Basically the title.
Considering leveling up a mage alt to try some off-meta specs and not sure which covenant to go with for Frost and Arcane.
Icyveins claims Necrolord is BIS for Arcane, while Wowhead says it’s Night Fae. Both seem to agree Venthyr is good for frost, but possibly Necrolord as well for m+ (which is the content I’d likely focus on).
Open to any input
Whatever one you want/like the look of. It literally won’t make a difference unless you’re pushing world first or 25+ keys.
I appreciate the sentiment, and my OP probably made it sound like I’m just trying to figure out the meta to chase, but if I was then I wouldn’t have made this post.
The guides didn’t give me enough information to make an informed decision, given how the functionality of mage covenant abilities seems to focus on certain encounter types (Multi-target, single target, etc.). And of course these deliberations get messier when considering both Arcane and Frost, for which this differs.
I was hoping to hear the experiences who have played M+ with these covenants and how enjoyable / effective they found them to use.
The AoE sims on most guides are based on a 5 min 5 target fight with Lust, which Necrolord wins. However, in realistic M+, Night Fae often wins in enough places for both specs to be viable.
For m+, Frost is okay as either Venthyr or Nightfae. Both have enough merits to warrant the respective covenant. Night-Fae is more multispec friendly. Venthyr is the best ST covenant for Frost.
Arcane’s absolute best ST sim is with Venthyr, but it does well with Necrolord and/or NightFae (AoE/m+) as well, but NightFae Arcane no longer wins on anything from a min/max perspective.
Basically, as long as you avoid Kyrian, you’re golden for either spec as long as you don’t care that much about min/max.
I didn’t even look at the sims; I assume the guides were written off of pure sim data.
I know Night Fae is good in M+ for multi-target AoE but it being crap for single target frost is what puts me off it. That and I already have more than enough night fae characters.
So I’m mostly deciding between Necrolord and Venthyr I think.
Wowhead guides usually aren’t always written off purely sim data. Icy Veins usually are based off sims, but it depends on the author.
Necrolord is one of the better aoe ones for frost and arcane and has comparable single target dps. To put it this way, I’m a mythic raider and if frost is better next tier and there is some aoe in raid, I will go necrolord. Venthyr is barely ahead of it single target.
Necrolords eat their own boogers. Venthyr are suave, stylish and sophisticated. I leave the choice to you.
I would agree with Leimon and would add a little more nuance in M+. Some covs can synergies or supplement legendary play styles. I play freezing winds on frost and prefer NF as the soulbind tree adds passive damage and crits leading to great DPS, very high uptime on icy veins and a fun play style .I have found with venythr the procs overlap and are not used into its full potential. The same apples to arcane with venythr as you will need to use arcane explosion and can chew up a proc in the heat of battle. Once again the passive soulbind tree on koryan is extremely strong in arcane. I like necro but I think it came in a bit short this season, that may change in the next
I just started doing low M+ on my mage, not very many as of lately but I play arcane and I’m NF (was fire for PvP). I’d have to say while I do want to try out Necrlords, the AOE dmg of the Night Fae ability is REALLY good, and it reduces CD’s on abilities. If you ask me in a M+ setting as a mage this is never a bad thing.
But man does the Necrolord ability look fun to use. But 3 minutes… ugh
I also enjoy some of the perks of the night fae conduit trees. My shadow priest is venthyr and I find all of theirs pretty dull, TBH. Necro lord has some decent trees, but mage doesn’t really need more survivability so I can’t bring myself to switch to necrolords. (Plus if I start pvping again I’m pretty sure I’ll never get anything out of that 3 min cd in an arena).
This is true to an extent; you usually need to wait like 4 seconds after your Orb is out before using Mirrors to stagger your procs.
However, Venthyr Frost has workarounds for these situations. For optimal use, in AoE situations, you should Mirrors something you would not use the FoF procs on, then use FoFs on other targets, but use regular lances before Winter’s Chill expires on the target with Mirrors. It can be a hassle, but it becomes muscle memory with time.
To Venthyr Frost’s credit it must be said that it is very good at handling Pridefuls with Orb + Mirrors to generate procs, and outperforms Fae Frost on ST bosses. Also the rate at which your Mirrors proc is dependent on the target’s Haste, not yours. You can abuse this to stagger proc generation rates as well.
If anything, Freezing Winds synergizes better with Venthyr Frost over Fae Frost because it adds more to the spec’s priority damage & funnel toolkit (which is basically what FW offers). Fae Frost has better synergy with Glacial Fragments, however the GF lego falls off a bit as keys are pushed higher and priority damage and consistent DPS begin to outweigh overall AoE damage. Still, Fae Frost has amazing synergy with the Icy Propulsion conduit, as Shifting Power works with it. Ultimately both covenants can be made workable in mythic+
Exactly what I WAS going to say but didn’t want to scare the guy off, we need more arcane bros and frosties. I would also add that soulshape is so much better utility then door of shadows.
It depends. If you want to play Frost ST, Venthyr is the only real choice. Otherwise, Necrolord is a very good choice for Arcane ST and Frost Cleave/AOE.
To be honest, if you are able to properly adapt to the gamestyle of any of the 4 covenants, they are all really close to each other for arcane.
Venthyr pulls ahead for ST, Necrolord and Kyrian are good for burst and Night fae is strong as well.
You love spouting incorrect info in all class forums don’t you?
Kyrian is top for st…
Those are patchwerk sims and I’m aware of that, but Kyrian needs a lot of constant setup to be able to cast an AB with 15+ stacks of harmony every 30 seconds and with 4 spark stacks, so it gets hurt a lot by mechanics.
Now if you look at logs, they tell a different story.
I would agree that OP has a M+ focus and a patchwork sim is very misleading and not very helpful. Most good key pushes will be in a fortified week, and arcane can play any cov well in many different play styles in M+.I don’t think frost would do great in kyrian, but a case can be made for the other 3. Brofessor hemlock has a great channel showcasing arcane in action with all the covs. Here is an example ; https://youtu.be/tEhARjEyp-c