Shaman Tank

[Stivar]

Hey all.

I´m just interested if some players would accept a shaman as tank for 5 man dungeons.

I always thought about this, could be funny.

So, would you join a 5 man group with a shaman tank?

[Larsen]

No.

[TwinHeadedKraken]

Nah sorry man, that's the one class combo I wouldn't work with in Vanilla.

No active taunt and relying on shocks for threat just isn't viable. Other DPS classes will easily pull aggro off you. They would have to severely limit their DPS to not pull aggro, and that's just not fun when everyone just wants to face roll lowbie dungeons.

I'll roll deep with a bear tank or tankadin though. Tankadin at lowbie levels is kinda iffy sometimes, but it can work. Just have to give them a sec to build aggro with consecrate and stuff.

[Moozer]

No chance. Paladins only problem is not having solid threat skills to spam, Shamans have to rely on melee hits, shocks and still take an absolute beating due to wearing armor sets one step below Warriors and Tanks without an armor buff.

[Pallysir]

I'd try it before I'd judge it, haven't seen it since I play alliance and I don't know much about shamans, but they have shields so why not lol

[lindz]

More than the threat is the mitigation problem. Warriors have plate + defensive stance. Paladins have plate. Druids have bear form. Plus all of them have a tree devoted to tanking. Shamans get mail and a couple talents to make them a little tankier mixed in with their other trees. Shamans would take an insane amount of damage trying to tank anything.

[Pokeypointy]

Shamans lose in just about everything as tanks, less blocking, less avoidance, less armor, less aggro, less gear and therefore less stats. I wouldn't say it's impossible but just not very viable with pre-1.4 itemization.

[osuracnaes]

Having had a ton of fun playing my healer with a shaman tanking Warlord's Command back in the day, I wouldn't turn down a group like that! It'd be tougher, but not everything has to be super-optimized.

[Serico]

I tried it myself on retail vanilla once. It doesn't work. At least not before lvl 40 and you get your mail armor. But even then, a hunter's or warlock's pet will be better suited for tanking than you will be.

[squishums]

Logic says that a shaman tank is a terrible idea, but Ive done instances with shaman tanking when the warrior has disconnected, and they were surprisingly good. Not endgame 5mans, but decent instances like mara and ST with shamans/groups that were not overleveled. These shamans were just elemental wearing random spellcaster gear. Obviously enhancement with 100% mail would be better.

Part of it might be that if a shaman is tanking, first of all you have shaman totems (which you may or many not have with a warrior tank), and also the shaman will be very diligent about dropping them, especially the defensive totems.