As a general rule, unlock flying first and switch covenants afterwards if intended. It would be more effort when switching directly and then working to get Renown 44 back.But you can also unlock flying on an alt (as it counts for the whole account), where the covenant preference is not so important, as long as the other char has maxed out Renown.
I remember saying "please more venthyrs and necrolords, they are so cool" bam: purple and blue :(
I CE raid as a dh, I am venthir... I would rather quit then lose months of work. I am now either forced to do less damage and parse lower or quit the game, thanks blizz.
You can play whichever covenant you want and clear most of the content in the game in any covenant but if you are playing suboptimal covenant you ideally want to be in a guild or play with friends because random pugs won't really tolerate everything. If you are mainly pugging the content (which is not the ideal way to play the game) you should put in the effort and be in the best covenant for the spec you are in and the content you are doing
I am enjoying the switch. Played night fae through all patch 9.0 (A long time) I now am moving to Kyrian arcane mage. The new spec an covenant have me excited to play again. It is a grind but that is part of WOW.The people that don't switch may be complaining in a few week that they ran out of content.
Option X will do .02% more damage than Option Y if your rotation is absolutely perfect. It will do 3% less otherwise.Average WoW Player: "Obviously I want to use Option X then."
Community: Here is what you NEED to be in 9.1Community: Blizzard is FORCING us to pick X convenant for X class, WTFBlizzard: Are you guys stupid or what?
I just came here to read all the dumb comments
Meh, I'm not swapping for such insignificant theoretical DPS difference.I know I'm no one and this is not the take on that that most people have but here are my two cents : This article (and most of them tbh) is interesting for world-top 0.01% players who try to play as close as possible to the theoretical-perfect.I don't get why there are so many articles that are disconnected from the reality of the HUGE majority of the playerbase... at best this one gives them excuses to play poorly and say "Yeah I died because of my covenant and Blizz, totally not because I jumped right into the oneshot-easy to dodge AoE", and at worst it's throwing salt to people who don't understand how unimportant that is.Wowhead knows that but instead of writing articles like "what are the top 10 mistakes during necrotic affix", "simple guide to X boss", "a look at Throw Glaive in the Havoc DH rotation", "how to use BL efficiently in X dungeon", "top 10 most important spells to kick 3 : PVP", "Today in To Click Or Not To Click : Taunt", they instead write things likes this...You guys are just destroying the community even more by literally telling them not to invite X spec with Y covenant because it's sub-optimal, while it really makes no difference. I know you are writing this like "yeah that's mathematically, during a computer simulation, the optimal covenant" but people are reading this like "don't play this covenant, it's bad". For PvP that's quite another story in high rating (eg : Sinful Brand dispellable), but for PvE......And people, realistically, if you have issues playing end-game content, it's 100% not because of your covenant choice. So just go for the one that you prefer (ability and/or mogs and stuff). The balance is good enough to be negligible for nearly all players. It's like saying you're stuck silver in lol because of your champion pool... just no man, no. I'm sorry. (poor analogy but that's the idea)EDIT : op.gg/ summoner/ userName=파랗게질린누누 (League players will understand)
Well, judging from 9.0, these are not to be trusted whole cloth. Many of the class writers are "top players," not analysts of the numbers nor run very many sims. Some are great, but several slack off big time OR literally are just too busy playing the game to run sims and test minute details for 12 hours a day. 9.0 had major changes and difference from their thoughts and these bore fruit in logs in a very short time-span of a few weeks after Nathria came out. So, due to Blizzard's insanely restrictive Covenant switching...be a bit careful.Logs are the best way to judge the absolute highest covenants for each spec, not one dude that could or could not have a biased or uninformed take due many factors.However, and I can't stress this enough, for casual raiding and slow mythic+ progression...play whatever you want. Yeah, you'll less damage than the absolute best setup, but you will have more fun if you play the thing you like the most. Also, a feature many people seem to have missed this expansion on WarcraftLogs is the ability to see Covenant based rankings (unfortunately, they've yet to add a % of covenant type thing on the log page itself...I'd love that so much!) which allows you to track your performance against others of your Covenant. For an experienced player's viewpoint that echo's my own, check out Kalamazi's videos (Warlock dude, runs sims, etc.)...as I know taking the word of some random trashcan like me is not what I would expect from anyone without some solid player backing the statements up.I personally play Destro Warlock and I actually happened to choose Night Fae anyway due to liking the idea of a Warlock that uses her power to summon demons and felfire to defend nature and Azeroth. Head-canon aside, though I really wish they'd make Covenant switch quick and easy because I've reviewed or glanced at some Venthyr and Kyrian Destro players...there's some nutty casters in those covenants that are punching well above their Covenant's limitations. I love to see that aforementioned Covenant % added to WarcraftLogs to help players better understand and be comfortable with playing a covenant that is less played. Most Covenants are too far apart in DPS, however there are unfortunately a few that even really awesome players struggle catching up to the primary Covs with. That's why I think Covenant switching should be a nice and quick toggle, adding a lot more variety to builds too...imagine if you could go Venthyr for one fight due to a specific soulbind then pop over to Night Fae for another and Necrolord again for another.Maybe in 9.2 or 9.3, we'll see the Covenants break their strictness and allow us that freedom via coming together to fight against the Void or the First Ones, etc. (Blizzard, that's lore out I'm giving ya :P )
Shadow Priest being able to pick whatever covenant they want and still be good is the best thing here. If only Blizzard could make every class' covenants balanced like that.
In case anyone is curious:Adding up all the Covenant above (keep in mind these may changes a decent bit as happened in 9.0, but for the time being based on subjective guides)-I counted "Any" for all Covenants and left out the Necrolord (Support) as I thought it to be...a stretch. All listed Covenants are counted, not just the top one, but also the other viable options. ie. both Necrolord and Night Fae for Destro Lock.For Raiding: Kyrian - 18 Total Specs w/ - 4 Tanks - 3 Healers - 11 DPSNight Fae - 18 Total Specs w/ - 4 Tanks - 3 Healers - 11 DPSVenthyr - 11 Total Specs w/ - 2 Tanks - 1 Healer - 8 DPSNecrolord - 8 Total Specs w/ - 0 Tanks - 2 Healers - 6 DPS-For Mythic+:Kyrian - 19 Total Specs w/ - 5 Tanks - 4 Healers - 10 DPSNight Fae - 22 Total Specs w/ - 3 Tanks - 4 Healers - 15 DPSVenthyr - 10 Total Specs w/ - 1 Tank - 2 Healers - 7 DPSNecrolord - 8 Total Specs w/ - 1 Tank - 2 Healers - 5 DPS-Keep in my mind, that switching to another Covenant for only Raiding or Mythic+ is not doable unless you only play that specific type of content, so some classes (as before) sort of have to choose. A good example is Frost Mage as the Venthyr ability doesn't have use in AoE, it loses some value in M+ especially on Fortified weeks whereas Night Fae gives a pretty good burst in AoE and decent CD reduction between packs for Icy Veins. But you can only have one...so many just go with Venthyr, which is displayed in the raw numbers above.Conclusion: Kyrian and Night Fae are dominant in total numbers with Venthyr and Necrolord having a lot more, sub-par picks that significantly hurt DPS, HPS, or tanking ability. This does not make them useless, obviously...and casual players can play whatever they choose. For Mythic raiding, the above numbers will probably play out somewhat like that until further tuning is made. However, Blizzard has cornered themselves with making Covenant switching a chore since now...if you are raiding for progression within a certain time limit with a serious guild that wants Heroic done on a certain week, get into Mythic asap, etc...tuning will only making the situation worse if the tuning simply changes the best covenants rather than actually balances them.
