Enhancement tank?

[Boonga1]

How effective is enhancement tanking? I'm sure terrible for raids but it seems reasonable for dungeons, I'm just wondering how do you play a shaman tank? Aside from rock biter and earth shock what would be the best build/rotation.

[Tsifsamotren]

It's obviously not particularly good but I do know a shaman-only guild that ran MC back in the day with a shaman tank, for the lulz, so it is possible. I don't know how you would tank but I guess you would need quite a headstart to build hate before dps can ensue.

[Druzzil]

How effective is enhancement tanking? I'm sure terrible for raids but it seems reasonable for dungeons, I'm just wondering how do you play a shaman tank? Aside from rock biter and earth shock what would be the best build/rotation.

Yeah generating threat/hate is the hard part.

IF you want to actually tank in 5 mans it is certainly possible. AoE threat is just hard to manage so your kind of like the nature version of a Pally.

You would spec enhancement and grab the talents that give you Block, Dodge and Parry. Can't remember the names off the top of my head and then there is one for reduced damage to nature, fire and frost in the Elemental tree. If you look @ the tree's the tank options are pretty obvious and they are mostly in the enhancement tree. The downside is you don't get Flurry and the cool Elemental tree abilities because you have to waste your points on defensive talents. You still get Stormstrike, though, as that's a huge source of threat. Basically that and Earth Shock. Along w/ Stoneclaw and Magma Totem for aoe threat.

You can pretty much tank all the way up to BRD and then you hit a wall because you need the gear from BRD/Scholo/Strat to actually be able to tank those dungeons. If you can heal or dps while collecting the needed gear then you can tank that stuff and eventually LBRS/UBRS with very good gear.

[illutian]

You'd probably also want the talent to boost the effect of Stoneskin Totem and Boost Grace of Air (physical damage reduction and more dodge), that'll be 4 points.

Something maybe like this: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hxfzZEb0bxxzxV0x

I don't think you'd really need to have more damage on your shocks over mana reduction. And clearcast should be useful since you'll be spamming Earthshock for threat.

Flurry would be suicide as it increases risk of the mob Parrying the attacks

I figure totem mana reduction is also key as you'll be keeping up Healing, Stoneskin, Grace of Air.

In the end it's a pain. But man is it hilarious to shut your helm visor and LET'S DO THIS!

[zmandude24]

My guild is seriously considering a shaman as 3rd OT for the lulz in MC.

[Theloras]

How effective is enhancement tanking? I'm sure terrible for raids but it seems reasonable for dungeons, I'm just wondering how do you play a shaman tank? Aside from rock biter and earth shock what would be the best build/rotation.

Get this and give it a go - albeit you won't be able to tank as well as a Paladin can - but go for it and have fun!

[Crom]

You'd probably also want the talent to boost the effect of Stoneskin Totem and Boost Grace of Air (physical damage reduction and more dodge), that'll be 4 points.

Something maybe like this: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#hxfzZEb0bxxzxV0x

I don't think you'd really need to have more damage on your shocks over mana reduction. And clearcast should be useful since you'll be spamming Earthshock for threat.

Flurry would be suicide as it increases risk of the mob Parrying the attacks

I figure totem mana reduction is also key as you'll be keeping up Healing, Stoneskin, Grace of Air.

In the end it's a pain. But man is it hilarious to shut your helm visor and LET'S DO THIS!

IIRC threat generated by earthshock is based on the damage it does ( i think 2 threat per dmg point) so it's not just a flat rate (like Sunder Armor for example). That being said you would probably want to boost your shock damage but then again this is just speculation since I've never tanked with a shaman

[Aethelwulf]

Rockbiter gives a flat +72 threat per second scaled to your weapon speed. If you have a solid weapon, you can probably hold threat just as well through real damage off of Windfury. If you have a weapon with a built-in Windfury proc (Flurry Axe or Ironfoe, neither of which can proc WF with their bonus attacks or vice versa iirc), then I guess Rockbiter would top. Force Reactive Disk is a recommended shield because the block damage is great for maintaining more aggro, especially vs packs 'cause it's aoe.

For raid tanking shamans are shit though because their threat generation isn't that good and their mana pool can't keep up with long combats. In an all-shaman raid you probably have mana tide totems everywhere the entire time but normally you're going to have more trouble. A Warlock would outtank a Shaman.

Another huge issue is that they cannot get the +140 defense to avoid boss crits. Burning Crusade solves that one with the resilience stat.

[zmandude24]

Another huge issue is that they cannot get the +125 defense to avoid boss crits. Burning Crusade solves that one with the resilience stat.

Not to be a dick, but that's +140 defense since bosses are considered level 63 by the game and not level 60.

[Aethelwulf]

Thanks. Just fixed it.