“Not everyone agrees with me here, but I don’t recommend casting Shackle “every few seconds.” Each periodic check is the same as the initial resistance check. Instead, start casting and cancel repeatedly if you want to improve average response time to a break. Better yet have a Mage or Hunter stand ready to freeze the mob as you reapply Shackle. Also, lower Rank Shackle is no more likely to break than top Rank…but with proper Spellhit your Shackle will often outlast Rank 1’s 30 second limit. “

I did not know how spell hit factored into that equation and I have not run the instance in a while since i respecced and now have +16% spell hit.

Thanks for the information. :)

As for the differences between your Shackles and the other priest’s, could positioning have been an issue? Could there have been a Totem of Wrath, a draenei, or some other unaccounted for factor affecting hit chance?

When healing or DPSing in Kara, I got myself in the habit of reshackling when Moroes vanishes. It times out very well and I haven’t had any problems (even with the lack of hit on my healing gear). Sure, it will occasionally break early, but that is expected.

One trick is to keep some Netherweave Nets (from tailoring) around, and make a macro to toss them on your focus target when you notice that the shackle has broken. Another helpful tool is a mod called “CCBreaker” (download from wowace.com) that will tell you who breaks crowd control spells. It was really helpful for me and my guild when first starting out in Kara when supposedly shackled mobs kept running free. Thunderclap, Whirlwind, Consecrate, and Blade Flurry were the prime culprits in our case.

However in practice I haven’t seen this happening. In particular in Kara with another holy priest with comparable +hit, I was reshackling regularly and she wasn’t. My shackles were staying up for the duration and hers were breaking typically after about 15 seconds. It was only a short part of the run and not statistically valid as a result, but got me questioning things.

The following posts appear to backup what I’ve seen in practice (reshackling), vs what I’d assume the case (and would like to be the case), of reshackling being irrelevent:
http://egotisticalpriest.omen-guild.net/?p=13
http://priestpower.blogspot.com/2007/07/healing-moroes-karas-raid-check.html

Seems like an interesting issue and I’d like to get to the bottom of it, not least ‘cos I’d like to see Moroes dead (starter Kara guild here) :)

In a nutshell, crowd control spells, like Shackle Undead and Mind Control, have a chance to break early. There are periodic checks every few seconds to see if the spell continues to hold. These checks are based off of your spell hit stat. Here’s the thing: the chance on check #1 that you fail your check and the spell breaks early is determined by the same roll on check #5, or check #7. Each check will give you the same chances.

Really, the only benefits to casting Shackle every 10 seconds is if you are fortunate enough to “catch” the mob right as the shackle breaks. It’s been suggested that if you have nothing better to do, you can keep starting to cast shackle, and interrupt it if it isn’t needed. Also, you will want to reshackle the mob a few seconds (maybe 10) before the spell ends, as to give you some buffer time if you have to do some emergency spam healing, have to move, etc., so that you do not have to worry about the shackle coming loose if things get hairy.

The drawbacks to fully recasting the spell every 10 seconds is that you are wasting mana, you are keeping yourself in the 5SR (if you are a healer), and you are dropping some of your DPS (if you are shadow).

The advice on several other priest blogs (e.g. Egotistical Priest, PriestPower) seems to suggest that reshackling every 10 seconds or so needs to be done *in addition* to getting the +hit gear too.

Certainly practical experience seems to suggest that re-shackling often seems to reduce the chance of breakage (although I don’t understand why the mechanic should work like that – surely the breakage chance per tick should be the same whether it is the original shackle or a reshackle after 10 seconds?)

Any thoughts?

Cheers
Dur