So I plan on playing with my boyfriend who is a top tier fire mage in ALL content I do. Raid, pvp, m+. (Pvp will primarily be 2v2 and 3v3s.) Like he will ALWAYS be a factor in it.
At present I am hyperfixated on two covenants. Night Fae and Venthyr.
Night Fae
Pros:
1.) I can lower his combust window which has the potential to be absolutely bizzarely broken. I’d be placing my PI and night fae cooldown fairy on him 100% of the time regardless of spec.
Especially since he’s such a good fire mage I know he has the potential to outright carry me in m+ and pvp with his numbers. Like constant combust window after combust window after combust window.
Cons:
1.) Doesn’t really add healing in pve. Sure the barrier and damage reduction exists for a bit. But wouldn’t venthyr be better for pve?
2.) For pvp outside of buffing his combust window wouldn’t venthyr be better? But then again this isn’t a situation I’d imagine myself to be in. He’ll always be playing with me so I would always have a fire mage to reduce CD on.
Venthyr
Pros:
-Stupidly good in raid on holy/disc.
-Stupidly good on disc in ALL content.
-Violently brutal in pvp on any spec. Like the most vicious ability in pvp I think rn.
-Maybe mediocre on holy tho in pve m+ that is.
Cons:
-And BAD BAD BAD on shadow? Like isn’t this ability just worthless on shadow? It’s not even adding DPS. So if I wanted to shadow isn’t this bad decision?
-Can’t buff boyfriend’s combust window. Which might mean significantly less DPS? I worry a lot about this.
But wouldn’t it just translate into raw healing numbers since like in m+ if a mob is using an ability it’d probably be a dps ability and so I’d just make it heals…
Then party looks at me like I am dumb and wasting their time because I am lower dps ><
As Venthyr SPriest, your Mindgames is your second strongest ST ability if you talented into Void Torrent.
The reverse mechanic of MG is really only noticeable in solo content, since in dungeon or raid scenarios it’ll essentially soften the target’s damage by a miniscule amount.
Overall I personally love Venthyr as Shadow/Disc.
While Night Fae does not bring healing to M+ content, it does in raid environment if you use your cdr faerie on you for Divine Hymn reduction. Theoretically you would get to use 1 more Divine Hymn in a boss encounter, specially on next mini patch where our Divine Hymn will get buffed.
You are also forgetting the huge mana regen this ability gives you when you pop your mana faerie. If we priests lack something right now is mana.
tbh, Mindgames isn’t stupidly good in raid for Holy, and it isn’t stupidly good in M+ either. As I said, in raid I think Night Fae is way superior for the tons of mana it gives you back that you can convert into heal, and the CDR on your Divine Hymn.
Mindgames is better tho in my opinion for M+ since it can do quite a lot of dmg, it helps mitigate some dmg too and gives you a lil mana back.
Also Venthyr Draven soulbind think is better suited for M+ since it gives you Mobility, Health, DR and increased healing.
But Night Fae on the other side gives you more Mastery which is better for raiding, and a shield whenever you overheal (we holy priests tend to overheal quite a lot.).
So I would go NF for raiding and Venthyr for M+.
If you’re looking for which one is overall better in all content, then Venthyr might be the choice since it also works in PvP where Night Fae in pvp is kinda useless.
M+ and PvP Venthyr is BiS. Not sure about raiding cuz I don’t really do much PvE. I’m mostly PvP. But honestly, I’d go Venthyr all around. Mind Games is too good IMO.
That is because mythic raiders just tell their hpriests to use CDR from NF on DPS for extra damage, apart from that, people just don’t see fun giving buffs to allies instead of having a pure dps/healing spell, also people didn’t really know about the big mana regen until pretty much very later into the expac.
But if we talk about pure HPS, Nightfae mana regen gives you back around 24k mana which is way more healing than Unholy Nova/Mindgames/Boon and if you use the cdr on you makes you get to use 1 more divine hymn for a total of 3/4 depending on the fight.
Venthyr is a good ability for both disc and shadow. That’s all you see in the sanctum. It’s a shadow ability so of course it works well. However the changes to nf make it interesting for shadow I think.
Night fae as disc priest is - if that’s what you’re going to be playing - is a nonstarter. Proc fishing from spamming shadow mend isn’t worth it.
Venthyr is absolutely the best. Great bump for radiance healing in mythic +
Now if you’re pushing +20 that’s when kyrian would be a lot better for disc. Otherwise it’s up to you. But nightfae as a disc shouldn’t even be considered. Mind games is great in raid and in mythic kyrian takes more practice and doesn’t help you hit that ss cap as easily
Im a night fae disc and im enjoying the play. More movement, more thinking on how i use the ability and more mana. Sure my SS isnt as big but with the NF haste buff im not hugely far off. But yes you wont see them at the top lvl. That may change depending on the next raid, damage patterns and how SS comes out of the ptr
I’m a holy priest that is Venthyr. A lot of people talk about the benefit of night fae and mana return and then forget in calculations that mindgames also gives you mana, up to 4% per cast based on damage reversed. So as long as you’re casting it at correct timings/on correct mobs as much as possible, you’ll also gain quite a bit over the duration of a fight - potentially about 12k in a 5 minute fight. So it’s not quite as big of a drop below night fae for mana return as it initially looks. You also get the healing from it of course so all things considered I think Venthyr is a pretty solid choice across the board on all specs - probably just slightly worse for holy but the gap isn’t that big and as you say it’s better for every other spec. Granted my experience is pretty set to raiding, it’s all I really do in the game.
Mana return is only one aspect of the night fae. The soon to be 15% DR that can be placed on who you want plus the 30 second cd reduction on divine hymn, which matters less at the top end i suppose but useful for everyone else, especially on the back of the new divine hymn buff. That buff might make you very viable next xpac if the damage patterns suit it
The extra voidforms from Night Fae end up panning out to a lot more overall damage, since Mind Games has 0 value in AoE.
That’s also not to mention night fae’s far superior soulbinds. I think Nadija can compare if you’re lucky but it’s wildly inconsistent by comparison to Grove Invigoration or First Strike.
in pve m+ that is.