Totem & Ankh: Shaman Tanking - Shamtanks!
WoW Blogs - Totem & Ankh Shaman Blog
It's been another busy week. However, we've gotten some excitement back after plunging through Ulduar 10 player and completing a long-awaited guild first: Yogg-Saron! I got 5 achievements with that completion and the feeling of accomplishment at helping lead the guild through was overwhelming. Next, we are doing the hard-modes to get the rusted proto-drake and a chance to face Algalon. Having missed much of Ulduar as we plunged into ToC and ICC, this has been great fun going back through Ulduar.
I’ve leveled a few shamans in my time, including a little draenei who went enhancement, that I just couldn’t love, and an orc who started as an elemental shaman and turned out to be a disappointment. Savoire has been my favorite shaman, and my all-time favorite toon. I leveled her as an elemental shaman who got shunted into healing far too often while getting up to L70. Because of Savoire, I adore all things shaman and troll. Doing this article provides me with the impetus to research and explore different aspects of all things shamtastic.
When leveling on Sav, our group would have major trouble finding tanks in the dark days prior to dual talent specs and death knights. People didn’t want to level healers or tanks because it was hard to quest in those specs. Dungeon parties took a lot of effort to form without the dungeon finder. I remember the days before there were summoning stones at the dungeons and everyone wanted a warlock to help lure a tank and/or healer as well as when the Looking For Group (LFG) channel was first formed. Even after these developments, using friends lists and guild members was the only way to try to get a balanced party. Sometimes that still failed. So, Sav would be asked to heal and sometimes we would have an enhancement shaman tank.
“Tank?” you say. “Shamans cannot tank!”
I have healed Uldaman with an elemental spec shaman led by an enhancement spec shaman tank – and a warlock, hunter, and rogue to round out the group. (I have also healed dungeons with a warlock pet tanking, but that’s another story.) One of the most challenging, fun, and interesting things for me to do is to stretch the boundaries of my toon. With a shaman, there are so many possibilities.
Back in the days when shamans were only horde and paladins were only alliance, shamans and paladins were meant to mirror each other in function. Neither was meant to be taken seriously as a tank, although they could both handle the job in non-end game situations in vanilla WoW.
However, I have read about an enhancement shaman named Sharicasmi, who tanks L80 raids and I am simply astounded. The coolest raid, in my opinion, is the Obsidian Sanctum ALL SHAMAN raid. He stacks stamina and has gotten some tank gear and trinkets. Being a troll, he has the amazing passive regeneration even in battle. It’s an under-regarded effect and one I loved while leveling, doing PVP, and it continues to save my bacon in raiding.
How does a shaman tank? The shaman in question has posted a series of videos http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20565886657&sid=1&pageNo=1 showing himself tanking. He describes himself as similar to a mini bear tank who must manage his cooldowns, use instant self-heals, and a glyph for stoneclaw absorb. When he’s got rogues in the group, he’s always got Tricks of the Trade on him which gives him a load of threat too. Frost Shock is his main threat generator – remember that if you’re a shaman trying to AVOID threat!
Is it worthwhile to put an entire party or raid in jeopardy by tanking with a class that isn’t ideally meant to tank? I think it depends on the group of people you are with. Popping yourself into a random pug of any kind as a shaman tank would be unkind and probably get you kicked out of the group. Having some fun with friends and exploring unusual aspects of the game with their support would be absolutely acceptable.
Other situations in which an enhancement shaman as a tank could be fun or useful include old-style raids for which your group is over-geared but still needs a tank and for the odd achievement. Because we are mostly over-geared for non-raiding stuff on our mains, sometimes we play a little game that I invented (it’s not complicated) in which we change roles. We roll for roles. The highest roll is the healer, the lowest is the tank and the rest are dps. Having done this in Karazhan and various heroics, usually late at night and while using ventrilo, it’s quite fun. It’s sort of like role-playing each other’s roles in an RPG.
I have been hearing about how tanks are being nerfed in various ways when Cataclysm hits. Supposedly, crowd control will be re-emphasized and AOE damage will be diminished. It will become even harder for the amazing (and possibly unique) shaman tank to continue raiding as a tank. In the meantime, I salute him for his ingenuity and for stretching the capabilities of his class to the limit.
I wonder if there aren’t more shaman tanks hiding out there in raids, experimenting with shamtank aspects of the game. It just goes to show you how amazing, incredible, and versatile our beloved shamans are. We can do it all, and if we’re trolls, we will do it better than you.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 16:59 Written by Savoire Wednesday, 29 September 2010 12:41
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