In Shadowlands, they introduced a new system to the game for our classes to have a little bit extra diversity between Rogues and Mages and that is the Covenant System. Each covenant comes with two abilities. One of them is going to be a covenant specific ability usually some sort of utility, mobility or a defensive. As well as a class ability that has impactful changes to your rotation and play style. Blizzard wants to add more stuff for covenants like expanding the soul binds in patch 9.1, adding different types of potency conduits which can enhance aspects of your classes but we are also expecting general tunings, buff and nerfs to covenants in order to make it more of a choice. Some players feel like they have to play a certain covenant and players naturally gravitate towards a specific playstyle based on their class.
In this video, let’s explore what are the most popular options and choices the players chose for their class in covenant combos. Why they might have chosen it and some of the things Blizzard could do in order to tune it to be more of a choice going into patch 9.1.
1:18 DEATH KNIGHT
We are taking a look at all three specs of Death Knights and it looks like the majority of them lean to Necrolord.
The ability is so strong from the very beginning, it did not seem like a bad choice. Even though we see a lot of Venthyr DK doing extremely well at the very high end of mythic pluses and we even see Kyrian DK for Blood DKs doing really well inside or raids- you actually see a lot of different covenants for DK doing really well at the very top end. They are so popular, Blizzard even added a whole Runeforge to the crafting area of the Necrolord covenant. So you don’t have to go all the way back to Arcurious. This is simply because there’s an overwhelming amount of DK as Necrolord.
Thematically, Necrolords and detonates fit very well together. However if we are to see players actually trying other covenants those are we need to do a lot more in order to make the other covenants stronger. The other covenants are not bad, looking at the data, we see a lot of DK playing just about anything they want to. I honestly believe that a lot more players would switch covenants if Blizzard allowed you to take your renown that you collected in one covenant onto the other covenants. So if they added some sort of system maybe in patch 9.1, we actually could see a lot more players that play DK swap over to other covenants because just about anything is viable.
For DK the two popular choices are going to be based on your spec. If you are a popular tank Demon Hunter you’re playing the Kyrian. The combo is way too good and you even have legendaries, soul binds and conduits that work so well into that play style. And if you are playing Havoc, Night Fae is the covenant choice and a lot of Night Fae are doing really well. Night Fae PVP Demon Hunter is a thing. Night Fae in mythic pluses are strong, however Venthyr is the most popular.
Venthyr was a very strong choice back during the Alpha and the Beta. This was before Blizzard did any of the buffs and the nerfs. And most cases when I see a Demon Hunter, I do see them as either Kyrian because they usually do not play in Havoc, they usually play Vengeance. Or if they are for some reason a Havoc main, they are usually Night Fae for that big punchy haunt damage. Apparently Venthyr is the most played covenant for Demon Hunters. We’ve actually recently seen more DH popping up when it comes to mythic pluses and doing really well with some of the nerfs to let’s say Monks for example- allows other classes to shine or at least be a little bit more closer to competitiveness to monks and DH was one of those classes that does really well in AOE. And it looks like there’s quite a lot of DH in the top ladder that are Venthyr.
4:24 DRUIDS
When you hear the word Druid, do you automatically think of Balance Druids that are of the Night Fae variety? This one does not need a fancy introduction, we all know how many Druids play Night Fae. Not only does it fit so well into the theme of a Druid. The theme of the Druid be one with the forest running around like a wild animal in your soul shape form but also being able to switch forms regularly with an ability that plays the game for you for 4 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown and just how strong it is all together, it ends up being a really strong combo that all specs of Druids can enjoy.
5:07 HUNTERS
When it comes to Hunters there’s not a lot of diversity, majority of them went Night Fae. My guess is during the Alpha and Beta it was really coming down for a lot of the DPS classes to either go Kyrian or Night Fae as those 2 covenants simmed the best at the time. And with the last minute nerfs to the Kyrian covenant, the Night Fae ended up being a lot stronger. Combined together with how the serpent legendary with the extra poison effect on aim shots interacted with the Night Fae ability, was a solid combo. A covenant ability that works for AOE as well as single target where the other ones work only for one or the other. It looks like it still continues to be very popular with Marksman Hunters even after the nerfs. Maybe potentially in the future as we get better scaling we will see other covenants do well for Hunters as in sims they are actually not that far away from the Night Fae.
6:06 MAGES
Just like the Hunters, the Mages found themselves together with the Night Fae but also a lot of the other classes that are triple DPS specs also found themselves playing Night Fae as well. I think it was for similar reasons as Kyrian wasn’t all that terrible. The other covenants at the time just weren’t as strong. So majority of Mages with the cooldown reduction that the Night Fae offered allowing for a very powerful play style. Where your combustion was a one minute cooldown, also thanks to Battle for Azeroth’s systems of Azerite, gear and corruptions to continue flourishing and being a strong option in the next expansion.
Similar thing goes for the Arcane Mage; it does end up fitting pretty well as a generalized option. However for Frost we actually saw a lot of them go Venthyr and they still are predominantly Venthyr. Venthyr just takes away a lot of the RNG of Frost Mages as it allows you the guarantee that you’ll get more flurry procs in order to be able to continue your burst and get your set ups for big massive crits. And it will most likely continue being really strong.
To get Mages to maybe try something new, I think Blizzard would really need to buff all the covenants. Night Fae is too strong by itself. Soul binds are amazing, the ability is insanely strong and it’s interesting that we see things like Venthyr as well as Frost combo. And I wonder if we’ll see something like that in the future like Necrolord Arcane Mages which are stoned to become a lot more popular. Or maybe even Kyrian Fire Mages becoming a PVE focus.
7:42 MONKS
For Monks, the Kyrian ended up being very strong and the go to choice from the get-go. As the ability itself just gave you way too much of benefit. Crazy amount of mastery and also gave you a little bit of cooldown reduction with some new base abilities to heal better, do more damage as a DPS, or to maintain debuffs on the enemies to tank better. It just ended up being a very solid option that didn’t receive any kind of nerfs.
We do actually see Mistweaver Monks doing extremely well at the high end with different covenants. Same thing goes for Brewmaster but not too much movement or variety when it comes to Windwalker. It might be one of those things where eventually with scaling, we’ll see a lot more players diving into other covenants and trying different things. If the scaling doesn’t really help out, Blizzard is gonna have to do some crazy buffs to the other covenants in order to make them a little bit better. Scaling could potentially improve some of those covenants and class combos.
8:58 PALADINS
When it comes to Paladins we all have seen just how strong the Venthyr Paladin is. You probably have seen the amazing damage that Holy Paladin Venthyr can perform basically becoming a 4th DPS over mythic plus dungeon. The amount of damage and pressure that could be put out during that four minute button is insane. We’ve seen Prot Paladins also do really well as Venthyr. And Ret Paladins have actually brought quite crazy good utility with damage as well as the healing for raid groups. It is the go-to that a lot of people at the top can play but in fact the most popular component for all 3 specs is being Kyrian. Which is a little bit surprising because you see so many Venthyr Paladins of all 3 specs performing well at the high end with certain Ret Paladins doing really well in mythic pluses as Kyrian, not including PVP of course. It looks like the Kyrian combo is just that good. I think it’s one of those cases where the theme of the Kyrian and the Paladin play style / theme is very similar to the Night Fae Druid and the Necrolord DK set up.
Also the Kyrian play style gives you an extra button to use pretty regularly. It’s not quite the Venthyr formula cooldown which is like waiting for metamorphosis for the Paladin. Or a massive metamorphosed version of consecration on the ground for a Paladin. It’s something you get to use regularly and it will sim in pretty well. Players were recommending that if you’re going for an all-rounder from mythic pluses, maybe PVP or raiding, it could be not a terrible choice but we saw how strong Venthyr is but apparently the majority of the players still play Kyrian.
I do think, just like the DK, if Blizzard were to allow players to transfer the renown over, I think you would see a lot more players spread out between Venthyr and Kyrian. And I really think Blizzard should take a look at Night Fae as well as Necrolord a little bit more because they are really underperforming when it comes to the population numbers. And maybe those abilities should be checked again.
11:08 ROGUES
When it comes to Rogues, right now we actually see a lot of Rogues doing exceptionally well. As a Necrolord Outlaw, the strongest most successful choice for mythic pluses. The Venthyr Assassination Rogue is incredibly good in raids but this was only because of recent buffs in patch 9.0.5. Predominantly a lot of the Rogues were recommended with guides to go Night Fae from the start of the expansion. It makes sense, it’s a safe choice and you would want to choose the best option where you can play all 3 specs and not be terrible in any content. Because at the time of the beginning of the expansion, a lot of players were literally afraid of not being invited to groups because they were the wrong covenant. However for Rogues, the play style itself was so minor in terms of what the abilities brought that you really could push and do really well as any covenant. And now with changes in patch 9.0.5, I think a lot more Rogues would want to go and change the covenants.
I regularly get viewers asking what do they keep and what do they change if they were to change covenants. And regrinding all the renown to a lot of people does not sound like a lot of fun. Just like Paladins as well as detonates, I feel like Blizzard works allows me a kind of renown transfer of some sort so players don’t have to regrind through all the renown. Maybe with patch 9.1 you would see a lot more Rogues being a lot more spread out in covenants because all of them are actually very close to one another in effectiveness. We’ll probably see a lot more Necrolords since a lot like to do dungeons. A lot more Venthyr since a lot of people wanted to play Assassination for the longest time. You’ll still see plenty of Night Fae and Kyrian and I feel like out of all the classes this one could have probably the best spread.
12:42 SHAMANS
The Necrolord and the Venthyr are the 2 options for Shamans. The Venthyr, if you are playing Enhancement or at least that’s how it started, where we are actually seeing quite a few Enhancement Shamans rolling all the covenants. In sims they are doing really good, in practice they can even do fantastic not playing Venthyr for it was just kind of a safe choice recommended in guides at the beginning of the Alpha and the Beta.
For Elemental and Restoration Shaman, we got Primordial Wave from the Necrolords. More flame shots which means you can maintain your DoTs and get more lava bursts or more riptides for easier healing. Put a buff on allies and then when you heal all those allies of the buff also gain a portion of the full benefit of the heal. However with the buffs in patch 9.0.5, there’s a lot more room to place different covenants for Shamans, there are just so many players that have just got all that renown into that one covenant. And even if then, it would be quite a bit to convince other people to try something new since the Necrolord and the Venthyr for Enhancement have just proven themselves to be so good overall. It would have to have some quite significant buffs and maybe renown swap in order to get more players to try other covenants.
14:13 WARLOCKS
Warlocks are actually a very interesting case. Apparently Warlocks at the very beginning of the expansion had a lot of diversity. There were Warlocks of all kinds of covenants depending on your spec. Affliction Warlocks from the get go went Night Fae because it gave you an extra damage over time ability which was easier to use and could be spread to multiple enemies very easily. Affliction Warlocks have an ability that punishes the enemy for every damage over time that’s on them. So if you have one enemy loaded with DoTs or multiple enemies with as many DoTs as you can maintain then you’ll have quite a lot of damage going out in general.
Destruction Warlocks were actually really in a swing of a little bit of Kyrian, a little bit of Necrolord, a little bit of Venthyr, a little bit of Night Fae- they were all across the board at the beginning of the expansion.
For Demonology Warlocks, some were in the Night Fae, some in Necrolord in a 50/50 split and a little bit in other covenants too. However right before the raid started, you saw a massive shift with almost 80% of the Warlocks going Night Fae abandoning all their covenants that they really wanted to play. Night Fae makes all the sense, you have a class with not a lot of mobility given extra mobility then it becomes a lot better and easier to play. The Night Fae covenant works really well for all 3 specs so you can switch out from spec to spec depending on the fights as you’re progressing through raids or getting through dungeons. So it seems like a good all-rounder, a lot of guides are recommending, right before the raid came out, to go Night Fae.
Now that we are in patch 9.0.5, there have been significant buffs to the other covenants and we are seeing people starting to kind of spread out. But then again I think they need to do some massive buffs to the covenant themselves before we really see a lot of people swap. If they can somehow make the other abilities, the class themselves abilities, a little bit stronger maybe give them a little bit extra aspect besides just extra damage, maybe a proc based thing or cooldown reduction aspect. Then that would convince more people to try other covenants but right now it looks like the Night Fae for the most part has the Warlocks in their grasp.
16:53 WARRIORS
Even though Blizzard has done so many buffs to the other covenants of Warriors, we are still seeing the majority of DPS going Venthyr and the majority of tanks staying in Kyrian. There have been massive updates in terms of Warriors and covenants and right now Night Fae warrior is downright the best in terms of mythic plus damage output. Actually the strongest covenant that’s recommended by a lot of players, even though Night Fae Warriors have massive success, the Venthyr still reigns supreme. Majority of players are going for the big condemn button. It makes sense, it works out for the Arms Warrior super well, an ability that allows you quite a bit of play. And for the Fury Warrior also generates quite a bit of damage, quite easy bit of rage in the opener and it’s a button you get to press regularly. Then we have the Kyrian Prot which also is pretty good. The Spear of Bastion can be used to root enemies to keep them away from you. And the Kyrian comes also with a sippy cup which can be good whenever you have a bunch of DoTs on you or trying to simply give yourself a bit of a heal being a Warrior who can’t really heal yourself.
I think it will take some time before we see Warriors really branching out to other covenants. And potentially with a renown swap of some sort, you could see a lot more players go in different covenants as the Necrolord banner is actually a massive tool for group content especially if you are a high end Prot Warrior. Night Fae is extremely potent right now but I think Blizzard would have to do something more for the Protection Venthyr play style maybe give him more of a defensive benefit. Kyrian for Amrs and Fury outside the PVP uses, I think we need to do something in order to make it more enticing for the DPS counterparts of Warriors to even give Kyrian a go.
Over the last patch, Blizzard has done a lot of good things in order to buff up the covenants. And while we do have certain combos that are really strong, it doesn’t reflect the overall popularity of how many people choose a certain covenant. Right now we are seeing, for example with Rogues, far more Outlaw Rogues performing incredibly well at mythic pluses as a Necrolord. As Assassination and Venthyr seems like it goes hand in hand however a massive plurality of players are Night Fae.