My main char is a frost mage, I did all campains and took naturally the Venthyr covenant.
I created my first alt 7 days ago, a balance druid, just arrived to the point where I have to chose a covenant. (I wanted to redo the four campains.) I see that 9.1. recommended covenant for balance druids is now Venthyr, and not Night Fae anymore.
I see that Ventyr’s ravenous crazy copes well in a multi-target environment as well as in a single-target environment while Night Fae’s Convoke the Spirit seems to be ok with single targets but quite bad with multiples-targets. (Reference = Icy Veins mainly.)
My main issue with my balance druid (compared to the frost mage) during the 1-60 + 4 campains speed-run was that I had to be a bit more careful and serious with multiple targets, not having the druid analogue of frost mage’s frost nova that allows a better mob control. Hence I would say that I should not emphasize this shortcoming even more and that I should rather take Night Fae instead of Venthy but …
… I already did Venthyr once, liked it, but I find Ardenweald really graphically beautiful and would hence like to take Night Fae.
I see that as of 9.1.5 we will be able to transfer reknown (my frost mage is renown 80) across characters ; will it really be a transfer, so that the only way to have two or more chars with 80 renown will be to refarm 80 renown ? (In which case I would really prefer doing it in a new Ardenweald context that redoing Venthyr.) Also, is it sure that in 9.1.5 the best covenant for balance druid doesn’t change again, back to Night Fae ?
Venthyr brings more damage, but also requires coordination in m+ (if tank never pulls more than 1 pack - venthyr boomy is trash). You need to communicate big pulls, and in pugs you don’t expect that.
I personally didn’t enjoy vent playstyle, but since my druid is tank main now, I keep vent for tank.
NF is completely viable for 15’s in pugs, and with convoke you can save a lot of time on big chunky single target mobs (like mini boss mobs, anima mobs, bosses, etc.). Also convoking boomy is much more fun in open world/torghast/random bg.
I would suggest focusing on NF for now until 9.1.5 - then you can swap around on demand (since you have venthyr done on alt character - everything will be unlocked for boomy as well).
Just a note - if you plan to have tank off-spec - currently Vent bears are god-mode, just to consider this. But correctly used, bear with convoke in boomy form can bring ~100-150k damage burst in 4s window depending on RNG. That is also significant.
Don’t ever go Venthyr as boomie. Every single person I saw switching from Fae to Venthyr completely lost all skill the moment they switched. It melts your brain, and not in a good way.
Fae is perfectly viable too, unless you plan to run very high-end, cutting edge stuff. Be responsible, have fun, go Fae and chill in Ardenweald. It’s a beautiful place.
Vent potentially does more dps but is a harder rotation and doesn’t shine in short fights. I would agree with previous posters and, especially for an alt just go Night Fae.
The frost nova equivalent for balance druids is Ursols Vortex (plus possibly mass entangle, and typhoon)
Please don’t ever go Venthyr. It’s awfully complicated, you have to ramp up to use your big CD, rather than just pressing Convoke. It’s mind numbing. And even worse! If you fail the ramp, if you have to move, you’ll get stunned! It’s terrible! All for what? A miniscule amount of DPS if your tank pulls around your CDs, which they won’t, so you’ll end up doing tank damage. You’ll be DPSing as hard as a wet sponge. Heck, even if you do perfectly, even if your tank pulls around your CDs, outside of CDs, you might as well AFK, 'cos you ain’t doing damage for sure.
So if you value your sanity, if you like fun, stay Fae.
The damage you could get from venthir is potentially better, but there is a caveat that is way too much to ignore.
That is that if you are interrupted, and can’t cast an ability within 2 seconds, then you are stunned for a short time, take damage based on the stacks you had, and the cd ends.
Night fae is easier to manage, does similar damage, and works well for balance and feral, which venthyr does not.
When we say similar damage, Vent sims about 10% higher on single target, but it is a lot easier to mess up, affected by interrupts movement etc. IMO go NF for an easier life and a fun ability
I finally took Night Fae with my alt druid and did not regret it. But I must admit I prefered the Venthyr convenant campain I did with my main mage. Only naively though that I would be able to achieve renown 80 with my alt also before 9.1.5 and right now after the whole covenant campaign and the chains of domination campaign, I am stuck at renown 59 and have to wait for resets …
It’s not harder but I think it reflects exactly how Ion wants the game to be played. It is an annoying playstyle and you are highly concentrated for ~30 seconds to not mess up and perfectly time everything.
It is all about numbers and clearly shows that fun is not allowed because convoke is sooo much more fun in terms of enjoying the game. Sadly NF just won’t bring the same numbers as venth :’(
Honestly, for sylvanas I don’t even know how she looks like because I have to time every damn second of the fight as venth.
To be fair, unless you’re in a top 100 guild, fae or venthyr doesn’t matter. In fact, on the world first kill of Mythic Sylvanas, there were no Venthyr boomkins, all four of them were Fae. So if you’re forced into Venthyr, just point at the world first kill with all fae boomies:
Kyrian boomies lifes matter!