wow Shadowlands Season 3 Covenant Popularity for Top Raid and Mythic+ Players

[Starym 3,800]

 

It's time for another look at top player Covenant distribution in raids and Mythic+, as we haven't checked in since the end of 9.1.5! With patch 9.2.5 coming today/tomorrow, it's a good time to see where we stand, especially since there shouldn't be too many changes when the patch comes, with the main feature being cross-faction content. There are a LOT of big changes since last we checked, so let's take a look.

The below data comes from Subcreation, who gather up and present the top M+ and Mythic raid logs and parses.

The purple is still very much strong with Night Fae dominating, as they have throughout the expansion for ranged DPS, and they're only getting stronger. Balance Druids in particular upped the numbers massively, as they went back to NF almost entirely in Mythic+ and half-way in raids, mostly ending their stint as Venthyr and getting back to that sweet Convoke action. That's a 68% shift back to purple in M+ and 48% in raids for the boomkins. Mages are fighting the Night Fae trend, however, as Frost in particular dropped 73% of its purple in M+, moving it all over to Necrolord, and Fire had a significant shift as well, but only in raids where it dropped 40% of it's NF stock in favor of Venthyr. And the final big change is Marksmanship shifting over to Necro from Kyrian in M+ by 23%, and almost entirely to Night Fae in raids, mostly from Kyrian.

Data gathered and presented by Subcreation, based on Warcraft Logs numbers.

The first big change for melee is Enhancement, which moved over to Necro in Mythic+ from a very spread out situation before, as the spec gained a lot of popularity in 9.2 and the meta around it seems to have solidified, as the Maldraxxians gained 86%! Frost DKs have actually been moving away from Necro this patch, with 37% green moving to purple in M+, and 23% in raids. Havoc has pretty much entirely moved away from Night Fae over to Venthyr, Outlaw is now a predominantly Kyrian spec, Subtlety moved further into Venthyr in raids, and Survival went almost all-in for Night Fae in raids, where it's currently constantly in the top 3, so that one definitely worked out.

Data gathered and presented by Subcreation, based on Warcraft Logs numbers.

Blood DKs made the switch to Kyrian in Mythic+, as the blue is very strong in dungeons, with only Guardian being able to resist (and in fact even drop 26%). Speaking of the Druids, they actually also moved away from Night Fae and are now mostly Venthyr, both in M+ and raids, almost eradicating the Ardenweald Covenant from the tank stats! Protection Warriors have also moved away from Kyrian a little, dropping 33% over to Necrolord in M+ and 44% in raids. 

Data gathered and presented by Subcreation, based on Warcraft Logs numbers.

We see less blue for the healers as well, starting with Discipline moving over to Venthyr a little in M+ and a big 32% in raids. Holy Paladins changed it all up in 9.2 as they dropped the double-dead vampires in favor of the triple-dead skeletons, with a massive shift to Necrolord. Holy Priests consolidated their previously pretty scattered lot into Kyrian in dungeons and Night Fae in raids, as Mistweavers remained loyal to Revendreth. Meanwhile, the Restoration bunch changed quite a bit, with Druids heading to Maldraxxus from Bastion in dungeons (but going all-in on Night Fae in raids), and Shamans moving away from Maldraxxus and into Revendreth in raids!

Data gathered and presented by Subcreation, based on Warcraft Logs numbers.

So, we saw a lot of changes with 9.2 tuning, double legendaries and tier sets, but overall it is still a Night Fae/Kyrian-dominated situation, but it's getting much closer, as their lead shrinks with each patch. 9.2.5 shouldn't stir things up too much, but with Fated raids we might see some changes, so we'll check back in soon.

[netacad 1]

Havoc DH's NF covenant leggo was laughable from the beginning and would have needed a full redesign but ofc it was not changed, not even some numerical tuning. We can see how it ended. Add the marvelous havoc tier set (who asked for this system btw? first few months were outright nightmarish to play if you didnt devote your life to farm the raid) to this and we have the recipe of chaos:)

At this point I would throw a party if blizzard would either fix NF via a simple numerical tuning if reworking a clunky leggo which is mandatory if you want to play NF is too much to handle...

But tbh I would also be happy about if they would just nerf Sinful brand dmg by 20%. This would reduce the max possible dps with DH, but I've stopped caring about details' metrics long ago, it cant show anything that I cant guess without even looking at it in 9.2. However it would at least rid me of venthyr's horrible game play without me working intentionally against my group by choosing an off covenant. I used to think that 8.0+ guardian druid is the most mind-numbing spec to play, but 9.2 havoc DH had shown me how naive I was.

No words can describe how much I miss 9.1 havoc DH. It had its problems but it was somehow one of the easiest melees yet it was also really fun to play it on keys and most importantly it had a rotation with usable spells that actually did notable dmg!! The change from 9.1 to 9.2 literally made me quit playing this spec and play only Vengeance till KSH since it was way too late to reroll at that point.

Edited May 31, 2022 by netacad

[Migol 433]

Remember back when Blizzard insisted that the covenants were about player identity and choice, and would be close enough in power that players didn't feel like they had to pick a specific one for their spec?  

[Prophet001 598]

22 minutes ago, Migol said:

Remember back when Blizzard insisted that the covenants were about player identity and choice, and would be close enough in power that players didn't feel like they had to pick a specific one for their spec?  

People are sheep.

They gonna baaaa the whole way along to whatever "player x" tells em to.

Edit: This is more a referendum on people's inability to think for themselves than it is anything else.

Edited May 31, 2022 by Prophet001

[Migol 433]

1 hour ago, Prophet001 said:

People are sheep.

They gonna baaaa the whole way along to whatever "player x" tells em to.

Edit: This is more a referendum on people's inability to think for themselves than it is anything else.

Except no.    My raid running optimal covenants has significantly better odds of progressing on a boss than if we just randomized them.    The numbers and power are nowhere near close enough to allow freedom of choice.    Personal example, as a Prot Paladin I get incredibly better at doing M+ with kyrian because they give me an ability to power aoe damage+threat+interrupt very frequently.     The other covenants don't come close.     For (single target) raiding, Venthyr is again much better for me and my raid, as I can do significantly better in damage and healing.     Meanwhile neither M+ nor Raiding can use the Necrolord ability in any meaningful way.

TLDR you can't really argue against math.   Math always wins.    And in this case it's so overwhelming that it easily can decide success/failure in your endeavors.

Edited May 31, 2022 by Migol