What covenant will you choose?

[Lakrin]

I have enough alts that I will do all 4. I'm not playing to min/max, but to experience the story and the environments, so I'm less worried about a "wrong choice" than I am in engaging stories. If I decide to play at a higher level, I'll have a toon in each covenant to choose from and gear up, so I don't see it as a bad thing either way.

[Topornic]

I love Maldraxxus but Venthyr seems just too good to pass up.

[Sughs]

I said Venthyr at Blizzcon and I didn't change my mind until now. Because you know... Vampires!

[azkhane]

for looks? Venthyr.
Arms = looks like venthyr without doubt.
Fury = i dont know how good is the new banner but i will say between Venthyr and maldraxus(if banner is good), for m+ only, Night fae looks ok.
Prot = Night Fae 95%, maldraxus is good but mostly for the shield, banner is meh.

[Omedon]

I chose night fae in the poll because the first character I will lead the expansion with is my guardian druid for a slew of reasons including the character's concept and how well it aligns with the concept of the Night Fae, as well as druid ownership of the pre-flight questing.

I am, however, planning "4 mains," one for each covenant, all of them conceptually aligning with their assigned covenants, the only real stretch being my current main, my affliction lock, who I've assigned to Venthyr purely to unlock all the transmog that my priest will wear... because warlock is a solo friendly class and priest is very much not. Also my warlock is my favorite character that doesn't have a conceptual "ringer" like my druid in Ardenweald.

Everyone who isn't my druid, however, will be waiting until we see if any other exclusive cosmetics are getting applied to covenants as they get their full launch to "nighthold/dazar'alor" length moment in the sun. If there's going to be a cutoff point where we move past expanding covenant cosmetics that isn't launch (it SHOULD be launch, but worst case) it would be the 9.2 phase. The smart "conceptually motivated" altoholic strategy here is to stick to one character until all the exclusive cosmetics are on the table. For me, that will be my druid.

Covenant stats and powers literally do not factor at all into any of my decisions regarding assigning characters to covenants.

[Doffen]

Well, my warrior loves the night and the woods, so she will join Pandora, err I mean Night Fae.

[Azerate]

I didn't really follow much of the beta coverage to know the covenants in depth. Chances are I'll change my mind after playing SL or whatever. At the moment the pick is Venthyr. I am more into edgy type aesthetics and that seems to work for that purpose. The special skill also seems pretty good both in raids and dungeons as well as in the open world.

[TMY9000]

I want to do Kyrian, mostly because it seems useful for all three specs (though I've heard something about it recently being nerfed) and I like the idea of the little Flask-Owl.

If I end up going DPS I find it hard argue against going Venthyr.

[lmarcelus]

I'm completely lost in what conevant pick for a casual m+ and raiding 2nd tank Prot toon. The banner seems so meh right now... I'm between kyrian for the spear or venthyr for the execute, so the warrior can do an ok dps in M+ after the SL nerf and try not to lose the spot in m+/raids to all those people re-rolling bloods DK's as they are now the new OP tank.

[Veliarne]

I will play all 4 , to experience all the covenants: Warrior - Necrolord, DH - Venthir, Paladin - Kyrian and Hunter - Ardenweald.
Just noticed that i haven't played any caster since Wotlk. I guess seeing a cast bar scares me nowadays.
But as i voted, my favorite is Necrolord. (mind you i stayed away from spoilers until now, so this might change after playing the actual game).

[Olololo2r5]

Gonna be hard to choose. I'm Dwarf warrior, choosing based on aestetics... necrolord seems like the logical choice for a warrior in terms of them being all about military and glory. But im not sure about my dwarf hanging out with scourge in the afterlife.

Kyrian might be the next choice.. but i want to save them for my paladin..

Guess i will wait til release... eas thinking venthyr too but a dwarf warrior vampire... i dont know

[arkanon]

For the first time since TBC, im taking a big step back from 'hardcore' content, so will be pretty chilled about it - ill honestly just pick the one i prefer. Can always change it if i end up not enjoying it, and in all honesty, i most likely will anyway. Ill try to spread them out of the 4 characters i play the most and that way i can always get my fix.

See how it ends up, if i get the itch to step back into competitive raiding that will change, but for now, im enjoying the freedom of not having to stress about it.

[Mashingspoon]

pretty big bummer tbh, I'd love to go necrolord but condemn is just too stupid good,

[Zylos]

Venthyr messing around on beta, ignoring the numbers, condemn is just a really fun button to press. The dramatic overhead swing is awesome and for questing in the world having execute available as your first hit is REALLY strong and feels great.

[Baconeggcheese]

pretty big bummer tbh, I'd love to go necrolord but condemn is just too stupid good,

I'm so completely on the opposite end of this. I'm chill with any of the other 3 being good but so concerned that the banner will ever be the choice as I absolutely hate it. Like I paid 5$ on PoE just to hide their banners that this skill was seemingly meant to be.

3 minute CD's are the absolute worst as well, yet alone a 3 minute cd that requires you to stand in a relatively small area for an extended duration.

[Toybox]

I'm so completely on the opposite end of this. I'm chill with any of the other 3 being good but so concerned that the banner will ever be the choice as I absolutely hate it. Like I paid 5$ on PoE just to hide their banners that this skill was seemingly meant to be.

3 minute CD's are the absolute worst as well, yet alone a 3 minute cd that requires you to stand in a relatively small area for an extended duration.

That & the fact it's on the GCD. Sigh... If they took it off the GCD & allowed us to carry it around like we did when it was in the buffing phase in its first iteration then that'd be great, I'd be happy using it then.

[Theangryone]

Still planning on going Bastion for my war. Despite the nerf still not changing my mind on rogue. Don’t know yet beyond that.

[Baconeggcheese]

That & the fact it's on the GCD. Sigh... If they took it off the GCD & allowed us to carry it around like we did when it was in the buffing phase in its first iteration then that'd be great, I'd be happy using it then.

I'd still want to avoid it like the plague, a big part of that is that I hate the aesthetic of having a banner stapled to my back.

Other part is its still a 3 minute CD that requires a large build up over an extended duration which is absolutely awful for dealing useful damage.

[Protean]

Venthyr.

This might get a bit spoilery so skip if you prefer to go into shadowlands completely blind.

I love the theme of the place (everybody ugly, aesthetics are completely new so less art-fatigue, nobility-drama etc). I love the visuals, sounds and gameplay implications from having executes for 55% of the fight. Having the teleport with leap and intervene really gives some unique mobility nobody else can compete with. Especially because of how generous the teleport is with vertical movement. Being a horde warrior I can definitely see how redemption though punishment seems fitting, even though we don't actually experience it outselves, being mortal and all..


I'm not a huge fan of the other covenants. Closest is Necrolords but the ability doesn't really feel nice to use.

Nightfae has shockwave which dps warrior desperately needs, but the aesthetics just doesn't hit the right spot for me. My alts will go this direction.

Kyrian I just really loathe from a personal perspective. Of all the afterlives it's the worst imaginable for me. Maybe it's because I have kids, but the idea of forgetting the past is downright painful for me. Won't pick this even if it's a 50% dps increase.

- - - Updated - - -

Warrior - Venthyr. The transmog looks fantastic and condemn is also great. As fury I really don't need more buttons to push either so it's nice that I don't need to try and fit an extra ability into a nicely crowded priority/rotation.

Can't remember who said it so I'm just going to paraphrase it. Some classes play so well that blizzard clearly struggled with covenant abilities for them that doesn't mess with the flow. Venthyr fits that best out of all covenants and dps warrior specs.

[Shelly]

Can't remember who said it so I'm just going to paraphrase it. Some classes play so well that blizzard clearly struggled with covenant abilities for them that doesn't mess with the flow. Venthyr fits that best out of all covenants and dps warrior specs.

Preach talking about Rogues in his last video.

And for the most part he's correct. It's one of the reasons why Blizz actually tries to design most specs to have a few open GCDs. I think Fury is well designed for it since you can always just skip a WW every once in a while, but for the most part it just plays really smooth and I don't want to have to work in extra mechanics, so Condemn works really well for that and then specing in for execute to start at 35% just seems exceptionally fun too.

I'm pretty glad Blizz learned their lesson from Azerite Armor and Essences where you need to have both a passive and active component which is what the soulbinds, covenant abilities and legendaries will all supply.

That being said it's like cramming all 3 of the quality of life updates they did in BfA all into launch content. So I'm unsurprised they've delayed the expansion.