(Tl;dr at the bottom) I’m just getting back into the game after a bit of a break from having trouble deciding what to play in Shadowlands (I have a very bad habit of being unsure what to play as I want to play everything and it can be hard to decide on a favorite). Capped my Main toon (enhance shaman) recently, and got geared up through M0’s and such and preparing to start raiding with my guild again.
However the problem I always have when it comes to gearing is having any idea what I actually want, since I’m not great at the whole determining stat weights and all that sort of stuff, so typically I would refer to sites like WoWhead, Icyveins and Bloodmallet to help me figure out what specific pieces my spec wants, through the end of BFA I was using Raidbots Droptimizer to do so. The main reason for this post is because I don’t have the knowledge or patience to meticulously work out what is “bis” for classes that I play and prefer to let well reputed sites and such basically tell me what I should be going for. I’m not looking to be sweaty with minmaxing, just what’s best to go for in general.
However with the stuff with covenants on top of gearing, I’m seeing some mixed results primarily in the tools ive been using (usually going now by Icyveins/WoWlogs and Bloodmallet) amely with covenants, Bloodmallet as I’ve understood it since their last major site update just sims the average best possible gearset/covenant, and legendary your class can use, I.E it currently says the best is Night Fae Niya with the Wolf Bones legendary, but all the top 10’s for WoWlogs nathria/Mythic+ as well as Icyveins say to run Venthyr Nadia with Doom Winds.
Personally I prefer the updated Bloodmallet that shows full character gear from all resources in M+ and Raid, but I’m unsure if that’s what I should be working towards seeing most people running a different setup. If the only reason is timegating the Soulbinds, I don’t care as much about in-moment optimization, if it means constantly switching covenants. I’d rather know what’s going to be the best choice by the time the renown system is up to its max (I know it’ll likely change in future patches as well with changes/updates to the system so for all I know Kyrian could become enhance bis somehow etc).
Tl;dr, is it going to be better long-term to go by what Bloodmallet lists, or by what Icyveins/WoWlogs show for covenants/legos/gear