RETAIL
CLASSIC ERA
WRATH
RETAIL
CLASSIC ERA
WRATH

Covenant Representation in Mythic Castle Nathria

While the Castle Nathria Race to World First (RWF) event is basically complete with the top 20 rankings secured, many more guilds are still pushing to clear the raid on Mythic and trying to optimize their setups to achieve that goal. One of the biggest factors in that optimization process is Covenant choice, which has been a big focus of both the Shadowlands mechanics and player frustration/complaints. Now that a significant enough number of guilds have either completed the raid or have made it deep into progression, we thought it would be a good time to take a look at the actual Covenant representation data in Castle Nathria to see if there really is a "strongest raid Covenant" across all the classes and specs.

*Data is represented by unique characters and only counts boss kills.



So first off, in the overall/all encounters Covenant representation we see that there is in fact a "strongest Covenant", as Night Fae is dominating in a fairly extreme way, more than doubling the numbers of the next most picked Covenant:



So why are Night Fae so wide-spread? Let's check in with our resident expert, Dratnos, to see what's happening:

Dratnos Explains It (like I'm five)
Night Fae's dominance comes largely from the fact that almost every Ranged DPS prefers them as a best Covenant option, including Fire Mage, MM Hunter, Balance Druid, and Affliction Warlock. This combines with the fact that Ranged DPS are the most represented role in any given raid group to really run up the scoreboard for the Fae. Niya's Grove Invigoration is such a strong Soulbind option for these specs that it often represents a stronger pull than even the Covenant-specific Class Abilities, and certainly more than the Signature abilities, though Night Fae's Soulshape does serve them well in Nathria, especially on the movement intensive Stone Legion Generals and Sire Denathrius encounters.


Then we're on to each individual boss, starting with Shriekwing, who has been downed by 1385 guilds:





























































It’s pretty plain to see that Night Fae has been the dominant covenant choice so far in Castle Nathria across all classes and specs with very little variation between bosses. However, one difference seems to be that the population of Kyrian players has declined from the earlier bosses into the later ones, with Necrolord and Venthyr slowly pulling ahead. More players defeat the early bosses, so those graphs will represent a larger average of the Mythic raiding population. However, the latter bosses will be restricted to just the top guilds, so even though there are fewer data points on the end bosses, this more accurately represents what the top guilds defined as an "optimal" Covenant choice for this point in time during the Shadowlands.

But in any case, the Night Fae don't really care for such details, as they float above it all looking down on the other Covenants from on high, convoking and wilding their spirits and whatnot.



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About the Author


Starym is an old-school raider with a wide history of World Firsts under his belt. He is a long-time news writer and interviewer for Icy Veins and formerly Manaflask. Having raided in the Race to World First (RWF) until the end of The Burning Crusade, he has been covering the events since Cataclysm and the RWF has become his greatest passion in WoW. A (Tauren, obviously) Warrior main at heart, when pushed, he will admit to loving Diablo more than WoW and, thus, should be punished.