While leveling in the Shadowlands, you will encounter four different Covenants; each desperate for your help. In exchange for your aid, they will provide you with a general and a spec-specific ability, as well as a variety of cosmetics such as mounts, pets and armor sets.
Picking the right Covenant is a hard and important decision. This guide will help you decide what the best Covenant is for druids.
Your first character of the expansion will need to level through all four Shadowlands zones (Revendreth, Maldraxxus, Bastion and Ardenweald) and pick a Covenant at level 60. Subsequent alts can pick a Covenant at level 50 and do not need to complete all questlines.
Table of Contents
All Shadowlands Covenant Guides
What Covenants are there?
There are 4 Covenants in the Shadowlands
- The Venthyr in Revendreth. Their Sanctum is Sinfall.
- The Necrolords in Maldraxxus. Their Sanctum is the Seat of the Primus.
- The Kyrians in Bastion. Their Sanctum is Elysian Hold.
- The Night Fae in Ardenweald. Their Sanctum is the Heart of the Forest.
Can you switch Covenant?
Yes, you can quite easily leave your Covenant and join another Covenant that you have not joined before. Simple speak to the leader of the Covenant you wish to join in Oribos.
If you left a Covenant and wish to rejoin it, the process is a bit more difficult. The Covenant sees your leaving as a betrayal, and you will have to prove your worth by completing dungeons, world quests, daily quests and more.
Rejoining a Covenant requires two weekly quests, thus takes a minimum of two weeks.
General Covenant Abilities
Each Covenant has a Signature Ability. This is an ability that all members of the Covenant get, regardless of race, class or specialization.
Venthyr Covenant Ability: Door of Shadows
- Wend through the shadows, appearing at the targeted location
- 1 minute cooldown – 35 yd range – 1.5 secs cast
Necrolord Covenant Ability: Fleshcraft
- Form a shield of flesh and bone over 4 seconds that prevents damage equal to 20% of your maximum health. Standing near the corpse of a defeated enemy when the ability is cast will create a larger shield, up to 50% of your maximum health.
- 2 minutes cooldown – 10 yd range – 4 seconds channel
Kyrian Covenant Ability: Summon Steward
- Call your steward to bring you a Phial of Serenity that can be consumed to restore 20% of your health and remove all Curse, Disease, Poison, and Bleed Effects.
Your Steward additionally offers access to a selection of useful amenities, each once per day. - 5 minutes cooldown – instant cast
- The other abilities of the steward are predominantly temporary buffs to stats, movement speed or flat dps/hps increase.
Night Fae Covenant Ability: Soulshape
- Turn into a Vulpin, teleporting 15 yards forward and increasing movement speed by 50%. You may reactivate Soulshape every few seconds to teleport a short distance forward.
While out in the world, this effect has a 12 seconds duration before it wears off, but lasts indefinitely while in a rest area. - 1.5 minute cooldown – instant cast
Druid-specific Covenant Abilities
Each Covenant also gives you access to a class-specific combat ability.
Venthyr Covenant Ability for Druids: Ravenous Frenzy
- For 15 seconds, Druid spells you cast increase your damage, healing, and haste by 2%, stacking. If you spend 2.0 seconds idle, the Frenzy overcomes you, consuming 1% of your health per stack, stunning you for 1 second, and then ending.
- 3 minutes cooldown – instant cast
Necrolord Covenant Ability for Druids: Adaptive Swarm
- Command a swarm that heals (126% of Spell power) or deals (120% of Spell power) Shadow damage over 12 sec to a target and increases the effectiveness of your periodic effects on them by 20%. Upon expiration, Jumps to a target within 25 yards, alternating between friend and foe up to 3 times.
- Costs 5% of base mana – 25 seconds cooldown – 40 yd range – instant cast
Kyrian Covenant Ability for Druids: Kindred Spirits
- Kindred Spirits: Form a bond with an ally. Every 1 minute, you may empower the bond for 10 seconds, granting you an effect based on your partner’s role, and granting them an effect based on your role.
- Balance/Feral: Kindred Empowerment – Energize your bonded partner, granting them 25% of your damage as additional Arcane damage, healing, or absorption.
- Guardian: Kindred Protection – Protect your bonded partner, redirecting 40% of damage they take to you, unless you fall below 20% health.
- Restoration: Kindred Focus – Focus on your bonded partner, replicating 30% of all healing you deal onto them.
- DPS Partner: They energize you, granting you 25% of their damage as additional Arcane damage, healing, or absorption.
- Healer Partner: They focus on you, replicating 30% of all healing they deal onto you.
- Tank Partner: They protect you, redirecting 40% of damage you take to them, for 10 sec or until they fall below 20% health.
- Costs 2% of base mana – 40 yd range – 2.5 seconds cast
- Lone Spirit: Form a connection with your inner self. Every 1 min, you may empower the connection for 10 seconds, granting you an effect based on your role.
- Balance/Feral: Lone Empowerment – Connect with your inner spirit, increasing damage done by 15% for 10 seconds.
- Guardian: Lone Protection – Connect with your inner spirit, reducing damage taken by 10% for 10 seconds.
- Restoration: Lone Meditation – Connect with your inner spirit, increasing healing done by 15% for 10 seconds.
- 100 yd range – instant cast
Night Fae Covenant Ability for Druids: Invoke the Spirits
- Call upon the Night Fae for an eruption of energy, channeling a rapid flurry of 12 Druid spells and abilities over 4 sec.
- Balance: You will cast Starsurge, Starfall, Moonfire, Wrath, Regrowth, Rejuvenation, Rake and Thrash on appropriate nearby targets, favoring your current shapeshift form.
- Feral/Guardian/Restoration: You will cast Wild Growth, Swiftmend, Moonfire, Wrath, Regrowth, Rejuvenation, Rake and Thrash on appropriate nearby targets, favoring your current shapeshift form.
- 2 minutes cooldown – 4 seconds Channel
Best Covenant for Balance Druid
Mythic Plus/Raids
Balance druids have two amazing options when it comes to raiding and mythic+. Both the Kyrian Covenant and the Venthyr Covenant perform amazing, and the pick between them probably comes down to which flavor you prefer or which other specs you plan to play. The Night Fae Covenant is decent, though nowhere near as good as Kyrian and Venthyr. Necrolords is just bad – your DoT’s only make up a small portion of your damage, so it’s not worth it.
November 23rd update: Kyrian now outperforms Venthyr, making Kyrian the BiS Covenant by miles. It does great damage in all forms of content, except for solo content. If you only play solo, you might wanna pick Night Fae or Venthyr – in all other situations just go Kyrian.
PVP
Both the Night Fae and the Venthyr Covenant are strong options for balance druid in Arena and Battlegrounds. The haste granted by Venthyr is amazing, but you get punished hard if you get CC’ed during the Frenzy, so use with caution. Night Fae is a safer choice in that regard, offering a little less power but at a lot less risk.
Best Covenant for Feral Druid
Mythic Plus/Raids
While Kyrian seems to be very strong for feral druid in dungeons and raiding at first glance, it falls a bit flat because of how hard it is to use properly. Both Venthyr and Night Fae are good choices for ferals, and as of now there is no inconclusive answer on which one of the two is better. The Necrolord Covenant in its current form is just plain bad – don’t pick it if you care about your damage.
November 23rd update: Kyrian is now the strongest option for feral druids, with Venthyr being a good alternative if you mainly care about AOE damage.
PVP
Both the Night Fae and the Venthyr Covenant are strong options for feral druid in Arena and Battlegrounds. The haste granted by Venthyr is amazing, but you get punished hard if you get CC’ed during the Frenzy, so use with caution. Night Fae is a safer choice in that regard, offering a little less power but at a lot less risk.
Best Covenant for Guardian Druid
Mythic Plus/Raids
Venthyr is a very good choice for guardian druids in dungeons and raiding, especially when combined with the Legacy of the Sleeper (which makes you immune to CC for a short duration). The Venthyr Covenant performs well for bears in both single target as well as AOE situations. An alternative choice could be Necrolord; it does great on single target, but unfortunately does not scale very well on AOE.
November 23rd update: Barely anything has changed; druid tanks can pick between Venthyr or Necrolord (for purely single target) – or even Kyrian if they want a bit more survivability. Night Fae lags behind quite a bit, so I do not recommend it.
PVP
The choice for Arena and Battlegrounds will be between Night Fae and Venthyr. Both are good, with Night Fae being a bit safer to use but Venthyr having a bit more potential.
Best Covenant for Restoration Druid
Mythic Plus/Raids
Resto druids seem to really have only one choice when it comes to raiding and mythic+, and that is Night Fae. The healing potential is a bit RNG-dependent, but it’s cheap, so we can’t be too picky. Since it favors your current shapeshift form, it can do very good damage when used in cat form. This makes it a viable option for catweaving in mythic+.
If you absolutely hate the idea of going Night Fae you could pick Venthyr as an alternative. It’s nowhere near as good as Night Fae, but it is miles ahead of Kyrian and Necrolords.
November 23rd update: The best covenant for rdruid has stayed the same over the course of the beta. Night Fae is still the strongest options, with Venthyr being a viable alternative. Necrolord has some niche use when catweaving in Mythic+, but is a lot weaker overall.
PVP
While Necrolord is horrible in PVE, it actually does really well for resto druids in Arena and Battlegrounds. It does good burst healing, and while the major downside of Adaptive Swarm is that it doesn’t smart target, this isn’t really an issue in arena where you only have 1 or 2 allies with you.
Luckily Night Fae performs well in PVP too, making it a better choice if you heal both in PVE and in PVP with your druid. You’ll be annoyed at pure PVP druids having the luxury to pick Necrolord, but at least you won’t be trash in raids.
