BlogPaper

Covenants are the big new feature added in World of Warcraft Shadowlands, and your choice will affect what new abilities you get to play with. That, and which Soulbinds you have access to (the “borrowed power” function of Covenants). If you have yet to take your first toon through the Shadowlands then it’ll be a while until you can choose your Covenant, but any alt you take into the afterlife afterwards will be able to choose their covenant much sooner.

Reach level 60 and complete the campaign on one character to unlock Covenants in World of Warcraft Shadowlands.

Covenants are an endgame feature in World of Warcraft Shadowlands, so before you can pledge allegiance to any of them you’ll need to first clear the leveling campaign and hit level 60 on one of your characters. You need to overcome both of these hurdles, so even if you ding 60 well before the final act (as I did) you’ll still have to cross the narrative’s finish line before gaining access to Covenants.

Once you’ve seen the end of the Revendreth arc and are redirected to the hub of Oribos you’ll quickly pick up the quest “Choosing Your Purpose”. This is your big moment, your chance to sign on with one of the four major Covenants that govern the afterlife in WoW. Each Covenant will have a representative in the Enclave for you to interact with, and you’ll have a few options. The first choice provides a general preview pane that will display the Covenant’s two abilities on offer (with tooltips), the three Soulbinds available, the Covenant’s “Sanctum Feature” (a Covenant-specific activity), their main armor set (for your class), and their mount.

You can then choose to sample the Covenant abilities and test them on a nearby dummy if you are still unsure which you like best (or if you want to parse which is best). Below that is the option to reset the cooldown on the abilities for further testing. You can ask what sort of adventures to expect with that Covenant, which provides some flavor-text and insight into the challenges that Covenant is facing. And, finally, you can pledge yourself to the Covenant. You’ll need to turn the quest in to Tal-Inara to cement your choice of Covenant, but once you do you’re not actually hard-locked to your choice. You can change Covenants at any time by interacting with one of the reps that will remain in the Enclave, though you’ll need to complete two weeklies (one a week over two weeks) to return to any Covenants you left.

From here on out your alts can choose a Covenant immediately after they’ve escaped the Maw for the first time, assuming you choose the Threads of Fate option. It’s worth noting Threads of Fate is a permanent choice, but you can opt into it at any point during the campaign (unless you hit level 60). Whenever you choose Threads – whether at the start of your alt’s journey or during it – you can then choose your Covenant. You’ll speak with a rep in the Enclave, and make a choice much as you did earlier with your first character. I recommend sampling the class abilities first; each Covenant has a unique class-specific ability, so it doesn’t hurt to see if you like it.

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