Been reading into some the theorycrafting on the Warden discord. One of the best options available is to seek out Resiliance gear since it’s far easier to get crit capped through Resil than it is to get Def capped.
Very helpful, especially details on Lightning Shield. I’d read somewhere that it’s important to threat and unkeep might be necessary in some fights, but wasn’t sure if Imp Lightning Shield was worth the 3 points.
Lightning Shield is baseline 287 damage +33.3% SP per hit, only able to proc once every 3.5 sec, meaning you could at best pump out 861 +100% SP every 10.5 sec. Improved Lightning Shield would amp this up to 990.15 +115% SP.
Frost Shock is an average 515 +42.86% SP per hit, doubled for threat purposes, every 5 seconds with Reverberation fully talented. 5/5 Concussion bumps this up to 540.75 + 45.003% SP.
So fully improved Lightning Shield is 94.3 +10.952% SP per sec threat
Meanwhile, talented Frost Shock is 216.3 +18.001% SP per sec threat
At a glance, it certainly fairs worse than Shocks and only gets trounced thanks to Frost Shock’s double threat modifier, but is otherwise perfectly valid TPS insomuch as the Shaman kit is concerned.
From what I have found looking at gear options, in p1 you could get about 75% total avoidance, which means you still have a 15% chance to get crushed. This would be your biggest problem in raids, but not so much in the 5 mans. Your biggest problem after that would be threat generation. If you can generate enough threat, then yes, Shaman tanking is possible.
I would include a link to the set but Blizzard doesn’t seem to want me to do that
Choose the Preformatted text option.
As for crush-ability, something I’m hoping for is that there will be an early mechanic change that we got in Patch 3.0 for TBC where mobs whose level is 4 or more above your level can deal Crushing Blows.
https://seventyupgrades.com/set/dKkncjHxDwi6JhS5eYsqKg
There ya go. Also, I highly doubt they do that since crushing blows are a fundamental mechanic in TBC, especially as far as gear progression goes. Expect crushing blows to be in the game for mobs 3 levels above you.
True, but #SomeChanges might open the door to new possibilities
I doubt that is one of the changes that Blizz would entertain, however I did discover a talent deep in ele tree called elemental shields, this talent would allow you to reach defense cap, but I will warn you, from what I have tested you will still get hit like a truck by raid bosses.
No way… LOL, not without absolutely dropping way too much Armor/Stamina.
Yeah, hell no. 8.4k Health and 8.8k Armor are just not even remotely an option.
A PvP geared Shaman in P1 can hit 12.2k Health and 11.6k Armor and is still far behind what a SP stacking Paladin achieves in terms of sturdiness.
https://seventyupgrades.com/set/mz2C66B5YzQm3jnQ14arhm
Avoidance doesn’t mean crap when you just flatly die to anything that hits you.
I was actually able to get defense capped with a different set of gear.
Also if you try and tank with that set you will die very very quickly, your health pool means nothing when everything can crush you for half your health. Literally one parry and you die. Also that set just has straight up worse mitigation, sacrificing defense for armor is not a good move.
Right, but you’re so woefully low on EH that you’re going to die the moment anything actually hits you.
Avoidance != Mitigation
Mitigation is Armor, Magic Resistance, and any special forms of guaranteed damage reduction like Defensive Stance, Improved Righteous Fury, etc. These are the things that reduce the damage you take regardless of how you happen to roll on the Combat Table.
Avoidance is Miss, Parry, Dodge, and for unique purposes only, Block. These let you outright avoid the hit entirely but because you can’t guarantee them in any way or control them outside of gear stacking, they’re unreliable. The only way these stats really come into play is if:
So no, the set I linked has massively superior Mitigation, but far less Avoidance. In fact, the PvP set I linked gives the Shaman an unbuffed 25.8k Effective Health. The Leather-clad Avoidance set that you linked only has 15.4k EH. Put another way, the PvP geared Shaman can take nearly twice the damage before dying.
Compare that to a Paladin in P1 who is stacking exclusively SP focused gear from top to bottom and still has 2k more EH than the Stamina stacked Shaman, and significantly more Avoidance
Finally, your Shaman setup only works to get that kind of total Avoidance by taking Spirit Weapons, which straight up nerfs your threat by a large margin. If you’re going to be Defense/Agility stacking, the majority of your gear is going to be melee oriented, meaning the majority of your threat is going to come from your autoattacks, which you just took a talent to specifically nerf.
But let’s pursue the Avoidance thing:
https://seventyupgrades.com/set/jkoFS4pWmCPQBiyB9xHPet
In BiS Sunwell Gear, you’re looking at 91.60% Boss Avoidance, assuming you take Spirit Weapons. You’re still in a variety of Leather and have pretty poor EH and you’re one hit away from instant death while having severely nerfed threat, not to mention this set gets substantially worse once you tried to use it against Illidan (Miss Chance doesn’t help against Shear) or anything in Sunwell (Sunwell Radiance removes a huge chunk of Avoidance).
So going an Avoidance build just isn’t going to work when a Druid can do the same thing, have tremendously more EH while doing it, have fantastically more TPS while doing it, and still has access to all the standard Tanking kit skills.
No hit, and low expertise… brutal.
Nice amount of incoming damage avoidance, only 8k armor for mitigation though. But I’m extremely skeptical about holding threat, nevermind against multiple targets.
8k health and armor is one shot city with some heroic bosses and most raid bosses. That’s ~2 attacks, and if they crush, instant death. No amount of healing can prevent a wipe if you’re “tanking” and go from 100%-0%
For your viewing pleasure:
https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Magtheridon_(tactics)
- Hit: ~6k on plate
- Cleave: ~8k on plate, frontal cone AoE
If we guesstimate ~14k Armor, that’s ~54% damage reduction against bosses, whereas ~8k Armor is ~40% damage reduction against bosses. If we don’t even consider the differences from Defensive Stance or Improved Righteous Fury, the Shaman is taking over 30% more damage per hit, so that 6k normal melee hit is now 7.8k. But if we’re talking a Paladin with Imp. RF, the Shaman is taking 39.5% more damage… or ~8.4k.
Put very bluntly, the Avoidance build is going to get one-shot by NORMAL MELEE HITS, never mind Crushing Blows or special attacks or other problems.
I miss my TBC Shaman so much. I never really went full tank spec but enhancement was pretty beefy back in the day.
I’m tempted to make an enhancement shaman. They look fun.
Honestly I think I’m leaning more towards Elemental on my Shaman, it was what I played in WoD along with a Frost and Blood DK (depending on fight needs). With the prevalence of Warlocks and Hunters needing support classes, you can go either and find a crew, but casting seems more fun.
Typical Fasc being a salty forums poster. Ignore them. It’s fun! Enjoy it. Yes, it does help to have over compensated gear to do it, but not necessary. It can also be a lot slower because of mana. I think I’d take Ancestral Knowledge over Reverberation. Or over shield spec depending on what gear you get a long the way. Realize you are a meme spec and generally get hand be down or gdkp tank gear later on. Marketfresh is correct in half his statement, it is NOT an effective class/spec. However, there is a chance to have fun doing something not many players do. I’m usually the OT in 5 man dungeons who can pull threat off the TF tanks from time to time and I have 5 man tanked all of them in P1/P2/P3 of classic. the more gear you get the easier it gets, obviously. Google Caperfin and his guides to the warden shaman tank. Have fun if you try it, don’t listen to the haters. Good Luck =)
Also, definitely flurry
Shaman tanking didn’t work in classic, and it won’t work in TBC.
Anyone can tank after they totally overlevel or overgear the content. That doesn’t mean they were effective at it in the first place. Shamans were a bare minimum tank in classic for low level dungeons and will now be replaced by much better paladins in crusade. Parry now has threat reduction which should make the build’s role pretty damn clear.