Yeah, I regret picking Night Fae on my monk… but the issue is, if I swap now… all my followers are reset/back to level 1 
All my renown is back to level 1, it’s such a pain T_T
The holy pala representation seems a bit off. I can see Kyrian being picked in PvE for sure, but holy pala are quite big in PvP as well and Venthyr is very very popular for holy paladins, especially in 2s and 3s.
I mean an extra holy shock on myself and my partner is great and all, but AH is significant DOT and HOT, a huge “no stealth” zone and to top it all off it allows me to pull off some fairly impressive burst during it, far far more impactful than DT and i’m sure i’m not the only one who agrees.
And then you have DoS for the mobility and extra CC and the bottom tier for Nadija with the interrupt reduction (which stacks for conc aura for 55% reduced interrupt duration) and i’m really suprised to see that apparently Kyrian is that popular given Venth is arguably way superior in PvP and holy paladin is a popular class in PvP.
I mean the Venthyr abilities aren’t useless in PvE either. Lots of nice aoe healing and added burst. It’s certainly more impactful in PvE than Kyrian is in PvP imo.
89% suggests that the other three covenants make up 11% total…Yeah more than one in ten holy paladins i’ve seen myself have been Venthyr so I don’t believe 89% are Kyrian for a second.
People will always flock to what sims highest and/or works the best, that can not be prevented.
And thats even so if the difference is in the 1-2% ballpark.
And next to power, the aesthetics count for a lot; and with people having different tastes, and covenants being so aesthetically differentiated, some will always be chosen more then others.
So there is no way to make it so that each covenant is chosen at similar percentages.
Difference can be like 1-2k dps
Just look at WW monk on Shriekwing Mythic.
Nightfae = Mostly 3.6k/3.7k
Kyrian = 5k+
Same with druids - Nightfae = 6k, all other 3 are 4kish
1-2% difference isn’t bad, the problem is that it’s such a massive difference.
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I understand people flock to the highest simming covenant, but when the covenants are this different there’s no way it’s based on 1-2%.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/26#covenant=3&class=Monk
Compare Kyrian to any of the other covenants. This is not how I personally envisioned covenants when they said you should never feel bad for picking a certain covenant.
Edit: I just don’t believe you would see pick rates like this if the difference was only 1-2% I just don’t.
I’m not sure. Shumensko had a good point earlier in the thread that if all the guides say “X covenant is best”, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s better by just 1%, many will still pick whatever they’re told is best. They search for “what’s best covenant for X” and just pick the answer, even if they don’t read on to see that the guide then says “but only by 1%”. Those type of people aren’t looking for an explanation or reasons, just a black and white answer.
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But being competitive means you have to sacrifice something, right?
So you sacrifice that choice
Also this constant topics of “Oh Im forced bla bla” justa faking excuse to cover for your mistakes…You really think picking BiS covenant will get you for example all 15 in time completed?
Give us a faking break with this bullshiit of being forced into covenants .
One example of a guy who is night fae BDK ( last time I checked only 5% picked night fae because its so bad ) BUT look at HIM dude. 1.3k with class that is according to these tier lists and metas bad as warrior and on top of that he is way off from BiS covenant but STILL MAKING IT. So improve yourself and then you wont be forced to pick covenant
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I know, but if all covenant abilities did vastly different things, but were only like 1-2% different in terms of performance, I don’t think people would all flock to 1 covenant.
The reason people are all picking 1 covenant is because there’s a literal 20% difference in performance between some of them.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/26#covenant=3&class=Druid Night Fae
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/26#covenant=1&class=Druid Kyrian
I think the 90% Night Fae pick comes mostly from this. Sure it might be like 75% if it wasn’t aesthetically congruent with the druid class, but it’s still largely based on the performance difference. No doubt in my mind.
Way to miss the point…
I said ‘even if it is so’; you know ‘even’ or ‘if it would be so’, not that thats the current balance.
Yet thats the truth.
People will simply look to a guide wich tells them to do x, y and z because thats the highest simming build and they will go for that; even it is completely wrong. See for example the 'Inscrutable Quantum Device" trinket wich sims highest but is far from as powerfull as the sims show; yet people want it because their guide/sims say its the best.
Plus, 2% is a lot in a game with so many people thinking that they need every little advantage they can.
But yes, balance can be better; but in the end it won’t stop some covenants to be chosen more then others.
Agreed - there was always going to be some amount of flocking to one covenant or another because it was “best”, but performance could have been one heck of a lot closer so that, for many specs, it wasn’t a case of “choose X covenant or get laughed out of existence”. The fact that guides even laugh at the idea of choosing a certain covenant for a spec shows how badly balanced some things are…
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Yes, and I said that would only be the case if the covenants were all similar. If all covenants shot a fire bolt, but the only difference is the color, then yeah; 1-2% would easily make people swap.
But each covenant comes with it’s unique hub, ability, set of passives. There is no way 90% of the people just look at a guide that says Night Fae is better and choose it, the difference in performance has got to be higher than 1-2% for people to massively choose 1 covenant.
The difference not actually being only 1-2% is the actual problem I’m trying to point out here. The difference is just insane between certain covenants.
But we’re going by the current balance.
You will always have people min-maxing, but at this point… you aren’t going to take anybody who’s not a night fae druid for instance.
I tend to pick covenants based on RP choices - as in, the covenant that I believe the character I’m playing as would personally pick if I wasn’t controlling them.
This warrior is Kyrian. Spear of Bastion is awesome and great in pvp, but in pve I often feel like I forget to use it as it doesn’t add a lot to the table. It’s great in a jam but I don’t feel the incentive to use it all the time.
Yesterday, I got my Horde warrior to 60 and I happened to pick Venthyr - again, an RP choice, I’ll admit I don’t pay much attention to the metas… and Oh. My. LORD.
I took a screenshot of Condemn’s damage because I was convinced it was maybe a bug, partner confirmed it’s meant to work that way. I’ve been crushing content and cutting down trash in half the time as I have managed to with Kebrian here. It’s almost embarrassing how one choice can affect the game in such a huge way, intentional or not.
I actually use similar to your first line with my own chars but people think that’s odd for a holy paladin to be venthyr.
Venthyr are all about atoning for sins and cleansing about vices to prepare souls for more noble service, regardless of how gritty and vicious those souls can be. Look past the obvious thematics and this screams paladin to me. Certainly more than “angel dudes who think forgetting who you are is super important and serving without question”.
Besides, my dude here believes the Light handles most of the baggage work so the Kyrian are missing the point in his eyes, but the idea of making the wicked repent for their ways and purifying them? He can get behind that. Rescuing a Naaru core was also pretty high on his to-do list.
He also doesn’t want to forget or think forgetting the past is a great idea. Argus was a great example of a people-gone-mad and how the good can become the evil. Why on earth would he want to forget that very pertinent lesson or the various wars he has fought in the Nether? Nothing is worth remembering more than the triumph of the Light over wickedness!
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Yeah, this is a huge part of my thought process behind it. I feel like thematically, what different covenants believe and what their role is in the Shadowlands can be broken down to fit pretty much any of the Azerothian classes in some shape or form. I actually always figured the Venthyr were actually a better fit for Paladins than Kyrians based on your line of reasoning!
My Paladins don’t have fully fleshed out personalities, stories or goals yet though, so I can’t decide who would fit them better. Probably my Draenei…
But after seeing how much of a monster Condemn is I feel like I might always have a small nagging doubt about my choices now if they’re not BiS. I hope I can kick that thought before it takes hold, I honestly don’t really do any content that requires BiS in the first place, and I’d like my characters to be the truest representation of themselves, not based off of numbers.
Whers the dk chart ?
I never said you couldn’t clear content like +15’s with a non-meta covenant…
I said you will be behind in terms of damage / healing / survivability.
To a much larger extent it’s the same as picking a class/spec I guess, if people all chose the specs that performed best there would only be a handful of specs being played, but that’s not quite the case now is it?
All the specs are fairly balanced. There are some outliers like MM hunter, but there are no cases of classes being played 45 times less than others which is the case with some covenants, because the difference between covenants is much greater than the difference between most specs/classes.
Sorry added them
balance this ? 
the problem is not that some convenants are far worse than others, but rather some convenants abilities synergize so well with certain specs that it amplifies the effects.
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