What covenant will you choose?

[Sunslayer]

As I will mostly play MM (all content except Mythic raiding), I'll go Venthyr. I like Flayed Shot and the flow it brings to our rotation. I also like Kyrian, their aesthetics are awesome, but I think we have already good AoE and Resonating Arrow is really easy to dodge in PvP. Plus the Venthyr signature teleport will be game breaking, even out of combat.

So, what covenant will you choose?

Same here really like Flayed shot

[Hawthorne Wipes]

So far I think i'll go Kyrian. I like the transmog, the ability seems pretty cool, and (until changes) the Pelagos soulbind looks solid. Pretty happy overall unless the balance between covenant ends up been to much of a dps difference.

[Sondrelk]

Same here really like Flayed shot

Flayed shot at the moment seems to push Hunter even further into the realm of making Precise shots irrelevant when paired with the dead eye talent, so it will be interesting to see how the spec pans out after the first raid tuning, might finally be some substantial changes to make the spec flow better.
Either that or they change or nerf Flayed shot for creating a degenerative version of the spec.

[Fetacheese]

I like night fae thematically but the ability is super underwhelming. Necro feels like the most satisfying on top of being the strongest right now, so that's probably what I'll end up as. The only one I explicitly don't want to pick is venthyr, since it's so much weaker on aoe and offspecs.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Gonna depend on whether I suck it up and stick with BM for yet another expansion of bosses being mindnumbingly boring past progression, or if MM will be the required spec...

God I miss WoD SV... If I were to go for aesthetics alone, probably Necrolords... Just gotta put some Battle.net balance to use and race change back from Vulpera to Mag'har Orc... Vulpera are fun (barrel roll!) and look great in eyepatch-armor (unlike Orcs where it's sat IN FRONT of the eye) but I feel more in tune with orcs, especially after Draka's short.

[Eapoe]

Still waiting for SV changes as that’s what I’d like to play if it’s not crap. Just recently fixed the bug with Focus Regen and still no conduits that I’m aware of.

[Indil]

the one that sims better, of course

[Maxilian]

I'm not that sure anymore, i was thinking on going Venthyr, but now i really got to think about Night Fae and Necrolord.

[Laytnor]

Night Fae, at least on my main NELF hunter. It just makes sense all around. A night elf, feeling at home with that covenant. And just like druids, it feels homely to a hunter. I already decided to disregard minmaxing and simming, and go for the flavor on all of my characters.
Might go with something else on my other hunters for variety's sake. But my main will stick with Night Fae.

[luciano]

What happens if players don't pick a Covenant? Is that an option?

[Greyfang]

What happens if players don't pick a Covenant? Is that an option?

Im not in Beta but I believe you technically can decide not to do the quest where you choose a covenant, but of course that means you wont be able to get into any of the end game systems, world quests, probably torghast as well. Youd be a useless max lvl character with no real way to advance further.

[Bisque]

I am thinking necrolord at this point. For some reason I though the kill shots generated by flayed shot would not cost focus... So for me it is a toss up between necrolord and Venthyr, with Necrolord taking a slight edge atm. That being said blizz did say they would be tuning covenants so we will see what happens.

[KrayZ33]

I am thinking necrolord at this point. For some reason I though the kill shots generated by flayed shot would not cost focus... So for me it is a toss up between necrolord and Venthyr, with Necrolord taking a slight edge atm. That being said blizz did say they would be tuning covenants so we will see what happens.

I just wanted to point out that you actually save focus by using killshots in your rotation.

10 focus for 200% attackpower that can be used on the move - vs 35 focus for ~250% attackpower with a 2,5s cast time
On top of that, it refreshes your AiS faster depending on talent choice, but that is optional, obviously.

But Necrolord seems to be rather strong too in my opinion, the ability doesn't cost focus, you gain focus and the damage it does to ST is, if you look at the abilities in a vacuum, higher than the ventyhr arrow, even if you take into account the longer cooldown.

[Eapoe]

I just wanted to point out that you actually save focus by using killshots in your rotation.

10 focus for 200% attackpower that can be used on the move - vs 35 focus for ~250% attackpower with a 2,5s cast time
On top of that, it refreshes your AiS faster depending on talent choice, but that is optional, obviously.

But Necrolord seems to be rather strong too in my opinion, the ability doesn't cost focus, you gain focus and the damage it does to ST is, if you look at the abilities in a vacuum, higher than the ventyhr arrow, even if you take into account the longer cooldown.

I’m still waiting for the nerf on this. An AoE/Cleave ability that does more damage on ST than a solely ST ability is bad tuning.

[KrayZ33]

I’m still waiting for the nerf on this. An AoE/Cleave ability that does more damage on ST than a solely ST ability is bad tuning.

But the Venthyr Arrow has, as I mentioned and you probably know, other interactions.
Using Killshots in your rotation throughout the whole fight is a DPS gain too.

And the Chakram is not really AoE imho, it deals the same amount of damage no matter what.

In my opinion, the Venthyr Arrow is probably the most fun ability out of pretty much all the Covenants abilities (if you play MM.)
I think it's a clear outlier compared to other choices. You actually have a pretty neat interaction with your rotation and even your talents.
It's so weird that MM gets that interaction, but not the other specs. In my opinion that's how every covenant ability should be.

[Eapoe]

But the Venthyr Arrow has, as I mentioned and you probably know, other interactions.
Using Killshots in your rotation throughout the whole fight is a DPS gain too.

And the Chakram is not really AoE imho.

Except BM has no damage modifiers for KS so using Venthyr as BM isn’t nearly as beneficial as Necrolord as it would be for MM or SV.
Also not sure how an ability that jumps and hits multiple targets wouldn’t be considered an AoE/Cleave ability. It’s definitely not ST.
What’s the testing been like with FS? Is it a guaranteed proc thru it’s dot time like BA to trigger? Or can you be hit with terrible RNG and get 1 proc out of like 20 uses?

[KrayZ33]

Except BM has no damage modifiers for KS so using Venthyr as BM isn’t nearly as beneficial as Necrolord as it would be for MM or SV.
Also not sure how an ability that jumps and hits multiple targets wouldn’t be considered an AoE/Cleave ability. It’s definitely not ST.
What’s the testing been like with FS? Is it a guaranteed proc thru it’s dot time like BA to trigger? Or can you be hit with terrible RNG and get 1 proc out of like 20 uses?

Because the chakram deals the same amount of damage no matter how many targets there are.
Is a dot that jumps to a different target once the first "host" is dead AoE too in your opinion?

The Chakram doesn't deal 7 hits to 7 targets each, it deals 7 hits at random between 7 targets (or 7 hits on 1 target) but never more than 7 hits.
I wouldn't call it "ST" either.
The ability itself has a downside when you want to focus down priority targets that also have a lot of smaller mobs around it. You might get 1 50% attackpower hit on the focus target and the other hits all hit something else.

And yes, it's really sad that only MM gets the interaction with the Venthyr Covenant, I tried to edit my post in time to adress that, as I'm equally concerned about that.

edit: so there is really more to it than a simple number check I.E. "abilty A does 50 DPS, ability B deals 60 dps".
Ability A adds more DPS to your core rotation, abiliy B adds more focus/ressources to your class
Ability A enables another skill that is more focus efficient, Ability B is less good in focus target situations

etc. etc.

That is good design, actually. But the bad thing about this is: Blizzard did only add these interesting interactions to one out of three specs.
In my opinion, the Venthyr Arrow should add a Kill-Command proc damage buff for example. Or there should be a talent that adds KC damage whenever you use Kill Shot.
I think it's weird that they didn't add something like that.
Same deal for SV, obviously. Some cooldown reduction on a pet themed ability whenever you use Kill Shot for example.

[Eapoe]

Because the chakram deals the same amount of damage no matter how many targets there are.
Is a dot that jumps to a different target once the first "host" is dead AoE too in your opinion?

The Chakram doesn't deal 7 hits to 7 targets each, it deals 7 hits at random between 7 targets but never more than 7 hits.
I wouldn't call it "ST" either.
The ability itself has a downside when you want to focus down priority targets that also have a lot of smaller mobs around it. You might get 1 50% attackpower hit on the focus target and the other hits all hit something else.

And yes, it's really sad that only MM gets the interaction with the Venthyr Covenant, I tried to edit my post in time to adress that, as I'm equally concerned about that.

edit: so there is really more to it than a simple number check I.E. "abilty A does 50 DPS, ability B deals 60 dps".
Ability A adds more DPS to your core rotation, abiliy B adds more focus/ressources to your class
Ability A enables another skill that is more focus efficient, Ability B is less good in focus target situations

etc. etc.

That is good design, actually. But the bad thing about this is: Blizzard did only add these interesting interactions to one out of three specs.
In my opinion, the Venthyr Arrow should add a Kill-Command proc damage buff for example. Or there should be a talent that adds KC damage whenever you use Kill Shot.
I think it's weird that they didn't add something like that.
Same deal for SV, obviously. Some cooldown reduction on a pet themed ability whenever you use KC for example.

Guess I’m looking at it in the literal since that it’s an area of effect attack. It doesn’t affect just 1 target unless that target is alone. So it will do damage in an area, not just 1 specific spot. A dot jumping when a target dies is a little different. If a dot jumps every tick then I would probably still consider that an AoE attack as well.
SV will also get a benefit from FS from how it’s mastery works, but that said it’s SV and Blizz still hasn’t even come out with Conduits for the spec last I saw. That’s part of my argument against Covenants having the pain in the butt way of switching, because some specs benefit more from certain covenants. So now you not only have to get the gear to swap effectively, but you also have to include Covenant swapping.

[GoKs]

I am leaning towards Night Fae so far, will see when SL goes live and I tested the "feel" of all the abilities.

[Tortuga234]

The one that sims best.