Utility Skills

As a hybrid class i'm taken to raids because of the utility i bring which can sometimes be seen as more important then the damage i deal, as a shadow priest i have quite a few spells that can easily be used to the advantage of the raid group.

In Wotlk we lose a bit of our overall utility in favour of more DPS but that still dosent make us a pure damage class as we can bring a lot of benefits to our group such as:

Shackle Undead - this spell can be considered extremely useful when wotlk hits as our biggest enemies in the expansion are the scrouge which is a faction lead by the lich king and is almost entirely made of Undead type monsters, this is a very reliable form of CC and will prove invaluble to the team during fights where control is needed.

Vampiric Embrace - this spell turns a percentage of the damage i deal into Health for my party although during Tbc i dident use this much due to aggro problems, in wotlk we have more threat mitagation and tanks have more threat generation so i should be useing this more often

Vampiric Touch - our biggest utility spell in Tbc although it has been toned down a bit it will still see a strong use in wotlk as a way of restoring mana to our raid group.

Mind Control - this spell can be used as a way of CC humanoid type enemies although it can prove to be very unreliable at times, the biggest problem with this spell is that it breaks prematurely (quite often) and we can only do damage though the MC enemy (although this can sometimes be better then out overall damage such as MGT Heroic mobs)
This spell has a good use in PvP where you can throw someone off a cliff or into lava with it.

The Discipline Talent Spec has a few more utility skills including:

Power Infusion - increases casting speed and lowers spell mana cost, can be used 2 or 3 times in a fight and generally will be applied to a high damage dealer such as a Destro lock or a Mage when ever it seems apropiate.

Pain Suppression - this spell lowers the damage a person takes be a good percentage and can be used to counter incoming heavy hits or as a way to help someone who needs to buy some time before a heal is cast on them, probably best to use it on a tank before they get in trouble or as an O'SHI~ button.

A good priest needs to be able to use all his utility while still providing competative DPS (or healing in the Discipline spec case) in order to be able to fight effectively and help his raid group.

PS: i feel like my grammer is perticularly bad in this post although it is always going to be bad, i honestly don't think i word'd the opening paragraph well.