wow Covenant Choice Stats - Which Class and Spec Is Picking What

[Starym 3,800]

 

Covenants are still one of the more controversial mechanics of the Shadowlands expansion, with the limitations they bring along being particularly problematic/annoying for many players. The core principle behind Blizzard deciding to put class abilities behind Covenants was meaningful choice, so let's see what those choices were!

However, if you're looking for the best choice for your spec, head on over to our class guides for individual explanations.

There's an interesting new data gathering site, wowranks.io, which has a whole lot of statistics on Covenants and their distribution across the various classes and specs. With almost 2 million characters in their database, the stats aren't absolutely correct, of course, but they will provide a solid look into what players are picking. We'll be looking at general Covenant numbers, which classes and then which specs picked which Covenant, but you should head on over to the site and poke around all the stats yourselves (especially since the data is refreshed every hour)!

Let's start with the overall numbers for each Covenant, where the Night Fae are in the lead and Necrolords are relatively few in number!

Then there's the per class numbers, where Druids, Hunters and Paladins have the by far largest gap between their top choice (NF, NF and Kyrian, respectively) and the rest, while Warlocks and Priests have the most evenly distributed picks.

  

And finally the per-spec sorting, which there's a whooole lot of, but the most popular combinations are Night Fae Balance Druids and Beast Mastery Hunters, as well as Kyrian Protection and Retribution Paladins, while the least popular are Necrolord Holy Paladins, Venthyr Survival Hunters, Brewmasters and Restoration Druids, all of which didn't get over 1,000 characters.

  

  

  

  

 

You should definitely head on over to wowranks.io and fiddle around the many stat combinations yourselves, as there's really a lot of interesting data there!

[Brutalis 165]

"You'll pick your Covenant for the aesthetics and story."

Turns out that the VAST majority of people will just pick their BiS, instead!

[Slam 40]

I have no clue what is BiS for my class but as druid night fae felt like a logical step and I find the theatre touch more fun than the others.

I guess I'm not part of the vast Majority yet still have the BiS not that I care 😄 !

Edited December 7, 2020 by Slam

[Starseed 113]

59 minutes ago, Brutalis said:

"You'll pick your Covenant for the aesthetics and story."

Turns out that the VAST majority of people will just pick their BiS, instead!

then the vast majority of people made a wrong choice followed again the wrong shepherd cause it realy dont matter if you dont go for the top ten percent in raiding or m+

if youre average andy whos is doing +10 at best and is running nice long and slow raid days with his family friendly guild is in a cov that isnt the one he like the most from a aesthetic an lore perspective just because cov x givs him 0.05% more dps on the long run he is stupid just like every one who says spec x is bad cause that high tier streamer said so or spec y is bad cause you dont see it in the world first race

for not the last time cause this *filtered* will come up again and again: IF YOU DONT GO HIGH TIER IT DONT MATTER, PLAY WHAT YOU LIKE

[Valks 2,375]

9 minutes ago, N3ilo said:

if youre average andy whos is doing +10 at best and is running nice long and slow raid days with his family friendly guild is in a cov that isnt the one he like the most from a aesthetic an lore perspective just because cov x givs him 0.05% more dps on the long run he is stupid just like every one who says spec x is bad cause that high tier streamer said so or spec y is bad cause you dont see it in the world first race

I don't disagree that you should pick what you want, but the difference in output between some of these covenants is most definitely not 0.05%. With covenant and soulbinds combined, some have pretty large gaps between their BiS/worst covenant

[Arcling 898]

I picked mine for story and aesthetics, which is Kyrian and because there is Uther involved. Didn't care if it's best for my class or not, anyway I'm mostly playing solo, so doesn't really matter.

[Pandabuffel 184]

39 minutes ago, N3ilo said:

then the vast majority of people made a wrong choice followed again the wrong shepherd cause it realy dont matter if you dont go for the top ten percent in raiding or m+

if youre average andy whos is doing +10 at best and is running nice long and slow raid days with his family friendly guild is in a cov that isnt the one he like the most from a aesthetic an lore perspective just because cov x givs him 0.05% more dps on the long run he is stupid just like every one who says spec x is bad cause that high tier streamer said so or spec y is bad cause you dont see it in the world first race

for not the last time cause this *filtered* will come up again and again: IF YOU DONT GO HIGH TIER IT DONT MATTER, PLAY WHAT YOU LIKE

Not entirely true. Out of my own choice I was thinking either Venthyr or Kyrian for my WW monk. After that I saw that Kyrian was pretty much the best ability while Venthyr was pretty bad. The difference between those abilities is a lot more than 0.05% (come on, you know people will start about this because that percentage is just completely false). So I ended up going for Kyrian, influenced by both choice and dps.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Pandabuffel

[Ragingwolf 310]

I picked based on what flowed with my given rotation from Tanking, DPS'ing, or even Heals.  Not for pure aesthetic purposes.  And yes some of those abilities are more than 0.05% than what people seem to believe in.  As I main a DH and play with both specializations my choices were either going to be Kyrian or Venthyr.  And since I mainly Tank for Mythic+ for the Guild I chose Kyrian and have been rather lucky on obtaining a majority of Conduits that were Epic Grade.  Besides Torghast runs my dps as Vengeance can spike over 12-15k on given trash packs (Mythic 0's) with aid of the Conduits, my rotation, consumables, and the Legendary pants that I crafted the other day.

When it comes to playing WoW and when Blizzard tries to make something 'special' all I can hear in the back of my mind of a Nightborne Elf saying, "An Illusion......what are you hiding?!"

[Brutalis 165]

41 minutes ago, N3ilo said:

then the vast majority of people made a wrong choice followed again the wrong shepherd cause it realy dont matter if you dont go for the top ten percent in raiding or m+

As someone who PvPs as MM hunter, if I don't go Kyrian for the ability to ignore LoS then I am actively, and massively, harming my damage output, my teammates, and my chance to win an arena match. I wanted to go Necrolords because the chakram looks dope and I like the aesthetic but it's a horrible choice in both PvP and PvE because Night Fae absolutely DESTROYS packs in M+ and Kyrian is just bonkers in Arenas.

Covenant choice really matters. For some specs more than others, yes, but the difference between BiS and worst choice is huge in plenty of cases.

[Arcling 898]

50 minutes ago, Brutalis said:

Covenant choice really matters. For some specs more than others, yes, but the difference between BiS and worst choice is huge in plenty of cases.

I wonder if people are going to switch en masse when some patch hits and suddenly their covenant isn't the best anymore. This might be rather tedious and annoying.

[Altheplague 0]

I see a lot of people saying...see...*filtered* system! 

Well, to those of you I say, is it blizzard's fault that the community is like this?

If you sim out all 4 covenants on an UH DK the gap is 2.2% top to bottom

Balance Druid - 10% best to worst, however the worst is Venthyr covenant, and this is over a 5 minute fight meaning you can only use the ability once, I have a strong feeling that gap isn't applicable in a 30 second window of burst, which is a more useful damage profile in raids

Ret Pally - Best to worst 6.2%

Frost mage - best to worst 5.1%

Enhance Shaman - 6.2%

Destro Lock - 3.8%

Fury Warrior - 7%

The worst I could find was MM hunter which is a 13% gap

Which I will agree 13% is a huge gap. 

But we haven't even had a single tuning pass yet, and none of the sims take movement/mechanics into account.

Yes there are some *filtered* abilities, (NL warrior, Venthyr Hunter, Venthyr Lock, etc) but blizz has access to the same data we do, and will most likely be tuning over the next 2 weeks.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Altheplague

[Kethcup 8]

3 hours ago, Brutalis said:

As someone who PvPs as MM hunter

Case dismissed, doesn't know what he's talking about lul.

Don't worry bud, the 18k aimed shot isn't permanent as much as you hope it will be.

[Starseed 113]

14 hours ago, Brutalis said:

As someone who PvPs as MM hunter, if I don't go Kyrian for the ability to ignore LoS then I am actively, and massively, harming my damage output, my teammates, and my chance to win an arena match. I wanted to go Necrolords because the chakram looks dope and I like the aesthetic but it's a horrible choice in both PvP and PvE because Night Fae absolutely DESTROYS packs in M+ and Kyrian is just bonkers in Arenas.

Covenant choice really matters. For some specs more than others, yes, but the difference between BiS and worst choice is huge in plenty of cases.

to be fair i didnt even pvp was totaly out of my view maybe because i wasnt in a bg since classic 

[Starseed 113]

14 hours ago, Pandabuffel said:

The difference between those abilities is a lot more than 0.05% (come on, you know people will start about this because that percentage is just completely false)

ok maybe 0.05 was a bit over the top you are right down here a read worst is 13% for mm best to worst and that is terrible balnce from blizz but when i read things like 3.8% for destro or even 7% for fury i think i can stand with my coment for the average player with a nice not totaly progress drive raid its not that importent that you should go with something you hardly dislike.

like my undead lock i wanted to go venthyr since blizzcon and didnt even looked at the nummbers if my guild woult tell me i must go nightfea caus its best i would mostlikely leave the guild cause for my view of the char it dont fit

[Brutalis 165]

11 hours ago, Kethcup said:

Case dismissed, doesn't know what he's talking about lul.

Don't worry bud, the 18k aimed shot isn't permanent as much as you hope it will be.

?

I think anyone who plays MM hunter, Sub Rogue, or Ret Pala is well aware our specs are overtuned and warrant some nerfs. That doesn't detract from my argument, at all, that the Kyrian ability is by far and away the best and that by not picking it I reduce my chances to win considerably.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Brutalis

[geofferson 33]

My only take away from this post is now I need to pay attention to another ranking site...

I gotta watch Raider.IO, Warcraftlogs and now wowranks.io

Thanks WoW community for making my hobby into another job.

[Ryoka2531 0]

On 12/7/2020 at 8:56 PM, Brutalis said:

"You'll pick your Covenant for the aesthetics and story."

Turns out that the VAST majority of people will just pick their BiS, instead!

unexpectedly 

[Fairfax 0]

Fortunately, as a Night Elf Sub Rogue, the Night Fae covenant is both thematic and BiS.