Fear effect

Fear effects are a form of crowd control that makes a victim to run in random directions, unable to perform most actions for a period of time. Feared creatures have a small chance to break Fear when damaged. Any Fear, no matter the duration listed, will last a maximum of 12 seconds when used against players in PvP, and fear is affected by diminishing returns.

Undead and Mechanical monsters are generally immune to Fear. Boss monsters, including lesser bosses of pre-70 instances, and some elite monsters are immune to Fear and other crowd control effects.

Fear, among all crowd control types, is unique in that the victim runs around, sometimes quite a distance before the effect ends. Players affected by it may run into awkward areas (though they will not fall off cliffs) or into more enemy monsters or players that may attack. Monsters affected by Fear may also run into groups of monsters, alerting their friends which then come running into the fight. The fact that it has a somewhat low chance of breaking on damage means that it can be as effective as a Stun with some luck, or more so if the enemy runs far away and must run back to you while you attack; on the other hand it can last too long and the enemy runs into a group of fellows, or break after only a hit or two.

Many Fear effects are magical and can be dispelled or reflected; many are Shadow and are affected by Shadow Resistance.

Some raid bosses cause Fear to the entire raid. Losing your fear before the tank does can be hazardous to your health as you may be acquired as the mob's target.

Player abilities that cause the fear effect

• The hunter's Scare Beast (only usable on Beasts)
• The paladin's Turn Undead (only usable on Undead)
• The priest's Psychic Scream
• The warlock's Fear and Howl of Terror
• The warrior's Intimidating Shout

Fear Counters and Blocks

Counters

• Ways to remove Fear effects:
  • The Forsaken Racial trait Will of the Forsaken.
  • The Stormwind Human Racial trait Every Man for Himself
  • The Mage's Ice Block.
  • The Paladin's Divine Shield and Cleanse (Cleanse, however, cannot be cast on the Paladin themself while feared)
  • The Priest's Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel (both abilities cannot be cast on the Priest themself while feared)
  • The Warrior's Berserker Rage (removes and make the warrior immune until the effect expires).
  • The Shaman's Tremor Totem.
  • The Warlock pet Imp's Singe Magic
  • The Druid's Berserk
  • The Death Knight's Lichborne.
  • The Hunter's The Beast Within (beast mastery talent)
  • The PvP Trinkets.

Fear Prevention

• Talents that help preventing Fear or making you immune to fear:
  • The death knight's Anti-Magic Shell
  • The priest's Fear Ward
  • The shaman's Grounding Totem

Blocks

Another method of preventing Fear would be preventing the caster from using a Fear with a cast time through your own crowd control or anti-spellcasting abilities such as:

• • The Glimmering Mithril Insignia
  • The Blood Elf's Arcane Torrent
  • The Tauren's War Stomp
  • The Death Knight's Strangulate
  • The Hunter's Silencing Shot and Intimidation
  • The Mage's Counterspell
  • The Paladin's Hammer of Justice and Repentance
  • The Rogue's Cloak of Shadows, Kick, and any stun or blind
  • The Priest's Holy Word: Chastise
  • The Priest's Psychic Scream
  • The Shaman's Earth Shock
  • The Warlock's Howl of Terror, the Felhunter's Spell Lock, and the Felguard's Intercept
  • The Warrior's Pummel and Shield Bash
  • The Druid's Feral Charge

Also dealing fatal damage, a high shadow resistance, or avoiding the range or area the user can hit with fear are all viable ways to stop the Fear from happening. At the present time, there are thirty-one race/class combinations capable of either dispelling Fear, becoming immune to at least one Fear, or are capable of stopping the spell.

Patch Changes

• Patch 3.2.2 (2009-09-22): "Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within Changed to function like PvP Trinkets, removing any movement impairing effects, and giving immunity to these effects for 10 seconds."
  
• Patch 2.2.0 (25-Sep-2007): "Fear duration against PvP targets has been reduced to 10 seconds."
  
• Patch 2.1.0 (22-May-2007): "Chance to break crowd control from damage: The increased chance for a spell to break from taking a critical strike has been removed. Instead, all targets over level 60 have a slightly larger chance to break out of crowd-controlling effects when they take damage."
  
• / Patch 2.0.1 (05-Dec-2006): "In PvP, Crowd Control effects will last no longer than 12 seconds instead of the full duration, with a chance of a heartbeat resist."
  
• Patch 1.7.0 (13-Sep-2005): Druids should now be able to shapeshift back into caster form while Feared.