wow Covenants Grant Big Individual Benefits for Each Dungeon in Shadowlands: All Bonuses Detailed

[Starym 3,779]

 

We have some more Covenant benefits revealed in Shadowlands, as each one has specific bonuses in certain dungeons. The bonuses are for dungeons related to the Covenant's home region and range from special spears you can throw at enemies, different auras like 25% haste or damage reduction, different routes through the dungeons and a lot more.

Redditor Arrowsw compiled the bonuses with a basic description for each:

Considering the current power of some of these, the argument that Covenant's won't/shouldn't affect which players get picked for certain activities, such as Mythic+, just got a little weaker. Obviously these aren't the final numbers, but the more special bonuses each Covenant gets, the less likely it becomes that the choice won't be made depending on what content you want to do.

For a more detailed look at the Covenant dungeon bonuses, you can check out our own guide on all of them as well.

[SidonisAntares 288]

These need to not apply to M+, what happens when the prefixes for the week make the alternate path through Mists the difference between clearing a high key or not?

[Ragingwolf 286]

I'm all for added 'flavor' and something new in an expansion but this seems not to bode quite well with me.   It adds another layer of player discrimination when it comes to pugging keys.  And after trying to gain a small foothold in season 1 of BFA I've got a bad feeling there are going to be more keystones breaking and a new tier of the 'elitist' if these do make it to mythic +. 

 Blizzard stated that these should have zero effect on timing a key......but what worries me is the lack in follow through when it comes to fixing bugs on Dungeons.  Prime example BFA: Tol'Dagor where mobs to this very day can randomly aggro from the basement (floors/walls) to the upper portions and even initiate boss encounters due to passive azerite procs on select gear and random procs on corruption gear.

[KDF 26]

My understanding of these is that you only need one person of the given covenant in order to get the maximum benefit. So, if anything, it would encourage having a diversity of different covenants being played, both within a serious mythic+ team and in the general population.

Uncommon enough will be the group in group finder that doesn't have the key covenant covered and can only accept that one covenant as their last player.

[ORCSMASH 29]

3 hours ago, KDF said:

My understanding of these is that you only need one person of the given covenant in order to get the maximum benefit. So, if anything, it would encourage having a diversity of different covenants being played, both within a serious mythic+ team and in the general population.

Uncommon enough will be the group in group finder that doesn't have the key covenant covered and can only accept that one covenant as their last player.

I think this is a complete misreading of how groups actually form. Your logic seems to be that people won't list groups without key mechanics already covered. If what you say were true, there wouldn't be so many groups missing a tank and/or healer (the two key components of a dungeon group) or so many groups saying things like "TD LF rogue only", "LF lust DPS", "LF healer MW only", etc.

The truth is if there is any bonus at all, players will seek to exploit it (and I'm not saying they shouldn't). Even if they can't personally exploit it, then they will try to find another player who can to join their group. What worries me is with how quickly these kind of 'meta' things get disseminated, even amongst casual players, that every group is going to be expected to have all four covered. So, even from that standpoint, it's problematic, as it shouldn't handicap a group from a mechanical standpoint (or a formation standpoint) to run a group that has, say, 3 people with Maldraxxus and 2 with Venthyr. 

Obviously, I'm strongly in the mindset that your lore choice should not affect your combat or gameplay ability or choices. I mean, be honest, do you really want to - at any point in the expansion - have to be looking for the fifth person in your group to not only be someone playing 1 or 2 meta specs, but from a specific covenant as well (and, potentially, with a specific legendary)? I sure don't.

There's enough layers of distinction already. The covenant system as it stands is another infinitely more complex, infinitely-harder to swap out talent row/system and this covenant-specific dungeon bonus stuff, imho, should never make it into M+.

Here's just one more example of why I think this is a bad idea. In recent years, WoW has made a push to make the game more accessible and fun to play with small groups of friends. So, say you are leveling with some friends, and when it's time, 3 go to one covenant and 2 go to another. Now, that group of friends has to completely split to do early endgame quest lines with the different covenant choices AND they are at a significant handicap if they choose to run dungeons together on those characters, as I explained above.

Overall, I think there are a lot of bad choices with the covenant system, but this is one of the worst as it will lead to exclusion and players will end up feeling bad over what covenant they chose. I understand what you're saying, and it has some validity, but it also seems to be assuming a 'best case scenario' situation, which, in my experience, is rarely the case.

[Teufel 331]

So long as only one person is required to attain the bonus, there is not a lot of issue here, for pugs at least, which is the majority of m+ participants. Dungeons are unlikely to be tuned specifically around using the bonus to beat the timer, so it'd be most impactful in high end keys where currently vers corruption stacking is abused to squeeze thise extra numbers to make it in the same manner, and pugs are equally as unlikely to do them on a regular basis. 

Also, there was never a point M+ when the "start your own group if 'meta' isn't working out" wasn't a valid solution if you're a niche spec like Enhancement or SP or now need a certain covenant.

While personally I'd like to see more class-based bonuses going with a theme for the dungeon (i.e. ADZ having perks for priests and paladins, for instance, or SotS giving Shaman something to play with) rather than covenant-based, the character identity is a good thing to have.

[Ragingwolf 286]

8 hours ago, ORCSMASH said:

I think this is a complete misreading of how groups actually form. Your logic seems to be that people won't list groups without key mechanics already covered. If what you say were true, there wouldn't be so many groups missing a tank and/or healer (the two key components of a dungeon group) or so many groups saying things like "TD LF rogue only", "LF lust DPS", "LF healer MW only", etc.

The truth is if there is any bonus at all, players will seek to exploit it (and I'm not saying they shouldn't). Even if they can't personally exploit it, then they will try to find another player who can to join their group. What worries me is with how quickly these kind of 'meta' things get disseminated, even amongst casual players, that every group is going to be expected to have all four covered. So, even from that standpoint, it's problematic, as it shouldn't handicap a group from a mechanical standpoint (or a formation standpoint) to run a group that has, say, 3 people with Maldraxxus and 2 with Venthyr. 

Obviously, I'm strongly in the mindset that your lore choice should not affect your combat or gameplay ability or choices. I mean, be honest, do you really want to - at any point in the expansion - have to be looking for the fifth person in your group to not only be someone playing 1 or 2 meta specs, but from a specific covenant as well (and, potentially, with a specific legendary)? I sure don't.

There's enough layers of distinction already. The covenant system as it stands is another infinitely more complex, infinitely-harder to swap out talent row/system and this covenant-specific dungeon bonus stuff, imho, should never make it into M+.

Here's just one more example of why I think this is a bad idea. In recent years, WoW has made a push to make the game more accessible and fun to play with small groups of friends. So, say you are leveling with some friends, and when it's time, 3 go to one covenant and 2 go to another. Now, that group of friends has to completely split to do early endgame quest lines with the different covenant choices AND they are at a significant handicap if they choose to run dungeons together on those characters, as I explained above.

Overall, I think there are a lot of bad choices with the covenant system, but this is one of the worst as it will lead to exclusion and players will end up feeling bad over what covenant they chose. I understand what you're saying, and it has some validity, but it also seems to be assuming a 'best case scenario' situation, which, in my experience, is rarely the case.

All I'm saying that if this does make it to mythic+ that a lot of the groups forming, outside of Guilds, will be highly selective when it comes to adding dps to groups.  You may have the perfect Tank or Healer in the group but if you don't have the dps that can navigate the dungeon mechanics and the weeks affixes then most keys will not be made on time with occasionally people dropping mid run.  It happens a lot specially on Thrall (Horde Side).  And I do agree that the Covenant choice a player makes should have 0 effect in a dungeon stand point.  But it does add another tier of 'competition' when filling dps spots if you so choose to build outside of a Guild and it won't be based on an IO score alone.  And I do agree on what you mention in your post.  However I am really not looking at this at all in a positive or 'best case scenario' type manner.  Mainly just another hurdle for me along with increasing anxiety to navigate if Blizzard still becomes persistent in wanting to add this to the expansion.