The Covenant system introduced inWorld of Warcraft: Shadowlandshas been a hot topic since the expansion was released late last year. With the long-awaited Patch 9.1.5, characters who have gathered enough renown can freely change between the four covenants inWorld of Warcraft: Shadowlands, allowing them to easily swap soulbinds and covenant abilities.
Prior to Patch 9.1.5, switching to a new covenant was easy, but rejoining a covenant a player was previously in required them to complete two atonement quests, only one of which could be done per week. After the upcomingWorld of Warcraft: Shadowlandspatch, however, players who unlock the Renowned achievement bycollecting 80 Renown with theirShadowlandscovenantcan freely switch between covenants without any cooldown or extra work required. Players without the achievement will still be able to change covenants, but will still need to complete the atonement quests.
RELATED:Next World of Warcraft Update Missing Promised Feature
A character’s progress in each of the fourShadowlandscovenants is saved with that particular covenant. This means any hall upgrades, anima, lost souls, and renown players have in one covenant will not be carried over to the other, though it will be saved for when they return to the first once again. Likewise,Shadowlandscovenant abilitiesand soulbinds will be replaced with those of the new covenant, and any special mounts, cosmetics, titles, and other covenant-locked items will be unavailable until they return to that covenant.
WhenWorld of Warcraft: Shadowlandswas first launched, game director Ion Hazzikostas had stated Blizzard wanted a character’s choice of covenant inShadowlandsto be big and impactful, and that he feared allowing free change of covenants would undermine the weight of their choice. However, after atumultuous year for Blizzard, Hazzikostas has finally decided to lift the restricting nature of covenant choice, citing he has since realized players have found covenant restrictions to be annoying and time-consuming, rather than deep and interesting.
And he is right.World of Warcraftplayers are glad to see Hazzikostas is finally pulling the ripcord and making covenant swapping easier. In addition to granting two abilities for characters to use, a character’s covenant also carries one fourth of the game’s endgame storyline. Now, players who don’t have multiple characters at maximum level won’t have to potentiallymiss out on multipleWorld of Warcraftstory arcsjust because they don’t want to leave their covenant.
SomeWorld of Warcraftfans are annoyed it took this long to make this change. Players have been beggingWorld of Warcraftto remove the covenant swap restrictions since the system was announced, especially afterHazzikostas said the changecouldbe done inShadowlandsat any time. With luck, this and the other quality-of-life changes in Patch 9.1.5 are indicative of a positive trend of Blizzard listening to its players, meaning next time something like this happens, maybe it won’t take a year forWorld of Warcraftto make the change.
