As Priests, we’re limited to blessed with 3 forms of crowd control:
- Mind Control
- Shackle Undead
- Psychic Scream
Unlike mages, Priests are not frequently called upon to CC targets. That means some of us are a little wet behind the ears on shackles. Honestly, how often have we used Shackle Undead on the road to 70? Maybe once or twice leveling in Duskwood. Or on a ghoul out in either Plaguelands. While you don’t need to be a Gnomish rocket scientist to figure out how to shackle targets, there’s no reason why you can’t shackle better.
Shackle Position
Figure out where your tank is going to stand when he engages the mobs. It’s doubly important if you have a Paladin tank. Is your tank going to pull mobs back or is he going to charge in? Don’t forget that any kind of damage will break shackles. Ideally, you want to time your shackles to land the moment your tank gets threat on all mobs. Try to park the Shackle in an area where it can’t receive AoE Damage. If there’s two Priests and you end up shackling your targets above one another (I’ve had it happen), you can try to split them up. What you want to do is get some distance between you and your shackle, put a shield on yourself, hit it Shadow Word: Death, and then shackle it again.
In the case of a Pally tank, I shackle after he hurls his Avenger’s Shield. If for some reason the shackle ends up getting consecrated, there’s nothing more you can do but heal your Pally tank and pray.
Shackle Often
The tooltip says that Shackle Undead lasts up to a certain amount of time (30 seconds or something, but I never read tooltips). Up to is the operative phrase here. It means that Shackle could break at any moment. I mentally set up my own heal rotations so that it ends up looking something like flash heal, greater heal, renew, shackle. I might throw in a Prayer of Mending or a shield to vary it up. The point here is that shackle is not going to last the entire duration.
Max Range Yourself
I’ve gotten myself killed by loose shackles before. Why? Because I was ingrained to keep my shackle target and my healing assignments on the screen in front of me. This leads to me literally standing on top of my shackle so I can watch it and the tank at the same time. If the shackle breaks, I die since Shackle generates something along the lines of 9000 threat.
The solution is to park yourself as far away as possible while being able to heal your tanks. Remember you don’t need to look at them. Look at your shackle and use your frames to heal.
Shackle When in Doubt
I almost always defer shackles to the Shadow Priest. But if both of you are holy, then it doesn’t matter. Draw straws or something. If there’s one shackle target, only one needs to stay on it unless it breaks.
I did Hex Lord yesterday out in Zul’Aman and one of the 4 mobs was an undead ghost. My Shadow Priest guildmate locked him down for a while until he got stunned and then killed because he was not able to get the shackle off in time. I think his shackle got resisted.
That’s why it’s nice to have 2 shackles go off. If the mob is secured by you and the shackle responsibility belongs to the other Priest, let him know so he can shackle it again so that it’s on his cooldown.
Raids are no time for showing off your ego. If no one volunteers to shackle, then step it up and volunteer.
On another note, thanks for all the positive comments and emails. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to read my blog. I would not have put this much effort into it if I didn’t think the effort was worth it. Have to admit though, I’m a little surprised no one’s expressed displeasure about the ads on the side. I was expecting at least 1 or 2 people. I guess it’s because it’s out of the way and doesn’t seem to be bothering the main stuff in the middle.
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