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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCan a shaman tank Karazhan?
by Matthew Rossi 
Mar 5th 2008 at 11:00AM
Galstaff of Durotan believes so, and put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, by doing it. (Warning, the movie is 20 minutes long.) While anyone can 'tank' Shade of Aran, I was pretty impressed by his tanking of Malchezzar, especially when he admits in the thread (and his armory backs him up) that while he's achieved immunity to critical hits by a combination of resilience and defense, he's still taking crushing blows. He also says he chugs Ironshield Potions which makes sense, as his armor is low for the instance (in my opinion as a tank, anyway) which is not surprising since he's in mail. He claims 17.7k health for the Prince Malchezzar attempt, which is certainly within the ballpark. (I've done it with about 1k less on my warrior, although nowadays I'd never have less than 18.5 k for any boss.)His talent selection shows you the limits of Shaman tanking at this time: He has full Shield Spec, Toughness and Anticipation, giving him the most armor and dodge he could possibly have, but by taking Spirit Weapons (necessary for the ability to Parry, which is essential for tanking) he reduces his melee threat by 30%. This is a great talent choice for a melee DPSer who might get a boss turning to hit him before the tank can pick it up. But for a tanking shaman, it means he has to rely on his spell damage (Frost Shock in particular) as well as Lightning Shield to generate threat, with Stormstrike and Windfury doing the rest of the work. Galstaff also mentions that he had to stack the group with a Shadow Priest to regenerate mana since he couldn't use Water Shield: I'd expect he had to use Shamanistic Rage every single time it was up for both the mana regen and the damage reduction.
Basically, as he himself admits, shamans are the worst 'off tank' with no ability to get enough avoidance to push crushing blows off of the table, so to do this you'd need a ton of resilience on mail (since you're not going to find mail with the stats you need and defense) and some very, very good healers. And as long as shaman tanks require a shadow priest to regain enough mana to tank, it's not going to be a common sight. But as a warrior and shaman player, I liked seeing it. Maybe we could get shamans some actual tanking talents, and they could move into the ranks of the other hybrid classes as being able to DPS, heal and tank? If it's good enough for paladins and druids, why not shamans?
Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Odds and ends, Instances, Raiding, Bosses, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
jack Mar 5th 2008 1:45PM
Meh...as both a shaman and a warrior, I'd DEFINITELY not want shaman to get MORE tanking talents.
WE WEAR MAIL!
That alone is going to make us useless for anything other than gimmick tanking. Just ditch shield spec (maybe replace it with the paladin holy (why is it holy?) talent Divine Strength), make toughness be stam and -duration on snares and maybe change up anticipation to add +agi% instead of +dodge%.
That said, grats to Galstaff on his accomplishment. And double grats to his healers for keeping him up through it. I dig the fact that people who aren't on the bleeding edge of content can still find challenges and succeed at them. But I still don't support shaman as a tank.
Thallid Mar 5th 2008 1:47PM
For some reason, I would picture a shaman tanking faction bosses, but I'm not sure how difficult that is compared to tanking Kara. (Assuming that the other faction doesn't try to crash your party.) Either way, kudos to you for making it through.
Either way, at this rate, I'd assume other classes like Shockadins would be able to tank Kara at this rate with decent enough gear and awake healers. (I'd assume the amount of threat shockadins can generate would be quite massive with 800-900+ spell damage with Sanctity Aura and Righteous Fury, but would that be able to outthreat similarly geared Prot-specced pallies?) The thought about me being able to tank Kara seems to be quite exciting at most. (That is, once I get better PvP gear.)
Daimon Mar 5th 2008 4:14PM
i'm just amazed how ppl sometimes dont recognized their class is good for some things but not for others, and the answer is to cry: fix the trees!!
druids are good tanks, healers and range spell casters, pallies are good tanks and healers, shamans are amazing healers, mele dps and range spell casters, even at the level of the non hybrids. now, why affect the normal balance of the game just because somebody wants to add another skill to your book, affecting the regular classes. Imo just go reroll a druid or a pally if you want to remain hybrid or a tank if you want to do it serious.
lets all vote to make warlocks healers and rogues to have a pet...
Wulfhere Mar 5th 2008 2:33PM
You forgot that druids are also good melee DPS. Hell, they're good melee DPS in the same tree as their tanking tree.
Paladins can do awesome burst damage as Ret.
So why, again, shouldn't shamans tank? If they shouldn't, then why do they still have tanking talents in their melee tree?
Pick one. Either way, the tree is broken.
Also, learn to use grammar. You write like an idiot.
Opish Mar 5th 2008 2:37PM
LOL this is hilarious, just because Galstaff was our server's first shamlock, with full dreadmist. He's always played it "outside the box." Good job Shamlock er shamtank!
J0ust Mar 5th 2008 3:26PM
Nice gimmick.
Seriously though, we don't need another tanking class, with the DK joining the party in the not too distant future.
4 tanking classes is enough, thankyouverymuch.
drew Mar 5th 2008 4:34PM
Shammies can get their tank on before endgame. It was quite fun back in my Scarlet Monastery days where I'd do three runs back to back, once as a dps, then after the priest left I was the healer, then when our tank would leave I'd tank.
Daimon Mar 5th 2008 4:22PM
by your comment, is obvious you're one of the few supporting that stupid idea that shamans could tank, gg. If you dont want useless tiers in the enhc tree, go and cry over it and dont become it in "we should be tanks now" argument; they should fiz the tree thats granted, but turning shamans into tanks is stupid. Never support any idea using the argument that pallies can dps, rofl; that makes you look bad...
bloodlight Mar 5th 2008 4:35PM
Sure a shaman can tank Kara, so can any other class if they and their party are geared well enough. I will note that our tanking shaman friend does not list the other 9 people whoe made his accomplishment possible. 4 fully black temple geared healers and 5 fully BT geared out DPS blasts throughthe phases on Prince fast enoiugh to allow the tanking by almost any one. Was that what actually allowed this to happen as oppose to the shaman's uber tanking skills? We will probably never know.
Galstaff Mar 5th 2008 6:35PM
Hey guys, Galstaff here, ( b ' ')b. I would first like to say thank you for whoever submitted this to Wowinsider, was a surprise to me today. XD. In response to bloodlight, if you had watched the video, i listed the names of everyone who was with me in that karazhan run. The most geared person was the shadow priest with a Hyjal weapon and Some SSC/TK gear. The healers and DPS had no better gear than early SSC/TK and karazhan stuff. And in an honest opinion, i dont think shamans SHOULD be a tank class, i just thought it was a cool idea to attempt. As you can see in the 2.4 patch notes, toughness is getting buffed to be a pvp talent. Shield specialization removal with something like a stamina talent, and anticipation replaced with....something better would be fantastic. Maybe then enhance could be more viable in the 2vs2/3vs3 Arena brackets.
Munchausen Mar 5th 2008 8:39PM
To my mind the early enhancement talents are intended for PvP healing. I could be wrong, but I can imagine that in arenas (like paladin healers) the additional mitigation and avoidance would be well worth the investment. You can't block while casting, obviously, but even the downtime survivability should make the talents worthwhile. Maybe.
As for adjusting the balance of the game... honestly, seeing more tank-capable classes suits me fine. For the first time since release I see more healers than tanks in the LFG queues.
Beef Mar 6th 2008 2:55AM
I see a lot of similar ambitions in invading with your character another class' field. While it's great fun to do it for the novelty I would really hate to see Blizzard make a move towards making shamans a tanking alternative.
It's bad enough that the tanking role can now be filled by three classes and more often than not the warriors get sidelined, let alone a 4th.
Had a shaman the other day asking for mortal strike ability for his pvp, to which i replied and yes, warriors would like a hunter's pet, a water elemental and the priest's healing ability.
Sarah Mar 20th 2008 12:23PM
it's like i'm seeing karazhan for the first time, but it looks like a big penis in that picture. Very phallic indeed.