Recently, Blizzard revealed a bit more information about the Covenants coming in World of Warcraft‘s eighth expansion, Shadowlands. These covenants will include powerful signature abilities, as well as some abilities depending on your class.
Thing is, these abilities are powerful – worryingly so. Fans of the title are currently worried that Blizzard might be overlooking the balance of the abilities and focusing more on giving players something fun to have, but that doesn’t seem to be where the interest lies.
The World of Warcraft subreddit was buzzing after the reveals, with everyone theorycrafting powerful PvE builds based on which Covenant they chose to jump into. However, plenty of fans were displeased with the way the abilities were working.
Currently, players are hoping that Blizzard will make tweaks to these systems to make the abilities more customizable. While switching Covenants is possible, it’s quite costly, and won’t be something that people want to do repeatedly.
On the other hand, Blizzard nerfing these abilities after players have chosen would likely be even worse, as then players suddenly find themselves essentially forced to switch to the now-stronger options.
One player discussed that power shouldn’t be tied to the Covenants at all, with them being reserved for cosmetics and lore. They (correctly) state that the majority of people are going to be picking the covenant that gives them the best advantage and abilities mathematically from a min-max perspective rather than picking one for the covenant’s sake itself.
In response, another player agreed as they discussed that players will undoubtedly just flood whichever option is strongest in PvE to aid with leveling and endgame content. The members of the community agreeing with him feel that once this is done, Blizzard will simply nerf that Covenant into the ground, and this cycle will continue on and on.
It’s certainly a good idea to make Covenants based more on lore and cosmetics instead of giving actual gameplay incentives, but there are drawbacks as well. The abilities given by a Covenant are one of the many things that give them their feel and aesthetic. If a Covenant is nothing more than a costume to put on, is that going to be something that we can feel from a gameplay perspective?
Balancing is an incredibly difficult thing, and frankly, Blizzard does a decent enough job of it once all things are considered. Hopefully, there’s some sort of middle ground that can be achieved that will take the emphasis of power off of the Covenants while still allowing them to be a unique and enjoyable feature of the expansion.
