Tank Shaman (Another topic, another guy)

[Kr3llz 0]

Hello everyone.

Short introduction:

'm currently leveling my first shaman on Anathema. I've played Shaman in retail and on Feenix too. Back in the days I have vague memories of tanking certain 60 instances with some success. However, I feel way more sure of how I play my class now and would like to give it another go with the tanking. I've always been very unorthodox in my builds. Sometimes they work and sometimes they're just too weird.

Specs:

As of now I have two specs in mind that I'll share with you guys. I will explain myself shortly regarding each spec and the thoughts I put into it. I would like to know if you have any adjustments, if there is something you like about it or if you think it's utter crap. Please be detailed in your comments on the specs. I would like to know why you think it's bad and where you'd prefer to put the points

1. http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hxfzhZVV00E0uZx0e

This is definitely the weird hybrid spec. I'm confident I will be able to hold aggro with Earth Shock and Rockbiter. I'm aiming for the most necessary tanking talents in Enhancement along with mana reduction talents in Elemental and Restoration. This way I'll be able to last longer in fights and hopefully maintain aggro with Earth Shocks and Fire totems. The reason I'm not going full Enhance is the fact that the points spent in Elemental and Resto will have a bigger effect in fights than for example Weapon Mastery and Toughness. My goal is not to deal damage but to tank, and my increased attack power on Rockbiter from Elemental Weapons will make up for the damage lost from Weapon Mastery. I'm going back and forth between Toughness. I'm not sure if 5 points is worth the amount of armor I get. The extra totem cost reduction in Restoration along with the +3% hit chance on melee attacks and spells is something I consider quite useful as the mana pool of a tanking shaman can easily feel very small. You'd want to land every attack you make for increased threat.

2. http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hxfzxZVV00Exut

This is the more straight forward Enhancement build. I've picked every possible tanking talent making along with Stormstrike for this extra hit and a debuff which most likely will work as a taunt if I use it for Earth Shock.  I believe this build will make me way more tanky than number 1 due to the fact that I get 5/5 Reverberation for 1 second reduced cooldown on my shocks. The thing about this build is that I will lose some hit chance and some mana reduction on my totems. My experiences as a Shaman so far is that in a matter of seconds they'll run oom due to their fairly short cooldowns on shocks and expensive totems. I don't know if this spec alone will help you maintain aggro with auto hits and a few Earth Shocks here and there. I do get the extra weapon damage which will probably be of help.

The reason I haven't considered going for Nature's Swiftness at all is because I'm confident that the healer I have in my group will handle the healing if I handle the tanking. I know this is not always the case, but there are roles for a reason, and I want to focus on being a good tank and not having to sacrifice certain tanking talents for a 3 minute cooldown in case shit hits the fan. I'm open to suggestions for a more Restoration oriented tanking spec, but as of now I believe one of these is the way to go.

Gear:

I'm gonna go ahead and try to make this short. I'm a Troll Shaman and I've been wondering whether spirit gear would be useful. It will boost my regeneration in combat, allowing me to cast more shocks before running oom. But it will also increase the Regeneration passive. Most people think this is a useless passive, but I've found it to actually save my ass a couple of times during combat. And I don't have a huge boost to spirit.
I'm not saying I should ditch all stats for spirit, but do you think it'll be viable to hold onto certain mail spirit items, or would you rather go for Int, Str, Agil?

Looking forward to hear your thoughts on this. I'm pretty serious about this tanking thing because I know a proper shaman can pull this off with success.

[Whitewolf 1]

Trolls regen 110% health regen and 10% of that in combat.

http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Health_regeneration

The only source I can find on the subject. Each tick is every 2 seconds and shaman get 11% spirit + 7 per tick health out of combat. at 100 spirit this would be roughly 2 hp per tick in combat as a troll. Passive health regen might be actively higher. It would take 30 spirit to equal 1 hp per 5.

As a tank you would be better off finding avoidance stats in combination with stamina, agility, strength, and hit.

[Kr3llz 0]

18 hours ago, Whitewolf said:

Trolls regen 110% health regen and 10% of that in combat.

http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Health_regeneration

The only source I can find on the subject. Each tick is every 2 seconds and shaman get 11% spirit + 7 per tick health out of combat. at 100 spirit this would be roughly 2 hp per tick in combat as a troll. Passive health regen might be actively higher. It would take 30 spirit to equal 1 hp per 5.

As a tank you would be better off finding avoidance stats in combination with stamina, agility, strength, and hit.

This is some pretty solid information. Although I'm sad to see that the troll passive Regeneration kinda loses it's effectiveness the higher level you are. That is, of course, unless you're a healer which stacks spirit. In that case it might still be of use.

Well then. It seems I'll be aiming for a mix between intellect and agility for more mana for shocks and more avoidance + crit for my flurry.

Appreciate the help!

[Whitewolf 1]

5 hours ago, Kr3llz said:

This is some pretty solid information. Although I'm sad to see that the troll passive Regeneration kinda loses it's effectiveness the higher level you are. That is, of course, unless you're a healer which stacks spirit. In that case it might still be of use.

Well then. It seems I'll be aiming for a mix between intellect and agility for more mana for shocks and more avoidance + crit for my flurry.

Appreciate the help!

According to the numbers on that page troll warriors that have 500 spirit would only get 25 health per second, or 75 health vs a HoT tick. That is the extreme though as you aren't going to be getting that high. Though out of combat regen would be insane, 250 health per second....

[The Baby Seal 0]

I have tried this on this server. Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to get people to be willing do give you a shot. That I believe is the biggest hurdle. If you die, they will all want a 'real' tank, even if a warrior would have died just as fast, which has been my experience when I've healed. 

As to talents, you are really selling yourself short by skipping healing. You wear low armor gear. You have no tanking cool down and no mitigation buttons except for healing spells. I believe that the original intent for shaman tanks was for them to heal themselves.

Your threat can be very good even completely untalented, especially at low levels, just by using earth shock and rock-biter as is. Your rotation will be pretty boring too, just auto attacking and earth shocking.

I would recommend something along these lines:

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hZVcb0xxzZVf0x0xo

You would approach this by first spending 15 points in restoration, at least. This will provide you with the mitigation you need by making healing while tanking more feasible through healing focus, a shorter reincarnation cool down for when you need it, and a process to buff your armor when you criticize heal, which will be often.

From there, you could either get to nature's swiftness, which will leave you with two short CD tanking could downs in reincarnation and NS, and will give you a head start on your heals criting with tidal mastery for the armor bonus, or you can go into enhance and get to parry (the 6-10 talent points are up to you, I like Imp gw). I personally would got the 21 in restoration before heading into enhance and I will explain. All of the tanking potential you get from enhance boils down to about 15% avoidance at most and 10% armor. Avoidance is completely random and out of your control. The armor increase is nice, but it will be nicer at higher levels when you have mail. The healing talents provide you mitigation that is under your control for the most part, and are useful early on. Plus you get cool downs for durability.

The last 9 points could go lots of places, but this is the core tanking spec imo.

For stats, you want Stam>Int/crit for more mana heals and AH procs>Agi

You are a hybrid class. Embrace it.

 

[Kr3llz 0]

2 hours ago, The Baby Seal said:

I have tried this on this server. Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to get people to be willing do give you a shot. That I believe is the biggest hurdle. If you die, they will all want a 'real' tank, even if a warrior would have died just as fast, which has been my experience when I've healed. 

Oh yes. The ignorance of some people. It really doesn't bother me that much though. I'm pretty confident that I can pull this off better than most warriors, druids or palas. And even they wipe from time to time. I've been doing various SM runs with a fellow Tank Shaman of mine and so far it's been wipe free with me healing and him tanking.

2 hours ago, The Baby Seal said:

As to talents, you are really selling yourself short by skipping healing. You wear low armor gear. You have no tanking cool down and no mitigation buttons except for healing spells. I believe that the original intent for shaman tanks was for them to heal themselves.

While I agree with the fact that shamans have no way of instantly mitigage incoming damage they do have quite abit of damage reduction from wearing mail gear and shield. Along with healing stream totem and stoneskin they really do become quite beefy. Also their avoidence is way above 15%. Closer to 30% really. As of level 35 I have 5% Parry, 15% dodge and roughly 10% block. There's a good chance this won't last until 60, but with proper tanking gear you have a perfectly fine chance of maintaining this. Might actually go as far as to say you can get way above 30% if you aim for avoidance gear and trinkets.

2 hours ago, The Baby Seal said:

I would recommend something along these lines:

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hZVcb0xxzZVf0x0xo

You would approach this by first spending 15 points in restoration, at least. This will provide you with the mitigation you need by making healing while tanking more feasible through healing focus, a shorter reincarnation cool down for when you need it, and a process to buff your armor when you criticize heal, which will be often.

From there, you could either get to nature's swiftness, which will leave you with two short CD tanking could downs in reincarnation and NS, and will give you a head start on your heals criting with tidal mastery for the armor bonus, or you can go into enhance and get to parry (the 6-10 talent points are up to you, I like Imp gw). I personally would got the 21 in restoration before heading into enhance and I will explain. All of the tanking potential you get from enhance boils down to about 15% avoidance at most and 10% armor. Avoidance is completely random and out of your control. The armor increase is nice, but it will be nicer at higher levels when you have mail. The healing talents provide you mitigation that is under your control for the most part, and are useful early on. Plus you get cool downs for durability.

The last 9 points could go lots of places, but this is the core tanking spec imo.

For stats, you want Stam>Int/crit for more mana heals and AH procs>Agi

You are a hybrid class. Embrace it.

 

I know I asked for a more Restoration oriented spec and I appreciate your feedback. But I honestly don't see the pros of going this deep. It's not like you're losing your heals just because you don't spec resto. I still have plenty of opportunity to save my own ass if it comes down to it. While being aware of the situation you should know if off-heals are needed or not way before you end up wiping.
I'm stating again that my goal here is to tank and I believe that with the talents in Enhancement shamans are perfectly capable of doing so without having to waste all mana on self healing. Depending on what gear I pick at level 60 my mana pool might be very low, and I would prefer to actually do my job and hold aggro with spells while counting on my healer to do his job at keeping me alive.

Shamans are a hybrid class. And regardless of spec they have the spells to fill any role technically. Wouldn't it be better to aim for tankiness and mana reduction for your damage/threat spells instead of acting like a second healer while having to hold aggro with the only two threat generators you have?

Also I don't quite understand your choice of picking improved ghost wolf. A talent which will do absolutely no good in dungeons. Never been a huge fan of improved Reincarnation either even though I kinda get why people like it. It's still a fairly large cooldown and as with Soulstone I would rarely use it during combat anyway since most of the times a wipe is a wipe and it would be better to resurrect out of combat.

You didn't pick Nature's Guidance either. Honestly that would be the main reason I would go into the Restoration tree. +3% hit chance on attacks AND spells is something I would definitely want as a shaman tank where your only chance of holding aggro is melee attacks with Rockbiter and your Earth Shock.

Anyway. I appreciate the thoughts but as of now I'm still not convinced that a deep resto spec is optimal for tanking.

[The Baby Seal 0]

3 hours ago, Kr3llz said:

While I agree with the fact that shamans have no way of instantly mitigage incoming damage they do have quite abit of damage reduction from wearing mail gear and shield. Along with healing stream totem and stoneskin they really do become quite beefy. Also their avoidence is way above 15%. Closer to 30% really. As of level 35 I have 5% Parry, 15% dodge and roughly 10% block. There's a good chance this won't last until 60, but with proper tanking gear you have a perfectly fine chance of maintaining this. Might actually go as far as to say you can get way above 30% if you aim for avoidance gear and trinkets.

Read what I wrote again. I said that enhancement talents only net you 15%. 5% block, 5% dodge, and 5% party at Max level. Stone skin is something, but I think it is overvalued. Healing stream too, unfortunately.

Quote

I know I asked for a more Restoration oriented spec and I appreciate your feedback. But I honestly don't see the pros of going this deep. It's not like you're losing your heals just because you don't spec resto. I still have plenty of opportunity to save my own ass if it comes down to it.

not with push back. When it comes down to it and you're desperate, you want to know that your heal is going to go off. You may think you can anticipate the emergency, but either way you're spending like 3 or more seconds on a LHW when you could spend 1.5 and go back to threat. And it's not just for emergencies. Think of it as your shield block. Persistent mitigation, not to mention the armor bonus you get from crit.

I'm stating again that my goal here is to tank and I believe that with the talents in Enhancement shamans are perfectly capable of doing so without having to waste all mana on self healing. Depending on what gear I pick at level 60 my mana pool might be very low, and I would prefer to actually do my job and hold aggro with spells while counting on my healer to do his job at keeping me alive.

Shamans are a hybrid class. And regardless of spec they have the spells to fill any role technically. Wouldn't it be better to aim for tankiness and mana reduction for your damage/threat spells instead of acting like a second healer while having to hold aggro with the only two threat generators you have?

healing contributes to the tankiness. What other spells would you use exactly? The rotation would be earth shock, heal, auto attack.you could drop fire totems for damage, but they give you no threat, and you aren't casting lightning bolt or cl with mobs smacking you with push back.

Also I don't quite understand your choice of picking improved ghost wolf. A talent which will do absolutely no good in dungeons. Never been a huge fan of improved Reincarnation either even though I kinda get why people like it. It's still a fairly large cooldown and as with Soulstone I would rarely use it during combat anyway since most of the times a wipe is a wipe and it would be better to resurrect out of combat.

I said I liked it and that those talents are flexible, did you read my post? Reincarnation every 10 minutes let's you trees and help your healer save a wipe.

You didn't pick Nature's Guidance either. Honestly that would be the main reason I would go into the Restoration tree. +3% hit chance on attacks AND spells is something I would definitely want as a shaman tank where your only chance of holding aggro is melee attacks with Rockbiter and your Earth Shock.

if you look at the talent build, and my post, I left talent points unspent because I was referring to a core build.

Anyway. I appreciate the thoughts but as of now I'm still not convinced that a deep resto spec is optimal for tanking.

Agree to disagree. I don't know if you've tried this yet, but your play style could make all the difference. If you run with a guild and healers you trust and Cc, that's way different from pugs. I could Dr your build working with a tight knit group with a mage, but mine is safer.

Also shaman have very high threat inherently. It's basically trivial to hold threat at least while leveling, even with no talents. But they can really melt, which is why I'm sticking to my guns.

EDIT: I will share my experience here, just to provide context. I have tanked RFC and WC which I didn't complete on Nostalrius, because I couldn't stay alive. On Nost, Earth Shock and Rockbiter we'd actually bugged and did not provide extra threat. I tested this myself after someone mentioned it one thread. Even with no bonus threat, I held threat with ES and RB. It wasn't as easy as it is on Elysium, but I did it. What I had much much more trouble with by far was living. Because we use freaking leather armor until 40. So my focus has been on surviving, though it's also worth noting BTW that heals will give you are threat at a 1X coefficient according to totemtank's guide, and even at .5 it is useful for tanking.

You seem to be tying this at later levels, 35 I think you said? Maybe we become less squishy then, and I have no experience there. But at low levels living is by far the biggest issue.

[Kr3llz 0]

4 hours ago, The Baby Seal said:

Read what I wrote again. I said that enhancement talents only net you 15%. 5% block, 5% dodge, and 5% party at Max level. Stone skin is something, but I think it is overvalued. Healing stream too, unfortunately.

Agree to disagree. I don't know if you've tried this yet, but your play style could make all the difference. If you run with a guild and healers you trust and Cc, that's way different from pugs. I could Dr your build working with a tight knit group with a mage, but mine is safer.

Also shaman have very high threat inherently. It's basically trivial to hold threat at least while leveling, even with no talents. But they can really melt, which is why I'm sticking to my guns.

I gotta admit I don't quite follow your logic. To me it seems you weigh the Restoration tree above the Enhancement. Don't get me wrong. I know you can get both, but there're plenty of other talents in Enhancement that will boost your tanking capabilities. I know you left out 9 points in your spec but that alone won't be enough to get 5/5 Flurry, 3/3 Elemental Weapons or 3/3 Nature's Guidance. Apparently you'll have to choose from those. You could probably argue that Elemental Weapons won't be necessary but another 20% bonus to attack power on Rockbiter will certainly increase your damage and threat.

While I agree with you that Healing Focus definitely will make a difference if you're trying to heal in a fight, I do believe there are plenty of other ways to avoid death. Potting, kiting etc. I don't plan to stand still and just let my death happen if I can avoid it in any way.

I am aware of the fact that healing generates threat and contributes to your survivability, but so does the fact that you can hold aggro off of your party. There is no specific rotation I would use, but since I have no taunt I would probably prefer hitting my target as many times as possible to not lose aggro. I have tried losing aggro and it's not always easy getting it back. 

Another option would be going 18 points into Elemental to get Eye of the Storm. That way you'd have a fairly large chance of getting the 6 second buff which will allow you to either heal or cast spells while tanking. This I have definitely considered since I still get some mana preserving talents in Elemental, along with the cooldown on shocks.

And by the way I did read your post. Sorry if I misread or misunderstood something. Might have gone through it a bit quick as I was responding. Chill with the saltiness.

EDIT

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Reincarnation has a cooldown of 1 hour, so I don't think it will be much of a difference even with 2 points in Improved Reincarnation.

[The Baby Seal 0]

26 minutes ago, Kr3llz said:

I gotta admit I don't quite follow your logic. To me it seems you weigh the Restoration tree above the Enhancement. Don't get me wrong. I know you can get both, but there're plenty of other talents in Enhancement that will boost your tanking capabilities. I know you left out 9 points in your spec but that alone won't be enough to get 5/5 Flurry, 3/3 Elemental Weapons or 3/3 Nature's Guidance. Apparently you'll have to choose from those. You could probably argue that Elemental Weapons won't be necessary but another 20% bonus to attack power on Rockbiter will certainly increase your damage and threat.

While I agree with you that Healing Focus definitely will make a difference if you're trying to heal in a fight, I do believe there are plenty of other ways to avoid death. Potting, kiting etc. I don't plan to stand still and just let my death happen if I can avoid it in any way.

I am aware of the fact that healing generates threat and contributes to your survivability, but so does the fact that you can hold aggro off of your party. There is no specific rotation I would use, but since I have no taunt I would probably prefer hitting my target as many times as possible to not lose aggro. I have tried losing aggro and it's not always easy getting it back. 

Another option would be going 18 points into Elemental to get Eye of the Storm. That way you'd have a fairly large chance of getting the 6 second buff which will allow you to either heal or cast spells while tanking. This I have definitely considered since I still get some mana preserving talents in Elemental, along with the cooldown on shocks.

And by the way I did read your post. Sorry if I misread or misunderstood something. Might have gone through it a bit quick as I was responding. Chill with the saltiness.

EDIT

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Reincarnation has a cooldown of 1 hour, so I don't think it will be much of a difference even with 2 points in Improved Reincarnation.

I don't think you need all of those talents for threat as I said, because shaman have crazy threat inherently. So while all 9 could conceivably go to threat, I do not think you'd need more.

Eye of the Storm is another great option, yes. It's arguably better than healing focus, because you have complete control over it. I recommended healing focus because you can get it earlier, and you get NS and 5% crit to heals. But yes in short that would definitely suit you, as you prefer threat and mana conservation, which you can get on the way to it.

No saltiness meant. I was confused.

If reincarnation Is an hour cool down then I agree the talent is worthless. I though it was 30 minutes. I looked it upon a wiki page and it was listed at 30 minutes with no change to the cool down in the patch notes.

In the end I'm pretty sure we are talking past each other because we are coming from different areas of leveling. I from the beginning, and you from the middle. 

[Kr3llz 0]

4 minutes ago, The Baby Seal said:

I don't think you need all of those talents for threat as I said, because shaman have crazy threat inherently. So while all 9 could conceivably go to threat, I do not think you'd need more.

Eye of the Storm is another great option, yes. It's arguably better than healing focus, because you have complete control over it. I recommended healing focus because you can get it earlier, and you get NS and 5% crit to heals. But yes in short that would definitely suit you, as you prefer threat and mana conservation, which you can get on the way to it.

No saltiness meant. I was confused.

If reincarnation Is an hour cool down then I agree the talent is worthless. I though it was 30 minutes. I looked it upon a wiki page and it was listed at 30 minutes with no change to the cool down in the patch notes.

In the end I'm pretty sure we are talking past each other because we are coming from different areas of leveling. I from the beginning, and you from the middle. 

It's tough. Different views different play styles. I'll definitely try working Healing Focus in there in case shit hits the fan. Appreciate the exchanges, my spec sure looks different from when I started this thread.

[Yxo 8068]

Lets make new topics for every tanking shammy, lol.

 

В 24.05.2017 в 17:21, The Baby Seal сказал:

two short CD tanking could downs in reincarnation and NS

Reimcarnation is bad CD for tank, because you should get very much threat after death to help your party.

В 25.05.2017 в 02:29, Kr3llz сказал:

I do believe there are plenty of other ways to avoid death. Potting, kiting etc. I don't plan to stand still and just let my death happen if I can avoid it in any way.

If you tanking several mobs - you should heal yourself 1-2 times (AOE threat) so your healer can heal you without taking attention of your mobs. It is faster than autoatacking and shocking everyone in pack. But if you have time to autoattacking everyone in pack - you tankicg very weak mobs and your party will live in any way.

 

В 25.05.2017 в 03:05, The Baby Seal сказал:

If reincarnation Is an hour cool down then I agree the talent is worthless. I though it was 30 minutes. I looked it upon a wiki page and it was listed at 30 minutes with no change to the cool down in the patch notes.

This CD for 2.0.1 and later.

[Kr3llz 0]

12 hours ago, Yxo said:

If you tanking several mobs - you should heal yourself 1-2 times (AOE threat) so your healer can heal you without taking attention of your mobs. It is faster than autoatacking and shocking everyone in pack. But if you have time to autoattacking everyone in pack - you tankicg very weak mobs and your party will live in any way.

So far I've tanked all SM dungeons and RFD with succes. I haven't specced into resto yet and I'm currently not healing myself in any fights. I have 45% damage reduction and around 25% avoidance. I pull with chain lightning with on packs with 2 or more mobs. I've had no problem with aggro so far as I tab-attack every enemy and so far it's been more than enough for me to hold aggro. 

I know it will probably be a lot more tricky once I start doing the high level intances but as of now it would just be a waste of talent points if I chose to go into the resto tree. And heals in fight is not necessary at all either at this moment.