Miss the old totems.

[Eliot123]

The new totems are much better (though they could still use a few tweaks).

[Omanley]

To all the people saying they hated old totems, remember pre-ICC where you had to drop all 4 individually? Oh man that was the worst. 4 seconds in the middle of every single fight to stop and drop all your totems, especially bad for elemental who desperately wanted to use Searing Totem for the extra DPS but were forced to use Totem of Wrath for the raid benefit.

Even better, totem twisting between GoA and WF

[Darksoldierr]

Even better, totem twisting between GoA and WF

I think totem twisting actually added skill where you could see the difference between enhance and enhance. Not only your damage was greater if you did it right but also every other melees' in your group

[Omanley]

I think totem twisting actually added skill where you could see the difference between enhance and enhance. Not only your damage was greater if you did it right but also every other melees' in your group

I know. Enh actually felt as a supporter, we were every melee's wet dream as party mates The irony is that we benefitted rogue/warriors the most as a sub-group, albeit them not benefitting us, unlike hunters/ferals/rets did.

[Darksoldierr]

Yea, the support role really had some fun to it. Too bad it doesn't exists anymore

Good old SWP with Arms Warr, Ret Pala, two warglaved rogue in your group, being the one responsible for Bloodlust handling (as you could switch shamans in combat to different groups for BL), having 3 BL for melees on Brutallus 2.2k dps+ as enhance, 2.4k for rogues

Such a good time

[Doctor Amadeus]

Yeah, I have to agree with the OP, I miss the old totems, seem to have more utility and made Shaman Unique in my opinion.

[Morthos]

I quite like the new totems, I think I miss the quests to get them as you levelled more than the changes to the totems that we had. I know Blizzard wanted to cut down on class quests, especially since many of them were broken during Cata changes but I think a few scattered class only quests while your levelling would still be nice.

[Icebear]

Somewhat agreeing with OP too.
I miss the old clumsy system (Call of the Elements was a lifechanger), just like I miss all the old different pala Blessings.
The choices is what I think is fun, just like I loved stance dancing on my warrior, which is not needed anymore.
Now there's barely choices anymore. There's cooldown situnational totems and Searing Totem that just needs to be up. I don't like it.

[Awbee]

I very much agree with you OP, but I'm afraid we're in a minority.

I started playing during ICC, so I don't know how totems were before that. But I loved my Shaman back then. Before a dungeon / fight I looked at my group and saw what buffs they brought, what they'd likely need, and then I looked at my totem bar and selected the totems I'd think would be most useful for this group. And then I'd just have to press that one button that places them down all at once, and voila! 4 Nice buffs for the whole group, and a shiny nice totem disco. I loved standing in my cool little buff disco, showing everyone that hey, here's the shaman!

And if we moved away too far from the totems, I'd just pick 'em up with one button and place them down again. So simple, so nice.


I really dislike the new model. I'm mostly not a fan of cooldowns and I'm glad they're getting rid of some cooldowns for each class in WoD. With the new totem model, Shamans got like 15 new cooldowns. Blregh. I mostly just don't use totems at all anymore now, except ones that are absolutely mandatory for damage or healing / mana.

I had a cool buff totem disco and now I have plenty boring cooldowns? No thank you.


The terrible effect on my bars is just adding insult to injury. I tried putting most of the new totems in there, but I gave up a long time ago. There's just not enough space, and I'm not going to start using an addon just so I can play my Shaman and use totems. Just not using most of the totems now.


At least there's the glyph that gives you your disco back. And at least Enhancement still has Searing Totem, which is basically always up -- so on Enhancement, you still can have the visuals of 4 totems all the time. I just love the colors and design of totems. I miss that a lot whenever I play Resto, makes the spec less enjoyable to me.

- - - Updated - - -

I quite like the new totems, I think I miss the quests to get them as you levelled more than the changes to the totems that we had. I know Blizzard wanted to cut down on class quests

Did Blizzard ever say why? Cause to this day I think removing class quests was one of the worst things they've ever done to the game (along with not adding many more class quests). One of the things that really pulled me in the game and gave it flavor when I started going out to get my bear form on my little druid when I was level 10. It's a travesty that you just learn it passsively now, and why?

[Deleted]

I quite like the new totems, I think I miss the quests to get them as you levelled more than the changes to the totems that we had. I know Blizzard wanted to cut down on class quests, especially since many of them were broken during Cata changes but I think a few scattered class only quests while your levelling would still be nice.

Holy crap. I forgot those even existed. They felt so epic. I think they got removed in the old world remake from Cata right? They removed all/most of the old quests and just didn't add these back in. Is too bad, I think Class Specific quests are easily the most fun types of quests in the game, they can be catered to work exactly with your abilities, or even if they are just fetch quests like the totem ones were, they give flavor to your class. It really made it feel like the totem element you just unlocked was a real physical thing, not just a button on a keyboard.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I have to agree with the OP, I miss the old totems, seem to have more utility and made Shaman Unique in my opinion.

+1.

Really miss the old totems.

[Deleted]

The way totems work now is better than ever, you're just nostalgic for the sake of being nostalgic.

[Raiju]

I'd like the new totems better if in a pve environment I actually gave a damn about earth or air totems outside the soon removed stormlash.

The new "concept" may be cool, but the execution has been piss poor with largely redundant totems most of the time in PvE. So what if they were passive buffs before? at least they actually got put down in boss fights.

[Deleted]

I'd like the new totems better if in a pve environment I actually gave a damn about earth or air totems outside the soon removed stormlash.

The new "concept" may be cool, but the execution has been piss poor with largely redundant totems most of the time in PvE. So what if they were passive buffs before? at least they actually got put down in boss fights.

This is the one major argument for the way old totems worked that I understand. Earth and Air totems are ALL utility (with Stormlash being removed - I said from the moment it got announced it was a terrible idea - and with Earth Ele going back to being only a tank for solo content) so can often be completely ignored in a PvE situation.

However, I think the downsides in PvP of having your utility remove your buffs is too much, and they made the right decision in changing this. Glyph of Totemic Encirclement is a good compromise I think. Of course it would be great if we got some non-utility cooldowns for Earth and Air, but that has notoriously always been what they are for.

Fire is for damage, Earth is for defense and control and Water is for healing. Air is the odd one out in that it always feels like it doesn't really have a theme, and is just the Element totems are put on that wouldn't make sense as being another element. Storm Elemental, Grounding Totem and Windwalk Totem for example. Damage/Healing, Defense and anti-control. Bits and pieces of all the other 3 elements. That is why I am glad we are getting Storm Elemental, but also feel like we could use another baseline Air ability that PvE would use.

[Raiju]

The utility is already there, grounding / spell reflect / dark sim should work on nearly anything interrupt-able really. Why can't I ground corruption shock? a sha sear? a chain lightning? Historically it's been because tehy have aoe components, but they are still targeted spells.

Capacitor should be changed to a lower duration with 2 sec charge (glyph to make instant), making it a usable stun in pve really and a change people have been crying for in pvp. Increase the cooldown if necessary.

Windwalk is awkward since on the 1 fight per expansion it's actually usable on it's very strong.

Tremor - we almost never see fears in raids. Being able to break single target fears more often would make it usable without being OP. Especially if the fears are dispel-able anyway.

Earthbind/grab - meh

[Deleted]

@Raiju

I see some pretty heavy bias in this post. From a PvE situation all those abilities work really well. You can basically predict the use of all of these abilities perfectly in PvE.

An AoE stun for adds works fine, the chargeup just means you need to co-ordinate with the person kiting/tanking the adds to make sure they don't CC them at the same time (just as you do with all CCs) and that the adds are in the right place.

Windwalk is very niche in PvE, but as you said in situations it can be used it has the potential to be ridiculously strong. I see no issue with that. Very niche spell, but very strong within that niche.

Tremor - Fights where fears are included, Tremor is again very strong. Bloodqueen in ICC was the last major example of this really. Tremor was godly on that fight. Again, what is the issue with very strong niche spells?

Earthbind - Why 'meh'? Simply because you couldn't think of a reason why this spell is bad? In any situation where you need to kite something in PvE Earthbind does the job perfectly well. Even better with Totemic Projection.

In regards to why spell absorption mechanics don't work on targeted-AoEs I think it is a technical issue. I agree they probably should absorb spells like Chain Lightning, but have a feeling it is to do with the way the game handles AoEs, likely a lot more trouble to fix that it would be worth.

[Raiju]

Aoe stun with a chargeup doesn't work since most example we get we can't predict (the most important stun in SoO is bonecrushers - by the time it hits you are looking at 40% with the glyph or more without of the npcs hp gone. That means 2 bonecrushers any pretty much anything else is a wipe.

I mentioned windwalk to stay the same because of it's strong niche.

Tremor hasn't seen use AS YOU SAID since wrath in raids. It's useless because theres nowhere to use it. All I asked is for raids to ahve some minor abilities like single target fears to make it actually have a use again.

Earthbind is meh because the few place you may want a snare, knockbacks tend to be better. Elemental already brings its own knockback and for the other specs - someone else in the raid is more than likely to bring it.

It was an intentional choice for the mentioned spells to not be grounded, and the only issue one is sha sear (being a channel).

[Jester Joe]

Aoe stun with a chargeup doesn't work since most example we get we can't predict (the most important stun in SoO is bonecrushers - by the time it hits you are looking at 40% with the glyph or more without of the npcs hp gone. That means 2 bonecrushers any pretty much anything else is a wipe.

It works quite amazingly with bombs on Heroic Siegecrafter, since you know exactly where they're coming from.

Tremor hasn't seen use AS YOU SAID since wrath in raids. It's useless because theres nowhere to use it. All I asked is for raids to ahve some minor abilities like single target fears to make it actually have a use again.

Seems like you both forgot Grand Empress Shek'zeer, Visions of Demise and Consuming Terror? Granted Consuming Terror was avoidable, but still, Tremor was amazing if too many people got hit and you drop it right away. It also had usage on Firelands trash, but that's besides the point. Also I believe it was usable if you happened to get feared by the adds on Sha of Fear, but that only lasted like 3 seconds or something anyway.

Earthbind is meh because the few place you may want a snare, knockbacks tend to be better. Elemental already brings its own knockback and for the other specs - someone else in the raid is more than likely to bring it.

Usually knockbacks and snares/slows work a lot better in a group, and yet again, in the case of Heroic Siegecrafter, I doubt you want the Elemental shaman getting close enough to bombs to knock them back, I would consider it more of a clutch save from bombs, ideally they'd be dead before getting to the ranged.

[Raiju]

Usually knockbacks and snares/slows work a lot better in a group, and yet again, in the case of Heroic Siegecrafter, I doubt you want the Elemental shaman getting close enough to bombs to knock them back, I would consider it more of a clutch save from bombs, ideally they'd be dead before getting to the ranged.

Erm why not? It doesn't matter unless they're the one targeted.

[Jester Joe]

Erm why not? It doesn't matter unless they're the one targeted.

Because like I said, ideally they'd be dead before getting to ranged, unless you want the shaman to run up to the bombs and possibly drop a saw in an incorrect location, and last I checked, Ele's knockback is in all directions, it's harder to aim things with. Instead, they could just drop Earthgrab+capacitor and relocate it to the bombs.