Priest - Mind Control (MC)Follow

I actually use Mind Control all the time in level 70 instances if we are lacking in other classes that can crowd control. I find that it doesn't break early as long as I don't move the thing I'm controlling around too much, ie don't run it too far away from you or it will break. You have to let your party members know when it's about to run out, or if it breaks early so they can jump on it. I usually fade as soon as it breaks or I cancel it in order to let the tank grab it more easily. If the tank is busy and can't grab it right away, I just shield and mind control the thing again. Sometimes they can't get it off me, but usually we can dps the mob down before it kills me :)

I never used it at lower levels, so I'm not sure if it resists more or breaks at those levels or anything. I would assume it's going to break more easily on mobs your level or higher, and last longer on mobs lower level.

Mind Control is really nice in certain instances. In Botanica, for example, you can MC the Menders and cast a +295 spell damage buff on the whole party-- this makes the instance go much faster. In many instances you can MC a mob with AoE spells and use it against the pull. This has two advantages-- it chews up all the enemies and usually gets the target killed, thus freeing you up.

Some tips with MC:

--Use spell hit gear when you MC. This will vastly improve your ability to keep MC from breaking. At your level there isn't much of this type of gear, unfortunately.

--Keep the mob close. When you start to run it out of range the chance to break goes way up.

--Instruct the tank that he must Taunt the enemy off of you when MC expires. Taunt works because it matches his aggro to yours; without it there's no physical way for him to generate enough to get it off.


I also occasionally can use MC in PvP. It's most useful whenever there's something to throw your victim off of, such as the bridge in the Blade's Edge arena or the hill at the AB Lumber Mill. (Another favorite is the bridge to Kara's side door-- won't kill 'em but annoys the heck out of them. It's a long run back up.) You can't really do much while you have the enemy MCed, but it does get them off of you.

Not a spell you would use much for grinding or exping, but I found it usefull in some situations;

PVE
- group of 4-5 mobs just MC one of them and let them kill their own mob, and you'll have one less mob to worry about.

PVP
- Jumping opposite faction off the BB-Ratchet boat, as been stated before, jumping people from Lumber Mill in AB etc - basically jumping people off various high locations - or into for instance lava :p

-vid

When I'm the main healer, I only use it before battles to have the group of mobs take out the one MCed.

If I'm a damage dealer I use it fight with and crowd-control. As mentioned, the AOE ones are nice, and the ones that can heal/buff. However, all mobs have advantages. The melee ones can do great damage and I usually have them off-tank another mob so I'm crowd-controlling two that way.

The other benefit to fighting this way is that you do not lose all your mana casting and yet you are doing good damage.

One other note, I've found that the caster types have much higher resistance to MC than melee types. They break much more frequently. It is shadow damage used for MC, so mobs that are naturally resistant to it will break more often.

I usually just fade when it is a break I wanted so the tank can get it off or I shield up and re-MC it if it is mid-fight.

Oh yeah, in places that have mobs tied to events ... continuous pulls, make sure your MCed mob is not the last one for the group to kill. Keep the sheep or whatever for last and have yours killed before that. The mob you MC is considered part of your party and if it is last then the next wave will start and when your MC breaks you now have an extra mob to deal with for the next batch. In some cases, I have even seen it reset the group you just finished with.

my understanding is that if a mob gets aggro-ed he cannot be mind controlled any more. is that correct? otherwise u could MC a mob that is coming after you.

sometimes fade is not enough to get a mob off you after MC.. I played with warriors that could not get the mob off me after a MC. You can say "bad warriors", true .... but still , that tells me how badly pissed off mobs are on me after i MC them.

I actually ran steamvaults with some of my guild's other officers the other day, we had a prot tank, a resto druid, an ice mage and 2 shadowpriests (of which I was one). Given the obvious lack of crowd control we were forced to mind control 2 mobs on every pull and it was bloody hilarious. It actually worked out easier than most other groups I've done it with before, because although you don't have as much reliable crowd control you're essentially fighting some mobs alone wheras they would usually be in groups of 5. I wouldn't recommend doing it without teamspeak/vent though, especially if you're all messing about like we were.

On the subject of MC, but slightly off-topic since it pertains to "friendly" PvP..

I know if you MC a person of the opposite faction and hit your Fort button, it will buff that person. (So a Horde Priest could give Fort to an Alliance personm and vice versa.) However, since you're essentially breaking the channelling to cast the Fort, the MC ends immediately. Really, it's essentially exploiting the split second between the channelling ending and the buff being cast. It's allowing you to buff the "friendly" target because it's MCed, but as soon as you do, it's not technically friendly. But the split second between makes a difference. Anyway.. =P

I'm assuming that, but haven't tried, any other instant-cast spell on an MC target would work also. Renew, Shield, Prayer of Mending. Anyone confirm/deny?

Also, a friend thought he was MCed and healed to full by an opposite-faction Priest that MCed him. As far as I'm aware, this is impossible. Am I missing something?

I saw a fun use of MC last night. The instance is a little high but the concept may hold.

We get to Blackheart's room with all the priests and worshippers. Well we pull the first shiva, down her and our healer says "Naked priest time! Stand back!"

Well, there was another rezzer (paladin, me) in the group so this worked. If you do this make sure you have someone who can res on demand not cooldown.

You may not be familiar with the instance but without enough crowd control in the group you end up pulling 3-4 mobs some heal, some have seed of corruption, etc. They're a pain but the priests are the worst. So our priest MCd their priest until the other mobs killed it. Of course they then all went after her and killed her. But we stayed back eating popcorn behind the battle and just rezzed her when they were reset.

Beauty, the worst mob gone, the good priest ok (armor stripped) after some snacks. Pretty funny actually. Though I recommend spacing this out as after a while you run into that 2 minute wait to res, which sucks.

So you can have fun with it!

(my priest is pretty low but she gets a great kick out of killing murloc with murloc in hillsbrad)