Blizzard
We’ve recently seen a number of questions about how Conduits work in Shadowlands. Here’s a brief explainer:
Conduits are items, and they have item levels like other loot you’ll see in Shadowlands. Currently in the Beta, Heroic dungeon loot is item level 171 and Normal difficulty Castle Nathria is dropping iLvl 200 gear. Like other loot, the higher the Conduit’s item level, the more powerful its effect.
Conduits can come from many sources, including dungeon bosses, raid bosses, the PvP vendor, and World Quests and content (via Callings). Conduits go into a collection, making it unnecessary to repeatedly earn individual Conduits at a given item level.
Conduits drop as personal loot and are class-based, so they don’t differ based on your active spec or your loot spec. They’re also additive with other loot drops – a Conduit won’t replace an item that a boss might otherwise have dropped. Conduits are not tradeable.
Our goal is to offer one or more ways of targeting the specific Conduits that you might want ( such as PvP vendors and loot drops), in addition to those available via Callings and a catch-all Conduit sold by Ve’nari in the Maw.
Specific to Ve’nari, we’re in the process of removing Stygia as a repeatable reward from Twisting Corridors. Our goal here is for the Eye of the Jailer in the Maw to be a limiting factor on Stygia gains.
As with other items, you can experience big upgrades when replacing Conduits. If you have an iLvl 171 version of a Conduit, and you obtain an iLvl 213 version of that Conduit from a Mythic Keystone dungeon, you’ll take it to the Forge of Bonds and enjoy your nice upgrade.