Covenants are really unbalanced

Community General Discussion
1

I feel covenants aren’t balanced at all and it’s reflected by their pickrates. If you check warcraft logs the difference in dps between some of the covenants is absolutely staggering (sometimes the difference is 1000’s of dps)… I get that different players pick different covenants, but since you’re so tied into your choice you feel really bad if you’re forced to swap.

Highest picked covenants stats taken from Wowhead:

Havoc DH: Venthyr 46,6%
Vengeance DH: Kyrian 78,5%
Fire Mage: Night Fae 83,2%
Frost Mage: Venthyr 57,4%
Arcane Mage: Night Fae 74,4%
Fury Warrior: Venthyr 69,3%
Arms Warrior: Venthyr 62,0%
Prot Warrior: Kyrian 58,2%
Disc Priest: Venthyr 71,6%
Holy Priest: Necrolord 40,4%
SPriest: Venthyr 46,9%
BM hunter: Night Fae 78,8%
MM hunter: Night Fae 71,3%
Survival: Night Fae 48,6%
Destrolock: Night Fae 38,5%
Demolock: Night Fae 39,5%
Afflock: Night Fae 68,5%
Ret Pala: Kyrian 64,6%
Prot Pala: Kyrian 75,8%
Holy Pala: Kyrian 89,0%
Resto druid: Night Fae 91,5%
Moonkin: Night Fae 80,6%
Feral: Night Fae 82,3%
Guardian: Night Fae 63,9%
Resto Sham: Necrolord 68,9%
Ele Sham: Necrolord 71,8%
Enh Sham: Venthyr 77,4%
Brewmaster: Kyrian 59,4%
Windwalker: Kyrian 71,3%
Mistweaver: Kyrian 59,6%
Subtelty: Kyrian 47,1%
Outlaw: Night Fae 50,5%
Assassin: Night Fae 49,1%
Unholy DK: Necrolord 78,3%
Frost DK: Necrolord 59,3%
Blood DK: Venthyr 45,5%

I understand people tend to flock towards what’s best and that’s fine, but these numbers are not balanced at all. The majority of these are over 50%. I feel the choice isn’t that meaningful when there’s literally 1 covenant that’s leaps ahead of the other choices.

There are certain covenants that only have a 2% pick rate; which is absolutely ridiculous.

I feel the perfect numbers would be like 35, 25, 25, 15 in terms of distribution. There will always be a best covenant, but it shouldn’t be so far ahead that people do not even have a choice; or if there’s going to be such a disparity between covenants it should be easier to swap between them.

5 Likes
2

When was this updated? Just thinkin since night fae is very popular among havoc demon hunter atm even more than venthyr i feel like. I’m in the process of changing back to night fae as well.

3

I just checked and it seems to upload automatically and comes directly from blizzard’s API

4

Interesting- I hope to play through all of them, but my first 3 ended up Night Fae, currently bringing a Fury Warrior and Shadow Priest up to 60 through story so I can try them all, but on the above list it looks like I’ll have to lvl my Shaman as well to get the Necrolord story, and start a Paly (the one class I’ve never tried) as well. Oh well, good job I’m an altoholic :slight_smile:

5

I mean you can pick whatever you want if your goal is to just be emerged into the covenant quest, but if you want to be competitive; be it in M+, raiding or pvp you’re forced into what’s best. And with covenants it’s not even close half the time.

1 Like
6

I solo (don’t use discord or a Mike, and suffer enough social anxiety without exposing myself to pugs) so I need all my characters to be maximised for Torghast. One of the things I love about SL is that it works well for players like me.

7

What hurts is that we all said they would be unbalanced back in September, Blizzard assured us that they wouldn’t be and… oh, guess what.

Unbalanced AF.

Really wish they’d lose this mindset that they shouldn’t disturb anything between major patches. No! Players would respect them a lot more if they see 2-5% changes weekly, as long as there are patch notes saying why!

4 Likes
8

Currently Kyrian, will ditch them for Necrolords once I’ve acquired everything off them.

9

They could buff certain covenants by 100% and they would still be the worst, I feel they really missed the mark here.

3 Likes
10

I believe Ion specifically said they weren’t aiming for balance or equal choices. I believe it was in a recent interview with Sloot.

11

this sucks… for my main ive taken the mightiest of the covenant but with the others i decided to ignore that. Luckly i play solo.
But for the vast majority of the playerbase a mandatory covenant sincerely is… bad design

12

I’m curious whether this list of what’s picked matches the list of what’s regarded as best - or best for a certain type of content. I’d guess it will match what’s viewed as best for PvE rather than PvP.

Some combinations you feel were always going to be more popular - not because of abilities but because of theme, e.g. Night Fae for druids, Kyrian for paladins. Disappointing to see that covenant that’s all about war and combat is not popular with warriors.

And, as a Necrolord main (on my affliction warlock which is absolutely not recommended by any guides), it’s disappointing to see how few specs have Necrolord as their most popular. Although DKs seem to be missing from this list?

1 Like
13

From what I know about most of these classes these are the best performing covenants.

14

I was wavering between Kyrian and Night Fae at the start… I know Kyrian is mathematically better in combat, but… NF are more fun, and the environment is quirky and entertaining.

Plus their mission table… works… and sure, the garden is slow and generates little but I’d still use it more than I will go to Path of Ascension. Like… why would people who like the mellow aesthetic and scholarly nature of Bastion be attracted to vehicle fights?

Were any balance patch to arrive, I’d probably switch.

15

Still NF does considerably worse in the raid. Faeline Stomp contributes very little in single target situations. Sure you get an instant 100 mastery upon using it, but with how burst/cd focused WW monks are Kyrian just works better. Which is a shame because NF is kinda fun to use.

16

Honestly, I’m actually FOR each spec just having one BiS covenant, to help people that want pick the best one for content to have a go to.

If you wanna pick based on looks, the power of the covenant shouldn’t be of consequence to you.

(I mean I’d prefer to just not be locked in to one power but that’s obviously not happening.)

17

even i am hunter i dont go night fae i dont want to look at some discusting butterfly rp …

18

If you care more about progression and performance to aesthetics, wouldn’t it matter what covenant you pick, as long as you get a good performance?

Same goes the other way, if you are more interested in aesthetics of your character and story telling and what not, wouldn’t you just pick the one you like more, rather than the performance?

19

I’m gonna miss the venthyr tea parties…Night fae egg hachery place thingydoo is just useless and boring compared to the tea parties and the prices you get after are usually worthless.

20

so u turned from Twinlight Vampire into a butterfly ? :stuck_out_tongue: