Overwatch Patch Notes - April 6, 2020

Shadowlands - Covenant Class and Signature Abilities Preview
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Four ruling powers control the Shadowlands, each of which is in desperate need of aid from the heroes of Azeroth. In exchange for your help, the Covenants are willing to share a piece of their power and access to the rewards and other blessings, boons, or temptations they have to offer.

As you level up on your initial journey through each of their domains, you’ll get to experience the abilities they have to offer firsthand—before you ultimately choose the Covenant you wish to dedicate yourself to.

  • Kyrians: The denizens of Bastion, these angelic beings embrace humility and service to their order.
  • Necrolords: Comprised of liches, warlords, and spies, the Necrolord Covenant calls Maldraxxus home. They make up the army that defends the Shadowlands.
  • Night Fae: Guardians of nature, the Night Fae inhabit Ardenweald and shepherd beings through the cycle of life and death. It was through their aid that the demigod Cenarius was able to make his return to Azeroth during the events of the Cataclysm.
  • Venthyr: Making their home in Revendreth, the vampiric Venthyr are the punishers of the unworthy, seeking to rehabilitate the sinful souls sent to them by the Arbiter.

When the time comes to ally with one of these four, you’ll want to carefully consider the abilities the Covenant will provide you. Each provides two abilities tailored to the theme of the Covenant. The first of these is the Covenant’s signature ability, which is available to all Covenant members regardless of class, race, or specialization. This ability helps you explore and engage with the world in new ways, and gives you a unique tool to help solve the problems you encounter in the Shadowlands. The second of these abilities is specific to your class, and gives you a new spell or power to use in combat.

To give you an idea of what to expect, we’ve put together a list with the Covenant signature abilities and class abilities. Please keep in mind that these are a work in progress and may have additional changes during the course of development and testing, so all abilities shown here are subject to change.

Covenant Signature Abilities

Covenant - Kyrian

Signature Ability - Summon Steward
  • Call your steward to bring you a Phial of Serenity that can be consumed to restore some of your health and remove all Curse, Disease, Poison, and Bleed Effects.
  • Your Steward additionally offers access to a selection of useful amenities, each once per day.

Covenant - Venthyr

Signature Ability - Door of Shadows
  • Wend through the shadows, appearing at the targeted location.

Covenant - Necrolord

Signature Ability - Fleshcraft
  • Form a shield of flesh and bone that prevents damage equal to a portion of your maximum health. Standing near the corpse of a defeated enemy when the ability is cast will create a larger shield.

Covenant - Night Fae

Signature Ability - Soulshape
  • Turn into a Vulpin, increasing movement speed. You may reactivate Soulshape to teleport a short distance forward.
  • Additional cosmetic forms can be earned and collected through a variety of gameplay.
  • While out in the world, this effect has a short duration before it wears off, but lasts indefinitely while in a rest area.

Aligning with a specific Covenant provides access to class abilities that provide additional combat-oriented gameplay options that are tailored to the theme of that Covenant. Every Covenant offers an ability for each class, but note that some Covenant class abilities are still in development and are not currently represented in the chart.

Bastion Covenant abilities shown for: Priest and Warrior.



Covenant Class Abilities

Death Knight
  • Shackle the Unworthy (Kyrian) - Admonish your target for their past transgressions, reducing the damage they deal to you and dealing Arcane damage over time. Shackle the Unworthy's cooldown is reduced when you damage the affected enemy with a Rune-spending attack.
  • Swarming Mist (Venthyr) - A heavy mist surrounds you, increasing your chance to dodge. Deals Shadow damage over time to enemies within range. Every time it deals damage you gain additional Runic Power, up to a maximum amount.
  • Abomination Limb (Necrolord) - Sprout an additional limb for a limited time, dealing Shadow damage to nearby enemies. If an enemy is farther away from you, they are pulled to your location.
  • Death’s Due - (Replaces Death and Decay). Corrupts the targeted ground, causing Shadow damage over a duration of time to targets within the area. Affected enemies deal reduced damage to you (up to a maximum amount) and their power is transferred to you as an equal amount of Strength. While you remain within the area, your Necrotic Strike and Heart Strike will hit additional targets. Scourge Strike and Clawing Shadows will hit all enemies near the target.

Demon Hunter
  • Elysian Decree (Kyrian) - Carve runes into the ground in front of you, which detonate to deal Arcane damage and shatter Lesser Soul Fragments from enemies.
  • Sinful Brand (Venthyr) - Brand an enemy with the mark of the Venthyr, reducing their melee and casting speeds and inflicting Shadow damage over time. Activating Metamorphosis applies Sinful Brand to all nearby enemies.
  • Necrolord - Work in Progress
  • The Hunt (Night Fae) - Charge to an enemy, inflicting Nature damage and rooting them. The target is marked for a period of time, increasing your Fury from Demon's Bite and Shear against them. You may reactivate The Hunt every 30 seconds to teleport behind the marked target and ignoring line of sight.

Druid
  • Kindred Spirits (Kyrian) - Form a bond with an ally. On a cooldown, you may empower the bond for a period of time, granting you an effect based on your partner’s role, and granting them an effect based on your role.
  • Ravenous Frenzy (Venthyr) - For a period of time, Druid spells you cast increase your damage, healing, and haste by a percentage, stacking. If you spend a period of time idle, the Frenzy overcomes you, consuming a percentage of your health per stack, stunning you, and then ending.
  • Adaptive Swarm (Necrolord) - Command a swarm that heals or deals Shadow damage to a target and increases the effectiveness of your periodic effects on them. Upon expiration, travels to a new target within range, alternating between friend and foe up to a set number of times.
  • Convoke the Spirits (Night Fae) - Call upon the Night Fae for an eruption of energy, channeling a rapid flurry of 16 Druid spells and abilities over 4 seconds. You will cast Moonfire, Wrath, Regrowth, Rejuvenation, Thrash, Rake, Shred, and Ironfur on appropriate nearby targets, favoring your current specialization.

Hunter
  • Resonating Arrow (Kyrian) - Fire a resonating arrow to the target location and fill the area with echoing anima. The effect causes your attacks to ignore line of sight to enemies in the area, and you have an increased critical strike chance against them.
  • Flayed Shot (Venthyr) - Fire a shot at your enemy, causing them to bleed Shadow damage over a period of time. Each time Flayed Shot deals damage, you have a chance to gain Flayer's Mark, causing your next Kill Shot to be usable on any target, regardless of their current health.
  • Death Chakram (Necrolord) - Throw a deadly chakram at your current target which will rapidly deal additional Shadow damage. Each time the chakram damages a different target, its damage is increased, and you generate additional Focus.
  • Night Fae - Work in Progress

Mage
  • Radiant Spark (Kyrian) - Conjure a radiant spark that causes Arcane damage instantly and additional damage over time. The target takes a percentage of increased damage from your direct damage spells, stacking each time they are struck. This effect ends after a number of spells.
  • Mirrors of Torment (Venthyr) - Conjure mirrors to torment the enemy for a time. Whenever the target casts a spell or ability, a mirror is consumed to inflict Shadow damage and their movement and cast speed are slowed. The final mirror will instead inflict Shadow damage to the enemy, Rooting and Silencing them for some time.
  • Deathborne (Necrolord) - Transform into a powerful Skeletal Mage for a period of time. While in the form of a Skeletal Mage, your Frostbolt, Fireball, and Arcane Blast are greatly enhanced, and your spell damage is increased.
  • Shifting Power (Night Fae) - Draw from the ground beneath you for a period of time, dealing Nature damage over time to nearby enemies. While channeling, your ability cooldowns are reduced.

Monk
  • Weapons of Order (Kyrian) - For a short duration, your Mastery is increased by a percentage. In addition: Windwalkers’ Rising Sun Kick cooldown is reset instantly, and your Rising Sun Kick reduces the cost of your Chi abilities; Brewmasters’ Keg Smash cooldown is reset, and enemies hit by Keg Smash take increased damage from you (stacks up to a set amount); Mistweavers’ Essence Font cooldown is reset instantly and heals nearby allies on channel start and end.
  • Venthyr - Work in Progress
  • Bonedust Brew (Necrolord) - Hurl a brew created from the bones of your enemies at the ground, coating all targets struck for 10 seconds. Your abilities have an additional 15% chance to affect the target a second time with 25% effectiveness as either Shadow damage or healing.
    • Brewmaster: Tiger Palm and Keg Smash reduces the cooldown of your brews by an additional 1 second when striking enemies affected by Bonedust Brew.
    • Windwalker: Spinning Crane Kick refunds 1 Chi when striking enemies affected by Bonedust Brew.
    • Mistweaver: Gust of Mist provides additional healing to allies affected by Bonedust Brew.
  • Night Fae - Work in Progress

Paladin
  • Divine Toll (Kyrian) - Instantly cast Holy Shock, Avenger's Shield, or Judgment on several targets within range (based on your current specialization).
  • Ashen Hallow (Venthyr) - Hallow the target area, dealing Shadow damage split among enemies and restoring health split among injured allies over time. The land remains filled with anima, causing additional Shadow damage to all enemies. You gain the benefits of Consecration while within the area.
  • Necrolord (Necrolord) - Work in Progress
  • Night Fae - Work in Progress

Priest
  • Boon of the Ascended (Kyrian) - Gain the Boon of the Ascended, granting access to Ascended Nova and Ascended Blast, and increasing your movement speed. Both abilities damage your enemies, heal your allies, and build power that will erupt in a powerful explosion of damage and healing at the end of Boon of the Ascended’s duration.
  • Mindgames (Venthyr) - Assault an enemy's mind, dealing Shadow damage and briefly reversing their perception of reality. For a period of time, the next damage they deal will heal their target, and the next healing they do will damage their target.
  • Unholy Nova (Necrolord) - An explosion of dark energy heals nearby allies and infects nearby enemies with Unholy Transfusion.
    Unholy Transfusion deals Shadow damage over time. Enemies who damage this target receive healing.
  • Night Fae - Work in Progress

Rogue
  • Echoing Reprimand (Kyrian) - Deal Arcane damage to an enemy, extracting their anima to Animacharge a combo point. Damaging finishing moves that consume the same number of your combo points as your Animacharge deal damage as if they consume 7 combo points.
  • Slaughter (Venthyr) - Slaughter the target, causing Physical damage. The target's anima mixes with your lethal poison, coating your weapons for the next 5 minutes. Slaughter Poison deals Shadow damage over time and steals a percentage of healing done to the target. This also awards combo points.
  • Serrated Bone Spike (Necrolord) - Embed a bone spike in the target, dealing Physical damage over time until they die. Attacking with Serrated Bone Spike causes all of your active bone spikes to fracture and strike your current target, increasing initial damage by a percentage per spike.
    Unholy Transfusion deals Shadow damage over time. Enemies who damage this target receive healing.
  • Night Fae - Work in Progress

Shaman
  • Vesper Totem (Kyrian) - Summon a totem at the target location for 30 seconds. Your next 3 damage spells or abilities will cause the totem to radiate Arcane damage to enemies near the totem and your next 3 healing spells will heal up to 6 allies near the totem. Casting this ability again while the totem is active will relocate the totem.
  • Chain Harvest (Venthyr) - Send a wave of anima at the target, which then jumps to additional nearby targets. Deals Shadow damage to enemies and restores health to allies. For each target critically struck, the cooldown of Chain Harvest is reduced.
  • Primordial Wave (Necrolord) - Blast your target with a Primordial Wave, healing an ally or dealing Shadow damage and applying Flame Shock to an enemy.
    • Elemental: Your next Lava Burst will also hit all targets affected by your Flame Shock.
    • Enhancement: Your next Lightning Bolt will also hit all targets affected by your Flame Shock.
    • Restoration: While an ally is targeted, Primordial Wave will cast Riptide. Your next Healing Wave will also hit all targets affected by your Riptide.
  • Night Fae - Work in Progress

Warlock
  • Scouring Tithe (Kyrian) - Deal Arcane damage instantly and additional Arcane damage over time. If the enemy dies while affected by Scouring Tithe, you generate additional Soul Shards. If they survive, Scouring Tithe's cooldown is refreshed.
  • Impending Catastrophe (Venthyr) - Call forth a cloud of chaotic anima that travels to the target enemy, dealing Shadow damage to enemies within their path. When the anima reaches the target it explodes, inflicting a random Curse and dealing Shadow damage to all nearby enemies.
  • Decimating Bolt (Necrolord) - Hurl a bolt of shadow magic at your target, dealing Shadow damage and increasing the damage of your next Incinerates, Drain Souls, or Shadow Bolts. Decimation Bolt's damage, and the bonus to Incinerate, Drain Soul, or Shadow Bolt both increase as your target's health decreases.
  • Soul Rot (Night Fae) - Expend some of your health to wither away all life force from your current target and up to 3 additional targets nearby, causing them to suffer Nature damage over 8 seconds. Additionally, casting Drain Life will also hit any enemy affected by your Soul Rot.

Warrior
  • Spear of Bastion (Kyrian) - Throw a Kyrian spear at the target location, dealing Arcane damage instantly, dealing additional damage over time, and generating Rage. Enemies hit are tethered to Spear of Bastion's location for the duration
  • Condemn (Venthyr) - (Replaces Execute) Condemn a foe to suffer for their sins, causing Shadow damage. Only usable on enemies who are above 80% health or below 20% health. The primary target is weakened, preventing a moderate amount of damage they would deal to you. If your foe survives, a portion of the Rage spent is refunded.
  • Conqueror’s Banner (Necrolord) - Brandish the banner of the Necrolords, increasing your movement speed and causing Mortal Strike, Raging Blow, and Shield Slam to grant you Glory. Killing an enemy grants additional stacks of Glory. Reactivating this ability plants the banner in the ground, granting an increased amount of maximum health and additional attack speed to you and your allies within range of the banner. Lasts additional time per Glory, up to a maximum amount.
  • Night Fae - Work in Progress

We look forward to sharing more information as development continues, and we hope this preview helps you find the Covenant that’s right for you.

Which Covenant is your current choice? Join the discussion on the forums.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Shadowlands - Covenant Class and Signature Abilities Preview started by Lumy View original post
Comments 205 Comments
  1. Gurg's Avatar
    Im usually not the one that is doom sayer. Quite the opposite, im optimist thinking that eventually things will fall in place and Blizz knows what its doing.
    But ouf. These Covenant abilities feel soo.. limiting, literally pushing you to pick a Covenant based on a SPEC, not class.

    Take DKs as prime example:
    Kyrian - Shackle the Unworthy - Its single target CC. Looks more like its PvP oriented. Decent for M+ if you need to single out specific mob from the pack.
    Venthyr - Swarming Mist - All specs. Dodge, AoE and Runic power regen. Looks like best pick of the bunch.
    Necrolord - Abomination Limb - All specs, but huh. AoE with extra Death Grip. Why would you pick this over Swarming Mist?
    Night Fae - Death’s Due - (Replaces Death and Decay). UH and Blood specific. Gives STR buff and AoE cleave. But again, Why would you pick this over Swarming Mist?

    Hunters:
    looks like they forgot that they have melee hunter spec.

    Warrior:
    DPS's looks like they will choose between Venthyr's Condemn (Execute on steroids) or, far better choice if you ask me - Necrolord’s Banner due to sheer utility that it gives.
    Tanks are Necrolord's bannerslaves for sure.
  1. Relapses's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by RelaZ View Post
    Imagine thinking WoD was designed around top end PvPers.

    Ashran lul
    WoD class design lul
    Imagine thinking players haven't been boosted by gear since the dawn of time.
  1. Edlarel's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gurg View Post
    Hunters:
    looks like they forgot that they have melee hunter spec.
    Death chakram is in keeping with melee hunter, but versatile enough to still be okay at range.
  1. MrLachyG's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Alcsaar View Post
    They're 100% going to delay the release of this expansion, because they'll have the convenient excuse of COVID-19 to blame for the delay, even though this expansion has clearly been behind the curve since it was announced at Blizzcon.

    This expansion is shoring up to be one of the least interesting expansions to date, and the last two already weren't great.
    yeah it's not like the virus has actually affected their work. oh, wait, yes it has.
  1. Wheeler's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lurker1 View Post
    Your feelings aren't my problem can't wait for shadowlands ftw!
    You'll be singing a different tune when you roll up to groups in the "Wrong" covenant and get removed. Or when you can't clear much of Torghast because Blizzard decided to nerf your covenant into the dirt.

    Getting these right is good for ALL of us. Not just good for the people that do WQ's and pet battles and call it a week.

    We as a community need to REALLY test these things out and do everything we can to help them succeed with these, because if we don't - They'll screw it up and SL will be another monumental failure. If it goes well - Everyone's happy.
  1. Lucavian's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Fiacla View Post
    The druid Kyrian ability reads an awful lot like Symbiosis from MoP.

    Though cool, I don't want to pick Kyrian just to have symbi.
    Keep in mind it says based on role, not class. So a bit more limited version I'd say.
  1. Restors's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BoltBlaster View Post
    Its early alpha. They have plenty of time to figure it out.
    I dont buy this at all. Things MIGHT change, but relying on alpha / beta has historical shown dissappointment. Also, this is a grand feature of this expansion. They worked on this for two years or more, and they seem to be extremly incomplete.
  1. Baleful's Avatar
    Make Covenant reroll easy or scrap this ASAP Blizzard. It looks like mandatory shit everywhere and a real PITA to do different activities/roles on the same character.
  1. BetrayedOf52's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Lucavian View Post
    Keep in mind it says based on role, not class. So a bit more limited version I'd say.
    It's really not that hard to find a group of people who don't top end raid and require specific covenants.
  1. pewpmeiser's Avatar
    Sounds cool so far! Looking forward to Shadowlands.
  1. sientoo's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Baleful View Post
    Make Covenant reroll easy or scrap this ASAP Blizzard. It looks like mandatory shit everywhere and a real PITA to do different activities/roles on the same character.
    couldnt agree more..they could take the good traits and make them talents instead.
  1. Redroniksre's Avatar
    I mean of course there will be a BiS Covenant ability, there will always be one unless they are all 100% utility. It seems some people rather this whole system be scrapped, or for all the abilities to be incredibly boring, rather than have even the slightest imbalance. The real question is more of how big the imbalance will be. If one ability is 5% better than another, then i really don't see a problem with it. You can't be 100% balanced all the time and expect the game to still be fun.
  1. Accendor's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Wheeler View Post
    Here we go again, boys.
    Its just beta matey chill. They will surely fix it before release. The game just launched lol what do you expect, let them collect data and fix it. Of course they will patch it before 9.1. I mean there was no way they would do this beforr 9.2 what did you expect? Well, they wanted to do it for 9.3 but that got scrapped, but they promised to fix it in 10.0!

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Redroniksre View Post
    I mean of course there will be a BiS Covenant ability, there will always be one unless they are all 100% utility. It seems some people rather this whole system be scrapped, or for all the abilities to be incredibly boring, rather than have even the slightest imbalance. The real question is more of how big the imbalance will be. If one ability is 5% better than another, then i really don't see a problem with it. You can't be 100% balanced all the time and expect the game to still be fun.
    That is true, I would like to have the system scrapped right now and instead have a new talent row.
  1. Redroniksre's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Accendor View Post
    Its just beta matey chill. They will surely fix it before release. The game just launched lol what do you expect, let them collect data and fix it. Of course they will patch it before 9.1. I mean there was no way they would do this beforr 9.2 what did you expect? Well, they wanted to do it for 9.3 but that got scrapped, but they promised to fix it in 10.0!

    - - - Updated - - -



    That is true, I would like to have the system scrapped right now and instead have a new talent row.
    The only difference there is it is easy to change, of course we still don't know how hard/easy it will be with covenants either. Honestly, i feel the amount of people willing to reroll because of an imbalance is significantly lower than the amount of people who would just enjoy the system as is. A sacrifice i would be more than willing to make.
  1. Walkerbo's Avatar
    As a lock I feel that thematically the Necrolords or the Venthyr are the most likely choices however the fact that the Night Fae have cosmetic rewards I think that that is the most desirable covenant to join.

    Is there any word on if there will be a choice to switch between covenants and how that switch would work?
  1. Gloriandus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BoltBlaster View Post
    Its early alpha. They have plenty of time to figure it out.
    I appreciate your optimism, but there is too much precedent to give Blizzard any benefit of the doubt.

    Covenant powers and soulbinds, are 100% locked-in, and they won't be able to balance them, either number-wise or in the minds of players. Pick the "wrong" Covenant? LOL good luck.
  1. Boricha's Avatar
    A lot of my favorite abilities in here are from Necrolords, which kinda sucks since I'm least interested in them, but maybe that will change in alpha/beta. Serrated bone spike and Deathborne could be really cool.
  1. Erolian's Avatar
    This is looking like the (fairly) predicted disaster that people assumed it would be. The abilities are honestly cool and I don't mind the mechanics as a whole with maybe a few concerns here and there and none of that is the real problem. They're just going to have such an impact that unless respeccing is easy the system will just be painful for anyone doing difficult content due to the power, and necessity, of rerolling for some of those abilities when you're in their niche
  1. Echeyakee's Avatar
    This just feels like it will fuck over people who play several specs. For example priest: as a holy, your biggest weakness is heavy single target healing. Trying to do grievous weeks is absolute pain. So Boon of the Ascended sounds like a perfect way to deal with it, and it might even be half decent in raids, although Unholy Nova sounds like it could be a lot like monk's revive, or at least halo, fitting right in to holy's role. And Mindgames seems pointless for a healer, unless it allows you to negate large raid damage spikes, but if that's true, all priests will be required to use that.

    But at the same time, as shadow, you will have other priorities. Let's say they will leave shadow as it is now, with void form and ramp damage (I hope not, but they already did it once...). Boon of the Ascended sounds like a horrible choice, as I assume you won't be able to cast your other skills while it is active, meaning you have to use it outside of void form, when your stats are at the lowest and you deal the least damage. Or you can still cast your other spells (not sure how they will handle adding 2 spells for you to use without it being a pain to bind), but then you can barely use the ability, as you need to keep casting your insanity generators, and even missing one GCD can be a huge impact on void form duration, and your overall damage. So as shadow you might be looking to Mindgames, given it does good damage, and it fits better into hectic pace of void form. Or even unholy nova, if the range is good (probably will be go to spell for m+).

    So people are either forced to choose their "main" spec and accept that others will kinda suck (and I'm getting a feeling they are going big on the covenant abilities, at least several of them feel like major power increases) and will not be able to take advantage of major QoL improvements, or people will feel obliged to level new chars for the other spec, like we had in early legion.

    Which is ironic, considering they keep talking about class identity over spec.
  1. Biomega's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Echeyakee View Post
    So people are either forced to choose their "main" spec and accept that others will kinda suck
    This seems to be a prevailing design choice of late, and I cannot for the life of me understand why. It seems so counterproductive and wildly infuriating - is their goal just to destroy all alternative specs and shift them to entire alt characters instead so people need to do the entirety of the work and thus play longer?

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