Ideas for Totems

[Moistie]

I think shaman need a totem re-haul. I play resto shaman in 10 man, and all my totem buffs are covered except healing stream and the resistance aura. I think we need more unique function totems (tremor, grounding, stoneclaw). Totems give an advantage already, but in my case the advantage is very little. All my buffs are covered by the rest of the raid except healing stream and resistance aura. Mana tide is a very nice source of mana for the raid, but can be a bit difficult to use successfully in arenas. Once it is on the ground, you can't carry it around with you and continue using LOS.

From mainly a PvP perspective:

I love totems, and they have been the reason that I stay alive when I should have died on many occasions. I recall grounding deep freezes or multiple spells that would have been fatal, stoneclaw-ing right before a throwdown or other stun that afforded me an extra chunk of HP, etc. I want more totems such as these that require skill to put down at the correct time (RIP sentry totem lulz). I think these would improve our mobility by affording us instant cast alternatives to other spells. It would also work in line with Blizzard's idea of moving away from 'set and forget' mentality; this was one reason they took out cleansing totem.


Shaman remain the healers with the most 'hard cast' spells and this hurts mobility. Kiting, however, has never been better. Mobility is our greatest weakness IMO, and it makes the shaman feel clunky. We're the meat and potatoes healing class that sits there and hard casts over and over. You had better learn to fake cast in PvP especially when you have two melee on you. Often times running away in wolf is more effective than trying to heal yourself through a melee. This presents a problem when an arena partner is dying, but you have to take 2-3 seconds to fake out interrupters, interrupt a CC yourself, ground something, etc. When nature's swiftness is down, you had better be careful.

Spiritwalker is amazing though - ty Blizz. <3

I would love to hear your opinions about totems, be it 'they are fine' or 'here is my idea.' Idea posting encouraged!

From mainly a PvE perspective:
I realize that shammies shouldn't have all the strengths of every healer, and I'm not trying to point out their weaknesses in order to remove their weaknesses. I think it would bring them a bit more in line with other healers if they had some kinds of totems that would perform unique and useful abilities they could use on the move. As is, we do just fine. I simply feel that the totem system is feeling its age.

One idea I have is something of an earth totem that works like a paladin's raidwide damage reduction ability. perhaps it could work as a 5-10 second totem that reduces raid/party wide damage by some percentage (i dunno, 10 or 20%?). Maybe it could absorb the next attack made against a specific person in the raid?


Again I would love to hear your ideas. If you think it is a good idea, say so. If a bad idea, go ahead and mention why. If you think I'm just bored and want new toys to play with, you're probably right. After all I'm posting on the forums about it.

TL;DR: Do you think there should be some new totems/totems removed in order to re-haul our poor, old, decrepit totems? Would increasing our mobility through implementing new and unique totems be a good idea, or would it just boost Shammies too much by removing too much of a weakness?


Please post which aspect of the game you are talking about... PvE, PvP, or unfair advantages while leveling fishing.

[Bblubbs]

Change buff totems so that throwing them out gives a 30m buff to all players within 40 yds. (equalization in buff utility to other classes)
--I'm mainly talking about Wrath of Air, Flametongue, Windfury, Strength of Earth.

It could be made so that the shaman could only provide a buff from each element's totem; but remove the part of the game where if I want to use a utility totem I don't remove a buff from the group.

[Omanley]

Woldn't it be called an overhaul?
Anyway, they should change current buff totems into auras. 100y range like auras, mobile like auras, undispellable/destroyable like auras, no mana costs like auras, no duration limit like auras => competitive buffs. Make it so that each element has two buffs, one dmg caster/healer, one for tank/melee.
wind =>melee: slicing winds (10% melee ats) caster: wrath of air ( 5% spellhaste)
fire =>melee: burning rage (10% atp) caster: fiery wrath (10% sp)
water=>melee:glacial scales (armor) caster: tranquill mind (pushback resistance)
earth=>melee:strenght of earth (agi/str) caster: earthern meditation (mp5)
this new buff system should take the place of the current one, residing just under the character hp/mana bar. right click an elemental icon for the caster buff, left klick it for melee buff. There you have fixed the current shaman buff fail. We'll be able to use our buffs in pvp for a change. weee.

Call of the anciencts/spirits/elements removed because we dont need them anymore.
Elemental brackets removed from the totem system.

Every totem will be similar to new tremor totem. A cooldown worth it's use. Since it's longer cooldowns we're talking about, totems will have to be changed to be either unattackable, or getting a huge hp boost to at least 30% of shamans health. Would be unfair to have our high cooldowns destroable by a wand.

New totems added: Here's a huge list of nice totem ideas http://www.wowhead.com/search?q=totem#spells take your pick. I especially like:
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=35197
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=12506
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77311
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=32764 This is the one the Sethekk npcs drop (mc totem <3)

I especially like the idea of an mc totem, since mc is very powerful, but still only used by priests, and even rarely by them. Having a totem control an enemy to a small extend (targetting un cc' ed hostile targets, using random spells) for a few seconds, sounds good to me . A 2on2 could become a 3on1 for a few seconds, creating a chance, and in a 1v1 situation, it could allow the shaman to selfheal during that duration (maybe even get healed by his short duration minion ^^)

[Moistie]

Woldn't it be called an overhaul?

Yo Mama. <3

Changing the buff totems to auras would be fun times. It might be just because I play a troll, but if they used Voodoo charms for buffs and totems for unique advantages I would probably sh!t myself with glee.

I also love the idea of getting rid of call of the ----. If we had one or two totems per element to drop with unique abilities, and when we replaced an existing totem with the other of its element perhaps it could automatically refund a portion of its mana cost.

These changes would make shammies so much cooler IMO. Perhaps they wouldn't go with the voodoo angle, but if they would use charms or relics of the elements for buffs where using totems that can be destroyed by players for a little flashy skillitude when used properly, I would definitely find a completely renewed and fulfilling game experience as far as shamans are concerned.

Dear God this would be fun.

[Deleted]

I like the totem mechanic as-is, but I don't like that most of them are just buffs that are provided by other classes making most of them useless (near enough) in a 25 man raid. I'd rather see some of the raid buff totems merged into talents and new self-only totems given to boost our damage, healing, survivability etc.

[Moistie]

I like the totem mechanic as-is, but I don't like that most of them are just buffs that are provided by other classes making most of them useless (near enough) in a 25 man raid. I'd rather see some of the raid buff totems merged into talents and new self-only totems given to boost our damage, healing, survivability etc.

+1 internets to this as well

[Mammoth]

Totems are fine. They're weaker than the other buff methods - sometimes, but you have a larger array of buffs. There are advantages and disadvantages to every class. Your advantage is versitality.

If you want to be more like another class, you're better off rolling another class.

If you want every single totem to be the most powerful buff around, then shaman will become essential to all raids, and that isn't going to happen.

If you want totems to give you personal benefits, it is only going to come if your standard moves are nerfed to match. So if you have to do tremor totem, it'll hurt your personal performance.

[Moistie]

Don't want them to be the most powerful buff around, just a bit more unique. As of now lots of shammies are saying that their totems are useless because 3/4 of their buffs are already covered in raids. Yes we have versatility in buffs offered, but often times while raiding our buffs are covered already. Totems also cost mana, have a duration, have a 30-40 yard range and are not mobile. They are inferior to auras in this way, but superior in that you can have 4 'auras' active. When 3/4 auras aren't adding anything to the raid, however, then you can kinda start to see how it feels dumb.

I don't want to be more like another class, I want to make my class more interesting

[Futhark]

Now that most of our static totems are redundant, I like the way totems are. I can actually use glyphed-Stoneclaw for utility!

Spiritwalker is amazing though - ty Blizz. <3

This gave me an ironic totem idea: Spiritwalker's Grace Totem. Movement done within the totem's area of affect does not reset cast times. 2 min duration / 2 min cooldown (can't spam it). Use it smartly!

[Omanley]

Totems are fine. They're weaker than the other buff methods - sometimes, but you have a larger array of buffs. There are advantages and disadvantages to every class. Your advantage is versitality.

Sorry but that is simlpy wrong. A great variety of buffs is 100% useless if every single one is a less convinient version of another specs buff.
Shaman buffs received the "totem-tax" because we had a really big array of unique ones when in classic. Not only did we lose a decent ammount of those buffs over time (old windfury totem effect, windwall totem buff), no, it also was distributed to other classes in a superior way.

You talk about a bigger array of buffs being an advantage, but fact is shamans are avoided in high progression atm, and that is largely because these buffs we can bring can be brought by almost everyone else.

Also lesser convienence makes a buff weaker. If raidmembers happen to get out of totem range, or totem having to be redropped because of movement, there will be either an uptime loss of the buff, or you will have to sacrifice gcd's to keep up your buffs at all times, wasting dps.
Additionally to that, shamans are unable to bring their buffs into pvp, w/o sacrificing pvp utility. This is the same for utility in pve as well, and it is bad.

The totem-tax was appropriate when 60% of shaman abilities where totems, each with a unique effect, not now, when it's 30% of our abilities, half of it mediocre buffs, the rest either useless, bad designed, or repeatedly getting nerfed.

Totems are NOT fine atm. They are outdated since 3.0 at the very least, and are in a dire need of an overhaul blizz will never do, sadly ;(

Also your logic

If you want totems to give you personal benefits, it is only going to come if your standard moves are nerfed to match. So if you have to do tremor totem, it'll hurt your personal performance.

is 100% flawed, because rogues do not sacrifice anything besides gcd's to use their cooldowns.

While a shaman has to decide between strenght of earth and tremor, flametongue or frostbrand, flame/earth shock or frost shock, using wolves for dmg or utility, using msw for insta frog, dmg or heal, using earth shield for survival as resto or water shield...
Shamans have at almost every point to sacrifice something so that they can gain something. The whole class is one big double edged sword, cutting its owner as often as it does it's enemies.

That's why shamans are bottom-last in almost every department
-bad cc: hex being a failed mix of silence/fear/polymorph, with all disadvantages and no advantage
-aoe: horrible aoe dps and bad earthquake scaling
-bad baseline utlity/survivability: actual existing ones like groundig, tremor, cleansing, fire nova and so on keep getting nerfed/removed, the rest is only avaiable through deep talent-tree talents (thunderstorm,riptide,earth shield,shamanistic rage,feral spirits all would be terrific for every spec, while lvb and healing rain, but also spirit walker's are spec specific, but baseline)
-unique perk, totems, keep getting worse, and eventually letting the totem-tax (5hp, immobile, elemental brackets,limited range) overshadow the little benefit you still get out of them.

totems are definately not fun atm. and blizzards attempt to make them more interesting through enh using ft for ll is just a bad design not matching a melee spec in anyway (esp in pvp).

also: do not be fooled by the argument that we bring many buffs. a ret for example covers 10%atp/mp5 with 1(!) blessing, and also provides 3%+ dmg to the raid, as well as replenishment. He also can freely swap auras. That's 4 raidbuffs + replenishment, and except refreshing blessings once every 30minutes, he does not have to watch after buffs at all, despite bringing just as much to the table as us.

[Jademist]

I like totems where they are now. I love them in fact.

One thing I would change though is maybe..make a glyph that allows our totems to stack up on each other (like those native american totem poles with like four faces of different animals...of course, it will be elemental-related stuff) to make a totem pole.

[Morayla]

im hating my searing totem as enhance, on some fights such as chimareon, al akir , even argaloth, it just wont attack if i set it down before the boss fight, ill have to re drop it and waste GCD's and potentially ruin my DPS, same goes for magmaw too, my totem wont attack when we switch to the head, ill have to re- drop it again and searing totem is a pain in the ass for omnotron, having to re drop everytime a target switch goes off, its becoming more of a tedious chore, rather than an innovative play mechanic. im really just wanting some sort of pet bar for it because it really is gimping me on alot of fights

[Eliot123]

Basically, everything Omanley said. Totems need an overhaul.

[ChrisKoe]

I'm actually fine with the utility out totems currently offer.
What bugs me is the immobility. I really hate wasting GCD after GCD (and precious Mana when healing) on replanting my stubborn sticks every time I have to move more than 20y...
Don't have a solution for it, though, but hey that's Blizz' job

[Thafisker]

Yeah, totems could use some love.
HOWEVER
Be careful not to come with ideas that removes the uniqueness of the Shaman and his totems. Changing the totems into regular buff would make me a sad Goblin. I love the totems, however, I would love if they gave more mobility(floating moving totems?).

[Spongy]

(old windfury totem effect, windwall totem buff)

Man I have always played shaman and OFC I can remember the old fury totem granting a what was it 3 second wf buff to every1, so while doing your normall ss es rotation doing your totem rotation. But i totally forgot we had windwall or whatever it was that reduced the amount of ranged damaged incoming( so basically a totem only for hunters lol?)
From a PVP point of few a few totems could be changed like the health amounts etc. Also from a PvE point of view always, and lets be honest ALWAYS, sticking the shamans especially elemental and resto into a more central area so all can recieve the buffs. But now all buffs are covered by all other classes with a far greater range (except mana tide which i expect more nerfs anyway as its far to unique.) Lets be honest we are not unique anymore, we do not bring special buffs like we are suppost to. But we do what we do. TBH I still believe the Shaman forum, is to a very high standard most of the time. We are a class that enjoys to min max but to most the time to no avail most the time. The totems need a more unique thing, although this goes against everything blizzard is doing atm.

[ChrisKoe]

Yeah, totems could use some love.
HOWEVER
Be careful not to come with ideas that removes the uniqueness of the Shaman and his totems. Changing the totems into regular buff would make me a sad Goblin. I love the totems, however, I would love if they gave more mobility(floating moving totems?).

That's actually something I thought about. But the idea of a Searing Totem floating around my belly while shooting Fire Bolts kinda troubled me.

[Jademist]

im hating my searing totem as enhance, on some fights such as chimareon, al akir , even argaloth, it just wont attack if i set it down before the boss fight, ill have to re drop it and waste GCD's and potentially ruin my DPS, same goes for magmaw too, my totem wont attack when we switch to the head, ill have to re- drop it again and searing totem is a pain in the ass for omnotron, having to re drop everytime a target switch goes off, its becoming more of a tedious chore, rather than an innovative play mechanic. im really just wanting some sort of pet bar for it because it really is gimping me on alot of fights

Ohhh I know that all too well. Stupid searing totem never hits what it wants you to hit >.>

[Omanley]

Be careful not to come with ideas that removes the uniqueness of the Shaman and his totems. Changing the totems into regular buff would make me a sad Goblin. I love the totems, however, I would love if they gave more mobility(floating moving totems?).

Changing totem buffs into auras would NOT necessarily remove the uniqueness of totems. IN fact, totems are not unique anymore except some few exceptions, which keep getting nerfed across the years (fire nova totem to spell => stun removal, grounding destroyed through non damaging spells as well, tremor change to 1 min cd, cleansing/sentry/windwall removed )

Also, floating totems would essentially turn them into auras, except that they would be still attackable. What's the point? Keeping them inferior at the very least? I dont get it. You want to change the uniqueness of totems, instead of transfering that uniqueness to the spells which are actually unique?

If you want totems to be unique, all the more reason to change buff totems to be auras! The buffs are not unique, why tie them to a unique gameplay design? Instead, tie the buffs to a seprate system which makes our buffs competitive, and make the remaining totems powerful, worthwhile and meaningful enough to deserve that totem tax.

If you really insist on a reason as to why buffs should not be turned into auras, i'd like to hear a viable, because totem uniqueness is not related to buff totems. Not since 3.0 distribution.

That being said, i can imagine healing stream totem changing from a boring flat mp5 raidbuff to a strong cd ability healing for nice aoe chunks if not destroyed quickly, or searing totem turning into a low duration cooldown hitting for big chunks of dmg, instead of a flat dmg over time effect. or magma totem hitting for huge ammounts, but on cooldown.
Chainlighnting hits with msw5 charges could shorten the cooldown of magma totem or fire nova totem ( changed back to totem, together with the stun, with increased cooldown )

[BlueRising]

I do get what you mean. Ghostcrawler and Blizzard keep stating that a Shaman's class defining ability are TOTEMS, but what they fail to see is how there is nothing unique about them since every class has basically every buff of ours. It's sad to see a "class defining ability" be so lackluster.

Totems use to be kinda cool, but ever since Wrath it seems they've lost nearly every bit of uniqueness.