I think what he’s talking about is some of the crazy nonsense we have to do to gather threat and participate at a higher level. Full spellpower set to cast lightning shield before pull, using lightning bolt rank 1 inbetween boss autos to proc elemental devastation, hot swapping a spell power weapon to cast shock & lightning shield mid combat. These are just a few examples. Neither Druids nor Warriors require this effort. Not by a mile. It’s very fun and rewarding.
And a lot of it is very suspect or even outright negative.
This is fine, no different than my throwing on enough T1 to give myself better Thorns, but also pretty trivial for raiding.
This is flatly bad. Casting means stopping your autos, and all to hope to get a spell crit to mildly increase your melee crits, the melees you’re shortchanging. This is one of those times where his math really needs to be shown to justify such a tactic. And of course there is the issue of eliminating all Block/Avoidance if you mistime or the boss has a special.
Swapping a weapon incurs a global and stops your auto, for each swap, so again, there is a distinct trade off that needs to be proven useful.
Warriors have stance-dancing that actually works very seamlessly if done correctly, and they need to in order to manage a few fights without assistance.
Druids don’t get to showcase our caster skills often but we have our own workarounds for things like chugging potions mid fight and keeping Rage going in no-damage situations.
All of that being said, the “tricks” look to be just that, and not actually very useful. Delaying or canceling your auto means stopping Rockbiter procs as well, and minimizing the usefulness of the AP it grants.
It always comes back to the math, and right now that’s lacking.
I’m having a blast. I love the added complexity.
Yeah it’s bad until AQ. Losing an auto is worth the proc and small damage from the bolt. It can also proc clearcasting. It’s a pretty darn useful trick 
I’m fine with you not understanding, but my guild absolutely loves this. It’s new and exciting, we learn more every day, and they healers are constantly reassuring me they feel next to no difference between me and our p1 bis prot war. The hits I take can be larger, but less often, and I produce more than enough threat for nobody to have to worry. They just go full DPS start of fight and no problems ( some hitting 800 or so start of fight ).
I don’t think you’re hearing what people are saying, but just to reiterate:
- Shamans are viable whether you like it or not. I don’t owe you fourteen spreadsheets, but you’re welcome to disbelieve because I’m not providing the exact maths you want. Still MC & Ony vids up above as very simple examples.
- (we all fear if we waste the time on something we already know you’re going to move the goalpost for the hundreth time this post, what you think is simple math is, from a shaman tanks perspective, insurmountably complex because you can’t see the big picture because you’ve never played the class as tank )
- I’m going to tank through Naxx. I see no fights which will be an issue until then as long as I come prepared. Naxx will be a challenge, but from my p5 BIS it seems achievable. Taunt leapfrogging & using different element shocks to avoid full nature res bosses. It’s more work, at times it can be more challenging, but it’s more fun for everyone.
- I’m sorry you don’t understand the complexity of our ‘tricks’, but they work. I’ve tested them all. They are not “use at all times”, like our heal-tanking-aoe sets, it is for specific purposes.
Are you planning on prioritizing more and more SP and SpellCrit in AQ over melee stats? Are you going to just forego improved damage on your MH weapon?
/siiiiiigh
You’re supporting a tactic without actually substantiating why. Your reasoning doesn’t even follow as ES can proc Clearcasting as well, and Clearcasting is a PPM, so weaving in extra casts won’t actually improve your PPM in the long run, especially if you’re shocking on CD. The damage from LB itself will be trivial as Rank 1 gets barely a 10% SP coefficient and the base damage is less than Thorns.
So again… I don’t care if your guild loves it. I care that people are spouting off about Shaman as if they’ve done the math, but then refuse to prove up a single iota of it.
Then you aren’t to be taken seriously, at all. Shaman “tanking” only occurs because your guild allows it, not because it is preferable, useful, or even viable.
This is just arrogance on your part. Shaman are not complex. At all. Not relative to other classes presently, and not even close to what Tanks become. If you think I can theorycraft the stupidity that was Savage Defense for a Druid but Vanilla Shaman casting ES every 5-6 seconds is a bridge too far… phew.
How are you going to achieve the necessary EH to survive:
- Broodlord’s Mortal Strike
- Vek’nilash’s Unbalancing Strike
- Patchwerk, either as MT or as OT
How are you going to manage the Taunt swaps for:
- Fankriss
- Kurinnaxx
- Gluth
- Four Horsemen
And these are just the mechanics that stymie Warriors/Druids that are not prepared. I haven’t the foggiest if you can even handle Battleguard or other moderately hard hitting bosses.
I can also pop out of forms and hit people with HoTs and Innervate, but there is a distinctive trade off to do so. I’m not arguing that it is impossible to casting Rank 1 LB between boss swings, I’m arguing doing so is actually a net loss. In other words, these “tricks” are a lot of work to gain nothing.
Without the math to demonstrate how and why these work, no one should bother. Saying “I tested it” means jack all. Prove it up.
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We’re gonna find out, as I’m going to be tanking it day one.
- 5050 base hp, 7300 armor in my stam set, which loses me about 30 sp, 2% crit, and 2% dodge. Ignoring dodge because we’re assuming he isn’t missing and he also crits. Elixir of fort, elixir of sup defense, +15 stam alcohol, +12 stam food, titan flask, +25% armor from healers, +15% max hp tribute, priest stam buff (54?), improved imp buff, Stoneshield potion ( 2k armor ), mongoose ( 50 armor ), lung juice (25 stam), warchief blessing would be nice but not counting on it. Am I missing any?
Yeah that should be plenty. Viable.
Taunt swaps are not as hard as people make them out to be. We did it on golemagg several times without any issue during progression. Just need to stay in close 2nd place, which is easy to do with a prot warrior. Takes a bit more effort though, so we’ll see.
You think you’re going to take a critical hit from something that can crit plate users for nearly 8k with Defensive Stance with those numbers? Unless they dramatically nerf Broodlord’s damage… if that’s all you can muster you’re going to be relying on RNG to survive.
Also if you have any intention of Tanking Broodlord, you absolutely cannot Tank Vael and have to hope RNG favors you, else some of those buffs won’t be available to you at all after you necessarily die to Burning Adrenaline.
You swap… Golemagg? Oh man.
Also you won’t have the privilege of building aggro on Four Horseman, you can’t be anywhere near that mob lest you get mark stacks.
Maybe. I’m betting I’ll have more armor than that random ‘plate wearer’ had. If he didn’t have maxed defense, I’m guessing he wasn’t a tank. Nor would he have nearly as much armor as I do. I’ll post a vid when it happens so don’t forget to subscribe and hit that hell icon. Haha
Not anymore. Just on first few weeks of progression back in October. Not sure if it was entirely necessary, but oh well, was a good test of taunt swapping. Easier than it sounds.
I think this is right:
5050 + 120 (elix o’ fort) + 150 (rum) + 120 (steak) + 1200 (titan) + (assuming only base hp 15%, idk) 750, 700 (priest w/ improved stam), 550 (improved imp), 250 (lung juice), 300 (warchief) = 9190 hp … assuming no tribute or warchief, 8140. I could be off, feel free to correct me.
Unlikely, and remember even if you have more armor, you aren’t actually sturdier than a Warrior. Defensive Stance is an additional 10% reduction, which makes it worth increasing amounts of Armor as you scale up.
Being Defense capped wasn’t a trivial matter then, and was often foregone because of threat and just bad itemization, so this isn’t actually a good assumption at all.
Comparing P2 to a P1 bis warrior.
Make equal comparisons if you want to be taken seriously.
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Prot pallies only major issue is Mana consumption. If you can find a way to at least alleviate that problem somewhat, they’re actually good tanks with great AoE threat.
Mana simply isn’t the only issue a shammy tank faces. They’ll be open to crushing/crits, take a rather large amount of damage, and lack a real taunt. For these reasons, you’ll never see one tank anything that requires a good tank to complete.
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I didn’t think there was much of a difference. Neither of us have done any PVP. So we’re both p1 BIS. p2 BIS would be rank 10+ right? What a weird nitpick.
And yet, we do. ITT shaman tank hate from people that haven’t played it. I’m not sure where this is all coming from.
Do your thing! Whatever you enjoy most.
I notice Shaman damage mitigation is insane, sometimes with 1200 AP i barely get about a 350 white melee hit on them.
Kinda curious as to how fun shamans are to play.
A blast! Duels are hilarious. Leveling is a breeeeze fill any dungeon role while also having an easy time questing. Tanking feels incredibly rewarding and complex enough to add a level of depth to preparation that is unlike any other class I’ve played. Happy to discuss in depth if you were thinking about giving it a shot, can you pm in forums? Would be easier in discord.
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Think i’m def making another main on a diff server. Shaman it is.
Quite a few of us on Fairbanks if you haven’t made a pick yet
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Gona grind a few more games of AV, ill def hit you up when I make one on that Server! Thanks!
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Who’s “we”? I’ve yet to see it.
It’s not shaman hate, it’s called “realism”.
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Prot paladins don’t have mana issues, you’d have to put very little effort to achieve that, the same goes for shaman tanking. A simple google search on shaman tanking or paladin tanking should supply you with enough info on the matter.