Season of Discovery Enhancement Shaman Tank Talents and Runes

Going deep into Enhancement is required in order to unlock Stormstrike, which enables the usage of the Mental Dexterity rune.

You will always want to take Shield Specialization to add survivability and more Shield Mastery procs on tough encounters. Anticipation and Parry further add to that survivability buffer, and the bottom part of the tree helps make your threat generation even stronger!

With Maelstrom Weapon, taking Concussion is a small damage increase, and Elemental Warding is a nice survivability increase against most sources of magic damage, while Elemental Focus improves your Mana sustain and Elemental Devastation improves your melee damage and Flurry uptime.

The main floating talents for the build would be the totem-enhancing ones, as Enhancing Totems and Improved Weapon Totems are both useful but not all the time. If your group already has these buffs covered, move the points on them to Ancestral Knowledge.

• Gloves — Lava Burst (ST) or Molten Blast (AoE)
• Pants — Way of Earth
• Chest — Shield Mastery
• Waist — Maelstrom Weapon (ST) or Fire Nova (AoE)
• Feet — Spirit of the Alpha (if not available from other Shaman) or Decoy Totem
• Head — Mental Dexterity
• Wrist — Overcharged
• Back — Feral Spirit
• Ring — Nature Specialization
• Ring — Defense Specialization

Way of Earth is your core tank Rune which provides all the defensive benefits of a tank in a single package, as long as you are using a shield.

Molten Blast is fantastic in AoE scenarios, but use Lava Burst for single target, otherwise. Shield Mastery adds survivability and helps with Mana on large AoE pulls, and Maelstrom Weapon unlocks the usage of spells while tanking, whether for self-healing or added damage, but Fire Nova can provide a lot of area damage.

The Feet slot is quite straightforward: Spirit of the Alpha should always be taken if you do not have an alternative way to obtain this buff in your group, but if you will already be getting it from other Shaman in the group, just get Decoy Totem for the small defensive and movement benefits. Mental Dexterity and Overcharged are powerful passive effects which will increase your non-physical damage and improve your ability to scale with gear.

Finally, the new back Rune should be Feral Spirit, a powerful damage and utility cooldown, and ring Runes should be Nature Specialization and Defense Specialization, for an easier time generating threat and damage with your spells and more defensive capabilities, respectively.

Make sure to check our Shaman Rune guide in order to learn where to get all the SoD runes!