Shaman tanks

WoW: Forever World of Warcraft: Forever General Discussion
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I just healed an SFK (gnome priest) that had a shaman tank. Easy run. Can shamans tank into higher levels?

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It currently lacks the tools to do it past a certain point.

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Shamans were able to tank in classic with the right gear and set up. There are multiple, in-depth videos on youtube.

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The only real hurdle is a true taunt but there are people that in classic and TBC tanked all the raids despite that.

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they lack a taunt and mitigation, early lvls is no trouble tho as no one has gear then

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While not a true taunt, Earth Shock deals extra threat so max rank Earth Shock is the Shaman tank’s “taunt”. It’s also your interrupt so you have to be strategic about using it for that if you think you might need to taunt a loose mob.

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Shaman and warlock tanks would be nice. Honestly, they should stop pigeonholing the classes into three specs each, and embrace the idea of having unique classes with two, three, or four specs.

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In era, a decent shaman can tank all dungeons up to 55~. Level 60 dungeons are doable but can be much more difficult with the damage and mechanics of some bosses.

Raids are a different story, shamans can’t get immunity to crushing blows, have no taunt for threat drop/tank swap mechanics, and have no big damage reduction cooldowns.

Wow forever has definitely improved shaman tank threat, but those issues still persist. They’re great dungeon tanks for most of the game, but likely won’t be tanking any endgame content unless blizzard adds a taunt, Dr cooldown, and a way to avoid crushing blows.

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Maybe off-tanking, but the truth is he lacks the tools right now.

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I think tanking for shamans and warlocks (and potentially rogues as well) is going to come in a future content update. They have to keep class design dynamic and interesting in the absence of higher level caps from expansions

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dungeon tanking and a solid beefy dps who can shield up after pulling threat

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Blizzard we have enough posts! Please just make shaman tanks already and I’ll never have to reroll again.

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Expanding gameplay options is very common in horizontal progression. :+1:

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If Bliz makes shaman a viable tank thing I would also argue it would be nice to not faction lock skelf classes to balance things out in terms of role options on each side >.>

Also for the “it was done in vanilla” sure and you could do unexpected builds like pure melee hunter, spellpower hunter and turn a rogue into a dodge tank with the right subtlety talent picks, it’s more cool things people could do when trying to build beyond the meta than anything particularly intentional

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I’ve seen some convincing theory crafting that say lvl 40 would be their natural limit as tanks.

Others think they can tank dungeons up to end game, but I am dubious. At some point you require talents for extra threat and survivability. But it’s an unsolved game so who knows what is possible.

Personally I want a 4th spec for shaman focusing on earth as their tanking tree.

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While true, rockbiter and earth shock have disgustingly high threat. My pally tanked a WC with a DPS shaman they’d snap aggro immediately after every earth shock.

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I mean, who knows what Forever changes will do, you’re right about that.

But as far as Vanilla goes, I tanked every Vanilla dungeon at-level as a shaman. It’s not that hard; shaman has about the same damage reduction as a shieldless warrior.

A few of the endgame dungeons are rough, UBRS in particular is pretty marginal and not really worth the effort, but you can do it.

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Good to know.

While I’m dubios given classes changes. As you stated, it’s reasonable to expect shamans to tank until the endgame.

As a classic warrior, tanking without a shield was not great until you had cracked gear. But possible.

Still would like to see enhance have an actual tank tree or talents to support it.

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If they are going to support shaman tanks, they need the following:

  1. a lightning shield talent that 1. grants like 20+ orbs, 2. reduces the dmg of the orbs, 3. greatly increases the threat of the orbs
  2. shield specialization talents to reduce incoming damage
  3. either some +defense talents or DR talents
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Orbs could just not be consumed. No need for 20 stacks.

Agree on the shield mastery, SoD’s glyph would be good.

They would need better/reliable aoe, and a few defensice CDs or talents to modify existing totems to act as such.