The Egotistical Priest
An irreverent and opinionated discussion of the many classes
in the World of Warcraft gaming universe.
Shackle Undead
by Vonya
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.
* I will continue to call you “gentle snowflakes” until someone (other than my husband) catches the reference. Possibly even after.
** I did not write this macro. I stole it. I got it from the Mellonea guild boards, but I believe it was at least a third-generation gank before it reached those lofty halls. Many, many kudos to the person who DID write the macro, I tip my hat to you.
July 23rd, 2007
This does the same thing right?
/clearfocus [target=focus,dead,noexists,modifier:shift]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/cast [target=focus] Shackle Undead
July 24th, 2007
ggkthxbye – ….In my completely inexpert opinion….yes. And it looks much cleaner to boot. Combining three lines into one is certainly no bad thing. =]
July 24th, 2007
I dont know if you will read this, considerin its an old post now, but FOR THE LOVE GOD “up to 40 healing” IS NOT A RANDOM AMOUNT BETWEEN 1 & 40. IT IS 40, & 40 ONLY. NO MORE, NO LESS (bar spell coefficients).
July 24th, 2007
Mera – This…is news to me. There have been two types of gear – the “up to 40 healing” type and the “40 healing” type.
The fact that the verbiage changes indicates to me that the “up to” actually means that it is not straight 40.
The shackle spell says “up to” and rarely reaches the final number. Potions have random numbers, and rarely give you the max.
Why would gear be different?
If I’m wrong, I will sing praises to whoever made the change, but I’ve not seen much on the subject. Was this a change implemented along the lines of the “+dmg gear is also +heal gear” ?
It’s been a long time since I’ve tested the “up to suchandsuch” gear output, so perhaps I’m wrong on that. What’s your source of information?
July 24th, 2007
UPDATE – Mera was right, and gets like…I dunno…I don’t have anything like BRK’s Cool Points, but if I did, Mera’d get a boatload of them.
According to Lux Et Umbra, the priest guide on the official forums :
“Spellpower — “increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to X” less accurately known as “+damage” — is a commonly misunderstood stat. The trouble comes from the phrase “by up to”. It does NOT mean that each cast of the same spell gets a random Spellpower bonus within that range. For a particular spell, the bonus is identical every single cast. “
August 1st, 2007
The “up to” bit refers to spell power coefficients. Every bit of +Spell Damage or +Healing is subject to this. It is based on a general 3.5 second cast time. If your spell has a 3.5 second cast time, it gets full bonus. If the cast time is less, then you get a proportionately lower bonus to a minimum +43% (about) for spells with 1.5s or less casting time.
So your Greater Heal would get something like a +34 point bonus from that +40 gear and your Flash Heal would get +17.
August 1st, 2007
@nonHealer
Yup, I learn this too late to not look like an idiot up above. I still maintain that it’s very unfortunate verbiage to use. *harrumph*
August 16th, 2007
[...] to read more about how Shackle works or more details about how this macro works, go see her post here, and for that matter read her blog while your there. She inspired me to write this one even [...]
August 27th, 2007
Post Updated with information from comments to this point, with the exception of the untested alternate Macro. I need to test that sucker. If it works, it’s much more succinct than the one I’m using.
August 28th, 2007
I just thought I’d mention that you can dispel buffs from shackled targets without breaking the shackle. Though not many undead mobs buff themselves, and even fewer need shackling at all, one notable exception is the Spectral Stallions in Karazhan. Their buff “Absorb Vitality” “absorbs strength and stamina from nearby enemies and buffs strength of the caster”. It debuffs anyone within 30 yards by reducing their Strength and Stamina by 20 and stacks to 10 and lasts 10 seconds, while buffing itself with “Strength increased by 20%” which also stacks to 10 and lasts 30 seconds.
The debuff on your raid members is not dispellable, but the buff on the Stallion is. I figure one quick dispel and you’ve slashed the healing needed. If you see the stallion standing there in your shackle pretending to be a pony but he’s turned a pretty shade of purple and looks a little larger than he should be, throw a dispel his way. Incidentally its a life-saver if he breaks that shackle early and comes to nibble on you, those Stallions can really hit hard, letting them have a stacking strength buff is just silly.
J
August 29th, 2007
@Jalith
You did this just because I’ve already updated this post, didn’t you.
Evil, evil. You must be a shadowpriest.
August 29th, 2007
Updated. Again. *glares at Jalith*
*winks*
September 28th, 2007
Ok since i’m a noob and got asked to schackle (and heal) for moroes and such i had to ask… i quite didnt get how the macro works, to use it i need to target my undead, type /clearfocus [blablabla] then /focus [blabla again] and finally /cast [blabla etc] Shackle Undead… and then everytime i’ll click my shackle UD spell it’ll automatically reshackle the mob?
sorry if it did sound like the stupid question, consider i was falling asleep at the back of the classroom during the lesson and quite didnt listen
btw any good addons for priests i should get? (yeah i know t took me 70 lvls to discover the world of macros and addons… such a shame)
Btw thanks a lot for that blog soooo useful
September 28th, 2007
@Luni
I don’t think I can explain it again and have it make any more sense than that.
Two questions would be
1) Do you know how to make a macro?
and
2) Do you know what “focus” is?
September 28th, 2007
As i said, i’ve never made a macro before so 1. nope (please dont try to start to cry) as for focus i think i got it, thanks to your explanation, but i have to say it was the first time i heard of it… i guess i should wander into the englsh spoken forums more often…
September 28th, 2007
@Lumi
Aha, that explains it.
I should probably make a post on macros.
What you do is (in game) type
/macro
That’ll bring up the macro window. Make a new one (whatever icon/name floats your boat), and then back at the main window, there’s a great big black textbox. Paste the macro text above into it, and then drag the macro icon down to your bars. Use the new icon INSTEAD of your traditional shackle button.
That should probably clear up the confusion, let me know if there’s more. =]
September 28th, 2007
Nope ma’am, that was perfect
Thanks a lot
September 28th, 2007
nope, thanks ma’am.
September 29th, 2007
KK i used the alternate macro, it did work… just fyi…
Thanks again about it, helps a lot in kara!
October 1st, 2007
‘Gentle Snowflakes’!!!! I love it! Lewis Black is, of course, a warlock.
October 2nd, 2007
@Rubella
Firstly, awesome name. Doubly awesome if you’re an affliction warlock.
And woo, you got the quote!!
October 3rd, 2007
Hehe … I AM an affliction ‘lock
October 3rd, 2007
@Rubella
WINNAR!
January 6th, 2008
Stupid question alert.
Reshackling every 10 seconds seems to be a good tactic. My shackles stay under control that way. I’m not sure *why* though. The key point I’m confused on is:
“what this means is that the mob will try to break shackle every tick for up to 40 seconds”
If this is the case, then surely it doesn’t matter if it’s the 1st tick of the original shackle, the last tick of the original shackle, or the 1st tick of a reshackle. Either way it should be the same chance of breaking and the reshackle shouldn’t affect the chance of breaking for that tick. Unless there is some kind of diminishing return and the break-chance changes with each tick?
The reason I ask is based on the above logic I shouldn’t re-shackle, as either way the break chance should be the same on each tick. However in-game experience shows me that reshackling every 10 seconds rather than reshackling every 30 seconds keeps the mob under control better and I don’t understand why. Hope that made sense? And any ideas?
January 6th, 2008
Point of clarity: Shackle Undead lasts 30 seconds at rank 1 (learned at level 20), 40 seconds at rank 2 (learned at level 40), and 50 seconds at rank 3 (learned at level 60).
January 20th, 2008
[...] Priest has a great post all about shackle undead which is well worth a read, for priests and non-priests alike. The Ego version of the macro is [...]
February 4th, 2008
As to break shackle chance on tick…..
I’m no expert so i can tell you just nonsense, but that is the explanation I made up for myself:
Assuming the chance for breaking is 50% over the duration remaining of the shackle and each tick has a 5 sec duration. (I just assume, no idea what is correct…) At the start you have a 50% chance that it breaks, and the 50% are spread over your 50 sec duration. So for the next 5 sec you have a 10% chance of breaking. So you can risk to keep you busy with some other spells.
After lets say 40 sec, you still have 50% chance on break. so now the chace for a break is 25% for the next 5 sec…
I guess the % is far too low, but I’m bad in mathematics so I chose what i can manage
So please tell me…
.
February 12th, 2008
Great post here. Thank-you for the valuable Macro. I have been struggeling with my duties in Karazhan, and I believe this will make the required difference.
February 15th, 2008
Update. It works, heh, seriously the use of this macro just steped my game up to the next level, guild mates have new respect for thier dwarven healer.
March 18th, 2008
The shackle macro sounds great, and while I haven’t used it yet, there is one thing that bothers me. I use Decursive to manage debuff removal. I don’t use much in the way of macros to begin with, and Decursive just makes it easy. However, I DO know that Decursive makes use of focus so that all I need is to mouse-over any one of a second set of party/raid character frames and left or right click to cast the appropriate cleaning spell on the correct target without actually changing my target. If I had a shackle up when I did this, would the act of cleaning change my focus? For that matter, if I feel the need to cast a Renew on myself and I use the self-cast key, would that change my focus to me?
March 18th, 2008
@Strayfe
Likely it would cause problems, yes. I don’t use decursive or have any other use for my focus, but if you DO use focus in your healing, then the macro won’t help you because it won’t “remember” what it was supposed to be shackling.
May 21st, 2008
[...] go better tonight, when I move the focus macro to a key under my left hand. I must say, though, my shackle macro (thank you, Ego!!) worked like a charm! (And having reread Ego’s article, I now know what to [...]
May 30th, 2008
[...] to say about). Everywhere, except for on Moroes where a conflict between my shackle assignment, shackle macro and some noob tab-targetting caused my untimely death. I’d be interested in what other shadow [...]
August 1st, 2008
[...] Shackle Undead is the priest’s Crowd Control spell – it only works on undead, so it’s very situational. [...]
November 20th, 2008
A comment more than a year after the original post and with dubious value:
The following information was true before the release of WotLK and probably still is – my pudgy little dwarf turned into a furious whirlwind of doom, however, and thus is loath to test sundering at the moment:
Sunder Armour does not cause damage. Autohitting the shackled mob does. Demoralizing shout causes ridiculously low amounts of threat and can’t cover even a tiny widdle HoT ticking away.
What this basically means is that a tank can set the shackled mob as focus target, use a macro like /cast [target=focus] Sunder Armor whenever there is time for a global cooldown and build respectable threat on the shackled mob. This _by far_ beats shouting at them and also works on sheep and trapped targets (never tried it on a sapped mob and banished/cycloned things are immune, of course).
However, the tank can not safely tab-target the shackle and use sunder armour – any stray autoattacks will break the shackle (and leave the priests unhappy, in my experience). This also does not (at all) work with Devastate, as that ability includes a damage component.