Jet Stream Talent
A new talent added to the Shaman class tree with the launch of War Within, 10% more movement speed and the ability to remove snares seems quite good at first glance, however in typical WoW tooltip fashion, its idea of “removes snares” does not work like other effects that “remove snares.”
“Removes Snares”
If you’ve been playing a while, you’re very aware that some effects cannot be removed by any abilities, specifically flagged to prevent even immunities from stopping them, usually to prevent cheesy strategies or class stacking to trivialize important mechanics. For example, sometimes it’s hard to determine what “stun” means on a WoW tooltip — is it a stun that I can remove using Divine Shield or Will to Survive, or a “stun” that I can’t do anything about? Snares work the same way, with some inexplicably ignoring any attempt to remove it.
There are other abilities in the game that mention removing snares, like Vengeful Retreat and Thunderous Paws, or movement impairing effects like Master’s Call. However, these spells aren’t actually coded to remove those effects; they instead provide an “immunity” to the effects. This may not seem like an important distinction, but in game terms it can be, when these “remove snare” abilities are used on:
- Spells that are just a snare without any other effect, they often can be removed, unless specifically flagged to not be effected by immunities.
- Spells that consist of multiple effects, such as a combined DoT and snare, those removals will often do nothing (or provide a snare immunity while the effect is active)
What can and cannot be removed is incredibly inconsistent and players typically have no way of knowing whether these immunities will work or not until they’ve tried it. Even then, Blizzard is inconsistent and two abilities that seem similar may operate differently. For example, Broodtwister’s Sticky Web can be removed by a wide variety of these immunity effects, while Queen Ansurek’s Frothing Gluttony cannot.
Actually Removes Snares
This is where Jet Stream comes in. The tooltip also mentions that it “removes snares,” but unlike every other “removes snares” ability in the game, Jet Stream doesn’t trigger a hidden immunity – it actually dispels snares. This subtle distinction gives the ability massive utility and has the potential to break the game in future tiers, as the dispel can bypass even those immunity restrictions. In practical terms, this means that Jet Stream can remove any ability with a snare, even those that typically cannot be negated by other effects… including some very big ones!
Current Applications of Jet Stream
Now that we’ve established how Jet Stream works, here are a few examples of how Jet Stream can be used to remove things that no other class can. Some of these can outright break some important encounter mechanics and it wouldn’t be surprising to see these change before the launch of Season 2.
Mists of Tirna Scithe
Right at the start of Mists of Tirna Scithe is the Tirnenn Villager, which casts Overgrowth. This channel is a combined DoT and snare, which no other effect can remove… except for Jet Stream. Dropping your Wind Rush while fighting it will both save a player from being stunned and negate all damage from the channel!
Queen Ansurek
The final boss of Nerub-ar Palace has several applications of Jet Stream:
- Intermission 1: remove all stacks of the slow and increasing Wrest damage from Paralyzing Venom.
- Phase 3: removing Royal Shackles is a more niche application, since lust is typically used during the main Shackles.
- Phase 3: there doesn’t appear to be much strategic value to removing Frothing Gluttony at the moment, but it might prove useful in a pinch.
Theoretically, Jet Stream could also work on Venom Nova in Phase 1 as well, though we still need to confirm it. Although these are just a few examples, it goes to show how Jet Stream has hidden utility that no other class can replicate, which could have a profound impact on group compositions and strategies in future tiers.
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