No, I've definitely noticed it before. I've assumed that's how it works but was never sure - though it does amuse me every time a warrior gets MC'd and bitches about losing their recklessness.

Last night on this fight, I ran out of mana just before the mass mind control. When controlled I evocated back to full mana - and then ran over and started wacking the priest with my staff. I have *no* idea what sort of demented logic caused that chain of reactions, but I was pleasantly surprised...

I had one major lag burst about half way through when a mind control ended, but no disconnects from anyone in our group, so it definitely seems fixed.

And yet, in def stance MC *never* uses shield wall. It does however use last stand all the time.

That shouldn't happen anymore. A few patches back, MC was changed to not use abilities on longer than a 15min CD.

We dont care though! It always does the same : Deathwish, then fear, then shoot twice, then slam the nearest paladin.

One thing's for sure, this fight sucks for priests. Our priest gets MC'd and then spams holy nova until he's out of mana after the first MC. Pretty shitty =\

Last run through the labs, I repeatedly cast various different types of mage armours (ice/mage/fire) and a couple of time I cast evocation too... I'm guessing the armour had something to do with who i targeted or targeted me or maybe related to the type of dmg I took... ice for melee, mage for magical and fire for attacking someone... casting 4-5 armours in a row really eats through your mana quickly.

Funny thing is the MC scales with your gear. I don't like this fight in all honesty, after having 3 people smashing on me and eventually killing me while hammering my ice block button I've decided randomness sucks :P I wonder if you still get MC'd if you are already ice blocked as it's cast. You definately can't use it while already MC'd and Invisibility doesn't avoid it either (and it didn't take me out of combat and allow me to drink much to my annoyance).

Last night in Shadow Labs, we were on the Spellbinders near the end, and I got caught in a MC with AR and BF up (it was late!). So the mob goes green, party goes red, and I think I'm about to explode one of our healers when... the AI decides to turn around and chuck a dart at our hunter. It definitely still likes to blow cooldowns, but it's not the "all cooldowns go first" that it used to be. Also new to me was that you can gain skill points while mind controlled...

As far as Blackheart goes, you can avoid the MC if you Vanish at the right time. Picking that time, though, is the tricky part.

Is there any good way to stop the MC from picking on a healer (beyond just spreading way out)? We were fairly spread but on two runs everyone ran over and killed our shaman. On the runs when we didn't gang up on the shaman, he was easy.

Our theory is that it is a one minute timer. I'm pretty sure if you ice block right before it, you stay ice block.

Personally, I figure it's a dps race. The 3rd MC is when things really start to go south normally for us. As long as you are full hp before the mc hits, we have yet to kill each other.

You definetly can. If you're watching for it, you can get in ice block when he yells. You still get MC'd but the AI doesn't break block. You have to be really fast if you're waiting for the yell, I got in about 75% of the time.

Any other Warlocks find themselves casting Rain of Fire on...themselves?

Twice now I've been MC'd and standing there shooting at people, with nobody near me when all of a sudden I start casting Rain of Fire on myself...

The other night I had a sweet group that went on a couple of 5-man instance runs. Me, an elemental shaman, two enhancement shamans, and a warrior. Cycling bloodlusts, no CC so we could all drop searing and fire nova with reckless abandon, and the highlight of 4 fire elementals helping destroy a given boss. And anyone can offtank an add while healing themselves if it comes down to it. Honestly was the fastest and easiest Shattered Halls run I've ever done. Then we hit up Shadow Labyrinth, which was similarly smooth.... until Blackheart. Four MC'd shamans is horrible. Everyone chain lightnings each other, burning mana and bringing everyone critically low on health. We wiped, then came back and had to use all sorts of tricks with timed earth elementals and stoneclaw totems right before MC to have things that could "tank" us and otherwise keep us busy during the MC phase.

Depending on our group composition, we treat this very much like the spider boss in ZG now. We'll tank him on the left side by the door, while everyone else is on the hill on the right side. The OT (or whoever pulls aggro) will just bring him back across to the MT.

What I aim for on this fight is try to really keep my dots refreshed. I can sneak in a fresh SW:P right as he does his yell, and dots will continue to tick on him while chaos is going on. Keeping people topped off is really essential here -- VE is a great boon in that regard. Before the first MC, which can happen in as soon as 15 seconds or so, we make sure to blow all of our cooldowns and just go balls out on DPS. There's really no worries if you pull aggro at that point anyways, since it's not going to last for long. At full hp, even cloth can take 3-4 hits so if you have a healer who is reasonably alert it's not a big deal. I think it's better to treat as a DPS race since each time there is Chaos, you are going to lose X amount of mana. Why not blow that mana as quickly as you can on DPS instead?

Ironic that this is the hardest boss of the instance though -- but it's still a lot of fun!

Only mob MC that I've experienced so far where CoS doesn't break it. Every other MC seems to make me use CoS right off the bat which ends up breaking it.

It is a fun fight unless you bring one healer and the AI decides to have the rest of the group gang up on them. We ended up bringing the priest to about 5% when they got charged right after and died. This was fortunately when he was at about 10% and we just zerged him the rest of the way.

Blackheart Mage Priority List:

Priority 1: I have the wrong armor on. Change it. I don't care what kind of armor you started with, it was WRONG.

Priority 2: Dude, your staff skill sucks. Go beat on someone nearby to improve it.

Priority 3: Nobody near you? Obviously you HAVE to drop a Blizzard or Flamestrike on your own head.

Priority 4: I burned through all your mana last time Blizzard/Flamestriking uselessly? Well, you still have enough left for a Fireball or Scorch! Scorch/Fireball random target. Good thing you're a frost mage, right?

Priority 5: You don't even have enough mana to Scorch someone? Must be time to Evocation. At which point, go to priority 3.

(This is intended as a joke, but is remarkably similar to the order in which the AI chooses to do things when I get MCed.)

Do they not change shapes into other shapes? If not, would that then be a bug?

Wiping repeatedly on Blackheart last night (our group was just not enough; undergeared 68 shaman and a prot paladin healing a 69 tank doesn't bode well), I could pretty consistently get the iceblock off when he yelled if it was up. It stays up the normal 10s duration, so it takes you out of the fray for a good 2/3 of the incite.

I have yet to change shapes while being MCed in that or any other fight with a MC. I guess it's shapeshifting is on the do not cast list along with the port spells and 30 min cooldowns.

The worst thing for me was when I figured out you can actually gy zerg this fight. If you die, there is nothing stopping you from running back and joining in.

However.

Make sure you've cleared everything up to that point. We left a pack or two in the first room, and I got MCed just as I zoned in. The AI walked me over, targetted the unpulled pack, and scorched.

Dieing multiple times on the same attempt sucks.

We've had the first MC happen within 3 seconds of aggroing him, actually.

The MC fairly accurately mirrors my real game play. I cast mass dispell for no reason at all and smite inappropriate targets. If I was fully raidspecced and it holy novad me entirely oom, then youd be really hard pressed to tell that I had been MCd at all.

Interestingly I heard from a druid mate, who was healing in treeform, that he got banished by a warlock in the group.