Shadowmeld, Gouge and Vanish

[Kazarak]

I read in another forum that Night Elves could use Shadowmeld as an additional Vanish if you dropped the target and blocked LoS. Is this vanilla or at a later stage in WoW?

I also heard mention in passing on another thread that Improved Gouge gives you enough time to open the distance and Stealth. Is that correct?

Thanks!

[Ohhgee]

apparently smeld does not drop combat here. so it's not useful for rogues.

imp gouge is essential for any PvP spec and it makes your gouge 5.5 seconds. It takes 6 seconds to drop combat. So yes, you can use gouge to restealth, but there is a 0.5 second window for your opponent to get an instant cast off. So against good players you'll need to use it in combination with LoS or dead zone kiting for melee

[Daggerknife]

Patch 3.0.2 (14-Oct-2008): Cooldown increased to 2 minutes, able to use in combat. Can no longer eat while in Shadowmeld. If you are eating and/or drinking and then Shadowmeld, you stop eating/drinking

You can't use it in combat, so it's pretty useless!

[Kazarak]

Thanks for clearing up Shadowmeld and Gouge me!

[Nugeneration]

You can't use it in combat, so it's pretty useless!

Shadowmeld should still provide a hidden bonus level to stealth. So, it isn't 100% useless per-say.

It should still allow you to spot other stealth characters first, but yes as an active combat ability it is quite useless for a Rogue.