The Night Fae covenant legendary
브원삼디의 서약 has been changed to now allow the wearer to supercharge one of their
페이 수호자 fairies. When
페이 수호자 is activated, the spell button is replaced with a Mask button that you can use to further empower one of the three buffs. If you cast your covenant ability on an ally, they will receive both the Guardian and Benevolent fairies as usual, along with the Haunted Mask. That mask will prefer cooldown reduction over damage reduction if both are on the same target.
Outside of helping your team parse, this legendary seems to have the most application in a Mythic+ environment, where giving significant cooldown reduction to a DPS can have an outsized impact on your dungeon team. Unlike Holy, which is largely dependent on
집중된 섬광 to assist their healing, Discipline (if Night Fae, which is very uncommon) would give up giving
마력 주입 to themselves with the
태양 여사제의 쌍둥이 legendary and instead just always give it to a DPS.
That's not a bad trade off, though many M+ focused Disc Priests will likely favor the new Kyrian legendary to give greater cooldown reduction to
승천자의 은혜 rather than Night Fae's buff-oriented approach. Reducing the cooldown of
환희/
혼의 너울 is very niche as the spec relies on their covenant abilities to provide a large amount of their
속죄 output. Since
분파's nerf at the start of Shadowlands where it increases damage of other abilities by 25% instead of 40%, Discipline is very dependent on the high damage of covenant abilities to improve their raid output whether they run
혼의 너울 or
사도 so having a covenant abilities that does not improve your ramps in a raid is often a non-starter.
The Venthyr legendary has been revamped to provide a longer duration on
정신 조작's debuff and a sizeable crit buff whenever the damage or healing side of
정신 조작 has been consumed. For most boss fights they will consume the ~10k damage reversal almost instantly giving you 9-10 seconds of large crit. The problem with this legendary for Discipline is that, when ramping, a large amount of your healing/shielding is coming from
분파 and
정신 조작 damage. So having a crit bonus AFTER both of those spells has been cast is really quite poor. Again, Discipline is too dependent on covenant ability damage to improve their output and a big part of that is the low damage of your class abilities and the reduced damage bonus from
분파.
It is unfortunate that the double
정신 조작 legendary was removed from the game as it did have some interesting potential on many raid fights from testing Sanctum of Domination. Another major issue with Priest/covenants in general is the varied priorities of balancing abilities like these for PvE and PvP. Double
정신 조작 having potential use for Disc in a raid while being terrible for Shadow/Holy but too powerful for PvPing Priests is just a critical example of the juggling act that the developers are forced into as a result of this system.
The Night Fae covenant legendary has been changed to now allow the wearer to supercharge one of their
페이 수호자 fairies. When
페이 수호자 is activated, the spell button is replaced with a Mask button that you can use to further empower one of the three buffs. If you cast your covenant ability on an ally they will receive both the Guardian and Benevolent fairies as usual, along with the Haunted Mask. That mask will prefer cooldown reduction over damage reduction if both are on the same target.
There will always be the obvious, help your friend parse side of the conversation with this legendary as reducing a Boomkin's Celestial Alignment to go with their Convoke every time is sure to have them drooling, but in general we'll look at it from the side of self-benefit. Extra cooldown reduction for
천상의 찬가 can have some strong value depending on the encounter but there will also be others with lengthy intermissions like Fatescribe where there is low damage going out or Painsmith where there is high movement where you would not want to bother with this legendary. Seems niche for now, after testing the Guardian of the First Ones encounter it seems like it could have some value there, but likely will be more attractive when two legendaries are available to use at once.
집중된 섬광 has been Holy's general standby for now and this Fae revamp does not seem to change much there.
The Venthyr legendary has been revamped to provide a longer duration on
정신 조작's debuff and a sizeable crit buff whenever the damage or healing side of
정신 조작 has been consumed. For most boss fights they will consume the ~10k damage reversal almost instantly giving you 9-10 seconds of large crit. While this has better Holy applications than the previous iteration it still leaves much to be desired to be a powerful Holy legendary relative to the alternatives.
Priests have received yet another round of changes to their covenant legendaries as well as some finalizing to one of the effects we had previously assumed would become a Priest legendary. Here I will go over changes detail, as well as give my opinion on how they have changed, what they may be used for, and ultimately if they have any impact on Shadow's covenant choice in 9.1. I'll already start by saying I'm surprised to see changes so soon to any of the legendaries we went over last week.
- 브원삼디의 서약 Changed - The new effect turns 페이 수호자 into a new ability whilst the guardians are active, this ability acts as a 4th guardian of sorts, empowering any existing fae on the target of choice. This effect, similar to the other fae, can be moved around freely throughout the duration of 페이 수호자.
- 어둠의 권능: 조작 Changed - The new effect increases the duration of the Mindgames buff, as well as provides a large amount of critical strike when either the healing or damage reverse has been spent.
- 구슬의 조화 Confirmed - The Kyrian Priest legendary has been confirmed to be Sphere's Harmony, the effect that was discussed in last week's legendary review.
브원삼디의 서약 - Night Fae
I'll start off by saying that if you're confused after reading the new Night Fae Priest legendary, so was I. This thing, much like the covenant spell itself, takes some time to properly understand and evaluate. From testing, this is how at works.
- Casting 페이 수호자 will apply a new buff to yourself or your target, alongside the usual Fae.
- This buff increases the effectiveness of any Fae on its target by 100%. The major value from this comes from the increased cooldown reduction it provides.
- 페이 수호자 transforms into a new spell whilst the Fae are active. This new spell, 가면 지정, allows you to move the mask buff around as you would your other two Fae.
- The mask buff does not do anything except empower Fae that are already on the target. If you put it on a target with no Fae then the buff does nothing,
- When 페이 수호자 ends, the mask buff is removed alongside your other Fae, and 가면 지정 turns back into 페이 수호자 with its usual cooldown.
The most common, and most basic way to use this legendary is to provide increased cooldown reduction to yourself by empowering your
자비의 페어리. Right now this provides a 400% reduction to your major cooldown (
공허의 형상) for 20 seconds, resulting in a total of 60 seconds of cooldown reduction. It's unclear if 400% is intended, or if the legendary should be providing the more logical 300%. Either way, this results in a substantial increase to
자비의 페어리, however it does not look strong enough to beat out any of Shadow's other options.
This legendary can also be used to support other players though. If this legendary is used at all, it will be to reduce the cooldowns of dps which have awkward natural cooldown alignment. The most obvious examples are Balance Druid and Destruction Warlock, as they both have a major 3 minute cooldown, and a minor 2 minute cooldown that they have to sit on to pair back up with their major cooldown. Giving either of these specs a full 20 seconds of empowered cooldown reduction with
브원삼디의 서약 will reduce their 3 minute cooldown to 2 minutes, allowing them to pair it up more naturally and get more uses over all across long encounters.
There is also currently some interaction with Demonology Warlock, specifically their
악마 폭군 소환 and
윌프레드의 최상급 소환의 인장 legendary, but its unclear if it is intended or how realistic it would be to execute outside of test conditions.
Given that the value of this legendary appears to lie in support, as well as that value being cooldown reduction which is only concrete in specific planned encounters, it seems suited to coordinated raid encounters and high Mythic+ keys.
As for my opinion on the design and power level of this legendary? I'm not a fan to say the least. Much of what was said about the previous iteration's role as a support legendary still stands, and while the awkward interactions with
어둠의 권능: 죽음 have been removed, the new design is hideously convoluted. So much so that it needs to add an entirely new button to your toolkit. Is it strong enough to use? It's really hard to tell at this stage, but it's a lot stronger than the previous iteration, though that's not saying much.
As the power level is too difficult to determine at this time, I can't say for certain if this will or won't be an attractive reason to swap to the Night Fae covenant. Night Fae was already Shadow's go to, so I guess this doesn't change that.
어둠의 권능: 조작 - Venthyr
Another legendary that has received a complete redesign, and another legendary that requires some explaining. The Venthyr legendary no longer provides an additional charge of
정신 조작, instead increasing the duration of the buff and providing critical strike.
- The legendary extends to duration of 정신 조작 by 3 seconds, and this effect stacks with the 조각난 인지 conduit.
- The 정신 조작 debuff does not need to be fully removed. Instead, the critical strike is granted when either the healing or damage reflection is fully expended.
- The critical strike buff is not provided if 정신 조작 is dispelled. Making the effect very weak in PvP. The tooltip has been changed to reflect this in a recent hotfix.
There's potential here. At best you can get 21% (27% with the conduit) crit for 10 seconds after casting
정신 조작. However, this is reliant on the damage reversal being expended almost immediately by something like a boss melee swing or raid wide damage effect. Timing such a thing is likely not possible in a realistic raid or dungeon environment, and Shadow's other legendaries are still better.
Despite that, 21%~ crit for 10 seconds does give Shadow a lot of burst potential every 45 seconds. If any encounter ends up being designed around burst windows roughly 45 seconds apart, then this legendary could see very niche use there.
As for my opinion, it's a stat buff tied to an ability you almost always press on cooldown. There's maybe some potential to time it a bit, but nothing too drastic or impactful. It's an improvement on the previous design though. The fact it provides a stat buff does at least mean it has some AoE benefit, something Venthyr were severely lacking.
I can't see this being impactful enough to improve the Venthyr's standing as a Shadow Priest covenant. It's likely to remain the worst choice, though still viable for those who PvP or play Discipline.
구슬의 조화 - Kyrian
There haven't been any changes to the Kyrian covenant legendary since last week, but it has now been confirmed as a legendary. Everything
I said about it last week still stands though I would like to go over two things that weren't touched on before, the interaction with Soulbinds, and value of cooldown reduction overall.
Kyrian have two soulbinds that interact with
구슬의 조화, Mikanikos and Pelagos.
- Pelagos' 전투 명상 interacts very positively with the reduced cooldown of 승천자의 은혜. This is already the main dps benefit of Kyrian as a Shadow Priest.
- Mikanikos' new trait in 9.1, 분출성 령 가속기, has the potential to reduce the cooldown of 승천자의 은혜 by a further minute in multi target situations. Giving shadow access to boon every minute, and more uses of the powerful DoT component of the trait.
This is all subject to tuning, but Mikanikos may have potential in multi target if either Pelagos is nerfed, or Mikanikos is buffed.
It was mentioned briefly last week, but the value of
구슬의 조화 comes entirely from cooldown reduction on
승천자의 은혜. This means that unless you're capable of getting additional uses in the encounter thanks to that reduction, the legendary does not have any value. This might be problematic, as while the legendary has the potential to be reasonably well tuned compared to Shadow's other options, it could just as easily provide zero value at all. How could this be solved? Rebalance it to provide an additional effect which provides value up front, so that even if the cooldown reduction isn't getting value, you're at least getting something.
The same as what was said last week. I don't see this legendary making waves in the Kyrian camp. It might see niche use, but not enough to increase the power level or popularity of the covenant.
Closing Thoughts
The two reworked legendaries are definitely improvements in power level compared to last week, though
브원삼디의 서약 still seems messy and overly complicated, much like
페이 수호자 itself. Though the redesign of
어둠의 권능: 조작 makes it no longer a dps loss, it's still quite dull. None of these legendaries look likely to dethrone any of Shadow's current choices, and we won't see any covenant changes because of them.