Survival Hunter Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Shadowlands 9.2.5
Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits are the most important character customization options in Shadowlands. They have a substantial impact on your toolkit and performance as Survival Hunter. This page's purpose is to help you pick the right options according to the content you intend to do in Shadowlands.
Introduction: Prerequisites
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;
- Hunter Covenant Abilities, which lists all the abilities that Hunters 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;
- Hunter Conduits, which lists all of the Conduits available to Hunters.
Covenant Recommendation Change in Patch 9.2
A big factor in changing Covenant recommendations in Patch 9.2 is the introduction of Double Legendaries, one of which must be the Covenant-specific Legendary. Therefore, a big part of these recommendations is not only the power of the Covenants and Soulbinds themselves, but also the Legendary Power associated with the Covenant.
Covenant/Build Progression for Survival Hunter
With the introduction of Double Legendaries and Tier Set Bonuses that can have a significant effect on your choice of Covenant, Legendary, and so on, we feel the need to list some thresholds at which you might need to reconsider your choice of build. These builds do not just cover Covenants, but also Legendaries.
- With a single Legendary and no Tier Set Bonus, you should run
Venthyr with
Pouch of Razor Fragments for Single-Target, and Kyrian with
Wildfire Cluster for most AoE.
- Once you obtain your 2PC Set Bonus, you can swap to Kyrian with Wildfire Cluster, which will serve you for both single-target and AoE.
- Once you unlock Double Legendaries, you should generally swap to
Night Fae as
Fragments of the Elder Antlers is stronger than
Pact of the Soulstalkers.
Best Covenant for Survival Hunter
- Night Fae with Dreamweaver is the ultimate Raiding setup
for
Survival Hunters for pretty much all situations, with strong
single-target and
extremely powerful AoE burst damage via the
Fragments of the Elder Antlers Legendary Power. The Dreamweaver Soulbind grants
Podtender, which is a "cheat death"-style ability every 10 minutes. It is very important to stand in the
Field of Blossoms circle for the full duration of
Wild Spirits when using this Soulbind, to enhance your burst.
- Kyrian with Forgelite Prime Mikanikos is the best Mythic+
setup for Survival Hunters. It is strong for uncapped AoE
situations as it synergizes well with our tier bonuses, and Mythic+ enables high
uptime on the
Hammer of Genesis Soulbind Ability. It plays similarly to Night Fae, but with a 1-minute cooldown in
Resonating Arrow instead of a 2-minute one.
- Venthyr with Nadia is the best Venthyr setup for Survival Hunters. It is generally weaker than Night Fae in all situations, especially AoE and burst, but it has a high-speed, reactive playstyle that many enjoy.
- Necrolord with Marileth is the best
Necrolord setup for Survival Hunters. It is weak for all
situations and should never be played in an optimal setup, but many enjoy the
burst damage provided by the
Bag of Munitions Legendary Power for Mythic+ especially.
Best Soulbind for Survival Hunter
- Night Fae always runs Dreamweaver with the 3 Potency
Conduits
Spirit Attunement,
Strength of the Pack, and
Deadly Tandem. We recommend the right path at the bottom of the Tree, allowing you 2 Endurance and 1 Finesse Conduits.
- Venthyr always runs Nadia with the 2 Potency
Conduits
Empowered Release,
Strength of the Pack, and going to the right side to grab the
Dauntless Duelist Soulbind Ability. You can go either left or right at the bottom to grab your choice of an Endurance Conduit, or
Sinful Preservation. We prefer the Endurance Conduit in most cases.
- Necrolord always runs Plague Deviser Marileth with the 3
Potency
Conduits
Necrotic Barrage,
Stinging Strike, and
Deadly Tandem. We recommend picking up 2 Endurance Conduits, and then going for the right path at the bottom of the tree to pick up
Undulating Maneuvers.
- Kyrian always runs Forgelite Prime Mikanikos with the 3
Potency
Conduits
Enfeebled Mark,
Strength of the Pack, and
Stinging Strike. For Mythic+, you swap out
Stinging Strike for the
Hammer of Genesis Soulbind Ability. It is mandatory to pick the left side at the bottom of the tree to pick up the DPS Soulbind Ability
Soulglow Spectrometer.
Best Conduits for Survival Hunter
Best Potency Conduits for Survival Hunter
We have mentioned the Potency Conduits in our Soulbind recommendations above.
In short, Strength of the Pack is nearly always ideal, while a number of
factors can influence the choice of
Stinging Strike or
Deadly Tandem. It is best to sim this choice. In all cases, the
Covenant-specific
Conduit (for example
Spirit Attunement) is always picked.
Best Endurance Conduits for Survival Hunter
Marksman's Advantage
Resilience of the Hunter
Condensed Anima Sphere
Rejuvenating Wind
Harmony of the Tortollan
Best Finesse Conduits for Survival Hunter
Reversal of Fortune (provided you can Interrupt)
Cheetah's Vigor
Ambuscade/
Tactical Retreat
Changelog
- 31 May 2022: Page reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 27 Feb. 2022: Updated the recommended Covenant and Soulbind for Mythic+.
- 24 Feb. 2022: Added note that you take Hammer of Genesis for Mythic+.
- 21 Feb. 2022: Updated our Covenant, Soulbind and Conduit recommendations across the board and restructured the page.
- 03 Nov. 2021: Updated the Raiding ranking between Venthyr and Kyrian.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Updated the page to reflect Patch 9.1.5 changes, with Covenants and Conduits being freely swappable and more.
- 03 Sep. 2021: Added a section for the best Enhanced Soulbind Conduits.
- 18 Aug. 2021: Updated the optimal Soulbind for Survival single-target as Night Fae.
- 06 Jul. 2021: Updated the ranking of the
Condensed Anima Sphere Endurance Conduit.
- 01 Jul. 2021: Several changes.
- Added the
Condensed Anima Sphere Endurance Conduit to our rankings.
- Simplified the Covenant/Soulbind table slightly and clarified that it is based on max Renown.
- Added a note that it is recommended to sim your Covenants and Soulbinds to find out when you might want to switch.
- Added the
- 28 Jun. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.
- 19 Mar. 2021: Several small changes.
- Updated the recommended Mythic+ Soulbind Tree for Korayn.
- Moved up Venthyr's Empowered Release to S-Tier.
- Moved Stinging Strike from A to B-tier, but added a note that it is S-Tier for Birds of Prey-based builds.
- Updated the recommendation status of Venthyr vs Kyrian as the second-best Covenant for Survival Hunters.
- Updated the Dreamweaver recommendation description.
- Updated the Forgelite Mikanikos recommendation description as he is very strong for Mythic+.
- Updated the source of Korayn's strength in Mythic+ to be First Strike rather than Wild Hunt Tactics.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 21 Nov. 2020: Page added.
More Hunter Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Azortharion, a theorycrafter of all things Hunter-related for many years. He is an accomplished player with dozen of top parses for all specs throughout the game's history. He is also the Admin of Trueshot Lodge, the Hunter Class Discord, and you can watch his stream on Twitch. He even has his own personal Discord channel where you can get notifications about when the guides get updated and have direct communications with him.
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