Covenants and Conduits will be freely swappable in patch 9.1.5
@CoryjTaylor
We’ve gotten word that patch 9.1.5 is on the horizon, with it arriving on the PTR soon™. It’s going to shake up the way people play Shadowlands in a big way. No longer will players have to go through a lengthy unlocking process if they want to swap their Covenant. Instead, once you hit a certain point of renown you’ll be able to jump between any of them.
In the next few days, we will be updating our Public Test Realm with a first look at Patch 9.1.5. Alongside feature updates like new Timewalking experiences (this time we’re revisiting Legion, with a couple of twists…), these “.5” patches, falling in between full content tiers, present an opportunity to focus on balance and revision of core systems based on feedback and data from the season so far. Patch 9.1.5 will include several significant changes to the Shadowlands Covenant systems in particular:
- Once you’ve reached a high Renown threshold, you will thereafter be able to freely switch among any of the four Covenants without cooldown or restriction, as well as use cosmetic rewards that you have earned from one covenant even if you are currently a member of a different one. Both the Covenant switching and the use of cosmetic rewards will also apply to alts once the Renown threshold is reached on one character.
- Conduit Energy is being removed – Conduits will be freely swappable without restriction.
- When playing alternate characters, if you have already completed a given Covenant’s campaign on a different character, you will be able to immediately earn the Renown and third soulbind unlock without needing to replay the full narrative arc.
This is going to be huge for basically everyone playing in Shadowlands. The difficulty of moving between Covenants was a major hassle for players who wanted to experience the full Shadowlands story, and for people who wanted to make sure that they were using the strongest Covenant abilities for the content they were doing that week. This only got exacerbated when Blizzard made tuning changes to how Legendaries and those Covenant powers worked. I know a few Mages who felt like they had to change their Covenants three times around the balancing of patch 9.1, and the first Sanctum of Domination tuning.
Being able to change your Conduits without needing to wait for more Conduit Energy is also something that players have wanted in Shadowlands for a long time. It could be hard to excel in Dungeons, Raids, and PVP content with the same Conduit set up. When the patch hits the PTR we’ll be able to see if you’ll still need to visit the interface in your Covenant Sanctum or if you’ll just need to be in a rested area to change it like your talents.
These changes are things that players have wanted basically since the Shadowlands beta. I’m glad that they’re coming now, but I hope that Blizzard will consider player feedback on things like this a little more carefully in future updates. We’ll have more information on all of the patch 9.1.5 changes as it becomes available.
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