Shadowlands Soulbinds Overview - Covenants, Swapping, How to Unlock

By Paryah Last Updated: 2021/06/22 Changelog Patch: 10.2.6

Table of Contents
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ShadowlandsSoulbinds OverviewLegionHow to Unlock Soulbinds

Covenant

First Soulbind Unlocked

Second Soulbind Unlocked

Third Soulbind Unlocked

Kyrian

Pelagos

Kleia

Mikanikos

Necrolord

Plague Deviser Marileth

Emeni

Bonesmith Heirmir

Night Fae

Niya

Dreamweaver

Korayn

Venthyr

Nadjia

Theotar

General Draven

How Soulbinds WorkRenown

Select which Soulbind Traits you want.

Socket appropriate Conduits to boost your abilities.

Lock in your choices.

Reset the Soulbind tree so that you can start over.

The Soulbinds Interface

This is the indicator which shows your potential Soulbinds and indicates which one you have active, in this case, Pelagos.
This is the first Trait that you can learn from your Soulbind. Pelagos only has one, but other Soulbinds may give you a choice to start with.
This is where you will socket a Conduit. This slot is for a Potency Conduit. It is currently empty. You could potentially have selected the Finesse Conduit slot on the other side instead.
This is the second Trait that has been selected.
On the previous row, Pelagos gives you no choice; it is for an Endurance Conduit only. But this row allows you to choose one of any of the 3 Conduit types which will lead you to a Trait on the next row. This means that you may need to take a sub-optimal Conduit slot to get the Trait that you want, or if you pick the optimal Conduit, you may not get the best Trait on this row.
This row, for Pelagos, is once again set as a Potency Conduit.
All roads lead to this cap Trait.
When you click the Activate button, you choose to set your Soulbind.
If you aren't happy with your choices, the reset arrow will allow you to start over. Note that while you can change your Soulbind path whenever you want to, you can only reset Conduits once a week.

Note: As of 9.1 there are additional rows for every Soulbind. The interface, however, does not change.

How to Unlock Soulbind RowsRenown How to Change Soulbind TraitsHow to Swap SoulbindsThe Wowhead Soulbind CalculatorConduitsConduits The Covenant Soulbinds

Kyrian

Venthyr

Necrolord

Night Fae

First Soulbind

Pelagos

Nadjia, the Mistblade

Plague Deviser Marileth

Niya

Second Soulbind

Kleia

Theotar, the Mad Duke

Emeni, the Slaughter Daughter

Dreamweaver

Third Soulbind

Forgelite Prime Mikanikos

General Draven

Bonesmith Heirmir

Korayn

Best Covenant, Soulbinds, and Conduits For Your Class

Blood DKFrost DKUnholy DK

Havoc DHVengeance DH

Balance DruidFeral DruidGuardian DruidRestoration Druid

Devastation EvokerPreservation Evoker

Beast Mastery HunterMarksmanship HunterSurvival Hunter

Arcane MageFire MageFrost Mage

Brewmaster MonkMistweaver MonkWindwalker Monk

Holy PaladinProtection PaladinRetribution Paladin

Discipline PriestHoly PriestShadow Priest

Assassination RogueOutlaw RogueSubtlety Rogue

Elemental ShamanEnhancement ShamanRestoration Shaman

Affliction WarlockDemonology WarlockDestruction Warlock

Arms WarriorFury WarriorProtection Warrior

Comments

Comment by 2137098

I am already upset that I won't get to play maldraxxus T___T

Comment by livingwill

Good news, you can customize your character in crazy ways.
Bad news, you can customize your character in crazy ways.

Comment by Zehira95

Well, clearly Blizzard likes venthyr a lot more than the other covenants :D

Comment by Bazalto

Ok, so i'm ok with this.BUT, please please dont let it be the case of "blood of the enemy"/ "conflict and strife". As a PvE player i really really dont want to do PvP wich i hate if i want the best essences and in this case conduits in the game.

Comment by Fooysari

man this really sucks, I want to be a necrolord so bad, the whole aesthetic just suits me but I feel like I'm going to have to go venthyr for the teleport utility for mythic plus. I can definitely see higher key groups not taking people who arent venthyr for this exact reason, that teleport is so OP, blizz really needs to rework that ability and just turn it into something else entirely, any ability that gives you a teleport, considering how people like to skip things in mythic plus, is going to be super OP.

Comment by tajador27

Oh my god, just bring back talent trees. I don't want any more mechanics that get dumped and wiped clean the next expansion.

Comment by sanies90

This is just total crap. I play PvP and now again we get systems upon systems upon systems that we PvP players are basically FORCED to participate in and that is obviously by playing PvE content. Blizz is totally clueless about this game. So I'm going to need souldbinds and conduits and crafted legendaries in order to keep up with the game and do OK in PVP? What a joke. This is just tragic.

Comment by Perpantaq

good news is I didn't like kyrian, and since I don't like their abilities either, I can ignore it with ease(same with Necrolord)
bad news is I'm torn between Night Fae and venthyr.
I like the look and theme of Night fae, and some of its abilities, specially as a hunter its class ability can help with that annoying HM. but as a raider and pure dps stand point, venthyr is better. but I just don't like the theme of venthyr.

but I think in raids it's would be good to have people with different covenants and different conduits. but there still would be a check list.

why cant the just give us a talent tree instead of these confusing and temporary systems?

Comment by Zhukee

This system is so convoluted and unfriendly to look at, I think this will be one of WoWs most disliked features ever. Maybe I'll be proven wrong.

Comment by Seacakes

Looking through the various Conduit and Soulbind paths across covenants, it seems like a lot of DPS-related Soulbinds are gated by a path via Endurance Conduits (and vice-versa, with Tank-related Soulbinds and Potency Conduits). Is this intentional? I'm hoping this isn't the way it'll be at launch, because it makes getting cool or impactful Soulbinds less rewarding, since I often find myself having to give up a Potency slot just to get a superior or more interesting Soulbind slot.

Perhaps numbers-wise (for DPS anyway), this will be more arbitrary, and the Potency Conduit will always take precedence. Or maybe the number of useful options in a Conduit is low enough for your spec that you don't have to worry about getting enough of a certain type. Either way, I'm a bit worried about how that'll shape up for picking a Covenant and making builds using this new feature.

Comment by OphyJenkins

ummmmmm WoW just Wow.... I needed more coffee after looking at this. SMH

Comment by Yappie

Does anybody know what the blue line is that forms a trail from the top conduit to the bottom one in the chain? Does that represented your currently _selected_ conduit chain? In other words, if you have all of the conduit slots filled, you don't get the benefits of the conduits unless you run the blue line through them, is this correct?

Comment by bigity

Are these spec specific or shared?

Comment by Tilitator

Soulbinds/Conduits should at least be spec specific (kinda like the HoA was) so that we don't have to go back and forth to our sanctum every other raid boss to switch...

Comment by SaltiDawg

WORST IDEA EVER! Blizz Dev team... How can we make our player base hate us more, hmmm... Lets make another layer of Conduits! Yeah and make them static so when the player switches from healing spec to dps spec their healing conduits persist. haha yeah! then they will have to travel back to the Forge on Bonds to change them! OMG YEAH and then LETS CHARGE the player for switching specs! OMG YEAH! BRILLIANT!

Comment by zysis

In typical one-eyed Blizzard style, the hand never talks to the head. If you don't raid, don't expect to see ilvl conduits above 200 ilvl AT ALL. No upgraded PVP ones, nothing. Worst of all, the entire system caters wonderfully to end-game raiders and offers little else to the other 3 streams of content (again). Instead of Blizzard accepting that people cannot or won't raid, Blizzard simply offers those outside PVE raiding a huge eff you deal with it get good have no life and suffer mentality. Good job Blizzard!~ Meanwhile, in reality land, the competitor MMO is almost doubling Blizzard in subs when it used to be the other way around. Instead of viewing the consumer as hopeless addicts, Blizzard should start viewing their playerbase as the people who funded them and allowed them to keep doing what they love. -I think it's making good games but I'm certain the love of money has superceded making games altogether.

Comment by Robchew

Regarding the reset of conduits, I think this has changed since this guide was last updated.

The guide says:

The Soulbinds Interface allows you to do 4 things:
...
Reset the Soulbind tree so that you can start over.

I can't see the button anymore, but I can right-click conduits at any time to reset them, which activates the "Apply" button, letting you reset them anytime.

Shadowlands Soulbinds Overview - Covenants, Swapping, How to Unlock

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