Windwalker Monk Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Shadowlands 9.1

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;
• Monk Covenant Abilities, which lists all the abilities that Monks 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;
• Monk Conduits, which lists all of the Conduits available to Monks.

Focus	Covenant	Soulbind	Advised Tree
Raiding	Kyrian	Forgelite Prime Mikanikos	Windwalker Monk Mikanikos Raiding tree
Mythic+	Kyrian	Forgelite Prime Mikanikos	Windwalker Monk Mikanikos Mythic+ tree
Both	Kyrian	Forgelite Prime Mikanikos	Windwalker Monk Mikanikos General tree
Torghast	Kyrian	Forgelite Prime Mikanikos	Windwalker Monk Mikanikos Torghast tree

As you can see, Kyrian and Forgelite Prime Mikanikos are currently the winners for all situations; for more information, please refer to our section about the best covenant. Necrolord and Bonesmith Heirmir are a close second but will lose out to Kyrian for highly skilled Windwalkers. Night Fae and Niya are also a reasonable alternative.

Realistically, due to the relative difficulty of maximizing Weapons of Order compared to Bonedust Brew or Faeline Stomp, many players will see better performance as Necrolord or Night Fae over Kyrian. The gap between these three covenants is close enough that player skill will make the difference. Try not to lose damage by selecting a Covenant that you are not adequately skilled with.

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

• Best Potency Conduits: Strike with Clarity (Kyrian Only), Coordinated Offensive (single-target), Calculated Strikes (AoE cleave/Mythic+), Xuen's Bond (all-around), Inner Fury (all-around).
• Best Finesse Conduits: Personal choice. None of them are especially good or bad.
• Best Endurance Conduits: Harm Denial is very strong since we use Expel Harm on cooldown. For the final slots, go with your personal preference or whatever suits the fight.

Kyrian is the best Covenant for Windwalker Monks. It has the best single-target damage and strongest burst damage output of any of the Covenants, and it is the default choice for all situations for players who can use Weapons of Order well enough.

What makes Pelagos so good is not the strength of his abilities. Very few Covenants and Soulbinds have stronger combinations of abilities and Pelagos is unique in that his abilities are decent, and they do not cost you a Potency Conduit like many other Covenant-Soulbind combinations do.

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

• Pelagos falls to the second best soulbind for Kyrian in 9.1 due to a small nerf to Combat Meditation and Forgelite Prime Mikanikos becoming much more powerful.
• Forgelite Prime Mikanikos rises to the top of the Kyrian soulbinds in 9.1 with massive buffs and a fantastic new max Renown trait.
• Kleia is not far behind Pelagos.

For players who select Kyrian, you will follow the below path and Conduit choice and switch Calculated Strikes for Inner Fury for pure single target situations.

Necrolord is a strong Mythic+ Covenant for Windwalker Monks, but generally will not be able to quite reach the same level as Kyrian at the highest levels of play. However, for the majority of players, it is a completely viable and competitive option for a Covenant.

Necrolord has the unique situation of having two "viable" choices for selecting a soulbind.

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

• Emeni is the second-best choice for Necrolords, although it is by a slim margin.
• Plague Deviser Marileth is essentially as good as Emeni, being only 0.3% behind on a single-target.
• Bonesmith Heirmir is the strongest choice due to Forgeborne Reveries providing a full-time 3% increase to Agility.

For players who select Necrolord, you will follow the below path and Conduit choice and switch Calculated Strikes for Inner Fury for pure single target situations.

Night Fae is a strong Covenant for Windwalker Monk players who want to be strong in both Raiding and Mythic+. Similar to Necrolord, Night Fae will lose to Kyrian at the highest level of play but will be a competitive option for the majority of players.

Night Fae has the unique situation of having three "viable" choices for selecting a soulbind.

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

• Niya has the edge in providing slightly more personal DPS than the others.
• Dreamweaver lags behind slightly in personal DPS, but provides useful utility in Podtender and Social Butterfly.
• Korayn is also incredibly strong due to the power of First Strike.

For players who select Night Fae, you will follow the below path and Conduit choice and switch Calculated Strikes for Inner Fury for pure single target situations.

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

Sometimes a Conduit will be much better for a particular type of damage than another. Because of this, we will sometimes label Conduits' position in the Tier Lists by either Single-Target or Mythic/AoE.

SS-Tier refers to Conduits that are ideal in every single scenario and should always be chosen when possible.

All Covenants and Conduits are ranked relative to the best overall setup.

• Bone Marrow Hops (Necrolord Only)
• Coordinated Offensive
• Calculated Strikes (AoE/Cleave)
• Strike with Clarity (Kyrian Only)

• Inner Fury
• Xuen's Bond (if not Kyrian)

• Xuen's Bond (If Kyrian)

As you can tell, most Conduits are very well-balanced, which means that your gear setup can change their relative value. This tier list is very much a guideline and we absolutely recommend using Raidbots to sim your own Conduit choices as you unlock them.

All of these Conduits are geared towards survival and defensive options. This means that there is a bit more room for personal choice here.

With that said, we feel that Harm Denial is by far the best choice here. Although it will mostly contribute to overhealing, using Expel Harm on cooldown means that this just provides more potential healing when you need it.

These Conduits are geared towards mobility and utility. None of them are particularly good, so we recommend picking what you feel suits your playstyle the most, and taking your situation into account.

Venthyr's Fallen Order had been a huge lead on damage but was heavily, and appropriately, nerfed during Beta. It is currently a boring, non-interactive, mediocre DPS cooldown that is not worth thinking about in most situations.

• Theotar the Mad Duke is the best choice for Venthyr by a slim margin.
• Nadjia the Mistblade is also a decent choice, being only slightly behind Theotar the Mad Duke.
• General Draven is a terrible choice currently, being well behind Theotar the Mad Duke and Nadjia the Mistblade and having no major strengths otherwise.