Fire Mage Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Shadowlands 9.2.5

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	Venthyr	Theotar the Mad Duke	Fire Mage Dreamweaver Raiding tree
Mythic+	Night Fae	Dreamweaver	Fire Mage Dreamweaver Mythic+ tree
Torghast	Night Fae	Dreamweaver	Fire Mage Dreamweaver Torghast tree

Generally speaking, the best choice for most PvE scenarios for a Fire Mage is either Night Fae or Venthyr. Generally Venthyr will be on top for single-target, with Night Fae winning out in AoE situations.

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 pure single-target/low cleave and Master Flame as second best for AoE situations. Discipline of the Grove (Night Fae only) and Siphoned Malice (Venthyr only) are good hybrid options, and can often be better in single-target situations than Controlled Destruction as well, depending on timers. Since you can use 3 Potency Conduits, you should generally take Infernal Cascade + Controlled Destruction + your Covenant conduit, swapping Controlled Destruction for Master Flame on pure AoE scenarios.
• 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 and Venthyr are the best 2 Covenants in all PvE situations for Fire Mages. Venthyr is the best on single-target, with Night Fae being best on AoE situations.

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 3 Potency Conduit slots and good damage boosting abilities, and it is clear why Night Fae is such a strong choice.

Venthyr is takes the spot as best single-target option due to its relatively strong Covenant-only Legendary, Sinful Delight, whereas Night Fae's Covenant Legendary is generally weak on single-target.

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

Night Fae has three very capable Soulbinds, since all of them contain three Potency Conduit slots and have damage boosting abilities in it. However, Dreamweaver is the best overall Soulbind, as it contains both 3 potency conduit slots, and some great damage-boosting other traits. On-top of being the best DPS, it also has great utility in the form of Podtender and Waking Dreams. We suggest using this tree for all situations.

Venthyr has a bit less flexibility when it comes to Soulbinds, as you will basically always play with Theotar the Mad Duke. We suggest this tree for all single-target situations.

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) / Siphoned Malice (Venthyr only) / Ire of the Ascended (Kyrian only)
3. Flame Accretion
4. 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

In practice, this means you will run the following 3 conduits in all situations: Infernal Cascade, Controlled Destruction, and your Covenant Conduit, swapping Controlled Destruction for Master Flame in pure AoE situations, which, since Patch 9.1.5 can be done freely in your Covenant Sanctum.

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 third best Covenant for Fire Mages. The Kyrian ability ( Radiant Spark) is one of the worst Covenant abilities for Fire Mages, but the Soulbind Pelagos is a pretty strong Soulbind, which makes Kyrian a decent alternative to Night Fae on pure single-target. On single-target, Kyrian is around 1-3% behind Night Fae at most Renown levels. 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 significantly behind in AoE situations and make you much less flexible, as Kyrian only has one good Soulbind, while Night Fae has three.

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.

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