I found shadow priests a strange breed. To be efficient the need mana regen, which requires 13 points out of their tree, and to do passable damage they need to avoid any “non-damage” talents. And to have any hope of not pulling aggro, there is 3 more talent points. Every class has some of this, its hopefully intentional.
Its also redundant. To play at all you need to spend them, which means you’re not really choosing your style, you’re making up a toon much like every other Shadow Priest. This does not make you feel very talented.
However one of the most interesting non-damage talent is Silence, which takes 3 talent points to get because its hidden behind the fear ability. Grrrrr, I can’t even see a reason for this in PvP builds, which I suppose is what Silence might be for, but thats forgetting that so many caster mobs in soloing are rendered useless when silenced, so its darn handy.
It looks like nobody ever actually took a logical look at the Shadow talent tree during dev, because its a total dog’s breakfast. Which I hope gets some love in the xpac, but from what I’m seeing, not much.
I’m still a newbie at SPriests, so maybe its something that you accept with time.
TyphoonAndrew's - Eye of the Storm 
I liked silence when I had it.. Untill I was told to get back into the cookie cutter spec where I belonged /sob
Its an ignored spell interrupt, be it stopping a mob or a boss healing think Juilet in Opera ( if they arent immune to silence. ) or stop them from casting a damage spell. To use if effectively I think you would have do your research on bosses and present your case as to why you should be allowed to silence the mob and even then as no one like changing the way things are always done the Rl would prb kick you from raid for not being in raid spec or tell another class to do the interrupts. I’m also not sure of the comparision for other classes similar abilities when it comes to cool down, theirs might be shorter, like kick ect ect..
I used it while leveling my shadow priest as I found it a good way to get ranged casters to come closer to you( if they cant cast they go melee0 and reduce chance of pulling other mobs
Pugnacious I think you’re right, from what I’ve found by speaking to SPrs on my server.
Thats odd though, as I used it almost every trash pull in SL last night. Any pull with casters who like to stand back are made far easier with Silence. They’ll run right up to you, which gets them away from patrols, other mobs, and especially bosses (who hasn’t seen a melee body pull by accident while chasing down a caster?).
Its great CC imho, especially when combined with PsyScream. You can keep a few adds shutdown, which helps those tanks.
I can imaging this being good in Mgt, Sethek, Bot and many other places.
“I won’t shut up about Silence” might be a good banner. If it gets placed somewhere useful, or if their are enough talent points, I’ll try in permanently in spec.
It’s also very handy when your dps or tank is trying to pull a caster who refuses to move closer, and everyone ponders about pulling the rest of the mobs – and then with a silence the caster is forced to run at you and melee. Doesn’t always work that way, but it’s nice when it does.
Also fun in pvp when a mage freezes everyone in place and then prepares to level us with uber mage powers and then – silenced. I die a lot in pvp so those moments are always nice.
….aaaaand I hadn’t read your comment just above my last one (because I was so delighted to babble about silence) so now I appear to be a parrot.
Awk!
Heh.
heya BatGrl – Glad you love silence, and nice statement there, “babble about silence”. hehe.