classic wow is the only place you will ever see a shaman tank.
Thanks for providing such a constructive and insightful comment.
There’s a possibility that blizzard adds it eventually; it wouldn’t require much, if anything, in the way of new art or animations (Just the earth ascended form), which makes it not much more difficult than doing a spec redesign. It also fits the class very well thematically. The only problem with it thematically is that the currently established lore has no shaman tanks. The real thing that is likely to kill its potential is that the legion class hall doesn’t have a section/mount/artifact for it and Azerite gear doesn’t support it, and retroactive fixes aren’t going to happen.
The groundwork has already been in place for a tanking spec in abilities Shaman has had in the past, and there isn’t a whole lot they’d need to do to complete it that hasn’t already been done: Add a 4th spec and give it a taunt, active mitigation, a passive armor/DR and an HP buff, and an Earth ascended form - then it’s just modifying the numbers/effects of existing abilities to fit the spec.
As far as new animations, the only ones would be the earth ascended form and maybe something for the active mitigation (though they could easily re-use another animation).
The main challenge would be the talents and what abilities to put in the rotation and how, which could have a lot of overlap with other specs.
Example of a Shaman tank spec with current class design in mind; names/numbers are obviously not set in stone (pun intended):
Spec: Earthwarden (seems good), Guardian/warden, or Fortification/Reinforcement (enhancement, but defensive - fits a bit better with the other spec names)
Passive effects:
Earthwarden/Reinforced - X% increased armor/stamina.
Mastery - Earthen Bulwark: attack power and block chance increased; reduces damage taken while earth shield is active.
~15-20% Chance to reset EQ/stoneskin cd on hit with rockbiter or when you avoid an attack.
Gain Parry equal to crit.
Maybe a chance basic attacks to generate earth shield charges if it’s active, and rockbiter to guarantee new charges, and Earth shock to launch those charges for self-healing if there are more than a certain number (much like the old lightning shield interaction for Ele).
Rotation Abilities:
Rockbiter - as current enh, primary resource generator with low damage - cleaves in earthquake?
Fire nova/Crash Lightning - 6s cd AoE generator (2-4MS per target hit)
Lightning bolt/Chain lightning - off cd dump (becomes instant and has increased damage by consuming ~30 maelstrom).
Earth Shock - 6s cd, reduces damage taken from the target by ~10% for 8 seconds. Generates 10-15 MS
Earth Quake - 15s cd 6s duration; generates ~10-20 MS
Flame Shock
Maybe fit stormstrike in as another CD-based single target ability, but even without it, the spec will be filling every GCD with the other abilities.
Defensives:
Earth shield - maintenance buff with charges for passive healing (as current).
Stoneskin - ~6s armor buff, costs ~40 maelstrom, ~15s CD, 2-3 charges
Shamanistic rage - 2min CD, 20% dr and increased MS generation for 8s.
Astral Shift - Same as other specs.
Grounding Totem
Healing Surge - 20 Maelstrom makes it instant (as Enh)
Tanking utility/taunts:
Stoneclaw totem - (basically Ox statue)
Ancestor’s Call(?) - 8s cd, taunt
Earth Elemental
Other Utility:
Frost Shock, Wind Shear, Earthbind Totem, Hex, Tremor Totem, Cleanse Spirit, Spirit Walk, Ghost Wolf Form, Reincarnation, Water walking, Ancestral Spirit, Far Sight, Astral Recall
Talents:
15: Boulderfist, Earthen Rage, Lightning Shield
30: Landslide (chance on rockbiter to increase next EQ/ES damage), Call the Thunder - increased max MS, and reduced MS cost of instant lightning bolt/CL(?), Totemic Mastery (2% haste, passive MS gen, x% increased Earth Shield healing, increased rockbiter damage)
45: Static Charge, Earthgrab Totem, Unstable Ground - adds slow and increases knockdown chance of EQ.
60: Earthen Wall Totem, Ancestral Guidance, Ancestral Vigor (10% increased hp for 10s to healing surge target)
75: Wind Rush Totem, Feral Lunge, Graceful Spirit (reduces cd of spirit walk)
90: Surge of Power (ES buffs next ability - EQ: Increased radius/damage, Rockbiter: extra MS, LB/CL: trigger overload, flame shock: affects an additional target, Stoneskin: provide a shield), aftershock(25% chance for EQ/earthshock to reset cd?), Sundering
100: Nature’s Guardian, Ascendance ((Earth) - 3 min cd, 20% DR and empowers rockbiter/earth quake for 15 sec.), Earthen Spike - (Reduces damage taken from the target by ~10% in addition to current effect).
Echo of the elements could probably fit in place of something on the 15, 30, or 90 tiers and give shocks and fire nova/Crash lightning 2 charges, and/or stoneskin could be reworked to 1 charge and get an additional charge from it.
Reincarnation might have been a concern at one point, but DKs and DHs basically get that with their lvl 100 talents Purgatory/Last Resort, and Paladins can effectively have it on a 2min cd with Ardent Defender and have bubble/lay on hands.
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That’s a good point in general; doesn’t it make adding new classes / specs at all? Unless they add a hero class (is that what DK / DH are referred to as?) that basically don’t do Legion / BfA? But that would just be adding new classes to the pool that new players couldn’t be for a while, which seems a bit meh…
I like the idea of combining ele and enh, but how would that work? We know Blizzard isn’t willing to balance two aspects in a single spec (2h enh, 2h frost, SMF fury), and I’m not willing to lose my favorite spec (enh). Would it be melee, or caster? We could bring back all the shock for enh, and make some ele abilities instant, maybe with a proc, but making ele a melee spec doesn’t make sense. As I said, I like the idea, but I’m interested to hear how it would work out in your mind.
Plus, the game could use more tank specs and a new one would definitely boost the number of tank players. Currently the hardest part about M+ runs is the wait for a tank.
And, again, the balancing argument doesn’t work. Ofc balance is not optimal in the game but it just can’t be, classes deal damage / heal in different patterns, you can’t possibly have every single class dealing the same amount of dps in every possible fight scenario (given the encounter time, uptime, # of enemies, etc heavily vary). If anything, I think blizzard does a good enough job at balancing, with some outliers here and there (clunky rotations such as Enh and FDK, or a spec overperforming such as spriests in BoD). They’ll never achieve perfect balance and that’s expected, and it is not an argument for them to not introduce new classes, specs, rework existing ones or other “impactful” change. Shaman tank would be awesome and I’d be the happiest dwarf in the world if we got it by 9.0.
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I’m all for more tank specs, but more doesn’t equate to more players tanking. People that want to tank do it. Adding another spec with boost tanking for a bit, but if people don’t like tanking, they just won’t do it. The biggest thing that will bring more players into tanks, and healing for that matter, is decreasing the toxicity towards those roles when things go south.
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In order to bring down the toxicity towards tanking, they’d need to make the role easier to play.
The difference between a good tank and an average tank is way more significant than it is for DPS, because they have the most impact on the group. They generally control the pulls, when/where the group/mobs move, etc… They need to be a lot more aware of everything than DPS, and also be paying attention to the abilities the boss/mobs are using to time their mitigation correctly (if they don’t have 100% uptime).
Giving shaman the option to tank WOULD increase the number of people playing tank, since not everyone is interested in leveling alts or picks their class to play a specific role. I don’t tank at max level atm (haven’t leveled any tanks yet, and doing stuff for an alt would be a PiTA with the essence and AP grinds), but would probably be main spec tanking if I could do it on my shaman, as I actually like playing the role.
There’s no need to combine specs or remove enh to add a tank spec. Druids already have 4 specs; no reason Shaman couldn’t be given a 4th other than potential problems with legion/BFA gear, though they could probably deal with the legion thing by having the offhand for doomhammer be a shield for the tank spec, and the BFA traits wouldn’t be an issue if they give the spec plenty of overlap with the other specs.
They could give the tank spec a version of Riptide (self only, and with a MS cost and longer CD), healing stream, and/or it spirit link totem as the 2nd defensive CD alongside Astral Shift (could work, but would need to be centered on the tank or something when placed, and would probably need a longer CD). - from the previous example, that would probably replace Stoneskin and Shamanistic rage.
That would get it to 6-7 usable outer ring traits with natural harmony, strength of earth, surging tides, swelling stream, spouting spirits, tectonic thunder, Ancestral Resonance, and Lava shock.
The inner ring pretty much always has some generic stat buff traits, which would be just fine for tanking. Might be a lot of buttons in the spec though, and none of the traits would add directly to mitigation other than Ancestral Resonance and Natural Harmony, so it’d be a bit weaker while leveling through BFA zones in terms of mitigation (though if it ever does get added, it’ll be in a later Xpac, so whatever).
All that said though, tank shaman probably won’t happen in 9.0; they’re probably too far along in development to add something like this, as “easy” as it could be to implement with no need for new animations. There still needs to be a lot of play testing and tuning.
If it ever does happen, it’ll probably be the expansion after that. IMO, they really never should have abandoned it because of how well it fit the class, especially with their whole “guardians of the earth/elements” thing that was put at the forefront in part of the Cata story with the Earthen Ring in Deepholm, but that’s another topic altogether (No spec with a primary focus on the earth abilities, and no Earth ascendance, but the Shaman organization is called the Earthen Ring, which is a bit ironic).
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I think you overestimate how many people want to tank. So many people leveled a DK when they came out, and the tanking problem persisted, and they had 3 options for tanking. Monks got a bit less leveling, because of the 1-max experience, but DHs start at 100, and the tanking problem still goes on. Its not a problem of not wanting to level, its more about not wanting the responsibility, or the fact that people just dont like tanking.
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I do think that if every class had a tank spec it wouldn’t shift the number of players tanking drastically (probably a bit); it’s as other has said, that it’s a player’s want to tank that’s most important. I’m not sure about anyone else, but I didn’t choose Shaman first, then DPS/Heal second…
Having said that, I would certainly try it out as I understand that many players will only have one toon, and no alts, so if you give that main a tank spec there will be many that try it and maybe love it.
But the ultimate here is that I don’t think it’ll happen.
How would they handle Legion Artifact / questing with a new spec? They’d have to commit to adding new quests and an artifact in. Azerite might be okay, as Uber eludes to maybe?
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I can’t see how adding a tank spec would decrease the number of tanks so mathematically it would increase. Not saying it would solve the tanking problem because of all the responsibility involved and stuff already stated above by others.
Nonetheless, I find myself in a position where I can’t maintain more than 2 toons (some weeks not even 1…) decently played. I like healing and I like tanking, but I love being a shaman; I don’t wanna roll druid / pally / monk or I’d have to
- level
- grind AP / gear
- do War campaign and quest progression stuff.
There are certainly others like me who would tank given the option. Specially since BfA is extremely non-alt-friendly, I feel it’s harder than ever to keep up with things.
I’m sure they can handle the balancing (to a certain level, at least) and Legion questline / artifact, even if they don’t retroactively provide every single artifact appearance and mage tower and challenge modes and so on and so forth.
Adding a Tank spec wouldn’t decrease numbers at all, it would only increase. But I can’t see there being that many players who would jump onto the Tank Train to make a big difference. Sure, there’s going to be players like you that really like Shaman and would tank if the opportunity presented itself. I’m just not sure there’s that many. I would have thought that if you were interested in tanking you’d have chosen a class that could tank.
But hey, that could be totally off, and many might flock to Shaman to tank, coupled with current Shamans that “give it a go” and fall in love! Like I said, I’d definitely have a go! But for me, I feel that I should be tanking from early on to get used to it; if I started tanking dungeons (even just normal) at my level I wouldn’t have a clue!!
I do hear you about managing alts. I’m almost the opposite, and have to contain myself from playing with so many. Managing it so far by just maining this toon, and having an alt I play at lunchtimes for a bit of a break / difference.
If they do add another spec (even if it’s not Shaman, but another class), I’d be interested to see what they do regarding retroactively updating older content (Legion artifacts / quests are the main bit), but also things like BfA Azerite-related stuff…? 
In my gw heal set. I died to the training dummy at 40 stacks.
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Me too, specially since many seem to think it as what’s stopping this from happening (having a new spec, not necessarily shaman).
I have tank alts at 120 and I like the role, I just don’t have enough time to gear them up enough for M+. At least not without giving up on this guy 
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This is me as well. I could have a tank or two however i dont have the time or the energy or drive to gear one.
Maybe because I’m still new(ish) and never been at “end game”, but gearing a different spec to your main (but on same class) is different to gearing an alt?
For example, if you’re an Enhancement main, there’s a difference gearing Elemental vs Frost Mage? Don’t both require new / different gear to Enhancement?
I totally get gearing a different spec on your main may feel nicer as all your other non-gearing progress is also ticking over (dunno, achievements, gold, currencies, etc?). And maybe you’re just really attached to them, or maybe they’re in a guild with good mates, etc. But by the sounds of the way some people describe this issue with having a Tank for Shaman it would be easier to gear or something, just interested in why 
If people want to tank enough they will roll a class that can tank. I dont roll a mage wishing they added a healing spec so i could heal as a mage.
No they cant handle the balancing at all. Ask Enhancement shamans on retail. Ask Enhancement shamans, you know, the original mail tank for 5 man dungeons in vanilla, that now no longer exists. You know the original shaman tanking experiment that only the few minority liked?
I literally just said I want to tank so badly yet I’m not rolling another main. Like, literally in the text you quoted. I tank on my DK for the experience but he’s definitely not gonna be my main, I prefer shaman for a multitude of reasons. I can’t see what you think we’d lose if they added a 4th spec…
yeah that makes sense. I want to heal so im going to main mage. Im going to start 100’s of forum posts to make that happen.
It was never an argument of what class someone would play. The point was that there’d be more tanks if shamans could tank, as proven.
And I don’t buy the “one more spec means the other three will be poorly balanced” argument. They added 2 DH specs and here we are with the same balancing issues as before, didn’t get worse. And “those specs underperform you should play x” is a thing 95% of the playerbase doesn’t have to worry about. It only matters for Mythic raids.
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I think it’s important to bring our discussion to an older post I made about Shaman tanking to avoid clutter on the shaman forums. Here’s a link
This is a personal mission of mine. I want to resurrect classic shaman tanking and bring it to retail wow! If you’re of like mind or want to voice a concern, join us at the above thread to flesh more of this idea out. The more voices we get the better chance that this comes to pass.