How is The Covenant System So Far?

[@EDHCoffee]

Mike you said it: "I'd rather have wasted my time being wrong than to stay silent and have another BFA".

[@Idividezero]

The number 1 thing that worries me about the system is that the game will come out, and 2 months into it they gut the most popular choice instead of fixing the other ones.

[@XAn0nymousX0]

YEP. And then they'll wait until 9.3 to let players switch covenants but only when the "covenant trainer" is available on the 3rd tuesday of the month between 3 to 5 PM in a random spot in the world.

[@bradduvall4599]

@@XAn0nymousX0 Random spots that you have to go to wowhead to find . . .

[@alexanderpondarius8586]

@@bradduvall4599 so next to the pvp vendor?

[@Snagprophet]

People are gonna swap from covenants and then Blizzard will make the one they just left the best one

[@xWhackoJacko]

which is kind of what they always do. they don't elevate things that aren't performing as well as x, they just get x to bring it DOWN to y. nerfs don't feel good, ever. buffs feel great, always.

[@aandrenery]

Please Blizzard, listen to this.

[@Zim087]

Just waiting for M+ in shadowlands where a lot of ppl wont be accepted into a group, if they are not in a certain Covenant. Thats going to be fun, right?

[@magnuskno]

Very probably you'll get exclusively "Venthyr only!" group restrictions in the group finder. This is an incredible shit show in the making. Can't wait to see how Taliesien and Evitel will inevitably try to defend this.

[@kerstinschulze1882]

was exactly my thougth on this topic ^^... i have a heal monk and choose panda as race and you wouldnt believe how often i got ask to turn him into a nigthelf just for shadowmelting in m+ ... we have that problem already with races to a degree if you want to run high m+ u should go for nigthelfs or bloodelfs (or be a stupborn panda XD ) .. i dont want to have the same scenario on covenants there i have to choose a covenant that i dont find appealing just for a certain power spike in m+ or raiding ... -.-'

[@lastigesoma6126]

@@kerstinschulze1882 Lol I would never change my panda to a nelf to please a few sweaty neckbeards

[@martinbrankov8504]

Ohh shit sounds bad!

[@devin7683]

Then make your own grp not hard bud

[@Argennon]

As a new-ish player to this game, it makes me really disillusioned when I see some of the Blizzard design choices. Azerite armour was really annoying for me, because it punished me if I wanted to try out the other specs on my class - either I go out and farm for more hard to get armour so I can put different traits on it, or I spend what little gold I have on respeccing the traits. I now look at their decision to "make the covenant choice more meaningful" and making it hard to swap... just because some top level players were able to change their choices whenever they wanted? Very often it feels like they're punishing the little guy (and most of their other playerbase) in order to reign in the very few players who are doing something they don't like. Is just the same as with Torghast. The freedom of choice does SO much for the general health of the game, and they always seem to hate allowing players to change their decisions whenever they want to. Let me play my character the way I want to, and I'll keep playing and enjoying the game.

[@drummerguy438]

You’re not wrong. The game being balanced around the highest echelons isn’t great. However do keep in mind, for years now, they have put catch up and QoL in the game as the xpac keeps going. I suspect they’ll give us the ability to swap easier

[@2000ekyle]

Sadly if Blizz doesn't balance around the top .05% of players they can't monetize the wow esports they've had such a huge raging boner for the past few years. If those top players are allowed to do some sick overpowered shit then suddenly World First Mythics, M+ races and Arenas aren't interesting enough to make money in Blizzard's eyes.

[@anomalyevolution40]

@@drummerguy438 thats the problem ....they shouldn't need a catch up mechanic to fix the grind from hell they created. They're basically selling you the same content except now it's the completed version.

[@EndOfExistence1337]

@@2000ekyle Blizz doesn't make anything from the world first race. And if they were balancing for the top, they would've made very different decisions. No, the problem is they wanna balance the game around the most casual player AND the most hardcore player at the same time. Which will never work.

[@JROCThaGreat]

@@EndOfExistence1337 exactly, it's the clash between the high end and super casual is the problem.

[@No-Me3]

"Our solution is to create no wrong answer!" That's a goal, not a solution. Sounds like a politician's answer to how they would solve a problem.

[@GrahamBarth]

"Our solution is to crowdsource a solution!"

[@scoops2]

My solution to world hunger is that everybody has food

[@tomekkruk6147]

It will backfire and bite them in the ass. Scrap that whole covenant idea, because it's just not going to work. Or make it a quality of life/lore/cosmetic decision with no impact on how your char actually performs. New abilities can be added in an additional talent tier. It's simple, by all means it's not a indistry changing idea, seems a little repetitive and boring, but in the end it works.

[@WasabiCannon]

and that goal is never going to be possible. Players will always theory craft the shit out of your game and find the best options.

[@onlylettersand0to9]

@@WasabiCannon " Players will always theory craft the shit out of your game and find the best options." It's worse than that. There will be PVP and PVE theory-crafted builds, they won't be compatible with each other, and Blizzard will expect players to do both on the same character.

[@Newbtuber]

Blizzard logic - "Over the years we fear that we have removed too much RPG element from an mmo-RPG game. So instead of bringing them back, we are now going to add a really convoluted system that is impossible to balance and won't make anyone happy which are also balanced by 4 other system."

[@Zestyable]

@@hackintosh3899 Agreed. I wanted to give Ion a chance, but after he decided to make the GCD change, I just can't support him. I can see some of the dumb changes they have added like rotating corruption vendor to keep people subbed as a good business decision, even if it's terrible for the player. But the GCD change? There's no logic behind it. No one asked for it, and it won't help them look good as a company. In fact, it probably lost them a healthy number of loyal fans. It's truly mind-boggling.

[@Amandor2011]

@@hackintosh3899 agree with almost everything but Asmongold advicing people to go play Classic first is absolutely stupid Because slow, grindy, punishing classic can easily be bad for people who came from MOBA games or Battle-Royal games, they probably would more like dynamic(even though gcd bullshit hurts that) playstyle of retail And looking on Classic these people would just stop playing because it's not for them Imo you should try retail first and if you are a person who prefers slow, more social-oriented playstyle(who are sadly a minority compared to people who like to compete in videogames and do that fast and that's why vice-versa doesn't work) you then go and try Classic

[@Fabriciod_Crv]

@@hackintosh3899 >asmongold >influencer talk about completely invalidating your entire point.

[@nurbsivonsirup1416]

I'm guessing Blizzard's design descisions of the past years have one positive: they finally made me try private servers. Now I play Pandaria and WotLK for free. Joke's ok you, Blizz ...

[@PolarizedxD]

@@Fabriciod_Crv denying that Asmongold is an influencer in the WoW community is pretty weird.

[@10N154T10N]

Keep It Simple, Stupid. I love the idea of Covenants... in a single-player game. It would be a great way to let everyone play whatever the hell they want however the fuck they want. In an MMO? It the current form I feel the goals of this system collide with the restrictions put on it. It's too complex and too tied with player power/utility to be effective "meaningful choice", in a game that puts social/systemic pressures on players to conform to certain standards.

[@yaboy5228]

@Jimmy Difference is that Torghast is an isolated environment of which the only influence it has on the rest of the game is the acquisition of your Legendary item's materials.

[@jotunn30]

@@nrtwitty man this comment is just beyond stupid...why should it be on players to hamper themselves just so you don't "just follow exactly how the 1% play the game and what icyveins tells them to do". If Blizzard can't design talent trees to not always have a clear winner(usually by a landslide) in almost every row it's not the players' fault for choosing that clearly better talent...and in general imagine having this philosophy to anything else in life where you feel like it's a bad thing to use knowledge from people more qualified than you..like seriously what the fuck are you on dude?

[@ThePolarpop]

@@nrtwitty or maybe i want to be able to change what im using based on my enjoyment in the content im trying to do ? Because maybe i enjoy 1 choice mechanically in raid or m+ but hate how it feels and plays vs a real player in PvP?

[@GameMageVideos]

The intial design for the signature abilities unveiled at Blizzcon were great. They were all teleport/movement abilties seemingly designed for M+ skipping, thereby solving the rogue problem. Changing them to all do different things was a bad choice.

[@petervillent5573]

More like doublying a rogue problem. Cuz rogue / dh still have their utility on top of more utility from convenants.

[@GameMageVideos]

@@petervillent5573 Well the fundamental issue was needing a rogue in your group in order to skip large sections of the dungeon. This would have negated that. Edit: Also the brez/reincarnation death skip stuff. Would've fixed that too.

[@PolarizedxD]

@@GameMageVideos yeah ignore him every rogue is crying right now they have essentially lost their position to DH/Hunter/DK stacks who do more damage after the awaken affix dropped

[@myskoum3246]

So systems with systems on top of other systems. This I have seen before.

[@alpha-y5b]

As your leveling and helping the individual covenants I believe the covenant should teach you the talent not just let you borrow it. Kind of like "Hey, you helped us out so here is a talent you can equip when you need it." Then let it go in the top of the soul bind tree or a separate location where it can be switched out.

[@knivesoutcatchdamouse2137]

This seems already like a better idea than what they came up with.

[@andrewshandle]

I'd only like it if it was cosmetic and/or passive only. Eight new active abilities on top of everything returning for the class is an awful lot to heap on players.

[@lamentz27]

@@andrewshandle Doesn't have to be all at once. Staggering them a week at a time would give players time to learn and adjust playstyle as necessary while also not having to wait forever to get that one ability that is literally the best if they happened to pick the wrong one the first time.

[@Madsciencegg]

or just make them in your spellbook general tab so you always have access to them. but honestly just throw the venthyr one away because the perma skipping people will do in every dungeon with it adds nothing fun or valuable to gameplay.

[@Paul-zh2jp]

i agree. i've suggested the same exact thing before. if you spend time with each covenant, it makes sense within the game that you could learn abilities from each of them. but it's blizzard...they'll never do something that makes sense this early in the expansion

[@NothingCoherent]

new talent row instead

[@j0dance]

Absolutely, completely hit the nail on the head. I spent the first X amount of minutes of this video thinking "what cov would I pick" and then I saw the venthyr and was immediately sold. Blizz should just realistically ditch the signature abilities, or stick them onto legendaries so everyone can have the option. If covenants remained purely aesthetic; either spell colours, transmogs, mounts and so on - fewer people would care, and it would increase the RPG element of the game. Regardless, good vid, great point. Even if it gets "fixed" it needs to be said. (y)

[@28lester]

Making a choice so watered down and bland so that people 'dont care' will precisely have the opposite impact on RPG.

[@Xclusive89]

@@28lester People care alot about cool looking transmogs. Look at how popular mage towers were.

[@j0dance]

@Kent Arnold And then when we inevitably have to switch covenants because they have "fixed" it we will undoubtedly be punished for switching, because they don't want us to....

[@Asin24]

Covenant should of always been focused on cosmetics giving cosmetic effects to your class abilities or spells, with perhaps a random world ability that is unable to be used in raids or pvp. I don't get how they can't recognize how bad of an idea it is with the covenant with the current system they have.

[@fruntastic4257]

Dude, you just solved the problem in a youtube comment. I totally agree that this would be the best solution, also solves the problem of, hey im a venthyr but you couldnt tell cause i havent used that red ability yet. Thank you

[@kroksnak]

So, your solution is to make an entire new system in a game... completely useless? Let's also make all the legendaries into cosmetics, because it's hard to balance them. 90% of players don't give a shit about cosmetics, it's not FFXIV for god's sake. I'm so glad Blizzard doesn't listen to folks like you.

[@cyrielroelofs]

Well this comment partially gives a sollution to the main problem with covenants, which is: On one hand, they're asking players which theme, story and appearances they'd like to immerse themselves in. On the other hand, they're making players decide what abilities/passives they have to use. In many cases, players want to choose the covenant which performs best. But what if you do not like the story, or the appearamce that comes with it? Still better to pick a appearance set that doesn't suit you, instead of not getting invited in groups because of your wrongly chosen covenant passives/abilities. A weird system nonetheless.

[@cyrielroelofs]

@@kroksnak Ignorant and stupid reply right there, there are tons and i say TONS of players interested in more cosmetic rewarding systems. The transmog system which is pretty new and is absolutely crucial the game at this point, the game is so much more than just improving your character. For example, many different WoW content creaters had this idea of a new 'garrisson' type of player owned house, which you could decorate yourself with alot of achieved cosmetic options. Which you could then show off to your friends or other players. This idea only got MASSIVE positive attention among the WoW community. Oh and also, useless? cosmetic items or appearences are the ONLY systems not useless in an MMO like wow. Improving your character? Who cares about your 470 ilvl gear when shadowlands launches. But what if you had a garrisson system, in which you could hang up a massive shield(?) on your wall showing you killed Mythic Nzoth within the BfA expanion. The cosmetic is still there showing you did that 5 expensions from now, playing the game is more rewarding because gear will be patched in no time.

[@manchester_nathan]

Blizzard- “were just going to let gear be gear” Everyone- *wildy clapping finally thinking blizz has learned a valuable lesson* Blizzard- “now for your classes, we’re going to make sure there no possible way for you to enjoy the ‘meaningful choices’ we give you as we work really hard to balance the 5 new features that nobody asked for!!! :)”

[@MarekPar743]

I like how the damage aspect of all those abilities (something that Blizzard is notoriously bad at) is the least of our problems.

[@ignispurgatorius5297]

This is probably the "scariest" thing about it. They have never managed to balance damage, something that at least on paper is possible. Blancing vague concepts of utility on the other hand..

[@HollowPlane]

What if they added more to the covenant specific abilities? Venthyr would remain the same. Long range teleport OP. Kyrian owlbear potion also gives haste and a small amount of leech. Necrolords shield functions similar to a pally bubble, but instead can take 2-5 hits before breaking and shares a CD with similar abilities. (To protect against Paladins from being immune from damage forever, maybe using one causes the other to go into a 30-60 second cooldown state) Or make it a bigger shield that breaks after either maximum damage has been taken or a certain number of hits to it. *Spit balling for this one* Night Fae can maybe just be movement speed focused. Upping the movement speed and blink range might be necessary.

[@snp73]

talking about the exact things I'm wondering about, on point like always preacher.

[@XiLock_Alotx]

Smh

[@CalypHo]

Covenenats should be purely cosmetic and story driven. The abilites should ALL be talents. Just add two new rows for it at 60 how hard is that? Change the color and shit depending on your covenant...

[@SkepticGamer]

Exactly

[@nhagan001]

Yeah that "teleport" ability for that covenant is Broken AF. You are going to see it being abused to high hell at an MDI if they don't work out that ability. Imagine all the teams using that to dodge abilities, ignore mobs, or hell, ENTIRE PORTIONS OF THE DUNGEON!

[@ogJbizz]

Why does this make so much sense... would It perhaps ruin a bit of the "RPG choice" sort of thing blizzard is going for? I think that argument sort of falls apart when u consider that u have to convince people to play with you.

[@treyroy755]

Covenants should change your character like the greenfire questline changes your character. Everything else should be a talent.

[@RoboBongoCuckooCop]

only problem with that is the soulbinds. your solution works for the covenants, but then you have to choose a soulbind which is where it can get a bit skewed. i reckon if someone wants to change they should be exalted with the one they want to change to (not gonna be that hard to do honestly and makes sense storywise) and they have to go to the QM or the Covenant Leader to change.

[@flech3025]

If Blizzard wasnt spending so much time trying to give players a ton of power with Covenants I bet we would get a lot more cool stuff in Shadowlands.

[@malifiecus]

Mythic + leaderboard all teleporting venthir 😀 Its blood elf racial all over again.

[@Crozbozy]

Only upside is anyone can go venthir, but still a shame to waste the work put into other covenants like that

[@ramanmotamedi4046]

It's just some intern fighting for the weebs against blizzards furry agenda. Mark my words, before release this will be "fixed" and the Night Fae will be the strongest :/

[@lc9245]

In PvP it would be the human domination.

[@TheAssirra]

Funny that people keep mentioning blood elf racial that required actual work from a previous expansion yet somehow overlook shadowmeld which has been far more dominating than arcane torrent ever was...

[@kutyamen]

If he was even a little bit correct about Venthyr, the entire M+ would be nothing bot Void Elves who have a racial blink.

[@XCeazyX]

Tone of these videos is good because it's clear you genuinely want to help make the game better. really hoping we don't look back at videos like these and say "we knew it would be bad, and it was."

[@shazzakip2]

We all know that's exactly what will happen in the end. They never listen.

[@wackantheduck6883]

I am from the future. It was shit, just as predicted

[@ruuseell]

This reminds me of when everyone was playing human for pvp because of their racial

[@hurpdurp916]

Bruh pvp is gonna be an absolute shitshow this xpac lmao.

[@TehSlice360]

Oh. Again..

[@ziggs123]

At least we get pvp gear back 😂

[@darijanjamak2632]

Yeah everyone blinking around dashing 7 times

[@Carpatouille]

SL will be BFA 2

[@jacobwheeler8404]

literally could not be worse than BFA

[@BlackPenzo]

I don't know why every expansion needs a gimic like this. Instead of having a completely new system every time why not keep it simple? I don't need AP, essences, covenent abilities, etc. Just give me a talent tree and some stuff to work towards and I am good.

[@TheOriginal_Unaleska]

Because once upon a time, that was an issue as well. People complained about the talent trees.

[@wreno17]

I've been saying this for months, even before alpha was released. Covenant abilities won't work. There'll always be something better. They could make covenants basically like factions. At lvl60 you choose and from there your WQs and weekly's revolve around them. Each covenant has a certain cosmetic vibe that the others don't get that can't be transmogged unless you are apart of that covenant. Rewards would purely be cosmetic and nothing else. Each covenants story would be unique. You could even have battlegrounds that put the 4 against each other with horde/alli working together against the other covenants. That would create a sense of pride for your desired covenant and how you felt playing for them. Leaving covenant would be allowed but would introduce a debuff on you where when you're in your old convenants zone the npcs spit on you and some may out hits on you at random times while out in the world. I dunno. Anything but unbalanced abilities

[@wreno17]

@Kent Arnold yeh I totally agree. Every time borrowed power is introduced with some kind of choice, there is always a nerf/buff to something that snowballs. Blizzard are amazing at telling stories, they should play on their strengths.

[@sabretoothau]

I can see it now - world-first guilds rolling characters of the same class in each covenant to make sure they're prepared for some fight which needs a specific covenant ability to give them that edge on a fight. As if them having to roll multiple characters wasn't bad enough already.

[@gorthaur3800]

Since as you mentioned these "thematic" abilities are just colours, a relatively simple solution I can see would be to give players ability to swap freely between them, but depending on one's Covenant they would simply have different reskins. To me it would it would just remove or at least greatly reduce the problem of balancing and wouldn't force us to play Covenants we do not like

[@Mrteriyakiify]

I was really interested in the kyrian mass shield ability for prot paladin, especially for m+ but knowing that venthyr teleport is there makes it feel like people might not want you as a tank for not having it to skip stuff..

[@eriksonj6065]

Dude that’s exactly how I feel and I main a holy paladin.

[@snootycapybara3683]

Same here, I can already see all the groups forming stating "must have Venthyr" so they can skip the hard stuff. No Venthyr teleport, no invite.

[@Harry-dh2pm]

Even if its nerfed, really nerfed, if its able to skip 1 thing, people will still demand it. I pug a lot of high m+. This requires a lot of mdt routes prior to forming the group. Before 8.3 this always required a rogue for obvious reasons. This teleport feels like that, something you'll build a route around in planning. When the group is formed and the route is sent to them and 1 guy is like 'sorry I'm kerian' - lol, ok have fun finding another group this is a venthir route.

[@BigDaddyWes]

I think it's too early to say how powerful it will actually be on release. They could add something to not let you spam it all around dungeons. Do we even know what Mythic+ is going to look like in Shadowlands? They could easily make something about either the ability itself or to the dungeon make it not so over powered. There's lots of RP potential there too. It's still just way too early to say because so much can change before release. They would have to consider the implications of these high mobility covenant abilities when designing the rest of the expansion. Especially when you consider the fact that they've been very clear that we don't have the whole picture yet so we literally don't have access to enough information to make an informed opinion on how balanced covenants will be. I think this sort of thinking is exactly what Blizz was expecting when they're trying to get people to hold out their opinions. We just don't know yet.

[@kuubilal]

@Jonny Croxville Or you know, because M+ is on a timer and at least in BFA Blizzard has made it impossible to time a key at a high level without the usage of skips, because of the ridiculous amount of trash + some packs being basically impossible to kill (double honor guard pack with 2 witch doctors in front of Volkaal in AD should be enough as an example)

[@TheJosquire]

And you just know that once the system goes live, some of the Covenant spells and/or Signature abilities will be nerfed, which will piss people right off. What I would prefer to see is all abilities and spells be available to all Covenants, so players can choose which abilities they would like, and importantly choose a Covenant based purely on Role Playing and flavour.

[@megaabux6377]

@Jonny Croxville I think you need to see the first part of the video once again. They said that, the changing of the covenant will be easier to do to another one but retake the one that you dismissed will be difficult.

[@illidanthebetrayed4211]

my main problem with covenants are, the rpg elements(mainly mogs), covenant abilities and the player power, all of them tied together for example: if i want to play dh, i want to be vampire bcuz of mogs or whatever else, but i really really want to play with the forest guys covenant ability(because its fun) but, it may also be worse for whatever the content i am playing for, both vampires and forest guys(dps balance) lets say all other dhs choose angels for better dps it would feel like i am being forced into angels so in order to me being happy with the choice i do, - i need to have fun covenant skill, - i need to like the class covenant skill, - i need to like the covenants for my class fantasy or mogs or other stuff - everything should be balanced perfectly for dps it looks like so hard to be true in the end i ll end up being unhappy whatever i choose ps:1 month later patch comes and they rebalance stuff then you regret your decision again.. psps:3 month later patch comes..

[@GralshnakVideos]

I kinda miss just gearing up and been done with it. The multitude of systems in the last two expansions for constant character progression has been a bit of a bummer.

[@classictholo548]

Preach video as I lay down to sleep. Instantly click.

[@guinie2]

Goodnight good sir

[@Bonelux]

Honestly, the easy solution would be something along the lines of making signature abilities work like a level 60 talent row. You unlock each one as you quest through the zone, at max level you can select a signature ability to use from any covenant but you only get the class ability from locking into the covenant you want. From an RPG perspective it makes sense. You've helped these people, saved their Anima or what have you - they're grateful and teach you an ability. You align with them and help them further? Here, we'll teach you another that only our best friends know. It allows player choice without necessarily feeling as bad but still gives them opportunity for that "I wish I had that moment" in class specific abilities. Venthyr doorway only M+ groups for that one specific trash pack skip? Not an issue. Necrolord tank to completely mitigate a boss mechanic? Yeah, why not. Etc. It also helps with Blizzard's constant need to repeat content. Have an alt? Great, select a covenant straight away, get that signature ability and class ability. Want access to all signature abilities? Gonna have to do those storylines.

[@SDB_Dev]

While this is better than what we have right now.. you have to ask yourself at some point: Why not simply add another talent row instead? Yes, a regular no loaning, non temporary power gain. Just a simple talent row. I would prefer that.

[@heather9857]

Also, I really appreciate PG going outside the rules and making this vid. The more I started looking at the covenant signature abilities, I saw some issues. One is, I play a rogue on Horde and this might sounds odd, but I'm more drawn to Kyrian or Night Fae, you know, it's just personality differences re RPG. So, as an O. Rogue, if I pick Night Fae, well, do I really need another speed boost? Not really. If I go Kyrian, I'm going to look like an idiot with this owl dude following me around (giving complements?!?) and/or it's a waste because I'm not using my signature ability at all since I couldn't care less about it. So if I want to go with an adventurous story line style of playing that I'm really going to enjoy, then my abilities get severely nerfed. I think it would be incredibly interesting to do this in a way where you end up with some necro-pallys, fae-warlocks, kyrian-dks, but I see many abilities becoming useless if you decide to go with an RPG fantasy play style or just you'll end up picking a covenant to be more powerful. Both options are not fun. Even though I want to enjoy the story and covenant I choose, I still want my main to be a powerful badass. Thanks Preach! I hope this gets addressed by bliz.

[@BigDaddyWes]

Dude there's no way this is the final state of covenant abilities. No way. They know it's got issues with how it is on ALPHA and that has to be what they mean when they don't want people looking too much into covenant balance right now. We're still missing ingredients that will be in the Shadowlands cake. People are getting pissed/disappointed way too soon. Everyone just wants Shadowlands to suck for some reason.

[@tdmc6428]

Wes Tolson the entire thing with preach in this video was saying that if he is wrong about things right now, he is happy to be, but if he isn’t then he needs to speak now because it doesn’t matter what comes later, if the foundations of the system are bad then the future doesn’t look good as they will have to spend time and resources into fixing something that shouldn’t be a problem on release. Yes some people want shadowlands to suck, but the majority want it to succeed and believe the same a preach. We want it to do well and to prove us wrong that this will fail

[@avenage]

@@BigDaddyWes Because that's exactly what happened with Azerite in BFA, right? It was only alpha... and the it was only beta... and then suddenly it was released half-finished, half-assed, and fully lacklustre.

[@frederikstaufeldt5543]

@@BigDaddyWes no everyone wants shadowlands to be great, which is why they state these issues and asking blizzard to fix them and/or coming with ideas how to fix them... and people are worried because this seems to be a repeat of BFA azerite armor where blizzard released a half assed system

[@BigDaddyWes]

@@avenage It appears to me that they actually don't want to make that same mistake again.

[@Purylock]

Casual players usually defend the covenant system, saying: "One-two percent difference in dps doesn't matter. Just make a roleplay choice and stick with it, this is RPG, after all". There are 2 problems with this statement: 1) Difference in dps will be MUCH bigger. Just look what a shitshow corruptions were. Blizzard has zero benefit of a doubt to balance numbers. 2) Utility is a much bigger problem. Rogues were not the best damage dealers in dungeons, but shroud has made them mandatory in BfA M+. Blizzard had to design AN ENTIRE SEASONAL AFFIX around this problem. It helped, but it was too late, expansion was basically over. Venthyr telepot is a shroud of Shadowlands. You either go Venthyr or you don't get invited to dungeons. *What a great system! My RPG choice is so important! I don't get party invites, but I can roleplay instead, feels good!* Covenants should be story and cosmetics only. Period. Either Blizzard will fix this garbage system now or they will have to fix it after several months of a HUGE afterlaunch shitshow. We know it. They know it (Ion has already said in an interview, that if they fail to balance things they always can flip a switch and make all covenant abilities interchangeable easily). Why wait? Does Blizzard need another poke into their massive egos to stop with this idiotic experiments? Pathetic failure of every single new system in BfA was not enough?

[@juanmatiasohara775]

As much as some people won’t like to say, Blizzard is really good with tuning numbers across the board, yes, corruption was a shit show, and frankly, it still is, but that’s the only system that has the issue with poor balancing. There are very few cases were someone’s damage/healing is going to drastically change because they didn’t go with the most optimal choice. Even azerite traits, a system that is widely known to be badly designed, is really well balanced, there are clearly winners but those aren’t winning by such a large margen. Regarding utility, I agree with that completely.

[@Purylock]

​@@juanmatiasohara775 Well, lets think about blizzard numbers. Here is my feelycraft, based on personal experience in BfA's M+ and mythic raiding: Raids. Tuned pretty well. World First Race is a thing now and Blizzard are interested to make good raids more than ever. Raids are good. Class balance in raids is okay. There are OP classes and underdogs one raid, things change next raid. Not perfect, but not terrible. Okay. Azerite armor. There were plenty of OP and useless traits, especially at start. Some generic traits, like "knife in the back" were really strong, but were heavily nerfed later. What about class-specific traits? I can speak from my class perspective only: Pandemic Invocation - affliction's azerite trait, was introduced in season 2, iirc, and since then, until present day, it was useless garbage nobody uses. Epic fail. Explosive potential - demonology's azerite trait, which was also introduced some time after expansion's launch and nobody used it either. Later it got +100% buff. Blizzard just doubled it's power, holy shit, what an epic fail. EP became crazily strong and later was nerfed a bit and now it is just good. In general, azeite balancing was okayish. Not terrible, but not good either. Corruption. Crazy shitshow and a fucking disaster. Everybody knows it, moving on. M+ dungeons. Warlock was the worst class in M+ during whole expansion. People keep saying, that "hOmOgEnIzAtIoN Is bAd, ClAsSeS ShOuLd hAvE StReNgTh's aNd wEaKnEsSeS", but when this philosophy makes some classes non-viable for a huge chunk on an endgame, something is clearly wrong. Besides, for some reason, Havoc demon hunter is allowed to be better in everything, than all 3 warlock spec combined. I guess they are allowed not to have weaknesses? But all this problems are problems of design and not numbers tuning. Blizzard are trying to fix this problem, reworking AoE abilities in SL, with target caps and other things, hope they will do better, than they did in BfA. Class talents. Literally the worst they ever were. Two dead talents, one mandatory talent almost every row, almost every class. Affliction's drain soul talent was a DPS loss over NO TALENT AT ALL since BfA alpha/beta and until almost last 10% of expansion. This is just pathetic. But, I guess, the reason for it is not that Blizzard don't know how to fix this problem, they just had no time. Azerite system, island expeditions and warfronts - they all failed miserably. All new systems in BfA sucked. Blizzard had to invent essence systems and big cool zones (Nazjatar and Mechagon) to band aid dying expansion. They just had no time or resources to fix other problems. Bad, but understandable. The problem is not that Blizzard don't know how to tune things, they may just have not enough time and resources for it. They had plenty of problems in BfA and they didn't solve them all, why for the love of God do they create such a crazy system in Shadowlands? In SL they have to balance numbers for Raids, M+ and PvP across all the classes and covenants, within all the combinations (which is already crazy difficult), but they added utility to covenant package as well. This is absolutely crazy. There is no way this is going to be even remotely balanced, this is just too much. Don't create new problems to yourself, Blizzard, you have plenty of them already. I still hope SL is going to be good, nobody wants another BfA.

[@avenage]

​@@juanmatiasohara775 I think you're blinded by what I'll call the latest power problem. The absolute wrong choices only feel like they're minor inconveniences right now because the more recent additions have an even bigger impact. For example, choosing the wrong traits won't feel like it affects you much because choosing the right essences is more important, and getting the right corruption is more important than that. These things can and do add up though (and they should!). Having the wrong talents, traits, and essences as a healer for example can be the difference between breezing through a mythic+ key and not being able to keep people alive and struggling through many wipes. As far as Blizzard being good at tuning numbers, I'd be inclined to believe you but the evidence doesn't support this. For example when they released Azerite gear and all of the generic traits were far superior to the class specific ones, or how about that there are so few meaningful talent choices these days. Don't confuse being good at balancing numbers with nerfing them into the ground so much that it doesn't matter anymore.

[@ryantwomey3463]

does the mage lich form literally have pinecones on the shoulders wtf

[@nhagan001]

hey, it's not a flaccid penis like that one transmog item from Warlords of Draneor.

[@heather9857]

@@nhagan001 LOL so true!

[@ReconKeeper212]

I was thinking Pineapples!

[@ryantwomey3463]

@@hackintosh3899 with the texture tho it Def looks like dem be pincones

[@DrDipsh1t]

Reminds me of Aldor vs Scryer in the burning crusade. Certain classes and specs benefit more from picking one over the other and there was a severe penalty for switching. Not to mention that certain professions had benefits of their choice as well. It wasn't a perfect system (as a warrior enchanter, my gear came from aldor but enchanting recipes were with scryers) so some sacrifices/compromises had to be made which i hope is incorporated in this covenant system.

[@andrewshandle]

But Aldor and Scryer didn't fundamentally change the way you play the game. Covenants do to a degree, especially with some classes. For example, the Night Fae DK ability replaces DnD with something that is ridiculous for a Blood DK, same with the Warrior Venthyr ability for Arms. Just by picking those covenants you will play the class differently or to a different level than you would otherwise.

[@DrDipsh1t]

@@andrewshandle oh most definitely. I meant it more in regards to I hope they don't try to make everything bland and uniform and to give those choice dilemmas where we have to weigh the pros and cons. I just don't wanna end up with blizzard saying "you know what, it's too hard to balance all this so we're gonna nerf it all so they're essentially cosmetic".

[@GutwaldPaladin]

There's an existing example of player choice being homogenized in the current patch - the 4 essences you can pick up in Vale for assault dailies. The other 3 are cool, have a really interesting effect. But you're an idiot if you don't pick Chi'ji because it is all around superior.

[@pizzasaurolophus]

This is why everyone is looking to "Classic" games these days. Jesus Christ this stuff is so convoluted and pointlessly complex. TBC had it best with a class identity, then gems and enchants.

[@TheOriginal_Unaleska]

And yet those same "classic" players are paying others to lvl their characters because they can't be bothered. Yeah blizz warned about that. So no. Don't use this as an excuse to boost classic. People are also leaving that.

[@yanni6969]

@@TheOriginal_Unaleska wtf does this have to do with leveling?

[@TheLordDracula]

I love that we both thought of the same thing. The moment I saw the venthyr ability I could already see the titles: "Lfm for key x venthyr only"

[@ogJbizz]

Thanks for everything you do preach

[@bishop1412]

There is a huge problem that soulbinds and conduits can't fix. You. Can't. Swap. Freely. Azerite reforge costs were frustratingly bad, this is 100x worse. Either remove player power from them, or let me swap in a rested area.

[@michael-lane]

Could signature abilities become a permanent unlock you retain through questing/reputation and are then available to all players? A sort of talent row and reward for helping out each faction. Then, thematically, for role playing choosing a faction results in the receiving the second ability for choosing to align with them. It’s more difficult to change for role playing purposes (need to find a balance here) but eases cross-spec issues? Or you gain access to all of the signature abilities but they share a cool down like pots, etc

[@GilderonGaming]

Make all four class-specific covenant abilities available through each covenant, like a separate talent row. For example, for warrior, all four covenants have Spear of Bastion, but the spells changes visually based on the selected covenant. You chose Night Fae? It’s now Spear of Ardenweald, green/blue in coloring. Venthyr? Spear of Revendreth, red/black in coloring, and so on. Condemn and the Banner of the Necrolords would change in the same manner. The covenant choice remains impactful without a tie-in to player power. All choices are available so players aren’t alienated from specific content based on their covenant.

[@indieramus]

That is an awful idea. Not only does that add a ton of work for the art team for no reason, it removes all of the flavor of each ability IE. A warlock casting a bolt that spreads curses chaotically with a bastion skin (bastion's whole shtick being about maintaining order), or a dk using a "blood mist" made out of plague to drain the power of their enemies. A more efficient solution would be to allow everyone to use all of the abilities regardless of covenant or remove the barrier to swapping between them; thus maintaining the individuality of each ability and covenant. The whole problem atm is that they want to preserve a meaningful choice in what abilities in chosen.

[@GilderonGaming]

Captain Ubershmitz As it currently stands, Venthyr is far and away the superior choice for my warrior. Not only is Doors of Shadows the best overall utility choice, but Condemn also gives me a second Execute phase, totaling 40% of the enemy’s health. And if that isn’t enough, I can cleave half of that Execute damage onto 4 other targets during the entirety of both windows. That essentially makes the covenant choice for me, despite my preference in terms of thematic choice. It’s just an option for Blizzard to consider if they’re determined to go in the direction we’re currently headed.

[@sergiyradonezhsky634]

Mike your office looks so good with nice weather, damn. give us more day time vids please love the warmth of the natural light

[@erikstrothers2679]

Honestly, I just feel that the current dev team has chained themselves to philosophies that are blatantly incorrect. They feel like you absolutely need an endgame progression system other than gear. You don't. They feel like they need to keep specs bare-bones so they can add in a different system every expansion. You don't. These things are crutches that when removed from a healthy game with deep, involving classes would result in a ever-growing sandbox of players logging on to do stuff just to do it, not because they have to complete some on-the-rails progression for the week.

[@ZerkinzTV]

The beginning of WoW's temporary add-on systems marked the beginning of the decline in my interest in the game. It seems to me that the developers feel they need to create new systems every expansion as a form of new content in order to justify their own salaries or the money we pay for each expansion, but both are wrong -- people were the most satisfied in BC. We don't need systems. We simply need classes with gameplay depth, and the FREEDOM TO PLAY THOSE CLASSES AT LEVEL CAP WITHOUT HAVING DONE WEEKLY CHORES ON THEM SINCE THE EXPANSION'S RELEASE. SCRAP THE SYSTEMS - ALLOW PEOPLE TO PLAY ALTS WITHOUT SOME PUNISHMENT ON OUTPUT FOR NOT HAVING DONE TEDIOUS WEEKLY CHORES CONSECUTIVELY FOR MONTHS ON END! The real content in WoW is its: RACES -> CLASSES -> SPECS, ENVIRONMENT (instances, zones, etc), ITEMS (mounts, gear, etc.), and QUESTS & FACTIONS/REPUTATIONS (Surumar Nightborne questline and Netherwing in BC to obtain a nether drake mount are both great examples of a faction as content). These arbitrary and restrictive systems are absolutely destroying the player's ability to freely and truly experience one of WoW's primary categories of content -- RACES/CLASSES/SPECS, sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssvia the blatant discouraging of playing alts by requiring players to climb the same mountain that they have done at least once already on their main character , again!! These time-gated systems are a much greater reason NOT TO LOG IN than what Blizzard is hoping for: that we are mindlessly addicted to running on WoW's treadmill of time-gated stat inflation!

[@ExodeusIS]

But why tho since mages, rogues and demon hunters already can do those skips, why is it suddenly a problem for the other classes to have a teleport.

[@heather9857]

Yeah, when they changed to owl bro, it was an instant eye-roll....

[@atorrance]

Preach, to your points at ~15:30. I think Blizz CAN design fights that require SOME players to have those abilities, something like a big soak with a select few players means only some need Necrolord, or something like a conveyor-belt run means only some need the mobility. Then their point that if you have 2 fights in same tier with each of those advantages means you'll want to bring some of X covenant and some of Y to the raid.

[@andrewshandle]

We're talking about a game where Horde guilds did mass race transfers to Goblin so they could use the Rocket Jump on a single fight in a raid. Never underestimate the ability for gamers to do the ridiculous to get an edge.

[@BonespiritMcgee]

I'm getting azerite and artifact flashbacks..... Thank you for saying this and I hope they actually listen and fix these problems.

[@dancingdroid]

Why not have you choose a covenant for the story part and be able to swap between the different covenant abilities for a currency or something? Why do they have to be locked together?

[@JamesEtallaz]

Can't we just get spec specific spells for each class tailored for each Covenant? A resto druid in the Venthyr Covenant, you get a unique "vampiry theme" heal buff, but if you are a feral druid with the Venthry then you get a unique "vampiry theme" armor buff? Take the same resto druid with the Night Fae Covenant, you get a unique "fairy theme" heal buff, and a feral druid with Night Fae get a unique "fairy theme" armor buff. This way each class and each spec would always be useful, and would simply let the player pick the style and feel they want.

[@Alex.LeJeune]

yeah i really want to pick night fae for cosmetic and the lore + a cool version of druid transforming in resting areas, but the abilities for my classes kinda suck.

[@tribert1]

I mean you *can* design stuff around that shield. For instance think of something like the g'huun orbs with a much shorter hallway. Lets say while you are up there you take very fast ticking damage that is fairly low in power but can push back the cast of putting in the orb when you take any damage. Now, sure some damage shielding abilities could help, and maybe with a diminishing return anyone could put that orb in there, especially a tank who can survive alone for a long time, but it would be highly effective to send someone with a necrolord shield who can negate the entire pushback mechanic and quickly solve the problem whereas no one else could quite so well. The goal of course still being that anyone *CAN* do it, but necrolord shield does it best.

[@slowandpaneful]

Let people do whatever they want out in the open world. Then have the instanced content thats already themed grant the same covenant abilities while you're inside, while everyone keeps their own soulbinds. Blizz can craft fights around whatever abilities are granted in there, and it'll keep people from gatekeeping required covenant choices.

[@Gworan]

My immediate thoughts at the beginning of this video: What happens when (not if) Blizz do changes to the covenants after everyone has chosen theirs? TBH I'm getting sick of this "borrowed power" way of playing the game.

[@D1str1ct]

Remember in the earlier expansions when all our power was in enchanted for nearly every slot, extra stats on a ranged weapon for every class, extra abilities or stats on tier gear. I member.

[@richardszurov974]

Why do we even need, covenant abilities, conduit and soulbind system? They should do rather more raids or something that fun, not clusterfuck systems.

[@maddy02_]

because they want new key features for a new expansion. if they dont do it, people cry that theres no new things. they will never make it right for everyone.

[@Fabriciod_Crv]

@@maddy02_ that could not be more true, people even complained like hell in legion and it was still considered one of the game's best xpacs in a long time, and im already seeing dummies saying this'll be BFA 2 or some shit.

[@bestmonk6606]

"If we get to a point where we can't tie player power to a important choice then we are truly lost." That mindset Ion has you say is literally the root of all the problems in the game where did this come from when, why? Like actually the game never had it before bfa and it was so much better before bfa why does that need to be apart of the game now when it never was before. Literally ruining their game on purpose because they don't even play their own game to see how it feels. They truly need to legitimately have people hammer down the facts on them as blunt and true as possible because this does not work the whole system is impossible to balance not a single person on the planet could figure a way out to balance this mess they have created. They are trying to add more player choice they say why not give us the choice instead of tying player power to the this "choice" which isn't a choice its choose the best option for what u care about instead of actually choosing what you like. They make all these complex systems for a solution that can only be solved by making it a talent row choice.

[@ThePolarpop]

Reeeeeeeeee im actually just not playing shadowlands until the ability to switch between the ability and content style *I PERSONALLY WANT TO PLAY AT THAT MOMENT* is available

[@eclipseval]

amazing video honestly Preach. You make so many good points and counter arguments to blizzards design philosophy. I really wish Blizzard would just listen to content creators like you for once because you guys have been right about every one of these systems

[@DarkTider]

Well, you can design a fight so that people have to soak huge amounts of dmg, or get a stacking damage debuff that gives an effect based on how much dmg you have taken from it, so that being able to pop a shield for soaking it, or avoiding getting the debuff is good. But still, not as good as being mobile for moving to certain spots or porting out of danger

[@Tuckz0rz]

But then what happens if you have none or very little people who chose that covenant? You can't have anyone switch to it freely so that mechanic is just impossible to your group now.

[@gideon4107]

The signature ability should be a moviment ability. Venthyr is this ridiculous teleport, Nightfae is a moviment speed buff, Kyrian should make create wings and make you run faster and the Necrolords should have some kind of blink or really cool jump. Half of the problem is done. Keep up the good job, Preach. You speak for a lot of people and it's very important that people like you speak up to make this game we all love better.

[@pizzasaurolophus]

LFM mythic dungeon/raid, must have venthyr to skip x, y, and z or don't bother

[@ZivineYT]

Well theres your problem, not all classes need more movement abilities. Monks and Druids dont need more movement, while warlocks on the other hand do.

[@richardommundsen2417]

@@ZivineYT More Mobility is always more gooder. Yes Monk and druids have good mobility, but Monks have no form of Invis or teleport they can use to skip past mobs. With the length and precision of the Venthyr Teleport you can abuse the fuck out of it to skip past mobs in M+ and trash in raid. And teleport trough things that would one-shot you if you tried to walk trough, even with a quick skill like Flying Serpent Kick. IE the Wall on Mythic Jaina, or the Anguish puddles on N'zoth

[@belgariontheking1]

Does anyone else miss when we just got a class/spec that was fun to play just by itself without needing half a dozen systems draped over it to make them enjoyable?

[@ziggs123]

MoP

[@9Hookr9]

I think something that would be cool is you can choose which ability you want for each content or day you're feeling. If it's your covenant, it's free, if it's a rival covenant, it costs some gold or other resource. Kind of like an outside contract.

[@Whalebelly2239]

Thank you so much for making this video, those are things that really need to be said. What’s your opinion on making the covenant abilities only work in open world and Thorgast? Go wonky with the balance and wild with the theme, and no one is stepping on each other’s toes. Cheers for all your great work in the community, Preacher!

[@mortenlaursen6354]

So they are actually doing what I fear the most, tying player power into a "definitive" choice. Even though they dont thematically suit the class we want to play, we get ushered into a covenant that doesnt fit because the math or power dictates us to. I get that the systems on Alpha still needs alot of iterations, but the basic idea is flawed imho, power should come from the player, not from a system, its borrowed power all over again. I would be perfectly fine with covenants just being thematically things, choosing the one that fits the players mindset/class/whatever and roll the game from there. Tie playerpower into legendaries, questlines, trainers, heck maybe even make abilities stronger as you actually use them, making the playeragency even more prevalent moving forward with the game.

[@Shadoww2309]

When you talked about having the solution in the Soulbind system, I immediately thought back at old WoW talent trees. The ones where you spend points into a spec and at the end you get your spec-defining ability; they could do the same. Choose a Soulbind that belongs to a Covenant, and as the last point you get to choose the class-specific Covenant ability. Make it so that capping the Soulbind takes some time, so you need some dedication to cap different ones but then you can just swap around. On the other hand, the choice of your first Soulbind will define your main Covenant allegiance and you will get that Covenant's specific ability permanently without having access to the others; they are the guys you are mainly allied with after all. That way, they only need to make the Covenant-specific abilities comparable while class-specific ones can be interchangeable.

[@LilianOrchard]

Blizz really needs to realize that mobility will always be preferable to everything else.

[@user-qj5mi2fj3g]

December 2020 (2 months after the launch approx.) Blizzard announces that there are issues with the signature covenant abilities, but they won't update anything over the christmas holidays January 2021 Blizzard announces that in 9.1 coming February 2021 they will resolve this issue by adding another layer of mechanics over the existing covenants June 2021 Come 9.2 the covenant abilities from 9.0 are no longer relevant or feel strong whatsoever. The decision was made to allow players to switch covenants at will August 2021 Come 9.3 all covenants are unified under the final layer of mechanics that completely defeats the purpose of any designing decisions done in the past 1.5 years

[@Its_Revan]

A new Preach video! Excellent. Absolutely great video. I agree completely that the other systems won't be able to balance or prop up the imbalance of the covenant signature abilities

[@BrendonLeaman]

What do you think about largely tuning down the power of covenant abilities, however upon completing the campaign of one covenant you are able to betray them to help another, working toward eventually completing the campaign of all 4 covenants and gaining the abilities of each, the order you complete them is chosen by you and progress is shared among all your characters on an account.

[@elismaerasmus3204]

Thank you for addressing this, I have been waiting for a player/youtuber/Alpha tester to mention or raise this issue despite having the interview with Morgan Day. The biggest problem with games nowadays is they are trying to reinvent the wheel instead of using what they already have to improve upon that, I do understand the need for progression/freshness and even newer and exciting ideas to be brought to the table, but use it wisely and try not to over complicate a system by locking your players into it. Let the players decide how they want to tackle it instead of the Devs trying to decide for them. Every game designing company nowadays state they want the player to decide and yet they design systems to state otherwise, bring different things into it but keep it simple and yet effective in every aspect or area of your product. Thanks for the awesome video, looking forward to more :)

[@DreamArctica66]

inb4 it's free to switch covenants in 9.3.

[@omarcomming722]

Really don't like the way all the extra castable abilities are shaping out. So far it looks like everyone is getting like 3-4 extra buttons to press from the Covenants/Binds, plus 1-3 that might come from unpruning, so up to 7 or so buttons MORE than what we have now. I know some people like having 30 keybinds at the ready with mice that have more buttons than a keyboard, but I'm also sure many of us hate that, and it looks like another sledgehammer approach to fixing a problem of 2 button rotations that only a few classes actually have now.

[@ziggs123]

We want complex and difficult to master classes. You can play demon hunter, smash 3 buttons, no matter which order, enjoy.

[@GoddessShiva]

I think I said it before but allowing people to choose a signature ability or covenant ability from the pool with perhaps a change to their thematic look. It'll at least allow you to choose your preferred faction that leaves it all up to the player to choose and have whatever ability you want with that faction. I find it so annoying that you'll be forced into a certain faction cause abilities are stronger or feel that you made a mistake or worse unable to be part of certain things since people are going to ask what covenant ability you have (teleport to skip for example)

[@McProPikez]

Definitely all makes sense. I can see that targeted teleport ability being a requirement for heaps of things and therefore someone being laughed at or removed from groups if they don't have it because they couldn't participate in a certain type of skip or something like that.

[@mattery24]

This is your role, man. Keep preaching. Really, really appreciate you and the work you’re doing here. What’s so frustrating is feeling like Blizzard is just wasting time trying to make this system work-time that could be spent on making other aspects of the xpac even better.

[@nicolaj990]

how about each covenant just granted us their abilities after completing their questlines, then limiting us to 1 covenant specific and 1 class specific ability to equip and let us change em like talents meaning you would need tomes to do so!? That way covenants retain their personality, you get to side with 1 and help 1 rpg wise and get access to all the cosmetic goodies, there is no wrong choice now and for extra flavour they should add quest lines or objectives where you sort of go out and discover mysteries or help the covenant to cosmetically change the other covenant abilities to the style of your covenent (LIKE HIDDEN ARTIFACT APPEARANCES). That way you retain all the good and none of the bad. People mad that you didnt equip the revendreth teleport for the boss fight? "sorry guys let me respec into it after we reset the boss". EASY. Everyone gets to be cool and useful, no one gets boned, done.

[@Artimecion1]

I'm glad you said this. They need to make adjustments now. I'm a filthy casual so I always base my character choices off of head cannon and fun. It won't be any different for covenants with me, but for the health of the game they need to get this right.

[@Newbtuber]

It will affect you. If you pick a covanent and then your covanent get nerfed, suddenly you are punished because you picked that covanent. Blizzard solution to fixing classes this expansion is covanent and if your soul bound become shit, your class can become shit just like BFA. This can also happen if your class get nerfed/changed, suddenly your enchancement shaman sucks with Nightfae so you want to switch spec but the other covanent got the stuff you want to play Restro or elemental to how you want, so now you are screwed.

[@lily_evildm2317]

@@Newbtuber It won't affect me, I do not do any competitive content, just in it for the story and some casual fun. If my ability is the least viable I will still be happy I chose the one that thematically fits my characters :) That said, I do feel it should be fixed for the many many players that do play in mythic dungeons, raids and pvp

[@Newbtuber]

​@@lily_evildm2317 It affect everyone, it is not just about viability. Example: I want to raid as holy pally so I pick Kyrian but I also want to PvP on the side as retribution but the ability that I want to play as retribution are in Nightfae. Doesnt matter if the ability are good or bad, they are ability that makes playing Retribution pally fun to that person. Only solution is to make 2 pally It wouldnt be a problem if the covanent was not such a big deal but the covanent are basically a talent tree for your classes. Hybrid classes get screwed the hardest

[@YourTechGerman]

See, I agree with you BUT I still really like the flavour the different signature abilities bring (except for the Kirian one, that one is just taking a piss XD). I also don't think the nekro shield is a bad ability. It could be amazing on classes that already have great mobility, think about monks, DH, mages, war, druid? Slap a massive shield onto those and interesting soaking, insane tanking and pvp survivability is possible. So yes, mobility is generally king but not if you're already zooming across the room baseline

[@globenstine1335]

i can totally see the teleport getting a massive cooldown. then having the owlyboy give you an additional health pot that doesnt share cds with others.

[@Flicker455]

Why they didnt just grant every covenant the same abilities and make the difference aesthetic is beyond me. They keep making these impossible balance situations for themselves.

[@FreakyGremlinDK]

I'll choose my covenant for the aesthetics to the given character. The abilities are secondary to me and i'll make it work nonetheless.

[@cyrielroelofs]

You see that's where the problem lies within this system, they try to force a player into chosing a specifoc story/appearence (aesthetics). While at the same time chosing specific abilities/passives. You can go with appearence, but will groups still accept you once your ability turns out to be bad? That's the question.

[@damax1862]

Even if they do end up lessening the disparity of covenant utility through soul binds or conduits, it will still likely be a feels bad solution. While people who choose the OP covenant get their great utility right away for free, the other choices have to work for it and will likely take a chunk of progression time just to feel on par. It also just takes way more choice because you will feel inclined to take the progression options that make you comparable to the "best choice".

[@Bunstonious]

I think the generic covenant ability should be selectable between all covenants and only make it a visual difference between them. eg. you get the movement speed, teleport, barrier and potion as abilities for all covenants but the colour changes depending on which covenant you have selected.

[@theitalianwarrior258]

Preach, the only goal of blizzard is to keep the game addiction level high , even with design " mistakes" . If people keep talking about that topic withou pointing out that... Then that mean that blizz tactic is a win. Period

[@yonkonomi5706]

What they need to do with the teleport ability is to remove the ability the go over gaps. It would still be strong but less likely to be able to skip a lot of stuff.

[@meshri7]

I think the best thing is to remove the abilities from covenants and give each class or spec 1 new ability and with the other systems soul binds and conduit and legendaries expansion should be fine just easy thing to balance and change

[@blueshoals]

2:28 Is the Covenant system a cake, or a pie? Are these things being layered on top of each other? Or are they each slices of one whole, cohesive pastry? And if Covenants are a pie, how big is each "slice" in regards to its overall importance? How much does each slice actually impact your character? Best case scenario, the Covenant Ability would be one, small slice. The soulbinds, conduits, and legendaries would each be much larger slices, and each of them would EFFECT and CHANGE the Covenant Ability to cover up or shift its weaknesses in certain types of content. 16:43 I think it could EASILY be fixed by Soulbinds, Conduits, and Legendaries. VERY easily. We've already seen how drastic Blizzard can alter a class, spell, or feature through Torghast, I don't think it's beyond them to create a system whereby Covenant Class Abilities and Covenant Signature Abilities can be drastically altered and changed. 17:08 I think it's a great way to blur the lines between which covenant is optimal for any given situation, or make it so that the gap between covenants is smaller. I don't see anything wrong with that approach. 19:28 RPGs originated with D&D. It's absolutely natural to accept that your D&D character cannot be powerful in all aspects of play. Not a weird mindset at all. I think the best thing Blizzard can do is to make Covenant Signature/Class Abilities a SMALL part of the Covenant package as a whole, and even then, have those abilities be fluid and changeable through the other aspects of the covenant.

[@amatthew1231]

When has Blizzard ever taken criticism and actually changed something for the better? That's not what this company does.

[@minimcune]

Amatthew123 try criticising someone’s view in the comments section and let me know how well you do at changing someone’s mind. In fact ill try it right now and we’ll see if you’re taking your own medicine! Give me one example of where blizzard has made a change to the game for the better. Just one. Ready.....GO

[@minimcune]

P.s spoiler alert, there’s quite a few

[@minimcune]

@rick melethron rick what I love the most are the statements people make that imply they've tapped in to some magic universal truth. "All bliz need to do is THIS LIKE UGH! THEY'RE SUCH " Makes me laugh. Cognitive bias is strong in a comments section. "I think blizzard suck" Therefore everything blizzard do after that person's thought must suck. Exhibit A. Someone said in a comment earlier "they're such boneheads who are still deluded to enough to see themselves as capable developers" Amazing.

[@andrewshandle]

@rick melethron rick They have made hundreds over the years, "bringing the Player not the Class" is by far the biggest thing they did when they fundamentally changed the way they designed classes earlier in the game's lifecycle and that was 100% based on player feedback. Another huge thing is this Alpha. A _huge_ problem with BFA was that it was barely tested at all, at least the important endgame systems like Azerite Gear. So they learned from that. In Blizzard's defense, nobody is better at 20/20 hindsight than gamers. They always are willing to tell you _after_ the fact how they knew something wouldn't work. It's easy being right when you look backwards.

[@amatthew1231]

@@minimcune Dude The game costs money to play per month, on top of $60 per expansion. Blizz asks for a lot from the player base and what do they deliver?

[@nhagan001]

Blizzard: "please don't do any coverage on this core feature of our new expansion, we swear we won't pull another BFA!" Preach: "I'll be the judge of that!"

[@daniellucas5522]

This is nothing close to what they said. At all. The louder and louder people ignore what they're saying to complain about the balance of an incomplete system the less seriously they will take the complaints about the complete system.

[@nhagan001]

@@daniellucas5522 em hm, just like BFA, and that Azerite Armor..... and the Warfronts.... and the Necklace... and N'zoth. They totally listened. It worked out great. Everyone was completely satisfied with the end product. There was absolutely no one warning them about the pitfall that was to come. No forum posts offering feedback. No KZbin WoW creators pleading with Blizzard to turn back now. Everything was great in the paradise that was BFA.

[@daniellucas5522]

@@nhagan001 You mean like how when everyone complained so loudly about the azerite system before the final product came out that blizzard didn't take the complaints about the finished product seriously? You mean exactly like what I said? If you don't want them to repeat the same mistakes, STOP DOING THE SAME THING THIS TIME. Warfronts, neck, and n'zoth have literally no relevance to anything I said in any form because they weren't shown in a completely unfinished state.

[@nhagan001]

@@daniellucas5522 "complained" you say? So you come to videos like this because they are just full of "complaints"? No valid arguments? just "complaints"? Then leave. be one of the silent voices that says nothing, autopilots through the game, and has no impact on it. This is a video hoping that things don't continue in a terrible direction. If you don't want anything to change, then you can just ignore this channel completely.

[@daniellucas5522]

@@nhagan001 Yes, complaining about the balance of one aspect of a system that isn't supposed to be balanced alone is not a valid argument. It's like saying classes are bad because recklessness is far weaker than combustion. They aren't supposed to be balanced at that specific a breakdown.

[@souldoutwarlock2055]

Do you think that maybe Blizzard could try something where the utility covenant abilities are all gained and kept by everyone and they have only the class specific abilities be tied to actually joining a particular covenant? Say everyone gets the shield and teleport and owl guy and speed buff but they share all share the same cd when you use any one of them? it seems that might be able to bring a balance to the abilities while still keeping them meaningful with an input of player choice on which class ability they prefer to use and have some decision making to be had in regard to activating any one particular utility ability. maybe like 2-3 min cd lockout for all utility abilities after using any one of them?

[@Burtannia]

Even if they make some covenants better for some bosses, the best covenant then instantly becomes the one that is best for the most difficult boss. Ok then let's ensure the final boss of the raid has abilities which give all of the covenant abilities a purpose. The problem then is that there is bound to be a phase or part of the boss fight which is the largest wall and therefore the covenant ability which is best for that specific part of the fight will be best.

[@madape556]

I think the a potential solution to a covenant ability (like the shield for necrolord) could have different effects "healers get a larger shield and gives bonus healing while its up, it explodes for a percentage of damage done for dps, for tanks it would give a bonus shield after x seconds for y damage taken after shield drops" role based shouldve been the focus for the second ability. However, that's still another headache for blizzard if they went across the board to do something similar

[@arngrum]

One way that player power is tied to choice, and has been since the game began, is the class system. With the current implementation of covenants, its kind of letting you make a late game class-addon choice as well.

[@ramanmotamedi4046]

To play devils advocate with the necro shield: what if you don't need the health to survive, but you can utilize it to do better in the fight? It would still be garbage for M+ but there are a few mechanics I can think of where it would be work in a raid encounter. The following are from like 5 mins of brainstorming so I'd expect to see most of them in game when this current system goes in. The obvious one is stand in the fire for a stacking dps increase / haste increase /whatever. Another option is a boss button that does damage but halves your current HP. If you want to almost force necro's for a fight you could have soaks similar to the ones in Azshara but without a lasting debuff. You could even have portals that can only be walked through if you have a certain amount of HP, where the necro shield can be used to bypass a gearcheck. Ads that only target players below a certain HP. And of course the simple yet often encountered scenario of aoe circle attacks where you take less damage the further away you run, at the expense of uptime. As a warlock I have always enjoyed those mechanics. On the other hand you can also punish movement. Dangerous environments with cramped safe spots + spread mechanics. Totems you have to stay close to so you don't get a stacking debuff. Straight up debuffs based on moving as has been done a million times. These are less fun but still possible. My point is that it doesn't have to literally be a "you need the health from necro shield or you die" scenarios. The gist of it is simply "trade health for power" which in raids could be enough to make it fun. And yes I am totally trying to justify going necro. (edited to make it slightly more readable)

[@Justin_in_NC]

I’m still stuck on the original issue... what happens if I vastly prefer one covenant but the clear raiding choice BiS is in another? I’ll be forced to go with the less desired one, one way or the other, and it would ruin the experience. They need to be interchangeable like talent trees or nothing but cosmetic

[@ShahroozSmith]

Just disable those Utility Covenant Abilities and have them only exclusive to Open World/Torghast. That means no Venthyr Teleportation in Dungeons, Raids, Arena, or Battlegrounds. Just only Open World where they can be fully utilized and in Torghast because balance means nothing in Torghast.

[@minimcune]

Shahrooz Smith maybe we make mage teleport open world only too. And various other class utility abilities that outperform other abilities and classes / specs in raids and dungeons too. Ill let blizzard know to start pruning.

[@Mattlife97]

Those utility skills are to counter the necessity of rogue skips in higher key progression. They don’t want rogues to be as dominant as they were.

[@XAn0nymousX0]

If we're disabling it in almost every facet of the game, I would have to make the argument - then why bother adding them at all ?

[@ShahroozSmith]

@@XAn0nymousX0 Sometimes the player just wants something because they can. Either nerf or just put them on hold in certain sections...or just wall off sections to make it unskippable.

[@bjornneuhauser6636]

My initial understanding from Blizzcon2019 was that the Covenant Signature abilities (Venthyr TP, Vulpin etc) could not be used in instanced content, and apparently I was wrong. However, wouldn't this be a good solution to the problem? And if so, would the tradeoff be worth it, or would it be too boring to just use them in the open world?

[@frums5885]

Maybe they can't design boss fights assuming everybody has a specific covenant ability. But they could make it so you're required to have a few people with it for specific tasks. Idk just a thought