Fire Mage Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Shadowlands 9.0.2

This page assumes that you are already familiar with Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits. If that is not the case, we have a number of pages that can help you get up to speed:

• Covenants Guide, which explains what Covenants are, what perks they bring, and how you can join one;
• Mage Covenant Abilities, which lists all the abilities that Mages gain by joining each Covenant;
• How To Change Covenant?, which tells you how you can switch Covenant (rejoining a former Covenant will require you to perform a number of tasks to regain their trusts);
• General Soulbind Guide, which explains what Soulbinds are and how you can pledge yourself to them to open up their Soulbind tree;
• Mage Conduits, which lists all of the Conduits available to Mages.

Below we have listed a general guideline to the best Covenants. However, we strongly recommend reading further to help you pick the optimal Covenant and Soulbind, as depending on how much Renown you have, both the priority changes and the optimal tree changes.

Focus	Covenant	Soulbind	Advised Tree
Raiding	Night Fae	Niya / Korayn (depending on Renown, see below)	Fire Mage Korayn Raiding tree
Mythic+	Night Fae	Korayn / Dreamweaver (depending on Renown, see below)	Fire Mage Dreamweaver Mythic+ tree
Torghast	Night Fae	Niya	Fire Mage Niya Torghast tree

Generally speaking, the best choice for nearly all PvE scenarios for a Fire Mage is Night Fae. However, for people planning to play multiple specs, this might not be the optimal choice. Night Fae is also best for Arcane in nearly all situations, so this is not an issue. However, if you plan to play Fire Mage in single target content, but Frost in 2-3 target content, picking Venthyr is also a good choice, as Venthyr is only slightly behind for Fire on single target (1-3%), but meaningfully ahead for Frost in 2-3 (5-7%) target situations. Night Fae is a solid pick for Frost as well on larger AoE pulls (like most Mythic+ pulls), but on low target counts is very much behind Venthyr. Whether you pick Night Fae or Venthyr will largely come down to what type of content you plan to do with what spec.

Although Night Fae is best for most situations, the best Soulbind fluctuates a lot, depending on the type of content and your Renown level. Read our the best Covenant section for more information on how to pick the best Soulbind, and why Night Fae is the best Covenant.

Kyrian is very close in strength to Night Fae, even ahead at certain Renown levels on pure single target. However, we still suggest picking Night Fae, as at most Renown levels Night Fae is ahead, and it has much more flexibility due to having 3 good Soulbinds instead of just 1, and having more AoE DPS than Kyrian.

In the list below, you will find the best Conduits, organized by type. For more information, please refer to the Conduits section of this page.

• Best Potency Conduits: Infernal Cascade is the best Potency Conduit for all situations, with Controlled Destruction as second best for single-target/low cleave and Master Flame as second best for AoE situations.
• Best Finesse Conduits: Most of the options here are good choices and largely come down to personal preference. However, Flow of Time is useful in all situations and arguably the only one that increases your DPS by increasing mobility.
• Best Endurance Conduits: This is largely personal choice. All of them are very good defensive options.

Night Fae is the best Covenant for nearly all PvE situations for Fire Mages. It is both the best on single-target and AoE situations, while having multiple strong Soulbind options which increases the flexibility for both multi-speccing and building Soulbinds for specific situations.

The exception to this rule is when Pelagos (from Kyrian) gets its second Potency Conduit slot, and before Korayn gets its second Potency slot. This effectively means that during Renown levels 22, 23 and 24, Kyrian is the best single-target Covenant (by around 2%), but still significantly (7-10%) behind on AoE. Due to only being very slightly ahead on single target as Kyrian (and only during those very specific Renown levels), but significantly behind on cleave and AoE, we do not suggest swapping to Kyrian during the above Renown levels.

A primary reason which makes Night Fae a great Covenant is the class ability Shifting Power. This ability is good in both single-target and AoE situations. It reduces the cooldown of all your cooldowns, including the cooldown of Fire Blast. Combine this with 3 solid Soulbinds that all have 2 Potency Conduit slots and good damage boosting abilities, and it is clear why Night Fae is such a strong choice.

We cover our thoughts on the other Covenants and their Soulbinds in this section further below.

As described above, Night Fae has three very capable Soulbinds, since all of them contain two Finesse Conduit slots and have damage boosting abilities in it. However, due to the way Renown unlocks these slots at different times, there are different best Soulbinds depending on your Renown level. Below we list the best Soulbind for each Renown level, including when you can roughly expect to have these Renown levels with optimal play.

Keep in mind, the lists below focus primarily on the Soulbind tree, and the Conduits inside them are mostly example Conduits. For deciding which Conduits to pick for which situation, see the Conduits section of the guide.

1. Renown 0-12 (before Raid/Mythic+ release): Niya is the best Soulbind. (tree)
2. Renown 13-21 (Heroic week upto Mythic week 3): Both Niya and Dreamweaver are close here (within 2%), with Dreamweaver being slightly ahead on single target. (tree)
3. Renown 22-24 (Mythic week 4): Korayn is the best Soulbind here for all situations. (tree)
4. Renown 25-27 (Mythic week 5): Niya becomes the best single target Soulbind here. (tree)
5. Renown 28+ (Mythic week 6+): Korayn is the best single target Soulbind. (maxed out tree

1. Renown 0-12 (before Raid/Mythic+ release): Niya is the best Soulbind. (tree)
2. Renown 13-21 (Heroic week upto Mythic week 3): Both Niya and Dreamweaver are extremely close here (within 1%), Niya slightly ahead on cleave and AoE (tree).
3. Renown 22-33 (Mythic week 4): Korayn is the best Soulbind here for AoE. (tree) Swap between Controlled Destruction and Master Flame depending on light cleave vs heavy AoE.
4. Renown 34+ (Mythic week 8+): Dreamweaver is the best AoE Soulbind. (maxed out tree)
5. Alternative build at Renown 31+: At Renown 31 you can instead go for a First Strike build (tree. This tree is better if there is a constant set of new targets you can proc First Strike on, like in Mythic+ or fights with constant adds.

This section only covers which Conduits you should pick. For detailed explanations on what all of the Mage Conduits do, check out our Mage Soulbinds and Conduits Page below.

1. Infernal Cascade
2. Controlled Destruction / Discipline of the Grove (Night Fae only)
3. Siphoned Malice (Venthyr only) / Ire of the Ascended (Kyrian only)
4. Flame Accretion
5. Gift of the Lich (Necrolord only)

1. Infernal Cascade
2. Master Flame
3. Discipline of the Grove (Night Fae only) / Siphoned Malice (Venthyr only) / Ire of the Ascended (Kyrian only) / Gift of the Lich (Necrolord only)
4. Controlled Destruction
5. Flame Accretion

Keep in mind, even though Master Flame is listed as a very good AoE option, it has no use on single target or priority damage, which means it might not be a good choice even if you are doing largely AoE content, and a more hybrid Conduit like Discipline of the Grove might be better.

Finesse Conduits are mostly mobility and utility focused and are therefore largely personal preference. Having said that, Flow of Time is indirectly a damage boost as it allows you to use Blink (or Shimmer, if talented) more and thus spend less time moving and not doing optimal DPS.

Endurance Conduits are all Conduits that improve your survivability. All of the Mage ones are strong so you can mostly pick this based on personal preference and circumstance.

Kyrian is generally the second best Covenant for Fire Mages. The Kyrian ability ( Radiant Spark) is one of the worst Covenant abilities, but the Soulbind Pelagos is a pretty strong Soulbind, which makes Kyrian a decent alternative to Night Fae on single target. On single target, Kyrian is around 1-3% behind Night Fae at most Renown levels, but slightly ahead at 22, 23 and 24 Renown level. However, in cleave and AoE situations, it falls significantly (7-15%) behind. Kyrian is only second best while using Pelagos. When using any other Soulbind, Kyrian falls behind much more. (5-8% on single target and 5-15%+ in AoE)

Although picking Kyrian instead of Night Fae will not really put you behind on pure single target, it will put you behind in AoE situations and make you much less flexible, as Kyrian only has one good Soulbind, while Night Fae has three.

Venthyr has a strong single-target class ability, Mirrors of Torment, and decent Soulbinds. It falls behind Night Fae 1-3% in single target situations, but much more in AoE situations. (5-8%) It is tied for second place together with Kyrian.

Necrolord has the worst single-target Covenant ability in the form of Deathborne, and the second worst in AoE. This is however partially made up with its relatively strong Soulbind, Emeni. With the optimal setup, Necrolord is around 2-4% behind Night Fae. Necrolord does however not have any other good Soulbinds, and has due to this the same lack of flexibility as Kyrian has, with the second best Soulbind being 5%+ behind Night Fae in every situation.

Below we go over the Soulbinds of each other Covenant and in what situations you might consider them. The advice below applies to all Renown levels unless otherwise specified.

• Pelagos is the best Soulbind in all situations.
• Kleia is never worth picking.
• Forgelite Prime Mikanikos is never worth picking.

• Nadjia the Mistblade is the best Soulbind in all situations upto Renown 34, and the best on single target after Renown 34.
• Theotar the Mad Duke is the second best (1-2% behind) Soulbind in all situations before Renown 34, and the best AoE Soulbind after Renown 34.
• General Draven is slightly behind in all situations, however after Renown 31 it is pretty much equal to Theotar in AoE situations.

• Emeni is the best Soulbind in all situations.
• Plague Deviser Marileth is never worth picking.
• Bonesmith Heirmir is never worth picking.