wow Conduits Won't Be Destructible In Shadowlands

[Stan 5,240]

Yesterday, Preach talked to Game Director Ion Hazzikostas and we found out that destructible Conduits won't go live and the team's working on alternative solutions to the problem.

The main issue people have with Conduits as they currently stand is that they get consumed and/or destroyed when you replace them, so you must re-farm them should you decide to switch to an off-spec and back because they do not change based on your current specialization. Simply put, you can't pick different Conduits for each spec like talents.

To give you a better idea, here are some examples of Warrior Conduits that you can put in the various Soulbind trees:

• Ashen Juggernaut - Execute/Condemn increases the critical strike chance of Execute by 3% for 8 seconds, stacking up to 6 times.
• Brutal Vitality - 6.0% of the damage you deal adds to your active Ignore Pain.
• Cacophonous Roar - Intimidating Shout can withstand 80% more damage before breaking.
• Crash the Ramparts - Overpower has a 6% chance to apply Colossus Smash for 3 seconds.
• Indelible Victory - Victory Rush/Impending Victory heals you for 400% of the damage it dealt over 8 seconds.
• Inspiring Presence - Rallying Cry's duration and health granted are increased by 20%.
• Iron Maiden - Slam (Arms+Fury) or Revenge (Protection) has a 4% chance to refund a charge of Shield Block.
• Merciless Bonegrinder -Slam critical strikes reduce the remaining cooldown of Ravager/Bladestorm by 1 second.
• Safeguard - Intervene reduces damage taken by the target by 10%.
• Stalwart Guardian - The cooldown of Die by the Sword (Arms), Enraged Regeneration (Fury), or Shield Wall (Protection) is reduced by 20 seconds.

Ion yesterday admitted that they are working on alternative solutions for Conduits, but they have nothing to announce for the time being.

Quote

"There's one thing I wanted to share and talk about. Conduits, everyone loves Conduits, right? Destructibility? We agree that's a problem. It's something we've been talking a lot about. We're often hesitant to admit things that we know are not successful designs until we have an alternate proposal. You've talked a lot about the so-called "Mythic tax" and the design of semi-permanence, but it can be overcome and made flexible by a lot of really annoying grinding and re-earning the same Conduits over and over again. That is a recipe for frustration and the goal here is to encourage meaningful choice where your character is stronger in some ways and weaker in others".

Ion Hazzikostas

Game Director

They recognize Conduits are heading down the same path as Azerite Armor. They've seen the discussion, but don't want to make them like Essences that you can freely swap for each boss.

Quote

"Before every encounter, you are now in addition to talents in addition to your spec and in addition to all of this, evaluating, which of these many different Conduits you are going to activate in each of these nodes. The game doesn't need more of that, and so we're trying to think through some middle ground, where it is a semi-permanent decision: you have flexibility, but you can't change it from boss to boss, but there isn't some overhanging tax or penalty or just really annoying thing that you are going to have to do because we know that if it's an option, you're going to do it for the sake of optimality. So, we don't have a solution to announce yet."

Ion Hazzikostas

Game Director

They want to find a middle ground and don't want to tax players for switching Conduits.

Quote

"We're not going live with destructible Conduits. We know there are some fundamental flaws with that design. It is a super hot topic of internal conversations."

Ion Hazzikostas

Game Director

You can watch the portion of the interview and Ion's reply in the video below.

[Nazka 4]

I'm glad they backtracked on this. Especially when you consider how you had to retrieve them.

[leapingshadow 50]

I think a system similar to Essences, but switching out has a heavy cooldown.

[Stan 5,240]

If Conduits switched with specs just like talents, I wouldn't mind if they were destructible really.

[durdyenglish 298]

33 minutes ago, Stan said:

If Conduits switched with specs just like talents, I wouldn't mind if they were destructible really.

If they were like the essence library and spec specific, players would have three options per spec. This would let you plan out all your conduits for say *raid night* and only require you to switch between soulbinds between bosses. This would actually turn the soulbinds into a second talent system, allowing you to have three different variations of each spec. Couple this with a large variety of options within the conduit system and you have an incredibly rich, player-choice-oriented, minimal maintenance system that requires only additional conduits (maybe binds) as the expansion moves forward.

ADDITION: I actually really like the idea of having the baseline spec talent tree that adds a long-term, neutral identity to the class with a true talent tree like described above bolted on and striped away each expansion to fit the theme. If the relics in Legion worked like Essences and artifacts were class specific (with relics adjusting for spec), that would have been the premiere bolt-on system for the ages. If they can do something akin to what that would have been through the covenants, we will have a great time.

Edited July 18, 2020 by durdyenglish

[Stan 5,240]

5 hours ago, durdyenglish said:

If they were like the essence library and spec specific, players would have three options per spec. This would let you plan out all your conduits for say *raid night* and only require you to switch between soulbinds between bosses. This would actually turn the soulbinds into a second talent system, allowing you to have three different variations of each spec. Couple this with a large variety of options within the conduit system and you have an incredibly rich, player-choice-oriented, minimal maintenance system that requires only additional conduits (maybe binds) as the expansion moves forward.

ADDITION: I actually really like the idea of having the baseline spec talent tree that adds a long-term, neutral identity to the class with a true talent tree like described above bolted on and striped away each expansion to fit the theme. If the relics in Legion worked like Essences and artifacts were class specific (with relics adjusting for spec), that would have been the premiere bolt-on system for the ages. If they can do something akin to what that would have been through the covenants, we will have a great time.

They would have to get rid of easy switching between the three. Maybe once a week free, but each subsequent switch would either cost a lot of gold or wouldn’t be possible at all. 

[durdyenglish 298]

14 hours ago, Stan said:

They would have to get rid of easy switching between the three. Maybe once a week free, but each subsequent switch would either cost a lot of gold or wouldn’t be possible at all. 

Maybe have it cost anima, forcing you to do more content.

[Seksi 208]

Could simply require you to go to the Soulbind trainer in your class hall in order to be able to move conduits. Having people go out mid-raid for every boss sounds like enough of an annoyance that people will not do it unless things are insanely imbalanced from boss to boss, and in that case making them permanent would be even worse.