Guide: Trinity Comp (Tank/3x BM Hunter/Healer

[z0k]

One thing I heard is that Mythic+ teams will likely want to have at least 1 of each of the 4 Covenants on their team to max buffs during dungeon runs and I was curious what you all thought about that...

If the time investment is as high as I believe it will be as it pertains to covenants, at least out of the gate, I will likely not take this approach for my own sanity and instead use a single covenant for an entire team, based around whatever I believe to have the most effect. For a Paladin/Hunter Trinity/rShaman team, I will likely prioritize the hunters' dps when it comes to covenant choice.

This is all due to change and I could be singing a different tune in 3 months. To be honest I'm probably going to be slow out of the Shadowlands gate, really let things settle in and understand the systems before I make any firm decisions.

[nodoze]

If the time investment is as high as I believe it will be as it pertains to covenants, at least out of the gate, I will likely not take this approach for my own sanity and instead use a single covenant for an entire team, based around whatever I believe to have the most effect. For a Paladin/Hunter Trinity/rShaman team, I will likely prioritize the hunters' dps when it comes to covenant choice.

This is all due to change and I could be singing a different tune in 3 months. To be honest I'm probably going to be slow out of the Shadowlands gate, really let things settle in and understand the systems before I make any firm decisions.

That may well be the smart way to go initially to get each together through one single Covenant Story line and what not.

My understanding is that once you have finished and gotten a Covenant it is trivial to be able to switch to a new Covenant provided that isn't a Covenant that character has had before. With that in mind it may be best to do the full 5box team though the NecroLord Covenant (which is considered best for the 3 BM Hunters) and then switch the Tank and Healer at least if the Tank/Healer you choose don't benefit from NecroLord... Can then decide to switch one of the DPS to cover the missing Covenant(s) if the missing buff(s) is(are) worth more than losing Necrolord on the DPS.

My understanding also is that on an account which has completed at least one Covenant on one (main/initial) character that subsequent (alt) characters can just pick the Covenant you want for that character.

[Ellay]

The dungeons bonuses for your covenant are nice but they aren’t worthwhile From what I have gathered for our style of gameplay. I’m personally going for teams are picking the same covenant for how much easier it should be hypothetically for everything else.

example in a specific dungeon you get a bonus for a very short duration by helping to repair a mech. Well the mech is out of the way and not on the typical route you would take.
anlther is you get a bonus for killing mobs next to a jail cell within a certain window. All of these buffs are quite short duration, and I think will lead for the top mythic+ runners to squeeze out potentially another keystone level overall.
For us they feel like more hassle than it’s worth and even if my covenant matches the dungeon on a character I’m most likely going to skip the bonus in the first place after my first pass of reviewing them.

The only one that was nice is the Night Fae which changed the release spot upon death to the last boss killed instead of the front of the dungeon potentially saving a lot of time.

*edit this was on mobile. My grammar looks terrible.*

[nodoze]

The dungeons bonuses for your covenant are nice but they aren’t worthwhile From what I have gathered for our style of gameplay. I’m personally going for teams are picking the same covenant for how much easier it should be hypothetically for everything else. ... All of these buffs are quite short duration, and I think will lead for the top mythic+ runners to squeeze out potentially another keystone level overall. ... For us they feel like more hassle than it’s worth and even if my covenant matches the dungeon on a character I’m most likely going to skip the bonus in the first place after my first pass of reviewing them.

The only one that was nice is the Night Fae which changed the release spot upon death to the last boss killed instead of the front of the dungeon potentially saving a lot of time. ...

OK thanks for the info. There is so much I don't fully understand yet so that was helpful to give more context. At this point, once through an initial story line, I plan to switch to the Covenants that help the class roles the most (unless I am missing or misunderstanding something key)...

If the time investment is as high as I believe it will be as it pertains to covenants, at least out of the gate, I will likely not take this approach for my own sanity and instead use a single covenant for an entire team, based around whatever I believe to have the most effect. ... let things settle in and understand the systems before I make any firm decisions.

In addition to the thoughts I put above in my previous reply one thing I gathered while watching other/different videos on Covenants is that they aren't only about skills and power levels and there are stories and beauty to experience...

Like others have mentioned I also like to drive from my Tank and for me the Class Story and Class Fantasy that has always been my favorite has been Holy Knight Paladins and it doesn't hurt to mix in Captain America's shield, Thor's Hammer, and Valkyries from Valhalla. With that in mind I definitely plan to focus on the Kyrian Covenant on my first play through and to Z0k's point I may just take my whole team though that same Covenant for expediency and then switch them to the Covenants that best fit their roles (maybe Night Fae on Druid & Necrolord on the Hunters). Later as time allows I will likely take more alts to cap and maybe do the different Covenant story lines as make sense thematically like Necro on a DK, Night Fae on a Druid (I want to have a Druid Tank even if they are sub par), Venthyr on my Shaman (maybe not perfect fit theme-wise but rather just because that is the remaining alt I really want to have for cap).

So Z0k's point about taking it slower to cap have reminded me to take the time to enjoy the story line and work the developers have done and to try to better understand the goals behind the expansion. I still plan to be reasonably efficient to cap but don't plan to race...

[nodoze]

... Druids are a good pick and if you can get the HOTS rolling (which someone made a topic about on these forums not too long ago explaining how) then you are golden. Only questionable part here is mana usage (is that still a thing?) ...

Is this the HoTs rolling discussion you were referring to? :

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...l=1#post263876

I did an advanced search for rolling and rolling HoTs and that one from 2010 was the one that came up... Prior to finding it I was thinking of doing something in ISboxer with a timer to reset but seeing that macro resets it with combat makes me think to some degree doing it in the WoW client may have some advantages.

[z0k]

So Z0k's point about taking it slower to cap have reminded me to take the time to enjoy the story line and work the developers have done and to try to better understand the goals behind the expansion. I still plan to be reasonably efficient to cap but don't plan to race...

This is really being driven by my experience with Corruption. There's a pattern Blizzard likes to follow:
1.) Release system
2.) System is kind of broken or painful to get through - lots of grinding
3.) Ok, we're reducing the pain points, but there's still SOME grinding in order to optimize it
4.) If you didn't buy into the system and do your 20 minutes of quests twice a week, you will never be able to catch up.

In Shadowlands there are 4 systems: Legendaries, Animas, Soulbinds, Conduits
These will all have some effect on play power level, which is largely unknown today in terms of how that balance will play itself out.

It used to be: go do your dungeons, get good gear, and you were powerful. I miss those days, it was straight forward. There was less to research/understand, and even less RNG involved. I totally burned myself out on parts 1/2 of corruption, didn't really understand the system very well, didn't really understand the extent that part 3 could be exploited, and now I'm somewhere on step 4, totally disillusioned by it. Hindsight 20/20 I believe I could have enjoyed corruption a lot more than I did if I had understood the system better along the way.

In closing, I will admit, Corruption is a very extreme example of this, but I definitely want to be careful moving forward. Having 4 different covenants for one team and having to duplicate efforts sounds like a great way to burn out. The pay off might not be that good, or maybe I could have done better if I had done something differently. Pivoting away from that strategy will make my old extreme strategy feel awful and I won't want to do all the work in order to pivot.

[nodoze]

I hesitated to share these as they contain cursing and are somewhat irreverent but I think the edginess is more around trying to be humorous and more importantly they cover Tanks and Healers from more of a Playstyle and fit perspective rather than just what has the higher outputs and are more "meta".

WoW Shadowlands: Which style of tank are you?

WoW Shadowlands: Your type of Healer?

Again please be forewarned that there is foul language and what not but there were/are insights in here that I have not seen presented this way elsewhere. For me at least while boxing I have trouble with mobility and typically would want effectiveness with simple rotations and fewer buttons and these videos try to answer from those perspectives (with humor to boot).

[Feint90]

Is this the HoTs rolling discussion you were referring to? :

https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...l=1#post263876

I did an advanced search for rolling and rolling HoTs and that one from 2010 was the one that came up... Prior to finding it I was thinking of doing something in ISboxer with a timer to reset but seeing that macro resets it with combat makes me think to some degree doing it in the WoW client may have some advantages.

This is the one:
https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...d-optimization

On the other topic of covenants:
Depending on the bonus and the viability of the covenants for each role, Zok's idea to make a team for world content and a team for dungeons and simply switch out certain characters may be the way to go.

If you are trinity and necro's turn out to be the best pick, just add 2 hunters for world content and you can do it all in 1 go. Then you can potentially make a team consisting of your tank/healer and fillers to do the content on them, assuming they benefit from the same covenant. I would personally not go for 3 teams if they end up being split as that would just be a hassle.

Also according to Preach, the Night Fae weekly seems to be the best for resources so if you are boxing druids, going NF (which as of right now is only slightly behind Venthyr DPS wise), will give you a little boost in resources, pretty much free.

[nodoze]

This is the one:
https://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/...d-optimization

On the other topic of covenants:
Depending on the bonus and the viability of the covenants for each role, Zok's idea to make a team for world content and a team for dungeons and simply switch out certain characters may be the way to go.

If you are trinity and necro's turn out to be the best pick, just add 2 hunters for world content and you can do it all in 1 go. Then you can potentially make a team consisting of your tank/healer and fillers to do the content on them, assuming they benefit from the same covenant. I would personally not go for 3 teams if they end up being split as that would just be a hassle.

Also according to Preach, the Night Fae weekly seems to be the best for resources so if you are boxing druids, going NF (which as of right now is only slightly behind Venthyr DPS wise), will give you a little boost in resources, pretty much free.

Thanks for the link.

For me my two mains will be my Protection Paladin Tank and my Resto Druid Healer and the 3 Hunters are just there for Dungeons.

I think my Paladin Tank will be Kyrian no matter what for both best Tank ability for 5mans but also for Class Fantasy/gear images/etc...

My Druid will likely be both what I raid on & be my primary 5box healer and I will likely go with whatever is optimal for raid and 5man Resto Druid performance (Night Fae?) even if that means I have at least 2 different Covenants to deal with...

I feel like I don't fully understand what will be optimal for dailies/weekly or what not yet but ultimately I am OK with having multiple sets of 3 hunters (or other alts) of that really helps my two mains (and the Druid is likely the overall priority since it will be my primary Raiding main).

Eventually I think I will want at least 2 other tanks to be able to contrast/compare to the Prot Paladin (DK and Guardian Druid for sure and maybe a BrewMaster). Healerwise I will also want at least a Shaman so I likely will be leveling up at least a second team... Something like at least these 2 Teams across my 6 accounts:

Team1) P.Paladin+R.Druid+3BM.Hunters
Team2) B.DK+R.Shaman+3BM.Hunters (or maybe a different DPS).

If I do the Shaman on a different account than the Druid I guess I could maybe do some Guardian Druid Tank testing with the Shaman without leveling up a 2nd Druid though if ever do a stealth team I will want at least 2 Druids with my 3 ShadowMeld+Camo Hunters...

Right now I feel like I don't fully understand the whole Covenants and daily/weekly and party mix implications so will have to study/think about that later but those are my thoughts so far...

[Vecter]

Ellay I have been demoted to a school age child after watching this, a first day newb who has never boxed before. I laughed throughout on how much easier life would have been if I actually played correctly! I appreciate all your willingness to share and guide us through great setup and technique. Thank you!