Spatial Rift

DON'T RUN IN THE SAME DIRECTION AS THE RIFT!

It isn't a blink, it's a portal, so you get the most benefit when your character is far away from the portal.

Mobs chasing you? Fire it to one side of a rock/pillar/hill and run to the other side. When you hit it, you will portal through the rock and the mobs will have to run the long way round. The rift can't go through solid objects but you certainly can. Even on flat ground, if you run at right angles to the line of fire, you can portal a fair distance.

I did some testing on the Terrace at Shrine of Seven Stars (the terrace tiles are 5 yards wide). Standing still, the max distance you can portal is about 27 yards, about the same distance you can run. But fire it in one direction and turn and run the other way, and you will portal 52 yards, way better than blink.

Fire it parallel to the front wall, then duck inside the gate, you can get right inside and portal through the wall back outside. I can see that being used in WSG hallways.

As LuthofDS mentions, you can stand with your back to the balcony rail, fire it then step off backwards, and portal back up. However the rift will not fire into empty space, if you stand on a balcony or ledge and fire it, the rift will stay right in front of you.

Hopefully this (and the comments for boss-fight use) shows that it is not a useless ability.

edit: you don't fall further than its range in the six seconds: I went to the balcony of the Purple Parlor in the Violet Citadel in old Dalaran, fired it along the balcony and jumped off, it portals you back up.

I don't really see how this racial is all that useful. The shadow, or whatever is moving forward goes at walking speed. It can only be used in line of sight, so it does not go through objects or obstacles as some have suggested before. There is probably some use of this racial, but by the time the shadow travels 30 yards, I would have run 50 yards, it moves so slowly. Not to mention that if you don't press the button again within 5 seconds, your cast is wasted, the shadow disappears and nothing at all happens, but you do trigger your 3 minutes cooldown.

It would have been cool if the shadow stayed at the location for a while, or if we could position like we do with raid markers, or just a plain blink would have been cool. The only real use i can see of this: DBM telling you that you need to move in X seconds and in the last 5 seconds sending out the rift (Hopefully in the right direction and not into the fire) and then last moment teleport. That is assuming you do really use it within 5 seconds time frame, or you wont teleport at all and the boss is gonna kill you. :P

Edit: If it could be used while stunned or CC'd, then perhaps it would be very helpful to those with little mobility, as we would have some kind of delayed escape.

Lots of people bashing or underestimating this racial here... just makes me want to state the obvious: This racial is fantastic for pvp (especially as a monk.)

In Warsong Gulch you can come in from the second floor after having fired off the rift, grab the flag and teleport back up and to safety. There's very little anyone can do to stop you unless they catch you right as you jump down.

This is just one example of course, it's a fantastic and fun pvp racial.