How conduits work in World of Warcraft Shadowlands

Shadowlands is set to make a number of changes to World of Warcraft: a new story, new dungeons and raids, a revamped level system, and more.

One of the new mechanics you're going to get your hands on is the conduits. Although introduced in the beta of the expansion earlier, the mechanic was criticized, so Blizzard stepped in and made it work again. To keep you up to date, we've got a description of what this mechanism will involve here.

What are conduits?

Shadowlands introduces Soulbinding to the game; a mechanism that allows players who have joined an alliance to bind to one of its members. Each alliance offers three different Soul Binding Paths, each offering different bonuses. You can add a Conduit to different Sockets in your Soulbind path instead of the usual Covenant progression.

Conduits serve to add another layer of customization to your Soulbind, giving bonuses to your class or spec. You have the choice between three types of ducts:

Power conduits

These enhance your spell power and are specific to your spec or alliance. There are four for each DPS and healing, two for tanks, and four Alliance-specific conduits.

Endurance conduits

Conduits that give your character more defensive value through damage mitigation or healing enhancement There are three available for all specs and two for tanks only.

Finesse ducts

Provide additional utility to your class. Each class comes with four which are available for all specifications.

A Conduit is only allowed to us once per Soulbind, so if you use a Conduit for one of the sockets in a Soulbind path, you cannot use it in another socket. You can however use it in another Soulbind.

Where can you get conduits?

You can acquire Conduits through Mission Rewards from max level content like Dungeons, PvP, Raids, Reputations, World Quests, and more. Conduits will drop as personal loot and outside the loot table. So if you're going to get a Conduit, it will drop in addition to the other loot that drops. You also cannot swap conduits.

You can also purchase an Aethershunt Manifest from Ve'nari, the Broker in Mouth, and use it to add conduits you don't already have. You will need to have achieved Cordial reputation with Ve'nari and it will cost you 2500 Stygia.

Ve'nari
Image via WOWHead.com

All conduits use a persistent collection system, which means if you have a conduit and later get an upgraded version of that conduit, it will automatically update it to your collection.

Leveling the conduits

All conduits have 15 possible item levels that can be upgraded through the Aethershunt Manifest. When upgrading, the upgraded conduit will be randomly selected from your lowest rated conduits.

Replacement of ducts

You can only reselect and reset your conduits once per week at the Forge of Bonds in your Covenant Sanctum. Don't worry, though: replacing a duct won't destroy it, and it will return to your collection for later use.