So now that the spirit beast fad has died off, I've seen about a 50/50 split on Cranes and Shale Spiders. One must be better than the other though, right? Last season EVERYONE used a Monkey, so which is better in your opinion?
The Crane CC is one second longer than the Shale Spider, which can be crucial in landing a trap when the "stun" is DR'd or when trapping an Orc Shaman (a large majority of healers) against whom the web lasts ~2.3 seconds. The Crane CC can also be tremored or wotf'd, which isn't really a big deal. The only 2 healers that can wotf don't exist in arena at the moment and I've even had a rank 1 shaman tremor my Crane sleep only to get full warrior feared shortly after so that can almost be a benefit.
So in terms of landing traps, I prefer the Crane, however the Spider has +5% stats aura and a shorter CD on the CC which matches nicely with scatter. Do most players use Crane because they want the extra 1 second duration even though it's a longer CD? I know I've missed a fair few traps on Orc shamans that I could have landed with the Crane.
The pink crane also has swag though, so that's a benefit.