Covenants are the marquee feature of Shadowlands and they inform a large amount of the expansion’s mechanics. From a pair of your abilities to the core of new progression to the appearance of your raid weapon rewards, they are at the heart of Shadowlands. However, you can only be a part of one, so many players are wondering “Which should I pick?”
Covenant selection should be made without huge fear from the average player. Focusing heavily on the mechanical throughput of your class ability is likely to be unsafe and result in issue down the line. Past experience has shown us that these sorts of mechanics are more aggressively tuned by Blizzard. For this reason, you should pick an ability that you enjoy using and treat power as a secondary consideration to break ties.
Should I always choose the BiS ability?
The short answer is no. At least not if the only reason you feel you must pursue it is because it is a damage outlier. While we don’t know how the initial rankings will pan out we can look at the history of the game to check on how well this usually works out. The short answer is that historically, large outliers from a new mechanic see quick nerfs, and these nerfs usually err on the side of overcorrection to make sure the problem doesn’t continue to exist. In the past this has generally been in places that can be replaced relatively quickly like overtuned Azerite armor. Covenant choice, however, has a cooldown for swapping and so it is likely that choosing a covenant because it’s ability is currently a damage outlier will actually leave you with an ability near the bottom with time. It is possible those nerfs won’t come within the time frame that your cooldown is ticking, but if you value performance I wouldn’t risk it.
If you’re looking for the best performance, it’s probably wisest to wait for things to settle aiming for the top spots. This is a huge part of the reason raids don’t release immediately and Mythic+ seasons start after expansion launch, you’ll usually get non-difficult content in the period before things are mostly flattened, and remaining outliers usually get hit once raid data is available. By then utility and ease of use is usually enough to counterbalance damage leads and the “best” choice will in reality fluctuate from situation to situation, fight to fight, and even character to character depending on your gear’s stat distribution.
Understanding Covenants
So, with the discussion of the current panic over the ability balance out of the way, what else do Covenants offer? Beyond just the class abilities, Covenants have an ability shared between all members regardless of class which is usually movement or utility focused, a unique hub location for its members that affects the local zone, cosmetic rewards, and perhaps most importantly Soulbinds. While the class abilities are certainly the leading feature, Soulbinds follow this up as they provide an outlet to customizing your output in a style similar to the classic talent system crossed with gear. Of course, for players interested in legacy and outdoor content, those movement abilities could be the star of the show and some Soulbinds can even contribute to this.
Conceptually, each Soulbind represents an association with an important NPC and grants some features thematic to them. These are mostly small utility benefits, but notably some soulbind trees feature significant movement buffs that can be very beneficial to some classes that lack mobility of their own. A recent update made the amount of throughput from each soulbind at most times roughly equal so pursuing these sorts of buffs could be huge if you’re playing something like Paladin or Death Knight. Outside of these abilities, you have conduit slots, divided into categories for damage, survivability, and utility. These slots can be filled with upgrades unlocked throughout Shadowlands content, each of which has a level and can be upgraded by doing harder difficulties of whatever rewarded it. They’re roughly akin to the old skill-point talent system except that instead of scaling them by spending multiple points on one, you instead upgrade them like gear.
In the end a lot of players are currently sleeping on most of what Covenants offer while focusing specifically on the class abilities. It can be easy to get caught up on the most glaring part of the system and miss the rest of it, but you should select your covenant with all the information rather than based on one small part of it and especially not when that part is of a class of abilities that have historically been swiftly nerfed. Remember to keep in mind that simulation data is based on a single character profile and should be redone for your own character if you want accuracy. They can change a lot based on your current stat profile and hyperfocusing on the generic result often leads to poor decisions for your character.