Will Shadowlands covenants matter in WoW Dragonflight? Answered

Covenants were the most prominent system of “borrowed power” that came with World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, and as the franchise transitions into its next iteration with the launch of the Dragonflight expansion later this month, the future of covenants is questionable. 

Blizzard Entertainment has confirmed that abilities you gained from your covenant in Shadowlands will be disabled in Dragonflight content. Other power-enhancers from the Shadowlands era, including legendary items, will also be next-to-worthless when Dragonflight launches. 

Still, covenants aren’t going away forever. They’ll remain in the game as a piece of legacy content for players to go back to, while some of their abilities will be permanently included in certain classes’ kits.  

Here’s everything you need to know about the future of WoW’s covenants in a post-Shadowlands world. 

Will you be able to join a covenant in Dragonflight?

Covenants will be almost entirely irrelevant in Dragonflight, so you won’t really have much of a need to join a covenant in the expansion. While you’ll still technically be a member of the covenant you joined during Shadowlands, the abilities and passive effects you gained from this expansion won’t carry over into Dragonflight. Some exceptions are made, however, for certain covenant abilities, which have been permanently added to class talent trees via the new talent system. 

Players leveling alternate characters through the Shadowlands leveling experience will still be able to join a covenant, although their choice won’t matter much at all when they start doing content in the Dragon Isles. 

Will you keep your covenant abilities in Dragonflight?

In Shadowlands, covenant abilities were a regular part of players’ rotations. After joining a covenant, abilities were given to you for free and were expected to stay in your action bar forever. 

In Dragonflight, though, only a certain amount of covenant abilities will be added to players’ rotations permanently, and you might have to invest talent points to get them. Many abilities that players got used to using in Shadowlands as a result of their covenant progression were made standard in the new expansion, but others missed the cut completely. 

Related: How to change covenants in World of Warcraft Shadowlands

Abilities including Warriors’ Spear of Bastion from the Kyrian covenant, Monks’ Faeline Stomp from the Night Fae covenant, and Death Knights’ Abomination Limb from the Necrolord covenant, among others, were included in Dragonflight’s updated talent system. 

Will I still be able to interact with my covenant?

Any progress you made with your covenant in Shadowlands will transfer over to Dragonflight. You won’t have to worry about losing any renown or progress in your covenant campaign. Despite the fact that the game is moving forward to a new expansion, you can always come back and visit the Shadowlands and wrap up any content you may have missed out on while the expansion was active.