The 8 Most BROKEN Shadowlands Abilities & How To Counter Them | 9.0 PvP Guide

Nowadays, getting damage from the arena is high, and some abilities are powerful that you need to react instantly to survive. This guide will show you 8 of the most broken abilities in the game and how you can counter them.

#8 The Hunt

This is the covenant ability for demon hunters. You can often see demon hunters use this ability to execute it by casting it to low HP targets. You can often see this ability paired up with a stun like Chaos Nova to prevent all stunned targets from immediately reacting.

Best way to deal with the cooldown:

  • Try to remain above 30% HP
  • Avoid stacking up for chaos nova
  • Interrupt “The Hunt” cast if possible 

#7 Elemental Shaman Cooldown Stacking

This is considered one of the specs with many smaller cooldowns that can stack up many burst damage. This burst comes through the combination of Primordial Wave, Echoing Shock, Skyfury Totem, and Stormkeeper. 

How to counter instant cast damage:

  • Interrupt the Stormkeeper cast
  • Kill Sky fury Totem as quickly as possible
  • Track the cooldown of echoing shock
  • Do not be afraid to trade damage mitigation cooldowns.
  • Track the cooldown of echoing shock and primordial wave
  • Dispel flame shocks before damage happens
  • Lava burst will deal less damage to targets without flame shock.

#6 Enhancement Shaman Cooldown Stacking

These are some of the ways you might find yourself dead against enhancement shaman damage. The shaman dealt by this shaman DPS spec involves stacking a few cooldowns, mostly Ascendance, Doom Winds, Shamanism, and Chain Harvest. Ascendance is usually the scariest cooldown in this list, and it will usually be paired with the other spells. This is stacked with dropping Windfury weapon that can activate Doom Winds that can increase Windfury weapon damage. 

Best way to counter damage:

  • Track the cooldowns of Ascendance, Doom Winds, and Bloodlust/Heroism
  • Disarms and stuns are highly effective at shutting down enhancement shaman damage.
  • Kiting is not as reliable.
  • Track the cooldown of Doom Winds and Bloodlust 

#5 Storm, Earth, and Fire

Maybe you have been noticing in the arena recently how much damage wind walkers can do. That is because, in the world’s first run that happened recently, a wind walker monk was the top damage for his guild limit complexity on some of their boss attempts. That is because wind walker monks deal incredibly great with consistent damage even if no offensive cooldowns are used. Storm, Earth, and Fire create clones of the wind walker monk rather than copy their attacks giving the monk a damage increase. Every monk player also has access to Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger, and Weapons of Order.

Best way to counter damage:

  • Crowd Control the Monk as soon as possible during cooldowns
  • Watch out for Turbo Fists PVP talent
  • Avoid stacking up for Leg Sweep
  • Avoid using disarms as they don’t stop Monk damage.
  • Remember that Storm, Earth, and Fire has two charges.
  • Trade a damage mitigation cooldown if necessary

Bonus: Spear of Bastion

This is an ability available to Warriors with Carrion Covenant and creates an aoe circle on the ground that deals damage over time.

Ways to escape its aoe effect:

  • The port effect from the Demonic Gateway 
  • The Shadow priest’s Greater Fade
  • The Rogues Cloak of Shadows
  • The Venthyr Covenant’s Door of Shadows
  • The Hunter’s Craven Strategem 

Tips against Warriors

  • Track the cooldown of Warbreakers
  • Warbreakers signal incoming damage.
  • Disarm is useful, but watch out for Bladestorm and Die by the Sword.
  • Avoid stacking up against Warriors due to Cleave damage.
  • Be ready to use a mitigating damage cooldown.
  • AOE damage mitigating cooldowns are highly effective

#4 Mindgames

This ability is available to shadow and disciplined priests. Considered one of the unique abilities in the arena is that when cast on a target, the damage will be converted into healing, and some healing is converted into damage.

Best way to counter damage:

  • Try and dispel immediately.
  • Reflect the spell if possible with spells like Spell Reflection and Nether Ward
  • The damage dealt by Mindgames is capped.
  • It is possible to heal through the Mindgames damage.

#3 Incarnation and Convoke the Spirits

This is a combination of balanced druid spells. Incarnation gives a flat increase to balance druid damage and gives them lunar and solar eclipses that buffs both their wrath and Starfire damage. While Convoke the Spirits is a Night Fae ability that casts 16 random balanced druid spells throughout a 4-second channel.

Best way to counter the Convoke:

  • Interrupt Convoke cast as soon as possible
  • Try and save at least on dr to stop the cast if no interrupts are available.
  • Line of Site the damage if near a pillar

#2 Ret Paladin Cooldown Stacking

Ret Paladins often stack multiple cooldowns to unleash unstoppable damage. They will set up their damage with a combination of Avenging Wrath, Final Reckoning, Seraphim, and Divine Toll. These modifiers give paladins a massive increase in damage and are often used in conjunction with crowd control effects.

Best way to counter damage:

  • Try and cc the Ret as soon as possible
  • Disarm Limits some of the damage done by Paladins
  • Trade a damage mitigating  cooldown if needed
  • Kiting a Ret Paladin is possible
  • Do not underreact to Ret Paladin cooldowns

#1 Combustion

This is the most staple for Fire Mages in the arena for years now, but it has never been as powerful as it is now. That is because of the crit multiplier. Combustion causes every spell to crit, meaning the mage has a huge increase to their average damage. Mostly every Mage plays with the Rune of Power, which will auto-activate when Combustion is used.

Best way to counter damage:

  • Dispelling can be hard because of buffs from the Legendary Triune Ward
  • Use a powerful damage mitigating cooldown
  • Remember that Combust damage happens fast
  • Knock the mage out of the Rune of Power
  • Soak Meteor Damage

Time Stamps:

0:00 – Intro

1:35 – The Hunt

3:23 – Elemental Shaman Cooldown Stacking

5:46 – Enhancement Shaman Cooldown Stacking

8:29 – Storm, Earth, and Fire

11:03 – Spear Of Bastion

13:26 – Mindgames

15:31 – Incarnation And Convoke The Spirits

17:44 – Ret Paladin Cooldown Stacking

19:59 – Combustion

23:01 – Outro

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