1. #1

    Help me l2p, need advice

    Hi,

    I have a shaman level 60 currently and I am debating whether to get it 80, and whether I would even bother playing if it was 80. I play a priest holy/disc right now but I wanted a new healer so I tried shaman. Now I do understand the class pretty well but I wanted to know how some things work when pvping/raiding at 80.

    First thing is, totems. As an elemental shaman which totems should I be using? Currently to level I use the Armor Totem, Totem of Wrath, and the Mana-return totem (I don't use any air totems to level because they are a waste of mana, there ain't any good ones yet). Lets say I'm dpsing an instance do I just keep those ones out, or do I put the strength/agility earth totem out if we have loads of melee dps? What about if I'm a melee shaman and someone wants tremor totem out, do I sacrifice the strength/agility totem for that?

    It's not like a priest puts Power Word Shield on someone, but then loses 200 spellpower for the duration of the shield, and then spellpower goes back up when the shield is off. Because that is what shaman feels like. If I was dpsing an instance as elemental, I wouldn't use anything other than Totem of Wrath fire totem no matter what anybody said to me. Would I be wrong to do that?

    What about in pvp? To be honest I am dreading 80 pvp. Again its like totems are so inconvenient. I know what you are going to say, use specific totems for specific situations but the whole gameplay feels broken. We have the totem bar, but not all totems last the same duration, so I tend to have the 5 min totems on the bar, and I have all the other totems on my action bar. And because there are so many its just so confusing.

    The class feels like this: A priest can do whatever spell he wants, whenever he wants (as long as its off cd). As a shaman, you can only do 2-3 things at once. You can't AOE slow while using a strength buff. You can't remove diseases while you haste buff is active. And its like the decisions you have to make don't even make sense. Why do I have to choose between and AOE slow or a strength buff? Choose between strength and spellpower, choose between HP regen and mana regen, etc. The class feels SO limited compared to other classes. Imagine a rogue can now only have a maximum of 4 self-buffs and/or target debuffs active at once. They would suck.

    I can imagine someone posting dps meters and I'm not as high as I should be because someone made me put frost resistence totem down. If someone meter spammed when I used totems that helped everyone and not just myself I would be pretty annoyed, and that is bound to happen. What does everyone else make of this?

    Another thing is I keep seeing that shamans benefit from haste more than any other stat. Now to be honest I would have said get nothing but crit and spellpower. Wouldn't an 80 elemental shaman do some awesome dps with all crit and spellpower? The resto tree also benefits from crit. And I haven't noticed any talents to make me want to increase my haste. So can someone explain that to me please?

  2. #2

    Re: Help me l2p, need advice

    Crit isn't great in terms of gemming for elemental shamans because every single lava burst is a guarenteed crit, making crit useless on that ability. Haste = more pew pew lightning bolt spam.

  3. #3

    Re: Help me l2p, need advice

    text wall, eyes bleed
    9thorder.com | Recruiting exceptional players!

  4. #4

    Re: Help me l2p, need advice

    You seem to be overthinking totem usage by a lot. Try to think of your totems as an added bonus. If it's a situation where you can have your haste and spellpower totems out, great, but if not, don't think that you will be totally gimped without them. I play a resto main spec, and enhancement off spec. I love to have my wrath of air so my heals are a bit faster to cast, but if it is a melee heavy raid, I will gladly drop a windfury in melee range to hasten the dps. Totem reliability and usage can be a troublesome beast, but there are plenty of methods to alleviate your pain. As you said you were elemental, I am going to say that the only totem you should think you need to rely on while leveling is you totem of wrath. Stoneskin is trivial for leveling, and mana spring is only truly useful in a raiding/dungeon situation.

    You wonder about having to sacrifice a buffing totem like strength of earth for tremor, and the way you say it makes it sound as if you think reduced fear times aren't worth the small amount of agility that you will lose. You would be very wrong to assume that. If a fight calls for a situational totem, by all means use it. Yeah, you might lose 20 or 30 dps, but the fact that you are boosting raid survivability and helping to ease the fights is a far better thing.

    You mention a few instances when swapping totems to a situational totem is (in your eyes) a bad thing. Sacrificing strength of earth for earthbind to slow? Totally worth it, trust me. Sacrificing wrath of air for cleansing? Why would you not want to make your healers lives and your own life that much easier just to have .1-.2 seconds cast time off of a few spells?

    I have to be honest, if you are unwilling to help the party and the raid, and use the totems that would benefit everyone the most, you should stop playing a shaman right now. Seriously. If someone asks you to drop frost resist and you tell them "no way I want totem of wrath no matter what you say," I would fully encourage them to kick your ass out of the group and find someone willing to provide the necessary aid.

    Why do you have to choose between different buffs and protection for different situations? Well, mainly because Blizzard designed it that way, but to play a shaman you have to be willing to understand the sacrifices required and be able to appreciate the elemental backstory and know what the totems are really all about. I love my shaman, I have never had another character or class even come close to my sham in terms of fun. It can be frustrating sometimes, and yes, there are plenty of things that a shaman is weak with, and plenty more that a shaman absolutely tears up. I took the time to understand the totems, spells, and class mechanics, and made it work for me. I suggest you try to do the same, but if it seems like a daunting task, by all means play something else. That just means more loot for the rest of us playing this endangered class with the blue name tags.

    Also, stack spell power and haste. end of story.

    Ps. text wall crit

  5. #5

    Re: Help me l2p, need advice

    As selfish and "i only want to buff myself an not others" as you sound, you might want to consider rolling an arcane mage. You've gotta be fast tho, you need to do it before 3.3.

    Seriosly, you sound like one of those healers who only heals to top the healing meter instead of to keep people alive. If you want to be able to do what a priest can do, as you described, then keep playing your priest. Shamans are not priests, and because you want us to be doesn't mean that Shamans are broken.


    Also, totems isn't only for buffing yourself, but also everyone else. Shamans doesn't top meters, Shaman is about contributing to overall raid performance.
    Quote Originally Posted by HoX
    trust me druin=PWN is ptw durid not durin but np its no sorry 8) .but is good ask if you can no know so yeah good to you but ask if you no know 8) but trust me i have playin long so DRUID IS BEST=3 form beat all i mean explmame=stealh cat like rogue(pwn9 8) then BOOM big bear big heelth so its moar armor than cat and then just tree?=no tree god like cenarius but give you more heelth=pwn then you go owl and stars do magic to you 8)

  6. #6

    Re: Help me l2p, need advice

    "Try to think of your totems as an added bonus." "don't think that you will be totally gimped without them".
    That's good enough for me.

    I appear a selfish person who only cares about topping meters but that isn't it at all. The problem is I don't care about meters but other people do, so people are gonna be posting meters and making me look like crap even though I helped out the most. At the end of the day I made a shaman to be useful. Now I'm not saying I deserve an award, I don't even care if I'm not noticed. I just don't want to be made look bad when I am trying to help.

    Now the reason I say I will use ToW no matter what is because that totem seems clearly better than the other fire totems. Is the global raid spell dps loss worth a bit of frost resistence? If Stoneskin is trivial, then what else is trivial? Clearly, there are some totems that are just better than others. That's my problem, they don't seem balanced.

    Probably my biggest issue is action bars. Now I don't have Earthbind totem on the totem bar at all, because there are some better passive ones you can put on there, but at times I will have to use Earthbind totem (mainly in pvp). So I have to put in on my bars somewhere with my other spells, even though it isn't the same as the other spells. Can anybody show me how to do bars and bindings properly?

    And thanks I understand haste now.

  7. #7

    Re: Help me l2p, need advice

    If you run out of bar space and have no more room to bind, one thing I personally have resorted to doing is going to a totem set I never use (like call of spirits - all of my main totems are on call of the elements on each spec) and setting Earthbind Totem as the earth totem in that set and then you can go into your keybindings and bind the earth totem in call of spirits and it'll drop Earthbind Totem when you press the keybinding, it just won't take up any bar space. Can do the same thing with things like Cleansing totem.

    I also have ShockAndAwe so, instead of wasting space on my bar with magma totem and lightning shield, I bind both of those and my MH and OH weapon imbues under the ShockAndAwe keybinding menu, taking up even less space.

  8. #8
    Deleted

    Re: Help me l2p, need advice

    Quote Originally Posted by dingobongo
    Probably my biggest issue is action bars. Now I don't have Earthbind totem on the totem bar at all, because there are some better passive ones you can put on there, but at times I will have to use Earthbind totem (mainly in pvp). So I have to put in on my bars somewhere with my other spells, even though it isn't the same as the other spells. Can anybody show me how to do bars and bindings properly?

    And thanks I understand haste now.
    Get the addon TotemTimers it allows you to remove ALL your totems from your action bars and gives you new buttons for quick and easy totem dropping. As well of course as helping you with action bars it shows timers for how long totems have got left, if you are out of range of your totems if others are out of range etc.

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