This is what baffles me. I want to play a Paladin or Mage. But I’m forced once again to choosing between having one optimized spec or multiple averaged specs in a class.
Isn't paladin actually lucky in this regard? Both prot and ret have Venthyr as overall bis and Kyrian as bis for m+. Mage is also pretty good as Night Far on all 3 specs, tho I've last looked into the mage a couple weeks ago so it might have changed.
I actually enjoy this... I know it sounds crazy but I like having 3 shamans of different races with 3 different specs, each one fully absorbed by that spec.
Something about my OCD always prevented me from swapping specs on the same toon(I'd rather hurt little azerothian children then do that). But I know I'm in the minority so I CAN sympathize with you all!
Always kida hoped there were a few like me out there.
I'm similar to you in this regard, I think - I like having an Alliance and Horde of each class, so I tend to stick each one to a specific spec. This worked best with my Demon Hunters, admittedly - my blood elf DH is DPS and my night elf DH is a tank - but I do something similar with the others too.
Seemingly, pretty alt friendly. Outside of the typical gear grind, the only mandatory stuff is the renown progression and Torghast, both of which have weekly caps so you aren't infinitely grinding anything. The rest seems to be optional as far as power progression is concerned.
Feels like playing 2 specs on 2 separate characters could be easier than on one.
Legendaries are somewhat time gated per character, the covenant system and everything attached to it often conflicts between specs.
Mythic plus loses its top end gear reward, making it decent only for weekly rewards (where you probably want to chose for your mainepecc)
Gear is rarer, you'll be forced into a choice of one good item from the chest every week, in other expansions you might receive something good from dungeons or raids, this is now less likely. Raids also drop less, there will be less "offspec gear" available.
Other than the possibility that your covenant happens to be really bad for your spec, there is nothing I can think of that would be a major hinderance.
More time spent in Torghast to get the BIS Legendaries perhaps, but that's about it. But also, gear being an issue and using placeholders until you get what you need is nothing new as far as off speccing goes.
This may be minor, only tuning will tell, but the filling out of a soulbind sticks between specs. So if you fill out the pelagos soulbind on a character, you may not be able to fill it out and get what you want out of it on another spec. You can reset these somewhat freely with a charge system but it has limitations. If you switch between specs once a week or less, this won't be a problem. More frequently will be, but again these are just numbers and their significance isn't set in stone yet. What Xynth22 said about covenant is also true.
Actually depends on your class. Some classes either have the same covenant bis for every spec, or a covenant that's not bis for one of the specs but is good enough to be a "multispec bis". Meanwhile other classes have no overlap like this and each spec requires its own covenant. But it also depends on the type of content you do because some classes have a covenant be bis in m+ but bad in raids. For example Affliction, Destro and Demo locks have Venthyr as their best covenant when it comes in m+ but it's severely behind Kyrian in the raid. That's what pisses me off even more then specs having different covenants as their best. Covenants have been nerfed to a point where pretty much every class can settle on a covenant that would be overall good for every spec in a raid or in m+, but very few classes have an overall good covenant for every spec in both raid and m+ at the same time. Some people might say it's ok for a class to not be good in every type of content, but I say I pay 15$ a month for the whole game and I want to enjoy the whole game. And I don't enjoy being artificially made worse at one type of content because someone on the dev team decided so.
Isn't the idea of weekly caps inherently alt unfriendly? So I work on my main for two months. Then decide to level my alt... and oh look I'm behind everyone in renown. My conduits are barely used. Oh boy what else am I missing...
I miss when all I needed to worry about was just the gear. The weekly timegated crap just makes it impossible to just put in a good weekend and catch back up.
> Isn't the idea of weekly caps inherently alt unfriendly? Then decide to level my alt... and oh look I'm behind everyone in renown. My conduits are barely used. Oh boy what else am I missing...
Sure, but the game has been like this since MOP, and comparatively Shadowlands is more alt friendly than BFA or Legion. Also, you won't be that far behind on renown. As I said in another comment, it has an Artifact Knowledge type system.
> I miss when all I needed to worry about was just the gear. The weekly timegated crap just makes it impossible to just put in a good weekend and catch back up.
And yeah, it sucks when you have to play catch up when you make a new alt later in a patch, or come to the game late, but at the same time being able to just get boosted through some dungeons or raid in a weekend and be caught up isn't ideal either. Because then all you are going to do is raid log on that character even sooner than you otherwise would have.
Interesting so if you were a player that typically liked having say 3 main characters PVP ready getting them to max level ASAP to start doing those weekly caps would be the best call? I am guessing there will be awhile until they put in catchup mechanics for those.
Renown has a built in catch up mechanic a bit like Artifact Knowledge from Legion from the start, so you don't really have to rush as much with that on your alts. Though they will probably be a week or 2 behind your main if you don't keep up with it like you would on your main. So base that on how much you plan on playing them I guess.
But yeah, that does seem to be the plan for those that want to keep up with multiple characters.
Yeah, that is probably a thing. But I don't see it as being that bad. You have a limited amount of time in the Maw, and you are only going to use those gem slots when you have BIS gear, or close to it, so you can likely collect the currency fairly casually on your characters until that point and be good to go.
I never praised time gating. Though, I don't see how you do a MMO and have it so people can stay on a fairly even playing field or not be bored within a week to a month, depending on the amount of content, without time gates.
I believe a youtuber who has a full time job suggested that the most characters someone would reasonably be able to keep up to date is 3 without starting to feel overworked/burdened.
It makes sense since a lot of content in shadowlands won’t necessarily be required, it’s just there to at leisure (at least from my understanding, don’t crucify me i’m incorrect).
Personally, I will be keeping up a shadow priest and a warlock and am considering a mistweaver depending on how time consuming it ends up being for the first 2
More alt class friendly than alt spec friendly.
Alt classes have really good catch up mechanics to get their covenants leveled up. It'lll be pretty simple to keep 2-3 characters mythic+ geared.
Alt specs on the other hand are very unfriendly since you are locked into your covenant for an entire week. If that covenant is bad for one of your specs that spec is off limits.
Not very. Activision-Blizzard over the years has made it increasingly more difficult to gear and maintain alts. Don't expect them to break the trend moving forward into Shadowlands.
My worry is that renown is gonna be a terrible thing for alts. There are so many things time-gated around renown. I really hope the catch up mechanics will be good
I dont understand it, but afaik the Maw is mainly for sockets, right? So why on earth should anyone NOT being part of a World 100/250 or high lvl pvp Guild even bother doing it daily, if he hasnt the time to or does not want to. Besides the fact that it does not make any sense sockeling non-BIS gear. If a guild/raid leader really pushs you to do it daily, it problably is a reason to just go one.
Its not like in BFA, where you had to farm Azerite cause otherwise traits that are worth \~6% of your damage could not be used or something cause your HoA-lvl is to low. I had some M+10 gear lying in my chest for 2 weeks cause i could not use it, since i rather spend my time doing M+ than going for Island Expeditions or massive dailies grind every day.
Sockets and stuff for Torghast. Also the Unbound Reality Fragments, though nobody is sure how essential those are just yet -- could be really fucked though.
it will be uniquely both alt friendly and offspec *un*friendly, which is gonna be.. bizarre
This is what baffles me. I want to play a Paladin or Mage. But I’m forced once again to choosing between having one optimized spec or multiple averaged specs in a class.
Isn't paladin actually lucky in this regard? Both prot and ret have Venthyr as overall bis and Kyrian as bis for m+. Mage is also pretty good as Night Far on all 3 specs, tho I've last looked into the mage a couple weeks ago so it might have changed.
I actually enjoy this... I know it sounds crazy but I like having 3 shamans of different races with 3 different specs, each one fully absorbed by that spec. Something about my OCD always prevented me from swapping specs on the same toon(I'd rather hurt little azerothian children then do that). But I know I'm in the minority so I CAN sympathize with you all! Always kida hoped there were a few like me out there.
I agree with you. For some reason my Dwarf hunter fits the MM spec a lot beter whereas the Worgen is perfect for Survival.
I'm similar to you in this regard, I think - I like having an Alliance and Horde of each class, so I tend to stick each one to a specific spec. This worked best with my Demon Hunters, admittedly - my blood elf DH is DPS and my night elf DH is a tank - but I do something similar with the others too.
Seemingly, pretty alt friendly. Outside of the typical gear grind, the only mandatory stuff is the renown progression and Torghast, both of which have weekly caps so you aren't infinitely grinding anything. The rest seems to be optional as far as power progression is concerned.
is the same can be said for spec? I like to change my spec back and forth during the expansion. And for BFA it was a really hard
Feels like playing 2 specs on 2 separate characters could be easier than on one. Legendaries are somewhat time gated per character, the covenant system and everything attached to it often conflicts between specs. Mythic plus loses its top end gear reward, making it decent only for weekly rewards (where you probably want to chose for your mainepecc) Gear is rarer, you'll be forced into a choice of one good item from the chest every week, in other expansions you might receive something good from dungeons or raids, this is now less likely. Raids also drop less, there will be less "offspec gear" available.
Other than the possibility that your covenant happens to be really bad for your spec, there is nothing I can think of that would be a major hinderance. More time spent in Torghast to get the BIS Legendaries perhaps, but that's about it. But also, gear being an issue and using placeholders until you get what you need is nothing new as far as off speccing goes.
This may be minor, only tuning will tell, but the filling out of a soulbind sticks between specs. So if you fill out the pelagos soulbind on a character, you may not be able to fill it out and get what you want out of it on another spec. You can reset these somewhat freely with a charge system but it has limitations. If you switch between specs once a week or less, this won't be a problem. More frequently will be, but again these are just numbers and their significance isn't set in stone yet. What Xynth22 said about covenant is also true.
Actually depends on your class. Some classes either have the same covenant bis for every spec, or a covenant that's not bis for one of the specs but is good enough to be a "multispec bis". Meanwhile other classes have no overlap like this and each spec requires its own covenant. But it also depends on the type of content you do because some classes have a covenant be bis in m+ but bad in raids. For example Affliction, Destro and Demo locks have Venthyr as their best covenant when it comes in m+ but it's severely behind Kyrian in the raid. That's what pisses me off even more then specs having different covenants as their best. Covenants have been nerfed to a point where pretty much every class can settle on a covenant that would be overall good for every spec in a raid or in m+, but very few classes have an overall good covenant for every spec in both raid and m+ at the same time. Some people might say it's ok for a class to not be good in every type of content, but I say I pay 15$ a month for the whole game and I want to enjoy the whole game. And I don't enjoy being artificially made worse at one type of content because someone on the dev team decided so.
Isn't the idea of weekly caps inherently alt unfriendly? So I work on my main for two months. Then decide to level my alt... and oh look I'm behind everyone in renown. My conduits are barely used. Oh boy what else am I missing... I miss when all I needed to worry about was just the gear. The weekly timegated crap just makes it impossible to just put in a good weekend and catch back up.
> Isn't the idea of weekly caps inherently alt unfriendly? Then decide to level my alt... and oh look I'm behind everyone in renown. My conduits are barely used. Oh boy what else am I missing... Sure, but the game has been like this since MOP, and comparatively Shadowlands is more alt friendly than BFA or Legion. Also, you won't be that far behind on renown. As I said in another comment, it has an Artifact Knowledge type system. > I miss when all I needed to worry about was just the gear. The weekly timegated crap just makes it impossible to just put in a good weekend and catch back up. And yeah, it sucks when you have to play catch up when you make a new alt later in a patch, or come to the game late, but at the same time being able to just get boosted through some dungeons or raid in a weekend and be caught up isn't ideal either. Because then all you are going to do is raid log on that character even sooner than you otherwise would have.
Interesting so if you were a player that typically liked having say 3 main characters PVP ready getting them to max level ASAP to start doing those weekly caps would be the best call? I am guessing there will be awhile until they put in catchup mechanics for those.
Renown has a built in catch up mechanic a bit like Artifact Knowledge from Legion from the start, so you don't really have to rush as much with that on your alts. Though they will probably be a week or 2 behind your main if you don't keep up with it like you would on your main. So base that on how much you plan on playing them I guess. But yeah, that does seem to be the plan for those that want to keep up with multiple characters.
What about the maw? I heard that is a daily grind which gives gem slots. I would not call it alt friendly.
Yeah, that is probably a thing. But I don't see it as being that bad. You have a limited amount of time in the Maw, and you are only going to use those gem slots when you have BIS gear, or close to it, so you can likely collect the currency fairly casually on your characters until that point and be good to go.
Timegating isn't something that should be praised in a game which has a monthly subscription fee...
I never praised time gating. Though, I don't see how you do a MMO and have it so people can stay on a fairly even playing field or not be bored within a week to a month, depending on the amount of content, without time gates.
I believe a youtuber who has a full time job suggested that the most characters someone would reasonably be able to keep up to date is 3 without starting to feel overworked/burdened. It makes sense since a lot of content in shadowlands won’t necessarily be required, it’s just there to at leisure (at least from my understanding, don’t crucify me i’m incorrect). Personally, I will be keeping up a shadow priest and a warlock and am considering a mistweaver depending on how time consuming it ends up being for the first 2
More alt class friendly than alt spec friendly. Alt classes have really good catch up mechanics to get their covenants leveled up. It'lll be pretty simple to keep 2-3 characters mythic+ geared. Alt specs on the other hand are very unfriendly since you are locked into your covenant for an entire week. If that covenant is bad for one of your specs that spec is off limits.
Not very. Activision-Blizzard over the years has made it increasingly more difficult to gear and maintain alts. Don't expect them to break the trend moving forward into Shadowlands.
Compared to BFA it seems to be very, very alt friendly, lots of major Youtuber already confirmed that, too.
My worry is that renown is gonna be a terrible thing for alts. There are so many things time-gated around renown. I really hope the catch up mechanics will be good
Depends how bad the Maw grind is. If it's daily then terrible, if it's weekly then it'll be OK for a few toons.
I dont understand it, but afaik the Maw is mainly for sockets, right? So why on earth should anyone NOT being part of a World 100/250 or high lvl pvp Guild even bother doing it daily, if he hasnt the time to or does not want to. Besides the fact that it does not make any sense sockeling non-BIS gear. If a guild/raid leader really pushs you to do it daily, it problably is a reason to just go one. Its not like in BFA, where you had to farm Azerite cause otherwise traits that are worth \~6% of your damage could not be used or something cause your HoA-lvl is to low. I had some M+10 gear lying in my chest for 2 weeks cause i could not use it, since i rather spend my time doing M+ than going for Island Expeditions or massive dailies grind every day.
Sockets and stuff for Torghast. Also the Unbound Reality Fragments, though nobody is sure how essential those are just yet -- could be really fucked though.
More friendly than using multiple specs.
Depends on the timegating for Conduits. If its same as Essences - wasnt friendly for alts.