WARNING: My P’s are extremely pronounced.
The results are in! With Shadowlands right around the corner, Blizzard is really honing in on how they want classes to play. The covenant choice in Shadowlands is supposed to be of our own accord; or is it? I want to briefly talk about my thoughts on the covenant BiS recommendations which was posted on WoWhead earlier today.
Let me know your thoughts!
WoWhead Article:
https://bit.ly/389xve7
Source
I'm listening…
I came here for the sexy thumbnail, stayed for the sexy WoW content <3
The Versatility does seem quite tasty on my Brewmaster monk, but as you've said in past videos, Necrolord active ability is way too strong on Guardian/Brewmaster for M+.
I'd still rather run Nightfae on my Brewmaster and on all my Druid specs, however some of the soulbinds are so weak it makes me worry that, as I'm pushing high .+ keys, I'll encounter a ton of THOSE players that refuse to play with anyone not running the "meta" that gives barely a 2% increase to anything…
I haven't played Guardian since WotLK, but I know Brewmaster has an issue with Haste where you really only want to hit specific break points (I believe 14% haste)? I believe Guardian Druid is similar, correct, in that Frenzied Regen's CD is lowered by Haste so you don't want to hit a wierd CD like 6.5 seconds where you're essentially wasting what is probably 5% Haste that could've been literally any other stat. Which is one of my issues with Nightfae because I believe 2 of the Soulbinds give you (or your target from a heal) a 5% Haste buff, so you probably end up wasting most of that since I believe the next ideal break point for Brewmaster is somewhere way above 30% Haste (it wouldn't be 28% because you also lower your GCD a little bit, but I believe the 25% Haste buff makes your Keg Smash CD overlap your Blackout Kick rotation too often so you still suffer downtime.)
I haven't seen a full breakdown on Haste sim for Shadowlands, but I was wondering if you've seen anything since you have a lot more time to look at tasty spreadsheets.
Oh thank god. I run Gdruid and UH DK. I can just go Venthyr like I was going to do anyway!
Hey man, great video as always! Listen, i do not like necrolord, most of it, i do not like their covenant ability fleshcraft, but the buffs it gives in m+ are crazy, maybe thats why it could be strong. At some point i got like 300 mastery,
I'm gonna go venthyr priest anyway as I planned, I just wish they didn't fuck up theotar's soulbind like they did. I don't understand what was the point of shifting wasteland propriety and soothing shade up… Also Pelagos is so favored because you get 2 powerful throughput generic while choosing all the potency conduits in the tree. No other soulbind has that. In all other soulbinds the second throughput generic is behind a finesse or an endurance and have to give up a potency to use it.
Cons: has Pelagos.
I still don't understand why Blizzard didn't just make the covenants cosmetic. Making them do something in combat opened such a massive can of worms, and these balancing issues could've been avoided entirely if it had just been mounts and transmogs, and they made it even more complicated with soulbinds and legendary effects. So now they spent months of development time trying to get this right to the detriment of other aspects of the expansion. My mind is well and truly boggled.
Love the video man. I'm a bear and going Necrolord. Wanted to go necro all along too. I believe people are over looking the Emeni soulbind. That first trait (Lead by Example) is up 10sec out of every 25 seconds as long as your using Adaptive Swarm on cd. You can cast this on yourself or a party member as you run in to a pull, so this doesn't have to impact your normal starting rotation. This is flat agility. You get a conduit that pushes your 'over time' effects on the target to 34.4% at rank 15. That's hots and bleeds, all of em. While testing this (and I haven't done enough yet, but it's a start) this was 9% of my overall damage and 5% of my healing. Those numbers are without the conduit on. So just the base 20% perk. Over the course of a 30 minute dungeon run or 5 minute boss encounter this can add up. The only drawback is you can't get 'channel fleshcraft while moving' if you take the 'evolved swarm' for the bonus. That would be the situational one to change sometimes. That's my take on Necro so far. I'm testing the other ones now. Thanks again for all of your videos man!
It’s almost stupid that some classes have a different best covenant for each spec. Like Mage and warlock ridiculous
#Wheresthetie
My bet is that Pélagos will get nerfed. I’m still going Kyrian because the Spear is awesome for M+, but the other soulbinds are really bad for Prot Warrior (or tanks in general, stacking Crit, standing still and staying at high health is not very common and Bron is just… I don’t even know how to describe other than a meme).
I know it would create more disparity between game modes, but I wish Blizz brought the bad covenant abilities up in power rather than cull down the strong ones. There’s a lot of hate towards borrowed power, but there should be a middle ground between random procs being 30% of your damage and one of the central mechanics of the expansion being marginally better than not having it at all.
Nice video!
For a long time a great majority of players pointed out to covenant choices being a bad design and locked into them is a bad idea
With this guide it just exposed that…I also think they will nerf Pelagos
But make no mistakes Blizzard will do nerfs and buffs until heroic/mythic opens so grinding reputation or conduits is a bad idea
My 2cents
The Kyrian story is great along with the Venthyr storyline since they help players understand the massive conspiracies of the Shadowlands which includes the Purpose and the traitors. Also, the Maldraxxus final boss (Kelthuzad) can be a boss for the Venthyr covenant as well. Ardenweald and Maldraxxus didn't give clear story content of the overarching conflict of the Shadowlands.
For Necrolord and Guardian Druid, Princess Emeni has 'Lead by Example' which can potentially give us 15% AGI for 10 seconds, every 25 seconds….being strong both offensively with damage, and defensively with Iron Fur
I want to pick Ventyr for the looks and Sinful Brand seems very versatile even with the nerf but as a Vengeance DH the Kyrian Sigil builds looks fun to play.
I feel that I'm being punished for having an opinion right now.
only down side is what is op or strong will get nerfed and Kyrian is pretty boring overall.
blizzard has good way of looking at Covenant and changing things i wouldnt be supersized if blizzard nerfs it to stone age. or they will change it a 1 week in to SL. and before you say no that wont happen it. it has happened before and it also has happened in raiding in bfa 😛