Real issue with Shaman Tanking

[Azuredrak0]

Hi everyone,

TLDR - real issue is raid expectations and more specifically expectation to Windfury Totem... for more details, read on -

I've played a shaman tank for a while. I know many shaman tanks and myself have tanked content all the way through Naxx, and have surprised plenty of people with capabilities expanded and adapted for shamen to be able to do that.

While there are plenty of challenges to choosing to tank on a Shaman (lack of cooldowns, complexity of rotation, mana upkeep, ect.), the biggest elephant in the room I wanted to address though is perception and expectation from the shaman. And to be even more specific, the problem with Windfury totem.

Raid expectation from a shaman is to be a raid strength augment, and any shaman that will be permitted to tank will still be expected to drop the most coveted totem of all, you guessed it, the Windfury Totem. This augments the melee DPS of the group by quite a bit.

Here's the problem with this - dropping Windfury provides no benefit to the shaman and in fact robs him 4% crit and dodge provided by the Agi (Grace of Air) totem. This causes a funny conundrum for shaman tank who boosts DPS of his group, which robs him of more mitigation and threat.

Proposal for future enhancement shaman ... enhancements

• let's make a symbiotic relationship that benefits the shaman for dropping Windfury totem - When party members proc Windfury, shaman gains 5% block for 10 secs, stacking 5 times - now there's a good benefit that could be tied to Spirit Armor talent

• let's not forget our Enhancement brothers - When party members proc windfury, shaman gains 50AP, stacking 5 times for 10 secs - this benefit may be tied to Calming Winds talent

• Alternatively both effects can be combined into Enhancing Totems talent and the benefit provided can be tied to wearing a shield or not

[Toxo]

I don't know that this alone would solve the whole issue of Shaman Tanks if we're talking raids, having only 1 half set with defense stats, lack luster stamina on items, no def cds, no idol buffs etc. As far as I've seen the issues need something like this, plus a couple of other tweaks in other places, that would address the multitude of issues this spec has.

That said though, I do like this idea as an addition to what Enhance Shamans are missing, it also plays nicely into the Shaman fantasy while solving one of Shaman's biggest issues, WF totem serving as a support to allies and allies' procs looping back into supporting you.

As for talents that can add this effect, I think the first 2 ideas work better, because Spirit Armor is strictly a Tank specific talent, one that Enhance Dps can't benefit from as it requires wearing a shield to get its bonus armor and it improves blocking, likewise, Calming Winds reduces threat, which is something you obviously do not want as a Tank.

The 3rd idea I don't think would be as elegant and present a fair share of problems, as Enhancing Totems is more of a neutral talent between the Dps and Tank sides of Enhance, but it would also turn it into another mandatory talent for the Tank side..
This side I think is already burdened enough with needing every talent from the Dps side to have threat and this will add more load to it, example, Dps side only needs Calming Winds as a mandatory talent if you have high gear, Enhancing Totems is optional (maybe a hot take there, but the bonuses are pretty small and half of it basically doesn't exist, since we never get to use Grace of Air), in contrast to that Tank side's Ancestral Guardian and Spirit Armor are Absolutely Mandatory to have tank equivalent armor and decent mitigation, with a 3rd talent of Totemic Alignment being optional for some AoE threat, which, nobody really needs this, not as it is right now. This is why I think placing it to Calming Winds and Spirit Armor makes more sense for each spec.

What they'd look like:
Dps talents: https://talents.turtle-wow.org/shaman?p ... AAAAAAAAA=
Tank talents: https://talents.turtle-wow.org/shaman?p ... AAAAAAAAA=


Lastly, one potential problem I see with this are instances where Dps can't be near the shaman tank. I think this is where Grace of Air comes to play, but is the totem by itself enough? Is the idea here that WF totem reinforces our missing Dodge from Grace of Air, or WF becomes a conduit for Block chance, while Grace of Air remains as it is, the go to for Dodge?

[pagu]

There is still awkward mechanics not only for enh tank, but also for dps.
1) Thats strange that the best melee party totem gives nothing to shaman. Make wf totem (and flametongue totem) stack with all weapon enchants, not only with frostbrand. Tank shaman will get more threat, dd shaman will get some damage. imho its strange to put defensive properties on wf totem, better buff stoneskin in that case. Stoneskin becomes too weak in raids.
2) Stormstrike should buff any spell damage. All shocks should have increased threat only when rockbiter is up. Its strange that dps shaman use flame and frost shock and get no benefit from ss. For tank threat on other types of shock will help on nature immune/resistant mobs

[Azuredrak0]

I mean - we are diving back into mechanical issues of shaman tanking (i.e. lack of cooldowns, lack of gearing options), and that's ok, but honestly I think the biggest elephant in the room is the social aspect and perception of what Shamen "should be" in a raid setting. I believe Windfury totem is the culprit for that perception.

My argument - Instead of replacing and adding new stuff, leaning into Windfury totem to also support the shaman within his role is a more plausible solution. Allowing totems to stack with Weapon Enhancements might be a solution, but it gets weird with Windfury procs proccing other Windfury... it has the potential of blowing away all DPS for Enhancement shaman, and can be extremely difficult to balance. Maybe allowing unique totem and weapon enhancements stack (when they're not the same) might be a possible choice. Then Enh DPS would opt for Frostbrand and Enh Tank woud likely opt for Rockbiter, and both could still benefit from Windfury and Flametongue totems.

[pagu]

Windfury doesnt proc other Windfury because of short internal cd
wf and wf totem procs can share cd
But when attack, roll first for wf enchant proc, then roll for wf totem proc if enchant did not proced

[Upsetlobster]

Could making windfury some kind of aura self buff that all shamans have, like the feral crit solves this in part?

Obviously having grace of air on top would boost DPS even more, so that's another balance issue, but I could see a cool aura wind effect surrounding the shaman, making them look all badass

[Voodoochile]

I would implore you guys to read into my rework proposal for Shaman here viewtopic.php?t=18390 I have proposed the idea of both making WF a buff attached to Agi totem, but no longer a baseline ability and instead making it the 31 point talent for Enh, and also giving Shaman a weaker, but persistent Spirit Link to be baseline as a defensive-utility spell so your health pool has value even when you are not MT on a single target fight.

And this would be in addition to an enhanced version of Spirit Link that is closer to the current iteration in power that Tank Shamans can spec into to function as a Defensive CD

[pagu]

Deep rework is interesting but lets be honest, probability of implementation is low
Simpler change - more chances to get it. My proposal about stacking totems and enchants is the simplest, its more like tweak than rework. Frostbrand already works this way.

[Azuredrak0]

@voodoochile - I read your post, and I do like some of the suggestions, mainly I find the proposition to make Windfury Totem a 31 point talent very appeasing since this would not force Elemental and Resto shamen into melee groups. I do agree however with @pagu - it seems like a complicated rework. It's unlikely to be looked at until CC3.

Honestly, I'd still settle for having standard Windfury totem, only have that totem somehow feedback into shaman effectiveness based on the role he/she chooses.