Any advice on picking a covenant? My main (BM hunter) has just reached that decision point. I'm leaning toward Night Fae, but they all have good and bad points.
It depends on what your looking for in a covenant.
1) If wanting top dps numbers for BM then Night Fae is really strong atm. It can put out a good amount of AOE damage in a short time.
2) If you want cool mounts and armor then pick which ever covenant has those that you want.
Covenant choice for dps only matters at hardcore heroic/mythic raiding and pushing mythic plus. Otherwise pick what will make you happy. I have done all the mythic dungeons each week as BM and feel any covenant would have worked in the end.
I am a BM hunter and chose Night Fae. The Wild Spirits ability is pretty awesome to have. It's a huge AOE that really helps since all we have otherwise is scatter shot. 2 minute cooldown so it's not all that terrible.
I have it paired with Spirit Attunement which makes the AOE circle last 3 seconds longer and deal an additional 13.5% damage. (level 184 conduit. Lower ilvl gives 10% additional damage)
Did I mention that it also looks really cool?
So I think I’m going to give this tanking thing a spin on my DH. If anyone needs a tank to run some normal dungeons hit me up Docjoe#1266 or Cinnder on Blackhand Alliance
Hey lore nerds,
Has Blizzard connected the afterlife stuff from Legion with Shadowlands?
The Viking Valhalla and Hel stuff?
Was scrolling back, and realized no one mentioned... Helya shows up in the Maw in the introduction scenario and she’s explicitly working for The Jailer. That hasn’t been followed up yet in the leveling or first couple chapters of the Night Fae story.
Hey lore nerds,
Has Blizzard connected the afterlife stuff from Legion with Shadowlands?
The Viking Valhalla and Hel stuff?
Hella shows up in the Maw as a minion of the Jailor, and herraggedy vakeries are the primary enforcers within the maw, and are also corrupted former angels from Bastion
lunchbox12682 wrote:Hey lore nerds,
Has Blizzard connected the afterlife stuff from Legion with Shadowlands?
The Viking Valhalla and Hel stuff?Was scrolling back, and realized no one mentioned... Helya shows up in the Maw in the introduction scenario and she’s explicitly working for The Jailer. That hasn’t been followed up yet in the leveling or first couple chapters of the Night Fae story.
I bet they address it more directly in the Bastion storyline, but like you I am Night Fae and haven't felt like I have time for an alt just yet. Dailies and weekly torghast keeps me pretty busy (and i didn;t even complete one wing of torghast, the boss es in mort-whatever just destroyed me on 2 and 3 dificulty)
So I finished the campaign and chose a covenant. I am having trouble figuring out if I want to run an alt on blackhand. Well I do WANT to but I don't want to deal with the story. Does threads of fate work across servers? I have been unable to locate that answer. I have a lvl 50 boost, so I don't need to start from scratch. It would also allow me to try these races and classes that have come out since Cataclysm.
Is there a recommendation for an alt that is just fun to play? 10 years ago I was a human protection warrior, since I have been back I switched to a fury warrior. He has been my main since vanilla. I have dabbled way back when with a hunter and a DK back when they were new. It looks like though I will not be able to use the more out there races, those are behind some quests that are only server wide?
So I finished the campaign and chose a covenant. I am having trouble figuring out if I want to run an alt on blackhand. Well I do WANT to but I don't want to deal with the story. Does threads of fate work across servers? I have been unable to locate that answer. I have a lvl 50 boost, so I don't need to start from scratch. It would also allow me to try these races and classes that have come out since Cataclysm.
Is there a recommendation for an alt that is just fun to play? 10 years ago I was a human protection warrior, since I have been back I switched to a fury warrior. He has been my main since vanilla. I have dabbled way back when with a hunter and a DK back when they were new. It looks like though I will not be able to use the more out there races, those are behind some quests that are only server wide?
I find druids to be lots of fun, and you have the flexibility to learn to tank or heal if you like. Bear druid feels a bit like warrior and makes an easy leveling spec.
my heart always belongs to my night else beast mastery hunter and I've stuck to that speck because i find it satisfying even when it's suboptimal;
mage and warlock are also fun, but WILDLY different playstyle from warrior so there may be a learning curve.
Also... choosing a covenant isn’t the end of the campaign, right? There’s still a lot of unresolved issues which are addressed by progressing in your covenant.
And Threads of Fate should be an account unlock. I don’t think anything is server-specific any more.
@ Igneus: Most everything these days is account-wide. According to everything I've read, once you've unlocked Threads of Fate on one character you can use it on another character regardless of server or faction.
That said, I'm not sure exactly what it takes to unlock ToF. Folks here who have rolled a second toon to 60 should be able to answer that. I'm still plugging away at leveling and haven't gotten to any point that says CONGRATS YOU'VE UNLOCKED ToF! I don't know how obvious it is, in other words.
As for alts, that's an age-old question. My main since Wrath has been a paladin, and it's the perfect class in so many ways -- great for tanking, heals and damage; great at leveling; great at everything. I don't see why anyone plays any other class, tbh. The game should be called World of Paladincraft. PROVE ME WRONG.
In all seriousness, Blizzard lets you test-drive all classes and specs these days; check the character creation screen for how to do that. My favorite alts right now are my BM hunter, ass rogue, enhance shammie (who seems really fun right now!) and afflic/destro lock; disc priest is too slow at leveling, havoc DH has only two attacks, frost DK feels like every other melee class (but with frost), monks are meh and my arcane mage is as squishy as a marshmallow held over a campfire. I've got a warrior and druid rolled but haven't yet pulled the trigger.
But that's just me. Your mileage will differ, as it should.
@ Igneus: Most everything these days is account-wide. According to everything I've read, once you've unlocked Threads of Fate on one character you can use it on another character regardless of server or faction.
That said, I'm not sure exactly what unlocks ToF. Folks here who have rolled a second toon to 60 should be able to answer that.
As for alts, that's an age-old question. My main since Wrath has been a paladin, and it's the perfect class in so many ways -- great for tanking, heals and damage; great at leveling; great at everything. I don't see why anyone plays any other class, tbh. The game should be called World of Paladincraft. PROVE ME WRONG.
In all seriousness, Blizzard lets you test-drive all classes and specs these days; check the character creation screen for how to do that. My favorite alts right now are my BM hunter, ass rogue, enhance shammie (who seems really fun right now!) and afflic/destro lock; disc priest is too slow at leveling, havoc DH has only two attacks, frost DK feels like every other melee class (but with frost), monks are meh and my arcane mage is as squishy as a marshmallow held over a campfire. I've got a warrior and druid rolled but haven't yet pulled the trigger.
But that's just me. Your mileage will differ, as it should.
I was really spoiled by my Prot Pally during BfA. I basically had to try to die. Other alts I was running we're fun, usually more frustrating.
I'm going to recommend the Monk. The rhythm of their DPS spec is not dissimilar to a Fury Warrior, but Energy and Chi is different enough from Rage that it'll have its own feel. Like a Druid they can do any role, though they don't have a ranged spec. Unlike a Druid you can see what gear you're wearing. Their heal spec has a fun damage rotation, and if you want you can take talents that reward you for kicking things while you're healing. The tank spec is strong and fairly forgiving if you want to try that. The lore is good. They have their own mountaintop monastery (or one on the Panda newbie island, if you level through Legion). That used to give them a "double XP for an hour" daily quest, but with the leveling revamp they changed it. I think the quest now grants you more rested XP, which still helps with leveling.
Druid is a solid choice since you have the option of competently playing a warrior, rogue, mage or priest, plus travel form FTW.
Hunter is a solid choice and may be a good fit for you because they are pretty powerful right now. You can choose BM or MM for ranged, or you can choose my favorite Survival since you are comfortable with melee playstyles.
If you are looking for something wildly different, then Shadow priest is a good fit with survivability.
I may be misinformed but the only class I know of that suffered in Shadowlands is the havoc DH. The good news is that class was so much fun and powerful in BFA that it still can be argued as a top tier class/spec. (they have quite a few more than 2 attacks: immolation aura, chaos strike, fel rush, dancing blade, throw glaive, etc.)
Once you hit 60 threads will unlock for you on your account. You still have to do the escape the maw intro part but once you reach Oribos you get your choice how to proceed with your leveling.
I was really spoiled by my Prot Pally during BfA. I basically had to try to die. Other alts I was running we're fun, usually more frustrating.
I figure I'm going to bite the bullet and go into instances as prot this expansion. (My dungeon spec has been holy for a while.) I tested it out last night in some BFA content and I'm not sure I took any damage at all. Also, the rotation is stupidly easy - consecrate, judge, hammer and whatever lights up. Obviously I wasn't really tested, but there didn't seem to be many buttons to push (relative to ret and holy, that is).
What's the word on prot in SL?
It was a hell of a lot of fun in the pre-patch so I don't know that they lost anything in SL...
I enjoyed leveling ret up to a point where it got repetitive in the mid 30's. I switched over to prot and enjoyed it a bit more than usual with the unpruned abilities and holy power.
They hit Havoc DH hard with the nerf hammer. I switched to Vengeance and it feels way better especially with the Kyrian ability which just makes everything die. I kept dying over and over to the floor 1 boss on Torghast with Havoc, it was faceroll with Vengeance.
Once you hit 60 threads will unlock for you on your account. You still have to do the escape the maw intro part but once you reach Oribos you get your choice how to proceed with your leveling.
I think you have to hit 60 and then also join a covenant for ToF to unlock, but I'm not 100% on that.
I think it's get through the first chapter of the Covenant Campaign. Seeing as how ToF is on track to reward my first alt with the same level of Renown as that first chapter gives, that seems right.
To be more precise level to 60 pick a covenant and complete chapter 1 of covenant quest to unlock Threads.
I have concluded that Shadowlands is the season of the panda. Melee attack animations for pandaren are a wonder to behold and my pandaren survival hunter feels more like a monk than my actual monk toon. Back flip dodges are also a huge plus. I have him decked out with dual water crane pets for BM spec and plan to tame the cloud serpents next. Mostly MOP gear transmog for maximum panda-ness.
Panda gear does have some great transmogs 
Despite complete ignoring the last expansion I decided to jump back in because I was bored. Happy to see that Blizzard still has no clue what to do with Shamans. Especially Enhancement Shamans. Feels like that class has been stuck in a time warp since oh Cata? Before there were too many totems that were either to useful (Windfury) or Pointless (so many others) and now it’s like they don’t exist. Outside the occasional need to time a stun or break a fear there’s little point in dropping them ever solo and even in groups other than Windfury for a minor melee group bump there’s not much else to do.
It’s weird seeing how much Blizzard has focused on other classes to help tune them or make them unique in their own way but still can’t quite figure out what the Shaman class is supposed to be. I liked the idea of the king of utility but Blizzard never seemed to want to buy into that idea 100%.
I played 6 classes to max with raiding in Legion and I still love my OG Shaman that I raided with in MC in Vanilla and through all the expansions but it’s a shame that Blizzard could never figure it out. Nuke the class for good and make a Bard class.
I did lol that Blizzard finally made Melee Hunters a thing. Guess that happened in BFA?
Despite complete ignoring the last expansion I decided to jump back in because I was bored. Happy to see that Blizzard still has no clue what to do with Shamans. Especially Enhancement Shamans. Feels like that class has been stuck in a time warp since oh Cata? Before there were too many totems that were either to useful (Windfury) or Pointless (so many others) and now it’s like they don’t exist. Outside the occasional need to time a stun or break a fear there’s little point in dropping them ever solo and even in groups other than Windfury for a minor melee group bump there’s not much else to do.
It’s weird seeing how much Blizzard has focused on other classes to help tune them or make them unique in their own way but still can’t quite figure out what the Shaman class is supposed to be. I liked the idea of the king of utility but Blizzard never seemed to want to buy into that idea 100%.
I played 6 classes to max with raiding in Legion and I still love my OG Shaman that I raided with in MC in Vanilla and through all the expansions but it’s a shame that Blizzard could never figure it out. Nuke the class for good and make a Bard class.
I did lol that Blizzard finally made Melee Hunters a thing. Guess that happened in BFA?
While you are right about the totems, I enjoyed leveling an EH Sham last month when things changed. Lots of proc handling.
Despite complete ignoring the last expansion I decided to jump back in because I was bored. Happy to see that Blizzard still has no clue what to do with Shamans. Especially Enhancement Shamans. Feels like that class has been stuck in a time warp since oh Cata? Before there were too many totems that were either to useful (Windfury) or Pointless (so many others) and now it’s like they don’t exist. Outside the occasional need to time a stun or break a fear there’s little point in dropping them ever solo and even in groups other than Windfury for a minor melee group bump there’s not much else to do.
It’s weird seeing how much Blizzard has focused on other classes to help tune them or make them unique in their own way but still can’t quite figure out what the Shaman class is supposed to be. I liked the idea of the king of utility but Blizzard never seemed to want to buy into that idea 100%.
I played 6 classes to max with raiding in Legion and I still love my OG Shaman that I raided with in MC in Vanilla and through all the expansions but it’s a shame that Blizzard could never figure it out. Nuke the class for good and make a Bard class.
I did lol that Blizzard finally made Melee Hunters a thing. Guess that happened in BFA?
I think a big part of the problem is, the king of utility is useful, but doesn't top DPS meters, so it;s gets very loud insistent pushback from the folks who measure their metaphorical junk with dps meters and that ends up being the message that blizzard hears, so they downplay things like totems. The same thing happened to a lot of the hunters unique class abilities.
TheGameguru wrote:Despite complete ignoring the last expansion I decided to jump back in because I was bored. Happy to see that Blizzard still has no clue what to do with Shamans. Especially Enhancement Shamans. Feels like that class has been stuck in a time warp since oh Cata? Before there were too many totems that were either to useful (Windfury) or Pointless (so many others) and now it’s like they don’t exist. Outside the occasional need to time a stun or break a fear there’s little point in dropping them ever solo and even in groups other than Windfury for a minor melee group bump there’s not much else to do.
It’s weird seeing how much Blizzard has focused on other classes to help tune them or make them unique in their own way but still can’t quite figure out what the Shaman class is supposed to be. I liked the idea of the king of utility but Blizzard never seemed to want to buy into that idea 100%.
I played 6 classes to max with raiding in Legion and I still love my OG Shaman that I raided with in MC in Vanilla and through all the expansions but it’s a shame that Blizzard could never figure it out. Nuke the class for good and make a Bard class.
I did lol that Blizzard finally made Melee Hunters a thing. Guess that happened in BFA?
I think a big part of the problem is, the king of utility is useful, but doesn't top DPS meters, so it;s gets very loud insistent pushback from the folks who measure their metaphorical junk with dps meters and that ends up being the message that blizzard hears, so they downplay things like totems. The same thing happened to a lot of the hunters unique class abilities.
This is why I was so chuffed a page or so back when I saw my Mage's Polymorph spell making a resurgence in Torghast; I actually got do so something different than "hit this specific pattern of buttons a bunch of times". I mean, I got to polymorph something, then target something ELSE and hit that specific pattern of buttons a bunch of times.
With what they've done with melee hunters and the whole idea behind demon hunters, it proves Blizzard has the talent to pull off a unique shaman class. Heck, look at what they've done with prot and ret paladins.
It would be cool if one of the specs went all in on totems. But spirit totem where you tame a spirit in the wild that will give unique properties like hunter pets. The properties wouldn't be the same as hunter pets. But the way you acquire them and can have a stable of them would be awesome. Some spirits would pulse aoe damage and give melee auto-attacks aoe capability. Some spirits could pulse a slow and give auto-attacks a stacking short dot. Some could give damage reduction and proc a shield that reflects or absorbs damage. Another possibility could be a spirit that summons a crow combo where each hit summons one attacking crow and on the third causes a hunter's murder of crows type single target dot. You could also do a spirit that acts like an execute where it summons a charging boar every few seconds when the enemy is below 20% health. If you summon that spirit totem before the enemy is below 20% then it stacks the boars and unleashes them all at 20%. It could also trigger when the shaman is below 50% health.
I just think the race-specific totem artwork is neat and would like to have more reasons to see them. Maybe that totem that shot a steady stream of fire bolts wasn't the deepest gameplay, but the aesthetics were great. I stopped playing Enhancement altogether when they took the totems away, and that used to be one of my favorite specs. I liked that it felt like a mix of melee and spells, and when they took the totems and shocks away I lost interest. From what I've seen poking around my Shaman in the pre-patch, I do like the way they have a bunch of totem-related cooldowns. And I do appreciate having shocks back.
I just want to see a little more of the totems. Maybe that fire bolt totem could drop automatically and be a spec's mastery. Maybe it could be a short term DPS cooldown kinda like the Windwalker Monk's clone. Just let me play with the class's toys!
Just let me play with the class's toys!
That is the heart of it. That is where some classes succeed while others "fail".
I don’t believe Enhancement even has a Fire totem anymore. So much for master of the elements. Oh and the Fire elemental was cool. Why did Blizzard take that away?? Now it’s just an Earth Elemental which is basically useless.
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