Earthwarder Shaman (tank spec) concept

[pacotaco]

https://pacomadreja.github.io/Concep...rthwarder.html

I don't have too much experience with Shaman or tanks, so feedback is appreciated.

[username993720]

So, it uses, exactly, the same abilities as we have now?

Personally, i'd make the Elemental Shaman more tanky.

[jellmoo]

https://pacomadreja.github.io/Concep...rthwarder.html

I don't have too much experience with Shaman or tanks, so feedback is appreciated.

Honestly, it has quite a few issues that would need sorting out:

• It has little to no multi target damage, relying on Fire Nova and talents to cover this.
• I'm no aggro expert, but I think that it's going to have a lot of trouble holding threat, especially against multiple enemies.
• Damage mitigation is a little all over the place. Earth Shield requires you to heal yourself in order to be effective, and that's an issue since you'll be busy tanking. You'll likely have the lowest armor of any tank in the game, and spike damage is almost certainly going to mulch you.
• Astral Bulwark being on the same talent line as two multi target talents forces you to choose between extra survivability and bolserting your ability to grab trash

The big issue I think this has is that I can't think of a reason to bring an Earthwarden over any other tank. M+ for example, would be a nightmare.

I think by keeping it so close to what's already in the Shaman class, you run into the issue of using a toolkit that really isn' designed for tanking. I think you need to evaluate what abilities you will use to: Grab and maintain aggro on bosses, Let you grab a lot of mobs and hold threat, what your active damage mitigation is, how your passive mitigation works and is unique, and ultimately what the "niche" of this spec is? DHs have insane mobility, Monks have super steady damage to heal, Warriors have a massive toolkit with tools for every situation... What is it that the Earthwarden brings?

[Razion]

- Tanks can't operate so heavily on mana. They tried this in earlier iterations of the game, but when the mana wasn't just right you were either swimming in it or never had enough and couldn't do your job properly without it. It can be a secondary emergency resource like Prot Paly does, but not the only primary resource. Running dry is something that a tank shouldn't do, period (and if a tank is never running dry, it may as well not have mana at all).

- It was probably a good idea not to have the tank based on Maelstrom, considering Maelstrom is a very bursty resource historically and the lack of consistency resulting in wiping groups wouldn't be sustainable in the long run and seems rife for problems, especially in competitive content ("we all did everything right, but the Shaman tank didn't rng extra Maelstrom when they needed it, gg").

- Shields available to cast at any time means one is always going to be better than the other, and as they are are very passive and not very impactful. They need some kind of CDs on them with some kind of limited duration so that you will use them appropriately when situation demands it and so they're not just stat buffs you refresh all the time - this allows for more decision making and makes the Shields more impactful when they do occur, and don't have to have a limiter of happening only every few seconds when they are active.

- Rockbiter Weapon would need to be a passive, so that the tank and their groups don't get blown up for forgetting to apply a self-buff. This is why old Tank auras are gone now, too. It's legacy design and doesn't help the experience for anyone and just ends up annoying at the end of the day.

- Stoneclaw Totem is missing.

- Assuming Flame Shock operates with 18s duration 3s CD, 6 limit on Fire Nova is understandable but the limitation doesn't need to be there incase there are ever instances of spell duplicating effects or debuffs to nearby targets such as from trinkets or special boss mechanics. Tanks shouldn't ideally have an AoE cap so that they can get threat reliably and so group wipes don't come down to not having enough Fire Novas or something.

- First Talent Tier (15): First two options reduce damage taken by either increasing your Riptide Healing, or STR converting to more parry/block, but the final option Molten Armor doesn't offer any kind of defensive benefit so it would almost never be taken. All talents in a similar tier should serve a similar purpose in spirit. The fire armor igniting nearby enemies is nice in theme - but instead of damage have the fires reduce damage enemies deal to the shaman, for example. This also better reflects the intent of the spec as being a warder that reduces damage they take from wielding the elements.

- Second Talent Tier (25): First two options increase personal survivability, third offers group healing. If they're all equal for personal, then the third would always be taken because it heals the group. Have the healing only impact the casting Shaman, and it's fine.

- Also Earth Shield being able to be cast on other Tanks with all the damage-reducing capabilities could potentially make it mandatory. To keep tank survivability in line with each other, the Earth Shield should remain a personal survivability tool.

- Fourth Talent Tier (35): The rain only offers healing, the eruption does damage and knockup, while the third only deals damage. Have rain deal damage as well as heal, with the lightning healing based on damage dealt so that all can provide damage and some kind of survivability.

- Fifth Talent Tier (40): Nature's Guardian applicable to all kinds of content that could kill you, grasping earth only usable on targets that can be controlled (not bosses), and the movement totem is niche. I'd recommend swapping Grasping Earth and Sandstorm Elemental, and cause the Sandstorm Elemental to reduce damage dealt by enemies caught within its vortex.

- Sand Elemental baseline only attacking foes and not contributing to survival as a tank by taunting or reducing damage dealt by enemies should be adjusted. Or at least if it is just a damage tool, have threat it generates go to the Shaman.

- Sixth Talent Tier (45): middle lightning talent doesn't offer survivability while the other two do, give it some healing or DR.

- Seventh Talent Tier (50): As this is essentially a trash survival tier, again I'd recommend the Sandstorm Elemental swap with the Grasping Earth from the fifth (40) talent row. Magma Wave currently doesn't reduce any kind of damage taken or do any kind of healing - offer one, so that Ascendance with its armor doesn't just become best for all situations.

[pacotaco]

Honestly, it has quite a few issues that would need sorting out:

• It has little to no multi target damage, relying on Fire Nova and talents to cover this.
• I'm no aggro expert, but I think that it's going to have a lot of trouble holding threat, especially against multiple enemies.

True, they pointed it too on reddit.

I thik maybe flippint Fire Nova with Magma Strike and change the last to cleave damage could give low level tanks more AoE tools.
Also maybe chaging the talent Landslide to something that makes Earth Shield do AoE damage while is up (like DH Immolation)

• Damage mitigation is a little all over the place. Earth Shield requires you to heal yourself in order to be effective, and that's an issue since you'll be busy tanking. You'll likely have the lowest armor of any tank in the game, and spike damage is almost certainly going to mulch you.

I made the mastery and the weapon enhancement to give a passive buff to armor to compensate, but I didn't want to give them too much, because I wanted to make them heal themselves (Riptide is instant + HoT). I also made talents so they can play balancing between damage (more aggro), more healing and tankiness.
Shaman also have a lot of CC tools, so if I feared to give too much survivability without sacrificing that.

• Astral Bulwark being on the same talent line as two multi target talents forces you to choose between extra survivability and bolserting your ability to grab trash

True, but there's already 1 targeted AoE and 1 Cone talent in the lvl 35 line. I could swap Bulwark with one of them (probably Molten Eruption) so the 35 row is heal/defese/agro, and the 45 all AoE.

The big issue I think this has is that I can't think of a reason to bring an Earthwarden over any other tank. M+ for example, would be a nightmare.

I think by keeping it so close to what's already in the Shaman class, you run into the issue of using a toolkit that really isn' designed for tanking. I think you need to evaluate what abilities you will use to: Grab and maintain aggro on bosses, Let you grab a lot of mobs and hold threat, what your active damage mitigation is, how your passive mitigation works and is unique, and ultimately what the "niche" of this spec is? DHs have insane mobility, Monks have super steady damage to heal, Warriors have a massive toolkit with tools for every situation... What is it that the Earthwarden brings?

The idea was that is less tanky, but it reduces the damage the party tankes with CC and AoE shield, and heals. But I agree that it's possible that their not viable on the current meta.

- - - Updated - - -

- Tanks can't operate so heavily on mana. They tried this in earlier iterations of the game, but when the mana wasn't just right you were either swimming in it or never had enough and couldn't do your job properly without it. It can be a secondary emergency resource like Prot Paly does, but not the only primary resource. Running dry is something that a tank shouldn't do, period (and if a tank is never running dry, it may as well not have mana at all).

- It was probably a good idea not to have the tank based on Maelstrom, considering Maelstrom is a very bursty resource historically and the lack of consistency resulting in wiping groups wouldn't be sustainable in the long run and seems rife for problems, especially in competitive content ("we all did everything right, but the Shaman tank didn't rng extra Maelstrom when they needed it, gg").

True, but I didn't want to deviate too much from what there was already in game. I'll think about it.

- Shields available to cast at any time means one is always going to be better than the other, and as they are are very passive and not very impactful. They need some kind of CDs on them with some kind of limited duration so that you will use them appropriately when situation demands it and so they're not just stat buffs you refresh all the time - this allows for more decision making and makes the Shields more impactful when they do occur, and don't have to have a limiter of happening only every few seconds when they are active.

The idea was to focus more on healing than mitigating damage, but that also may be problematic sometimes (high bursts of damage).
Still, I put some talents to increase the tankyness so maybe it's a mater of adjusting numbers.

- Rockbiter Weapon would need to be a passive, so that the tank and their groups don't get blown up for forgetting to apply a self-buff. This is why old Tank auras are gone now, too. It's legacy design and doesn't help the experience for anyone and just ends up annoying at the end of the day.

I can see that, and it could be a passive with no problem.

- Stoneclaw Totem is missing.

Damn, I forgot about it.

- Assuming Flame Shock operates with 18s duration 3s CD, 6 limit on Fire Nova is understandable but the limitation doesn't need to be there incase there are ever instances of spell duplicating effects or debuffs to nearby targets such as from trinkets or special boss mechanics. Tanks shouldn't ideally have an AoE cap so that they can get threat reliably and so group wipes don't come down to not having enough Fire Novas or something.

Flame Shock is currently 18s duration 6s CD. I wasn't sure about a uncaped triple nova would be too strong.

- Second Talent Tier (25): First two options increase personal survivability, third offers group healing. If they're all equal for personal, then the third would always be taken because it heals the group. Have the healing only impact the casting Shaman, and it's fine.

You heal the group, but you don't get the extra armor that the 1st one gives to the target, nor the possibility that the 2nd one gives (use your Lighning Shield as a pseudo Earth Shield, and use your shield on other people). I think it depends on the situation one could be better than the other.

- Also Earth Shield being able to be cast on other Tanks with all the damage-reducing capabilities could potentially make it mandatory. To keep tank survivability in line with each other, the Earth Shield should remain a personal survivability tool.

You mean make that it would make this tank be a 2nd mandatory tank on raids?
I'm not sure, because there would be several inconveniences:
- If you use the shield on the other tank, you lose it yourself.
- It also doesn't stack with other shamans Earth Shield, nor ir receives extra healing from anyone but you, so you'ld need to heal the other tank while also tanking :/

- Fourth Talent Tier (35): The rain only offers healing, the eruption does damage and knockup, while the third only deals damage. Have rain deal damage as well as heal, with the lightning healing based on damage dealt so that all can provide damage and some kind of survivability.

The idea here was choice between AoE heal, AoE dmg + CC, and AoE damage + aggro, so they have 3 different tools to increase party survivability.

- Sand Elemental baseline only attacking foes and not contributing to survival as a tank by taunting or reducing damage dealt by enemies should be adjusted. Or at least if it is just a damage tool, have threat it generates go to the Shaman.

- Seventh Talent Tier (50): As this is essentially a trash survival tier, again I'd recommend the Sandstorm Elemental swap with the Grasping Earth from the fifth (40) talent row. Magma Wave currently doesn't reduce any kind of damage taken or do any kind of healing - offer one, so that Ascendance with its armor doesn't just become best for all situations.

[/QUOTE]
The sand elemental is in addition to the baseline Earth Elemental that all shaman specs have. So the idea was to add this elemental as attacks that damage and maybe cone abilities that blind/reduce accuracy of enemies, with the lvl50 improve doing more damage and maybe do that abilities with AoE and healing allies.

[pacotaco]

I updated it with some of the feedback I received.


https://pacomadreja.github.io/Concep...rthwarder.html

[FossilFree]

I updated it with some of the feedback I received.


https://pacomadreja.github.io/Concep...rthwarder.html

What things did you change? It's hard to tell without a side-by-side comparison.

[Mordog]

I updated it with some of the feedback I received.


https://pacomadreja.github.io/Concep...rthwarder.html

Shamans dont use Strength - there is no Mail Armor with Strength and no other Mail Class who would use Strenght then.
Agi is the obvious and logical choice.

I like the Upheaval talent.


Mana is fine as Utility Ressource, like it is for Ele and Enhancer to Heal them self and for Totems.
But not for general use as a Tank.
I would suggsest he uses Mana for skills like Cleanse spirits Totems and so one.

His Toolkit could be builde around Ability Cooldowns similar to Paladin Tanks.

You use Earthshield and Lightningshield - i dont see a reason for Lightningshield at all, unless as dmg Shield for Soloplay or something. Earthshield should be the primary use for Tank Shamans.

U need some kind of "active midigation" Skills, thats just how it works now a days.
So you could build this around Earthshield.

I have some ideas about that, tell me if u want to hear them

Stoneclaw Totem and Eye of the Storm a cool

But Talents like Stormkeeper - Magmawave are just not fitting.

The Sand and Storm Elemental are not needet as well.
Let the Tank Shaman just have the Primal Earth Elemental Baseline.


Your Talentrows are "off"
We need Troughput Rows, Endurance Rows, Midigation Rows, Utility Rows, what ever. But DONT mix kinds of Talents into one row like u did.

For Example, Tier 50. Exe of the Storm is cool, but with Astral Bulwark ( wich seems to be a shoort do medium CD) and Ascendence ( seems like a long and Strong Cooldown) u got 2 Defensive Talents compared to a utility Talent. I would call that bad design, i do it on live servers with the Shaman Movement and Utility mess as well :-)

But thanks for the pretty Homepage, i love to twink Tanks, and i would defenitly play my Shaman as a Tank if he would become one!

[dunkl]

I don't know much about tanks, I've been playing since the wc games and wow, but I support earth for a defensive shaman, if the other elements can have their own roles! I've always wanted a wind-casting class or a spec, so I'm for this. Fire for melee - fighting with fists and weapons' imbued with fire, wind for ranged - whips up whirlwinds and gusts and buffets foes with gales, breezes, and winds (I'd love a caster who's main focus and power was wind and air-themed; clouds, winds, etc), and water being the healing shaman. so four specs like druids, with each element being that spec's main power/affinity/theme.

Earth - Tank - rock, dirt, stone, landslides, earthquakes, magma, gravity, earth elementals, etc. Can become earth for huge defense.

Fire - Melee dps - fire, fiery weapons, heat, lava, fire whip, etc. Different from fire mage because a fire shaman would be melee in your face fire-wielder. Maybe the more little fires that fleck off hot weapon burn stronger or form into a mighty elemental the more heat you produce as you assail. Can enter shamanistic trance and become fire

Air - Ranged dps - casts gales, strong winds, buffets, blows, whirlwinds, lots of air, wind, and cloud based spells and abilities. Can even become air and disappear (or become evasive) and float away quickly.

Water - Healer - casts waves and mending waters, cleanses, calls rain, etc. can become water and pass through the weak/dying to heal them up.

Through talents you can choose to use other elements such as electricity, snow/ice, etc. Or stick to your main associated element. I would prefer to play an all-wind-casting character and would switch to him even though I've had my main druid since vanilla. An element per speciallty is a cool way to enrich each shaman's art. While options to dabble in other elements is there through talents if you prefer.

Hopefully the spells and ability visuals can look they come from the race/culture whose casting/using it - elementals who have more of an attachment or affinity towards certain races such as primal for ocs, jungle/voodoo for shaman, spiritual for pandarens, etc. An orc's abilities could look more primal and have ancestral graphics in their spells and abilities, a troll's could look more dark and voodooy, a tauren's shamanism has drums or flute sound effects or chanting when casting some spells and abilities.

[pacotaco]

What things did you change? It's hard to tell without a side-by-side comparison.

My bad, the previous one is here: https://pacomadreja.github.io/Concep...warder_v1.html

[Raugnaut]

Pretty meh.

Too many overlapping abilities with other specs.

Threat generation is backed into the spec for everybody but Druids, in which it's baked into Bear Form instead. No need for a seperate passive.

Riptide is signature to Restoration, and has never been available to other Shaman specs. If healing is part of a tank's mitigation, it should either scale with Health (Paladin, Druid), incoming damage (Brewmaster, Warrior), or both (DH, DK). For the few sources of healing those classes have that don't scale with Health or Incoming Damage, they are also an insignificant amount of healing towards their overall mitigation (Blooddrinker, Chi Wave, ect)

The only tank mastery that directly affects Magic damage is the Paladin. Without a talent, it only affects a small portion of magic damage. With a talent, it's a much larger portion, and irregardless it also affects physical damage reduction. This would have the Earthwarder as the shittest tank in 99% of content, except that one boss that deals 90% magical damage.

What is the Earthwarder's Active Mitigation? Is it front-loaded, like Bear and Warrior, in which you prevent the damage from happening to you? Is it reversed, like the DK, in which you quickly heal back up? Is it a combo, like Paladins/DHs, in which you both mitigate and heal yourself rapidly? As it stands, it doesn't seem to have active mitigation, but rather a large variety of short CDs, which is bad - If you balance a class's damage mitigation around those CDs, it'll be squishier then a sub rogue with the vanish PvP talent. You need your baseline mitigation, and then add CDs on top of that for both "Oh Shit" moment and "Predictable heavy hit that happens once a minute" fights.

When you have no experience with both Shamans and Tanks, why are you even designing this?

[pacotaco]

Shamans dont use Strength - there is no Mail Armor with Strength and no other Mail Class who would use Strenght then.
Agi is the obvious and logical choice.

With gear able to change the primary stat depending on specs, I see no problem, and an I think the Strength fits better the idea of a rock-manipulator tank than Agility.

Mana is fine as Utility Ressource, like it is for Ele and Enhancer to Heal them self and for Totems.
But not for general use as a Tank.
I would suggsest he uses Mana for skills like Cleanse spirits Totems and so one.

His Toolkit could be builde around Ability Cooldowns similar to Paladin Tanks.

Paladin tanks use only mana and it plays around CDs with no extra resource, and Maelstorm doesn't fit well with the playstyle, so I decided to keep it like that too.

You use Earthshield and Lightningshield - i dont see a reason for Lightningshield at all, unless as dmg Shield for Soloplay or something. Earthshield should be the primary use for Tank Shamans.

That was the idea.

U need some kind of "active midigation" Skills, thats just how it works now a days.
So you could build this around Earthshield.

Shamanistic Rage, Stone Bulwark Totem and some of the talent offer active mitigation in addition to what shaman already have (Astral Shift, Earth Elemental, etc.)

Your Talentrows are "off"
We need Troughput Rows, Endurance Rows, Midigation Rows, Utility Rows, what ever. But DONT mix kinds of Talents into one row like u did.

For Example, Tier 50. Exe of the Storm is cool, but with Astral Bulwark ( wich seems to be a shoort do medium CD) and Ascendence ( seems like a long and Strong Cooldown) u got 2 Defensive Talents compared to a utility Talent. I would call that bad design, i do it on live servers with the Shaman Movement and Utility mess as well :-)

It surely can be. As much as I look at guides from other tanks, I have a hard time to see the patterns of the rows, and they're not very clear on what's the purpouse of each row from a design point of view.
Also, tryig to fit it on the current shaman progression is hard.

[bloodkin]

better idea than tinker could ever hope to be.

[pacotaco]

When you have no experience with both Shamans and Tanks, why are you even designing this?

For fun, practice & learning.

[Gestopft]

Gretchen stop trying to make 'fetch' happen

aw shit I'm drunk, do what you want

[Cosmic Janitor]

After just skimming it, all I have to say is: If you make an earth based tank spec, you better include a couple of skills that capture the earth magic feel, you know, earth spikes, earth pillars, earth/rock walls, rock bullets, rock armor, quagmires, etc. Bonus points for high level versions including metal.

[Greengrim]

Well, practical alchoholics who wear leather clothing are already viable tanks in this game.

So I really do not see a problem with shamans tanking too. At least they like mail wears and shields, apart from being earth attuned.

[Garthul]

I've had a shaman since Vanilla, and actually used to tank Scarlet Monastery runs when I was level, so I love the concept of a shaman tank, details negotiable.
I doubt Blizzard would ever do it though, they already have a plethora of tank options and likely don't want to bother adding more. Every class they've added to the game since launch has had a tank spec, while only one has had a healing spec, and none have had a ranged DPS spec.

I wish so badly they would do this though, and I also wish they'd make a viable 2H enhance route, even if its not totally optimal.

[draugril]

If Earthwarder happens, I hope it uses a two-handed mace or axe or even polearm. That old two-hander style is something you never see anymore.