99th totem thread...

[bateman]

In order to fix totems i suggest the following

All buffs either be integrated into all totems of that respective school(like the new totem of wrath), so for instance, you drop a earthbind and it gives off strength of earth, ect.

The alternative is to bake the buffs directly in the trees.For instance, an enhance shammy would egt a strength of earth and a windfury totem aura, while the resto shammy would get mana spring and healing totem aura, ect.

with either of these methods, buff totems would actually be usable in pvp, right now shamans simply cannot buff themselves unlike the other classes without sacrificing precious utility.I dont see DKs giving up horn of winter to use chains of ice or desecration and i dont see them giving up icy talons to use anti magic shield either.


Either way would make totems much less clunky to use, despite what GC thinks, we shamans despise how the totem system works currently.

[Taalyn]

You could have posted this in one of the other 98 totem threads...

[bateman]

try to be constructive please

[Nudi]

I got 99 problems, but a totem ain't one.

[Baabinator]

Just double the effect it provides for ourselves.

And BAM

Totems are useful to drop for us again.

[bateman]

Just double the effect it provides for ourselves.

And BAM

Totems are useful to drop for us again.

doesnt address the pvp issues.

[ComputerNerd]

doesnt address the pvp issues.

Neither does providing a passive buff, plus a utility like earthbind under a single totem.
They are meant to be a choice, not one where you can cherrypick the best of them all the time.
A paladin has to choose the buff they place on a target or even themselves for that matter. Might/Wisdom/Kings etc - not two or more at once by the same pally.
Totems simply work for anyone within range.
As long as they survive yo do not need to reapply them, nor in most cases activate them.
That makes them considerably different, and cannot be compared directly to any other mechanism.

Personally I only counted 74 totem threads, but I could have missed a few.

I got 99 problems, but a totem ain't one.

Nice one.

[bateman]

Neither does providing a passive buff, plus a utility like earthbind under a single totem.
They are meant to be a choice, not one where you can cherrypick the best of them all the time.
A paladin has to choose the buff they place on a target or even themselves for that matter. Might/Wisdom/Kings etc - not two or more at once by the same pally.
Totems simply work for anyone within range.
As long as they survive yo do not need to reapply them, nor in most cases activate them.
That makes them considerably different, and cannot be compared directly to any other mechanism.

Personally I only counted 74 totem threads, but I could have missed a few.

a pally doesnt have to choose between might and using hand of freedom.Whereas, we HAVE to use earthbind or tremor 99% of the time in pvp over SotE

[sambu]

Answer's simple...

each totem has 5000 health. I'm tired of macros that target the totems and blow them up in one hit. At least with 5000 health, it'll take an actual spell. The current stoneclaw totem doesn't protect them enough, they're still one-shotted with wands, instants, etc.

[Sexyama]

i got 99 problems, but a totem ain't one.

hit me

[Vargarii]

The thing is, those buffs you lose for utility for a few seconds don't make or break the fight. Blizzard has a point when mentioning how powerful our utility totems are vs the lack of a make or break situation based on the buff you lose to drop it.

In PvE, you might lose a little dps, but this whole problem is being blown out of proportion, and is more of a convinience problem, than a broken class mechanic.

In PvP, yes, you want to keep your buffs. But in pvp, blizz wants your utility totems to be focused on the situation and whether you like changing them or not, that's what they want. The loss of str of earth isn't going to win your arena match for you. This is similar to how they aren't particularly interested in maximizing your dps totem output, because they want the player and their on demand dps abilities to be the priority.

I supported some of the totem cries in the past, but with the direction that they are going in beta, I've got to put totem tears in my bin of problems that shaman should not be focused on.

[bateman]

The thing is, those buffs you lose for utility for a few seconds don't make or break the fight. Blizzard has a point when mentioning how powerful our utility totems are vs the lack of a make or break situation based on the buff you lose to drop it.

In PvE, you might lose a little dps, but this whole problem is being blown out of proportion, and is more of a convinience problem, than a broken class mechanic.

In PvP, yes, you want to keep your buffs. But in pvp, blizz wants your utility totems to be focused on the situation and whether you like changing them or not, that's what they want. The loss of str of earth isn't going to win your arena match for you. This is similar to how they aren't particularly interested in maximizing your dps totem output, because they want the player and their on demand dps abilities to be the priority.

I supported some of the totem cries in the past, but with the direction that they are going in beta, I've got to put totem tears in my bin of problems that shaman should not be focused on.

going by that logic i demand that no class that uses utility be allowed to use buffs in pvp.DKs should have horn of winter and icy talons not work(dks, esp frost dks, are a direct copy of an enhance shaman except massively improved), warriors shouldnt be able to use battle shout, pallies might, ect.

[Deleted]

I got 99 problems, but a totem ain't one.

Ahah very funny......it is the main problem, and is the reason why shamans fail

[Vargarii]

going by that logic i demand that no class that uses utility be allowed to use buffs in pvp.DKs should have horn of winter and icy talons not work(dks, esp frost dks, are a direct copy of an enhance shaman except massively improved), warriors shouldnt be able to use battle shout, pallies might, ect.

That doesn't follow the logic at all, and is largely just pure QQ. Dk utility spells(and we are talking utility spells not just crying about how many defensive cds they have) are in no way as powerful as a shaman's. With the excepcion of grounding being on a fairly long oooldown, they aren't as easily accessable, nor do they stay down continually pulsing their ability on your whole group/enemy group.


I realize that I'm against a large portion of shaman with this, but I won't change my pov because you cannot really provide a solid list of factual game breaking reasons that it needs to change. Again, I'm with blizzard about it being a matter of convinience.

[Dundebuns]

It is hypocritical of Blizzard to say it is fine that Shaman have to decide between buffing and utility totems, and yet pretty much every other class who ever had that conflict has now had their buffs separated so they don't have to choose like we do. Paladins had their utility blessings made into 'Hand' spells, warlocks have had their utility curses split into banes, DK's were already unencumbered when it came to such a thing (ie a DK has never had to decide whether to use horn or AMS), and warriors have never had to choose between offensive shouts (Piercing, Int. shout) and buffing shouts (battle, commanding etc).

Also, they fact that our combat mechanics require resources, while similar combat mechanics give resources (shouts give rage, horn gives runic power etc) is again hypocritical. Auras are, I suppose the only oddity in that they give nothing but also cost nothing. Blessings and other buffs do not come into such a category since they can be pre cast and don't have a range requirement on a totem. Costs were always justified by how powerful totems were, but now they aren't.

It is sad that this class does indeed seem to be one expansion behind every other class.

[Deleted]

after 5 years of totems staying the same, you shamans decide to moan and whine on end now.

[Omanley]

fact is that shaman is denied to bring pve buff support to his arena team/bg group and himself.
that´s not a matter of convinience, that´s a matter of unfairness.

-shamans are penalized by having to decide between buff and utility in pvp
-shamans are penalized to have to worry about buff range
-shamans are penalized having their channeled caster aoe not baseline but as ele ultimate talent, and additionaly penalized by it having a cooldown
-shamans are penalized to be immobile while aoe´ing in melee, and still being forced to go into melee as ele (because of earthquake cooldown penalisation)
-shamans are penalized by the hybrid tax
-shamans are penalized with the 2nd weakest cc

blizzard dismisses it as a matter of convinience, but if you are treated worse in every single department (with the exception being healing), you start to get pissed.

our buffs were unique and with a shit load ammount of utility only you can bring it´s ok to have the totem tax penalisation. now those buffs are 100% distributed so it´s ok to bring it back into line with the auras of others. it´s NOT op, it´s only a matter of equalisation and it´s not game breaking.

but is it a huuuuge help nontheless. you dont have to worry about range in pve, you dont have to worry about redropping/destroyed totems etc.

blizzard doesn´t want to lesser the number of totems if it´s actually an improvement. but they do not shy away removing/nerfing great amounts of totems which actually hurts us. that´s all it comes down to.

it wouldn´t hurt them to fix totem buffs, many players want it but blizz doesn´t want to. nothing more to say about that.

[Deleted]

the way i see it, if your a good shaman u can get up there with any dps, and for pvp which i dont do alot of nowadays, shamans have come a long long way from 1 shotting people in vanilla to 2 shotting people in wrath lol. u could put no totems down and still be on par with everyone else

[Omanley]

the way i see it, if your a good shaman u can get up there with any dps, and for pvp which i dont do alot of nowadays, shamans have come a long long way from 1 shotting people in vanilla to 2 shotting people in wrath lol. u could put no totems down and still be on par with everyone else

no you cant. if the other dps plays as good as you do and is equally equipped, enh stays 15% behind others. other hybrid specs are not that low. blizz themselves admitted that enh was to low in dmg in cata, but didn´t do anything against because many still played. this was however largely because of bloodlust, and buffs which are hardly brought without enh.
frost dks are rare, so 20% melee haste is the main reason, besides bl.
some shamans like me do 16k dps on saurfang with 30% buff, and that may be 1st place if the others do not play at the spec limit, doesn´t change the fact shaman is bottom line in every way atm, the only "advantage" is that we bring many buffs at once, which can help in 10man

[bateman]

That doesn't follow the logic at all, and is largely just pure QQ. Dk utility spells(and we are talking utility spells not just crying about how many defensive cds they have) are in no way as powerful as a shaman's. With the excepcion of grounding being on a fairly long oooldown, they aren't as easily accessable, nor do they stay down continually pulsing their ability on your whole group/enemy group.

You have to be kidding me.Chains of ice is by far, unarguably, the strongest peel in the game.They have far better defenses too, such as plate, 8k more HP on average, Bone shield, unbreakable armor,icebound fortitude(basically shamanistic rage), anti magic shield, anti magic shell, heals that proc off ATTACKS(whereas we have to waste a GCD and a hefty portion of our mana to heal ourselves) and do way more damage.Frost presence alone is a permanent shamanistic rage considering how much flat damage reduction + armor it offers.Meanwhile DKs dish out loads more damage than a enhance shammy in pvp.

What do we get? a 1 minute CD 30% dmg reduction that were forced to use mainly as a mana regeneration tool, and a 4k dmg absorption heal that costs a major glyph slot.Meaning we can only use 2 glyph slots for increasing damage or for more pvp utility unlike every other class in the game.

Yeah, its clear you don't even play pvp at all so don't even comment on it.