Tranquilizing Shot, you say, I don’t even have that one on my toolbar. It’s useless, right? For most fights yes, but there are one or two situations where it can be very helpful.
As the tooltip shows Tranquilizing Shot now ‘attempts’ to remove 1 engrage and 1 magic effect. In BC it was restricted to enrage effects, although it still had its situational uses.
In pve it removes enrage effects from a number of mobs, notably:
Gluth – Naxx – level 80 raid – I use tranquilizing shot constantly during this fight.
Fire elemental adds – Obsidian Sanctum – level 80 raid – I use it occasionally here – I am usually more concerned with either dpsing the boss, or MD and volley the adds to stick them to the tank, as some are running loose.
Kersistrasza – The Nexus – WOTLK instance/heroic
Aeonus – The Black Morass (Opening the Black Portal) – BC instance – I used to use it whenever he enraged in this fight
Anub’Ar Skirmishers – Azjol-Nerub – WOTLK instance/heroic (when they drop aggro and focus on the healer or a squishy, it’s actually an engage that can be dispelled.)
There are a number of others too, so try it on anything that enrages, and add a comment to this post, if you think there is a really helpful one I have missed.
Enrage attacks are temporary buffs and are those which tranq shot has always dispelled. There are obviously a couple of boss fights where enrage is a central part of the encounter, these bosses are immune to tranquilizing shot. Whereas it can be used on Gluth, whose enrage is a side show, it cannot be used on Grand Widow Faerlina, whose enrage is the main part of her encounter.
Tranq shot does not dispel frenzy buffs, which are triggered by low health or other conditions (e.g. timers), and cannot be dispelled. It also does not dispel Berserk buffs – these are usually “the boss goes mad if you don’t kill him in ’10’ mins and wipes the raid” buffs – and cannot be dispelled.
In pve it also remove magic effect from mobs, however, I have found this less useful
I haven’t found any instance where I have tried this and found it useful. When researching it, I also haven’t found anyone mention using it to remove a magic effect in pve. Tell us your thoughts, do you have any good examples? I will try it out on some mobs if I get the chance and report back, but as I don’t do many heroics on Tin any more, it may be a while before I find a use.
In pvp it removes enrages and all magic effects (buffs that show up as magic on the players character icon).
At one time the hunters offensive dispel was arcane shot, this was changed to Tranquilzing Shot. Making the latter more useful, but making the hunter have to choose to use it, rather than getting a free dispel with their DPS.
Each time it is used it attempts to remove one random buff from the player (which is why people will go into arena with ‘trash’ buffs on them). But it will also remove major buffs, such as all shields, e.g. Priests Power Word Shield, Ice Block, and Paladin Hands (e.g. Hand of Protection), fear ward, druid HOTs. Sadly it will not remove the infamous Pally bubble.
Offensive dispels have been watered down a bit, they no longer remove some player spells such as mage armor or pally seals. Blizzard felt that they were too powerful in previous seasons, upsetting the balancing of the classes, which was done on the basis that classes had certain spells available to them – spells which were being dispelled. Classes who rely on a lot of magic buffs also now have 30% dispel resist.
I don’t arena or pvp much, and admit I haven’t really thought to try it when I have (I am too busy dying), but I might next time I BG. I would be interested to hear from someone who does run arena regarding how useful they find it. With an 8 second cooldown, you could potentially strip a lot of the buffs from your opponents, the problem is each shot takes 8% of your base mana, and how quickly would that contribute to a drained mana bar, if you spammed it every time it was available? Researching it, there seems very mixed views on its usefulness (and the usefulness of dispells in arena generally), given the number of trash buffs, the RNG and randomness in which buff you will dispel, the high mana cost of dispels, and their global cooldowns. Some people find them extremely useful, some are qqing about them (but what’s new there, huh?)
In conclusion:
Tranquilize Here
Currently, I mainly use this shot on Gluth and sometimes on the fire elementals in Obsidian Sanctum. When I was of level for Black Morass, I used to use it will great success on Aeonus. Next time I go into a BG with Tin, I will pay more attention to it, and try it out on a few pesky pallys and squishies.
steady shot 