yepp I'm in the small percentage of night fae shaman. Why the covenant that's all about being close to nature is the worst for the wielders of nature makes zero sense to me.
As Enh Shaman I chose Kyrian because together with Venthyr they were said to be the best choices for overall dps, and I liked the look of Kyrian more. As a solo player, I don't do more than NM raid and M+6 so far, so do need to get the most dps as possible, considering my spec and my less than optimal typical melee pugger play style (run in, start bashing, then die).Perhaps it would have been better if the abilities for all covenants would be exactly the same, just differ by look and name to fit the covenant. If you compare the Kyrian, Night Fae and Venthyr class abilities for enh, they all increase damage and healing. But one is a totem you need to place at the right time and affects the next dps or healing spells, one is a cast that does AOE damage and healing so is easier to integrate into the rotation, and one is a 2 phase channel which first does dps and then healing. Might be ok if the damage and healing would be roughly the same, but that does not seem to be the case which is unfortunate.
Any covenant with more than 80% players in it should be considered a serious problem IMO. You cannot say people have free choice when there are 0.5% prot paladins in the Necrolord covenant. I'm willing to bet more prot paladins like the aesthetic than 0.5%. Clearly, the balance isn't where it needs to be. I don't think it's realistic to expect a flat 25% evenly divided amongst all specs, but EVERY spec has 1 (sometimes, although rarely, 2) covenant(s) that is just much better than the others. Perfectly reflected in these numbers. 90% of players going for 1 covenant? 0.5% going for a covenant? Either way that's not balanced properly.
Blizz screwed the pooch on this one. Ion and his focus on spreadsheets, systems, and egocentric control of the game has caused this kind of worry and angst for players worrying about the 'right' covenant. I'm positive it's also attributed to Blizz's longest ever run without a first content patch - we're looking at possibly 9 *months* before 9.1 comes out (from when SL launched). That's unheard of and unacceptable. It's like no one is watching the store. I really don't understand how this is allowed to continue.
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Ah, yes... Warlocks... the defenders of nature. Meaningful choices, huh?
I'm glad every covenant I picked for my characters is the worst. At least I look good.
lul, love how there are still people going "oh just pick for aesthetics/rp, it's doesn't matter" and "I picked what looked cool, not dps" ignoring all the realities we see on covenant choice. The data shows us that the majority of the player base are doing the very thing we called would happen since this covenant system was revealed: ppl want the path of least resistance to the most dps/healing/tanking, i.e. they will pick the best covenantthen comes the ridiculous comments of "oh just meta slaves" or "that's community issue", basically ignoring how this game has been played for years. The fact is that in the nature of any game that has a competitive aspect, people want to do the best that they can with the least amount of effort needed. For shadowlands, a large part of that means picking the best covenant for your role/class, especially when the difference between the best and 2nd best covenants are huge for some specsblizzard can never balance covenants, even to a respectable difference, cause they are complete garbage at balance. And on top of that, blizzard continues with adding systems on systems and borrowed power. Every single new system that has ever been introduced in world of warcraft, has come out unbalanced. Again, this was brought up back in alpha yet Ion went on about "oh trust us it'll be balanced" despite us, at the time, dealing with the unbalanced nightmare that was corruption gear balance -_- the question of "do these devs play this game?" is such a valid one honestly :/player power should never be locked behind a hard choice in a competitive game. Just make the covenant choice an aesthetic one and allow people to chose their covenant ability in a new talent row. The people who picked for RP will see no effect while the rest of us will have a positive change. There is literally no negative effect to releasing the cord.sigh, but we all know blizzard are not going to look at the data, facts or comments... we've see the same song and dance in previous expansions over systems which had issues that players called out since alpha: in their ego, blizzard will stick to this dumb covenant lock-in until patch 9.3, at which point they'll act like they "listened to the community" and expect praises for unlocking covenants despite us calling for it since alpha (and sadly, the blizzard defenders will praise blizzard once they unlock covenants at the end of SL, and ignore players calling for it since alpha)
No one saw this coming at all. Another case of Blizzard not listening to the players practically screaming that it's a bad system during beta leading up to launch. Developer egos won that battle again.
As a balance druid myself I can't say I'm surprised. The streamers out there were all saying pre-expansion that Kyrian would be the only way to go and Night Fae only in ST situations - I went against this as many did and went Night Fae anyway. The problem many of the streamers and top players found (some made videos on it) that the Kyrian ability requires too much co-ordination to get the maximum from it and is very hard to balance and judge with your own CDs, legendary procs, trinkets etc. and indeed managing the same for someone else who is (likely) playing a different class with different timings on CDs/procs etc. In "pug" situations - that kind of co-ord just ain't gonna happen to get the most out of it - so whilst it's very powerful - to get the kind of power that's noticeable on the metres requires entirely too much co-ordination.Of the remaining covenants - Night Fae remained the only option to take - hit a button and pretty much forget about it for 2 mins - far simpler life :D
I went Ven lock. I prefer that story and atmosphere. I could live with Necro if I had to, but I really don't care for the others.
Great balance? What a joke... I used my racial ability more than I do covenant abilities even when they are the strongest for class/spec. They really don't make or break your gameplay choice unless you are of the top 5% who min/max every aspect of your character and are playing in full-blown 120% performance mode all the time. I picked my covenant for one simple reason (how its aesthetics and story relate to my character's race/class). When you look at how 90% of druids picked the covenant that aesthetically suites them despite better abilities elsewhere, it only proves that people don't give a damn what the abilities do and most don't even bother using them that often. Some do, but not enough to warrant spending time balancing when other areas can be balanced better.
Why so few guardians are venthyr? It's the only covenant ability I actually like out of all 4.
Idk if people arguing for the "choose whatever covenant you like" position are being contrarian, or thinking about some idealized player base that makes "meaningful choices" based on lore, transmogs, etc. like Blizz uses to defend their design decisions.First, covenant choice is not only about raw DPS, be it a 1% or 20% difference between top and bottom tier. It's about utility and gameplay too. Compare divine toll and the necrolord HP builder for holy paladins for example: 5 holy shock on a 1 min CD is a vastly, vastly superior choice. I'm sure there are other examples.But most important than that, the statistics cited in the article shows that the majority of the player base ARE indeed performance oriented. Why else some specs have over a 60% covenant adherence? Do anyone thinks that the majority of enh shamans like to RP as vampires and that's all?I respect if you choose your covenant based on the transmogs or whatever. I'm not trying to police anyone's choice. But I think Blizzard needs to address the needs of the majority of the player base. Plus, if you detach player power progression systems from the aesthetics and covenant quests, RPs and "casual" players don't lose anything, and I get to have my barky plate set. What bothers many people and myself is the "big picture" decisions Blizz like to make while ignoring the realities and habits of players; betting on systems they never get to balance in the pursuit of "meaningful choices", while limiting my RP choices as a -moderately- performance oriented player.