I’m curious how useful Shadowmeld is.
I’ve never played a night elf. But I really hate getting targeted first in PVP as a priest, and I’m wondering if it would be useful as a way to stay “stealthed” until heals are needed for example, or a way to hide from a train.
Or perhaps there are other/better uses for this racial.
Shadowmeld is great for hiding from players that will laugh at you for picking the worst race for priest and wisp form is great for running back to your corpse quicker after getting ganked by someone who didn’t choose a terrible race/class combo
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It is an interesting ability with a lot of uses. In Vanilla you cannot Shadowmeld in combat, but that still leaves a lot of opportunities to use it offensively in PVP.
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Its less useful than Retail for sure. It’s not a racial Vanish at all. But its useful if you’re questing and need to stop and wait for a patrol to pass, or if you want a bio.
What might some of those uses be? I recall seeing hunters using shadowmeld when defending flags for example. Perhaps it allows them to avoid being ganked?
A Hunter might for example kite a player behind a tree > FD > Shadowmeld > eat and be ready to finish them off.
A Warrior could Shadowmeld in a spot and wait to ambush enemy players running by.
Anything like that. It’s a decent ability if used to to exploit the huge advantage of stealth.
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You can’t dodge abilities with Shadowmeld like you can with vanish so it really isn’t that useful.
Good for hiding in the open world and getting the drop one someone in wpvp tho.
It’s essentially an AFK tool, and it lets you drink and eat when resting without being seen easily - though it’s got a long cooldown, so that isn’t exactly the best use. In PvP you have to use it prior to entering combat, and it can stop the initial cast of something like an Aimed Shot or Frostbolt. It used to be used by Hunters to get the opener, you could cast a full Aimed Shot in stealth and it wouldn’t drop Shadowmeld until it went off (instead of going off immediately). You can still sort of do that, but it’s not as good.
Beyond that, it doesn’t really have a use. Pity.
Feign Death is honestly far more useful to get a trap out mid-combat, imo.
Are you sure about that? I’ve been playing this character since July of 2005, and I’m quite sure I’ve always used it to duck out of combat when I didn’t feel like fighting - especially when I was picking herbs and accidentally aggroed a mob that I didn’t want to waste time with. Or if I over-pulled and didn’t like my chances of surviving. There was a brief time during one of the later expansions when that functionality was broken, but it eventually was returned to normal.
When TBC came out, there was a mighty river of tears about Night Elf Druids who used Shadowmeld and then instant Flight Form to run away from a fight.
I remember watching a video of a vanilla hunter who tamed a really low level mob in the barrens, and kept it on the path while they’d shadowmeld off the path. When someone would attack the pet and flag them selves the hunter would use aimed shot and one shot them. It was pretty funny.
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Yep, you can’t use it in combat.
Shadowmeld is fantastic! I had a NE hunter. You can make a feign/shadowmeld macro that you can spam that’s fairly reliable if your raid wipes. Everyone will die and you will live and keep your buffs! gg! Also just for leveling on a pvp server it’s very useful. Helps with going AFK. It’s just a sick mechanic to have.
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I played a NE hunter in Vanilla, it had its uses. It did get nerfed so that you’d come out of stealth at the start of abilities instead of the end, but it was still useful.
You could eat/drink without drawing aggro.
You could stage ambushes on the unsuspecting.
You could LoS and hide from mobs, patrols, or players.
If I remember correctly I think rogues and Druids got a stealth bonus, “Less likely to be detected.”
It’s great for going afk to tend to something or use the bathroom.
I’m sure there’s other creative uses, but those are probably the most common.
It’s a quality of life racial, and I’d rather have a powerful racial over it myself. Specifically Hardiness or WotF.
Tried it tonight during the stress test - can’t use it in combat.
you mean the best race/class combo because Female Night Elf animations -> Dwarf animations of both genders.
How often do you AFK?
Who cares about keeping your buffs? If everyone died, they’re all going to rebuff anyway…
Roll an NE priest on a PvP realm, Shadowmeld in Blackrock Mountain, bind all your keys to Mind Control and remind everyone on the opposite faction how worthless your racial ability is as they’re going for a lava swim.
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Yep, if you are in the stress test you can easily try it for yourself. Attack a mob and try to Shadowmeld.
Yeah I still think shadowmeld is something to consider for priest given how much of an easy target, and priority target they are in any pvp situation. The folks that will be whining about not getting fear ward are usually nowhere to be found when we’re being ganked.
I like the idea of using shadowmeld to proactively gank lol. But I have a bad feeling wotf breaks mind control.