The Tanking Shaman Experiment

[Sunfall 1]

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!

Edited January 27, 2017 by Sunfall
updated a few things

[seeth07 1]

props to you for trying something different.  If your having fun doing it, don't stop!

[Seiki 4]

i once tanked an ubrs on feenix as a non-optimized shaman

have fun

[eukal 1]

Cool stuff.

[Asherdoom 5]

as far as i remember i played enh on retail wow and it was able to tank untill 35 about because after that point the tanking stuff comes in play and you get your hybrid dmg/healer class state.

///Lightning Shield: Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the damage from LS raises threat, it could be worth keeping up.  If I'm mistaken, go ahead and ignore it.///

yes and no. Any damage you deal riase aggro BUT LS is too costly to keep up on you and it do very little trheat. bsster ask a druid for THORNS buffs instead.

9 hours ago, Sunfall said:

Healing Stream Totem: I'm thinking this, combined with Stoneskin Totem, could provide for a decent layer of mitigation.  Otherwise...

most usleess totem ever created in wow history. skip it

9 hours ago, Sunfall said:

Stoneclaw Totem: Helps keep some of the damage off of you in larger pulls.

correct. this is the poor man chalengin shout which stuns for 3 seconds :)

9 hours ago, Sunfall said:

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.

this is very correct :)

9 hours ago, Sunfall said:

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.

strenght is not needed on shammy. you need stamina and intellect A LOT (your source of damage is magic therefore you need to cast more spells. strenght conversion to block at lower levels is pathetic in terms of amount something you can compensate on default blockig bonus provided in enh tree

for me stat priority would be: Stamina>intellect>Agility>rest

 

Spec I would use (till level 30)

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hZE000xxz

 

[Garun 9]

I'm not sure any pug will let you tank for them, but it seems like you could probably tank 5 mans with that build if you are geared well with the appropriate gear. Let me know how it goes and I might try it on a shaman for the lulz. Also I might be wrong on this but I think your threat comes mainly from earth shock and other nature spells like chain lightning and healing a ton on a pull.

Edited January 27, 2017 by zmandude24

[gotmilk0112 10]

2 hours ago, Asherdoom said:

correct. this is the poor man chalengin shout which stuns for 3 seconds :)

Stoneclaw does not stun in vanilla, it just pulses a tiny amount of threat.

[seeth07 1]

I hate how little threat stoneclaw actually pulses :( If you have hit the mob at all (even from just your lightning shield) it rarely seems to pull a mob off of you if you need to loose the threat to heal or run.  Back in vanilla, I don't actually remember it being that poor at pulsing threat.

[Sunfall 1]

Okay, I'm impressed with the number of responses I've gotten in less than 24 hours.

5 hours ago, zmandude24 said:

I'm not sure any pug will let you tank for them, but it seems like you could probably tank 5 mans with that build if you are geared well with the appropriate gear. Let me know how it goes and I might try it on a shaman for the lulz. Also I might be wrong on this but I think your threat comes mainly from earth shock and other nature spells like chain lightning and healing a ton on a pull.

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.

5 hours ago, Asherdoom said:

most usleess totem ever created in wow history. skip it

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...

5 hours ago, Asherdoom said:

strenght is not needed on shammy. you need stamina and intellect A LOT (your source of damage is magic therefore you need to cast more spells. strenght conversion to block at lower levels is pathetic in terms of amount something you can compensate on default blockig bonus provided in enh tree

for me stat priority would be: Stamina>intellect>Agility>rest

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.

1 hour ago, seeth07 said:

I hate how little threat stoneclaw actually pulses :( If you have hit the mob at all (even from just your lightning shield) it rarely seems to pull a mob off of you if you need to loose the threat to heal or run.  Back in vanilla, I don't actually remember it being that poor at pulsing threat.

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.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Sunfall

[Asherdoom 5]

23 minutes ago, Sunfall said:

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 the +defense rating and armor aren't worth it, I'll look into something else.

well fo course i am theorycrafting. if you happen to get the scarlet shield go for it! but read again: i said MAXIMUM level 30 because later on dps sstart getting ursty spells and you have no means whatsoever to regain aggro (pala got righteous fury+salvation while warrior got def stance. Shammy has no such things apart the high threat from earth shock+rockbite weapon which can prove fragile combo in emergency situation).

apart that i would say spirit is ot much needed ofc as you stated. mana spring improved will go for like 15mp5 which is a lot at around level 30+.

[ka.ba 0]

Glad you took on this experiment, I've been thinking about it alot myself. I remember tanking some dungeons with my shammy back in the vanilla days. Gonna look into talent builds and gear a bit more. I know there are some sweet stuff like [Invulnerable Mail] at lvl 57.

 

I think one important thing that you seem to have done is to be a couple levels higher than what's typically required for the dungeons. You really want to get those successful white hits for the rockbiter threat. This is why I think getting some +hit gear might be a good idea later.

 

Does anyone know how rockbiter works? Is it an absolute value +threat or does it just increase the threat by a percentage? Logically it should be the latter but if it's the former you'd really want to be using a fast dagger.

Edited January 28, 2017 by ka.ba

[Towerfall 0]

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.

 

 

Edited January 31, 2017 by Towerfall

[Anaximander 0]

Great post! Love the attitude and experimenting with things like this is what makes vanilla fantastic imo.

There's actually been a lot of experimental work done on tanking shamans in vanilla on both Kronos and the old Nostalrius showing that tanking shamans are viable 1 - 60 in 5 mans. Here's a great thread from the Nostalrius forums that compiles community info into one place (link below):

https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=33076

It's a great read, incredibly useful, and nice to see the community coming together and sharing info.

Findings:

• Without bugged Rockbiter threat, Shamans actually generate the most raw threat while leveling among tanks, though they lack a taunt for emergency situations.
• Based on the calculations in the thread above, Enhancing Totems is actually a superior choice to Guardian Totems in terms of sheer damage mitigation and avoidance at max rank: "-6 dmg from melee sources vs 1.30 DPS +1% crit +1% dodge and token additions to armor and block value"
• Similarly, Mana Spring Totem is superior to Healing Stream Totem while tanking instances. The HP from healing stream is negligible as a tank while the mana is invaluable for keeping ES and LS ready.
• Keeping Lightning Shield up at all times helps maintain threat on multiple targets significantly, though downranking may be necessar due to mana.
• Fast weapons lead to higher, more stable threat due to increased number of hits with Rockbiter, smaller penalties for missing, and increased chances to proc Flurry. That said, slower weapons gain slightly more benefit from Flurry resulting in spikier threat.

In short, if you're digging tanking shaman I say stick with it :) A few friends and I just started new chars on Anathema (Shaman, Mage, Priest) and our Shaman has decided to go the tanking route; will post updates as we progress!

EDIT: Grammar, syntax, added info

Edited February 1, 2017 by Anaximander

[gotmilk0112 10]

I came across a Shaman named "Totemtank" on the PvE server.

 

that you?

[Sunfall 1]

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)

On 1/31/2017 at 1:04 PM, Towerfall said:

- 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).

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

On 1/31/2017 at 1:04 PM, Towerfall said:

- 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.

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.

On 1/31/2017 at 1:04 PM, Towerfall said:

- 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.

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

 

On 1/31/2017 at 1:04 PM, Towerfall said:

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....).

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.

On 1/31/2017 at 1:04 PM, Towerfall said:

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.

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.

On 1/31/2017 at 1:04 PM, Towerfall said:

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.

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.

On 2/1/2017 at 1:43 PM, Anaximander said:

Based on the calculations in the thread above, Enhancing Totems is actually a superior choice to Guardian Totems in terms of sheer damage mitigation and avoidance at max rank: "-6 dmg from melee sources vs 1.30 DPS +1% crit +1% dodge and token additions to armor and block value"

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.

On 2/1/2017 at 1:43 PM, Anaximander said:

Keeping Lightning Shield up at all times helps maintain threat on multiple targets significantly, though downranking may be necessar due to mana.

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.

On 2/1/2017 at 1:43 PM, Anaximander said:

Fast weapons lead to higher, more stable threat due to increased number of hits with Rockbiter, smaller penalties for missing, and increased chances to proc Flurry. That said, slower weapons gain slightly more benefit from Flurry resulting in spikier threat.

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.

On 2/1/2017 at 3:01 PM, gotmilk0112 said:

I came across a Shaman named "Totemtank" on the PvE server.

 

that you?

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.