Just curious, is there a tanking niche that shaman would fill? we already have tanks with sustain (drain tank) - BDK and VDH, we have stagger in BrW, we have high utility in Prot pally, we have shield in prot warr, and we have an HP sponge in bear.
I’m all for shaman tanks, I’d pick that shiz up in a heartbeat with the pug hell i’ve been in this season, but I can’t see a niche in there
Does it need a niche? Maybe it’d just be nice to have a different flavor of the same thing.
In all likelihood, of what you’ve listed, prolly fall in same category as prot pally. And thats fine. Not everything needs to be a brand new thing.
I guess not necessarily, but it’d make it more attractive as an option for non-shaman players to shuffle over to imo
Here’s what I’m thinking: I looked at the crafted shields - they’re either Str or Int… no Agi. I would find it odd that they’d add a third Str/Shield tank… Blizz would likely try to make something a bit different so it would probably be a caster tank of sorts - this is kinda how things are shaping up on SoD as well. If this were the case, then a tank would suddenly have access to caster trinkets - that could turn into something wild, maybe. I’d also bet that they’d put the tank spec between Resto and Ele and basically redo the Farseer hero tree so that it’s Resto/Tank - that would then mean Ele would have access to Tank/Stormbringer. Going back to the SoD mechanics, Shamans kinda become tankier the more they block - there’s a stacking dmg reduction; maybe the retail niche would be that it’s more durable based on the number of targets present? Or, maybe Earth Elemental would play a big role?
I mean I think theres space for it for sure, and to be fair there is a tank shortage in the game so maybe introducing another tank spec soon would be nice. Not necessarily another new class, but a new spec would be good.
And it would also be really cool to have a spec based heavily around earthy/rock/nature type of spells since thats kind of what we’re missing. Ele focuses mostly on lava/lightning with a bit of frost and earth, enh is mostly wind/lightning with a bit of frost, resto is primarily water.
All 3 specs utilize earth/nature to some degree, but it is not at the forefront of any of the specs. Ele gets it the most with earthquake and earth shock, but thats about it and thats also completely fine. However due to that, there is certainly space for an earth/nature based tank spec, maybe it can be the first tank spec that uses a 2h+shield as well, that’d be kinda cool. Or just a 2h, thats fine too.
Well, well, well…
The chance of Earthwarder isn’t incredibly high, but it’s been catapulted into the realm of possibilities since they’ve been included AND supported in SoD.
Building a new 41-48 talent specialization with interactions with a choice of two hero specializations (Totemic{Y!} and Farseer{M?}) would be cool. Straight up, the concept made real would be cashing in on 20 years of cool.
My questions would be less about the analogs, like earth shields to bone shields. If it’s just a blood dk mitigation with paladin self-healing, shaman tanks would just catch flak for not having the rest of the kits of just being more blood dk or more paladin. A shaman tank can’t just be a hybridization, but a concept that stands on its own. Totems that are just consecrate/dnd should make someone yawn.
Talk about precognitive Ancestors whispering combat techniques for dodging the business and weaving in hurricanes, tremendous Totems warding the land and allies, and bringing to life abilities we hadn’t seen in player hands yet, like the Garrosh Crushing Hand.
I think I’d be interested in an Earth Warden concept that was a support+tank for the group in a way. Rock wall to block frontals on players behind the wall, earth shields on the group that get buffed based on what earthen attacks you do, abilities like ‘life of the earth warder’ summoning an earth elemental that increases your stam and makes everyones attacks in the group summon earth shards that hit all targets, etc. Just random ideas here nothing concrete but I think that would be kind of interesting and different from other tanks. Lots they can do though.
As fun as Tank Shaman sounds, I have absolutely no trust in Blizzard to make our talent tree work around it - it’s gonna become a mess, just like Druids are. Also we already have more specs in the game than Blizzard can tune around, which might not be a big deal to many of the players, but I personally believe we already have too many and would not want to see more with how tuning has been done in recent years
Luckily enough, our class tree already supports a tanking spec. Also, TWW is the most balanced the game has ever been. And, since Dragonflight, Blizz is constantly tuning and reworking classes/specs. This is kinda the best time in WoW’s history to release a new class/spec.
Don’t really agree with any of those statements, except maybe tuning/reworking part. But in any case I like reading passionate posts, so keep fighthing
It seems like a cool idea, Thrall like tanking shammy spec. We haven’t had any mail tank spec have we?
The reason I say that is because the class tree is pretty much entirely filled with utility - there isn’t much that is actually relevant to a specific spec. Pretty much everything in that tree can easily be used with all three specs because of how generic they are. I would also argue that there are more durability, disruption and survivability tools than anything else. So, that’s where I’m coming from.
Bump for whole-hearted support!
Im not dying to get this but i will support the cause. Godspeed.
what niche would a shaman tank cover that isn’t filled by what we currently have? i’ve heard the reason why they won’t give warrior bloodlust is because they do not want a tank capable of using bloodlust which personally i disagree with (i’d love more specs with lust)
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit. I looked at the crafted shields and they only have Str and Int as primary stats, not Agi. I’d bet that they wouldn’t make a third Str/Shield tank. So, to stay unique, I’d bet that this would be the first Intellect/caster tank - this could open up some crazy trinket interactions; Shaman is very much an Intellect tank on SoD atm. Outside of that, a particular niche is anyone’s guess.
the only thing i could think of is being a pet tank? in the same way unholy/sv are pet specs? i’m not saying that the pet should tank in any way shape or form but provide some kind of utility/combo play
People that aren’t already tanking will not suddenly become tanks just because there’s a new tank style to try out. There might be an initial swell, but most shaman tanks would just be players that were other class tanks prior.
Unless that’s the point, then hey, cool. Though I don’t trust these devs to balance MORE. We have 13 classes, 30 I think specs, and a bunch of subspecs (hero talents) that are already a balancing disaster. One of those “careful what you wish for” things.
The point of introducing new classes/specs is to enable a particular class fantasy. And, while I do agree that there can be some friction in balancing, Shaman Tank has been heavily requested for pretty much the entirety of WoW’s history. While it might not drastically increase the number of tank players, it certainly wouldn’t hurt.