Rasix!

[Lantien]

Hey Rasix, I've noticed for a while now that we're actually on the same WoW server, Shadowsong.  However, while you're on the Horde side, I'm one of the many Alliance players (although not a night elf). I've been reading your wow blog entries as well as occasionally seeing your posts on the official realm forums. I'm a bit curious to get a view of the other side from a char higher than level 10, as well as life in an uber guild. I'm not interested in guild secrets or timetables; more of how organizationally life is compared to more casual-based guilds. You did a pretty good job in your blogs talking about life in the casual sense; after you joined up with the uberguild your posting fell off, and I was curious to see how things had changed.

I also noticed I haven't see you hitting up the daily TM/SS bloodorgy, at least when I'm around; now that Broken's decided to hit up PVP again, I was hoping to see you around to say.. hi.  :-D

[Rasix]

Well, there's a reason a I don't post much on the blog anymore and your post is part of it.  I honestly don't know who's reading it and I'm not sure I can remain honest without somewhat bashing my guild and the higher level game at times (Saturday's MC would have gotten me riled, I hate when people aren't paying attention during boss pulls).  Perhaps I could just write but make it an aim to keep any of my intraguild frustrations from spilling over.  I think most of my guild frustrations are just with certain people and certain aspects of raiding in particular, the leadership and direction of the guild are for the most part solid. 

Being in an "uber" guild is somewhat of an odd experience for me (quotes are because it's not much when you're outmanned horde on a backwater server).  It really conflicts with what I want to do in the game more than half of the time.  I can't log on my rogue or my shaman during raid times unless I want to raid.  This might often be doing something I don't want to do (MOLTEN FUCKING CORE, LBRS for Onyxia keys, dragons for Onyxia keys, <insert Onyxia key activity here>).   Sometime I just want to level my rogue, or pick flowers, or fish, or mine, but if the guild's doing something I got to help.  This happens a lot in off days too.  Being in an uber guild basically means your time for the most part is not your own when you're in game.  The trade off is you're well equiped, you're doing the highest level stuff your side can do (aka challenge!), and you've got order instead of chaos.

That being said, Broken is really one of the more lenient raiding guilds I've ever been a part of. You're allowed to have a real life.  You're allowed to miss raids.  You're allowed to come late and leave early.  You're not allowed, however, to do whatever the hell you feel like if they're raiding.  Raiding is not optional if you are on and have time to attend.  Plus, the majority of my play time is later at night, so for the most part, I get to do a lot of what I want (more than some people).   

Being Horde, on this server, is just frustrating.  I love hearing when Alliance says, "it's not a matter of getting 40 people to do X, it's getting 40 of the right people." OHH GEE, HOW NOVEL.   We're lucky if we have enough people on for 2 UBRS runs.  Saturday was the first time I've ever seen us with a full raid and that was with about 5 Horde Illuminati there (great folks, Cinder's group is really top notch).   We can't pull that off on a weekday.  I've rarely ever seen us hit 30 and that was during a big UBRS run to get people blooded.  It's hard seeing one side start to achieve something and you're unable to just because you quite honestly don't have the people to make real attempts.  Things should get a bit better soon, we've got some new recruits (healers too!) and it'll take a bit before they're salty and ready to really contribute outside of being a warm body (couple of our new recuits need a lot of work).

Benefits outside of raiding are plenty.  You have competent people to group with at all times.  There's always something going on.  Getting potions, enchants, crafting work is not a hassle. 

I haven't been doing TM/SS much (except for a couple of times), because I've been leveling my rogue.  Nearly 53 now.   I swear I've seen your name in game.. pvp even. 

[Lantien]

Yeah, I didn't want to put you in a position where you end up cheesing off the wrong people. My interest is more about how things have changed from before to after with respect to mechanics and general guild policies, and to a lesser extent, seeing how the Horde does things. One of the things I think that Blizzard has done very well, intentionally or not, is to help foster conflict between the Horde and the Alliance. For instance, the fact that neither group can communicate with each other, or the fact that while you can see when your town is being burned to the ground, you can't see when your own group is  attacking the other's cities, fostering a feeling that you're constantly being attacked. While I imagine there's many more Crossroad attacks, the number of attacks on Astranaar is nasty too. However, being that it's far away from IF, I don't think you're ever going to see a dedicated response from the Alliance to get enough guys to go there from the 60s. You may get a pretty good turnout from the 30s and 40s who are itching for a fight.

Let me talk a bit about my situation, which is slightly different from yours, both from the pre-uber, and post-uber standpoint. I'm playing mostly in a guild with people who have known each other for at least 5 years now; some of the guys have known each other since high school. As a result, there's a high degree of trust between the players, which is nice. At the same time, there's a definite divide between those who have played MMOs before, and those that have not, which can cause problems with respect to trying higher level difficulty stuff. In addition, that close-knit style makes it very hard to integrate in folks who everyone doesn't know very well, lest you lose some of that "closeness" in the translation. As a consequence, we're running a guild with around 8 guys above 40, and realistically 3 guys ready for Strath level or above content. We're in that limbo state where people are possible to hit some high end content, but not all of it, so there's a lot of LFG and working with other public players, which is at best a mixed bag.

As an aside, I'd actually argue that the vaunted Alliance Drama that's the hallmark of Shadowsong is being generated from three sources. The first is that there's higher rates for silly behavior from Night Elves that most other alliance races for some reason.  Armchair Psychologists can chime in why, I dare not because my guild is full of Night Elves.  Secondly, there's going to be some natural friction from all these non-uberguilded Alliance 60s, who are being thrown together in some higher stress, higher reward instances. One really expensive drop, or some miscommunication, and you'll have some very quick bitching. Finally, as the top level guilds start to move onto any of the high end content, a natural pecking order begins to form as groups try to jostle each other for position. I dare not quote examples, even the publically known ones. My main point though is that while the first one is true for the alliance, as the game progresses, I wouldn't be shocked if the latter two aspects start showing up in the Horde section as well.  And really, replace night elves with undead, and you see the same thing.  *ahem*. Not that this is any different from any other MMO where loot is valued greatly, naturally.

How being in a smaller guild affects my gaming time is pretty much a non-issue. I'm able on my own time to help lower level chars with quests, which is pretty relaxing. I also get to devote some of my gaming time to just general grind farming, like going out to the Western Plaguelands and killing stuff for scourgestones and runecloth, while hunting for Thorium. The problem comes up if I want to try to do something like get a key for UBRS, or begin getting ready to access Oxynia, which at my rate of play, I'm looking at a time table in the months.

Being on the other side, I'm a bit more blase about the Horde/Alliance disparity, naturally. For the most part, the true high end guilds are closing ranks; I was very lucky to make a good impression on a high end priest who was a free agent at the time, who later joined up with a top end guild, so I've been invited to UBRS runs whenever their Warriors are out. Consequently, everyone who isn't part of a guild large enough to do these sorts of things is on the same page, running Stratholme, Scholomance, and LBRS, with some Dire Maul to taste. It's weird to see top end high level players be totally nonexistant on the server for weeks at a time, and then when you start seeing them regularly again, they're decked out in purple loot. Amazing. I'll admit though, if you're comparing yourself with the top dogs on the Alliance side, it's pretty bad; the top guilds as far as I can tell are at this point totally self-sufficient.

However, the alliance to some degree has begun to take steps to counteract that. There's a channel devoted to having alliance chars help each other out in quests, which has naturally morphed into helping each other conquer high end content. The model does have success elsewhere allegedly; there's a rumor that a group composed of a number of small guilds banded together and killed Oxynia. I imagine that loot lust and raid rules will help hamstring that attempt though. It's in its infancy though, as far as I know they're just starting to begin forming groups to start trying Strath, and Scholomance together.

I'm pretty lazy about PVP. Whenever an instance run goes south, or I'm just feeling surly, I'll check around TM/SS for some combat, usually late at night server time (to those reading, Shadowsong is a PvE server). With the current conditions I'd say for Shadowsong that unless you're 55+, don't bother showing up. I don't think i really made a dent with respect to combat until I was around that level. This is especially true now that guards are being spawned at a much higher rate; if you can't survive 10 guards on you long enough for tank classes to pull them off you, or for AoE classes to nuke them into submission, you're going to end up at best doing ranged attacks, or using your utility skills to help other classes. I noticed on an earlier raid that the horde actually took a meaty chunk out of SS until they finally triggered guard spam. Once that guard spam kicked in though, the offensive got pushed back pretty fast. Generally speaking, my approach to PvP is pretty simple. I have the skills of a warrior, and a mindset of a rogue.

As for horde rogues, basically our guild's consensus is that we detest Horde rogues, especially Undead ones. WotF seems to do a marvelous job of taking down our cloth classes. As a result, in small scale skirmishes vs the big boys (like Trespass, Obsidian Syndicate, Horde Illuminati, etc), the undead rogues totally tear us to pieces. However, in large scale 20+ vs 20+ engagements, our guild takes great care to spot rogues and take them down as a unit, as a way of balancing nature.

[Viin]

Gesus, can I get this printed, bound, and shipped to me?

[Sky]

I'm not sure I can remain honest without somewhat bashing my guild and the higher level game at times (Saturday's MC would have gotten me riled, I hate when people aren't paying attention during boss pulls).  Perhaps I could just write but make it an aim to keep any of my intraguild frustrations from spilling over.  I think most of my guild frustrations are just with certain people and certain aspects of raiding in particular, the leadership and direction of the guild are for the most part solid.

Thanks for the reminder why I'm not "uber" and have zero interest in the WoW "instance endgame".

Gesus, can I get this printed, bound, and shipped to me?

Yeah, I only made it as far as that quote :p I think we need reports from the endgame folks like this to remind us how much we aren't missing.

My opinion, I consider that endgame uber politics&drama gameplay style equally valid as my own, more casual playstyle. :) I just shiver to think about it and can't understand how it can be remotely fun. Stupid database entry + model & texture map turn people into raging assholes. No thanks (then again, I'm hardcore about that behaviour...if someone snakes a damned Battered Chest on me, they go on my ignore list, it's an indicative behaviourism).

[Lantien]

Folks, I blame for my love of my college english classes for my essay right there.  Here is the cliff notes version:

1. Sorry Rasix, I didn't want to ge you in trouble.  I think how Blizzard makes it so that Alliance and Horde can't communicate makes it great for fostering PVP.  However, it makes it hard to get information for experiences that the other side has.

2. I'm in a guild of 12 people, 8 people above 40, 4 above 50.  This is hardly an uber guild. The downside of this is that we have problems finding groups to do high end content.

3. The server that Rasix and I are on is drama-tastic on the Alliance side.  This is partly because a) Night Elves tend to act like Night Elves, b) big loot makes everyone greedy, c) FOH as a model for high end guilds. Over time, I believe the horde side will exhibit the same aspects because they will get more people, it's only natural.

4. Being in a small guild allows me to do things on my own time.  However, if I want to do the true high level stuff, I'm going to take months on my own. Just a simple tradeoff.

5. Since I'm an alliance member, on a server where the Alliance is allegedly up 4-1 size wise (probably more like 2.5 to 1), I'm not as angry naturally about the inbalance. High level guilds are doing their own thing, not getting outside help, so small guilds/free agents aren't seeing much/any advantage, besides high level items that aren't BoP trickling down to the economy (sold at ridiculously high prices to start, to boot).

6. However, on shadowsong, small guilds are trying to band together and work on raids as a group, so they can experience some of the high level stuff themselves. There's even a channel where people from different guilds are going to try to pool their resources and time together to work for it, while retaining their separate guild identities.

7. General self-depreciating styled bragging about my PVP ability, coupled with why if you're sub level 55, don't bother trying PVP on a PVE server.

8. My guild hates horde rogues. They kill us good.  If we see them in a situation favorable to us, we will return the favor.

Ah well, easier to comprehend, loss of nuance.  So it goes.

[Hoax]

Rogues are ghey but you can own them hard if you really want to:

1. Cats-eye goggles all your engineers (and if you were playing to pvp, everyone should have engineering or be planning to change to it at some point).

2. I believe the goggles will stack with the potion.

3. Combine either pot or goggles w/ human ability and you will be able to spot rogues fairly easily.  If you spot them, they will die.

I tested this at lvl54 as a dwarf and I could catch glipses of 60 rogues, so at 60 esp if the goggle + pot stacks you should be able to see them fairly reliably.  If your casters w/ insta dots catch a glipse and are good you will wtf-rock any UD fotm fag rogues very easily.

Also Hunters are must have for small scale pvp, not only are the most reliable slowers (at least they were) but flare + mark is nice and they usually free your healer up a little because a good hunter should almost never need healing unless all their nukers target him/her.  Also fucking Shadowmeld + Aimed shot = a good way to start a fight.

[Sky]

Also fucking Shadowmeld + Aimed shot = a good way to start a fight.

Well, that's nice...unless you're not a night elf, or you are the entire Horde.

Fucking night elves and their fucking racial hide.

[Hoax]

You know what else is nice?

WotF...
Shaman... (I wont even get into the class lets just leave it at purge >>> clense).
Orc/Tauren Racials compared to useless Gnome/Dwarf Racials.

Horde are not gettting any sympathy from me after doing mostly pvp for 3months in this game.

*edit*

I'm talking purely pvp here, purge is an auto cast on everybody, once.  Shaman can do this easily because they dont wear silk clothing into battle and die in 3 seconds when primed.  Because palladin's are all raging homosexual morons who don't understand shit about GvG theory the chances of anybody who isn't a pld getting clensed are like less then .001%.

Also clense is redundent, only a bad priest isn't almost constantly casting dispell/renew/pws/swp.  Seriously I think I went several days without casting anything but those four and the occasional mind flay.

[Rasix]

Shaman... (I wont even get into the class lets just leave it at purge >>> clense).

Not having cleanse is a big pain in the ass horde side.  They really need to give another class the ability to remove magic effects.

[SurfD]

Shaman... (I wont even get into the class lets just leave it at purge >>> clense).

Not having cleanse is a big pain in the ass horde side.  They really need to give another class the ability to remove magic effects.

It also sucks to be a mage, only to find out that most of the high end "Curse" type spells used by players cant be dispelled due to the fact that someone convenitently forgot to include a "remove greater curse" spell in our repitoir.

[MrHat]

Shaman... (I wont even get into the class lets just leave it at purge >>> clense).

Not having cleanse is a big pain in the ass horde side.  They really need to give another class the ability to remove magic effects.

Just found out today that the warlock felhunter can remove magic effects by consuming them.

Lantien - Re: Small guilds.  My guild currently is small.  We're about 8 RL and friends of RL friends that enjoy hanging out with eachother.  I've been the only 60 for about 3 months now which sucks big time as I don't want to swap guilds to a different one and leave them behind.  If you have problems with pick up groups, at least you can get one, try being a rogue with no guild to back you.

Hoax, I fail to see how a remove poison/disease skill and a break snare/root skill are in anyway compared to 25% atp increase for 15s followed by a 25% atp decrease for 45s.  I've also been playing the PvP game for at least 3 months and being able to send 2-3 paladins into a group of horde without any problems makes a huge difference in breaking lines.  The real problem for me, at least on my server, is that every time a big group of alliance goes up against a big group of horde, it seems the alliance always comes out on top with the numbers.  The fun part is that almost 1/2 the alliance players that come can heal and remove debuffs.  The horde always comes out to about 3-4 healers.

Night elf racials are completely unbalanced compared to the others.  Being able to hide with any class at a L60 stealth level is stupid.  Being able to run back to yer corpse in PVP at horse speed is stupid.  Night elf rogues getting a free 3 talent points as a racial skill is stupid.  Blizzard needs to make a change: either make all active abilities have a negative (like orc and troll ones), or make all racial abilities have no negative (like night elf, gnome, undead, tauren).

[trias_e]

Orc/Tauren Racials compared to useless Gnome/Dwarf Racials.

Is this a joke that I missed?  Orc racials are pathetic compared to any alliance race, and Troll racials are beyond pathetic.  Horde <<< Alliance when it comes to racial abilities.

[pants]

Just found out today that the warlock felhunter can remove magic effects by consuming them.

And even better, there is a warlock script/macro/thingy doing the rounds that basically puts your felhunter into search and eat magic effects mode - our warlocks (we're horde) use it to great effect - I think they just turn it on and it runs around eating magic debuffs - do a search for Hungry Fellhunter I think it is (I don't play a lock myself).

[MrHat]

Just found out today that the warlock felhunter can remove magic effects by consuming them.

And even better, there is a warlock script/macro/thingy doing the rounds that basically puts your felhunter into search and eat magic effects mode - our warlocks (we're horde) use it to great effect - I think they just turn it on and it runs around eating magic debuffs - do a search for Hungry Fellhunter I think it is (I don't play a lock myself).

Niiiiiiice.

[Hoax]

@Hat:

If the orc stun racial works (I thought Blizzard had said they were going to fix it) then thats pretty sweet.

Notice I didn't mention trolls, they are definately on the short end of everything.

Oh and fyi here is how the alliance racials I mentioned really work:

Dwarf:  activate this and your now moving w/ a ~70% snare.  Yeah ok thats super swell, there isn't a disease/poison in the game any class would sacrifice all movement to remove.  I forget if I could manually remove "cheat" and just use it for an instant removal but no invuln.

Funny side note:  Priests can manually remove PWs and it will also remove the weakened soul effect, it allows you to basically keep PWs up 100% at 100% shield as long as you dont let it get destroyed.  I wouldn't be surprised if there are priests in the more ub3r guilds that have macros setup to do this for them at certain time intervals.

Gnome:  IT HAS A CAST TIME... if they changed this I apologize but 90% of the time you were out of root/snare before this piece of fucking shit went off.

Your right, Wisp form is godly because WoW's pvp is fucking retarded.  But Shadowmeld is very situational where WoF is hands down the greatest thing ever.

[Sky]

If the orc stun racial works (I thought Blizzard had said they were going to fix it) then thats pretty sweet.

Heh, that's a good one. (I play an orc hunter)

But Shadowmeld is very situational where WoF is hands down the greatest thing ever.

As I've said elsewhere, I'd rather have the afk button. The first skill I'd max on every UO character I've ever made is hiding.

If WoG is hands-down the greatest thing, ever....why isn't the imbalance heavy on the horde side? Maybe it's not, just a thought. You'd think everyone would be playing undead engineers.

[El Gallo]

If WoG is hands-down the greatest thing, ever....why isn't the imbalance heavy on the horde side? Maybe it's not, just a thought. You'd think everyone would be playing undead engineers.

Come on Sky, you've been around this genre long enough to know that the power of mangina is several orders of magnitude greater than the power of min/max.

[Merusk]

I thought the balance on the PvP servers WAS on the Horde side, which is where Min/Maxing racials counts the most.  On the PvE servers they're just nice bonuses.

That said, yes, my shadowmeld is too damn powerful when compared to other races for PvP.  I've escaped a PvP rout more often than not while fleeing by feigning then hiding in some bushes while everyone else is slaughtered.  WoTF needs a tweak and the others need to be just completly scrapped and redone if they're going to keep Shadowmeld in its current state.

[Calantus]

Cleanse >>> Purge.

Truthfully I'd trade purge for clease in a heartbeat if I could. All it takes is a few encounters where your priest is pollied 'til you realise a second dispeller would be pretty damn spiffy. Destroying buffs and shield sounds good, and don't get me wrong, it IS good, but it's nowhere near as good as removing sheeps, roots, seduce, fear, etc.

Also, you haven't known lame until you've been MC'd into lava by a shadowmelded priest. Aimed shot is nothing. :P

[Hoax]

A priest is being played poorly or got jumped if he/she lets himself be available for poly.  Outside of duels or GvG where my group got caught with their pants down I almost never got poly'd.  A mage that travels that deep into my group (blink or no) is going to die, fast. 

Unless you play a caster you dont realize how much purge pwns your survival rate in pvp.  All cloth classes have self buffs that Blizzard posted long ago in beta they were balanced to have active, then they created spells that remove them instantly for 40mp in their infinate fucking wisdom.

Yeah Shadowmeld MC is mean, but fairly situational and MC should have been nerfed 4 months ago I always said that when I played.

You know, playing Theorycraft in this thread is so much more fun then actually grinding the items and shit I needed or dealing with the deathrush when I actually played the game.

[Lantien]

Whoa, thread picked up quick. Since it's quickly moved on to PVP, some quick (no, honest) thoughts:

I'm on a PvE server, so the rules are a bit different than straight PVP. Basically for you PVP folk, you only flag when you're in an enemy city, or if you type /pvp, if you attack an opponent already flagged, or heal/buff/debuff a flagged person on your own side. It also lowers the usefulness of shadowmeld in an player vs player environment, since you can't just set aside dedicated shadowmeld gank parties, because short of a mob vs mob fight, you're very rarely going to find situations where there's only a single person or two flagged for PVP on a PVE server.

This allows for unusual distortions. For instance, it's not uncommon to see if a group is taking out a city, for a bunch of people to fly in to defend the city, assess the situation as hopeless, and choose not to flag for combat.  After enough people on the defending side have flown in, they wait for some event to happen, and all flag for combat at once, gaining surprised and initiative. This can be frustrating if you see a high level rogue creeping behind you, because you know he is going to stunlock you, and you can't tag him or break his stealth. On the other hand, this will play to your advantage when the tables are turned.

Hoax: It's not as much a factor of we're totally incompetant at PVP; we just don't have the numbers to sustain a raid on our own, and in small scale fights, like 4 vs 6, we don't have the firepower to stay competative.  However, in a 20 vs 20 raid, we're known to actively search for Rogues and dish out special pain to them, when they don't have dedicated healers to keep them alive.

Arguably, the alliance racial bonuses are more subtle than the Horde ones. A big factor is the Orc stun resistance not really working. If it did, you'd see some nice Orc Warrior builds, fairly resistant to stun when you tagged on the Warrior talent for stun/charm immunity, which would foul up the classic tactic of Paladin stun spam. WOTF is a killer on priests, and to a lesser extent, warlocks, with their ability to stop fear/charm in their tracks. Throw in the stun ability of Rogues, and Undead Rogues turn into very bold assassins vs cloth classes, attempting to take out healers and nukers when there are particulary poor odds to the rogue, and winning.

Don't underestimate Warstomp either; I've seen it used to horribly efficiency in skirmishes and as a last ditch run back to a formed battle line when a tauren gets too cocky and strays too far forward. The Dwarf racial bonuses generally suck unless you're a hunter (+gun bonus) because Stoneform has a horrible -mobility penalty, which is a huge no no in PVP so far. Also, Unless I'm mistaken, Escape Artist is a channeled effect; after you factor that in, you're probably only good for escaping stuff like Entangling Roots.

As for cleanse vs Purge, Rasix is right in theory; In practice, Paladins tend to have a belief that their spells only apply to themselves for some reason. Unless they're part of a well-trained group, I'm expecting to only get an intial blessing, and if I'm lucky and spam /healme, emergency heals from them, nothing more. Speculatively, perhaps the public perception that they were centerpieces as opposed to hybrids shaped their playstyle poorly.

MrHat: Ouch. I'd be really pissed if I was a Hunter, or a Rogue looking to join pickup instance runs, yeah.

[Sky]

I don't underestimate WarStomp or WotF, they are both good abilities. I guess I just wish there were a counterbalancing effect for the Horde (to shadowmeld), because the most powerful weapon in one's arsenal is that which allows him to avoid confrontation altogether.

At least in my book of tactics, which is very sneaky, I've been told. Having the advantage of choosing your battles as well as gaining the initiative on attack is not something that's as easily tangible as breaking fear or stunning opponents.

[Threash]

I don't underestimate WarStomp or WotF, they are both good abilities. I guess I just wish there were a counterbalancing effect for the Horde (to shadowmeld), because the most powerful weapon in one's arsenal is that which allows him to avoid confrontation altogether.

At least in my book of tactics, which is very sneaky, I've been told. Having the advantage of choosing your battles as well as gaining the initiative on attack is not something that's as easily tangible as breaking fear or stunning opponents.

The only thing shadowmeld is good for is for taking piss breaks. 

[Rasix]

Well, for rogues it's 3 free talent points in MOD, correct?

[Threash]

Well, for rogues it's 3 free talent points in MOD, correct?

No its like 1 mod.

[MrHat]

Well, for rogues it's 3 free talent points in MOD, correct?

No its like 1 mod.

It's 1 level of stealth so 2-3 talent points in MOD.

[Threash]

Well, for rogues it's 3 free talent points in MOD, correct?

No its like 1 mod.

It's 1 level of stealth so 2-3 talent points in MOD.

I wish i could dig up the thread but someone did extensive tests on the effect of shadowmeld on stealth compared to mod at the end of beta and it came out to be equal to a single point in mod.  Its been generally accepted on the rogue boards that shadowmeld = 1 mod, ive never heard anything about it being worth 3 talent points before.

[Lantien]

My perceptions about it is that it's somewhat useful in a PvE setting, and more valuable from a PvP setting.  The first comes from observations from the Alliance side players, the second point comes from theorycraft.

The important thing to keep in mind about Shadowmeld is that it only works while you're standing still. Once you move, you break Shadowmeld. This is what night elves  report. I have no clue if the shadowmeld "sticks" if you're a rogue and moving at the same time while stealthed though. Logic suggests otherwise, but Blizzard can be tricky like that sometimes.

So here's what it probably does:

PvE: There's really only 3 uses. One is if you're in a group, and the rest of the group wipes, you can find a corner, shadowmeld, and avoid combat until you res your teammates, or everyone comes back and regroups.  Two, you need to go AFK and don't want to logout.  3, which is the hardest to pull off, you're in a group of NE/Rogues, and wish to ambush an opponent.  You get an intentionally small group to bait the larger horde group into chasing, and when they stray too far, the NEs de-shadowmeld, and close in on the horde chasers. This level of sophistication is near impossible, and has only been theorized. Arguably while these are useful, they're not totally game breaking from a PvE perspective, unless you have a very high value placed on being able to go AFK at a moments notice.  From reading Sky's posts about playing guitar at the spur of the moment, I'll concede that would be pretty useful.

PvP: In addition to the above abilities, if you're in an area where you know there's going to be lots of lowbies running around in a contested area, find a well populated camping area, wait for a stray guy to pop out, and get some initiative attacks in. Mages Poly/Ice Nova, Warriors Charge, Rogues Stun opener, etc.  Since Shadowmeld adds to your MoD (but again, apparently only when you're standing still), you can really mess up a solo farming person who's not careful. Granted, you're playing a waiting game, banking on someone crossing paths with you; but to be fair, if your intention is to gank and corpse gank a person into frustration, waiting 5-10 minutes+ for someone to enter your area is a small price to pay, I suppose.

However, in PvE-based server Group vs Group combat, I'd argue that the element of surprise is valued less as the number of  combatants increases. In a very small, 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, etc styled combat system, 2 rogues and a healer class can really mess up a group.  In larger fights, people buddy up more, and are able to either dissuade the rogue from committing to the assassination and peel off, or at the very least, ensure that the rogue is unable to return home in one piece. I guess this is where your experiences with a Rogue kick in Rasix, your thoughts?

[Rasix]

I believe Shadowmeld adds to your stealth level even when moving. It's just an added perk for a NE rogue.  (I could be wrong)

Element of surprise, is useful at all times. Stealth is such and overpowering thing in PVP, I'm of the opinion that, playstyles be damned, it shouldn't be in the game.  In Shadowbane, stealthers didn't enter combat from the start (at least in our strategies) during large group encounters.  The main force would engage and then the stealthers would flank and just fucking tear through the soft targets who were likely engaged in the current skirmish.   

There's no point where stealth, IMO, becomes less useful in a PVP conflict.  The abilty to choose your fight, pick your target and either drop them like a rock or completely take them out of the fight is just very, very powerful.

TM/SS skirmishes aren't I believe indicative of how it will play out in the battlegrounds. Right now you just do the max range dance and go back and forth.  You're not capturing objectives, you're not using any real strategy. 

And I'm a shaman first at the moment, rogue is still in the works and haven't PVP'd with him much.

[Threash]

The important thing to keep in mind about Shadowmeld is that it only works while you're standing still. Once you move, you break Shadowmeld. This is what night elves  report. I have no clue if the shadowmeld "sticks" if you're a rogue and moving at the same time while stealthed though. Logic suggests otherwise, but Blizzard can be tricky like that sometimes.

Shadowmeld works as a passive ability for rogues granting them some extra stealth, you dont have to turn it on or off.  For everyone else it works as you described, also i have not run any tests on this but its seems to me that a shadowmelded non rogue is alot easier to spot than a stealthed rogue.

One is if you're in a group, and the rest of the group wipes, you can find a corner, shadowmeld, and avoid combat until you res your teammates, or everyone comes back and regroups.

You cannot do that, once you are in a fight you cannot stealth.  Unless you are a rogue and vanish, either way shadowmeld does not help in that regards.

Two, you need to go AFK and don't want to logout.

Thats what everyone i know uses it for, find a bush and hide while you take a leak.

PvP: In addition to the above abilities, if you're in an area where you know there's going to be lots of lowbies running around in a contested area, find a well populated camping area, wait for a stray guy to pop out, and get some initiative attacks in. Mages Poly/Ice Nova, Warriors Charge, Rogues Stun opener, etc.

Most gankers really do not have the patience for that, specially since its not necesary.  If you are hunting lowbies you simply go where they are instead of waiting for one to pass by.

[Merusk]

You cannot do that, once you are in a fight you cannot stealth.  Unless you are a rogue and vanish, either way shadowmeld does not help in that regards.

Unless you're a hunter. But then you're relying on jumper cables which are, at best,  30% useful.

[Hoax]

Stealth w/out movement is situational at best.  Outside of Hunters (aimed shot + shadowmeld is sexy) and if you are defending a static area.  I really feel that Wisp is by FAR the best alliance pvp racial, and the only one that even compares to WoF, War Stomp and an unbroken orc stun resist.

[Sky]

You get an intentionally small group to bait the larger horde group into chasing, and when they stray too far, the NEs de-shadowmeld, and close in on the horde chasers. This level of sophistication is near impossible, and has only been theorized.

I've seen it in action outside the crossroads. Paladin baited a bunch of guys, I got a feeling because he was running in an odd direction, so I held back. A bunch of rogues and a couple night elves jumped them from hiding. I thought it was pretty damn cool.

Element of surprise, is useful at all times. Stealth is such and overpowering thing in PVP, I'm of the opinion that, playstyles be damned, it shouldn't be in the game.  In Shadowbane, stealthers didn't enter combat from the start (at least in our strategies) during large group encounters.  The main force would engage and then the stealthers would flank and just fucking tear through the soft targets who were likely engaged in the current skirmish.   

Well, the first part is what I was saying, it's a subtle power, not overtly powerful. The second bit (about SB)...at least WoW has hunters to protect the finger-wagglers. And Blizz has already seen the need to boost anti-stealth techniques. That's a good sign, at least.

but its seems to me that a shadowmelded non rogue is alot easier to spot than a stealthed rogue.

Well, yeah. My point being a shadowmelded hunter is a lot tougher to spot than an orc hunter. Tactical advantage: Night Elf.

and an unbroken orc stun resist.

Heh, that was a good one! Funny guy.

[Threash]

Well, yeah. My point being a shadowmelded hunter is a lot tougher to spot than an orc hunter. Tactical advantage: Night Elf.

I don't know much about hunters but i guess if pets can be insta summoned then yeah you have a point, otherwise you'd be at a severe disadvantage fighting witout a pet (assuming you dismissed it since otherwise it would give you away).