My Night Fae bear is tankier than my Kyrian DH at ~5 ilvls lower, and balance affinity->hotw->convoke does mega damage on boss vulnerable phases.
Honestly, if your goal is KSM, it doesn’t matter which covenant you pick because they’re all viable, so just go with the one that you’ll find most fun.
I’ve started playing my guardian more and yeah, my NF Guardian can face tank very well, my Kyrian DH has to start kiting to stay alive. Although, when extra packs are butt pulled by accident I’d rather be on the DH to kite as the Guardian kites badly.
Yes, I saw that. The notion of switching covenants just because there’s a new patch seems odd to me (but then I have at least one character in every covenant) but that wasn’t what I was meant.
Bears are plenty tanky enough for the content you want to do regardless of which covenant you pick. Which means you are free to pick whichever covenant you find most fun, and you don’t need to worry about survivability.
I want to experience at least few covenants while they are here (knowing Blizz they will scrap them once 10.0 comes out); I only got 1 alt which is Necro ^^
i went for the unpopular one and chose Necrolord.
Nightfae and Kryian are certainly good choices, but for the M+ i really like the soulbinds / flesh craft. it saved me a bunch of times. also when you die (you proc Forgeborne Reveries) the group can prepare for when you die in 10 seconds, get an elemental/trees or combat ress ready. without having a panic moment for your group. if i died in BFA and we had a melee. they usually get smacked before i can get ressed / get back. now i can get up before anyone dies.
Though i don’t recommend Necrolord unless you strictly want to do guardian and maybe resto pvp.
Actually necrolord is pretty durable. They got a passive soulbind that gives you a 15% absorb shield every 30 sec when below 50% health.
They can prepare a 40% absorb shield before scary pulls (fleshcraft), and during hefty boss dmg phases just casting fleshcraft gives a 20% dmg reduction for those 3 sec it takes to channel ^^
The DoT/Hot helpsa little with both dmg and healing.
I main Balance and resto so I am night fae. When I do end up tanking (mainly M+) convoke is a bit hit and miss as a defensive CD but with feral / balance affinity it can become a powerful dps CD and a wipe saving healing CD if you switch into caster form first. (with judicious use of Survival Instincts)