Are these changes on PTR already? Need to know if shock talents/pvp gloves still affect Wind Shear.

I can pull aggro on hodir occasionally Thats beside the point though if the MW5 change to hex goes through that will be a pretty large buff to enhancement shamans in pvp.

Some decent changes there, I was half expecting to get back an ms effect but this is nice too.

Funny, you know of a melee range interrupt that has a range of 25 yards?

Huh? I haven't had to 'hold back' since the 3.0 talents were released.

Some of us with less-than-stellar tanks could certainly pull before 3.1 when Spirit Weapons was melee only.

I wasn't saying that the changes were bad, just that there were going to be more in the works. Having a 6 second, effectively free (mana that we will get back from the SR change and no GCD cost) threat dump is very likely to get changed before everything settles. The issue of pulling aggro aside, only 2 other classes have threat dumps, rogues and cat druids, and both of theirs have an energy (which equals damage) cost and a GCD cost (though they have 1s GCD's and aren't usually GCD capped due to the nature of energy). If we get one that we can macro into any other button we have, that would go against previous designs and current ideals (the whole idea about making choices when using abilities).

As far as the change to earth shock, I suggested a similar change to it back when 3.1 was in the works, except that I suggested we get an AP reduction instead of an attack speed reduction, because I feel it would be more useful. I also suggested that it get bumped up to match the stats of the interrupts of other melee classes.

Malan: My point wasn't that Wind Shear was a melee range interrupt, but that it was an interrupt, which generally have the same cooldown and lock out, except for odd ones like Silencing Shot and Hammer of Justice, which have interrupts thrown on to make them not worthless against silence or stun immune mobs. Currently, all the melee range interrupts have a 4 second lock out and a 10 second cooldown except for Shield Bash which has a 6 second lock out and a 12 second cooldown. The other interrupts of note are Counterspell with an 8 second lock out and 24 second cooldown and Spell Lock (felhunter warlock pet) with a 6 second lock out and 24 second cooldown. Wind Shock falls into a completely different category, which is useful for fights where you want to interrupt every other spell, but not useful for working with any other interrupter in a rotation.

Additionally, looking back at the threat dump side of the ability, Feint and Cower both have 10 second cooldowns. So, it is likely that if Wind Shear keeps its threat dump that it will get a cooldown similar to Feint and Cower, which would also give it the same cooldown as the other melee range interrupts and result in an increase to a 4 second lock out.

So, I'm of the opinion that the ability will under go more changes and thus the quote from Hedin in my previous post was likely to be rendered void.

As for moving the threat reduction to resto, shaman are the only healer without an "oh shit, that mob is after me" button. Druids have barkskin, priests have fade, paladins have immunity. So, the threat dump is of some use to resto shaman, and putting it in the resto tree would remove it from the reach of DPS specs. It could also use a talent to increase the chance to hit with it in the event that a resto shaman needs to be part of an interrupt cycle, since they have no other hit rating.

Sorry what?? Hunter's have Feign Death, Mages have Invisibility, Paladins have Hand of Salvation, Warlocks have Soul Shatter. Your statement was just plain wrong and as such the remainder of your argument falls too.

This is a really dumb paragraph. Resto shaman don't use windshock in pve to drop aggro. They never pull aggro once established, so the only time they have aggro is when aggro has not been established sufficiently on a mob. This can occur on the opening pull of a pack (Auriaya) or when new mobs spawn in (Yogg P3). That's it. Most resto shaman don't even consider windshock's deaggro properties cause it never matters when people are doing their jobs. This is unlike DPS players who need aggro dumps even when everyone is performing as expected, simply due to being threat limited.

Resto shaman's lack of barkskin is a pvp issue. It needs to be solved (though resto shaman can be balanced in other way than giving them barkskin, bubble, or pain suppression), but it has no bearing on serious PvE encounters - which is what these forums discuss.

Resto shaman are seldom a component of an interrupt cycle due to the very short lockout on windshock. Shaman should not be used on general, for example, in conjunction with rogues or warriors. The rogue/warrior interrupt won't be off CD by the time the cast is back up. If shaman are going to be used, it's going to be an all-shaman rotation. This is the exception - and during that exception the shaman can gear for +hit. What shaman often do is interrupts of opportunity on trash packs, or on P1 Yogg (our restos interrupt the shit out of volley). When a tight interrupt rotation isn't required, windshock is great.

This post reminds us that Shocks have had their base range increased to 25 yards.
Wind Shear is no longer Wind Shock. The range is still up in the air as to if it will keep the current 20 yards (live), gain the extra 5 (PTR), or be reduced (re-balanced), or what.

I think it will be very interesting to see if they increase the cooldown and increase the silence time, as well as reducing the range on it. I also am curious as to if it will keep its threat reduction. After all, as said before, having a threat reduction that is spammable off the GCD that costs little to no mana is semi-retarded. I wouldn't say anything yet until we see the final implementation.

I think he meant melee dps classes, and forgot to include hand of salv from a ret. Grats flaming the shit out of him though. I thought the remainder of his argument was interesting to read, I'm sorry that you didn't feel the same and felt the need to stop reading after that. To each his own.

I was always under the impression that Wind Shock was less an aggro dump in itself than it was a TPS-dump. It wasn't so much the small threat value it got rid of, but the fact that you couldn't use Earth Shock in that same amount of time.

If we're gonna keep a threat dump then, it either needs that sickeningly short cooldown(to perhaps use it on every Lava Lash as well) or the threat dump itself would have to be increased.