This is something I had noticed a while ago but had not read or heard about from other players. It is not even on Icy-Veins from what I have seen. Nor can I recall other Sylvanas players using it in such a manner.
Timed properly, Sylvanas’ Haunting Wave can be used to negate stuns and roots when using Haunting Wave’s mobility to transport her in the direction the initial banshee wave traveled. With proper usage it can be used to negate Illidan’s Hunt, Butcher’s Ruthless Onslaught, and Xul’s bone Prison are just examples. They’ll make contact or the ability with expire but if Sylvanas is traveling from A to B via Haunting Wave they are cancelled out.
I had not tested it against every ability so far, with the offenders being bots, but those abilities I have had success in canceling out with Butcher’s running hug and Xul’s bone prison being frequent attempts at locking me down with Chromie’s time out heroic being a runner up. Using Haunting Wave as such has saved Sylvanas’ undead toosh from getting put into time out more times than I can count when I play as her.
While I do not have concrete proof as it only happened once so far, I believe Haunting Wave’s unstoppable frames might last a little bit after using the mobility portion of the ability (maybe .5-.75 seconds if I had to guess), as I had a game where I should have been yoinked back to Chromie’s Temporal Loop location due to a poorly timed usage of Haunting Wave but wasn’t. However, this may be my mind playing tricks on me and not the ability itself.
I thought I would share for others to tinker with and hopefully help them out, as well to perhaps get others interested in experimenting with the ability to see what all it can do when used as such. I do not know the full extent of abilities it can negate as some are simply too fast to use such a sluggish move to counter such as Varian and Garrosh’s taunts, Uther’s stun, Valeera’s stealth abilities, and other such abilities that have no wind up time so to speak.
Edit: Ya know, this thread could have been avoided if I actually paid attention and spotted UNSTOPPABLE above Sylvanas’ head when in midflight
you cannot negate the disc since it just puts them in status
you can negate the silence afterwards but not the actual containment
unless you mean the circle of wardens
Huh, I thought it did. Tells how good my memory is.
Displacement does not affect Sylvanas while she is using Haunting Wave’s mobility portion but I also had not tested it against circle of wardens, though I would be surprised if the wardens would affect Sylvanas midflight.
it does, if you have very good timing on it, you can negate the silence, which is the good part of the ult and i’m sure it will keep the momentum, so even if you get isolated, the moment it ends, you’ll still be unstoppable and still in motion, but i’ve seen it happen very few times
as for wardens, it doesn’t stop her or pull her back
I’ve done it a few times with the Maiev bot which is always humorous avoiding getting yanked by her.
Yup, delayed stuns and roots it is useful against but anything sudden or super short it is difficult.
Makes it harder to justify using it with Festering Wounds in my opinion, and for me at least changing or replacing that talent with one that makes Haunting Wave perform better has mobility/escape would be a better choice.
It tells how much I pay attention when it takes hundreds of games for me to notice (or I did and forgot) that UNSTOPPABLE floats above her head midflight using the ability.
Like it is beneficial don’t get me wrong, if you can dodge a CC you win considerably a lot in the fight, but the issue with it is that it requires timing and mostly locked for very few specific and predictable CC.
If you are using this to dodge ETC’s Q you’d probably benefit more to use it with Windrunner to dive in and out while hoping that the ETC player is reckless with his Q to be predictable engage.
In case of other cases, Tyrael’s Judgement, Chromie’s Temporal Loop, (now loading) Glacial Spike hook, Butcher’s Charge are all examples of counterable abilities/heroics because you can predict and time it.
But the issue is always as is, it has a delay where you cannot trigger the teleport for the unstoppable until it moves slightly, the case is to not underestimate the enemy because anyone in high level would realize this can be done and will wait until you shred cooldowns, if you realize this by level 13 you pick Will of the Forsaken for that emergency button unless your allies have cleanses.
It’s a good high risk high reward gimmick outside of these predictable interactions but can help avoid dangers, do note that you still take damage mid flight, so you can teleport through a charging Butcher and take 10% of your Max HP as damage regardless, you probably die.
I’m not entirely sure about Containment Disc because I know it will put a stop to a Butcher mid-charge while he is Unstoppable, everything else like BP or Hunt are just common sense. However I don’t think you’ll manage to time it correctly most of the time.
It would be like pre-emptively trying to cancel Illidan’s Hunt from across the map using Tracer’s Recall, but the cast is so short it usually plays out even worse if you start to panic. If you know you can’t drop from being a target, use it at the very last moment instead so you don’t get stunned and to avoid the initial burst of damage. What everyone will do is fail at the first part but still waste it while he is flying towards you and you’ll appear on the map just in time to be served the full punishment.
Speaking of common sense, you can avoid Butcher’s Charge with Genji’s Dash if you use it the last moment before being hit, assuming he started it from max distance, his buff duration will simply expire and this huge burst of movement speed will save your life. Not sure if it would work against Illidan’s Hunt though because for what I know it might act differently to Pyroblast, which I sometimes manage to void with Haunting Wave and other time I fail miserably.
Just go with Will of the Forsaken talent, Life Drain is overrated because you won’t be dueling against a fat target dummy every match.