Windwalker Monk Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Shadowlands 9.0.5

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;
• 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	Pelagos	Windwalker Monk Pelagos Raiding tree
Mythic+	Kyrian	Pelagos	Windwalker Monk Pelagos Mythic+ tree
Both	Kyrian	Pelagos	Windwalker Monk Pelagos General tree
Torghast	Kyrian	Pelagos	Windwalker Monk Pelagos Torghast tree

As you can see, Kyrian and Pelagos, are the winners for all situations; for more information, please refer to our section about the best covenant. The strength of Weapons of Order in single-target as well as AOE, with an enormous amount of burst, makes it too strong to pass up. Necrolord and Bonesmith Heirmir are a close second in situations with multiple targets, but will lose out to Kyrian in practice. Night Fae and Niya are a reasonable alternative for people who want to be decent at both single-target and AOE damage, but are fine with not specializing in either.

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.

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 is the best Soulbind for Kyrian. He gives you two Potency Conduits.
• Forgelite Prime Mikanikos is far behind and should not be chosen in any situation.
• Kleia is not far behind Pelagos.

For players who are focused on Raiding, you will follow the below path and Conduit choice. When playing in Mythic+, you would just change Coordinated Offensive to Calculated Strikes to focus more on AoE damage through Spinning Crane Kick. If you are looking to simply use one set of conduits for all content, then the two Potency slots should be Strike with Clarity and Inner Fury.

Necrolord is a strong Mythic+ Covenant for Windwalker Monks, but generally will not be able to quite reach the same level as Kyrian. It has strong sustained AoE and cleave damage, which makes up a large portion of Mythic+ damage.

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 2nd 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 are focused on Mythic+, you will follow the below path and Conduit choice. When playing Necrolord in Raiding, you would just change Calculated Strikes to Coordinated Offensive to focus more on single-target damage through Storm, Earth, and Fire. If you are looking to simply use one set of conduits for all content then the two Potency slots should be Xuen's Bond and Inner Fury.

Night Fae is a strong Covenant for Windwalker Monk players who want to be strong in both Raiding and Mythic+. It has the 3rd-best sustained AoE and cleave damage, and 2nd-best single-target damage, making it the a very reasonable option for players who enjoy both and are OK with not being 100% optimal in either.

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 are focused on Mythic+, you will follow the below path and Conduit choice. When playing Night Fae in Raiding, you would just change Calculated Strikes to Coordinated Offensive to focus more on single-target damage through Storm, Earth, and Fire. If you are looking to simply use one set of conduits for all content then the two Potency slots should be Coordinated Offensive and Calculated Strikes.

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.

Important note: When evaluating the Soulbinds, we have not included the final Soulbind Ability in their trees, which has a major impact on their viability. This is because we will not unlock these Soulbind Abilities until we reach Renown 30-34, which can be potentially months into the future. The guides are designed for you to have an optimal character right now, but keep in mind that these descriptions may completely change in a few months once we unlock the last row of Soulbind Abilities.

• 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.