Can a Shaman tank during the leveling phase?

[Charge me Doctor]

Earth shock was a "high threat" spell in vanilla, just not spammable like sunder armor. Pretty sure using earth shock on cd would ensure enhance keep single target aggro from most classes, assuming he still does dmg. Would be finicky CD management though. For sure not a strong tank.

Except you need to keep using ES on different targets to keep aggro of multiple mobs. CL on pull and LS won't cut it. Imagine tanking as a warrior and being able to sunder once every... 6 seconds? And eventually you'll deplete your resource to generate aggro, just like a paladin tank... so you have to fill that void with endless chugging of mana potions

[Annelie]

Can a shaman tank low level stuff? Yes.
Will you be able to? Probably not.

Why not? Most groups wont be fine with it. But yes they can.

[Molis]

Even a warlock pet can tank, but no one has to put up with that. Don't be surprised if people refuse to run dungeons with you.

DPS will be so thirsty for low level dungeons they will take any class that can hold aggro.

Healers on the other hand might say fuck off

[Hinastorm]

There will be tons of warriors, and wars can tank just fine in leveling dps spec.

Unless all the wars are too scared to tank, I just don't see a shortage of tanks happening, at any point. We'll see I guess.

[Sarafin]

At op= NO WAY

[Thage]

It's doable in a pinch, same as pet-tanking or voidwalker-tanking a dungeon if you can't find any other tanks, but it's far from ideal. The ideas were there in Enhancement's design, but they didn't have anything to pull those ideas together versus running Enhancement as a PvP wrecking ball with a strong two-hander and Windfury.

[suprep]

Sure can but you definitely wouldn't want to, if you are bored and have nothing better to do then go for it. A shaman has tanked Archimonde back in Mount Hyjal if I remember correctly during TBC times.

[Thunderball]

Theoretically, practically why even bother?

[azkhane]

IF you have 3 melee dps and a shaman nothing will really be alive long enough to need tanking.

- - - Updated - - -



Unless things are drastically different to pirate servers you probably won't need a protection spec until Broodlord in BWL. He hits hard.

thing were not like PS them, for raids you need 2 full protection tanks(at least, mostly 3), arms can off tank well boss adds or diverse pulls but for bosses you need full protection, normal dungeons can be done by arms without much problems but it will be insanely more easy with a real tank tho, there is too much misinformation around tanks thanks to PS, like those guides recomending daggers as BiS for tanks or leather pieces of fire resistance as valid fire resistance BiS gear,etc

Even our main tank was mainly Arms (31/5/15) up to BWL.

congrats to your MT for delaying your advance, either your dpss were terrible or they needed to contain themselves thanks to your MT, by not being full protect you lost shitons of aggro by not having defiance talents, one hand specialization and SS, you can get points in defiance too using 31/5/15 but you lose last stand and improved SB and of course you dont have anticipation or 10% bonus armor in any scenario, losing survivality you know your duty is to be as harder to kill as u can and generate all aggro u can so your dps can hit as hard as they can, and that guy....that guy failed, big time

[Akka]

congrats to your MT for delaying your advance, either your dpss were terrible or they needed to contain themselves thanks to your MT, by not being full protect you lost shitons of aggro by not having defiance talents, one hand specialization and SS, you can get points in defiance too using 31/5/15 but you lose last stand and improved SB and of course you dont have anticipation or 10% bonus armor in any scenario, losing survivality you know your duty is to be as harder to kill as u can and generate all aggro u can so your dps can hit as hard as they can, and that guy....that guy failed, big time

It seems that either you completely failed at reading the post you answer to, or you're not smart enough to understand what you read.

Considering the whole post was short and entirely dedicated at illustrating a single simple concept, I wonder just how dumb you must be to entirely miss its entire point.

[cudomix]

congrats to your MT for delaying your advance, either your dpss were terrible or they needed to contain themselves thanks to your MT, by not being full protect you lost shitons of aggro by not having defiance talents, one hand specialization and SS, you can get points in defiance too using 31/5/15 but you lose last stand and improved SB and of course you dont have anticipation or 10% bonus armor in any scenario, losing survivality you know your duty is to be as harder to kill as u can and generate all aggro u can so your dps can hit as hard as they can, and that guy....that guy failed, big time

Dude, you have no idea what you're saying. 31/5/15 was a standard tanking spec because there was nothing worth taking past defiance in early protection tree. Trees were rewamped once BWL came (and shield slam was added as 31 pointer), and then going deep prot became viable for MT. Please don't be an idiot and talk about things you have no clue.

[AeneasBK]

thing were not like PS them

Okay Enough about your post seems so wildly inaccurate that I'm not gonna rely on this though

[Caperfin]

I am a Shaman Raid Tank, but I haven't leveled as one though. I am guessing with a competent group and picking some notable items along the way it should be fine. I would say to prioritise defensive stats: stamina>dodge>armor>agi and to make sure to carry a few specialised gear sets (armor set, stamina set, etc...) If you have any more Shaman Tank questions, feel free to let me know or refer to the guide https://barrens.chat/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1150

[Life-Binder]

a little off-topic, but did Prot Paladins become actually viable as full ~MTs (on par or close to Warriors) in TBC or did that come later ?

[Jonnusthegreat]

a little off-topic, but did Prot Paladins become actually viable as full ~MTs (on par or close to Warriors) in TBC or did that come later ?

They weren't MTs in BC, they were OTs and AOE tanks.

[Oakshana]

They weren't MTs in BC, they were OTs and AOE tanks.

That's not true. There were plenty of Paladin MT's in BC.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

a little off-topic, but did Prot Paladins become actually viable as full ~MTs (on par or close to Warriors) in TBC or did that come later ?

TBC is when Paladins came into their own. But TBC was also still the age of niches still making the game interesting. So Paladins still took a little more damage in some situations than say a warrior, but how they handled AOE tanking was superior to all.

[Budong]

I tanked a bunch of dungeons, not because I wanted to but for various reasons because I had to. It's perfectly doable as long as the group understands you can't tank as well as actual tanks and pull and heal accordingly.

Always keep a good one hand weapon and shield in your bags for emergencies.

[anon5123]

a little off-topic, but did Prot Paladins become actually viable as full ~MTs (on par or close to Warriors) in TBC or did that come later ?

Warriors were still the best single-target MTs, but Paladins could do it decently. Paladins were better for AoE threat.

- - - Updated - - -

for bosses you need full protection

No you don't. Stop spreading misinformation. You really only NEED about 20 points in prot to get all of the defensive stuff. My guild's MT used a fury/prot spec for most content, even during progression, because it gives way more threat than 31-point prot once you've got good gear.

https://classicdb.ch/?talent#LZZxizox

Those are literally the only defensive talents you need in the Prot tree to be a good raid tank. Maybe a few in Imp. Sunder and a couple in Imp. Taunt if you feel like it. The rest of your points can go in arms or fury.

[Jonnusthegreat]

That's not true. There were plenty of Paladin MT's in BC.

And they always hurt the raid group because warriors were always better.