eternalsinners

Taken from The Egotistical Priest



Shackle Undead

Today, my gentle snowflakes*, we will discuss the priest ability Shackle Undead.

Shackle Undead (or just “shackle”, as most people call it) is a spell learned from the priest trainer at level 20.

The tooltip says :

Shackles the target undead enemy for up to 40 sec. The shackled unit is unable to move, attack or cast spells. Any damage caused will release the target. Only one target can be shackled at a time.

Let’s dissect the tooltip a bit.

What Shackle DOES

“Shackles the target undead enemy”
Yup, you read that correctly. Only works on UNDEAD mobs. No, you cannot use it on a fellow player, no, it won’t work on wolves, crabs, bears, Defias, cats, chickens, sheep, worgen, demons, murlocks, or that hideous sweater your grandmother got you for Christmas last year.

Undead only, folks. Ghosts, zombies, shambling, dripping, disgusting undead. And before you ask, no, the “undead” race is immune to it as well. It was deemed too powerful in pvp and thus the playable race was declared “Forsaken”.

Onward.


“for up to 40 sec”
This is important, so make sure you look closely. Anything that says “up to”, you can immediately assume that it will very rarely actually reach that pinnacle value. Especially in the case of Shackle, realize that you can’t just set a timer to 40 seconds and know exactly when a mob will break loose. When shackle will break cannot be predicted, except in very rare cases. For high level priests, know that the length of shackle is affected by your Spell Hit rating - the more Spell Hit you have, the less likely they are to break early. For lowbie priests, don’t even worry about that now - come back and reread that when you start messing about in Outland.

Basically, what this means is that the mob will try to break shackle every tick for up to 40 seconds. The most this spell will last is 40 seconds, but it’s extremely likely to break early. Keep an eye on your shackled mob, and if you have a break in healing, go ahead and reshackle while you have time to breathe. Shackle early, shackle often. It’s a relatively cheap spell to cast, but it does have a cast time on it. When you hit 60 and learn it’s highest rank (3), shackle will last for up to 50 seconds, and costs only 150 mana. That’s a drop in the bucket, and it’ll cost you less mana to reshackle than it will to heal the damage caused by a rampaging undead mob.

Typically, I will shackle on the pull (more on this below), heal the tank two or three times, then reshackle. In easier instances or with wussier mobs, you aren’t likely to need that kind of proactive behavior.

Watch your shackles, folks. You should never have to decide whether it’s more important to heal the tank or reshackle your target, and your tank should be able to focus on whatever mobs are left instead of saving your squishy butt from a mob you were supposed to keep shackled.

My personal recommendation is to hit Black Morass until you get the [Star-Heart Lamp]. It’s got some spellhit on it and can be swapped during the fight, in case you’ve ever forgotten to switch before the fight starts. Not that I’ve ever done that, mind you.

If you’re less forgetful, I’d also recommend getting some gloves with spellhit and enchanting them with the spellhit enchant, and possibly even tossing some spellhit gems in them if they’re socketable. The idea is to get your spell hit rating up without having to sacrifice a lot of your healing gear. If all you have to do is swap gloves and offhand, you’re in good shape.

“The shackled unit is unable to move, attack, or cast spells.”
This, my friends, explains exactly what this mob can and cannot do. You can stand close enough to a mob that you could give it a companionable backrub, so long as it’s shackled. It will just stand there stupidly, looking around and wondering if it left the oven on.

It will do absolutely nothing to anyone so long as it’s shackled.

HOWEVER! This is very important - it still builds threat while it’s shackled. This means every heal you land pisses it off even more. This leads us to the next phrase…

“Any damage caused will release the target”
ANY damage. Any. This includes AOE damage from mages and warlocks, DoTs, and consecrate. Tying this back into the previous paragraph, this means that it is nearly untankable. I say “nearly” because a warrior can use Demoralizing Shout to build threat on the shackled mob. However, one Thunderclap and the mob is loose. Remember, ANY damage will break the shackle.

This phrase is why it is imperative that you shackle the mob as far away from your group as possible. If you know you will have a shackle on the next pull, discuss it with your puller (usually the tank or a skilled hunter). If you can, time it so that your shackle lands just after the pull. If it lands before the pull, then you’ve aggro’d the lot of them, and you’ll have to wait until the tank can do some sort of AOE threat before you can Fade and peel the mobs off of you.

If you can time it right, your shackled mob stays well away from the group. Your tanks and AOE damage dealers can go to town, AND you get plenty of time to recast your shackle if it breaks early. The mob still has to travel TO you, after all.

NOTE! Very important note. ONLY DAMAGE WILL RELEASE THE MOB. Any abilities which do not damage the mob will not release the shackle. You can dispell the mob to your heart’s content. Your warrior can shout to HIS heart’s content, and he’ll actually build aggro on the shackled mob by doing so, all without ever releasing it from its unearthy prison. Only damage will release the mob.

“Only one target can be shackled at a time.”
This is the last bit of the tooltip, and it tells you that you are only allowed to have a single shackle up at a time. Only one. If you shackle Mob_A, then turn around and shackle Mob_B, you’ve just released Mob_A. Yes, you read that right. Your second shackle will be successful, but you will RELEASE the first target, regardless of whether or not shackle would have failed, or anyone did any damage to it.

You can only have ONE shackled mob.

This is for pretty obvious reasons - it’d be overpowered if you were allowed to shackle indiscriminately.

When do you use shackle?
Pre-BC, it doesn’t have a very big role with instancing. Undead Scarlet Monastery, Razorfen Downs…even there, it’s just a nice tool, not a necessity. In Karazhan, however, you’ll probably be assigned some mobs to shackle, as the place is (literally) crawling with undead.

And undead mobs are notoriously armed with a nasty array of spells. They fear, they silence, they curse, they disease — sure, they’re generally fairly easy to kill, but they can utterly destroy your group before they fall. Practice shackling before you need it - just go out and find some low-level undead mob and familiarize yourself with reshackling, and test out any macros you may have. You never want to raid with an untested macro.

Which leads me to….

Macros**
Here is my favorite macro for shackle (and it can be slightly modified for any recastable crowd control spell such as Polymorph or Banish).

/clearfocus [modifier:shift]
/clearfocus [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/cast [target=focus] Shackle Undead

Don’t be scared, it’s a doozy of a macro, but it’s actually quite handy.

First thing to understand is that the good folks at Blizzard implemented something called a “focus” - it’s a way of “saving” a target for later use. If you set something as your focus, then you can cast on them without ever having to retarget them. Now THAT is handy. Not only do you not have to spend precious time panning your camera and looking for your shackled mob amidst the flailing panic of your group killing mobs, then try to click on your shackled mob while the hunter steps in front of your mouse - reposition, oh, now it’s the rogue, jumping up and moving around HIS target, he didn’t mean to get in front of your mouse - and OH, your shackle broke, and now the target isn’t where you thought he was, where did he go, but the tank needs a heal, and……not only do you not have to go through that pain, but you never have to move your target from your tank.

It’s a beautiful thing.

So! Now that we are all convinced of the power of focus, let’s dissect this macro a little, one line at a time.

Line 1) This will clear (empty) your focus, if the shift key is being held down. This becomes important in fights where you may have to swap shackle targets mid-fight, before your first shackle target dies. I’ll revisit that at the end, when it’ll make more sense.

Line 2) This will clear your focus if your current focus is dead.

Line 3) this will clear your focus if your current focus doesn’t exist.

Line 4) This will reset your focus to your currently targeted mob.

Line 5) This will cast Shackle Undead on your focus mob.

So! Let’s have an example. Let’s say you’re in a group with two priests, and you’re pulling a group of mobs that has two undead in it. Both priests are assigned a separate mob to shackle. The tank pulls the group, using whatever methods he has available. As soon as the two of you see him start to pull, you’re already behind him with your undead mob targeted. You press the macro.

Macro says “Is the shift key held down? No. Okay, is the current focus dead? No. Does the current focus exist? No - so it clears the focus. Do I have a focus? No - okay, set the current target as the focus. Cast Shackle Undead on the current focus.”

All in a split second. Your mob gets shackled and you hurriedly turn to the tank and start healing. The tank is at full health and doing well, so you decide to go ahead and cast shackle on your undead mob again. WITHOUT EVER CHANGING YOUR TARGET FROM THE TANK, you hit the macro again.

Macro says “Is the shift key held down? No. Okay, is the current focus dead? No. Does the current focus exist? Yes. Do I have a focus? Yes. Cast Shackle Undead on the current focus.”

BOOM, your mob is reshackled.

The group finishes up on the unshackled mobs, and moves to engage your undead. But wait! The other priest forgot to renew his shackle, and his mob shambles over and BLAMMO! Two hits and your compatriot is pushing up daisies. Since the group is already on YOUR undead, you quickly target the OTHER undead mob, HOLD DOWN THE SHIFT KEY, and hit your macro.

Macro says “Is the shift key held down? Yes - so it clears the focus. Is the current focus dead? No. Does the current focus exist? No, so it clears the focus (hey, a little overkill never hurts). Do I have a focus? No - set the current target as the focus. Cast Shackle Undead on the current focus.”

And, like magic, your new target is shackled.

IF, however, you’d forgotten to hold down the shift key, your OLD shackle target would have been reshackled. I could go through the macro-speak to show you why, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the class, to show that you truly understand what the macro’s doing.

The key to this is that using this macro will make single-target reshackling a snap. It complicates shackling a second target in the same fight while your previous shackle target is still alive, but it’s only a minor complication. I very much feel that the benefits of this macro outweigh the risks, especially for a priest who has taken this macro and practiced shackling and reshackling mobs with it. Did you go practice? Of course you did.

A Note to Other Classes
If we have been assigned a mob to shackle, please do not break the shackle. Do not hit, stun, AOE near, or even spit on its foot (assuming it has a foot). We’ve got this one covered. If we miscalculate and shackle breaks early, remember that we have no way of knowing WHEN it will break. It could break one second into being shackled. One thing we can promise is that if shackle breaks early and we’re not in the middle of a heal, we’ll be reshackling that mob as quickly as we can. Don’t touch it, and for the love of all that is holy, do not DoT it. If you cast a DoT on my shackled mob, I will be quite wroth with you.

Summary
Shackle early, shackle often. Macros make me happy.