Renowed 30 and beyond it’s broken mechanics when it comes to the game’s classes in Shadowland PvP. For starters, Kirians can reduce the duration of incoming stun effects by 30% by simply standing still! Necrolord Restoration Shamans can aura mastery flesh craft becoming entirely immune to literally any and every CC in the game. Holy Paladins can reduce the duration of incoming stuns and survive a rogue mage swap on their own, and that’s just to name a few of them when the classes hit 30 Renown and beyond.
Without further a do, let’s get on which soul bind ability you should be abusing in Shadowlands’ PvP and how to play around them!
Starting with Kirian, there are two busted defensive soul bind abilities here that players can choose from. The first one is: Sparkling Driftglobe Core & Soulsteel Clamps.
KIRIAN
If you’ve been hit by a random stun that you weren’t expecting, then this is what you need. The way it works is, if the player drops 50 percent health they will get a dispellable AoE stun to nearby enemies which occurs every 45 seconds. The range of the stun is pretty big and will be difficult to move out of especially for melee classes and something you would want to be aware of as a caster when playing against it.
There are still some drawbacks about it. It’s not going to be that useful against casters so it’s also likely for players to find it none or low value when using it in their games. Second, it does share diminishing returns with other stuns, meaning it could ruin the team’s strategy if their stunned DR’s are reset unexpectedly.
This may be a downside or upside depending on how you see it but there are a multitude of high value soul bind that you have to choose from. Also, after careful consideration, Holy Paladins should be the only one using this as you lose to much as any other class and spec.
This soul bind will buff the target once they’ve stood still for five seconds, a 30% stun duration reduction will follow. Again, this really only works well with Holy Paladins as other players don’t play Kirian and you have to stand totally still to get the buff. The play style is only viable for Holy Paladins as no other healers play Kirian and DPS classes generally need to actively move around. We don’t expect melees using this on the later part of things.
It’s worth noting that forced movements such as Fear will break this and interestingly, even subtle movement caused by things like Blind and Dragon’s breath also break it.
Sadly for players, it still really needs a few seconds for thee buff to tick down after the character moves so you can’t just fear it off and then just immediately stun as you need to wait for the debuff to actually tick down and fade first. The tooltip also does state it and also reduces incapacitation effects by 30% alongside stuns but does only work on stuns at the moment.
NECROLORD
Fleshcraft crowd control immunity effect Shamans, Death Knights, and Restoration Druids also have gained access to Ultimate form.
When channeling Fleshcraft, the player becomes totally to all crowd control effects during the 4 second channel time and then 4 seconds after that as well if you complete the channel. When we say immune, we literally mean you’re immune to all crowd control casts. There’s no secret code or hacking material that will make you viable to any crowd control with this. Even with Ring of Peace, Death Grip, and others, they will absolutely no effect.
Though, this can be stopped with spell interruptions like Kik and in doing so the crafter will no longer benefit from that additional 4 second immunity as they will not have completed their channel.
Fleshcraft may be green but it is on the Shadow School which Resto Shamans and Druids do not have. Meaning, they’re free to cast anything they like even when interrupted. So if you choose to pummel, you will have to pay the price to watch them precast whatever they like afterwards.
The standout class that classifies this ability as broken in the mechanics is the Restoration Shamans. As they easily synergize with ultimate power the most. On top of that, they can aura mastery their Fleshcraft becoming truly immune to any control.
VENTHIR
What this does is reduce all snares, roots, and interrupt effects users of this soulbind which is primarily Enhancement Shamans, Warriors, and Shadow or Disciplined Priest.
While the snare reductions are both nice on Enhanced and Warriors, it’s not that huge of a deal. The beneficiaries here certainly the Priests. Much more important here are how are Shadow Priests going to be far more difficult to lock down over the course of game.
As historically, one of the most vulnerable classes to completely shut down as a damage source. Shadowlands is making things easier for them with instant dots and now a 25% reduced lockout effect. While this may not be immediately felt on a single lockout for either the shadow priest or the interrupter, during the massive games, it’s a huge deal.
It’s worth noting that Familiar Predicaments does lose value when playing with the Holy Paladin given the concentration aura and familiar predicaments do not stack. This means that if a mage counterspells you with just concentration aura, it will be a 4.2 second lockout whereas if you only have familiar predicaments, the lockout will be 4.5 seconds.
VIDEO TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Intro
1:00 – Sparking Driftglobe Core
2:17 – Soulsteel Clamps
4:26 – Ultimate Form
7:33 – Familiar Predicaments