. That doesn’t make sense. I’m pushed into it and then being told changing my mind comes with penance to work through.

That’s not meaningful in a positive way , that’s the illusion of meaning hiding behind punitive measures.

People can talk about stuff like themes, RP, or simply like as reasons for choices. They’re all good, but way are the people who choose because of performance being punished?

[Amonet-stormrage]

literally everything else in the covenants is an RPG element.

[Totoroe-silvermoon]

Whats going to annoy me is that I want the Necrolord wings but I doubt their ability for me will be suitable for raiding so I will need to choose another for dps >.<

[Pacmon-argent-dawn]

Please do not make the mistake of locking abilities or talents to Covenants. They should be a purely cosmetic, estethique and lore/RP choice. Treat them as you did Class Order Halls, to give flavour and story.

[Lahis-sylvanas]

@Tahra-earthen-ring

This is just silly. You can’t know that. Not yet.
So just wait until the armors are datamined. And THEN decide.
You know… making an INFORMED decision instead of a ‘gut feeling’ decision.

Whether you like plate armor or not is irrelevant if you plan on playing a druid.
The style might be completely different for the other armor types; we simply don’t know this yet. But there IS a precedent for this; look at the armor sets in BfA and how much quality difference there is between them, even if they all shared the same theme. So yeah… just wait and KNOW, instead of ‘feel’.

Aren’t you yourself making gut feeling decision? We don’t know Night Fae mail armor or Hunter abilities, yet you are dead set on picking them?

[Grondash-kazzak]

Then remove the covenants, remove torgas, let us return to bg and raids only, remove anima. And we have a 8.4 content patch. Yay.

Also remove classes, let be 3 role 3 char, with 2-3 spells. Balance solved.

[Tahra-earthen-ring (Tahra)]

@Chapchap-pozzo-delleternità

If covenants worked like talents I’d hav no problem with them, it’s literally what I’m asking for lmao.

They do! You pick one of 4.
BAM. Done.
You can even switch. You can. It’ll just not be ‘easy’ to switch. Which is GOOD.

@Chapchap-pozzo-delleternità

The important choice should be what ability gives me the best advantage in what I’m curretly doing

Well, we disagree on that notion then.
I will pick what I LIKE and not what I think is best. Because I play for FUN.

@Chapchap-pozzo-delleternità

Now making a choice once and forgetting about doesn’t make it important either, it just makes it restrictive.

You can switch.

@Chapchap-pozzo-delleternità

i didn’t enjoy having to pay to change traits on my azerite

I don’t get this either. I’ve literally NEVER changed my azerite traits.
Why would you? Pick what you like and use those. It’s FINE.

@Chapchap-pozzo-delleternità

I would not have enjoyed not being able to change my talents in classic/tbc

I actually DID enjoy that and I was a bit sad when they introduced re-speccing.
But… it did allow for some experimentation I suppose. It wasn’t all bad.

@Chapchap-pozzo-delleternità

I already expirienced having the same talent set-up for all of an expansion because they didn’t touch one signle talent of MM for almost all of bfa, not looking forward to another 2 years of that.

And here we are total opposites. I play BM because I love it. And I rarely even change out my talents. I like what I like and I master that way of playing. That is what I enjoy.

[Pacmon-argent-dawn]

Please do not make the mistake of locking unique powers and abilities to covenants. Covenants should be a purely cosmetic and esthetique choice that gives flavour to the game and unique stories, much like you did with Class Order Halls.

[Paxmillian-argent-dawn]

There are ways to accomplish RP feeling without it being by way of forcing limitations on player performance to shoehorn them into either mythic, raids or PvP and calling it “RP decision making”.

Also wow has plenty of RPG elements. Mogs, races, racials, classes. Lots of choices that stem from possible RPG motivations. What players are afraid of is how they play their class further being determined by such choices. Swapping between game modes has never been locked behind a grind. If I have a raid set, and a mythic set, I can do whichever I want. If you lock abilities that confer 20% or so performance boosts behind arduous grinds you’re introducing a timegating into the game for the benefit of exploring multiple ways to play whenever you feel like doing so.

“Just run it with the subpar cov ability” of course i can. What I’m saying though is once you’ve grinded any gear etc you’ve never had to run subpar to explore another game mode unless you’re prepared to grind. Once the initial grind/gearing was over, it’s done. This mechanic seems to suggest that whoever you fancy switching it up, you either engage in chorish content to perform optimally or you perform suboptimally or you don’t play that other mode at all. That doesn’t sound very positive to me.

There are ways to make the game better for Alts which don’t involve making switching between content types so annoying you’re inclined to level Alts to avoid engaging with the swap mechanic at all.

[Sylvare-argent-dawn (Sylvare)]

Never ever EVER before in the history of wow has the choice of core class mechanics locked you out of the other options and for very good reason, that’s not fun.
Imagine if you chose a talent now, only to hear that you’d have to grind several days (at best) worth in order to swap it over to another talent?

Keep covenant specific abilities in there, absolutely fine, but doing this for core class mechanics which will decide just how your class is played are as impactful if not more impactful then talents can really only go downhill

[Elias-drakthul]

And iguess what those people are majority so why cutter fun content for majority just becouse few min maxers?

[Chapchap-pozzo-delleternità]

@Tahra-earthen-ring

They do! You pick one of 4.
BAM. Done.
You can even switch. You can. It’ll just not be ‘easy’ to switch. Which is GOOD.

They literally said that they are designing them with people not switching them in mind, they want the ability to switch to be a last resort instead of having to reroll another char because you regretted your decision that much. It’s not the same in the slightest and if you can’t see that you need new glasses.

@Tahra-earthen-ring

You can switch.

what i said above.

@Tahra-earthen-ring

I will pick what I LIKE and not what I think is best. Because I play for FUN.

cool! I do too! you know what i enjoy? picking the spell that does aoe damage because it’s literally made to do aoe damage, and i want to do aoe. Don’t care about sims, don’t care about Bis, if i read that does aoe i prefer it in aoe situations, siple as that.

@Tahra-earthen-ring

I don’t get this either. I’ve literally NEVER changed my azerite traits.
Why would you? Pick what you like and use those. It’s FINE.

because some of them have interesting passives that change how you play certain types of content, they are few but they exist. I would like to use what they put in the game without having to keep 3 of the same azzerite piece but with different traits selected, let’s not talk about wanting to play 2 specs of the same class, better stock up on a stupid number of azerite or change it once every vlue moon!

[Elias-drakthul]

No i am casual player and i dont want to covenants be another just cosmetic garbage. Game have alredy enough of this garbage alredy. Also it makes my choices of covenants matter less so not thanks.

[Tahra-earthen-ring (Tahra)]

@Lahis-sylvanas

Aren’t you yourself making gut feeling decision? We don’t know Night Fae mail armor or Hunter abilities, yet you are dead set on picking them?

Yes. Because of several reasons:

• I don’t like the Kyrians. Nothing about their aesthetic appeals to me.
• The necrolords don’t fit my hunter’s fantasy
• The venthyr; I like the look of these guys, but again; they don’t fit my hunter’s fantasy.
• The Night Fae fit my hunter’s fantasy the most. They’re the most ‘nature’ based of all the covenants.

So my choice is clear. I WILL level alts and experience the other covenants on characters where those covenants will fit them and their aesthetics.

So no, I’m not making a gut feeling decision. I don’t care care what the Night Fae mail armor will look like; if I like it; I might use it, but I’m not getting my hopes up because mail armor usually looks like garbage (why do you think I mostly wear my current transmog - a non-mail set I actually paid for).
I don’t care about the ability: it will be one button on my bar (which might be way fuller with the unpruning), so yeah… If it’s like the other abilities hunters are getting, I care even less because they’re all ‘shots’. I play beastmaster. I want beasts. I want summons. I want that sort of stuff. THAT is what I enjoy. So one shot or another doesn’t appeal to me.

[Cardiz-tarren-mill]

@Tahra-earthen-ring

I’ve NEVER, literally never, been kicked for such a reason. And I’ve never min maxed either

Well you seem to only be doing lfr so perhaps thats one explanation

[Stacie-tarren-mill]

I am going to keep this simple… Ether make this stuff not work in instanced content, or remove it all together. I, like most will just pick whatever is the “best”. Please don’t make me roll 4 of the same class…

Players who pick the best and feel good about it, wont be happy when the best gets nerfed then feels like a poor choice. Swapping is dumb as hell. Just have these offer cosmetic awards so we can all just pick the one we like.

If i wanted to play sub optimal i would not use gems or enchants, or use the wrong ones!

[Tahra-earthen-ring (Tahra)]

@Cardiz-tarren-mill

Well you seem to only be doing lfr so perhaps thats one explanation

I have done all types of content in the past.

[Skodspil-twisting-nether]

Yep like people have been doing in this game for just how many years? 15?

yikes

[Tahra-earthen-ring (Tahra)]

@Stacie-tarren-mill

I am going to keep this simple… Ether make this stuff not work in instanced content, or remove it all together. I, like most will just pick whatever is the “best”.

And what if ‘determining the best’ simply isn’t possible? What then?
Will you be a little lost sheep? Be your own person; pick what you LIKE.