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I was wondering why no one ever put any Enchancment shamans in a group, with Mail they could be decent tanks for group quests, they have the stormstrike buff, which gives the next two nature attacks +20% Damage which would boost LB/LC alot. So i was just wondering why? It wouldnt be that hard to make the ench shaman your main
True that they arnt the best tanks, but they are a bit better tanks than Elemental Shamans wouldnt you say?
I'd say actually the elemental might be a better tank because you wear a shield and still do damage, the enhancement Shaman sacrifices a lot to drop his offhand or 2H weapon to possibly take less damage.
Either way though both are not fit to be a tanky type.
the thing is that even if you pick up tanking talents like better armor and stuff, with shield you as enhancement shaman will do ridiculous damage to do tanking through damage and your aggro generating ability frost shock wont be enough to tank through full nuke
and after all why would you need a tank for group quests. I dont know any untankable quest by elem shaman untill lvl 70. Tough high level quests can be tanked by earth elementals but usually I just nuke the hell outta elite guys and so on.
And one more thing. Enhancement shaman will be pretty useless for ranged dps group and will slow down your killing of mobs.
Earth Elemental totems...
I have only 4 Shamans, and when I go to 5 man instances like Shadow Labs or Steam vaults, not carebear instances that are easy.. I usually can take out the trash very quickly, 1 2 3 4 mobs will die before they can hit me, casters are a joke, i could probably wipe 30 SL casters down before they even got a spell past my grounding totems.. with a LOT of melee in a trash pull, I usually drop one earth elemental totem.
then i have 2 sets of DPS macros, one where all 4 are casting DPS, and one where 3 are casting bolts, and 1 is healing the focus targets target. so you are still doing amazing DPS, while healing an awesome tank.
what usually happens, is the earth elemental tanks all the mobs on him, while one shaman heals him, and the other 3 shamans usually burst down one target at a time, and yes pull aggro off the elemental, but it will die immediately anyway.
so with 5 shamans, you can use this in cycle almost forever if you also substitute a fire elemental and heroism for faster heals for tough caster or light melee groups.
bosses are just as easy, i can use earth elementals for almost every boss i have come across. as long as you have a shaman healing you are golden. if you have one shaman specced resto and set to heal the focus targets target, you can EASILY tank everything in normal instances with decently geared elemental shamans.
this makes them uniquely suited to this situation.
paladin priest DPS combos may be more efficient and less complicated, but wont work in PvP as was said.
When you say Tank you have to think about two things:
Damage Mitigation
Threat
You seem to be focused on whether an Enhancement shammy can do the first -- even if it could, it can't do the second. Enhancement shaman have 0 talents, 0 skills, 0 abilities to create threat even SUB par of Warriors/Druids/Paladins. This is because Blizzard from day one has not wanted Shaman to serve as main tanks for anything except solo work. It is meant to be an offensive hybrid (shocks, offensive totems, etc).
When you create no threat, you are not a tank, you cannot keep a mob on you for very long. Your Elemental Lightning Bolts will absolutely rape threat meters compared to an equally geared enhancement with windfury. Hence the bouncing/kiting problems.
I highly recommend you listen to the advice given above, I won't waste my time repeating it.
I had a enhancement shaman be my tank up through level 63. I think I did a full clear of BF and Ramparts at level 62. It definitely isn't easy, but if you like the challenge I say go for it. I loved pvping w/ the 1enhance 4 ele combo outdoors, but inside a battleground that enhancement shaman is doing more harm than good. I dropped my fifth and now just roll 4 *elementals in the bgs.
*typo