Rockbiter?

[Mowrey]

Wait.. Wait.. if you go to the thread for Shamans.. look up Enhance tree.. at level 75.. we get Rock Biter.. and it does what it's supposed to.. (Back in vanilla anyways}.. it basically pisses off a mob...

"Imbue the Shaman's weapon with the fury of the earth, increasing all threat generation by 30% and reducing damage taken by 5%. Lasts 30 minutes.
( Unleash Weapon : Unleashing this enchantment forces the target enemy to attack you for 5 sec. )
8% of base mana, Instant cast"

Unleash it for a taunt..

Can it be.. is Blizz bringing back.. "THE TANKING SHAMAN" or "Tanmmies!"?

I still remember fondly tanking Scholo.. Strat.. Tribute Runes in DM.. back in Vanilla as a Shaman (Rockbiter + Earthshock = tanking goodness)

Now I know why blizz has done this.. Many new bosses require "Special" Attention, and they intend to do this by allowing a few of the dps trees to tank.. But really.. Shaman?

sigh.. give it 2 more years.. we'll finally be able to hit all 3 options on the LFG tool :P

viva Tanmmies!

[Therastos]

It has been stated multiple times that shamans are not intended to tank endgame content. The ability is to allow shamans to save more squishy players in 5-man dungeons, and as a tool helping with Maulgar-like encounters where they do tank (though not in the "normal" way).

[Mowrey]

It has been stated multiple times that shamans are not intended to tank endgame content. The ability is to allow shamans to save more squishy players in 5-man dungeons, and as a tool helping with Maulgar-like encounters where they do tank (though not in the "normal" way).

Argg.. death to the heresist!.. err.. Hereseyer.. err.. wtf it is.. :P

j/k

I understood that completely.. just amazed they gave Rock Biter back to us in it's original form instead of some cheapend / weakened version of Windfury. Honestly though, I get the feeling we may end up like a tank spec eventually.. nothing to do with what blizzard is.. just so few tanks.. would be interesting to give Shammies the ability.. maybe not end game.. but norms / Extremely OverGeared Heroics.. sure.. honestly though, I'm not gonna be holding my breath.

and Truthfully.. I'm gonna try it on some low level regs when helping friends / guildies.. at the very worst.. to reimist.. uhmm.. reunderstand.. F it.. to relive the good old days.

And it truthfully is a good sigh of relief that blizz is actually doing this, that means the content in Cata will "NOT" be able to AoE tanked through and will require coordination and skill like TBC did.

That Said...

viva Tanmmies! :P

have a good one all

[Jigawatts]

If I remember correctly Blizzard posted something a while back that sounded like they wanted to give shamans the ability to possibly tank five man dungeons. Maybe this is a step in that direction. Although obviously we would need more than just a taunt, threat, and a lil damage reduction, but with all things shammy, Blizzard is slow so we might see some progression with this in the future, I just wouldn't bet on it in Cata (at least the first couple of patches for Cata anyways).

However I am with you Mowrey, VIVA TANMMIES!!!

[Vargarii]

If I remember correctly Blizzard posted something a while back that sounded like they wanted to give shamans the ability to possibly tank five man dungeons. Maybe this is a step in that direction. Although obviously we would need more than just a taunt, threat, and a lil damage reduction, but with all things shammy, Blizzard is slow so we might see some progression with this in the future, I just wouldn't bet on it in Cata (at least the first couple of patches for Cata anyways).

However I am with you Mowrey, VIVA TANMMIES!!!

They have since retracted it and said they don't want to let us tank, as stated above you by therastos.

[Jigawatts]

Ya blizz does that a lot, does not mean it will not happen, Blizz says one thing then does another. Seriously can you see someone normally running around with rockbiter as a weapon enchant with any other use than to tank. Seems silly to have to enchant weapon with rockbiter, then use unleash to taunt anything. I still think blizz is either looking at the possibility of limited tanking (not end game raiding but five mans) or they just added a useless ability that will not be used very often if at all, and will eventually be phased out.

[Nemesis003]

Ya blizz does that a lot, does not mean it will not happen, Blizz says one thing then does another. Seriously can you see someone normally running around with rockbiter as a weapon enchant with any other use than to tank. Seems silly to have to enchant weapon with rockbiter, then use unleash to taunt anything. I still think blizz is either looking at the possibility of limited tanking (not end game raiding but five mans) or they just added a useless ability that will not be used very often if at all, and will eventually be phased out.

my vote is a useless ability just so they can claim they gave shamans something new (but its not really new just old thing brought back)

[rated]

I want this to be true just so I can roll my alt into a tank and call him a tanmmie.

Pretty sure a blue said some months ago that a shaman tanking is NOT going to happen again. This is sadly just theory crafting ;(

[Zues]

Basically Blizz is giving us an ability where if a mob slips off due to an incompetent tank and of course aggros onto a healer, we're supposed to quickly sacrifice ourselves for the greater good.

Though probably all we'll do is just delay the healer's death for maybe 4 seconds.

Otherwise, hilarious way to screw around in groups if you want to mess with the tank. Might not be so funny to non-shammies though.

[Deleted]

So in order for that to work i'd need to have some speedy reflexes so I can quickly apply Rockbiter to of my weapons, followed by targeting the mob and hitting it with Unleash Weapon which would have to be off cooldown at that point. And then i'd have to swap my weapon enchants back to normal. Hmm... no.

[Jynks]

This thread is an original idea and has not been covered in these forums (or any other forums) at all. Like not even daily for the last 3 months.

[hugztiem]

Warlocks aren't tanks, but there have been some fights that made use of a warlock tanking. Maybe the new rockbiter will allow elemental shamans to fill the role of a ranged tank. If nothing else, it will make kiting striders easier.

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

We had a shaman Tank a VoA boss once. I'm not going to sit here and tell you he didn't need extra healing,or that he wasn't crittable, or that he wasn't from the top guild on our server and that he didn't overgear the instance or that he didn't have hunters and rogues MDing him...

I will tell you that it is possible.

One of the healers said he took less damage than DKs.

[Cerus]

Shamans will never be tanks. Not now, not ever. Deal with it.

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

Dicks everywhere, prepare to eat them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26k4TKJ2GHk

[Kaga]

We had a shaman Tank a VoA boss once. I'm not going to sit here and tell you he didn't need extra healing,or that he wasn't crittable, or that he wasn't from the top guild on our server and that he didn't overgear the instance or that he didn't have hunters and rogues MDing him...

I will tell you that it is possible.

One of the healers said he took less damage than DKs.

there are nice videos out of a certain shaman "tank" tanking ICC10, 12/12, this wasn't that long after the full raid was unlocked (so as far as i remember, no raid-wide buff)

it is doable, but does usually require assistance of a kindly rogue, and the tanking rotation in itself is... chaotic at best.

i'll definitely be giving shamtanking a good go with the shiny new rockbiter updates, that could hopefully eliminate the need for a rogue sidekick, although healers will complain...

and that last line... i dunno wtf you're talking about, i wish people would give up on thsi preconception, DKs don't take much more damamage than any other equally-geared tanking class, the difference is virtually nothing whatsoever

[Nrgizer]

Shamans will never be tanks. Not now, not ever. Deal with it.

Shamans will be tanks. Now, forever. Hell Yeah!
We got everyting we need now, Chainlightning for pulling a group, Magma for maintaining AoE threat. Shocks and melee for maintaining single target threat, Unleash rockbiter for o'shit moments. Shamanistic rage, elemental warding, Parry, wolves for Aoe Taunt and offtank.
Just make a glyph now that gives wolves more threat and less damage, no sprint, but removing the cooldown and there we go!

[Kaga]

http://www.youtube.com/user/sharicas.../1/pJ-rgQupfGs

this guy is probably the best shaman tank out there (or at least, the most famous)

[Jynks]

Dicks everywhere, prepare to eat them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26k4TKJ2GHk

So because one person manages to do it (by being carried by good healers) it means it should be viable? Doable. Sure, I get that. No argument from me on the actualising of the statement. Viable shaman tanking is dead and it should be. It is a gimmick at best. The same as hunter and warlock pets main tanking, rogues tanking, mages tanking etc etc etc.

[SolSphere]

The ability is there just to give you the option to save a healer or something. That was stated by blizzard. Stop making these stupid threads about thing that have been answered... And then keeping them goig once they have been answeerd 5+ times in the thread.. You got your answer. Drop it you're taking up my reading time...