They can tank everything up through BRD fairly easily… IFF you spec gear for it.
Though it is rare to see a shaman to be gearing/specing for tanking beyond level 40.
Anything beyond BRD would be tough I imagine. That was the highest dungeon where I had a shaman tank, and it went by well.
I don’t have any experience with a shaman tank in strath or DM… though i’ve heard of people doing it… I think you have to have a LOT of preparation to be able to do those smoothly as a shaman tank.
They are not good main tanks before 60. pretty terrible i think actually (they have terrible multi target threat and wear leather pre 40). Paladin and druid are great tanks in pre raid content but shaman are only “ok” tanks at best. However, i did talk to a dedicated shaman tank decked out in tank related epics and rares and he said a shaman in BiS tank gear will have the survivability of a warrior in fresh 60 gear but do loads of damage relative to prot warrior and have really good threat.
In all the best mail tank related epic gear they can do up to BRD comfortably (level 51-60 instance 5 man instance), maybe they can do ubrs but that might be pushing it, maybe only offtank there instead of maintank.
t- talked to a dedicated shaman tank in the best tanking gear about what being a shaman tank is like.
It would be nice to have a dedicated shaman tank/off tank for speed running some 5 mans but the preparation and gear collection to make it work well are not really worth it unless you are just looking for a challenge / something different to do.
If you spec/gear correctly, and play with a group of coordinated good players, you can do 5 mans and that’s about it. Just for the sake of fun and doing weird things in the game. Not sure what level you need to be to get all the required talents and spells to tank though. Focusing your shaman solely on tanking is not worth it in my opinion.
I am a healer. I can tell you for certain that shaman can not tank. They can be healed through the damage. That does not make them a tank.
It make for more work on the healer. The healer might as well tank. Agro will be easier for the healer to hold.
Thanks guys! I must have misunderstood from websites that I have read, and thanks for informing me. I am a little sad that I wont be able to tank super well (although I might try it early level). Ill just dps as shaman and heal when needed I think.
Lots of naysayers who have no idea what they’re talking about in this thread.
I personally tanked every 5-man dungeon in Vanilla at-level as a shaman. It is absolutely possible. 1.12 contained minimal nerfs to shaman tanking.
Is it optimal? Absolutely not. You’ll never be as good a tank as a warrior or a druid. But there’s a lot of space between ‘possible’ and ‘optimal’, and shaman tanking is in that space. It absolutely can be done; it won’t be as easy as having a warrior/druid tank, but it’ll be easier than having a rogue tank.* And it certainly beats having no tank at all.
*(I once healed a rouge tank through DM North. We wanted to see if it was possible. Conclusion was that he had no meaningful AoE threat at all, and could only hold ST threat by outgearing the other DPS, but we got through the instance.)
I tanked naxx with my bootyhole closed. Game’s a cake walk
Wait, so something like this…
https://classicdb.ch/?talent#hZVbfbxguz
…wouldn’t be viable for 5-man dungeons with decent CC/healing?
I too have always been fascinated with shaman tanking. From a lore perspective it makes sense.
Prior to Thrall connecting with the horde and discovering his heritage, shaman were dps and healers. But since he was a trained warrior this allowed for the enhancement tree to work from a lore perspective.
In game there is 2 schools of thought on this issue of vanilla tanking. There’s type 1. Only warriors are tanks.
And type 2. Warriors are the best tanks, and druids, paladins/shaman can also tank. The druid, however, is the best of the hybrids for tanking.
I plan to tank on my shaman. I did in the burning crusade. In fact the first time I ever tanked a dungeon was on a shaman so I know it works.
Give this a peek.
Shaman tanks LOL
Replace “scientists” with “shaman tanks”
Being capable of suffering through a dungeon with one doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea… Hell, a rogue has tanked every boss vanilla-TBC up till at least Illidan in Black Temple… That doesn’t mean that Rogue tanks are a real thing.
We used to call them totem cookers back in the day because sometimes their totems would catch on fire.
Well when I leveled my mage through classic we had a shaman tank all of scarlet monestary,we had some in rgc, we had one tank wc, we had one tank sunken temple,we had one in strath, and some of brd.
Shamans can tank somewhat if they have a shield that is good and a dagger then yeah they can. Lots of naysayers who never played classic are on this thread or never played it on horde side lots of misinformation.
But all of them were spect into two handed but still used one hander and shield for tanking.
I think that was more created out of the faction imbalance than anything else. Paladin tanks would have massively given an Alliance edge and Vanilla was fairer than retail when it came to this.
It wasn’t 100% fair, but the favoritism wasn’t nearly as blatant.
I can see this, I think that the reason why paladins had it harder then warriors was because they can heal and who would play warriors if they were outplayed by faction classes no one would play them.
The people who were in charge really did push hard that warriors were the real tanks and priests were the real healers.
Well the game would probably be way more imbalance if paladins tanked as good as warriors seeing how a lot of pvers go alliance and how paladin blessings were more superior then totems long term.
Faction balance is one of the most key principles that needs to be considered in a faction vs faction game or it causes problems long term.
i’m fascinated about shaman tank spec too
Sorry for the late comment.
Contrary to popular belief, shamans can indeed tank raids. I suggest checking out this guide:
barrens.chat/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1150
Also, happy to answer any questions you have on the topic. I’m quite familiar with Shaman Tanking myself, to the extent of where I started tanking as a Hunter for an actual challenge.
I tanked every dungeon in vanilla and OT’d raids upto AQ 40, then healed. In TBC i MT’d karazhan and OT’d gruuls lair, then healed. This is also back then though when the meta was different. In todays meta of speed it would be pretty rough
Find friends or a guild and go for it! Many others have.