Shaman Tanks definitely needs some love, and not just because of it...

[Keds]

I recently got to lvl 60, and boy it's been hard to get a tank for dungeons...

I've been waiting in queue for 3+ hours, while also spamming on world and local chat. Yesterday after getting tired of waiting, our group decided to run with me as a shaman tanking. We where doing strat, and feel like the ONLY thing that makes hard for us, is on the AoE threat area. Single target works great, Rockbiter and earth shock can generate a pretty good amount of aggro, but on pulls with many targets, Chain Lightning isn't cutting, you've gotta tab target pretty quickly to hit everything.

This role is also VERY mana dependant, so my dilemma was, use LShield to try to get some more aggro, or use Water Shield?

My healer was also not very happy with the idea me tanking, but i guess since he was waiting for far too long he just decided to give a shot.

Have you guys had any tanking experience worth mentioning?

[Xudo]

You should build long-term relationships with healers and tanks.
It will allow you all to plan your dungeon parties. Queue is only when you have 0 known people.

[Boras]

I recently got to lvl 60, and boy it's been hard to get a tank for dungeons...

I've been waiting in queue for 3+ hours, while also spamming on world and local chat. Yesterday after getting tired of waiting, our group decided to run with me as a shaman tanking. We where doing strat, and feel like the ONLY thing that makes hard for us, is on the AoE threat area. Single target works great, Rockbiter and earth shock can generate a pretty good amount of aggro, but on pulls with many targets, Chain Lightning isn't cutting, you've gotta tab target pretty quickly to hit everything.

This role is also VERY mana dependant, so my dilemma was, use LShield to try to get some more aggro, or use Water Shield?

My healer was also not very happy with the idea me tanking, but i guess since he was waiting for far too long he just decided to give a shot.

Have you guys had any tanking experience worth mentioning?

As someone who tanked all dungeons as a shaman in vanilla, you need to get thorns effect items for big pulls. The helm from gnomer, shield spike, the strat ud shield from ramstein, ungoro crystals, etc. I also specced into eye of the storm to free cast chain lightning. You’ll be crit often so you can use it for damage or healing depending on the scenario.

You actually have it much easier on here tbh. Talents to make you tankier and now you can play crossfaction so you can benefit from paladins. Have the paladin use ret aura for big pulls and salvation on the dps to help you out.

[Airwolf]

I am tanking as a shaman for quite a while now, and i can say shaman tanking works realy well. For dungeons i honestly think it is on par or even better than other tanks having our main threat ability as range attack that even interrupt spells...aoe is fine with tab targeting and using some gadgets

comming from official servers i have to say it is also much better here both on gameplay side with better talents and more gearing possibilities and also on the social side with group members mostly willing to go with a shaman tank and sometimes even beeing excited about it. On official servers you often just get a wtf kick out of the group once they realice you are the tank :)

Raids are surely also possible but as there are sooo many "normal" tanks available there, it is hard to find a raid spot

That said, surely shaman tank has lots of opportunities to get some "love from the devs" but a part of the fun i take out of it is to be a very good tank even with limited possibilities ;)

[Drubarrymooer]

I am tanking as a shaman for quite a while now, and i can say shaman tanking works realy well. For dungeons i honestly think it is on par or even better than other tanks having our main threat ability as range attack that even interrupt spells...aoe is fine with tab targeting and using some gadgets

comming from official servers i have to say it is also much better here both on gameplay side with better talents and more gearing possibilities and also on the social side with group members mostly willing to go with a shaman tank and sometimes even beeing excited about it. On official servers you often just get a wtf kick out of the group once they realice you are the tank :)

Raids are surely also possible but as there are sooo many "normal" tanks available there, it is hard to find a raid spot

That said, surely shaman tank has lots of opportunities to get some "love from the devs" but a part of the fun i take out of it is to be a very good tank even with limited possibilities ;)

Two things;
1. I love your name. Now the theme song is stuck in my head

2. Shaman tanks have so much threat its insane. Even being a geared feral tank, if I'm not on my game, they will out threat me. They need 2 things IMHO. 2a). Totems need to somehow be linked to aoe threat. 2b). They need a taunt. And not some janky paladin taunt, which also needs addressing. Lol.

[Azuredrak0]

I've been doing Shaman tanking for a while, and yes there are some gaping issues with shaman tanking. Whether intentional or unintentional, they both prevent Shamen from being main tanks and also add uniqueness and challenge to class tanking. If I were to summarize the issues in order of importance, it would be the following:

1. No real taunt
- not much to be said here. Earth Shock is great, but it's not a taunt. Engineering may provide a momentary AOE taunt with Dummies, but it's not a solution. Shaman "taunting" totem is pretty useless in raid setting. I think Paladins struggle in this area too.
2. Poor/challenging gearing options
- proper gearing is a nightmare. It's impossible to get good +defense stacking, leaving shamen open to crits. This leaves options for stacking as much +Sta and +Dodge/Parry as possible to be able to absorb crits/crushing and avoid regular hits. At the same time, Mail doesn't provide as much armor as Plate. To make matters even more interesting, sometimes the best gearing option for the slot is meant for Druid tanks, which means it's leather with even less armor. Not complaining, but experienced tanks and healers can agree this this setup is challenging to heal.
3. Poor/challenging AOE threat management
- totems have their own threat, and they dont' pass it to the shamen. Best option on AOE pull is Chain Lightning and Engienering Sapper charge, also grenades. There isn't much in the toolbox outside of reactive damage items/enchants/trinkets.

Some of the best suggestions I've seen that should not require super heavy implementation.
Empower shocks ability - next shock provides an additional effect. For Earth Shock the effect would be a taunt. Alternatively, we can always just get a new rank of ES (in a book version) that does same damage but has a taunt component.
Change Guardian Totems talent - add additional effect to Guardian Totems talent to maybe reduce crit chance of enemies to the effected party members. This would be highly desirable for tanks of all kind that are not Def capped.
Threat from totems transfer to shamen - this would effectively solve for AOE threat generation.

[Sunflowerdeath1]

I have tanked as shaman in 60lvl 5 mans and with all changes made to shamans it feels very viable.

Most important change is water shield - it finally gives enough mana and saves from drinking after every pull. And I don't have situations that requires taunt badly. Actually I like more having eartshock, cause it can build threat from distance and interrupts spells. AoE-pulls in 5-man dungeons are probably designed for not very experienced players, so you can do without aoe-aggroing spells, but it definitely would make life much easier.

The hardest part is finding gear for a shaman tank. Having talent for 30% armor from shields helps a lot, considering that mail has less armor than plate. If you compare gear sets for warrior and for shaman, in pre-raid BIS shaman can have around 5.2k hp unbuffed with 6.5k armour, and warrior has same hp, but up to 7.5k armor and slightly higher mitigation. So in first raids such as MC or ZG they can be somewhat comparable. But if you compare end-game BIS its not even close - its possible to get on warrior 7 to 7.5k hp and 10k armor unbuffed, while max for shaman is 6.5k hp and 8k armor and much less mitigation vs crits from bosses. This is main problem that I wish to be adressed by devs.

[Imonobor]

Shamans were originally intended to wear plate and to tank with it.
So here's a suggestion that will not sit well with everyone, but I think it will fix a couple of things, especially the gearing options:

Put at the end of the enhancement tree a new talent (or talents) that will reduce all damage done by the shaman by 25%, buff all threat by 35% (to compensate lost damage), make fire totems transfer their threat to the shaman, turns frost shock into a mini-taunt (3-4 sec of forced attacks on shaman) and lets them wear plate. Numbers are ofcourse subject to balancing, but the idea is to make the talent extremely undesirable for DPS shamans, especially in PVP, because having them suddenly wear plate in BGs might break balance a fair bit.

This solves gearing, taunt and AoE threat. Mana might still be an issue, but there is plenty of pala tank gear choices that have int and MP5 on them, so that could help a bit.

Now let me know in how many unforeseen ways this will break the game :D

[Azuredrak0]

Shaman tanking in dungeons is possible, but when it goes to Raid tier, shaman is automatically excluded from any engagement with a Taunt requirement. I'd settle for some form of reliable taunt option.



Outside of that, another suggestion -
Remove Thunderhead (I don't know how many people actually use it)
Add 1 point passive talent - Warden Affinity: Defense bonus from gear increased by 20%. All shaman shield spells now have a 1 minute cooldown, but their effects are vastly improved. (balancing the cooldown and magnitude of effect is critical. For balance same talent may penalize use of Two-handed weapons)

Implications of above would be -
Lightning shield - on pull to generate more threat on target (I still feel like this will be underused at top level)
Water shield - mid fight when going OOM
Earth shield - active cooldown when larger damage spike is coming

[Sunflowerdeath1]

Shaman tanking in dungeons is possible, but when it goes to Raid tier, shaman is automatically excluded from any engagement with a Taunt requirement. I'd settle for some form of reliable taunt option.

There is no any "taunt requirement" for raid tanking and never was. Taunts can be resisted easily, and many bosses are not event tauntable, so stop making things. I tanked AQ20 and ZG and all dungeons as a shaman, it's doable but very far from being good. All problems of a shaman tanks are exactly the same as problems of enchancement shamans in general - lack of useful abilities, useful talents and useful gear.

If you look at all other classes, the last talent in the tree is always a logical continuation of the previous talents. Previously shamans had Stormstrike as last talent, what was absolutely laughable - to spend 31 talent points to get ability that is inferior to any basic ability of other classes. It was replaced by Bloodlust but it just does not belong to any spec, especially the enchancement. It is not even used to buff yourself, but used like a support ability. Bloodlust should be available without talents, maybe in slightly weaker version, and for the last talent add something actually useful.

Second problem is about gear. Tanking with shaman is like tanking raids with a warrior with half blue dungeon gear and half even worse, which is basically true - you can get tanking shield, rings, trinkets and cloak, but rest of gear is non-existent, and you just wear random mail gear.

[Getplucked]

Shaman tanking is not going to happen without a serious overall of the class / Enhancement tree.

I don't understand why people are so hellbent on trying to tank with a class that is awful at it and was never really designed for it. Yeah sure, maybe as a funny meme when you vastly overgear the content, but outside of that? Not really.

[Sunflowerdeath1]

Shaman tanking is not going to happen without a serious overall of the class / Enhancement tree.

I don't understand why people are so hellbent on trying to tank with a class that is awful at it and was never really designed for it. Yeah sure, maybe as a funny meme when you vastly overgear the content, but outside of that? Not really.

Enchancement tree has many talents useful specifically for tanks and not any other role - 5% block, 5% dodge, 10% armor, 30% armor from shields. For threat shamans have rockbiter and eartshock. Why would class have 90% of what is needed for tanking, if it is not ever intended to be used?

Problem with enchancement that it is absurdly weak, like all numbers are wrong, too far from what other classes have. You can be in full pre-raid enchancement BIS and most optimal spec and if you just start casting lightning bolts, you will have more DPS.

[Getplucked]

I mean, Rogue has talents that increase parry and dodge, doesn't mean it's meant to tank.

The problems with Shaman tanking are:
-no taunt
-Mail gear
-No AoE threat other than chain lightning
-No defensive CDs
-No threat-generating abilities other than Earth Shock which is on a CD

Can you make it work? Sure, when you're stacked with tons of gear, but it was never designed to be anywhere close to warrior/bear/paladin.

Blizzard-Vanilla Paladin tank is already a meme spec. Shaman tanking is even memeier than that.

[Drubarrymooer]

There is no any "taunt requirement" for raid tanking and never was. Taunts can be resisted easily, and many bosses are not event tauntable, so stop making things. I tanked AQ20 and ZG and all dungeons as a shaman, it's doable but very far from being good. All problems of a shaman tanks are exactly the same as problems of enchancement shamans in general - lack of useful abilities, useful talents and useful gear.

There are bosses where you absolutely need to taunt the boss. Sure, you can power through bwl solo tanking, but its a pita. You're not doing 4H w/o a taunt.

Shaman tanking is not going to happen without a serious overall of the class / Enhancement tree.

I don't understand why people are so hellbent on trying to tank with a class that is awful at it and was never really designed for it. Yeah sure, maybe as a funny meme when you vastly overgear the content, but outside of that? Not really.

While I agree the talent tree needs an overhaul, Shaman were meant to be viable raid tanks, even back in vanilla. The dev's cut it for time. As for the why, the same reason any suboptimal class does anything....because they can and/or maybe they have fun doing it. How much stuff have we learned over the years because someone was adventurous enough to do it. Then it gets quantified and adjusted on V+ servers, as it is here, and it gets written into the lexicon. Its good that people make noise about it. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say.

[Getplucked]

Shaman were meant to be viable raid tanks, even back in vanilla.

Considering they can't wear plate, don't have a taunt, and don't have any +threat abilities besides rockbiter and earth shock

(X) Doubt

Also I've never heard anything about "shamans were meant to be raid tanks", got a source for that?

[Airwolf]

Shaman tanking is not going to happen without a serious overall of the class / Enhancement tree.

I don't understand why people are so hellbent on trying to tank with a class that is awful at it and was never really designed for it. Yeah sure, maybe as a funny meme when you vastly overgear the content, but outside of that? Not really.

I think we have to separate here between dungeons and raid settings.

In dungeons shaman tanks realy shine, i have tanked all dungeons from rfc to ubrs without any problems, no dds complaining about threat, no healers complaining about problems to keep me alive. The toolkit is more limited as that of other tanks sure, but if you play well you can make up for that easily and it is lot of fun. And if you see a shaman tank you can be almost certain that he knows what he does and will try to play as good as possible. Cannot say that for most warrior tanks out there...And the most important part: tanks are very rare for dungeons, so there is a big demand for any tank so the more the better.

In raids however, other story..yes shamans can also tank most beginner raids, but there are more drawbacks and the lack of tools and gear gets a problem, especially compared to regular tanks. But the most important part: there is no tank shortage im raids...why should anyone take a shaman tank to a raid when there are lots of warriors available?

[Thegr8equalizer]

While I agree the talent tree needs an overhaul, Shaman were meant to be viable raid tanks, even back in vanilla. The dev's cut it for time. As for the why, the same reason any suboptimal class does anything....because they can and/or maybe they have fun doing it. How much stuff have we learned over the years because someone was adventurous enough to do it. Then it gets quantified and adjusted on V+ servers, as it is here, and it gets written into the lexicon. Its good that people make noise about it. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say.

That is absolutely false. Kevin Jordan, who was lead class designer and designed every spec and spells in vanilla wow said times and times again:

1) the 3 classes that were supposed to be the main tanks were paladin druid and warrior

2) shaman was never meant to be anything more than an emergency tank up to lvl 50 content (so around maraudon/Sunken temple level).

3) shaman was never supposed to use plate as their tribal Armor was closer to leather/mail type.

4) shaman was supposed to be the offensive archetype of the hybrid while paladin was supposed to be the defensive archetype, that is why shaman has a caster dps spec while paladin has a tank spec instead.

For the sources, you can find the "Countdown to classic" podcast episodes about shaman class, paladin class and druid class. There is also a AMA with vanilla Devs that speak about this point.


Please stop spreading nonsense online.

[Sunflowerdeath1]

While I agree the talent tree needs an overhaul, Shaman were meant to be viable raid tanks, even back in vanilla. The dev's cut it for time. As for the why, the same reason any suboptimal class does anything....because they can and/or maybe they have fun doing it. How much stuff have we learned over the years because someone was adventurous enough to do it. Then it gets quantified and adjusted on V+ servers, as it is here, and it gets written into the lexicon. Its good that people make noise about it. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say.

That is absolutely false. Kevin Jordan, who was lead class designer and designed every spec and spells in vanilla wow said times and times again:

1) the 3 classes that were supposed to be the main tanks were paladin druid and warrior

2) shaman was never meant to be anything more than an emergency tank up to lvl 50 content (so around maraudon/Sunken temple level).

3) shaman was never supposed to use plate as their tribal Armor was closer to leather/mail type.

4) shaman was supposed to be the offensive archetype of the hybrid while paladin was supposed to be the defensive archetype, that is why shaman has a caster dps spec while paladin has a tank spec instead.

For the sources, you can find the "Countdown to classic" podcast episodes about shaman class, paladin class and druid class. There is also a AMA with vanilla Devs that speak about this point.


Please stop spreading nonsense online.

Аnd the discussion has gone in the completely wrong direction. Why do we care what the f* they originaly supposed? They failed miserably by crippling all hybrid classes, and making warriors OP, and now whole this forum and whole Turle Wow project is dedicated to fixing it. If I wanted all to be as in original - I wouldn't even consider playing here.

[Gdawg45]

What about using LB to pull single target and drop stone claw for the additional mobs? Mark your mobs in kill order so the DPS isn’t pulling random agro off of you. You can macro a /yell on a max rank earthshock to tell your DPS to stop pulling agro. Until the stockclaw ticks you cannot do ANY dmg even with thorns or LS.

Another option would be to use earthbind to pull groups. Mark your single target for your dps to focus target.
I am not sure if the stoneclaw can pull agro off earthbind. Maybe some input is needed from other shaman tanks. One thing is for certain, upon the death of any totem the agro will transfer to the shaman.

[Zulnam]

that's one way of looking at it.

Another way is that shaman was never meant to be a tank.

Personally, I would like to see shaman be more viable for tanking (at least 5-mans). But when your melee DPS spec is also your tanking spec, well, you end up in a druid scenario. jack of all trades etc etc.

[Getplucked]

drop stone claw for the additional mobs?

Stoneclaw dies in like 2-3 hits from dungeon mobs.

One thing is for certain, upon the death of any totem the agro will transfer to the shaman.

That's not how totems work. Their threat is completely separate from the shaman's.

[Sunflowerdeath1]

that's one way of looking at it.

Another way is that shaman was never meant to be a tank.

Personally, I would like to see shaman be more viable for tanking (at least 5-mans). But when your melee DPS spec is also your tanking spec, well, you end up in a druid scenario. jack of all trades etc etc.

Guys, wake up, shaman doesn't have such thing as "melee dps spec". Enchancement is a spec with lowest dps in game, it has less damage than even tanks, and at the same time it has less tanking capabilities than any other tanking class.

[Thegr8equalizer]

that's one way of looking at it.

Another way is that shaman was never meant to be a tank.

Personally, I would like to see shaman be more viable for tanking (at least 5-mans). But when your melee DPS spec is also your tanking spec, well, you end up in a druid scenario. jack of all trades etc etc.

Guys, wake up, shaman doesn't have such thing as "melee dps spec". Enchancement is a spec with lowest dps in game, it has less damage than even tanks, and at the same time it has less tanking capabilities than any other tanking class.

Only difference is that shaman was never supposed to tank end game content while enhancement was supposed to me competitive melee DPS spec for end game content as said by Kevin Jordan (the lead class designer of vanilla wow).

[Airwolf]

What about using LB to pull single target and drop stone claw for the additional mobs? Mark your mobs in kill order so the DPS isn’t pulling random agro off of you. You can macro a /yell on a max rank earthshock to tell your DPS to stop pulling agro. Until the stockclaw ticks you cannot do ANY dmg even with thorns or LS.

Another option would be to use earthbind to pull groups. Mark your single target for your dps to focus target.
I am not sure if the stoneclaw can pull agro off earthbind. Maybe some input is needed from other shaman tanks. One thing is for certain, upon the death of any totem the agro will transfer to the shaman.

No need for such strange solutions, totems are not very good for tanking anyway...

For a bigger group, just mark skull, open with LB on main target, cast chain lighning on other mobs while lb still in the air, follow up with eartshock on main target and voilla, you have solid threat on 4 mobs. Now just tab-hit through all mobs with rockbiter on and give the main target an aditional eartshock with a rank depending on dd threat.

You can enhance aoe threat with grenades, aoe trinkets, oil of immolation if you want but most of the time its not needed.

The max rank earthshock counts as a taunt 95% of the time btw, it creates sooo much aggro, so in case a dd does not focus skull, you can still get the aggro back fairly easy

[Zulnam]

that's one way of looking at it.

Another way is that shaman was never meant to be a tank.

Personally, I would like to see shaman be more viable for tanking (at least 5-mans). But when your melee DPS spec is also your tanking spec, well, you end up in a druid scenario. jack of all trades etc etc.

Guys, wake up, shaman doesn't have such thing as "melee dps spec". Enchancement is a spec with lowest dps in game, it has less damage than even tanks, and at the same time it has less tanking capabilities than any other tanking class.

Only difference is that shaman was never supposed to tank end game content while enhancement was supposed to me competitive melee DPS spec for end game content as said by Kevin Jordan (the lead class designer of vanilla wow).

So there's the solution.

Remove tank talents and replace them with talents to improve melee DPS.

win-win-win

[Airwolf]

So there's the solution.

Remove tank talents and replace them with talents to improve melee DPS.

win-win-win

Sure buff melee DPS but let your hands of the tank talents!

Even if shamans were never supposed to tank endgame dungeons, they can tank them perfectly fine.

I have lots of fun tanking as shaman and never once got a bad comment from any dd or healer while doing so

[Airwolf]

Of course i got a lot of hate and groupleavers BEFORE we started dungeons, but as said, not a single complaint during the runs.

I think that says a lot :P

[Sunflowerdeath1]

Guys, wake up, shaman doesn't have such thing as "melee dps spec". Enchancement is a spec with lowest dps in game, it has less damage than even tanks, and at the same time it has less tanking capabilities than any other tanking class.

Only difference is that shaman was never supposed to tank end game content while enhancement was supposed to me competitive melee DPS spec for end game content as said by Kevin Jordan (the lead class designer of vanilla wow).

So there's the solution.

Remove tank talents and replace them with talents to improve melee DPS.

win-win-win

There are in total just 13 talent points that you can spend for tanking, and all of them are placed early in the tree, and they are actually useful for solo leveling too.

Problem is that after about 45 level both tank and dps spec just don't have any powerful enough talents that they can easily reach. For example to get Clearcasting talent you have to spend 11 points in elemental tree, and to get +3 hit talent you need 8 points in resto tree, and you need to take both of them, cause Bloodlust is to weak and just dont worth spending 6 points to get it.

[Bigzam]

i have once played shamam tank in classic, i don't think pulling many targets is an issue for shamam tank as warrior tank does no better. Paradin tank is mana dependant as well.

Shaman can't tank in raid just because it can't take on plate, i would suggest give Plate talent in enhancement row 7.

[Azuredrak0]

I mean being a hybrid spec is fine. Many people enjoy being a hybrid spec.
I think we all agree that can tank dungeons, and we can all agree that shamen are not warrior, druid, or even paladin tanks.

Where we disagree is whether shaman should be treated as a supporting raid "wife" role (get in the kitchen/my group, drop Windfury, and shut up... oh, by the way we need more people to play shamen). Or, alternatively allow people room to discover ways they can enjoy their class, rather than forcing them to do what current WOW societal norms demand.

Shaman tanking or Warden Shaman has been on the fringes for a very long time, but in TWoW its getting recognition with several gear pieces helping us be effective and new patch allowing us to reach about 410 Defense (in BIS, if you want details, I can provide). I believe that directly or indirectly the devs are allowing Shamen to tank more effectively in iterations.

Are we viable as main tanks that can tank every single boss mechanic? - counter question - Do we need to be?

Personally - would love some kind of Taunt mechanic to be able to control threat better, but that's just an opinion of this shaman. Would settle for other ways to control threat better. And no, currently highest rank of Rockbiter is not sufficient when tanking for highly geared players.

[Blondboombox]

I would love BIS details!

I think a taunt would be nice, but I would prefer a defensive or block/shield based ability. (If we could only have one, I'd love both)

[Calli]

Yes, shamans should be better tanks than warriors. Give them taunt,plate armor and shield block talent. Maybe just delete warrior protection tree.

[Bigsmerf]

Yes, shamans should be better tanks than warriors. Give them taunt,plate armor and shield block talent. Maybe just delete warrior protection tree.

Yeah, because prot is the warr tanking spec, obviously.

[Terras]

I love that some people are looking at this and bouncing around ideas that could make the class more fun. I see the whole thing behind not wanting shamans to be able to tank raids but better than anyone else, but I bet it would still be a benefit overall to at least have them as a decent option. Assuming you're not a part of the "No shaman tanks" camp. I would love to see some sort of mechanic for Shaman Tanks that improves their defenses and aggro as the fight progresses. Let me see if I can present a decent set of ideas below that have functional mechanics and fit the theme of communing with the elements below.

#1. Give lighting shield (LS) a debuff based stacking effect. Let's say that each time a mob takes damage from LS they gain a stack of Static Charge (SC). Now let's have SC give something like the following effect: "For each stack of SC the effected unit has the aggro of lighting-based spells against it increased by X%. For each stack of SC there is an X% chance to restore 1 charge of LS to the target if LS is active. Effect may stack up to X number of times." This would give a chance to have a slow build aggro that is usable with a range of shaman abilities.

#2. Give Earth shield (ES) a buff based stacking effect. For this one we will go with the effect Stubborn Earth (SE). SE would be triggered as normal per ES but have the following effect instead: "For each stack of SE the shaman's armor is increased by X% and their spell resistance is increase by X. For each stack of SE, the shaman regenerates X% of max HP over X seconds. Effect may stack up to X number of times."

#3. Give Water Shield (WS) a buff based stacking effect. First, I would remove the charge effect from WS and make it more like an aura while keeping it exclusive against LS and ES. Next, I would give it the effect Ebb and Flow (EF) which would be as follows: "While WS is active the shaman gains 1 stack of EF every X seconds up to X number of times. For each stack of EF, the shaman receives X mana every X seconds. Each time the shaman casts a spell they lose all stacks of EF."

#4. Give the shaman a skill/talent at around lvl 50 that makes them immune to crit/crushing blows from mobs while they have a shield equipped in their off hand and any of their shield spells active.

TL:DR
I would love the shaman to have abilities that tied into the concept of communing with elements while they fight. The longer they commune with an element the better the effects and to get the greatest benefit they have to learn to balance communing with the different options effectively like the warrior class has traditionally done with the stance dance.

That's what I've got. I don't claim to be a shaman expert and I hope that I've added to the conversation with taking from anyone else.

[Shammylover67]

I’m so tired of this argument that a shaman can tank if you try hard enough. I play shaman tank and I do it very well. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t use a taunt or a little aoe threat to be a better option for my team mates. Lightning shield is also terribly designed right now in the tree. It needs more charges to help with thorns style damage and thunderhead needs to be reworked.