KyrianLance du Bastion is the Kyrian Covenant Warrior Class Ability, and it’s great. It deals a ton of AoE damage, generates a decent chunk of Rage, provides a unique kind of mob CC by confining enemies to a small circle for 4 seconds (
Vortex d’Ursol, but cooler), and it looks fantastic! The primary drawbacks it has are the ground-targeting, which requires an extra click or @cursor and @player macros, and the 1 minute cooldown. Because
Ravageur has jumped out as a potentially usable talent in Shadowlands, the idea of using both skills together to deal massive AoE damage makes sense. Unfortunately, with
Ravageur’s cooldown being cut to 45 seconds to make it align with other Warrior cooldowns, it no longer lines up cleanly with
Lance du Bastion.
Invocation de régisseur provides a potion that can be used to clear debuffs, but it is on the standard health potion cooldown and is considerably weaker than normal health potions available from Alchemy, so it won’t really be all that useful. The steward does offer some helpful non-combat utility, such as free respecs and vendoring out in the world, so he’s cool. He is arguably the weakest of the 4 signature abilities, but the cutest.
VenthyrBlâme transforms
Exécution into
Blâme. It deals Shadow damage, is usable above 80% health and below 20% health, and adds a substantial defensive component onto
Exécution, which fixes one of the biggest problems the ability has. This could very likely be the best single-target damage option for Warriors, and there is plenty of reason to believe it could be useful for specific single-target or fancy-Execute-phase raid encounters with unforgiving DPS requirements. That being said, for most players it’s probably not going to be a worthwhile option at all. Execute is still a Rage dump, and it’s pure single-target damage. That just isn’t really compatible with the areas in which tanks succeed (AoE damage, Hectic Add Cleave encounters, Mythic+ trash packs).
Porte des ombres is annoying -- annoyingly good. The cast time is frustrating mid-combat, especially as a tank, but gaining access to another instant-movement skill to use alongside
Bond héroïque is exceptional. Unlike
Bond héroïque,
Porte des ombres can be used to teleport to any location within line of sight, not just places you can path to. This means Venthyr is the must-have choice for climbers (at least until it gets nerfed). It can potentially be used to skip Mythic+ trash packs or blink through deadly raid mechanics. Would have loved it on Mythic Azshara!
NecrolordBannière du conquérant is the Necrolord Covenant Class Ability for Protection Warriors, and it is, speaking personally, my least favorite ability in Shadowlands. Have you ever wanted to play a Warrior as a support class? Well, now you can! Wait, no? Of course not. Each cast of
Bannière du conquérant is on the GCD, meaning that you have to spend not one, but two GCD’s activating the banner on yourself initially, then deploying it once fully charged to buff your allies. The benefits are also questionable. 20% extra health is always good, no question. 50% attack speed might literally be useless for everyone except yourself in a Mythic+ dungeon. Attack speed is not particularly good or interesting for most physical DPS classes. Haste would be, but this doesn’t give Haste. It could be a useful group defensive cooldown, but only as the kind of skill you’re forced into taking for the sake of your raid. Opting out of personal power to acquire a group defensive cooldown is not fun. A couple of ways to fix this would be to change the attack speed to Haste (obviously not 50%, Warriors don’t need Ultra Bloodlust II, the Re-Lustening), or to impart a much more significant personal buff to the Warrior for carrying and deploying the banner. Being a buff-hauling support class is not what Warrior has ever been about.
Chair recomposée is a 4-second channel that generates an absorb shield equal to 20% of your max health. If you’re next to a corpse, the absorb shield can scale up to 50% of your max health. This sounds like a go-to ability for tanks due to providing direct defensive value, but there’s a problem. 20% of your max health is, roughly, one Ignore Pain cast. A 2-minute cooldown, 4-second channeled Ignore Pain is not a good bonus. Channeling mid-combat is a terrible idea while tanking since you can’t block, dodge, or parry. It just isn’t enough of a defensive benefit to justify the downsides for tanks, and while starting off combat with a 20% absorb shield sounds nice, it’s not a huge gain. Couple that with the disappointing Class ability, and this is an easy pass.
Night FaeRéplique des anciens is a direct competitor to
Lance du Bastion that has a handful of upsides and downsides. It’s easier to use (no targeting reticule, just a frontal cone), but it’s a 1.5 second stun. It’s useful as an impromptu AoE interrupt, but it’s not even as long of a stun as
Onde de choc, so it really just DR’s real stuns. That’s not great, and certainly not as compelling as the
Lance du Bastion tether effect. It deals a lot of damage and generates a ton of Rage, 6 per target every 2 seconds for 12 seconds -- so 36 per target. The Rage generation is clearly better than the mere 25 granted by
Lance du Bastion, but the delay is a bit of a problem. It has a longer cooldown, but that lines up better with Warrior’s other cooldowns. This is like the store brand version of
Lance du Bastion. It’s not bad, you might even prefer it, but it’s probably not going to be as popular. If the cooldown were cut in half, this would probably be the frontrunner.
Forme d’âme is a simple movement cooldown. It grants a truly unimpressive amount of movement speed (30%), and using any other abilities will instantly cancel it. It can be reactivated to teleport a whopping 10 yards forward. This may be usable to blink over some deadly raid mechanics, much like
Porte des ombres, but it’s not all that great. You can never get enough mobility, but the bar on this ability is pretty low.