Everything we know about the Venthyr Covenant in WoW Shadowlands

In Shadowlands, the Venthyr Covenant is all about punishment and atonement. They are one of four Covenants that we can ally with at max level and each Covenant oversees a different part of the afterlife for Azeroth’s souls.

The Venthyr Covenant resides in Revendreth and is responsible for those who are flawed yet redeemable. Souls come here to harness their strengths or lighten their souls in order to move on to another fate.

Who are the Venthyr?

The Venthyr are a race of vampiric people that personally deal with the souls consumed by their flaws. Their eternal role marks them as punishers of the unworthy, and their goal is to purge flawed souls — those who are weighed down by pride, rapaciousness, greed, or apathy — to allow them to atone and move on. The souls have a spark of possible redemption deep within them, the one thing preventing them from being sentenced to an eternity in The Maw as irredeemable, and the Venthyr are there to ferret it out and prepare the souls for their eternal fates. The souls who are strong enough will in turn become punishers for the Venthyr. The rest atone for their sins and move on to other Covenants in their eternal journey.

We know of one prideful soul who will be present in Revendreth — Kael’thas Sunstrider.

What are the Venthyr abilities?

When you join a Covenant, you get access to its Signature Ability. This is available to every single class and spec, similar to the Garrison/Zone Abilities in Warlords of Draenor. In Revendreth, that takes the form of a teleport to traverse the environment undetected. There are also further upgrades that change how the Signature Ability works. Many of the upgraded spells are available through the Soulbind talent tree, and it’s likely that more could be obtained through activities such as the Torghast system or the Legendary system.

Venthyr Signature Ability — Door of Shadows: Wend through the shadows, appearing at the targeted location.

In addition to the Signature Ability, you receive a unique ability for your class. The class abilities also have possible upgrades that change how the class abilities work, though we don’t know yet how or where you’ll acquire them.

• Death Knight — Swarming Mist: A heavy mist surrounds you, increasing your chance to dodge. Deals Shadow damage over time to enemies within range. Every time it deals damage you gain additional Runic Power, up to a maximum amount.
• Demon Hunter — Sinful Brand: Brand an enemy with the mark of the Venthyr, reducing their melee and casting speeds and inflicting Shadow damage over time.
• Druid — Ravenous Frenzy: For a period of time, Druid spells you cast increase your damage, healing, and haste by a percentage, stacking. If you spend a period of time idle, the Frenzy overcomes you, consuming a percentage of your health per stack, stunning you, and then ending.
• Hunter — Flayed Shot: Fire a shot at your enemy, causing them to bleed Shadow damage over a period of time. Each time Flayed Shot deals damage, you have a chance to gain Flayer’s Mark, causing your next Kill Shot to be usable on any target, regardless of their current health.
• Mage — Mirrors of Torment: Conjure mirrors to torment the enemy for a time. Whenever the target casts a spell or ability, a mirror is consumed to inflict Shadow damage and their movement and cast speed are slowed. The final mirror will instead inflict more Shadow damage to the enemy, Rooting and Silencing them for some time.
• Monk — Fallen Order: Opens a mirror for a period of time, summoning reflections of your order’s Fallen Ox, Crane, and Tiger adepts every so often. Adepts associated with your specialization will fight for a longer duration and cast additional abilities.
  • Brewmaster — Adepts attack with Keg Smash.
  • Mistweaver — Adepts heal with Renewing Mist.
  • Windwalker — Adepts assault with Fists of Fury.
• Paladin — Ashen Hallow: Hallow the target area. Every so often, an enemy in the area suffers Shadow damage, and an ally in the area is healed. Within the Hallow, you may use Hammer of Wrath on any target.
• Priest — Mindgames: Assault an enemy’s mind, dealing Shadow damage and briefly reversing their perception of reality. For a period of time, the next damage they deal will heal their target, and the next healing they do will damage their target.
• Rogue — Slaughter: Slaughter the target, causing Physical damage. The target’s anima mixes with your lethal poison, coating your weapons for the next 5 minutes. Slaughter Poison deals Shadow damage over time and steals a percentage of healing done to the target. This also awards combo points.
• Shaman — Chain Harvest: Send a wave of anima at the target, which then jumps to additional nearby targets. Deals Shadow damage to enemies and restores health to allies. For each target critically struck, the cooldown of Chain Harvest is reduced.
• Warlock — Impending Catastrophe: Call forth a cloud of chaotic anima that travels to the target enemy, dealing Shadow damage to enemies within their path. When the anima reaches the target it explodes, inflicting either Curse of Weakness or Curse of Tongues and dealing Shadow damage over time to all nearby enemies.
• Warrior — Condemn (Replaces Execute): Condemn a foe to suffer for their sins, causing Shadow damage. Only usable on enemies who are above 80% health or below 20% health. The primary target is weakened, preventing a moderate amount of damage they would deal to you. If your foe survives, a portion of the Rage spent is refunded.

What are the Venthyr Soulbinds?

When you choose your Covenant, you receive the option to bind yourself to a powerful member. This grants you access to their power and also powerful bonuses. Soulbinding will work similarly to previous systems like Artifact Weapons in Legion and the Heart of Azeroth in Battle for Azeroth. The progression system will allow you to unlock different tiers of power as you progress through the tree and even swap Soulbinds for different activities.

Souldbinds incorporate “sockets,” referred to as Conduits, in three types — Throughput, Survival, and Utility. These give you customization for your character’s power and will likely work similarly to Essences or Artifact Relics.

We currently have access to one Venthyr Soulbind tree in the Shadowlands alpha.

General Draven (Soulbind Calculator)

• Soulbind Trait: Enduring Gloom
• Damage Traits: Fearless Leader, Crash the Ramparts
• Utility Traits: Move As One, Tactical Expertise, Endless Watch, Built for War
• Conduits: 2 Survival, 2 Utility, 2 Throughput

The other two NPCs are not in alpha yet, but appeared early on in information from BlizzCon.

Theotar, The Mad Duke

• Arrogance: You have a 5% increased critical strike against targets whose current health percentage is lower than yours.
• Enshrouding Mist: When you fall below 35% health you turn to mist, reducing damage taken by 30%. Lasts 6 seconds. May only occur once every 3 minutes.
• Grisly Succor (Conduit): Healing an ally who is below 50% health grants them a 5% leech for 6 seconds. (In BlizzCon’s Deep Dive, this was listed as replacing Enshrouding Mist. It is unclear if this conduit ability can only alter that specific tier, or if it can be used to replace any of the base powers)

Nadjia, The Mistblade

• Deflecting Flourish: Your Parry is increased by 6%. If you are normally unable, Nadjia will teach you how to parry.

Based on the other Covenants and their datamined spells, the following “upgrade” spells for the Venthyr Signature Ability could be Soulbind talents or class-specific Conduits for the two remaining Venthyr Soulbind trees.

• Bathe in Shadow: Killing an enemy reduces the remaining cooldown of Door of Shadows by 6 sec.
• Dark Rush: Door of Shadows increases your movement speed by 30% for 5 sec.
• Door of Shadows: Wend through the shadows, appearing at the targeted location.
• Horrid Nightmares: Door of Shadows causes nearby enemies to run in fear for 0 sec.
• Open Doors: Door of Shadows has an instant cast time.
• Prompt Exeunt: Divine Steed removes the cast time of Door of Shadows for 5 sec.
• Touch of the Unseen: Door of Shadows heals you for 20% of your maximum health.

What are the Venthyr rewards?

If you have been waiting for a chance to fulfill your vampire aesthetic dreams, the Venthyr Covenant has you covered. Each armor type — cloth, leather, mail, plate — will have a full armor set styled to their Covenant. The Venthyr armor is full of elegant lines and red and gold and black, incorporating gargoyles and tombstones for a truly unique set.

One of Shadowlands’ most vaunted cosmetic features is new back options to replace the standard but boring cloak. Though the Kyrian Covenant cloak has wings — long requested by many players — the Venthyr version has perhaps been the most popular. The cosmetic Covenant “cloaks” come in three different tiers. Tier 1 for Venthyr starts out as a bronze gargoyle effigy with hanging lanterns, turning into fantastic dagger wings at tier 2, and finally transforming into the popular chained tombstone at tier 3. You can also see a similar tombstone on a version of Kael’thas Sunstrider.

Last but not least, Covenant followers will be able to get a Covenant-specific mount and battle pet. The mount will have different color options and later you’ll be able to upgrade it, similar to Artifact skins in Legion. The battle pet will have a unique ability depending on which zone you’re in, allowing it to interact with the world around them. There is currently no information on what the Venthyr mount and pet will entail.

None of this is set in stone, as information can change rapidly in the testing cycle on alpha and beta, but it should give you a good idea of what we’ll encounter in WoW Shadowlands.