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:
For raiding, Holy Paladins predominantly choose the Venthyr covenant, due to the shear amount of power of their signature ability "Ashen Hallow" being one of the strongest damaging and healing ability for a healer specialization and one of the most important raid cooldowns. Venthyr is going to always be your number one choice when it comes to Holy Paladin.
Kyrian is a close second option and it can be quite strong with "Divine Toll" having a much shorter CD. Sadly is not nearly as strong as the Venthyr ability.
AoE / Mythic +:
For mythic + it is also no different, the Venthyr covenant really shines with their signature ability "Ashen Hallow" and It is a much much stronger choice for mythic + content than any of the other covenant.
Combining "Ashen Hallow" with bloodlust on hard boss fight or big dungeon pulls allows Holy Paladins to dish out a very respectable amount of damage that can really make or break your mythic + runs.
PvP:
When it comes to PvP, most people opt in going Kyrian, as the soulbinds give you a better survivability options, "Divine Toll" having a much shorter cd and being a one button topper in pvp scenarios.
Most of the covenant can see competitive play for Holy Paladin, but Kyrian is by far your best option.
To sum this up, for most of the PvE content, when it comes to raiding or doing mythic + runs you want to choose the Venthyr covenant, Ashen Hallow is an incredibly powerful cooldown that overpowers most other Paladin abilities.
And in PvP scenarios you want to go with the Kyrians.
Single Target/Raid:
Protection Paladin is not much different than Holy when it comes to covenant choices, they all can be viable, but again Venthyr pulls quite ahead due to how strong of a cooldown "Ashen Hallow" is. The amount of damage and utility you get out of "Ashen Hallow" will always make it your go to covenant for Protection Paladin.
AoE / Mythic +:
Again, no difference when it comes to mythic + Venthyr's "Ashen Hallow" will reign supreme, the damage and utility makes it the easy go to choice.
Kyrian is a very close by second as you get the "Phial of Serenity" which is a pretty good defensive tool for most tanks, as well as "Divine Toll" being an excellent defensive cooldown especially when its paired with the "First Avenger" talent.
PvP:
When it comes to PvP, Protection Paladin has actually seen competitive play, even on an official tournament scene level but all covenants seem to just work.
We ranked them as follow;
Similar to Holy Paladin, for PvE scenarios you want to opt in playing Venthyr as it gives you really good damage and utility, Kyrian is also a very good choice, but we recommend sticking with the Venthyrs.
For PvP almost all covenants are viable with Kyrian pulling slightly ahead.
Single Target/Raid:
For single target or raid options you would want to opt into the Kyrian covenant as it has the best single target damage for raid encounters. Currently for Retribution Paladin Kyrian is by far the best covenant and almost no other covenant comes close.
AoE / Mythic +:
And for Mythic + / AoE Kyrian is again your only really viable option.
PvP :
Retribution Paladin for any aspect of the game everything is going to be Kyrian and PvP is no different, the amount of burst you can do with Divine Toll and the Final Verdict legendary brings World of Warcraft one shots to a whole new level.
Conclusion:
To quickly sum this up, for most aspect of the game for Retribution Paladin you're going to want to play Kyrian as it the strongest option at the moment.
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!
