For the priest ability, see Silence.

A silencing effect is a general term for abilities that prevent a caster from casting spells for a short duration of time. There are two types of silence effects:

• School lockouts, or interrupts, which only locks out a certain school but allows the player (or mob) to cast spells in his/her arsenal that are of another school
• Universal silence, which renders a player completely unable to perform any spellcasting during the duration of the effect

As of patch 3.2, the following silence abilities are available to players (most of which require talent points to either make the ability available or improve the basic ability to give it a silence effect):

• Priest: Silence (Shadow talent)
• Warlock: Unstable Affliction (its dispel effect, Affliction talent), Spell Lock (Felhunter ability)
• Rogue: Kick, Garrote
• Mage: Counterspell
• Hunter: Silencing Shot (Marksman talent)
• Warrior: Pummel, Shield Bash and Heroic Throw
• Paladin: Avenger's Shield (with the Protection talent Shield of the Templar)
• Death Knight: Mind Freeze, Strangulate

• Blood Elves: Arcane Torrent
• Engineers: Arcane Bomb