Advanced: Kyrian

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Welcome to PeakofSerenity’s Windwalker Monk PvE Kyrian Guide. This guide is designed to be a more in-depth look at the Kyrian Covenant. Navigate quickly to the section you need using the sidebar on the right.

For information on how the Covenants compare to each other, see the PvE Quick Guide.

This guide has been updated for Patch 9.0 and is regularly updated when discussion, theorycrafting, or testing yields new information.

Conduits
Kyrian
Necrolord
Night Fae
Venthyr

Recommendation

Right now the recommendation for most/all content is still Pelagos, although Kleia is close behind. Pelagos’s Combat Meditation gives you a boost of Mastery on top of what you’re already getting, further increasing the burst potential of this Covenant. Pelagos also provides two Potency Conduit slots as well as access to one Endurance Conduit slot and either an additional Endurance Conduit or a Finesse Conduit.

 

Abilities

Class Ability

Weapons of Order; a 2-minute cooldown that, for Windwalkers, provides 12.5% Mastery,  Rising Sun Kick gives a buff that reduces the cost of all Chi-spenders by 1, and  Blackout Kick reduces the cooldown of  Rising Sun Kick and  Fists of Fury by 2 seconds rather than 1. This is the covenant that has the most “going on”, but it doesn’t dramatically change how Windwalkers play during the buff. You will look to fit in as many  Rising Sun Kick as possible, get every  Fists of Fury into the  Rising Sun Kick chi-cost-reducing buff, and fill with  Blackout Kick and  Tiger Palm to keep resources up and reduce the other cooldowns as much as possible.

There are interesting tricks that may be possible, like casting  Fists of Fury and cancelling it immediately so that your  Storm, Earth, and Fire spirits continue to cast it while you go about using  Blackout Kick and  Tiger Palm still. This is currently believed to be the strongest Covenant ability for most purposes, especially given its cooldown synergy with  Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger and  Invoker’s Delight to give it a little bit more “umph”. The only “downside” to this is that Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger does not currently scale with our Mastery, so that aspect of the benefit is lost.

 

Signature Ability

Summon Steward; summons a little steward that provides some different things like a free talent change or a vendor. The big draw, however, is  Phial of Serenity, which is a healing potion that does not share the same cooldown as health potions. The potion also removes bleeds, which may end up being useful in Castle Nathria, however, they have been changing the damage of abilities from bleeds, so it may not be as useful in the live raid.

 

Soulbinds Quick Info

Ratings
  • Overall: Good
  • Raiding: Good
  • Mythic+: Good

 

Recommended Path

Ratings
  • Overall: Good
  • Raiding: Good
  • Mythic+: Good

 

Recommended Path

 

Ratings
  • Overall: Bad
  • Raiding: Bad
  • Mythic+: Bad

 

Recommended Path

 

 

Soulbinds In-Depth

Conduit Slots
  • Guaranteed: 1x Endurance, 1x Potency
  • Choice 1: 1x Endurance OR 1x Potency OR 1x Finesse
  • Choice 2: 1x Endurance OR 1x Finesse

 

Soulbind Nodes

1. Combat Meditation – Weapons of Order increases Mastery rating by 350 for 20 seconds and sometimes expels (up to 3) Sorrowful Memories. Walking through these extends this bonus by 6 seconds.

For us, this translates into 12.5% Mastery. However, as it’s Mastery rating and not a set percentage, this is affected by the diminishing returns on stats. Quite a decent addition and it lasts for a large portion of Weapons of Order. This further de-incentivizes breaking Mastery during Weapons of Order and is a large portion of why Pelagos is the go-to Soulbind.

2. Focusing Mantra – Defeating an enemy lowers the cooldown of your Phial of Serenity by 1 second.

Decent for world content and M+. Useless in raids as you don’t really defeat enemies that count towards this on most bosses.

3. Road of Trials – Defeating an enemy gives you 10% increased movement speed for 20 seconds. Effect is increased if it’s a powerful enemy.

Decent for speeding through world content, but virtually useless in M+ and completely useless in raids.

4. Phial of Patience – Phial of Serenity heals for 35% additional health, but its healing is turned into a HoT effect that lasts for 10 seconds.

Whereas it’s a big increase in healing, most of it will likely be overhealing as you’ll already be healed to full before the effect ends. An instant heal, even though doing less healing overall, is more valuable.

5. Bond of Friendship – Defeating an enemy reduces the cooldown of your Steward’s non-Phial services by 30 seconds.

These services are useless in raids and M+, as you don’t loot stuff to sell and you’re not able to change talents in M+. For raids, defeating enemies doesn’t really happen anyway so you won’t really get reduction at all.

6. Cleansed Vestments – When you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor, have a chance to obtain cleansed cloth and enchanting materials.

This gets you some extra materials (and therefore gold) during world content.

7. Let Go Of The Past – Using a spell or ability reduces your magic damage taken by 1% for 6 seconds. Using another spell or ability increases this amount by 1% when it is not a repeat of the previous spell or ability, stacking to 3%

You’re already going to be not repeating abilities, so this is just a bonus 3% magic reduction for something that we’re already doing.

Conduit Slots
  • Guaranteed: 1x Finesse, 1x Endurance
  • Choice 1: 1x Potency OR 1x Endurance
  • Choice 2: 1x Potency OR 1x Endurance OR 1x Finesse

 

Soulbind Nodes

1. Valiant Strikes – When you land a critical strike, you receive a stack of Valiant Strikes. Stacks up to 20. If a nearby party member drops below 50% health, the stacks are consumed to heal them for 1% of their maximum health per stack.

This can be a strong Soulbind Ability for healing if you have high Critical Strike. Historically Windwalkers have a decent amount of chance to Crit, but not a ton, so this is an average amount of healing for free.

2. Mentorship – When your health is above 90%, your nearby party members’ maximum health is increased by 5%.

5% is a small amount and as 90% health is the threshold at which it disappears, it’s gone too quickly to make a difference. Its better than nothing, but only just.

3. Ascendant Phial – Phial of Serenity makes you immune to Curse, Disease, Poison and Bleed effects for 8 seconds.

This is huge to get rid of otherwise undispellable bleeds or debuffs that you or your co-healers cannot dispel due to class limitations.

4. Cleansing Rites – After 5 seconds out of combat you gain a shield for 10% of your maximum health.

Good for world content, decent for Mythic+ depending on how much you chainpull (more chainpulling = less time out of combat = less useful), useless for raids as you don’t reset combat on bosses.

5. Ever Forward – While above 90% health, your mounted movement speed is increased by 10%.

A small movement speed increase for world content and in some open-air dungeons that allow mounting, otherwise it doesn’t do anything.

6. Bearer’s Pursuit – Your damaging spells and abilities have a chance to decrease your target’s movement speed by 45% for 20 seconds.

This can be really good for kiting mobs in Mythic+ and for keeping distance from the opponent in PvP. In raids however you won’t see a use for this.

7. Pointed Courage – You gain 1% increased Critical Strike chance for every nearby enemy or ally, stacking up to 5%

This is immensely strong depending on the number of players around you in raids. If you don’t have to massively spread in a fight, you’ll likely see a near-permanent 5% increase in Critical Strike chance. Being a melee you’re very likely to be at full stacks all the time

8. Resonant Accolades – When you receive healing while above 70% or you heal an ally above 70% health, 4% of the healing done is repeated over 5 seconds

This is a marginal amount of healing. Say you heal an ally from 70% to 95% health, this Soulbind ability will land your target at 96% health. You won’t be aiming for this.

Conduit Slots
  • Guaranteed: 1x Finesse, 1x Endurance
  • Choice 1: 1x Potency OR 1x Endurance
  • Choice 2: 1x Potency OR 1x Endurance OR 1x Finesse

 

Soulbind Nodes

1. Bron’s Call to Action – After using 90 damaging or healing spells and abilities, your next spell or ability summons Bron. Bron knocks back enemies when he’s summoned and then attacks and heals your targets for 30 seconds.

He does no major damage or healing. It’s a required Soulbind ability to move into the rest of the tree, but apart from that it’s pretty useless.

2. Forgelite Filter – When reduced below 35% health, Phial of Serenity automatically heals you and consumes a charge.

Sort of a nice safety net, but having control over your Phial is more valuable as 35% health is still easily recoverable yourself in most situations.

3. Charged Additive – Using Phial of Serenity knocks back nearby enemies.

Thunderstorm lite when you use your Phial can be pretty useful in world content if you need to get away from mobs that are aggroed to you and heal at the same time. In Mythic+, however, it is more likely that your tank will complain because you knocked the mobs away from him as well.

4. Regenerating Materials – Casting or receiving healing has a chance to improve the remaining durability on your armor.

This might be useful when you’re wiping over 300 times to a boss and you can’t cover your repairs anymore. Otherwise, just a flavour thingy.

5. Resilient Plumage – You take 20% reduced fall damage and after taking fall damage, damage you take is reduced by 20% for 15 seconds.

This can be really useful in fights where there’s knock-up and falling effects as a 20% damage reduction is huge. Fights like Fallen Avatar come to mind. Unless we get fights with such mechanics though, this will be useless.

6. Soulsteel Clamps – After standing still for 5 seconds, incoming stun and incapacitate effects are reduced by 30%. Lasts for 5 seconds once you start moving.

Pretty big for PvP and some Mythic+ trash to reduce the effectiveness of CC. Raids however don’t really have that kind of stuff so it’s useless there.

7. Hammer of Genesis – Damaging a new enemy grants you 3% Haste for 10 seconds, stacking up to 5.

Pretty solid for Mythic+ for when you pull new trash packs and Haste is more useful, but unlikely to be very useful overall.

8. Sparkling Driftglobe Core – When reduced below 35% health, you stun nearby enemies for 3 seconds. Can only occur once every 45 seconds.

A nice safety net in Mythic+, but maybe a bit iffy in Sanguine weeks (although pairing with Ring of Peace could see some really creative plays!). In raids, most adds are immune to stun, so this won’t help you there.

 

Changes with Covenant

Rotation

There is no dramatic change to how you prioritize your abilities when using Kyrian as your Covenant. The only change will be a slight one in what you do during the  Weapons of Order buff. During this time you’re priority will look like this:

  4. Blackout Kick to fill
  5. Tiger Palm to have enough Chi for the above

 

Talents

There is currently no change to how we set up our talents for Kyrian.

 

Gear

Choosing Kyrian doesn’t currently have any effect on what you’re looking to do with your gear.