What do you all think about the Venthyr covenant for our class? I’m thinking about playing protection in M+ and maybe retribution in raids.
Thematically, I think I’d prefer Venthyr over Kyrian as a Blood Elf. And the Venthyr have red plate armor, something that’s quite rare in WoW! 
Has anyone with beta access tested Ashen Hollow? It sounds like a great “oh s***!” ability for big M+ pulls. If the healing is significant, could it even be useful in some raids?
Door of Shadows also seems like a useful ability for us, since we don’t have that much mobility.
How do the standard rotations feel for protection and retribution? Is it easy to mix in Divine Toll from the Kyrians, or does it make some rotations too busy?
i think you should play what you like they will most likely be nerfed into the ground anyway 
I am currently planning on going Venthyr in SL.
Not on Beta, and might change my mind on leveling, but its currently my favourite on all aspects I can view.
It has some pretty good conduits / soulbinds, and ashen hallow does seem like a strong cooldown, affecting a large area (cooldown is long thou) xD
Also the ember court sounds like alot of fun!
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From a Tank PoV I think all four Covenants will work without it being big differences at least for raids nothing really gamebreaking our core kit is whats most important Covenants more serves as a bonus.
From an m+ perspective Divine Toll seems really good at the start of big pulls to get SoTR up and running stright away. With that said it depends on what your goal in m+ is if its just to clear +15’s for the weekly chest or push really deep.
For +15’s you can play whatever spec and be able to do it as long as you got a party that knows what they are doing. +15 doesnt really require meta or anything its built so every class/spec/covenant is more than enough to clear it.
Having access to a blink isnt something to underestimate though if your forced to kite to stay alive.
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I am going to say 4 min CD is pure madness and no fun at all.
ashen hollow is a good ability but the long cd means it behaves more like an extra cool down rather than a rotation changing ability
i cant really tell you how the dmg scales as i main holy but from the perspective of a holy paladin it behaves as an aoe healing cd similar to healing tide totem
what i can tell you is in the most recent patch you dont have to worry about it pulling extra monsters as it no longer imitates combat with targets who are out of combat. the extra holy power generation from HOW will help with you SOR uptime. but the long cd is a major draw back.
personally as a tank looking to do primarily mythic + i would look at maldraxis or bastion, maldraxis will help you with sor uptime and more self healing via the 2 for 1 WOG & SOR combo, protections self healing has suffered ever since the changes made to judgement. and this ability lets you claw some of that back
bastion is great for large pulls, divine toll lets you stack a very large absorb shield on a short 1 min cd
as for door of shadows, unless it is part of a mythic + skip meta which seems unlikely you wont really get much use of this, there are a few raid bosses where it helps but if raids really arnt you main progression point i wouldn’t bother, you will get more sue out of the self heal / cleanse from kyrian (epically if there is an effect your healer cant remove) or the big absorb shield from maldraxus (epically if you take the conduit that lets you move while channelling it so you can pop it between packs and before bosses with no downtime
ultimately i wouldn’t worry too much you can always swap covenants later
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If you’re going to main prot, I think Kyrian Divine Toll or the Necrolords Shield are much more useful. As Kyrian DT is a “range+aoe pull”, it’s an additional silence, and the 1 min cd means it’s very useful for M+ as well as raids. And it builds holy power.
For Necrolords, the shield is an additional mitigation. One you can use before a pull even and start the fight with a cd. Which is an issue with the holy powers. And the Hammer could be a nice attack if you can work it into your rotation.
Ashen Hollow has two short coming - 4 minute CD is insane. And it’s a large static area. Which means if there are cc’s, patrols, or other mob groups, you can easily pull by mistake. Would have been better if it were perhaps a 20’ area centered around you.
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Ashen Hallow also has a cast time of 1.5 sec for… reasons, so not much of an “Oh s***!” button. They added so you can throw HoW while standing in it, targets dont need to be inside it tho.
Many of the legendary items we get affect HoW like
-Hammer of wrath has 2 extra charges and increases holy damage done by 2% for 8 sec, stacking 3 times.
-Hammer of wrath extends Avenging wrath by 1 sec and deals 25% additional damage.
-Replaces Templar’s Verdict with Final Verdict. (Does same damage as TV but has a new animation) Has a 50% chanse to activate Hammer of wrath and reset its cooldown.
Having said that the CD is still to long and the cast time aint helping. Would really love to use it tho 
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Hmm, damn, those are some good arguments for Necro instead of Venthyr. If Ashen Hallow requires you to move into position (which might mean one aggros mobs by proximity) and then cast for 1.5 seconds, that would definitely be irritating. If one can pre-cast the Necro shield while moving to the upcoming pack, then its cast time won’t be an issue.
Yeah, possibly. On retail, I feel like my rotation is already quite busy. I’m not sure how much it changes in Shadowlands. Does the new Holy Power system make it slower? I’m definitely glad that we can test the covenant abilities a bit during leveling. If Divine Toll fits nicely into the rotation, maybe I’ll really go for Kyrian instead of Venthyr.
(Night Fae armor looks cool too though! 
)
Can confirm divine toll fits beautifully in the rotation. It’s the covernant I picked on the beta and ts a wonderful spell to press.
Is spell push back still a thing, or not being able to block/dodge/parry while casting?
Missed a few years of wow, so feel like I’ve missed these changes… all I know is on classic spell push back sucks… and on BFA I won’t say I’ve even noticed it. (Except Void Elves have that racial).
I’m assuming such issues won’t be a problem with this spell for prot… but then I am assuming…
Cow + paladin+ vampire…
!!!must have!!!
I have never ever heard of about something like that…, even six-headed shark pales in this comparison.
Humor a side, it feels great for ret it gives the spec dmg profile which base ret is lacking. I am ok with cooldown, we already are pretty keybind heavy spec in meta build. But i would never ever used it as prot/holy or as pvp ret paladin.
btw healing is very significant but not for tanks i would say, its about 5% hp per tick for non tank specs, also if you want to play m+… you know aoe silence (kyrian) ones per minute and massive on pull burst, you can just kite in concentration, takes literaly no dmg and still keep agroo, thats big man, realy big. In the end why to try overheal dmg when you can take non. yea and i didnt mentioned synergy between divine tool and legendaries for prot paladin. Its ehm, ridiculously strong, while Venthyr has non.
As holy paladin it might find it’s niche in mythic raid pushing. But you are right outside of the last two bosses on mythic it won’t see any real use unless it gets some more buffs
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thats pretty acurate man niche is still there, but its very rare.
Another thing going for Protection Venthyr Paladin is the lvl 50 PvP truthguard sword is one of best mogs in the game, and would work perfectly!
Then again the lvl 10 one would fit maldraxxus and lvl 30 Night Fae… if you want Kyrian your out of luck! 
I have two paladins already prepared… venthyr ret for raid and kyrian prot for dungeons. ret could be somehow usefull on tyranical, BUT not many specs is great for tyranical so i will probably not be able to build the groups for tyranical pushes anyway…
I have two paladins already prepared too.
One on alliance for raiding.
One on horde for when a guild member annoys me 
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I’m going to level so many paladins in SL… but not because of the covenent system… just because I love paladins XD
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If your focus is m+ on prot pala is DT or DT.
The amount of things that DT brings compared to anything else is huge.
Extra silence, 5 hopo, big dmg burst, great to pick aggro on big packs, extra big shield through first avenger etc etc etc.
No other covenant abilities gives that much.
The extra silence is also very useful in raids.
As a prot pala in Nya’lotha there were several fights where I shut down a fight mechanic as I could handle the interrupt rotation on my own.