Outlaw Rogue Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Dragonflight 10.2.5

Please be aware that as of the Dragonflight Pre-Patch and Dragonflight expansion, all Covenant abilities, Soulbinds, and Conduits will only function while within the Shadowlands. This page will temporarily remain as a reference.

This page assumes that you are already familiar with Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits. If that is not the case, we have a number of pages that can help you get up to speed:

• Covenants Guide, which explains what Covenants are, what perks they bring, and how you can join one;
• Rogue Covenant Abilities, which lists all the abilities that Rogues gain by joining each Covenant;
• How To Change Covenant?, which tells you how you can switch Covenant (rejoining a former Covenant will require you to perform a number of tasks to regain their trusts);
• General Soulbind Guide, which explains what Soulbinds are and how you can pledge yourself to them to open up their Soulbind tree;
• Rogue Conduits, which lists all of the Conduits available to Rogues.

Patch 9.2 brings almost no changes to the Covenants themselves. However, as you unlock the ability to wear your Covenant Legendary and a regular Legendary at the same time, and with the re-introduction of set bonuses, the value of individual Covenants changes depending on which of these you have already gained access to.

As all the Covenant choices for Outlaw Rogue have been fairly close to each other in raw performance, you can now experiment with other Covenants to see if their playstyle and class ability suits you more than your previous choice, and you can always go back if you prefer the old playstyle.

Overall Kyrian and Venthyr are the strongest options for Outlaw Rogue when it comes to Raiding, with Venthyr offering the highest single-target DPS potential.

On multi-target fights and in Mythic+ simulations, Necrolord takes the lead, being ~2% ahead of Kyrian as the second-best choice. Venthyr and Night Fae are at most 3-4% behind in each situation.

Thanks to the changes to the Covenant switching in 9.1.5 you can now pick the best Covenant for Outlaw Rogue without having to worry about how this affects your ability to play Subtlety or Assassination, and you can play different Covenants during the day and switch back to the best single-target one before your raid starts.

If you have just started your journey into Shadowlands or do not plan on switching Covenants frequently to gain minor performance benefits for each type of content, we will also recommend a single Covenant for you, that performs well in all kinds of situations.

The combined powers of your Covenants class ability, its specific Soulbinds as well as the Conduits you use in combination with your Soulbinds, allows for a lot of customization. All of these choices ultimately add to your core class-kit in the form of DPS boosts, increased utility, survivability or better mobility.

This guide will highlight the individual strengths of each Covenant, explain which Conduits are the most powerful for each Conduit-type and detail the best Soulbind setup for each Covenant.

If you have already decided on a Covenant that you would like to play, you can click any of these links to jump to the sections detailing the recommended Soulbinds and tips and tricks on how to optimally play around your Covenant Ability. Simply follow these links for the Night Fae, Necrolord, Kyrian, or Venthyr Covenant.

During the pre-patch, Venthyr offers the best damage out of all the covenants. As we already gain access to Echoing Reprimand through the Class Talent tree, and the Outlaw Talent tree offering up Dreadblades as well, you can quickly generate a lot of stacks for your Flagellation.

For more information on why the Venthyr Covenant is a very good all-around choice for Outlaw Rogue, as well as Information on how to set up your Soulbinds and Conduits as you gain more Renown with the Venthyr Covenant, you can check out our Venthyr Deep Dive section.

Below you will find a selection of our best Conduits, sorted by type. If you are interested in the full details, continue reading through the next section of the guide. Please refer to our Rogue Conduits list if you want to see all Rogue Conduits.

• Best Potency Conduits: You will always want to run Count the Odds. Additional Potency slots can be filled with your Covenant Conduit (unless you are playing Night Fae), as well as Sleight of Hand and Triple Threat.
• Best Finesse Conduits: Quick Decisions for raid encounters or Fade to Nothing when focusing on non-raid content.
• Best Endurance Conduits: Recuperator when taking sustained damage or Nimble Fingers when taking bursts of damage. Cloaked in Shadows replaces Nimble Fingers in Mythic+.

Regardless of which Covenant you pick, you will be able to gather and use the same Conduits, with the notable exception of the Potency Conduit that enhances your Covenant class ability.

Out of all the Conduit types, Potency Conduits are the only ones actively improving the throughput of your damaging abilities. You will oftentimes be forced to decide between either a Potency Conduit and a utility Soulbind, or a Finesse/Endurance Conduit and a DPS Soulbind. Most Potency Conduits will not improve your DPS as much as these DPS Soulbinds until you hit rank 7 or higher, so if your Conduits are still at low ranks, you should pick the non-Potency pathway as soon as you unlock the subsequent DPS Soulbind.

We will be listing the Conduits you can obtain below, ordered by perceived power and accompanied by an explanation on their place in the list.

Two of these can (and generally should) be chosen once you unlock their slots at your chosen Soulbind. By order of preference:

1. Count the Odds is our best Potency Conduit. It gives each Ambush and Dispatch a chance to grant you a Roll the Bones buff you do not currently possess for 5 seconds. With how often you cast Dispatch this happens quite often in a fight. It is also very strong in Mythic+ content due to the higher proc-chance when cast from stealth.
2. Sleight of Hand increases the chance to gain additional Roll the Bones buffs whenever you use it. It is our second best choice for both single-target and AoE.
3. Triple Threat is the next best trait choice, granting a small chance for your additional Sinister Strike hits to deal even more extra damage. Venthyr Outlaw Rogues prioritize this as their third Potency Conduit.
4. The Venthyr Covenant Conduit Lashing Scars, Sudden Fractures for Necrolords and Reverberation for Kyrians should always be used as the second Potency Conduit.
5. The Night Fae Covenant Conduit Septic Shock is not worth using on either single-target or multi-target.
6. Ambidexterity is our dedicated AoE Conduit and provides no boost to single-target whatsoever. Sadly, it is so undertuned that it is barely a DPS gain, even on AoE. It is not recommended to ever play this Conduit.

Our Endurance Conduits all excel against a certain type of damage, so depending on the situation, each one of these could be best suited to counteract some of the damage you take.

1. Recuperator provides some passive healing while Slice and Dice is active, which it should be at all times. It is the best all-around choice.
2. Nimble Fingers reduces the Energy cost of both Feint and Crimson Vial. On encounters where these abilities are used regularly to counteract large bursts of damage, you will save some Energy with this Conduit. Sadly, the DPS gained from this Energy cost reduction is very insignificant.
3. Cloaked in Shadows provides an absorb shield every time you enter stealth. While Outlaw wants to use Vanish on cooldown due to its synergy with Count the Odds it can be beneficial to hold onto it in preparation for a big damage spike. Vanishing right before taking a large chunk of damage will allow you to benefit from this absorb at its maximum value. It is also very powerful in Mythic+ and solo content like Torghast, where you will be able to stealth much more frequently.
4. Condensed Anima Sphere will heal you after taking damage, with an internal cooldown of 10 seconds. This heal can be quite potent on encounters that deal constant ticking damage, and is newly available in 9.1.

1. Quick Decisions reduces the cooldown of your Grappling Hook and also increases its range. This is your go-to Finesse Conduit.
2. Fade to Nothing increases your movement speed when entering stealth, shrouding, and after using Vanish for 10 seconds. It is most useful when getting around while you are not engaged in any kind of combat, but it is simply inferior to Quick Decisions when it comes to in-combat mobility.
3. Prepared for All provides a strong cooldown reduction to your Evasion, especially when tanking multiple enemies at once. This Conduit is very useful for pulling large amounts of enemies, in particular when you are progressing through the halls of Torghast. The cooldown reduction to Cloak of Shadows after successfully interrupting a spell is negligible.
4. Rushed Setup reduces the Energy cost of your disruptive abilities. It will not see use in any PvE scenario but might be a solid pick for PvP.

In this section, we will go into deeper detail about each individual Covenant, their strengths and weaknesses as well as which Soulbinds you should choose to optimize your DPS potential. Many of the Soulbinds have multiple paths that you can take, forcing you to choose between taking an additional Potency Conduit or a Soulbind ability. Which pathway is the most optimal for your character might differ based on your gear, talents or the ranks of your Conduits, and therefore we highly recommend simming your own character and comparing these options by using Raidbots.

Sepsis is a 90-second cooldown damaging ability that applies a powerful damage over time effect. If your target dies before this DoT has run its full duration, its cooldown is reduced. If the target survives the full 10-second DoT, you will be able to use an ability once that requires stealth. This proc switches your main hotkey-bar to a new one that is different than your stealth bar, similarly to how Shadow Dance works for Subtlety Rogues. This can be a bit disorienting at times, so it is recommended to track the duration of the Sepsis debuff so you know when you will be able to use your stealth ability.

This one-time use of a stealth ability does not benefit from any stealth-based bonuses, whether they are Conduits like Count the Odds (it can still proc it, just not at a higher chance) or Legendary effects like Mark of the Master Assassin.

Sepsis deals mediocre damage and that damage is also further boosted by any temporary damage increases like Ghostly Strike or certain Legendary Powers like Celerity.

Soulshape is a nice addition to a class that is already very mobile. Next to Sprint and Grappling Hook, this ability also allows to you teleport towards a specific direction, skipping any ground effects you would normally have to travel through when running or grappling. It can be used to stick to your target a little bit longer before running away with a dangerous ability that might damage people around you, or can be used to teleport away in an instant if some you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a damaging ground effect.

All three Night Fae Soulbind choices have their place and are powerful at specific points in time. As you gain more Renown, you will find yourself switching between all three Soulbinds to best use the Passives and Conduits they provide.

• Niya is a great starting Soulbind and offers early access to your first Potency Conduit. For DPS, this is one of the best early Soulbinds across all four Covenants.
• Dreamweaver is your second Soulbind and replaces Niya once you get more Renown. At 13 Renown, Dreamweaver gains access to a second Potency Conduit slot, which you should utilize once your Conduits reach higher ranks. Dreamweaver also grants access to a defensive ability that is very similar to Cheat Death. You can opt to pick a second Endurance Conduit and use Social Butterfly instead of a second Potency Conduit, sacrificing some damage to gain survivability. This flexibility will come in very handy during progression raiding or when pushing deeper into Torghast.
• Once you finish the Night Fae Covenant campaign, you will unlock Korayn. Korayn is best used on encounters that require heavy up-front damage, and once you hit 31 Renown, it will also be your best choice for Mythic+ as you unlock First Strike.

Once you have fully unlocked all Soulbind trees your best choice for single-target is Niya. You will want to use this Soulbind tree:

For Mythic+ you will want to use Korayn instead with this Soulbind tree:

Serrated Bone Spike is the Rogue class ability for the Necrolord Covenant. It is a 30-second cooldown Combo Point generator that has up to 3 charges and applies a damage-over-time effect on your target that remains until your target dies or gets healed to full HP. Out of all the Covenants, it is the only Class Ability that can affect multiple targets at once and, due to its high cast range, can quickly be applied to additional enemies even if they are far away from you.

Serrated Bone Spike is very powerful on any encounter with multiple targets present, as it deals high initial damage that gets spread to other targets with Blade Flurry active. You regain one charge every 30 seconds, and whenever any target afflicted by it dies. With its unlimited duration, it is a very Energy-efficient ability to use on any target that lives longer than 10-15 seconds, and it is particularly useful in Mythic+ content. It synergizes well with one of Necrolord's Soulbinds, Emeni, and her ability Lead by Example.

Fleshcraft is the Signature Ability of the Necrolord Covenant and adds some useful survivability to an already very durable melee class. While there is little downtime in your regular Outlaw Rotation, the absorb is very potent and worth losing a bit of DPS for if it saves your life. Cloaked in Shadows also provides another source of absorb, adding to the already-strong mitigation toolkit Outlaw Rogue has thanks to Feint and Elusiveness. It also provides a 20% damage reduction while you are channeling, which can be timed with any instant damage by channeling for a fraction of a second as you get hit.

Necrolord have two very powerful Soulbind choices, with both Emeni and Bonesmith Heirmir offering strong DPS bonuses. Emeni is your only good choice after joining the Necrolord Covenant. It will take some time to gain the required Renown and finish the Necrolord Covenant campaign before you unlock the third Necrolord Soulbind, Bonesmith Heirmir.

What makes Emeni so powerful is her very first ability, Lead by Example. This ability procs every time you use your Serrated Bone Spike and buffs you with up to 13% additional Agility, as well as providing a smaller bonus to up to 4 nearby players in your raid or party. While this buff only lasts for 5 seconds, it is still very potent. Thanks to the low cooldown of Serrated Bone Spike and it having up to 3 charges to use, you can either use Serrated Bone Spike every 5 seconds to maintain the buff for quite some time, or hold on to additional charges to line them up with your Ghostly Strike, Between the Eyes or Killing Spree burst windows instead.

Where this Soulbind really shines, however, is both in Mythic+, as well as on raid encounters that have frequent add spawns. Since you are recharging one use of Serrated Bone Spike every time an enemy dies, you can gain much higher uptime and not only boost your own damage this way, but also buff a few players in your raid or party for a short period of time whenever you re-cast it. In Mythic+, you will start each pull with 3 charges, allowing you to buff yourself and nearby players for up to 15 seconds on every single pull. Keep in mind that any encounter that requires melee to be spread or a Mythic+ group that mostly consists of ranged DPS and a ranged healers might lower the benefits that both you and the group will receive, due to Lead by Example only affecting players within a 15-yard range.

This is the recommended Soulbind pathing and Conduit placement for Emeni:

Bonesmith Heirmir, once unlocked, increases your Agility by 3% as long as three of your equipped armor items have an enchantment on them. This is a very strong bonus as it is always active as long as you ensure your gear is enchanted correctly. Due to the limitations of Emeni in small groups that do not have a lot of people close by, Heirmir becomes the go-to choice for Mythic+ once unlocked. As you gain access to Heirmir's final Soulbind at Renown 31, she is also a better choice for single-target. Heirmir's Arsenal: Marrowed Gemstone is more potent than unlocking an additional potency Conduit, so you should always choose it in your pathing.

This is the pathing and Conduit placement we recommend for Bonesmith Heirmir:

Echoing Reprimand is the Kyrian Rogue class ability. It is a 45-second cooldown ability that deals a high amount of arcane damage immediately, generates 2 Combo Points, and Animacharges one of your Combo Points. What this means is that the next time you use a damaging ability with the exact amount of Combo Points as your Animacharge, you will significantly enhance that finishers efficacy. The finisher will be used as if you had cast it with 7 Combo Points, boosting either its damage, duration or both:

• Dispatch will deal more damage.
• Between the Eyes will deal more damage, and the critical strike chance debuff will last 21 seconds.

There is one caveat to Echoing Reprimand, however, and that is the exact way the Animacharge effect works with Outlaw Rogue's Combo Point generation. Only your second, third or fourth Combo Point can become Animacharged. Since Outlaw has a very unpredictable Combo Point generation, with additional Sinister Strike hits, Broadside and Quick Draw generating additional Combo Points, hitting the exact amount of Combo Points you need might not be as simple as initially thought. More often than not, you will plan on casting a 7 Combo Point Between the Eyes after using Echoing Reprimand, but a streak of unfortunate Sinister Strike procs (or lack thereof) makes it impossible to hit the exact number of Combo Points that you need. This is one of the major downsides with the Kyrian Covenant Class Ability, and ultimately leads to you just using Echoing Reprimand on cooldown and not playing around its secondary mechanic on purpose. This issue will be further exacerbated by the new Outlaw Rogue 2-Piece bonus. While this sounds bad at first, it is not at all impeding your ability to do great damage, and you typically manage to hit your Animacharged Combo Point before the ability is ready again.

Despite these issues Kyrian is still a very powerful choice for single-target in particular, mostly thanks to its strong Soulbinds. Its Signature Ability is, very useful as well, as you can use Summon Steward to receive a Phial of Serenity. This Phial has 3 uses and is very similar in function to a Healthstone, but does not share a cooldown with it. It has its own separate 3-minute cooldown, and can be used multiple times over an encounter. This offers a large chunk of on-demand self healing which goes hand in hand with Outlaw Rogues strong survivability kit.

All three Kyrian Soulbinds are close to each other in performance. Most of Kleia's entire strength is linked to one of the final Soulbinds you can unlock with her, Pointed Courage. Until you do, Pelagos is the only worthwhile choice for Kyrian Aspirants. The third Soulbind Forgelite Prime Mikanikos has a similarly powerful ability, Hammer of Genesis.

While all three Soulbinds provide decent damage benefits, Mikanikos stands out as the strongest amongst the three at maximum Renown. Effusive Anima Accelerator helps reduce the cooldown of Echoing Reprimand further, and combining this with the Legendary power Invigorating Shadowdust allows you to quickly cast multiple ERs back to back.

You should use this pathing and Conduit placement for Mikanikos:

Flagellation is the Venthyr Rogue class ability. It is a 90-second cooldown ability that applies a debuff to the target that lasts 12 seconds. Any Combo Point spent during this time will deal additional damage to the target and increase your Haste by 1%. After the debuff expires, you will continue to benefit from the Haste buff for another 12 seconds.

Flagellation is one of the stronger Covenant class abilities. Both its damage and the Haste buff it provides are fairly powerful for Outlaw Rogues. When running Deeper Stratagem and Dreadblades you have regular burst windows that are very potent, and combined with the Obedience Legendary power you gain a lot of cooldown reduction on it this way. Once you unlock Unity you can further reduce its cooldown by playing Invigorating Shadowdust as your second Legendary power, as you will naturally reduce your Vanish cooldown already.

Door of Shadows is the Venthyr Signature Ability. It allows you to teleport to a target location within range after casting this ability for 1.5 seconds. This helps out our already strong mobility toolkit by providing an ability that lets us teleport to a specific location, whereas Sprint requires you to run through potentially hazardous ground effects and Grappling Hook also travels through those.

All three Venthyr Soulbinds offer multiple DPS bonuses. Theotar the Mad Duke is the most powerful of the three for raw damage output, edging out the other Soulbinds on both single-target as well as AoE.

Theotar the Mad Duke's first ability Soothing Shade will sometimes spawn a shaded area with an umbrella. Standing within that area will grant you a large amount of Mastery. The main benefit of Theotar is that he allows you to run three Potency Conduits, which puts his damage output ahead of Nadjia.

The new final ability, Party Favors will also allow you to talk to Theotar in your Covenant Hall in Sinfall. You will be given a consumable item, The Mad Duke's Tea, which grants you a buff that will increase either your Agility, Haste, Versatility, or Critical Strike. This item can be re-used every hour to try to get another buff. Any of these buffs are usable, as the difference between them is very minor.

This pathing and Conduit placement is the recommended one for Theotar: