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1 | Harldan#2316 (Discord) | Kyrian | Necrolords | Night Fae | Venthyr | Notes | Key | BiS | Good | Mediocre | Bad | Trash | |
2 | (Updated 8/24/21) I've updated the rankings for Patch 9.1 based on logs and supplementary info obtained from personal experience, the experiences of high level Mythic Raider friends, and the class discords (except Hammer of Wrath because I'm still banned from that lmao). I believe that the rankings shown are highly accurate since most of it was based on actual data. | https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/ioes4z/i_made_a_spreadsheet_with_covenant_rankings_for/? | Highly likely to be the BiS Covenant. | Relatively strong, could be BiS depending on tuning. | Isn't incredibly effective, and/or only useful in niche scenarios. | Very undertuned and/or poorly designed. | Functionally broken and/or in need of a complete rework. | Updated 10/2/20: There are no more abilities ranked as trash! This is a fantastic sign, keep up the good work Blizzard! | |||||
3 | Blood Death Knight | Good | Good | Mediocre | Good | (Updated 8/24/21) Blood has some of the most balanced covenants by far. There's a surprisingly even mix of all covenants present in most content, to the point where it's impossible to declare a single one as the "BiS" covenant. Currently Kyrian is the strongest for ST by a solid margin, and for pure AoE damage Venthyr is in the lead. That said, Necrolord is very close for both ST and AoE, and it also provides an invaluable utility. You can't go wrong with any of those three, just don't pick Night Fae. | Remember that you can check the class-wide bonus notes for more information. They're located at the bottom of the Notes column, and every class should have one. | ||||||
4 | Frost Death Knight | Mediocre | BiS | Mediocre | Good | Frost is mostly dominated by Necrolord players, which is to be expected seeing as it's arguably the best damage choice along with providing strong utility. While Venthyr appears to be competitive, it's not nearly good enough to make up for the lack of any major utility. The other options offer relatively poor damage with similarly poor utility options. | Please keep in mind that there are bound to be many minor changes that affect rankings, but this spreadsheet is run by a SINGLE person, and I have my own stuff that I need to do. I'll update it when I can, but I'd always recommend double checking with your respective class discords. | ||||||
5 | Unholy Death Knight | Mediocre | BiS | Mediocre | Good | See the Frost section above, as it's effectively the same for Unholy. That being said, Unholy appears to be even MORE dominated by Necrolord players, to the point where I considered bumping Venthyr down to Mediocre. | |||||||
6 | Havoc Demon Hunter | Mediocre | Good | BiS | Mediocre | While I decided to be generous and rate Necrolord as "Good" because a handful of people seem to be doing alright with it, the reality is that Night Fae is incredibly dominant for Havoc in all forms of content, and there is virtually no reason to pick any other covenant. | |||||||
7 | Vengeance Demon Hunter | BiS | Good | BiS | Mediocre | Right now, the clear winning picks for Vengeance DH are Kyrian or Night Fae. Generally speaking it appears that you can be completely viable with either option, but the consensus seems to be that Night Fae is stronger for Single Target whereas Kyrian is stronger in multi-target scenarios. Necrolord is just a slightly weaker version of both, but atleast it isn't as bad as Venthyr. | |||||||
8 | Balance Druid | Good | Bad | BiS | BiS | Oh boy, 9.1 Boomkin. I feel like no matter what I put here I'll end up pissing someone off, so I'm going to try and be fair by giving both Night Fae and Venthyr the BiS rank. As far as I'm aware, Venthyr seems to be better in terms of raw damage output, but many people swear by Night Fae's utility and burst potential on important targets. Since they seem to still have a healthy representation at the top level, I don't feel comfortable calling it either way. Also, while Kyrian isn't necessarily bad, I think it's been very clear for a while now that it was lagging behind the competition, and 9.1 doesn't seem to have changed that. Necrolord, by all accounts, is not viable. | |||||||
9 | Feral Druid | Good | Good | BiS | Good | Most covenants appear to be strong for Feral, but Night Fae is the clear winner when you look at what the top players actually choose. While it might slightly fall off in damage on high target counts, you'll usually want to run boomkin for that, so on the Single Target scenarios where Feral is ideal, it appears that Night Fae is the way to go. | |||||||
10 | Guardian Druid | Mediocre | Good | BiS | Good | (Updated 8/24/21) On paper, Venthyr may seem like the strongest choice, and many sims seem to reflect that. HOWEVER, most of these sims do not account for cat weaving, which has extremely powerful synergy with Night Fae. As a result, Night Fae is the overall strongest choice but ONLY if you properly learn catweaving, whereas Venthyr is the better choice if you plan to sit in Bear form 100% of the time. | |||||||
11 | Restoration Druid | Bad | Mediocre | BiS | Good | Unsurprisingly, not much has changed for Restoration Druids. Night Fae is still the go-to pick for pretty much all forms of content. While a few people have made the jump to Venthyr, they don't appear to be faring too well with it compared to the Night Faes, and Necrolord is still only selected as a high damage option. | |||||||
12 | Beast Mastery Hunter | Good | Bad | BiS | Good | It should come as no surprise that Night Fae is king for Beast Mastery hunters. It has been the dominant pick ever since Shadowlands launched, and it remains that way even during 9.1. It's worth noting that some people have seen mild success with Venthyr and Kyrian, so they're not outright unviable like Necrolord, but it's still not even close to the power level of Wild Spirits. | |||||||
13 | Marksmanship Hunter | BiS | Bad | BiS | Mediocre | I nearly gave Kyrian the BiS ranking to tie it with Night Fae, as it looks like both abilities are relatively close in terms of raw damage. That being said, Wild Spirits is picked FAR more often at the top levels of play due to the fact that it's damage is EXTREMELY bursty, which means it's an incredibly powerful option for dealing with priority AoE in Mythic+ and certain raid encounters. I could not find any real evidence of MM hunters using Venthyr effectively, so unfortunately I'm forced to rank it as Mediocre. | |||||||
14 | Survival Hunter | BiS | Bad | Good | BiS | (Updated 8/24/21) Alright, so recently I've picked up Survival Hunter, and as a result I've done a lot more research into exactly how it works. As it turns out, they're actually quite good right now, and Venthyr is the definitive BiS pick for them currently. I've decided to keep Kyrian tied as BiS, because it's REALLY close, and in very niche situations it can outperform Venthyr (Soulrender Dormazain as an example). That said, anyone looking to truly learn the ways of the Survival Hunter would find it in their best interests to swap to Venthyr. | |||||||
15 | Arcane Mage | BiS | Mediocre | Mediocre | Good | Currently Kyrian is by FAR the dominant pick for Arcane Mages. While Venthyr is still a viable option, it's never going to outperform Kyrian specifically as Arcane. | |||||||
16 | Fire Mage | Good | Mediocre | BiS | Good | Fire Mages find themselves in a bit of a tough spot this patch. They're still forced to run Night Fae as their BiS covenant, and since they're the only spec that seriously benefits from this ability, it makes it hard for them to efficiently swap between specs on a fight by fight basis. Additionally, Fire is arguably the weakest Mage spec as of 9.1, so there's really not much of a reason to prioritize damage on it. | |||||||
17 | Frost Mage | Good | Mediocre | Good | BiS | While Frost Mages haven't really changed in terms of their desired covenants, they are far more popular now than they were at launch, meaning you're likely to see far more Venthyr Mages than in 9.0. Also, while I did rank Night Fae as "Good", I think it's worth mentioning that it's teetering on a Mediocre ranking, as it's still quite a bit weaker than Kyrian for Frost. | |||||||
18 | Brewmaster Monk | BiS | Good | Mediocre | Bad | I was extremely tempted to but Necrolord as a tie for BiS for Brewmaster, but I do think that it is slightly weaker compared to Weapons of Order. It's still an incredibly powerful ability, and is arguably better for pushing high Mythic+ keys, but for raids and general PvE usage, Weapons of Order will perform better. | |||||||
19 | Mistweaver Monk | Good | Good | Good | BiS | I was quite surprised to find out that Venthyr is actually the go-to pick for many Mistweavers in 9.1. As the rankings show, basically every ability is equally viable, with Night Fae being probably one of the lesser used options. However, after looking at logs and seeing how well Venthyr was performing in terms of both HPS and DPS, it's hard to dispute the fact that it slightly beats out the other options. | |||||||
20 | Windwalker Monk | Good | BiS | Mediocre | Mediocre | Similar to Brewmaster, I was really really tempted to grant Kyrian a tie for BiS, seeing as how it's very close in damage and is still a relatively popular option. Unfortunately, the numbers don't lie, and Necrolord can clearly be seen winning in almost all PvE scenarios currently. | |||||||
21 | Holy Paladin | Good | Bad | Mediocre | BiS | Even with the nerfs it receieved, nothing has really changed for Holy Paladin in 9.1. In fact, it's possible that Venthyr has become even more of a dominant pick, as I struggled to find a large amount of Kyrian players at the top level of raiding. That being said, Kyrian still appears to be a viable option, but it's very clear that Venthyr is the better play right now. | |||||||
22 | Protection Paladin | Good | Bad | Mediocre | BiS | As fun as it might be to fire off a salvo of Avenger's Shields, the reality is that Kyrian has fallen so far from grace for Protection Paladin that it might not even exist. I could not find a single high level Protection Paladin raider who still ran it, but since I know it's still competitive in Mythic+ I've generously given it a "Good" rating. As it stands though, you would have to be crazy to not pick Venthyr as a Prot Pally. | |||||||
23 | Retribution Paladin | BiS | Bad | Mediocre | Good | Retribution is basically the inverse of Holy and Protection, as Kyrian is currently the only viable pick at the highest level of play. I could not find a single example of a top end Retribution Paladin running Ashen Hallow. I'm keep it ranked as Good, because while it can't possibly compete with Divine Toll, I do still believe it's not terrible for Ret, but it's entirely possible that the balance is more one sided than I realize. | |||||||
24 | Discipline Priest | BiS | Mediocre | Good | Good | Following the nerfs to Venthyr, Kyrian has become the go-to pick for all Discipline Priests in terms of both damage and healing output. Venthyr is still playable, but it's only truly good when combined with Spirit Shell, which has fallen out of the meta. Also, it's worth noting that Night Fae can be useful purely for utility purposes, but at the moment there aren't really any scenarios that require you to run it. | |||||||
25 | Holy Priest | Good | Good | Good | Good | Currently all options are equally viable for Holy Priest to the point where it's basically impossible call any Covenant "BiS". | |||||||
26 | Shadow Priest | Mediocre | Good | BiS | Mediocre | In terms of raw damage, Shadow Priest is currently seeing a relatively close competition between Night Fae and Necrolord. However, Necrolord offers next to no useful utility, whereas Fae Guardians has some of the strongest raid utility in the game currently. Though the benefit may not always be for yourself, picking Night Fae on Shadow Priest is certainly the best way to help your raid. | |||||||
27 | Assassination Rogue | Mediocre | BiS | Mediocre | BiS | For Assassination Rogues, you really can't go wrong with Necrolord or Venthyr. While it appears that Necrolord is SLIGHTLY favored damage wise, there's a pretty even split in terms of popularity, so it very well might shift depending on how renown increases change the meta. | |||||||
28 | Outlaw Rogue | BiS | BiS | Mediocre | Good | Outlaw is the least played rogue spec currently, so I didn't have an incredibly large sample size to work with. While Venthyr is still very competitive, Necrolord and Kyrian appear to be in a tight race for the top spot. | |||||||
29 | Subtlety Rogue | Good | Mediocre | Mediocre | BiS | While there are a handful of Kyrian Sub Rogues out in the wild, suggesting that it's not terrible, the VAST majority of players are going with Venthyr, as it's by far the top dog for damage. | |||||||
30 | Elemental Shaman | Mediocre | BiS | BiS | Mediocre | As it stands, there is an almost dead even split between Necrolord and Night Fae at the top level, and as far as I can tell they're roughly equivalent for all forms of damage. Outside of that, I couldn't find any information on Venthyr or Kyrian, so I'm going to default their ranks to Mediocre. | |||||||
31 | Enhancement Shaman | Good | Good | BiS | Good | Currently Night Fae is the go-to pick for Enhancement by a large amount. While all three other covenants are roughly equivalent, none of them seem to hold a candle to Night Fae. | |||||||
32 | Restoration Shaman | Good | BiS | Good | Good | Not much has changed for Restoration Shamans, as all covenant options are still completely viable, but Necrolord appears to be the most popular. | |||||||
33 | Affliction Warlock | Mediocre | Mediocre | BiS | Good | While Venthyr is situationally useful for Mythic+, Night Fae is still far and away the best pick, though realistically Affliction won't see much play this patch unless a balance patch reverts some of the massive nerfs it received. | |||||||
34 | Demonology Warlock | Mediocre | Mediocre | BiS | Mediocre | At the moment, it looks like Night Fae is so far ahead of the other options that I could not find any evidence of people seriously trying to make another covenant work, nor could I get any information on how far behind the others are. | |||||||
35 | Destruction Warlock | Mediocre | Mediocre | BiS | Mediocre | See above. | |||||||
36 | Arms Warrior | Good | Mediocre | BiS | Mediocre | Night Fae is hands down the best pick for Arms Warrior, and while Kyrian is close, it's a strictly worse option for any PvE scenario. While Necrolord offers some solid buffs to your raid, this isn't your job as a DPS, and generally won't make up for the DPS of Night Fae. | |||||||
37 | Fury Warrior | Good | Mediocre | Good | BiS | Fury is sadly not a very strong pick in the current patch, and the fact that it is heavily encouraged to play Venthyr makes it incredibly difficult to multispec with it. Night Fae and Kyrian are both strong options and there are people attempting to make it work, but alas, it seems like swapping to Arms is just the better play. | |||||||
38 | Protection Warrior | Good | Good | BiS | Mediocre | Alright, so this is my current main, and based on some of the people I've talked to, this might be a bit of a hot take rating wise, but I will confidently stand by where I have placed each covenant. Night Fae is currently extremely powerful in all scenarios for Protection Warrior, and is the go-to pick in my opinion. For some reason there are people who absolutely refuse to accept that Night Fae is now stronger and stick with Kyrian, which was the BiS pick at launch. While Kyrian is still a strong alternative, it is almost strictly worse than Night Fae, so there's no reason to select it unless you like the aesthetic. As for Necrolord, it's slightly weaker than both Night Fae and Kyrian in terms of personal DPS, but it's an absolute POWERHOUSE when it comes to buffing other players within your raid. If you're extremely confident that you have players in your raid who can make use of the buff, it's easily on par with Night Fae, but this is unrealistic for the vast majority of the playerbase. Finally, Venthyr is a trap and you should never pick it as a tank. | |||||||
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52 | 9/9/20: Updated rankings to reflect changes made in the latest Beta build. Necrolord for Vengeance has been moved from Mediocre to Bad. Night Fae for Brewmaster has been moved from Mediocre to Bad. Kyrian for Mistweaver has been moved from Mediocre to Bad. Note added to the Shadow Priest section regarding Unholy Nova datamining. | ||||||||||||
53 | 9/17/20: Updated rankings to reflect changes made in the latest Beta build. For Fire Mage, Kyrian has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Frost Mage, Necrolord has been moved from Bad to Good, and Venthyr has been moved from Good to Mediocre. Note added to the Druid section regarding Ravenous Frenzy tweaks. Notes added to the Fire, Arcane, Frost, and Mage sections regarding covenant tuning. Note added to the Rogue section about the Sepsis tweak and the Bone Spike/Slaughter tooltip changes. Note added to the Resto Shaman section about the Primordial Wave mana cost reduction. Note added to the Warlock section about the Soul Rot conduit change. | ||||||||||||
54 | 9/20/20: Updated Frost Mage rankings based on new sims from the Mage Discord. Necrolord has been moved from Good to Mediocre, and Night Fae has been moved from Mediocre to Good. On the 17th I changed Night Fae for Fire Mage from BiS to Good, but due to updated sims I reverted that change. Added notes to the Enhancement Shaman section and Shaman Bonus Notes. I also updated the header message to include a link to Preach's video. | ||||||||||||
55 | 9/23/20: Updated rankings to reflect changes made in the latest Beta build. For Windwalker Monk, Kyrian has been moved from Trash to Mediocre. For Demonology Warlock, Necrolord has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Marksmanship Hunter, Venthyr has been moved from Mediocre to Good, and Night Fae has been moved from Trash to Mediocre. For Beast Mastery and Survival Hunters, Venthyr has been moved from Bad to Mediocre, and Night Fae has been moved from Trash to Mediocre. For all Rogue specs, Venthyr has been changed to "???" because I have no clue how to evaluate that ability until people actually test it/sim it. For Discipline Priest, Night Fae has been moved from Bad to Mediocre. For Holy Priest, Kyrian has been moved from BiS to Good, and Night Fae has been moved from Mediocre to Good. I've also added a lot of notes to the Monk Bonus Notes, primarily about Faeline Stomp and my suggestions to make it better for Brewmaster. I finally added a section for Demon Hunter Bonus Notes, and talked about the upcoming changes that Blizzard posted on the forums. I added notes to the Death Knight Bonus Notes about the nerf to Death's Due. I updated the Mage Bonus Notes to reflect the upcoming changes to Mirrors of Torment. I updated the Hunter Bonus Notes to discuss the Night Fae changes in a bit more detail. I updated the Warlock Bonus Notes with information about the changes to Soul Rot. I updated the Shaman Bonus Notes with information about the changes to Fae Transfusion. I also finally created a Priest Bonus Notes section, and I added some information abut the change to Fae Guardians. | ||||||||||||
56 | 9/24/20: Continued to update rankings to reflect changes made in the latest Beta build. For Enhancement Shamans, Venthyr has been moved from Good to BiS. For all Hunter Specializations, Night Fae has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Blood Death Knight, Necrolord has been moved from Mediocre to Bad (not due to any changes, this was honestly long overdue). I've added an update to the Hunter Bonus Notes about the current state of the Night Fae ability. Updated the Mage Bonus Notes, as new sims show that the rankings haven't really changed for any specs. I've added information to the Rogue Bonus Notes about the new Flagellation ability, sourced from Fuu's testing. I updated the Demon Hunter Bonus Notes to correct information about Fodder to the Flame's recent change. | ||||||||||||
57 | 9/25/20: Continued to update rankings to reflect changes made in the latest Beta build. For all Rogue specs, Venthyr has been moved from ??? to Good. For Holy Paladin, Kyrian has been moved from Good to BiS, and Night Fae has been moved from Good to Mediocre. I added more information to the Rogue Bonus Notes based on Fuu's testing. | ||||||||||||
58 | 9/30/20: Updated rankings to reflect changes made in the latest Beta build. For all Death Knight specs, Kyrian was moved from Trash to Bad. For Enhancement Shamans, Kyrian was moved from BiS to Good. For Vengeance DH, Kyrian was moved from Mediocre to Good. I added notes to the Death Knight section about the changes to Abomination Limb and Shackle the Unworthy. I added notes to the Druid section about the nerfs to Kyrian and Venthyr. I added notes to the Priest section about the nerf to Boon of the Ascended. I cleared the Rogue Bonus Notes and added information about the upcoming changes to their abilities. I added notes about the Warlock nerfs to the Warlock notes. | ||||||||||||
59 | 10/1/20: I updated the header because they finally decided to delay the release of Shadowlands! I know this isn't the ripcord that most people wanted to see pulled, but I think it's better than nothing. Also, I created a new page on the sheet, Class Feedback. It's currently empty, but I'll be expanding upon it in the future. | ||||||||||||
60 | 10/2/20: I updated the rankings to reflect changes made in the latest Beta build. For Mistweaver Monk, Necrolord has been moved from BiS to Good, Night Fae and Venthyr have been moved from Bad to Good. For all Rogue specs, Kyrian has been moved from Bad to BiS, and Necrolord has been moved from BiS to Good. For Blood Death Knights, Kyrian has been moved from Bad to Good, and Necrolord has been moved from Bad to Mediocre. For Frost and Unholy Death Knights, Kyrian has been moved from Bad to Mediocre. For Balance Druid, Kyrian has been moved from Mediocre to BiS. For Guardian Druids, Kyrian has been moved from Mediocre to Good, and Night Fae has been moved from Good to Mediocre. For Marksmanship Hunter, Necrolord has been moved from BiS to Good. For Frost Mage, Night Fae has been moved from Good to Mediocre, and Venthyr has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Discipline Priest, Kyrian has been moved from BiS to Good. For Shadow Priest, Kyrian has been moved from Mediocre to Bad, and Venthyr has been moved from Bad to Mediocre. For Fury Warrior, Venthyr has been moved from BiS to Good. For Protection Warrior, Venthyr has been moved from Mediocre to Bad. Updated notes for most of the above specs to reflect the changes. | ||||||||||||
61 | 10/5/20: I reverted the Prot Warrior Venthyr section, as apparently Condemn was actually buffed for Prot, and the nerf was a datamining errior. That said, the ability still isn't any better than it was before, so it will stay at Mediocre. | ||||||||||||
62 | 10/7/20: I updated the notes for Death Knights to reflect the changes made to Shackle the Unworthy. I added a note to the Balance Druid section about the buff to Adaptive Swarm. I added a note to the Mistweaver Monk section about the buff to Weapons of Order. I mentioned the Flagellation change in the Rogue Bonus Notes. I expressed my confusion about the Vanquisher's Hammer changes in the Paladin Bonus Notes. | ||||||||||||
63 | 10/9/20: I updated the Balance Druid notes. | ||||||||||||
64 | 10/13/20: I made some formatting updates to the sheet. | ||||||||||||
65 | 10/15/20: Added a note to the Druid Bonus Notes. Added a note to the Monk Bonus Notes. Added a note to the Priest Bonus Notes. Added a note to the Shaman Bonus Notes. | ||||||||||||
66 | 10/21/20: I updated the rankings to reflect the recent Beta build changes. For Havoc Demon Hunter, Venthyr was moved from BiS to Good. For Vengeance Demon Hunter, Kyrian was moved from Good to BiS, and Venthyr was moved from BiS to Good. I updated the Havoc Demon Hunter notes. I updated the Vengeance Demon Hunter notes. I updated the Monk bonus notes. | ||||||||||||
67 | 11/19/20 (THE FINAL PRE-EXPAC UPDATE): For Vengeance Demon Hunter, Kyrian was moved from BiS to Good and Necrolord was moved from Bad to Mediocre. For Blood DK, Night Fae was moved from BiS to good, and Kyrian/Venthyr were moved from Good to BiS. For Frost DK, Venthyr was moved from Good to BiS, and Kyrian was moved from Mediocre to Good. For Unholy DK, Venthyr was moved from Good to BiS, Night Fae was moved from BiS to Mediocre, Necrolord was moved from Mediocre to BiS, and Kyrian was moved from Mediocre to Good. For Balance Druid, Necrolord was moved from Bad to Mediocre, and Venthyr was moved from BiS to Good. For Feral Druid, Kyrian was moved from Good to BiS, and Necrolord was moved from Bad to Good. For Resto Druid, Kyrian has been moved from Bad to Mediocre. For Marksmanship Hunter, Venthyr was moved from Good to Mediocre. For all Hunter specs, Kyrian was moved from Good to BiS. For Frost Mage, Necrolord has been moved from Mediocre to Good, and Night Fae has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Arcane Mage, Night Fae was moved from Good to BiS. For Fire Mage, Necrolord was moved from Bad to Good, and Night Fae was moved from BiS to Good. For Brewmaster Monk, Night Fae was moved from Bad to BiS and Necrolord was moved from Good to BiS. For Mistweaver Monk, Necrolord has been moved from Good to BiS, and Kyrian has been moved from Bad to Good. For Windwalker Monks, Kyrian has been moved from Mediocre to BiS, and Night Fae has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Holy Paladin, Necrolord and Venthyr were moved from Bad to Mediocre. For Protection Paladin, Kyrian has been moved from Mediocre to Good, and Venthyr has been moved from Bad to Good. For Retribution Paladin, Kyrian has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Shadow Priest, Kyrian has been moved from Bad to Good, and Necrolord has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Discipline Priest, Kyrian has been moved from Good to BiS. For Holy Priest, Necrolord has been moved from Mediocre to Good, and Night Fae has been moved from Good to Mediocre. For Assassination and Outlaw Rogue, Kyrian has been moved from BiS to Good. For Subtlety Rogue, Night Fae has been moved from Good to BiS. For Elemental Shaman, Kyrian has been moved from BiS to Good, Necrolord has been moved from Mediocre to Good, Night Fae has been moved from Bad to Mediocre, Venthyr has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Enhancement Shaman, Necrolord has been moved from Bad to Mediocre. For all Warlock specs, Night Fae has been moved to Good. For Affliction Warlock, Kyrian has been moved from Good to BiS. For Arms Warrior, Kyrian has been moved from Mediocre to Good. For Fury Warrior, Kyrian has been moved from Mediocre to Good, and Venthyr has been moved from Good to BiS. Additionally, the Notes section has been fully updated for every class and spec! | ||||||||||||
68 | 11/20/20: (Jokes on me, Blizzard put out ANOTHER Beta Patch) For Unholy DK, Venthyr has been moved from BiS to Good. I've updated the Druid Bonus Notes to reflect the changes to Convoke the Spirits. | ||||||||||||
69 | 11/22/20: For all Hunter specs, Kyrian has been moved from BiS to Good. | ||||||||||||
70 | 8/1/21: To many to list; every spec was updated to reflect what has changed in the past 8 months. | ||||||||||||
71 | 8/24/20: For Blood, all Covenants have been changed to Good, except for Night Fae, which was changed to Mediocre. For Guardian Druid, Kyrian was changed to Mediocre and the note was updated to properly explain the balance between Night Fae and Venthyr. |
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1 | Ranking Information | General Spreadsheet Information | Miscellaneous WoW Things | Archived Header Posts |
2 | 1. Some of this information was gathered from personal testing, but most of it was compiled by researching feedback on various channels (forums, class discords, etc). Nothing here is completely accurate, as it's meant to reflect the general opinion in the community. Also, just to clarify, conduits and soulbinds ARE considered when they are relevant. | 1. This spreadsheet is primarily Raiding and Mythic+ focused. I've included notes if there is an especially strong covenant for PvP (such as Necrolord for DK), but the general rankings don't factor in that part of the game. | I've mentioned this in the spreadsheet header, but I've been pretty active on my YouTube channel lately, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClSx_ab7jY1ee_gclQGIyCw/ . While I've primarily been covering speed leveling information over the past month, as I haven't had much else to do during pre-patch, I plan on making videos more focused on raiding, mythic+, and general tank balance once Shadowlands is out. If that sounds like something you're interested in I'd highly recommend checking out the channel! | (9/9/20) I've finished updating the spreadsheet based on the changes made in Wednesday's Beta build. Overall, I think the changes made are pathetic, and in no way show that Blizzard is prepared to properly balance the Covenants. Also, with Ion confirming Wednesday that the ripcord will NOT be pulled (or rather saying it never existed in the first place, thanks for lying to the playerbase btw), it becomes all the more important that this spreadsheet remains up to date. Feel free to message me (Harldan#2316 on Discord, Harldan#11303 on Bnet). |
3 | 2. Since people keep forgetting this, it's still beta, and all of the information presented should be taken with a grain of salt. Your BiS covenant today could very well be your worst upon release, and Blizzard has even said that they plan to look at certain abilities such as Bone Spike for rogues. That said, I'll keep updating this whenever a new beta build hits. | 2. Raiding and Mythic+ are equally weighted. I've tried to approach the rankings with a mindset of "if I wanted to do all forms of PvE content, what would my strongest overall option be?" Certain abilities are far too specialized into one form of PvE content for them to be viable contenders for the average player. To account for this, I've been factoring in flexibility across different forms of content into the rankings, and I've tried to provide extensive notes to cover certain extreme cases. | I managed to get the (at the time of posting) World Record for 10-50 Speed Leveling. I made a YouTube video showcasing the run, which can be found here: https://youtu.be/shjNWBTP8Lk . I plan to make a follow up video around 10-15 minutes in length which goes over the route and some of the strategies used, since I know not everyone has the time or patience to sit through a 6 hour video. While I know this isn't exactly Covenant related, my goal with this spreadsheet is to provide information for the community, and that's the same thing that I'm attempting to do with my speedrun. I hope that some people seeing it will find it helpful, and that my route can help make their leveling experience more efficient. | (Updated 9/17/20) I've just finished making initial updates to the spreadsheet based on the changes in today's Beta build. Overall the changes feel more like tweaks rather than true balancing, but it is worth nothing that Mage received some pretty impactful changes. Some rankings may get adjusted as more testing is done, but currently everything should be mostly accurate. The changelog has also been updated, if you're curious to see what has been affected by the latest build. As always, feel free to message me (Harldan#2316 on Discord, Harldan#11303 on Bnet) if you have any feedback. |
4 | 3. Not every spec has been marked with a "BiS" covenant. This can be for two reasons: first, if multiple options are competitive, but due to lack of tests there isn't a clear numerical winner, I've left both options as "Good". Second, if all of the options for the class feel relatively lackluster (such as in the case of Shadow Priest), then I haven't marked the top option as "Good", since it could change completely with a numerical revision. | 3. Many people have suggested making separate rankings for Mythic+ and Raiding. but I fundamentally disagree with this. If the covenant abilities functioned like talents, this would be perfectly reasonable. However, the fact that some classes have their best Mythic+, Raid, and PvP abilities on completely different covenants is a SERIOUS issue. If I were to rank a strong Mythic+ option as "Good", but it was completely worthless in all other forms of content, that wouldn't be a very fair ranking in order to represent its overall strength. | Preach put out a great video a few weeks ago about covenant balance. While some of it has been outdated due to the release delay, it's still a great video that touches upon many of the core problems with the current system. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXuLW1eWAsM | (Updated 9/20/20) The spreadsheet has been fully updated to reflect the changes made in Thursday's Beta build. Preach just put out a great video talking about the issues with Covenant balance, linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXuLW1eWAsM . I really hope more people start speaking out about this, because the last two Beta builds don't make it seem like they'll be able to balance this in time for the scheduled release date. As always, feel free to message me (Harldan#2316 on Discord, Harldan#11303 on Bnet) if you have any feedback. |
5 | 4. If you don't agree with some of the information posted here, please let me know. I'm not an expert at every spec in the game, and I could very well be wrong on something. Also, even if the rankings are correct, if you have additional information that I could add to the notes section in order to help people understand the rankings, it would be much appreciated. | 4. Apparently some people think I'm working for Wowhead? I have no idea how that rumor started, but I'm not affiliated with them at all. This was a spreadsheet I made for my friends, and now I'm just doing my best to keep it accurate and up to date. | Bellular's latest video (10/7/20) touches upon some major frustrations that I have with Blizzard's recent design choices. I think it's great, and I hope Blizzard starts listening. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2TLHt-YDoI | (Updated 10/2/20) THEY ACTUALLY DID IT, SHADOWLANDS HAD BEEN DELAYED! I know I've been super critical of Blizzard on this sheet, but this is a fantastic decision. Thank you Blizzard, my faith in Shadowlands has been restored. Keep up the good work on the Covenant balance. If anyone has updated information on the abilities after the changes in the last Beta build, you can contact me at Harldan#2316 on Discord, or Harldan#11303 on Bnet. |
6 | 5. Since it's a question I've seen a lot, I want to quickly talk about my relationship with the class discords. As I mentioned in my Reddit post, I was banned from the Paladin discord; I intentionally left out information so as to not cause drama, but some people have decided to invent their own stories. After waking up that morning, I was informed that people in the Paladin discord were discussing my sheet, which at this point was not shared on Reddit. I popped over there to let them know I made it, and said that if they had any feedback I'd be happy to hear it. A few moderators told me that my spreadsheet was an attempt at trolling, despite the fact that I wasn't even the one who shared it, and they said I should delete the entire spreadsheet as it was a terrible source of misinformation for the community. I obviously disagree, but I wasn't going to argue with them so I simply stopped responding. | |||
7 | 5 cont. A few hours later on that same day, I made the reddit post, which is when the sheet truly blew up. Shortly afterwards, I was banned without notice from the Paladin discord, and a flood of hate comments specifically from Paladins started appearing in the Reddit comments (most of which have been deleted by now). Honestly, the whole thing makes so little sense that I really can't understand what happened outside of my spreadsheet simply offending a moderator in the Paladin discord for some unknown reason. As for other class discords, the vast majority of them have been extremely helpful and supportive, but even the ones that weren't never banned me, they simply stated that they were not interested in discussing covenant balance "this early in the beta". | |||
8 | 6. I don't really see why this matters so much, but since it's a question I've been asked numerous times, I main Vengeance DH/Brewmaster Monk, but I've played all four other tanks pretty extensively either on retail or beta. If the fact that I'm not an expert at every single spec in the game bothers you and makes you not want to trust the spreadsheet, alright, but I've tried to make it very clear that most of this information is not my own, but rather sourced from the experts in class discords. | |||
9 | 7. As mentioned on the main page, if you want to contact me with feedback or just to chat about your thoughts on covenants, feel free to send me a friend request at Harldan#2316 on Discord or Rasaleana#1986 on Battlenet. Also, Laryse-Mal'ganis is the character I use to post on the forums, so only comments coming from that character are actually from me. | |||
10 | 8. A few people have been confused by this, so I figured I'd put it here. There is a changelog, but it's at the bottom of the Notes section on the Rankings page. | |||
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