Enhancement Shaman as tank

[Bigfish]

Just an idea I've been toying with, has anyone tried enhancement as a tanking spec on shamans? I wanted to give it some work, but I've only got one shaman, and he has no enhancement gear. Bottom line, I'm not going to spend time pursuing this beyond theory, but if anyone else has tried it and wants to share their experience, I'd love to hear how it went.

[Multibocks]

Tanking what? PvE it would get destroyed I would think...

PvP he would sit there and shock and not much else as most people get wasted before getting to your group.

[Bigfish]

Well, the concept would probably involve tanking 5-man normals, and then heroics,spamming Stormstrike, Chain Lightning, and Frost shocks and the like. Like I said, I'm not takng this anywhere past the theory point, but if someone actually went out and loaded up on Stamina, Defense, and Srength to tank with a shammy, I'd like to hear how it went.

[Multibocks]

Actually I just read a blue post on this and the developers have "long since" given up on tanking for the shaman. I guess you could use PvP gear to get rid of crits by mobs, but you would still need massive heals and you have no taunt button except for frost shock.

[Khatovar]

This hasn't been viable since Dire Maul was released. Chain is not plate, at best you could strive to be an avoidance tank.

There is simply nothing in our repertoire that allows us to tank. As a matter of fact, one of the talents that a tank would go after, Parry, reduces our threat passively by 30%. Shamans do not have taunts or a means of tanking multiple mobs, meaning they depend wholly on being able to OutDPS everyone in the group, That means fighting against normal threat, healer agro on conjoining mobs and the inherent 30% threat reduction from Spirit Weapons, which means you will end up having to throttle back your DPS significantly.

That is doable, of course, but no healer will be able to keep you alive long enough for your toned-down DPS and doing so will probably only cause the healer to rip agro off you, even if they have threat reduction out the ass.

Compare with our "cousin" the paladin.

We get +3% to dodge, they get 5%.

Spirit Weapons gives us the chance to parry...this chance to parry is talented and reduces our threat by 30%. Parry is trained for all other tanking classes early off and paladins talent an additional 5% in T1 Ret.

We get +10% to stamina talented through Toughness. Paladins get +10% Stamina from BoSanc AND 6% Stamina from Combat Expertise AND 8% from Sacred Duty.

We can get 15 seconds of 30% damage reduction from Shamanistic Rage once a minute, and a passive 6% damage reduction from 3/3 Elemental Warding. Paladins get 6% passive from 3/3 Imp Righteous Fury, AND 3% from BoSanc, AND 30% reduction once below 35% health {plus a chance to get healed instead of splattered} from 3/3 Ardent Defender, AND 6% spell damage reduction from 2/2 Guarded by the Light, AND 3% reduce all damage from Shield of the Templar, AND they can opt for another 10/20% reduced physical damage for 15 seconds every 11-16 minutes {depending on glyphs} from Imp Lay on Hands.

Let's also remember, paladins ALSO get damage reduction from their armor buffs. Toughness gives them +10% armor contribution. Improved Devotion aura boosts the armor of Devotion Aura by 50% {another 600 armor or so over the 1200 armor granted by using Devotion} PLUS gives a +6% boost to all heals recieved by everyone under any paladin aura. Aura Mastery doubles the effect of any BASE paladin Aura {260 shadow/frost/fire resistance, 2410 armor} or can prevent silences/interrupts for 10 seconds once every 2 minutes for everyone under the paladin's aura.

AND Paladins get further reduction to damage taken via blocking. They gain 15% to Strength from 5/5 Divine Strength which feeds into block. +30% chance to block for 10 seconds {plus reflective damage for blocking} from Holy Shield that can be kept up forever since it has an 8 sec cooldown, and +30% block value with a 10% chance upon being hit to increase block by 30% for 10 seconds/5 blocks from Redoubt.

Paladins can also reduce damage through absorbson via their bubbles {50% for 12 seconds every 2 minutes talented from Divine Protection/Sacred Duty, and shield procs from Sacred Shield}.

And that's just damage reduction, that doesn't look at the tools a they get to take and hold agro. You'd have a better chance letting your Rockies tank. While a shaman could be built up to tank {looks at the Grull-tanking rogue and never says "never"} they're more along the lines of attention-whoring cannon-fodder instead of tanks. You *can* get them to hold agro {maybe} and you can get them up on avoidance tanking {possibly}, but that will do no good against bosses that have unavoidable attacks or magic damage. It would be exceedingly situational barring massively outgearing the snot out of whatever you're trying to accomplish. And I'm not talking Kara gear in HRamps, I'm talking Kara Gear in SM. Graveyard. Heh.

[Jamella]

its possible and there are vids around on youtube...

some enh shaman tanking obsidian sanctum, malygos & naxx

nice to see, but honestly, imo not worth the time to try it yourself :p