What is the point of searing totem for elemental for WoD?

[Stupid-Maniac]

I just don't understand the point of this useless totem. I was just watching Preaches video on elemental shamans in the Beta. The totem itself was hitting below 400 damage per hit at lvl 100, not sounding like a mathematician but he was wearing pvp gear so with pve the ticks would be higher but not by a lot correct?

I don't know why Blizzard hasn't found some way for this stupid totem to give us some benefits. I don't use it when I raid, I cbf with it to be honest, I always forget about it because it's just not something that is going to impact me when I raid unlike when you're enhancement spec and not having it gimps you.

Anyone else feel that shit totem should just piss off?

Over all though I'm very happy, and will continue to love the spec.

Thoughts?

[ArithEU]

I don't think damage numbers are tuned yet but searing totem is used as a DoT of some sort and you really should be using it in raids 100% of the time (if Fire Elemental isn't active). On Garrosh 10H, Searing Totem alone done 1.75m damage which may not seem like much but it does add up especially if it done 1.72m of that to Garrosh himself.

Sure it's not the best totem that's ever been designed but it does what it says.

[Socialhealer]

I don't think damage numbers are tuned yet but searing totem is used as a DoT of some sort and you really should be using it in raids 100% of the time (if Fire Elemental isn't active). On Garrosh 10H, Searing Totem alone done 1.75m damage which may not seem like much but it does add up especially if it done 1.72m of that to Garrosh himself.

Sure it's not the best totem that's ever been designed but it does what it says.

thats not actually true, you should use it if you can get the full 60 seconds benefit from it. how many times did you have to use searing to get that 1.75m damage? because you can probably get that from 5 lightning bolts with a couple of lucky crits and near 100% mastery.

i had rank 4 recently on garrosh 25H i think i used searing 3-4 times, on a 9minute+fight, counting 2 fire ele's means i have a fire totem up for 6 minutes at most.

i won't drop it if i'll only get like 40 seconds of uptime with it, and i never drop it if i have meta gem/PboI/kTT up/UF buff up. also had rank 3 malkorok 3 blackfuse(had 1 but we wiped that try) 1 nuroshen multiple 5~ iron jug, and searing totem really is last on prio for me.

would love to see searing become more useful for elemental at the moment its pure button bloat, be nice if maybe after a proc we could drop/proc searing totem and it would do 5 times more damage but have a cooldown and shorter duration, so we have some burst outside of ascendance.

[Lavindar]

thats not actually true, you should use it if you can get the full 60 seconds benefit from it. how many times did you have to use searing to get that 1.75m damage? because you can probably get that from 5 lightning bolts with a couple of lucky crits and near 100% mastery.

i had rank 4 recently on garrosh 25H i think i used searing 3-4 times, on a 9minute+fight, counting 2 fire ele's means i have a fire totem up for 6 minutes at most.

i won't drop it if i'll only get like 40 seconds of uptime with it, and i never drop it if i have meta gem/PboI/kTT up/UF buff up. also had rank 3 malkorok 3 blackfuse(had 1 but we wiped that try) 1 nuroshen multiple 5~ iron jug, and searing totem really is last on prio for me.

would love to see searing become more useful for elemental at the moment its pure button bloat, be nice if maybe after a proc we could drop/proc searing totem and it would do 3 times more damage but have a cooldown, so we have some burst outside of ascendance.

It will probably be a lot better in WoD, and you will need it to use one of the new talents.

[ArithEU]

thats not actually true, you should use it if you can get the full 60 seconds benefit from it. how many times did you have to use searing to get that 1.75m damage? because you can probably get that from 5 lightning bolts with a couple of lucky crits and near 100% mastery.

i had rank 4 recently on garrosh 25H i think i used searing 3-4 times, on a 9minute+fight, counting 2 fire ele's means i have a fire totem up for 6 minutes at most.

i won't drop it if i'll only get like 40 seconds of uptime with it, and i never drop it if i have meta gem/PboI/kTT up/UF buff up. also had rank 3 malkorok 3 blackfuse(had 1 but we wiped that try) 1 nuroshen multiple 5~ iron jug, and searing totem really is last on prio for me.

would love to see searing become more useful for elemental at the moment its pure button bloat, be nice if maybe after a proc we could drop/proc searing totem and it would do 5 times more damage but have a cooldown and shorter duration, so we have some burst outside of ascendance.

According to WarcraftLogs, I dropped Searing Totem 11 times over 12 minutes and 29 seconds (got 2 Fire Elementals in that time - I could probably have gotten a 3rd if things weren't going to hell in a hand basket).

I do agree though, Searing Totem does need some kind of buff to give us a greater incentive to use it other than a drop and forget totem.

[Stupid-Maniac]

ArithEU - Yeah I understand what you mean, and I also don't disagree I just find it to be a very silly mechanic for something that gives so little. As Socialhealer said, if it gave us something in return such as a proc or something then it would be excellent. I just find it to be very useless and a kind of a last resort.

Thanks for the replies so far guys!

[KCguy]

Searing totem is as useless as a mage having to put down a circle to stand in every minute (if they choose that talent). I haven't put down searing totem the entire expansion. lol

[stomination]

Depending on your stats and such Searing totem would have to stay up for a certain amount of time to make up for dropping it instead of casting Lightning Bolt. Usually this is around 45s of the totem doing dps to the boss.

[Blithe]

I wish they'd just hurry up and give us the Healing Stream Totem treatment for Searing Totem (15 second duration, 30 second cooldown)... and finally get rid of Magma Totem.

[Foxhoundn]

It should have the same effect as it have for us, Enhances, give you some buff stacks that increase Lava Burst damage.

Searing flames - When your searing totem deals damage it applies Searing Flames on you, each stack of Searing flame increases the damage of you nextr Lava Burst by 2%, stacking 5 times.

[Blithe]

It should have the same effect as it have for us, Enhances, give you some buff stacks that increase Lava Burst damage.

Searing flames - When your searing totem deals damage it applies Searing Flames on you, each stack of Searing flame increases the damage of you nextr Lava Burst by 2%, stacking 5 times.

Searing Flames was removed because it's disgusting and gimmicky. There shouldn't be any abilities that require a Fire Totem (Liquid Magma I'm looking at you).

[Foxhoundn]

Searing Flames was removed because it's disgusting and gimmicky. There shouldn't be any abilities that require a Fire Totem (Liquid Magma I'm looking at you).

I dont see why it was disgusting and gimmicky at all. It was a nice change when they changed it to the BUFF rather than when it was a DEBUFF, switching targets says hi.

I also dont agree that there should not be any ablities requiring totems, it was a nice touch to the playstyle of Shamans.

[Blithe]

I dont see why it was disgusting and gimmicky at all. It was a nice change when they changed it to the BUFF rather than when it was a DEBUFF, switching targets says hi.

I also dont agree that there should not be any ablities requiring totems, it was a nice touch to the playstyle of Shamans.

It's unnecessary clutter and feels extremely clunky. Searing Flames was a very welcomed changed when it was removed and then just baked into Lava Lash, and Liquid Magma (a 45 second cooldown mind you) being tied to a stick that has 5 health and can die extremely easily? Doesn't that have the biggest of PvP implications?

When they do shit like this, it just confuses me.

[Deleted]

I don't why they haven't done something like this: remove Searing Totem, make Searing Flames talent (what would be basically current Liquid Magma, just under old name) - an invunerable totem that deals a lot of damage in a short period of time (a.k.a. HST treatment).

I really like Liquid Magma, but Searing Totem is pointless and Blizzard just wasted yet another time, when they could turn this into something less retarded.

[coprax]

It's a terrible totem. Its damage is a bad joke and I often wonder if it is even worth the global cooldown to give up for it.
It should do meaningful damage or just be removed.

[thefinalwarden]

It should have the same effect as it have for us, Enhances, give you some buff stacks that increase Lava Burst damage.

Searing flames - When your searing totem deals damage it applies Searing Flames on you, each stack of Searing flame increases the damage of you nextr Lava Burst by 2%, stacking 5 times.

As a person who primarily plays enhancement, I would never wish that upon Elemental. While not a bad buff, it was cumbersome with what it was attached too. I honestly would have rather had the buff have a certain percent chance to build up on yourself instead. Let's face it, the only reason it was added was to get people to drop the thing. I would rather it be a potent short duration ability that maybe fired fast like a machine gun, it just felt like something bland overall, drop and forget about it until you have to force yourself to remember that it ran out.

[Nitwit]

It's a terrible totem. Its damage is a bad joke and I often wonder if it is even worth the global cooldown to give up for it.
It should do meaningful damage or just be removed.

In WoD, a searing totem will do about ~4 LBs worth of damage over its 60s duration (assuming no UF), at the cost of a 1.0s GCD. That's nothing amazing, but it's definitely worth the global assuming it can attack for ~a quarter of its maximum duration.

[Rezhka]

I don't think damage numbers are tuned yet but searing totem is used as a DoT of some sort and you really should be using it in raids 100% of the time (if Fire Elemental isn't active). On Garrosh 10H, Searing Totem alone done 1.75m damage which may not seem like much but it does add up especially if it done 1.72m of that to Garrosh himself.

Sure it's not the best totem that's ever been designed but it does what it says.

A DoT that can los the target? A DoT that can be destroyed without any dispel? And the most part is, a DoT that doing shitty damage that it doesn't really matter whether its up or not? Its really clunky tbh...

I wish they'd just hurry up and give us the Healing Stream Totem treatment for Searing Totem (15 second duration, 30 second cooldown)... and finally get rid of Magma Totem.

Yea, a small cd would give it more purpose. Or maybe give a 300% extra damage as it perk, then it should be considerable as well.

It should have the same effect as it have for us, Enhances, give you some buff stacks that increase Lava Burst damage.

Searing flames - When your searing totem deals damage it applies Searing Flames on you, each stack of Searing flame increases the damage of you nextr Lava Burst by 2%, stacking 5 times.

It won't work efficiently as LL, since LvB has much more up time with Lava Surge.

OT: This totem was pretty good arsenal on classic through middle of TBC on pvp. Back where you could just kite ppl around your Searing Totem with Frost Shock. It maybe deal shitty damage, but its killing you slowly. But today the damage is too shitty that its so irrelevant can't even be considered. I also remember back at TBC where Elemental spec is the only one with Spell Damage buff with Wrath Totem (Fire) and its finally baked into searing totem so its getting the mandatory to be put on. And with all shaman buffs being an aura now, i don't really see what purpose that ST serve to this day.

[Deleted]

It's unnecessary clutter and feels extremely clunky.

In what sense of clunky? Every single time Lava Lash is up you have 5 stacks. That is only unless you somehow manage to forget about it.

The diference of the removal of Searing Flames is that I have 1 less weak aura on my screen in WoD relative to MoP.

[Blithe]

In what sense of clunky? Every single time Lava Lash is up you have 5 stacks. That is only unless you somehow manage to forget about it.

The diference of the removal of Searing Flames is that I have 1 less weak aura on my screen in WoD relative to MoP.

Totem mechanics have never been that great, but when you tie such an important mechanic such as increasing the damage of your Lava Lash to Searing Totem which is easily killed, it causes a lot of PvP implications, and that's why Frostbrand was always used over Flametongue and the mechanic was ignored until they added the set bonus.

Searing Flames was at least okay for Fire Elemental Totem as it rarely dies and isn't limited as much as Searing Totem is, even if it's gated by a cooldown.

The same can be said for Liquid Magma too. What use is the choice of a 45 second cooldown talent if its drawbacks are because there is a totem with 5 health that it's casting from? It can be disabled with a Moonfire so anyone with half a brain can completely nullify your talent selection. If that's not bad design, I don't know what is.