Give Shamans Tanking 4th Spec!

Classes Shaman
1

There is a serious lack of tanks in the game.

Imagine, coming back from work, tired, want to do some M+ and then sitting in LFM for hours just to find a TANK.

I would love to tank, but the problem is I can never dedicate myself fully to alts due to actually having a job (being employed), and due to class fantasy I just want to have 1 main and its a shaman.

SO give us a Shaman tanking spec (Earth Warden or something like that) and repopulate tanks in the game!

We’ve been asking this since WOTLK, its been a decade! Do something about this please.

26 Likes
2

I think if we’ve been asking this long and it’s still not a thing

The answer is no

1 Like
3

New tanks specs, historically, have never had a noticeable impact on the number of tanks in content.

Plenty of people actually have a job (are employed) and have alts.

1 Like
5

The thing is, people who want to tank are typically a finite group of people.

They rotate between the different tank specs to tank. SoD had a lot of people change to shaman to tank.

The amount of people that want to tank, don’t level an alt to tank, and specifically only play shaman has to be an incredibly low number.

They could make it, and it be successful, but that just means we would have fewer non shaman tanks from people changing class to shaman.

1 Like
7

But how do you know you’d like the retail shaman tank style?

It wouldn’t be what the SoD style is

And once again, I’d just point at history showing when a new tank class is put out, it has no noticeable effect in numbers.

9

I’d really like to get a tanking spec for Shaman. If they do do it I hope they look at reworking Resto/Ele too. I’ve always wanted a tanking spec for Shamans since we we’re able to make them in BC. We’ll see on what they do.

2 Likes
10

Would love to play a dwarf shaman tank but can only play Horde shaman in SoD sadly.

2 Likes
11

I specifically play shaman now. I used to have a tank alt and have the shaman but I can’t bother with redoing everything and gearing another toon. So, I play shaman where I can heal, melee and ranged dps. I COULD play Druid to cover all roles but I don’t like Druid healing. I love shaman healing especially with this 4 set bonus. So, the number of people who only play shaman and have been on this post is at least 2. Probably more common than you think.

12

Well you have sold me.

We are gonna have 2 more tanks regularly in the group finder. 1 if you actually count ones posting on a shaman that engage in m+.

Sure. History shows that adding more tanks doesnt noticeably change anything.

Sure. I am ok with saying that it will have a very nominal difference.

But until history shows me otherwise, I stand by what I said. That it would have next to zero different in groups looking for a tank.

13

You were tanking on Shaman in BC instead of Vanilla? When their Parry talent now reduced their threat generated by 30%?

That’s pretty hardcore.

15

Shaman tank with Rockbiter Weapon, Unleash Earth as taunt, and Maelstrom Weapon stacks that it can build with its spells and Lightning Shield to spend on Lava Burst ST, Molten Blast AoE or Healing Surge for self heals. Slap an earth ability or two in there, Earth Ascendance and PWave in the talent tree, and you’ve got a spec. ez

16

Idk mang every talent calculator I can find for Patch 2.4.3 has Spirit Weapons (Parry+30% reduced threat) under the Enhancement talent tree, and after digging deep enough I found the class patch notes for 2.0.1 and patch 2.0.3, where Rockbiter’s functionality was changed to no longer provide extra threat or extra AP and then the extra threat was taken off Earth Shock.

If you were pulling aggro off your tank in Wrath, it’s purely because either your tank was doing too little damage, you were doing BIG damage, but most likely a combination of both. Shaman tanks died after Vanilla.

18

I believe you, but the person who did that did so: without any extra threat generation, no taunt, an active 30% reduction to all his threat OR without having parry, and no Shield Spec talent because that was taken out in Wrath.

This person was a Vanilla Shaman tank who refused to let go. There’s almost nothing supporting him tank in his talent tree anymore besides a little bit of dodge chance and a little bit of stamina. At best he was a very, very cruddy Frost DK.

19

I’d like to see it just so we can finally put earth ascendance in and complete the quatro.

1 Like
21

Well, yes… SoD uses the vanilla talent tree, and rockbiter and earthshock still have increased threat. My point was that Shaman tanking had no support after Vanilla, nothing was added to help it and it was only stripped away with each expansion. This is my SoD toon ya know lol.

I never said that it couldn’t or didn’t exist, only that your WotLK example had nothing going for it and seemed like an objectively worse Frost DK. My entire point is that only the vanilla talent tree and abilities supported Shaman tanking.

Good catch on the spell threat though, that’s an important nuance to consider. Otherwise I completely agree that a 4th spec could be added in the current game, in the first weeks of SoD everyone was already saying “Shaman is the new Druid”.

1 Like
22

I’ve always wanted a tanking spec since the *Alliance were able to make Shamans in BC.

23

All for this! Would love to tank on my sham and not have to have alts :grin:

2 Likes
24

promise you it isn’t because shamans can’t tank (it’s the way they’re treated by the playerbase). the number of players who don’t tank because “the class with my fave fantasy can’t tank” is probably a lot smaller than people seem to think.

1 Like
25

Sad truth. Really hate doing group content just because of how players get towards the healers and tanks. Yes, sometimes it’s the healer(s) or tank(s) that are the problem, but those feel fewer in my experience.

2 Likes
26

Will it happen? Probably not. Would I play it and be so effing happy if it did? Hell yea!

I’m hoping SoD is a test ground for potential Retail introductions and since Shaman tanking was a bright spot in SoD AND we are getting a EARTHEN race, my hope level has gone up a tiny bit recently.

Fingers crossed lol