A core choice at the start of your journey in the Shadowlands will have you decide where your allegiance lies; would you rather support the Kyrian of Bastion, the Necrolords of Maldraxxus, the Night Fae of Ardenweald, or the Venthyr of Revendreth?
Choosing a covenant is the most important decision your character will make in Shadowlands, as the covenant abilities and Soulbinds will significantly impact your spec's gameplay and performance. Through this choice, your rotation changes, certain bonuses appear in dungeons for your entire group, and you are able to follow the story in different paths.
So without any further ado let's get right into it;
Single Target/Raid:
As much as Venthyr Beast Mastery Hunter excels at single target damage, most Beast Mastery Hunters opt in going Night Fae,it gives you the best overall and well rounded damage on both Single Target and AoE fights making it the go to covenant choice for majority of Beast Mastery Hunter players.
AoE / Mythic +:
Both Night Fae and Kyrian are viable options for Beast Mastery Hunter when it comes to Mythic + and AoE content. With most Beast Mastery Hunters leaning towards Night Fae, we recommend running Night Fae for overall PvE content for Beast Mastery Hunters.
PvP:
When it comes to PvP, Your best choice will be Venthyr, as the sustained damage from Flayed Shot makes Beast Mastery Hunter one of the highest sustained damage specialization in the game right now, Also being able to setup traps using Door of Shadows is another helpful tool to your kit.
To sum this up, Night Fae will be your best covenant choice when it comes to PvE content, for both raiding and mythic +
Kyrian can also be viable and should be your second option if you would like to switch.
And for PvP Venthyr is by far your best option and should always be chosen.
Single Target/Raid:
Currently both Night Fae and Kyrian are very strong and very close together in terms of performance for Marksmanship Hunters, with Night Fae being the more popular option and is recommended over Kyrian.
AoE / Mythic +:
Just like on single target, both Night Fae and Kyrian are very close together in terms of performance while Kyrian has the shorter 1-minute cooldown on their signature ability making it better for lower level keys, however if your goal is to push higher keys we highly recommend going Night Fae.
PvP:
When it comes to PvP, Kyrian Marksmanship Hunter should be your go to covenant as you get a huge amount of burst on a 1 minute cooldown which is great for PvP
Night Fae is the go to popular covenant for Marksmanship Hunter, closely followed by Kyrian.
Kyrian is the go to covenant when it comes to PvP scenarios due to really high burst damage on a 1 minute cooldown
Single Target/Raid:
Due to the lack of viability of Survival Hunters in the current game meta their isn't a lot of options you can opt into.
With most Survival Hunter players going for Kyrian as their main covenant choice.
AoE / Mythic +:
Survival Hunter excels at AoE damage and due to the low cooldown on the Kyrian signature ability it is your go to covenant choice, giving you really good AoE damage on a short cooldown.
PvP :
Just like Beast Mastery Hunters, you want to go Venthyr as a Survival Hunter for all your PvP scenarios.
To quickly sum this up, Kyrian is the go to covenant for all your PvE needs, from Single Target raid damage to Mythic + and AoE. As for PvP you want to go with the Venthyr.
Reminder:
Covenants have a major impact on the game, your playstyle, rotation and even character aesthetics. You should consider all your options before committing to one covenant.
But also remember you can switch between covenants so if you would like to change between them you can!
As of current there is a time gate on how you can switch covenants but with the release of patch 9.1.5 it will be much easier
Remember! You will lose access to all your previous Covenant’s abilities, transmogs, and soulbinds
It is a bit tricker to rejoin a covenant you have already left and it will require a bit more work. In this case, you will need to complete two consecutive weekly quests before you will be allowed to rejoin.
The leader will then give you a weekly quest to start the process of rejoining the Covenant by completing quests in the covenant zone or dungeons and you will see the progress bar fill up as you finish various tasks.
Once you finished the quest and the Weekly Reset has happened you will be given yet another quest, the objective of the quest is pretty much the same then you will be able to rejoin the covenant.
In total it takes about one weekly reset to rejoin a covenant you previously left, so make wise choices!
