I want to play another covenant but I feel like if I choose anything else on my mage or warlock… not only does my dps suffer but that will not be “optimal” when it comes to M+ and raiding.
Blizz’s attempt to “remove the meta” seemed only to make it worse… I am tired of going Night Fae on everyone just to be able to compete on the meters.
Mage, warlock, hunter, DH, and balance are all Fae.
DK, Ele shaman are necrolord.
Monks are kyrian.
Warriors, enhance shamans venthyr.
Shadow can be any of the four pretty comfortably.
Ret paladins are either kyrian or venthyr.
Rogues I think are either Fae or necrolord but it doesn’t impact them much.
There’s a huge skew, at least for pve DPS classes, towards night fae. Your options otherwise are rogue, warrior, ret, shaman, monk, priest, and even priests optimal m+ covenant is night fae.
Your list tells the story. Not to mention the data on the most picked covs. NF is on top by a huge margin.
It’s also that the specs that benefit nf are the most popular ones for pve outright. Shamans actually don’t want to go nf at all, but so few people play shaman.
One class as an example out of how many specs and classes? I think you just made my point.
I mean… Shamans paladins warriors monks death knights and priests. There are more examples, but the big players (Mage, hunter, lock) are all nf.
I was gonna go kyrian cause it’s BIs but I went fae cause it’s a break from most of my tanks having to be kyrian. I’m fortunate that fae works well on prot warrior . But on my lock, yes I’m sick of being fae I wanna be a vampire
Kyrian is kinda BiS pvp wise. My hunter, warrior, monk, and paladin are all Kyrian.
You are probably overvaluing the power from the covenant.
You’ll do fine, its just a very minor part of your damage.
Venthyr for PvE DPS warriors.
Kyrian or Night Fae for Protection or PvP warriors.
Necrolord to get laughed at as a warrior.
For hunter mage and balance druid I’d disagree. Warlock yes it is.
What is the percentage difference between them? How much damage is derived from the covenant?
Hunter could go kyrian and be fine, but the other two are probably -8% on st, significantly more in any kind of aoe (20%+) the soulbind itself difference probably another 4-5%
Fire is much harder to quantify, but losing the ability to fully combust every minute / all the fire blast charge cd reduction (Also your CDs no longer lining up with your on use trinket) is a lot of damage loss.
Balance has options for overall damage that are close, namely kyrian, but convoke the spirits as a single ability is unmatched across the entire game for single target burst damage, let alone out of the druid covenant ability choices.
For hunters and mages covenant choice matters a lot, and convoke can do things no other button in the entire game is capable of so while balance can be competitive on paper without its still kind of a big deal.
And here I was feeling sick of Kyrian since nearly every tank spec is pigeonholed into running them, with the exception of Guardians…
Personally I really like Nightfae, but I would hate to have to pick it for each of my played classes. Night fae on my hunter, and Kyrian on my pally (warrior was so weak its like it doesn’t exist)… … so far it has just worked out that way.
But blizzard easily could have made us choose a Shadowlands power and allow a cosmetic choice for the side…
didn’t I see this thread the other day?
Uhhhhhh priests do NOT want Night Fae. Night Fae is literally the worst option for all 3 specs in PvE. Fae Guardians as an ability is downright terrible.
we’re kyrian. at least the decent ones are
I don’t know I prefer that covenant, the hunt is awesome for DH’s in any aspect pvp or pve.
NF Priests have entered the discussion a lot because of MDI.
But it’s a very niche strategy that basically only works when your strategy is dedicated entirely to the Fire Mages burst window.