Returning after 1 1/2 years

Guides Returning Player Help & Discussions
1

Good evening! As of yesterday I decided to start playing WoW again. Real life got in the way and I had to take a much needed hiatus. Before I left I was into raiding, dabbling a bit into mythic raiding. I mainly did mistweaver healing and vengence demon hunter. I loved doing mythic + at the start of BFA.

I decided to make a new demon hunter to check out all of the changes and I just have to say, I am SO overwhelmed. I just hit level 60 in Shadowlands and just got to the Venthyr area. I was told that I have to pick a covenant to join and that if I pick the wrong one it will mess up when I can do in this game.

This is causing me some massive anxiety. I was told Night Fae or Venthyr for Havoc demon hunters but to do the valykr race (sorry their name doesn’t come to mind) if I am tanking… but then I was told you can only have one covenant per character.

How the heck do you decide? This is causing me massive anxiety. If I choose the wrong one will it that strongly affect my gameplay in end game? This may make or break me staying around. :frowning: People have been putting crazy heavy emphasis on what I have to choose and that I have to stick to just one spec. In BFA I just needed to change gear, etc and I would be fine. Does that not just work anymore?

2

You can change covenants but it was intentionally made to take a while. Blizzard wanted to keep folks from jumping covenants every week.

Both icy-veins.com and wowhead.com have guides for each class, spec, and covenant that are pretty good.

3

I looked at icy-veins and wowhead, both of which suggest taking different covenants for both specs. So I have to pick one and not change it for a long time at a time, which really seems to suck. I like being able to be versatile in roles.

And if convenants actually are game breaking for end game content then I think that made up my mind on if I want to stay playing WoW again.

4

Best covenant doesn’t mean the only choice. It really won’t matter much until you start hitting Mythic raiding and mythic 15+ dungeons.

Pick the one you like, that works for you - and own it.

5

I’d caution very highly against letting elitests get under your skin and making you nervous. Any of the covenants will work up to a certain point. (As @Adrienne mentioned, generally Mythic raiding or above +15 mythic keystones) And after that point, players have always been expected to min/max to some degree if they wanted to push the ultra hard content.

I’ll also add that covenant abilities were never designed to be perfectly rounded. Some, like The Hunt from Night Fae, or Elysian Decree from Kyrian are designed to be more useful in AoE situations, so are more often picked for things like M+. Others such as Sinful Brand from Venthyr are designed for single target use, so are more useful for people who prioritize raiding.

Importantly though, this does not mean they’re useless in other types of content. They just won’t be optimal.

For example, I prefer raiding and PvP while only doing a couple M+ dungeons every week. So I base my covenant choices based on the following criteria (in order of importance to me)

  1. How much will I be playing this character? (Will it be a main, or casual character. If more casual, skip directly to #4)
  2. What spec will I be playing the most?
  3. My preferred content for that class/spec combo (either raiding or PvP for that character)
  4. What looks like the most fun out of the choices available.

No matter what you pick, that one ability won’t be the strongest choice in every single form of content for every spec of your class, but it’s also important to remember that it’s just one ability. While it’s an important ability for sure, it’s not the entire class.

From there, as Nok mentioned, you can swap covenants if you want to. If you find that one isn’t working out for you the way you would like, you can try another. The first swap for a given character is even instant and free. (but subsequent swaps take 2 weekly resets to complete).

So Just do your own thing. If you want to min/max in the future you certainly can. But if it’s making you uncomfortable to do so now, just enjoy getting back into the game and seeing the content at your own pace.

Regardless of the fears this system irrationally put into people’s heads when it was announced, I have personally only heard of 1 or 2 instances of somebody being declined from a group for choosing the “wrong” covenant.

Hope this alleviated your concerns a bit!

6

This actually did help with my concerns, thank you Zipster.

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