In its current state I have to say that glyph is really a waste of a slot. A) You have to be almost melee range to use it. B) It increases the cooldown, and the duration of the fear is no where near it's cooldown. Speccing into imp psychic scream is an absolute waste of talents so ts hard to retort with that, and as a healer chances are you want to be at ranged healing. Overall there are far more classes with viable cc's.

Who said that Xaklo was a healer or had specced in to Improved Psychic Scream?

Also wanted to note that since spreists don't have much of a selection of glyphs anyway, you might want to think about putting Glyph of PW:S and Glyph of Dispel Magic in some slots to help out your healer a bit. Dispels and shields don't kick you out of shadowform and the extra healing could be just what your healer needs to stabilize incoming damage while he/she can focus on direct heals.

@gundam Sure there are other classes with better ccs that last longer, but consider if you get dropped in a group with a rogue, warrior, dk and whatever healer. Against 5-6 mobs that hit pretty hard, the only long-lasting CC at your group's disposal is sap, that leaves 5 more enemies to put the hurt on your tank/group. However, if you can fear most of the enemies, your group should be able to focus fire 1 or 2 of them down before the fear fades. I'm not saying fear should be your go to CC, but rather one that can simply buy a little bit of time to make the pulls easier.

My main argument is the waste of slot. Your example is rare for two reason, 1) There are few pulls in heroics that have 5-6 mobs that you wouldnt have better options (IE: Mind controlling humanoids) and 2)That group composition just about never happens, even in random dungeon. Overall in "extreme" situations you are still better off with unglyphed psychic scream to run in and fear bomb. But again, in the example you gave you already have a warrior in melee range that can do that. @Harvoc, you assume that I said he did? I was merely making a general statement about the talent.

Well, it's only based off my experience, and in my case I've seen far more instances of having that group combination (in some form or another) and I generally like to leave myself open to cast whatever utilities needed in a pinch from my priest spellbook rather than relying on damage done by an enemy I would be MCing. Maybe it's because I am a healer at heart, or maybe I just have trouble trusting PuGs to not wipe on every-single-pull, but I would rather fear a group and be ready to throw out PW:S/Psychic horror than be trapped in a MC with abilities I might not yet be familiar with (Yes I know you can drop out, but why bother casting it if not to stay in for the full duration?). I see you play differently and get to know the abilities of your MC'd enemies very well by what I've read in your post below, but I simply don't have the time to read up on each enemy; for me, enemy + mana = caster (silence) and enemy - mana = melee (psychic horror). And as for your statement about wasting a glyph slot, I have to completely disagree with you there. Aside from Glyph of Spirit Tap, a shadow priest's major glyphs slots are completely up to the priest's playstyle. Also, I think the fear-then-dps-and-individually-cc-any-other-mobs approach that I take GENERALLY works a lot better than MCing for the simple fact that not all your enemies will be humanoids.

MC certainly has gotten me alot of enjoyment in heroics. I MC just about everything I can and havent read about a single mob. My guild and I have been working on the heroics achievements so we have a group that is entirely competent. My opinions are a bit biased however, having a controlled group and talented tanks/healers its much easier to communicate in vent MC breaking, target control, etc. But it truely is by far the most OP CC in game, and upon breaking just be sure to have your mc target, targeted, a quick psychic horror and you are back mcing the mob again.

Just listen to this and you will see why its so op: Heroic deadmines: Bloodmage - Upon pull, dispel the cc immunity, you have access to 2 abilities. #1 a channel that gives your target 300% physical dmg incrase and 300% HP. Now that equates to a tank with 500k hp or a melee dps hitting for 90-100k (lol much?) 2nd ability, a holy fire that does 90k and a dot that does another 5-8k per tick. You will blow this deadmines farrrr faster than if you didnt use MC, and thats just one example ;)

Not to heap criticism on gundamx, but I totally disagree with the claim that any enhancements to Psychic Scream, Psychic Horror and Silence are a waste of a slot (or talent point). Now I've been running randoms with my friend Rshaman and he's intelligent too and knows how to play, so that helps. But honestly, with the current climate in heroics and pugs and in LFD, I respectfully disagree that any utility talents are a waste.

What else would you put in your major glyph slots as shadow? Pyschic Horror and Psychic Scream are two of the most applicable and appealing glyphs when you need CC or when you want to contribute (or not rely on other players who may not be as consistent or reliable). Those two are in for every heroic run because there just aren't many other choices? Dispel or Mass Dispel--every healer has a defensive magic dispel now and I don't use dispel anywhere near as often as my CC and interrupts. Inner Fire? Holy Nova? Sorry, no. The third I switch between Spirit Tap to snipe mana and Fade depending on the tank.

As for talents, you do have a bit more choice. Maxing out Imp MB (I rarely run into the CD with the pace our orbs proc--N.B. RNG). Paralysis? Not reliable unless you can use MSp with it, and that's not worth it on anything other than dying-soon adds. Phantasm? Inner Sanctum? For my points, nothing beats having a stationary AOE fear, targeted fear on 1m CD (and an added bonus of a 10sec disarm which can be huge even if they're immune to fear), and a silence to help avoid an accidental pull on the next group.

Everyone has different values, but everyone doesn't have the luxury of running with a guild or friends every heroic. For the LFD crawlers, having so many options to help out and contribute (PoM pre-pull is awesome even as shadow btw everyone) might just be well worth the points and the glyphs slots.

Oh, and I didn't forget, just that we agree already: Mind Control is amazing.

I've had my own rough time of it convincing PUG tanks (and even some guild tanks) to let me cc on my shadow priest. But for the most part, when they figure out that I can do it, they tend to love it.

I was so disappointed in WotLK because I'd hoped I would get to use my Shackle more often with all the undead mobs. Let me tell you that I just took the darn thing off my hotbar completely during that expansion. Imagine my squeal of absolute GLEE when I went into Herioc SFK for the first time!!! It took me a couple of pulls to explain to the tank that I have a cc that works on undead mobs, but when he saw the beauty of the shackle pull, it was nearly every pull.

And Mind Control... I've been having so much fun controlling various mobs and seeing what kind of new and fun abilities I'll have at my fingertips! If you get a cooperative group, heroics can be so much fun for a shadow priest these days!