So I have been hearing that Venthyr or Kyrian on the pvp side of things. First off what do you think would be the better pick for pvp?
Then on the flip side what do you think would be the better choice for Pve?
I am just not sure what to go when reaching level 60 and am not to sure of how hard it will be to change once you have already picked one. Any advice would be great.
Canāt comment for PVP but for PVE:
Fire: Necrolord for raid, Night Fae for Dungeons
Frost: Venthyr for both
Arcane: Night Fae for both
If you plan on multi-specāing, Night Fae seems to be the go-to even though itās crap for Frost in raiding.
Iāve lost all the excitement I have for Shadowlands as a mage lately because of the constant nerfs and Covenant choices.
Conversely, mage being one of the only classes using night fae is making me come back around and look at my mage again. Different strokes for different folks i guess 
I am Frost and will be going Night Fae. I just donāt see one mage spec being the best at everything for the entire expansion. At least this way I can have a decent covenant for all three specs. (Although, raiding on Frost with Night Fae may be a little painful).
pve is kyrian for almost everyone rn be cause of soulbinds
Because of the Pelagos nerf, this might change
They also just nerfed Kleia or however you say her name.
Also you donāt really get the benefit of Pelagos until the end of the initial progression so it will be a while before you get any real benefit going Kyrian.
EDIT: I just saw the new nerf to Pelagos. No reason to go Kyrian as a mage now.
Have to laugh at this though:
These adjustments are intended to shrink the gaps that weāve seen and make it easier for players to choose the Covenant and Soulbind theyāre most interested in or best fits their playstyle.
Not sure for other classes but the mage options are definitely NOT āplay what you like.ā
I actually hate all of them lmao. At least skill wise I mean.
āThese adjustments are intended to shrink the gaps that weāve seen and make it easier for players to choose the Covenant and Soulbind theyāre most interested in or best fits their playstyle.ā
I would be much more satisfied if this message came with something like:
āWe are completely removing all combat related skills, Soul Bind Abilities, and Conduits from Covenants. Soulbinds will be restructured to provide only āquirkyā enhancements to open world play and professions. These adjustments are intended to shrink the gaps that weāve seen and make it easier for players to choose the Covenant and Soulbind theyāre most interested in or best fits their playstyle.ā
It fascinates me that Blizzard truly had such a great opportunity to focus solely on fixing core design issues and class/spec balance issues after an expansion where players overwhelmingly complained about class/spec design and vehemently detested each power system put in place (Azerite Traits/Powers and Corruption) in attempts to band-aid fix the issues.
Instead: āLetās compound the issues! Letās introduce lackluster recycled legendaries, give them twelve power choices, and throw in some Azerite Traitish thingsācall them Conduits.ā
I mean I truly donāt get it. When you have specs hanging on (or over performing) due to a system, when you take away that system the spec will be left in a clunky or completely broken state . . . this is further exasperated by the fact that at times Blizzard implements a lot of their Nerfs/Buffs to the specs themselves (at times to the systems, but the fact remains that they have balanced the specs based on their systems). This makes it much harder to eventually address where a spec is without the systems. Now they are adding more systems in, which they cannot even balance properly, and specs are still being tuned according to their interaction with the systems.
Iām really not sure how Blizzard expected this to play out, how they could even fathom that there wouldnāt be a host of issues with balancing, and why they will not just put their resources into what will remain constant after an expansion ends (the classes and specs) instead of opting to create these āfreshā new systems that only introduce a host of frustration into the game.
While Iām ranting, I also want to just put out there that a āMeaningful Choiceā is about the most bogus argument for Devs to defend terrible systems and difficulty (or at the very least burdening players) that want to switch. If Ion wanted this to be a meaningful choice a great way to do it would have been with player agency that actually has big impacts on the story rather than gameplay. At that point lock people into their covenants like Horde/Alliance.
However, Iām sure the writerās arenāt creative enough to make four big endings work somehow. Maybe they could have done something like blocking access from a Mythic Dungeon on one day of a week unless you had a specific Covenant member in your party (like only groups with at least one Night Fae in their party can enter Mists on Thursdays).
Itās obvious that there is a strong base for cosmetics/mounts which is indicated by their online store. People would have been satisfied with those rewards alone. Iām not sure of anyone who likes the idea or is a staunch supporter of integral parts of their class being tied to two systems. Sure some may be like āI donāt careā, āI donāt do the levels of content where it mattersā, or āIāll just suck it up and adaptā but none of those are saying āBEST THING EVER! SOLE REASON I AM ON THE HYPE TRAIN FOR SHADOWLANDS!ā
The cynical part of me believes that these systems are introduced because:
Thereās really no meaningful choice that drives the systems when you think about it. Competitive Players will likely always pick whatever will benefit their numbers the most. Casual players who only care about cosmetics and such will pick whatever they think looks the prettiestāsorry for the over generalizations.
What real choice is there for competitive players? The choice aspect was snatched from them in the systemsā designs. Their choice is pre-determined by whatever Blizzard puts in as skills and numbers. Blizzard makes their choice. What is the meaningful part for Casual Players who donāt care about numbers? Sure cosmetically there is a difference. What mount you can get from a covenant I guess? Iām subjective but none of that feels vastly āmeaningful.ā
I predict the devs will give us the āBFA treatmentā soon.
It goes something like this:
Dev 1: āOh lookā¦ every fire and arcane mage went Night Fae.ā
Dev 2: āClearly that covenant is overpowered!ā
Dev 1: āLetās nerf all its abilities by 80% for those specs! And buff the other covenants by 20%ā
Dev 2: āMAKE IT SO!!!ā
Dev 1: āDoneā¦ the nerf will go out in tomorrowās hotfix!ā
TWO WEEKS LATER ā¦
Dev 1: āLook at thatā¦ every mage is now Venthyr.ā
Dev 2: āClearly that covenant is overpowered!ā
Dev 1: āLetās nerf all its abilities by 80% and buff the other covenants by 20%ā
Dev 2: āMAKE IT SO!!!ā
Dev 1: āDoneā¦ the nerf will go out in tomorrowās hotfix!ā
Yup pretty much this. The default is to nerf everything till one spec is dead and then to buff it up in 5% increments
Legendaries for Fire just blowā¦i dont think there could possibly be a worse state of Legendaries then fire has right now.
Cast 30 fire balls to proc a Meteor? No thanksā¦
Low chance to proc this or that? No thanksā¦
Casting Arcane , Frost and Fire consecutivelyā¦just stop right thereā¦
Having to hard cast Pyro to get 5 seconds of Combustion etc? You cant be serious?
Terribleā¦everyone of themā¦terrible.
Canāt be worse than Siphon Storm for Arcane Mages. They took the one unused Azerite Trait from BfA and turned it into a Legendary lol.
I predict the devs will give us the āBFA treatmentā soon.
Likely ā¦ considering the abysmal state of the active Covenant abilities for mages, one would assume they will stick to the lather/rinse/repeat cycle of ābuff this and nerf thatā after every tier. Itās what makes me the most hesitant to choose a Covenant and a main spec at this point.
I donāt care what the DPS meters say, Iām going Night Fae. I want to serve my Winter Kween!!! But to answer your question, I was seeing a lot of wowhead posting Kyrian was best for certain deeps builds.
Iām primarily pvp and am going venth as arcane/frost because of that teleport and reduction to snare/interrupts. Delicious. Idc about the numbers beyond that really.
Venthyr is Frostās best PvE option on sims too, as long as your target lives > 20 seconds, which is quite possible even in mythic+ once you push higher keys.
Iām playing what like regardless of what the best is .
Iāve been fire for over 17 years and Iām not changing
ā¦ ever