Greetings all!
I wanted to point out a recurring issue with Hand of Freedom involving its inconsistency in PvE environments.
I’ve noticed that many movement-impairing effects like slows, roots, and knockbacks work on me despite my use of Hand of Freedom. It is my understanding that if an existing slow or root is present when Hand of Freedom is cast, it should be immediately dispelled, if not its effects of movement nullified for the duration of the buff. However, I’ve noticed on quite a few (hard to precisely recall all of them, but it’s quite a few) effects that reduce movement speed in addition to causing damage or root while also causing damage have their movement-impairing effects persist through Hand of Freedom.
I believe one of these kinds of effects is Withering, from the Brackenhide Shapers in Brackenhide Hollow. Withering doesn’t just reduce movement speed, but also haste and stacks a DoT. While having Blessing of Freedom eliminate the Haste and DoT debuff entirely shouldn’t be the intended use of the buff, it should nullify the movement speed reduction for the duration of the buff. I have not observed this interaction and using the spell winds up doing nothing whatsoever.
If the datamining in WoWHead is to be completely believed as a 1:1 how the code works, it seems like BoF applies an Aura: Immunity to Roots and Snares and that’s it. Nothing to prevent reduction in movement speed or knockbacks or pulls (which is how it’s interpretable that Blessing of Freedom should work: “immunity to movement-impairing effects” as knockbacks and pulls do, in fact, impair movement).
TL;DR: Blessing of Freedom is really just Blessing of Anti-Root-or-Snare. Either change its description so it doesn’t promise immunity or give it true immunity: Cannot have movement speed reduced by another effect, knockbacks and pulls have no effect on the buffed person, roots and snares have no effect on the buffed person. Making it have top priority for any dispel effects should eliminate some concerns regarding these effects on PvP.