So I've been back for a couple months now, and am getting back into the groove again, carrying on the long-standing tradition of the solo shaman tanking "in teh face" with his trusty pet. I'm somewhat raid-geared up to POR, but am not ready to get back into raiding full-time just yet. I've been AA grinding in a holding pattern at 76 (nearly maxxed for my level), and was looking to take care of some old items on the agenda -- Epic2, GoD Assistant Researcher's Necklace (finished), FD ring, while levelling up my 71 mage and waiting for my friend's (very) casual 70 wiz + war combo to level up as well.
I'm mainly looking for any advice -- from any class or multiboxer -- to improve my "in teh face" solo tanking game as a Shammyknight, which has definitely been more attainable and enjoyable with a cleric merc. I was easily camping the cave bears in Icefall, root-rotting 1-2 bears at a time solo, or else pulling/tanking/melee'ing with cleric merc when full group was available. I can pull/CC/handle up to 3 challenging, non-summoning mobs (2 if they summon unless I'm really alert and on a roll). Lately I've been camping the yellow giants at the north camp in Valdeholm ("palace?"). I struggled with a few deaths using a cheap merc cleric, but am flowing much better now with the better merc cleric, able to keep the front yard clear with occasional pulls from inside or from the gate to fill up time between respawns.
I'm about evenly matched killing these giants with just me and pup and cleric merc. I can't seem to go non-stop between kills, having to recoup for about a minute or two to get a bit more mana or let cleric merc med, even though I can generally keep the yard clear or park an add if need be. I'd like to increase my DPS a bit while at the same time reduce the downtime getting more mana between mobs. By chance shopping in the bazaar, I discovered a 2hr poison proc potion I never knew about (the Spider and Scorpion Bite series). This is a great DPS and tactical boost, as it does ~1000 on a normal proc, and crits for 3450 quite often, at around 2-4 procs per kill. I have around 70 combat effects, which seems to help significantly with various procs I need to pull this delusion off passably.
I'd like to outline my basic strategy here, and see if there may be some yet undiscovered tip like the poison proc or like the "fight on mount" trick to reduce spell interrupts I read in the current Pally "persistent casting" thread. Hopefully one or two useful tips will go a long way towards improving shaman tanking this late in the game. To break things up, I'll post the parts separately. Any advice/criticism appreciated. I'm willing to concede I may be dense or delusional, missing something that may be very obvious, so please bring it on. I'm always willing to learn.