As you journey through the Shadowlands, you will find yourself swept up in the dark tides of the war between the kyrian and Forsworn of Bastion—and your place in kyrian history will not be forgotten.
If you choose to walk in the path of service and pledge yourself to the Kyrian Covenant, the friendships you forged during your time in Bastion will be ready to take the next step.
The battle for Bastion has come to a head. With many of the kyrian left dead in their fight against the Forsworn, the Archon has authorized the use of the last bits of anima to ascend some Aspirants—their final hope in the last stand against the darkness. You will come to their aid by traveling across the realms of Death, completing crucial tasks and bolstering their ranks so you can clip the Forsworn’s wings once and for all. With each victory under the Kyrian Covenant banner, you’ll gain Renown, which will reward you with power and special cosmetics.
As you progress through the Kyrian Covenant Campaign and complete tasks for your new allies, you’ll build Renown. Increasing Renown will provide you access to unique rewards from your Covenant.
In your pursuit to earn Renown, you’ll go into the Maw to recover wayward souls and bring them to your Covenant Sanctum; some of these souls will even embark on Adventures on your behalf!
Learn more about Renown in our Covenant Systems article.
When you join the Kyrian Covenant, you’ll get access to Elysian Hold, a unique Sanctum available only to their members. The hold is their seat of power and home to many of the key figures you’ll be working with throughout their Covenant Campaign. Over time, you’ll be able to upgrade Sanctum features through your ongoing adventures in Shadowlands. It’s also here that you’ll bring Anima to deposit into the Covenant’s reservoir, take on new quests, and more.
Each of the four Covenants have features that they share among them, but they also have a feature that is patently unique to them. For the Kyrian Covenant, it’s the Path of Ascension.
All members of the Kyrian Covenant can access the Path of Ascension, helping their Soulbinds test their mettle. You will play as either Pelagos, Kleia, or Mikanikos, each of whom has a unique set of tools to combat the monstrosities they must face in the trials ahead. You’ll help your Soulbinds by gathering the materials necessary to summon or capture a boss, as well as tools to help them equalize the playing field.
To combat a boss, you must first capture their memory in a soul mirror. Once a boss’s memory has been captured, you can challenge them in the arena as many times as you wish.
Once you’ve finished your prep, you’ll play as a Soulbind of your choosing and fight! Victorious Soulbinds will be rewarded with blueprints to craft improved gear, signature ability upgrades, and cosmetics.
For those who desire ultimate glory, seek out and complete challenges to unlock special rewards, including mounts.
You’ll be able to access a Bastion-specific travel network from the comfort of Elysian Hold. Dissolve into pure anima to flit between points of interest instantly. There are three tiers of Anima Transport that you’ll unlock over time by restoring Anima to your Sanctum. Here are some examples:
Step of Faith (Tier 1) Allows travel to Elysian Hold, Hero’s Rest, Aspirant’s Rest, and the Temple of Courage. After arriving at a location, cast Unburden, greatly increasing movement speed and propelling you forward.
Leap of Power (Tier 2) Allows travel to Sagehaven, the Temple of Purity, and the Seat of Eternal Hymns. Unburden duration increased by 100%. Your Summon Steward ability can now create an Elysian Beacon, granting you access to the network in the field.
Eternal Paths (Tier 3) Allows travel to the Temple of Humility and Exaltation Rise. Unburden additionally reduces the radius at which enemies will detect you while active. Your steward’s Elysian Beacon can now be used by party members.
Put your tactical skills to the test by sending your allies into the Shadowlands and lending aid to the Kyrian Covenant. You’ll need to be strategic about how you take on these combat puzzles, which Kyrian Covenant allies you’ll send to face them, and how you’ll utilize their skills to claim victory.
Players can enable additional content with their Covenant’s realm by investing Anima into specific areas in Bastion. When you restore Anima to a location, it revitalizes the area allowing you to access new quests, making it easier for you to unearth wondrous treasures, or luring powerful foes which can be slain for rich rewards. Different areas are tied to different content unlocks.
Once you’ve proven your worth, you’ll unlock the ability to Soulbind with one of several select characters in the Covenant, who will share their distinctive powers with you in the form of a variety of traits and bonuses.
The noble kyrian you befriended in Bastion will form a special bond with you if you join their Covenant. Below are descriptions of each, along with a few example powers they can bestow upon you.
Pelagos trains diligently for ascension even in the face of challenge and adversity. Along with Kleia, his other soulbind, Pelagos is quick to befriend you as you seek an audience with the Archon and confront the Forsworn threat. Despite the trials he faces, Pelagos pushes ever forward, steadfast and optimistic.
Bond of Friendship: Defeating enemies slightly reduces the cooldown on your Steward’s non-Phial services per enemy defeated.
Combat Meditation: Using your Kyrian class spell or ability increases your Mastery slightly for a moderate amount of time and occasionally expels Sorrowful Memories. Walking through Sorrowful Memories extends this effect by a short time.
Kleia met you while she was still an aspirant. She demonstrated to her soulbound companion Pelagos and the rest of the kyrian that she wants to push forward and best any trials they faced. A caring mentor to Pelagos and you, she will do whatever she can to protect her friends and Bastion.
Ascendant Phial: Phial of Serenity renders you immune to Curse, Disease, Poison, and Bleed effects for several seconds.
Valiant Strikes: You and your nearby allies’ critical strikes grant you stacks of Valiant Strikes. Once you maximize your stacks, you heal nearby allies for 5% of their maximum health over 10 seconds.
Forgelite Prime Mikanikos, a steward of Bastion, showed promise from his earliest days and quickly rose to the rank of Forgelite Prime. He was the primary inventor of many of Bastion’s most iconic creations. Recognizing the potential of the Maw Walker, he became a formidable ally to help you get to the bottom of the anima drought and take on other threats.
Charged Additive: Phial of Serenity also knocks nearby enemies away from you.
Bron’s Call to Action: After using a significant amount of spells and abilities, your next spell or ability summons Bron, who attacks and heals your targets.
When you join the Kyrian Covenant, you’ll gain two new unique abilities—one signature ability and one class ability.
Signature abilities are available to all Covenant members regardless of class, race, or specialization.
Summon Steward Call your Steward to bring you a Phial of Serenity that can be consumed to restore some of your health and remove all Curse, Disease, Poison, and Bleed Effects.
Your Personal Steward
You get to choose your own special steward to call upon from an entire flock, including one of these three: Pico: A clarinet player who toots as much as he hoots! Farra: This hammer-wielding Steward isn’t afraid of a fight; just look at her splinter a training dummy! Bumos: A baker at heart, Bumos has a confection to make—he always has a slice of cake or two ready for you!
As you progress through the Covenant Campaign, your Steward will grow in power alongside of you, by being able to use the Travel Portal or even craft special items in the Path of Ascension. If you decide that you want a new traveling companion, no need to ruffle your feathers—you’ll be able to choose a new Steward at Hero’s Rest.
Covenant Class Abilities provide additional combat-oriented gameplay options that are tailored to the theme of that Covenant.
Death Knight: Shackle the Unworthy
Demon Hunter: Elysian Decree
Druid: Kindred Spirits
Hunter: Resonating Arrow
Mage: Radiant Spark
Monk: Weapons of Order
Paladin: Divine Toll
Priest: Boon of the Ascended
Rogue: Echoing Reprimand
Shaman: Vesper Totem
Warlock: Scouring Tithe
Warrior: Spear of Bastion
We look forward to sharing more information as development continues, and we hope this preview gives you a taste of what the Kyrian Covenant has to offer. Learn more about Bastion in our previously published article.
Looks like we get our first look at those covenant weapons mentioned in a Q&A yesterday in the pic of the armors. Loving some of the armors, the weapons are just as badass!
So they're still going with the Druid Kyrian Covenant ability being literally useless solo as Guardian? Oof.
We get to play as a Swolekin!
awesome.
Let's hope they add all four tints of the Covenant Sets.
So... I can drink a potion that takes away curses, diseases, poisons and bleeds from me.. and then my new BFF can make me IMMUNE to them for another 7 sec after.>:)And then, cause I play warrior, I can sit someone in a timeout by throwing a spear at them with a tether and a dot while I beat up their buddy (They'll have a buddy, cause I play Alliance in Warmode. Horde never gank alone.)Okay, I'm sold on these angelic blue folk and their beefy owl companions. I've chosen my covenant. It's the only one that has a 'bring me cake' spell option.
that mount looks awesome and roboticand is that a high elf unicorn?
I think Kyrians loses a good bit of uniqueness as all the souls in the land looks like blue humans. The whole sameface thing.That platearmor. It makes me think of a lighthouse.Mail and Leather looks much better. Cloth? Unimpressive.
so when you pick a covenant can you go to other covenant sites or just their holdings? if the prior then cant we bring back the PVP leader fights this time between 4 factions than red vs blue?
If I get to kick some bosses as a swolekin, than I made the right choice.That dude is literally Gelbin Mekkatorque of Bastion.
Removed
I'm interested to know how the stewards actually work since this preview makes it seem like they'll be permanent companions when on the Alpha they only lasted for 3 minutes when summoned with a 5 minute cooldown. What useful items they sell is also a mystery to me. Also actually having them be combat familiars would be a good way to buff Kyrian's lackluster signature ability but I don't expect that to happen.When it comes to transmog, did anyone else expect the wing back attachments to be larger? They look smaller than I expected and might look weird on certain races.
Disclaimer: We currently don't know if soulbinds will be active everywhere, such as inside raids and dungeons, or perhaps just in the open world. Please read my comment with this in mind. It's a shame the Kyrian soulbinds are all so lackluster with virtually no DPS benefits. It's all very utility and (self-)healing focused. As a DPS, you'd be mad not to choose Venthyr with Nadjia the Mistblade currently because she provides a permanent 4% DPS boost against your first target (like a raid boss) with a pretty good haste proc at the end of the tree as well.I'm actually sad because, thematically, I really like the Kyrian's and I'd love to choose them, but from a DPS point of view, I cannot ignore the massive benefit provided by the Venthyr soulbind right now. Static 4% DPS and a 20% Haste proc are insane, especially considering they will be scaling with your gear.I really hope they rework some of this stuff because, right now, it's not a choice at all what you should pick as a DPS player. None of the other Covenant soulbinds provide any meaningful DPS benefits, let alone anything that even comes close to what Nadjia provides. They should probably just heavily tune down Nadjia herself because she is far superior to every other soulbind from a DPS perspective, but the fact is that soulbinds are already tuned to certain specs. Each Covenant has 3 soulbinds and each of these is either Healer, DPS or Tank focused because they provide one additional conduit for that specialization over the others. So the real solution should really be that they really need to look at the other DPS soulbinds of the other 3 Covenants and bring them in line with Nadjia.I wouldn't mind any of the above if they only worked in the open world but we don't know that answer currently, so it's fair to assume they may work in other environments and, given that, this really needs a big tuning pass for the DPS soulbinds.