Sunfall

Sorry for not posting in about a week, been playing WoW on-and-off. Anyways... I have done several runs of Scarlet Monastery Cathedral, a few of which I was allowed to tank for. It's actually easier than the Armory in my opinion, probably because there are very few myrmidons here, but also the rather variable level ranges once you step inside the main cathedral. Conservation is key when dealing with the bosses, no need to go all out until Whitemane resurrects the commander. You don't even need to have both of them focused on you, since Whitemane is a spellcaster you can shut her down with Grounding Totems and the occasional Earth Shock while you keep keep swinging away at Mograine. Sadly I was never able to win the shield, but oh well. I managed to pick up something that was just as good off of the Auction House so I'm not mad. Then there was Razorfen Downs. If it weren't for a couple quests I wanted to complete and the fact that I wanted to give tanking this a go, I would have never run this. There's nothing worthwhile here for tanking shamans unless you plan to get serious about healing for instances--and I did acquire the Bonechill Armor from a second run. That said it's important to keep in mind that the non-elites are pretty wimpy, and with a Stoneskin Totem should barely scratch you if you've got a decent set of mail. Don't waste mana on magma totems, you can take those hits. Something else that's noteworthy here is something any tanking shaman (or paladin for that matter) should be concerned about--the silencing enemies. Unlike other situations, you may actually want to generate as much threat as possible because once you're silenced you won't be able to use any shocks or switch totems. And now that I think about that... Uldaman will probably be the first real challenge for tanking shamans. Now for the comments... I'm well aware of the downsides of playing a tanking shaman--and this goes for any class/spec really that they should be aware of what they can/can't do (DPS warriors, for example do not contribute reliable CC for a group and is something group builders should keep in mind) Oh yes, I always use this. And Stoneskin most pronounced against those large pulls of non-elites or enemies that dual-wield, since they do less damage to compensate the number of hits. I've never had anyone bemoan the fact that I didn't use Strength of Earth, though maybe its effect just that it isn't terribly noticeable early on. Or maybe they're just having too much fun with my Windfury Totems to really care :P It does actually help, but not as much as one would like. Mana Spring tends to be more beneficial, not just for you to be able to keep tanking, but also for your healer to avoid going OOM too early. The only time I find myself using a Healing Stream is if another shaman is in the group. I've noticed quite a few conflicts on the stats to prioritize. Right now I'm gravitating towards the stam/int/agi spread, and it seems rather ideal. While it does create more dependency on using your Earth Shock to maintain threat, the increased mana pool cannot be understimated in longer fights, or even just for being able to go additional pulls without drinking every time. The agility is more useful for dodge than anything else really, but just having a good amount makes a difference (FYI, setting a Grace of Air Totem at Rank 1 gives at least +4% to dodge rating). Yeah, this is the one thing to always be aware of; mana. Paladins have a similar problem from what I remember when tanking with them in retail TBC, I wouldn't say their mana is so bad that they will run OOM every pull (that will only ever happen on boss fights) but it does help to be ready for potentially unwanted adds in case your group fails to finish off a straggler that runs for help. Depending on my group composition, what I'm fighting, and how often I am using spells, I can usally go 3-4 pulls before I need to stop for water. Though if I think there's a possibility something could go very wrong I will drink early. One of the upsides of being the tank is that you usually get to decide when the fight starts--a luxury healers often aren't afforded XD I've definitely noticed this, most people are hesistant to let shamans tank, and you'd be amazed how much their views of tanking shamans change when I successfully tank for a group without a single wipe and rarely lose control of fights. And I can definitely vouch for the shaman being quite durable once they do spec in those defensive enhancement talents. With the Toughness talent, my unbuffed armor value currently sits at around 3400. At LV42, this will reduce damage from same-level enemies by almost 47%. This isn't even going into other stats like block/dodge/parry, or the 200+ stamina I have which puts my unbuffed HP close to 2500. Keep in mind I'm still in the process of optimizing my gear, trying to min/max on priority stats like stamina and intellect while dropping gear with excessive strength or spirit that isn't really useful, so those aren't even the most ideal stats. I would call it more of a "safe" build when it comes to PvE--as in, you rarely have to worry about visiting the graveyard just because you ended up pulling aggro from two more adds that you wouldn't be able to handle otherwise. I've had some hilariously long slugfests grinding at the Bloodscalp Troll ruins where I would clear a camp, and after some time the trolls would start repsawning on me mid fight and I would just kill them one after another through sheer attrition. So long as I keep the Mana Spring Totem up and have mana for healing wave, I never die to stuff like that. Elites can be tricky, but depending on the quest and the elite mob they can be possible. You definitely need to know when to heal, when it's okay to use a spell, etc. when doing so. PvP... I've found to be a different story. Sure, being a tanky shaman means you take longer to kill, but you also have very little in the way of offensive talents that will help you kill anyone. It sounds like you fight through attrition, but anyone with good burst (i.e. most PvP specs) can work around that style of combat. I want to believe from your description that you must have been fighting some very, very bad players if they weren't able to kill you with some degree of advantage, especially with a PvP spec. One thing I often do is I will run a dungeon once in a healing role--primarily to refamiliarize myself with the layout, the packs, fight gimmicks, etc. so that when I start tanking I have a good idea of what to expect. Bonus points if I can learn shortcuts to cut down on time spent in the instance and avoid having to deal with excessive trash. Now that I have Grace of Air Totem, this seems like a more viable alternative--though you have to remember that doing more damage yourself isn't going to generate much more threat. That said, the DPS boost it can provide for other party members--assuming they aren't casters, is a notable boon for the party. From my experience, a single Chain Lightning usually generates a good amount of threat to keep pack aggro on you until you start getting healed a lot... and as another poster said, the threat generation to MP cost ratio is just not worth maintaining it all the time. Maybe use it after a drink, but not worth constantly reapplying. Don't forget Stoneclaw Totem exists, and can usually keep a stray mob off of your healer long enough to regain control of the situation. My build doesn't pick up Flurry, so the faster weapons will win out. That said, I've been using the rather sluggish Heaven's Light as my weapon and it hasn't let me down yet--though I'm hoping to find a faster tanking mace soon. Nope, my IGN is Sunfall and I'm on the Elysium PvP realm. Man, replying to this took longer than I thought. I really need some sleep now--I wanted to post my current gear but that will have to wait.

Okay, I'm impressed with the number of responses I've gotten in less than 24 hours. None of the dungeons I have done so far as a tank were guild runs--though granted I haven't gotten into the more demanding places like BRD yet. And yes, threat mainly comes from Earth Shock, but your white damage also helps maintain high threat thanks to Rockbiter Weapon. Think of using Earth Shock as being similar to a Warrior's Sunder Armor in this regard. Healing doesn't generate much threat by comparison, (from my healing experience shaman will never pull aggro from the main target, and you will only take aggro from the adds if the tank hasn't bothered to do much with them) and trying to cast a healing wave while tanking damage is a bad idea. Alright. This also means I'll be updating the talent build to shift those points from Restorative Totems into Tidal Mastery since even Mana Spring benefits very little from that +25% boost at max rank. Earth Shock on it's own seems to have a good crit rate, so... Well this certainly changes some of the gear prospects I was looking at. I'm still going to be rolling for the Scarlet Commander Aegis if it drops, there is hardly anything better at my current level until Troll Protector becomes usable. And speaking of equipment, I did a search for equipment in the LV35-45 range and lets just say the prospects don't look very good. Half of the mail equipment slots don't have much in the way of a best-in-slot item due to the blue equipment being so saturated with +Spirit or other empty stats that make them not worth the trouble when greens with the right stat combination could prove just as good. Two BiS pieces require doing lots of Arathi Basin PvP. One requires getting crazy lucky with the RNG because it's a boss drop with a random enchantment (the Ironaya bracers). That really just leaves misc. pieces like rings to really strive for. It's hard to say whether the Ardent Custodian is worth using--I've seen it on the auction house for very cheap on my server but if the +defense rating and armor aren't worth it, I'll look into something else. I'm starting to wonder if it is bugged, but I've seen it do its job. Will be making a few updates to the main post.

DISCLAIMER: This is an experiment that I have decided to engage in--something that I chose to do for fun to shake things up a bit. I am not attempting to seriously imply the viability of a tanking shaman in endgame raiding, so please spare me the "lol ur wasting your time", "have fun playing lv60 alone" posts. This is more about entertaining an idea than anything else. With that out of the way, I came upon this idea one day when I was looking through all of the Shaman spells and talents as I was considering making my first character on the Elysium server a shaman (This is my first time playing one so it has been quite the learning experience). Before I actually got into the gameplay, I noticed a handful of things with the vanilla Shaman's kit; namely they had a handful of spells that allowed them to generate additional threat or take aggro away from the party. Quite a few of their totems seemed oriented towards defensive play as well. Then I looked at the talents and noticed a good chunk of the Enhancement tree seemed focused on damage mitigation. Combined with the fact that Shamans can naturally equip shields and later upgrade their leather armor to mail, I thought to myself that maybe a shaman can pull off a tanking role with the right setup. That's pretty much the gist of things. The talent build (Tentative): http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hxsZAb00xxzZVoez0xo The Enhancement tree is pretty self-explanatory; invest in the talents that will improve my durability up until I get down to Parry. Nothing beyond that is really helpful for tanking. The choice between 2% more mana and better Stoneskin+Grounding CDR seems a bit moot. Then there's the Restoration tree, which has a few very important talents. Nature's Swiftness is the key here, which can effectively serve as an emergency self-heal in a pinch. Extra 3% hit chance from Nature's Guidance is always welcome, and reduces the odds of Earth Shock getting resisted. Totemic Focus+Mastery are taken due to the amount of totem usage and the need to save mana on longer fights. The rest of the talents are up for debate. There could be a justification to take Improved Healing Wave+Healing Focus to allow for mid-tanking heals, but it would only be effective in pulls involving one or two targets, and only if the enemies aren't outdamaging the healing. Otherwise I'm sticking with Tidal Focus+Tidal Mastery. The last handful of points go into Elemental; Reducing the mana expendeture on Earth Shock is a given, The rest of the points go into Earth's Grasp and Elemental Warding; which one should be maxed over the other is up for debate. Spell analysis (updated) Just going to mull over the spells and what I understand of their usage as it applies to tanking. Rockbiter Weapon: The only weapon buff that should ever be used when tanking, as it increases threat generation from every white hit. Earth Shock: The primary aggro-building spell to be used whenever more threat needs to be built up. Also has the added benefit of interrupting spellcasts. Frost Shock: Assuming your party is lacking in slows, this is useful to slow down low-health enemies as they start fleeing. Chain Lightning: It's main purpose is for pulling; starts you off with some aggro on all of the enemies in a group pull. Purge: Can remove some annoying enemy buffs, don't forget about it. Stoneskin Totem: Shores up your defense a bit. Not too impressive but when Stoneclaw is on cooldown what else is worth putting down? Healing Stream Totem: Even with talents it apparently provides too little regeneration to offset damage taken. Only used if there is another shaman in the group. Mana Spring Totem: The only water totem worth using outside of poison/disease cleansing on those situational pulls (and everyone can benefit from a little mana regen). Stoneclaw Totem: Helps keep some of the damage off of you in larger pulls. Earthbind Totem: Very useful for kiting situations, can also help keep fleeing enemies from running too far (along with frostshock). Grounding Totem: Effectively negates one targeted enemy spell whenever it's ready. Very important against casting foes, and combined with Earth Shock can completely neuter casting enemies. Otherwise... Grace of Air Totem: When Grounding Totem isn't necessary, this should always be up. More agility actually adds to your defensive stats. Status-curing Totems (Tremor, Poison/Disease-Cleasing): Situational, to be used in fights where avoiding status is more important than damage mitigation. Single-target cleanses can be used in less demanding situations to avoid using a totem slot--though this option isn't available for Tremor Totem. Resistance Totems (Fire/Frost/Nature): Situational, to be used whenever there is a significant presence of element-based damage. Nature's Swiftness: Mentioned in the talents, this can effectively give you a second wind via enabling an instant Healing Wave to keep you in a tough fight longer. Anything else I haven't mentioned isn't relevant to tanking or is just kind of there, like Reincarnation (always nice in the event of wipes). Damaging fire totems are too heavy on MP cost for too little damage contribution and do not help with threat generation, same with Lightning Shield (it does generate some threat but it's too costly to keep up). You're not going to be casting heals mid-tanking, and the other weapon buffs do not provide Rockbiter's threat generation. There are a few things like Windfury Totem that can be nice for some parties to benefit from but if placing one means giving up a Grounding Totem that could prove more useful for the pull, you might want to reconsider. Equipment/stat theorycrafting Here's where things start to get a little complicated. This part of my post is also something of a work-in-progress, as at my current level I'm not going to be seeing much of that gear that boosts defense or dodge chance, etc. I'd really like to experiment a lot more with this as I go along, but gold and loot rolls can be an issue. First off, let's take a look at the attributes. Strength: Increases attack power and amount of damage blocked with a shield. More damage means a bit more threat, and extra block mitigation is nice to have. Stamina: Increases health. This should be on most of the gear. Agility: Increases ranged power, crit chance, armor and dodge chance. Those last two parts are what's relevant, and would be good to have on your gear. Intellect: Increases mana pool, spell power and spell critrate. Extra mana is nice, but from my experience not a whole lot is necessary. Spirit: Increases Health regen (when not in combat) and mana regen (when not casting after 5 secs). Not terribly useful given how often you may be using Shocks and totem switching. I'd say the stat priority would be something like this: Stamina > Agility > Strength > Intellect > Spirit According to Asherdoom, the priority should look like this: Stamina > Intellect > Agility > other stats (though I'm going to give a slight edge to Strength over Spirit), it's still a throwaway compared to the priority stats) More health is always important for tanking. Apparently Intellect is more useful than I thought even though mana isn't a huge concern for the tanking shaman with a respectable amount of it, I can see how the additional damage and crit potential could lead to better threat generation and give you a bit more damage. After a bit of playing around I realized the armor boost from Agility is actually very negligible, but the dodge bonus is quite significant with enough stacking so it's possible to get a good dodge rating. Other stats are a throwaway because white damage is minor compared to spell damage (we're talking 60-80ish swing damage vs. over 200 from shocks at LV36) and it takes too much strength investment at low levels for block reduction to be prominent. Spirit does jack squat when you're constantly throwing around Earth Shocks and totems (meaning mana pool requires more of a priority than mana regeneration, period) Then there's all the secondary stats to look at. Armor, Hit%, dodge%, etc. Armor-wise, the vast majority of it comes from the shaman's shield, so having a good shield means a lot. Attributes matter more on the armor pieces, but armor rating and stat presence on armor tend to go hand-in-hand anyways. I intend to stat posting links to my equipment and prospective items after I do a bit of upgrading. My current experience as a shaman tank The leveling experience is... pretty harsh. Assuming you are actively building the talents I linked earlier, solo leveling is slow and you will feel like an absolute weakling in most PvP situations (seriously, you're better off supporting others than trying to fight on your own). Sure, you will be able to survive against mobs for a good while, but all that fun ends the instant an Alliance decides to pick on you while you're mana-starved and just trying to outlast your target through attrition. So I always tried to get into groups once I realized this, even if it's just a duo questing it's better than hoping you will just be left to your own devices (if you're on a PvE realm, then disregard everything I said about PvP). Aside from that, there's always instance dungeoning if you can't handle the world, right? Sadly, I wasn't able to get accepted into the lower-level dungeons as a tanking shaman. I was always expected to heal--which okay, fine, it's not like Resto speccing makes a huge difference until Nature's Swiftness so I just put up with it. It wasn't until I ran Razorfen Kraul that I was given a chance to do so, at LV33. Which... isn't saying a whole lot. RFK is a pretty tame instance aside from the parts involving the stalkers, and with some form of crowd control it's not much of a problem, even for a shaman tank. The only real strain was on the healer to keep me alive against some of the later mobs--Razorfen Champions are quite beefy and hit pretty hard too. The Scarlet Monastery Graveyard was my next foray into shaman tanking. I was LV36 at this point now, so I'm a bit overleveled for this dungeon. That said, the four Torturers near the beginning can be quite tough to handle without some CC--and I don't recall my party employing any despite having a mage and a warlock present (my party also had another shaman and a shadow priest). This is a very easy instance beyond that, so nothing much to go into. After that, I did the library with the same group (so still LV36). The hardest part of this run was Houndmaster Loksey. Taking on four enemies at once is quite brutal, and some kiting tactics ended up being employed here after we wiped the first time (mage would freeze the dogs, I would drop an Earthbind, warlock would fear one afterwards while we try to focus them down one by one). The rest of the instance proceeded quite smoothly, though we had two wipes--one as a result of a party member disconnecting right after I pulled and another where a party member walked too close to a group I intended to skip during a fight (neither of which were my fault as you can see). Having crowd control really helps relieve the pressure on me, and the healing enemies are not a problem with the constant Earth Shocks being thrown at them. Arcanist Doan doesn't put much pressure on a shaman tank at all due to his spellcaster nature. Level 40 now, and you know what that means: Chain Mail! The increase in armor boosted my mitigation vs. same level targets by about 9% according to my equipment screen, which is quite the upgrade (My equipment which is mostly greens I got off the AH sits around 2950 armor). I felt this was a good time to attempt the Armory. This instance draws in a lot of shamans and warriors who want that Herod loot (as an aside, I don't find his loot or any of the Scarlet set to be terrific shaman tank gear), so unsurprisingly my party was three shamans (including myself), an arms warrior and a warlock. Which unfortunately meant there was little in the way of CC, which got to be a problem around the point when the Scarlet Myrmidons showed up (those guys are notorious for shredding even good tanks once they enrage). It did mean, however, that we had some off-tanks in the event that I couldn't hold threat or handle all of the damage. I only died once to the Myrmidons, and I honestly don't know why our warlock didn't think of using fear after we began to employ its usage near the end--you only need to pull back and there's almost no risk of grabbing adds. I guess the lack of marking threw him off? Whatever. Herod was a simple fight compared to the rest of the instance, the enrage was never an issue and aggro was never lost (just spam that earth shock). As of this writing I am currently looking to run the Cathedral (still LV40) and Razorfen Downs. Conclusion and contribution I've said it before: this is an experiment and it's still very much work-in-progress, but I am having fun trying this out and I intend to keep going with this for as long as I can. I may add more sections, like something on the dynamics of threat generation or something, but I just wanted to get this thread started. That said, this isn't something I can do entirely on my own; after all I am only one member of a dungeon party and everyone must pull their weight for a successful run. Furthermore, I would like to try mixing and matching various piece of equipment, but money is always an issue when it comes to this. So if anyone feels like contributing to my experiments, I am always open to donations of equipment, gold, and other items if you think they may help me to become a better tank. I don't expect much out of this, but it never hurts to ask, right? If you would like to get a hold of me in-game, my IGN is Sunfall, and I play on the Elysium PvP realm. With everything said, feel free to post your thoughts, comments, and especially suggestions I could use to improve on this!