Lead Encounter Designer on World of Warcraft, Morgan Day, was interviewed on a live stream with Preach about the upcoming Shadowlands expansion, including discussion on Covenant Utility and more.
Specifically regarding Covenant Utility, Morgan mentioned that the team actually discusses this internally frequently due to balance concerns. Morgan makes mention that it’s the team’s job to ensure that players have the tools necessary for combat.
Additionally, it’s the team’s responsibility to ensure any puzzles created are solvable with those player tools, including things like Covenant abilities. Morgan mentioned that the issue arises when there simply fails to exist enough variety in these puzzles during encounters. This will lead to class stacking. An example of this is Ragnaros Phase 2 requiring Burst AoE, but with Phase 3 requiring something different.
We don’t have an update yet on Shadow Priests from Morgan, but it’s on the team’s radar. The interview also covered off the next test build which should have all Covenant abilities able to be tested in Torghast. You can catch the interview below.
Ta, Wowhead.
