The only class which can use shield but cannot tank!
Enhancement shamans are disappearing these days, make Enhancement spec a Tank spec please!
5 Likes
I’d rather have a 4th spec, I like my Enhancement the way he is 
Shaman tank is something that people mention a lot, it’s more wishful thinking at this point I reckon, but there’s always a glimmer of hope somewhere maybe 
9 Likes
I totally agree and want to have the 4th spec.
4 elements , 4 spec. Water: heal, Earch:tank, Wind, Fire: DPS.
But if they are too lazy to do the 4th one, just adjust enhancement to tank then 
1 Like
shaman specs use all elements, if you want a designated element, roll mage. No on 4th spec.
The game could use another tank class anyway, considering how hard it is to find tanks.
Well, yes, but they do specialize a bit. Most of the Resto abilities and their ascended form are water related, and the animations are water themed.
Enh has a clear focus towards storm/air, and that’s what their ascended form is.
Elemental doesn’t have as clear of a focus, but Fire elemental, fire totems, lavaburst, and flame shock were always core parts of the ele kit more than other specs, and their ascended form is fire.
There’s no spec with a focus on earth, and most of the earth abilities have always been defense related.
4 Likes
Earthen Rage (offensive)
Earth Shock (offensive)
Earthbind Totem (Utility)
EarthQuake (offensive)
Aftershock (offensive)
Earth Shield (defensive)
Surge of Power (Talent that Requires EarthShock usage)
Earth Elemental (defensive)
Tremor Totem (utility)
Am I missing any?
5 Talents/abilities tied to offensive use.
2 Talents/abilities tied to utility use.
2 Talents/abilities tied to defensive use.
1 Like
There’s also Rockbiter, Sundering, and Earthen Spike, all of which are offensive, and Earthen Wall Totem which is defensive.
Most people think of vanilla Enh when they think of a tank shaman. Rockbiter and Earth Shock generating threat, Stoneclaw Totem being an AoE taunt, etc.
2 Likes
For sure. I was just focusing on the Elemental spec. There is a very strong showing of earth abilities being offensively related. Even more so than defense.
2 Likes
Stoneskin Totem - defense
Stoneclaw totem - defensive (taunted nearby enemies and gave a shield to the shaman if talented)
Rockbiter (generated threat)
Nature resist totem - defensive
Poison Cleansing totem - defensive/utility
Strength of Earth totem - offense mainly, but str also added to block
The only offensive earth abilities through MoP were Rockbiter (which also generated threat and was never used for the extra DPS), Strength of earth totem, and Earth Shock. Everything else was either defensive or a utility that would be beneficial for a tank, and even the one offensive ability had utility/defensive characteristics until WoD, with an interrupt or damage/attack speed reduction.
Tremor totem could also be seen as a defensive ability, as it removes a CC effect
Earthquake also has a knockdown effect, which would be useful for tanking, as it reduces incoming damage and slows the mobs down. It’d make a fantastic AoE for a tank shaman, much like consecrate or death and decay for Paladins and death knights.
I wouldn’t count earthen rage or surge of power - those are talents for elemental, are both passive, and Surge of power isn’t earth related in its effects. Earthen Spike is also a talent that was added in legion IIRC. Given that Shaman can’t tank, you wouldn’t be expecting many new spells/abilities to be defense related in general.
If you’re including talent only passive effects, you would also need to look at the old talent trees, where the only earth focused talents were earth shield and buffs to earth totems/rockbiter, and none were in the elemental tree that weren’t affecting everything.
Earth shock was also an interrupt and generated double threat originally, so could be seen for utility and tanking purposes as well. Flame shock was always the main shock for pure damage output on its own until legion. Earth shock was used for burst in some situations though, and in Cata and MoP, was used to launch LS orbs generated by casting LB/CL at the target.
4 Likes
IF Shaman ever get that 4th tanking spec, we all know it’ll be more Earth focused.
Thematically it makes sense (earth / rock is hard and shield-like), it’s also the one that’s not included in the Ascendance forms.
Big “if” though…
I am looking at current abilities, passive or active.
Earthen Rage definitely counts.
Just as a reminder, you stated
I was just pointing how how that is clearly not true. Earth based abilities have been quite offensive, and quite utility based.
If anything, its split rather equally.
The one thing for sure though, is that Earth has more defensive abilities than Fire, Water (if you separate “defensive” and “healing” 
), and Storm/Air… right…? 
That’s semantics; you’re arguing that by “always” I’m saying that that’s still the state of things with the current abilities, when what I meant was “among all abilities introduced (always), a majority have been defensive (this includes the utility spells, which all help stay alive, not kill things).” Which is true. The wording was poor perhaps, but the intent should have been pretty clear given the context of the discussion. Most earth abilities are, or have been, defense or tanking oriented at one point or another (Rockbiter was a 5% DR and 30% threat increase, with no damage buff, from Cata-WoD).
Yes, currently, there are few defensive, non-utility abilities at all in shaman, as blizzard pushed them to be more focused towards their primary roles in all aspects during the redesign/pruning in legion. Maybe I should have clarified that.
So throughout WoW’s history, we have:
Offensive (6): Earth shock, strength of earth, rockbiter, earthen rage, earthquake, earthen spike
Defensive/tanking oriented (7): Earth shield, stoneclaw totem, stoneskin totem, earthen wall totem, Earth shock, Rockbiter, nature resistance totem.
Utility (5): Tremor Totem, Poison cleansing Totem, Earthquake, Earthbind totem, Earthgrab Totem. Could all also be argued as defensive abilities due to that utility.
That’s still more defense related abilities than anything else, with some spells overlapping, and the only offensive earth abilities that never did anything defense/utility related are earthen spike and earthen rage. If you include the utility as defensive, which I would, then it is a majority even in current WoW, and 3 of the 6 offensive earth abilities were added within the last 2 expansions, when tank shaman haven’t really been a thing since vanilla, which ended close to 10 years before legion.
2 Likes
Utility is not defensive. Its utility.
And you can claim I am arguing “semantics”, but when you literally say:
And then go on to show…yourself…its about 1/3rd offensive, 1/3rd defensive, 1/3rd utility.
Thats not semantics.
A tank spec would be nice. They clearly had some intentions when they designed the class but gave up on it very early. Shaman did have threat generation on Rockbiter at launch. I want to say they addressed this at some point and basically said it was a fail and they canned the idea rather than develop it into a working tank. I think if they want to keep interest in the game one of the keys is class depth and complexity.
They dont seem to want Alternate character play to be a thing but then in the same spin they make classes 3 to 4 button wonders with very little room for a person to build out a unique character playstyle… shooting themselves in the foot.
Tank spec makes sense when you look at the other hybrids. Its not a matter of if Shaman should have a tank spec its more about them completing the original class design 15 yrs later.
2 Likes
I understand people would freak if they made a Tank spec, but left the others sub-par. Looks like Resto is getting some nice tweaks this week, which might help that spec. But Enh seems like it’s in a bad place? I don’t know, I’m still in Legion 
But from another thread, could be that they’re not tweaking Enh etc because they’re gearing for a bigger (Survival-esque) overhaul come 9.0. Could be that they do a Tank at the same time, to “lighten the load” of such a big change to Shamans…?
If they did an overhaul to Enh, which made it much more competitive, and released a Tank spec, would that make the Shaman community happy…?
While Im not against the idea at all of having a tank spec, Id hate to lose Enhancement to it. Even though I havent been too fond of BFA Enhance.
The sad reality is that Blizz are removing more options than they are providing more.
Weapon options for specs has decreased, talents gems, enchants, abilities etc have been stripped away to a minimum.
The newest Class only has 2 specs.
They could do something like they did with Prot warrior (Gladiator) in WoD, but even that they took away.
So at the ned of the day all the 2H an Tank Enhancement threads are probably a massive waste of time. But hey, good luck to yas.
1 Like
Couple of issues with your list here.
First, Earthquake is clearing offensive. The knockdown chance is nice, but ELE dont drop EQ on a raid trash pull to knock them down on a chance.
Second, you have Earth shock and Rock biter as defensive/tanking oriented. Thats true for Vanilla, once BC hit, completely in accurate as blizz removed tanking aspects from Shaman. There is actually entirely more history of those being pure offensive, from BC to now, then there is for them to be defensive, only Vanilla.
3rd, you forgot Sundering which is similar to earthquake and is offensive.
Your list is skewed to try to make your argument.
Its really 10 Offensive, 5 Defensive/tanking, 4 Utility. When you look at the list correctly and accurately, 50+% of the earth spells are Offensive.
1 Like
no they will not if you want a shaman tank play classic wow shamans can tank all 5man dungeons but you wont tank in raids.
This is because Shaman was originally intended to have a tank spec… It didn’t work very well so they called it the “offensive” hybrid instead and dumped the tank idea.