Well, it’s that time of the year where we all patiently await the new expansion of World of Warcraft; therefore, it’s time to reopen the forum with regard to the Shaman class and the necessity for them to gain a fourth specialization - earth based abilities - with the role being ‘tank’. It only makes sense, and it’s been far too long. Bring back rockbiter weapon in Shadowlands and allow one more class to tank - the game greatly needs more tank options and I know this one would be greatly accepted by the masses.
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Why? Because paladin has one? I am not disagreeing with you, although if it is up to me I wouldn’t necessarily include one. I don’t think having a tank spec really does too much for shaman and lore-wise I don’t see it making much sense.
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I don’t think Shaman (main) tanking has enough space in their lore. I think this is a cool idea, but I would rather see Elemental and Restoration benefit more from their mail+shield gear set. It feels like armor plays less of a role in survivability than it should. I think that heavier armor should directly correlate to increased physical tankiness. When you assemble a group full of mail or plate wearing classes in DPS and Healing roles, there should be a feeling that you have a group of off-tanks who can take a good beating of physical damage, but this is not the case.
For example, It doesn’t make sense that Destruction Warlocks, wearing cloth, would be tankier than Retribution Paladins, wearing plate, against physical DPS classes; but they are.
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There’s mixed feelings among those who play Shaman on this subject.
I immensely want a tank spec for my sham. I played classic for a little bit just to sham tank. I must’ve tanked Scarlet Monastery until my eyes bled. I ran out of steam with grinding up levels though; classic wasn’t for me. Although you have to admit: The class can tank, it’s just held back by the lack of gearing options in Classic.
I rolled a paladin in BFA for my tanking desires. It just would be nice if my actual main hybrid could actually… hybrid.
Why? Because paladin has one?
Well I mean, druid also has one… And similarly they were one of the three original hybrid classes. Shamans just got the short end of the stick here in my opinion.
I agree that lore wise it might be a stretch, but I think (depending the length of time skip) the next xpac after Shadowlands could justify some class changes like shaman having a tank spec. Something along the lines of Shaman getting more tutoring from the earth elementals in Deepholm or something like that.
Hear me out here, it’s just an idea. I haven’t exactly fleshed it out, but just thinking along the lines of what would be unique for the class as a tank mechanic. Somewhere I read a post about the tank spec being called Earth Warder and an idea to fit that would be like having a rock hide buff for damage mitigation. Over time as damage accumulates, the shell becomes more brittle meaning more damage taken, but there could be some interplay where as the shell becomes more brittle, you could “explode” the cracked pieces as AOE damage. So you have this tug of war of wanting to maintain high damage mitigation but also being able to do more damage and maintain aggro on multiple enemies. Maybe like a stack of “brittle” can do an X amount of AOE damage when cast, and you want to build up those stacks for more damage but more stacks means more incoming damage. I could see the earth elemental totem being changed to the main defensive CD where you embody the earth elemental itself (maybe look like one of the elementals from Deepholm to fit the lore idea) becoming even tougher and having an earth quake cast underneath you. I know the notion of shaman tanking was kiting back in Vanilla, but I don’t see how well kiting would work with certain mechanics where bosses are stationary or damage is just unavoidable. We could have frostbrand weapon enchant or rockbiter (maybe dual wield) for a slow debuff (frost) and armor and regen buff (rockbiter).
Anyway, just an idea I had and I know it’s not perfect, but hey why not give it some thought.
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No. It’s not going to happen. It’s not needed. No class is ever going to get a whole added spec to it’s design.
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As long as it’s a 4th spec and enhancement isn’t deleted for it I’m okay with it. Don’t make another rsv/msv situation.
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Lol what? You know they did this for druid right? You know in classic they had a whole ton of tankish abilities and talents right? It makes a lot of sense.
100% this… I definitely don’t want to lose current enhancement for it. Even if I hate the current iteration.
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having tank shaman does make sense lore wise ele follows fire lord, resto follows the tide hunter, enhance follows the storm lord, but we do not have a spec that follows the earth mother which does not make sense since we should be more attuned to the earth then shooting lighting from our fingers
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Druid had tank abilities in their tree until they created a 4th spec. Shaman havent had tank abilities since BC. Two totally different things. You are comparing apples to oranges.
No shaman tank spec. Ever.
Lol what are you even talking about? The original iteration of enhance in vanilla was clearly designed to be able to fulfill some kinda off tank role. You could use a shield, you had threat generator abilities and damage reducing abilities. You had talents that gave you better block, armour, parry and dodge.
Don’t know how it gets anymore tank than that. Also in TBC there were a few shaman that main tanked 100% of Kara. Wasn’t easy and they put a lot of work in collecting weird gear, but it was a thing.
Like can you give an actual reason? If they don’t remove enhance as a dps spec I don’t see why not. There’s a lot of potential there for some cool and unique asthetics as a tank spec. A focus on the earth element. I’d play it.
4 Likes
What are you talking about? Did you read my quote?
You talk about tank abilities in Vanilla, im talking about from BC to Present. So what are you talking about? LOL
Secondly, if we use your example of some shaman finding weird gearing to be able to tank Kara, where they able to tank BT or Sunwell? Also just because some people can do it, doesnt mean it was the design intention, otherwise I could say the same about all Ny’alotha raids. 30 tanks are doing that now, so I guess that means the intention was all raids should be ran by only tanks right? Using your logic.
Because Blizz cant even get 3 shaman specs right. You think they can handle a 4th? Shamans are below decent in PvP in all 3 specs. In PvE they are not ideal for the current raid content. I dont want to be pigeon holed into a class that is forced to tank, IE: DH in RBGs, etc. Thats enough reason for me.
If anyone wants to play a tank class, go level a class with a tank spec.
Yeah and vanilla was the OG design. Clearly in TBC they were even thought about. Just because they abandoned it after doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Clearly.
Lol what? Ele is top tier man. Resto is also doing very well. Only enhance is sucking. There’s been plenty of times where all 3 specs were top tier. Mop-legion come to mind. That’s literally just a balancing thing that comes and goes. It has nothing to do with the number of specs.
Unless you’re pushing world first they all do just fine. Same with m+.
And right now you’re pigeonholed into ele or resto. If you’re a mage you’re put into fire. If you’re a hunter you’re bm for pve and survival for PvP.
Dude it has nothing to do with the number of specs. It has everything to do with blizzards balancing at the time. Having a tank spec would be so different from the other 4 specs they would have virtually no effect on the other three.
Prime example is guardian druid. The balance for guardian hasn’t affected resto/boomy/resto/feral all expansion. The abilities are completely different. It’s not like they’re nerfing bear armour because guardian is too good and then resto/feral suffer because of it.
They’re completely seperate man. It would be cool to have. Unlikely, but cool. More options is always a good thing.
1 Like
Shaman in classic had many aggro spells as well as mitigation spells, and they were intended as off-tanks for the Horde (while Alliance had Paladin). I don’t mind seeing this returning.
Lore wise, many characters like Thrall receive combat training before they become Shaman, so it’s not against the design to have Shaman tanks.
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Precisely. It was abandoned. Comparing Shaman tanks that design wise only existed in Vanilla to Druids that have always had tank design is comparing apples and oranges. They are two totally different things. One class, a minority want a tank spec, the other class, has always had a tank spec. How can you not see a difference there? And Vanilla being the OG design, well auto attack dominated ENH game play should that make a comeback too since that is OG Design? No of course not, that ridiculous. Just because it existed in Vanilla doesnt mean it should make a comeback.
Ele is not top tier. LOL. Saying they are top tier is putting them on par with Fire Mage and Destro who are actually top tier. We both know thats not true. They are not S-Tier, they are not A-Tier, they are B-Tier at best. You can ask any tourny player/ streamer, they will say the same thing.
Resto, can work in some comps but is miles behind Hpal and MW. They are in the same spot as Disc Priest and RDruid.
ENH is well… ENH. Im sure I dont need to say more on that.
True.
So you admit Blizzard is horrible at balancing and yet you still want a 4th spec? My point was and is that Blizzard is horrendous at balancing, especially in the past 2 xpacs, but historically with Shaman as well in general. Cata ELE PvP was virtually unplayable for the entire xpac, much like ENH PvP currently.
If I have no faith in them balancing 3 specs, I definitely have no faith in them balancing 4. How can you have faith in them balancing 4 specs for Shaman when you yourself have given current examples where they fail in balancing?
Would you prefer that Demon Hunter had never been added to the game? Was the Death Knight a mistake? Do Monks belong in the bin? Would it have been a wiser decision to cut Bear (or Cat) form entirely, rather than create a fourth Druid specialization? Should Paladins have had their tank spec deleted, rather than expanded upon?
Would Rogue, Hunters, Mages, and Warlocks be better classes if they had a single specialization, instead of three specialization performing the same role? After all, it’s not uncommon for one (or more) of the specs for these classes to objectively underperform.
These are fun things. Not every decision is, or should, be based around whether something is balanced. The only way the class design would be perfectly balanced would be to have only three classes, each of which only performs a single role: Tank, Healer, DPS. It wouldn’t be fun, but it would be easy to balance.
Shaman tank is grounded in the original design intent of the class. That it was changed later is of only minor note. It’s certainly a better idea than adding entirely new classes to the game.
5 Likes
Yes I wish DH was never added HAHAHAHA
But seriously, what you are doing is building a Strawman and completely irrelevant to the discussion.
The fact is there are many shaman that dont want a tank spec, a majority, and would rather see their three current specs be balanced.
Blizz thought this when they added azerite traits, essences, corruptions, horrific visions. This line of thinking got us into the balancing nightmare we are in currently and the horrible state of the game that is BFA.
No class has ever been given a 4th spec out of the blue.
Whenever a new spec is given, one is always lost.
What spec are you willing to sacrifice, enhance, elemental, or resto?
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It’s as much as strawman as using the borrowed power systems as an example of why New Thing Bad. Less so, since at least I’m using new classes that were added as examples of why adding new classes doesn’t HAVE to be unbalanced and terrible.
/Sigh dude they’re not. Enhance was about as good as druid at tanking in classic. It’s very comparable. They had ideas for both of them to be offtanks.
I wouldn’t mind it over the current iteration at all. Spam stormstrike to death. Literally one button? I feel like I press more buttons in classic than I do in the current retail version.
Lol what? Ele boomy got played in the tourney and it did alright. Ele got played a bunch actually. It’s not quite destro/fire mage levels of busted but it is still s tier man. There are also a ton on the ladder. It’s actually so good lol
Because the 4th spec wouldn’t affect the balance 
litteraly zero correlation. The only thing that affects balance is blizzards desire to make it so I’m a set expansion. They would be completely separate.
This is literally druid. There was no tank spec. There was feral with tank talents. Just like enhance. Then they created a 4th spec out of it. Very possible for shaman.
2 Likes