Hello Sunfall, I tanked a shaman to lvl 56 on kronos 2 server not so long ago, so its all fresh in my mind. I played a shaman through several versions of wow so I knew what I was doing. I did it because I was sick of people saying shamans cant tank, so I wanted to shut them up. Here are some points, maybe mentioned already but ill rant on regardless.
- Shaman tanks are just as viable as any other tanks, from 1-60, at times they are on par with prot wars and are often much better than ferals. Specced right and with good/decent gear you will out perform other tanks who dont spec right or whos gear is less.
- Know your disabilities. You have no taunt, you have slightly less armor than others and you have only 21 prot talents on the enchance tree (down to 'parry'). These 21 talents, shield specialization, improved dodge, improved armor, improved stoneskin, parry; these are all absolutely essential and will make you as hard as a rock, relatively speaking. After those 21 talents you need to decide which way you wanna go, either keep going enchance for strong one-hander, or flip into resto tree for ancestrial healing armor buff (which means you crit heal yourself during combat for aoe aggro and the buff. A different kinda play style.)
- You have no taunt, but thats not as big a problem as some may think because you will be doing much more dps than any other tanks and you will be using rockbiter + earthshock giving you extremely high threat. Get used to out-aggroing the dps on your team, hitting mobs first etc. Dont lose aggro, when you do.... use highest rank earth shock to pull the mob back. AOE aggro will be your weakness, with 4 mobs or more to control. Learn to hit mobs with rockbiter, while earthshocking another, cycling targets etc. Stoneclaw is a piece of crap xD, only use it during an emergency to pull mobs off your team, otherwise keep stoneskin out. You have the highest single target threat of any tank/class in the game, you should never lose a single target.
- Stoneskin totem is essential. It is extremely powerful (none use it normally cause they want the dps from str of earth), it shaves damage off every hit you recieve (and your team). The more mobs on you, the more it shaves off. Always stoneskin, its apart of your rotation, it also closes the gap between you and others who have better armor. It shaves more damage off mobs that use small fast hits because its a set amount reduction. If they cry because they dont have strength of earth totem just tell them your tanking and its apart of your rotation (they will cry).
- Healing stream totem is very important, its debatable ofc, but my opinion is that its also essential. Stoneskin shaves off a bit of the damage, healing stream repairs a bit of it, they work very nicely togather. A mob hits you for 100, 20 is shaved off, 20 is repaired, only hitting you for 60, if u get my drift. I would always have these two totems out, every pack, every pull. They will cry for mana totem, tell them you are tanking and its your rotation, tell the healer his or her mana is their own priority and not yours. Be prepared to keep putting out these two totems every time you push ahead so you dont go out of range of them.
- Earth shock is great; but, it costs so much mana. You will go OOM in 15 secs by using it. Use a lesser rank of earth shock, perhaps 2 ranks below, judge for yourself. As far as im aware earth shock does double the threat, so even a small blast of it will still have high threat. I only use full blast earthshock to pull a mob back (like a taunt), but for usual threat building just use a cheaper one. Dont go OOM ever, always keep a little left at the end for either an emergency earth shock or an emergency self heal.
- Rockbiter weapon, always. Im not sure how it works, but it does work very well. It appears to get a flat amount of threat per swing, rather than threat scaling with your one handed dps. Somtimes just one smack of rockbiter will keep a mob on you for ages. Remember to smack them all equally and cycle through targets. Dont lose a mob only to go back to it later on in the fight, you might not get it back if teamates have spent 10 seconds or more nuking it while you were busy elsewhere. Most of the time you will be fine with just rockbiter, using earth shock only when needed.
- Pulling with lightning bolt and chainlightning, and somtimes earthshock. I pulled always with rank 1 lightning bolt, it has a 1 sec cast time, long range and costs no mana. Mana is a problem, so I recommend doing it this way. Then earth shock when it comes to you, and pick up the rest with rockbiter. A fancy way of pulling is with chainlightniing, its really great cause it does good aggro to 3 mobs, but, it costs soo much mana, i advise against it unless you can afford to waste a bit of mana at the start. A lower rank of chain lightning at higher levels to conserve mana ofc.
- Gear, a very confusing part of shammy tanking. Stamina, as much as you can get, with some strength and agility on the side. At least this is what I did and it worked perfectly fine. Strength will increase the amount of damage you block with your shield BUT ONLY WHEN YOU ACTUALLY BLOCK. Strength DOES NOT INCREASE YOUR BLOCK RATING, only the damage blocked when you actually block. Understand this please, your block rating is more or less stuck at 10%. As a result, strength is only so useful, but still useful. Block rating is only increased by shield specialization, and then later by the DEF stat (thats another story). Because of this, some may say that agiliy is far better because it gives you armor and dodge, increasing your dodge a good bit, so you get much better value from agility rather than strength. Work it out for yourself, as I said stamina priority with strength and agility on the side, It worked fine for me. Upgrade your gear regularly, especially your shield. A shield a couple of levels higher will have a good bit more armor.
- Mana will be an issue. Like a healer, always have mana pots. Use lesser ranks of spells. Always have the best availble water to regen asap between pulls. If you go OOM you wont be able to use earth shock or your totems, which could lead to you losing control of the situation. Dont go OOM, or at least wait until near the end of the fight to do so.
- If you find yourself losing aggro its probably because you forgot to refresh your rockbiter!
A shaman tank's place in society -
The hardest part of shaman tanking is other peoples ignorance. Theres good reason for this. Enhance, elemental and resto are all very soft, not known to be able to takes hits in pve or pvp. The difference here is the 21 prot talents. Enchance shamans normally do not take these talents and bypass them for the other dps ones. Theres a substantial difference by taking these talents, between getting 2 shotted and actually tanking packs successfully. Many experienced players do not know this and will accuse you of being a dumb ass enchance shammy with a shield (lol, and there have been many....). Hes how I managed to deal with this problem succesfully.
- Join a guild, annouce you are a tank and that you will be tanking to lvl 60. Do this asap from an early level. When they scream bloody murder (and they will) tell them the following.......
- You have the 21 prot talents from enchance tree.
- You have the best stamina gear available to you and are geared as a tank and not as any other spec.
- You know what you are doing and you have tanked every instance up to whatever point you are at with no problems.
You will have to say this to people alot. Its tiring somtimes, but they have good reason to be suspicious so dont be too hard on them. Aim to get inside the instance asap and start tanking. When they see you actually tanking and taking the same damage as a war tank then their doubt is wiped away.
Build contacts, healers and dps. They have already been through dungeons with you and know you are the real deal. They also support you and help alay any doubts/critizism from others in the group. I was very fortunate to make good friends with some healers who stayed with me all the way while leveling. One preist in particular claimed I took less damage than any other tank, and he was a great support. Always have the confidence of your healer, a tank and healer combo reasures the rest of the group thats all is well.
Always make sure your the right level to do the next instance. Dont rush into an instance thinking it will be ease becuase the previous one is on farm. If you cant handle it you will damage your reputation and the reputation of all other shaman tanks. When doing a new instance be aware of the new hard mobs; the monks in SM lib for example, or the myrmidons in SM arms. These type mobs will hit very hard regardless of whos tanking, but can give the illusion that you are a crappy paper tank; your not, they really do hit hard. Alert your team that hard pulls are coming. Its a tanks job to lead; mark your targets, even on easy pulls, mark them. This shows you know what you are doing and that everything is being done in a professional and orderly fashion.
Beyond level 60 is a different story; you only have 21 talents while others have full specs, and you cannot reach defence cap. I have heard that shaman tanks can fufill specialist roles in raids, like trash tanking, off tanking, tanking certain bosses etc etc. I know nothing of this so ill stop here.
Thats everything I guess, hope this helps and I hope we see more shammies tanking up to 60, and perhaps beyond.
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to be comprehensive.
*EDIT*
I found solo pve to be very powerful with this set up. Soloing elites and soloing quests that you should be too low for. In terms of pvp you will surprise melee classes that attack you. They will think you are resto, or that you are soft. I killed many rogues, wars and ret palas somtimes 5-10 lvls higher than me because I dodged, blocked, parried, healed myself and slowly burned them down with the onehander. The look of stupidity on their faces as they failed to comprehend whats happeneing to them as you deliever the finishing blow, priceless.
You need not worry about pulling 3-4 mobs either, just burn them down one by one, keeping your mana for totems and healz. Searing totem over magma, for mana effiency.
