Shackliscious

Two things every priest should have by the time they hit auchindoun: a shackle macro and the addon ubershackle.

Auchenai crypts and sethekk halls are the first instances in Outland with undead, which is why I picked auchindoun as a starting point. If you are still levelling through Azeroth and plan on running scholomance or stratholme, they could come in handy much sooner. Either way, it's time to elbow that mage out of the way and show them all some real crowd control. None of those fancy shape-shifting tricks, this is all about power.

Shackle Undead is an awesome ability. It roots an undead mob and prevents them from acting for up to 50 seconds at max rank. Other classes can crowd control undead too (paladins can fear, hunters can trap) but a shackle is the safest and most reliable form.

The hardest part of crowd control is ensuring the target stays locked down as long as required, and the biggest danger is that it breaks early or breaks and goes unnoticed. So we're going to tackle these issues with out neat new tools. The right macro will make the job of shackling much easier, while ubershackle will keep an eye on the shackled mob leaving you to focus on dps.

First, the macro. This is the one I use:

#show Shackle Undead
/clearfocus [modifier:shift]
/clearfocus [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/cast [target=focus] Shackle Undead
/p **** shackling %f ****

This is a basic focus macro that you'll find all over the internet. It will set your current target as your focus, shackle them, and announce to your party which mob you are shackling. You can then switch targets to dps. If you click this macro again it will reapply the shackle to the original target without you having to change your current target.

Once your focused target is dead, you can start again on a new mob and it will automatically reset your focus — at the start of a new pull, for example. If you want to shackle a different mob before your focus is dead, you hold down shift to reset your focus.

The beauty of this macro, and others like it, is that you don't have to tab target or click mobs every time you have to reshackle. If you've ever been in a tight spot with four or five mobs flying around you will know how slow and awkward that process can be. The shackle simply becomes another spell in your dps rotation.

But wait — how do I know when to reshackle, I hear you ask. A very astute and timely question.

If you use a dot timer, your shackle should show up. So you can watch it count down. But that won't tell you if the shackle breaks early. You could position yourself so you can see your shackled target, but that's not always easy and it will take your attention from dps. The answer is ubershackle.

This really simple addon by ferdydurke does two things: it flashes up countdown messages at 20 seconds, 10 seconds and 5 seconds from the end of the shackle, and it shows an alert and plays a sound when the shackle breaks. It will do this whether the shackle expires or breaks early. It works by following your focus, so it's only any good if you use it in combination with a macro.

So with ubershackle you should always know the status of your shackled mob, and with the macro it becomes a trivial task to keep them locked down.

A priest who can shackle well is an absolute godsend in these instances, and even more so in karazhan. Mages and rogues will sniff indignantly as you breeze past them to the front of the pack, your mystical chains at the ready.

With the scourge plague in Northrend, and a few tricks like these up our sleeves, I fully predict priests will become the number one chariot at crowd control in Wrath.