[OFFICIAL] MoP Beta Build Changes Discussion Thread

[Endus]

Let me make myself crystal clear so I'm not misinterpreted: Totems as a mechanic for the shaman I do like, but them being as fragile as they were when the game shipped when they were just buff sticks I don't like.

And to re-emphasize my own point; I can get behind the idea (and have suggested myself in official feedback) that totem survivability needs a bit more help. What I DON'T accept is the idea that our mechanics are "broken" or "bad" because totems can be killed, as if that's a negative.

If THAT is your stance, then your stance is "I don't like Shaman". Which is fine. Plenty of other classes to play, for all types. Discussing exactly how fragile they should be is fine, and legitimate, and good discussion, complaining that they're killable at all compared to other classes is really not.

[Teriz]

Interestingly, Monks and Warriors have totem like abilities that aren't as easy to kill. I'm pretty sure the monk statues are unkillable, and the warrior banners carry 33% of the warriors health.

This begs the question; Why are totems so fragile when similar abilities are so much more durable.

[Deleted]

Interestingly, Monks and Warriors have totem like abilities that aren't as easy to kill. I'm pretty sure the monk statues are unkillable, and the warrior banners carry 33% of the warriors health.

This begs the question; Why are totems so fragile when similar abilities are so much more durable.

It's time for the old mantra: 1-1 comparisons of abilities are pointless. Also: 1 'placed cooldown' ability does not suddenly make a class into a shaman any more than meleeing in ghost wolf would make us a feral druid.

[Endus]

Interestingly, Monks and Warriors have totem like abilities that aren't as easy to kill. I'm pretty sure the monk statues are unkillable, and the warrior banners carry 33% of the warriors health.

This begs the question; Why are totems so fragile when similar abilities are so much more durable.

Because we're Shaman.

Don't like relatively fragile totems? Wrong class to play, since that's our fundamental class-defining mechanic.

[Tharkash]

And to re-emphasize my own point; I can get behind the idea (and have suggested myself in official feedback) that totem survivability needs a bit more help. What I DON'T accept is the idea that our mechanics are "broken" or "bad" because totems can be killed, as if that's a negative.

If THAT is your stance, then your stance is "I don't like Shaman". Which is fine. Plenty of other classes to play, for all types. Discussing exactly how fragile they should be is fine, and legitimate, and good discussion, complaining that they're killable at all compared to other classes is really not.

I'm completely fine with them being killable.. as long as it's a decision to be made and not an automatic reaction with no consequences. If most of our utility is tied to the sacrifice of it being on a killable totem, then to get rid of it you should have sacrifice more than a mouseover macro or white hit to negate it completely.

[Belbaim]

Because we're Shaman.

Don't like relatively fragile totems? Wrong class to play, since that's our fundamental class-defining mechanic.

In all fairness tho, totems are so fragile because shamans were the original buff class. Powerfull buffs (more powerfull then other classes) So basicly this was our trade off. When you give other classes similar buffs/abilities I personally see nothing wrong with buffing the totem health.

[Sarevokcz]

It's time for the old mantra: 1-1 comparisons of abilities are pointless.

Why are we fed with 5 pages of "but ours aoe stun is stronger than what other classes got" stuff then, when people discussed the drawbacks of this totem?

[Endus]

Why are we fed with 5 pages of "but ours aoe stun is stronger than what other classes got" stuff then, when people discussed the drawbacks of this totem?

Because there's a difference between saying "our ability is worse than ability X because of this one thing" which ignores all the rest of the classes involved, which is what we're saying is pointless, and comparisons like mine where I say "if you look at all AoE stuns in the game, the ones that hit larger areas and/or stun for longer have longer cast/charge times to compensate, so the 5s charge time on Capacitor is a reflection of that general design, and you can't ignore all the other aspects of the Shaman toolkit in this comparison either, like Totemic Projection and Glyph of Capacitor Totem, which significantly improve its utility compared to, say, Remorseless Winter which cannot be improved on by the Death Knight who takes it".

Nobody ever said or suggested you can't compare abilities between classes. Just that you can't ignore everything else the class can bring when doing that comparison. If you want to compare Capacitor Totem but NOT talk about the glyph and/or Totemic Projection, you're not making an honest comparison, because you're explicitly excluding Shaman tools that help you mitigate the restrictions you're complaining about. It's like if a Resto Shaman complained about mana regen but refused to use or consider the value of Water Shield and Telluric Currents. He's not making a reasonable point, he's ignoring Shaman tools to artificially portray us as worse off than we are.

[Sarevokcz]

Because there's a difference between saying "our ability is worse than ability X because of this one thing" which ignores all the rest of the classes involved, which is what we're saying is pointless, and comparisons like mine where I say "if you look at all AoE stuns in the game, the ones that hit larger areas and/or stun for longer have longer cast/charge times to compensate, so the 5s charge time on Capacitor is a reflection of that general design, and you can't ignore all the other aspects of the Shaman toolkit in this comparison either, like Totemic Projection and Glyph of Capacitor Totem, which significantly improve its utility compared to, say, Remorseless Winter which cannot be improved on by the Death Knight who takes it".

Nobody ever said or suggested you can't compare abilities between classes. Just that you can't ignore everything else the class can bring when doing that comparison. If you want to compare Capacitor Totem but NOT talk about the glyph and/or Totemic Projection, you're not making an honest comparison, because you're explicitly excluding Shaman tools that help you mitigate the restrictions you're complaining about. It's like if a Resto Shaman complained about mana regen but refused to use or consider the value of Water Shield and Telluric Currents. He's not making a reasonable point, he's ignoring Shaman tools to artificially portray us as worse off than we are.

The discussion started without comparing it to other abilities, but just as a list of drawbacks the totem has.

Also, I havent seen any defender of Capacitor totem, including you, using other classes abilities, glyphs and talents, that help setting up THEIR aoe stuns (to be fair, some of them dont need any setup). Nor have I seen the comparisons, how our totem is easy to negate by anyone, compared to debuffs, that are instant or only dispelable by selected few classes/specs.

Until you do that, you should really be quiet about someone not doing full comparsions.

[Endus]

The discussion started without comparing it to other abilities, but just as a list of drawbacks the totem has.

Also, I havent seen any defender of Capacitor totem, including you, using other classes abilities, glyphs and talents, that help setting up THEIR aoe stuns (to be fair, some of them dont need any setup). Nor have I seen the comparisons, how our totem is easy to negate by anyone, compared to debuffs, that are instant or only dispelable by selected few classes/specs.

Until you do that, you should really be quiet about someone not doing full comparsions.

Except I was never trying to say "capacitor totem is the bee's knees and better than X".

I was deconstructing arguments that were saying it was demonstrably worse than everyone else's.

You're criticizing me for not proving something I was never talking about. In fact, I specifically AVOID trying to make such claims, precisely BECAUSE I would need to do that kind of analytical breakdown of two classes, and it's a significant investment of time and effort for very little gain. It's why I keep saying I'd like to see how it plays in practice, at level 90, because I trust actual gameplay testing and feedback more than pages and pages of theorycraft that is built on dozens of nested "if" statements, which falls completely apart if anyone brings up something you forgot to factor in to any one of those such statements.

[Deleted]

The discussion started without comparing it to other abilities, but just as a list of drawbacks the totem has.

Also, I havent seen any defender of Capacitor totem, including you, using other classes abilities, glyphs and talents, that help setting up THEIR aoe stuns (to be fair, some of them dont need any setup). Nor have I seen the comparisons, how our totem is easy to negate by anyone, compared to debuffs, that are instant or only dispelable by selected few classes/specs.

Until you do that, you should really be quiet about someone not doing full comparsions.

Full comparisons? There are a minority of voices in this thread who are looking at things in a balanced manner, they're completely drowned out by the loud screeching about Capacitor totem's limitations.

Lets assume you're 100% right and Capacitor totem will prove worthless in arena (you're not, but lets assume.)

In that case shaman only have a stun if you're using the Primal Elementalist earth elemental. Oh woe is them. Now they're forced to rely on merely:

• A multitude of snares,
• Potential roots,
• Ranged CC,
• A survival cooldown or two (depending on talents),
• Reliable, frequent self healing, (Whether healing surge or HST)
• An on demand speed boost whenever required, for however long it is required.
• High burst potential
• Truly monstrous new cooldown (Ascendance)

And that's before we get into the spec specific stuff like elemental being able to cast on the move and possessing Thunderstorm, or enhancement being a melee that partially ignores armour.

Before we all go Chicken Little about how the new toy isn't what we wanted and we may as well fling it out of the pram it might be a good idea to consider the totality of the class and it's wide range of abilities in PvP? Perhaps in that context a stun that doesn't always work exactly as you want it to is not the end of the world?

[Deleted]

The discussion started without comparing it to other abilities, but just as a list of drawbacks the totem has.

Also, I havent seen any defender of Capacitor totem, including you, using other classes abilities, glyphs and talents, that help setting up THEIR aoe stuns (to be fair, some of them dont need any setup). Nor have I seen the comparisons, how our totem is easy to negate by anyone, compared to debuffs, that are instant or only dispelable by selected few classes/specs.

Until you do that, you should really be quiet about someone not doing full comparsions.

Just to give some examples of classes that need to use abilities, glyphs or talents to improve their abilities -

Hunters - Freezing Trap, they use other CCs to allow the trap to actually snare you.

Warrior - Staggering Shout, unless a target is slowed already this ability is useless, but incredibly powerful is coupled with a Hunter Frost Trap or a Shaman Earthbind Totem for example

Both of these abilities, as well as others (Mage RoF) require CC before hand to make full use of, CPT is the same, if you have CC before hand then its incredibly powerful. We just have the benefit of having glyphs as well that can potentially remove the need for premeditated CC. As for the debuffs, we are one of those select classes than can dispel buffs, so having the downside of our buffs being able to be dispelled is part of that trade of too in my opinion.

To clarify, I am in no way saying CPT is better than any of the above mentioned abilities, just that we are not the only class that has to set up our CC.

[Protoman]

Because a 5 second, no downside besides cooldown, unavoidable stun doesn't exist in the game. The only stun that comes close is Hammer of Justice which has a longer cooldown but it has no AoE component. Theres no "Cast Hammer of Justice, press it again to instantly stun a target or if you wait 5 seconds you stun everyone near the original target". If you look at it purely as a single target 5 second stun its not overpowered, but its the fact its that AND an AoE stun if you put in this mechanic.

Again, you ignore the AoE component. Your in 3v3 against Warrior, DK, Healer, you're able to instantly stun both the Warrior and the DK for 5 seconds allowing you to easily switch onto the healer with 0 peels. Far to strong. There is no instant AoE stun that stuns for 5 seconds.

This is totally wrong. Here is a repost of the list I made a few pages back:

Warrior Shockwave- (4sec stun, 20sec cd) Instant aoe cone
Monk Leg Sweep-(5 sec stun/knockdown, 25sec cd) Instant aoe
Lock Shadowfury- (3sec stun, 30sec cd) Instant
DK Remorse Winter- (6sec stun, 1 min cd) Takes 5 sec to stun but an aura around the DK so he can follow you

Some other similar aoe CC:
Priest Psychic Scream- (8 sec fear, 30sec cd) Instant, 5 targets
Lock Howl of Terror- (8+sec fear, 40sec cd) Instant, 5 targets
Warrior Intim Shout- (8 sec fear, 1min cd) Instant, 6 targets

Almost every other AOE stun in the game is instant, unavoidable, and on a short cd. Our CPT takes 5 sec to work, can be killed or avoided by running out of range, and is on a longer cd then other aoe stuns. It makes it inferior in almost every aspect. I would gladly sacrifice 1-2 sec on the stun if it was almost instant or had a much shorter cd. Its weaknesses heavily outweigh it's minor "strength" of 5 sec stun.

I'm sorry if you don't like that and you feel you should get the benefits of such sacrifices without the downside, but thats not how the totem system works and the totem system is the single most key aspect to the Shaman Class (especially in PvP). If you don't like it then its the class you don't like, and you should consider a reroll because changing the class you play so much would involve removing a mechanic that is utterly unique to the shaman and a big reason why lots of people enjoy playing the class.

Because they're totems.

Seriously, if you don't like 5hp stationary sticks providing many of your abilities, there's 9 other classes you could've picked from. Picking Shaman and then complaining about how awful our fundamental mechanics are is like picking a Paladin and complaining that there's no ranged DPS spec, or picking a Hunter and complaining that you need to use a pet to be competitive. It's one thing to discuss the degree to which our totems are vulnerable, and I've got no problem suggesting that they be a bit tougher; I did a megapost of what I saw as issues on the beta class feedback forum and totem health WAS one of the ones I listed, since while I think Glyph of Totemic Vigor is potentially "enough", I see a Major Glyph being too much of a "cost". But suggesting that they shouldn't be killable, or that it should be difficult enough that nobody in PvP would bother? No, that's where you cross into "if you don't like Shaman, play a different class" territory.

I ask you, what is the ADVANTAGE to having a totem version of a spell over a regular one? What is the SIGNATURE feature of totems?

The way totems are currently, their only "signature" is that they are killable/more vulnerable versions of other class abilities. I enjoy the totem mechanic but they just don't feel as powerful as they used to. Totems in the past were actually justified in being able to die quickly because they had unique advantages: cheap cost, little/no cd, similar or better effects then other classes....

-Old Tremor and Cleansing totem. Spammable, so if killed could be dropped again soon after. Also gave an aoe cleanse that was way better then single target dispels or fear ward.
-Earthbind. On a 15sec cd, was a reliable aoe snare which very few classes had and for them usually cost more resources/cd/talent investment (like piercing howl).
-Grounding. On a 15sec cd, didn't reflect but didn't require a shield either.
-Fire Nova totem. On a 15sec cd, 4 sec detonate and 2 sec stun. Much more convenient, if killed could replace again in like 10 sec.
-Stoneclaw. On a 15-20 sec cd, shielding you and your totems.

Notice the short or no cd on these abilities. Killing something like Cleansing totem was a wasted effort cause you could put it right back up. Locks did kill tremor to time a fear, but it could also be replaced quick and so something they constantly had to juggle with. Almost all our totems with the exception of MTT were under 20 sec. They were still 5HP and easy to kill, but also easy to replace.

Now all classes have also gotten more instants, some spammable. Defensive dispels have an 8 sec cd now, offensive dispels are limited to 1 effect and cost more resources, and alot of important buffs have become undispellable like Avenging Wrath. Our totems are still just as vulnerable as before, but have longer cd's and some of our most potent cd's can be killed in one hit like bulwark, spirit link, and stormlash.

Killing totems SHOULD be easy. It shouldn't be NEGLIGIBLE, but it shouldn't take more than one reasonable instant cast, either. Enough to be a "choice", not enough for them to say "I'll just move away from Capacitor Totem because I might not kill it before it goes off".

Killing totems should be possible, but why does it have to be easy? Killing a totem in the past took alot more effort then it does now with replacing it alot easier then with the longer cd's we have now. We have also gained some totems that are important to our overall effectiveness. They removed cleansing and tremor to make it harder to easily negate other classes important effects, what has been done to make it harder to negate our totem effects? They should atleast require 2 instants to kill IMO.

4 - No-one ever used Stoneclaw to protect their totems, people used it purely to protect themselves. Unless they gave us a "Your totems are unkillable for the next 3 seconds" type ability we wont get this because it wont be used. And a cooldown like that is much too strong because of the fact our totems are so much stronger now making them uncounterable would be far to powerful

In RBG yeah because you're out in the open, but in Arena its better to drop the Mana Tide simply LoS so you're able to use the Stoneclaw to protect yourself. I agree I shouldn't have said never use it to protect totems, but the rarety in which it is used in my opinion doesn't warrant a new ability to be added just to fill that roll, especially as we have an entire tree dedicated to totem protection already.

Our whole totem system is based around sacrifice and good play.

You talk about "good play", and yet you think Stoneclaw was not that useful for protecting totems and that we wouldn't benefit from a new base spell that has a similar effect? Both Stoneclaw and Grounding were used to protect any valuable totems we had, and a great way for Shaman to actively defend their otherwise very vulnerable abilities. This is one of those things that separated a good Shaman from a bad one. For CPT, stoneclaw is gone and grounding shares the same Air element. We lost 2 powerful totems with tremor/cleansing, but have gained a few others that we should be able to defend without relying on multiple glyphs and talents.

I really think we need to get a spell that gives a similar effect to Stoneclaw's absorb shield. Either give all totems a passive effect that when dropped get a shield that will absorb one direct melee attack or spell. Or maybe an active cd of like 30-45sec or so that places a shield on all current totems that absorb the next 2 direct melee attacks or spells. This way it would take atleast 2 direct hits to kill the totem. The totemic vigor glyph that gives 5% HP is incredibly weak. Assuming I have 150k HP, 5% of that is only 7.5k which my Earth Shock can probably kill in one hit.

2 - Unless the stun penalty was 2 seconds they wont put a stun onto a person that destroys CPT because that makes it too strong. You drop the totem next to you and for the next 5 seconds no melee is able to touch you without themselves/a team mate getting stunned seems vastly overpowered

3 - I *could* see them remove the glypH and make the glyphs effect always up, but I personally prefer the option to choose that, theres no way they would make it instant though, vastly too strong against melee teams

From the other comments on the thread, it seems like alot of people like my idea. I think it would be a great addition....the "throw yourself on the grenade" metaphor is a good way to describe it. Prevent an aoe stun by giving yourself a personal stun. This could also be a good glyph effect.

For the huge weaknesses CPT has, it needs an improvement to be fair and balanced IMO. It should be a 3 sec aoe stun with a 3 sec detonate baseline, and glyph make it add 2 sec detonate timer and stun. OR have a much shorter cd of like 25-30 sec.

[Endus]

Before we all go Chicken Little about how the new toy isn't what we wanted and we may as well fling it out of the pram it might be a good idea to consider the totality of the class and it's wide range of abilities in PvP?

For instance, someone earlier mentioned that DKs can Death Grip people back in to Remorseless Winter, which improves its potential. Which is fair. But saying that while refusing to consider tossing Capacitor Totem with Totemic Projection, that's NOT fair. In both, you're combining an optional talent and a standard class ability to make for a nasty combo. If you're going to consider one nasty combo, but refuse to consider the other, you're not making an honest comparison.

When we say "one to one ability comparisons are bad", we mean one to one. Capacitor Totem to Remorseless Winter, for instance. If we're comparing CT + TP + Glyph of Capacitor Totem + Earthgrab Totem, and Remorseless Winter + Chains of Ice + Death Grip, we're not doing one-to-one comparisons, any more. This is precisely WHY they're bad; because other abilities affect how you can make use of another ability's advantages or mitigate its drawbacks. You need to be considering every other relevant ability to discuss the value of a specific ability. You can't just take them both out of the context of the class and glyphs and talents they're set within and act as if your comparison is relevant.

That's the "one to one" comparisons that don't work.

[Deleted]

This is totally wrong. Here is a repost of the list I made a few pages back:

Warrior Shockwave- (4sec stun, 20sec cd) Instant aoe cone
Monk Leg Sweep-(5 sec stun/knockdown, 25sec cd) Instant aoe
Lock Shadowfury- (3sec stun, 30sec cd) Instant
DK Remorse Winter- (6sec stun, 1 min cd) Takes 5 sec to stun but an aura around the DK so he can follow you

Some other similar aoe CC:
Priest Psychic Scream- (8 sec fear, 30sec cd) Instant, 5 targets
Lock Howl of Terror- (8+sec fear, 40sec cd) Instant, 5 targets
Warrior Intim Shout- (8 sec fear, 1min cd) Instant, 6 targets

Almost every other AOE stun in the game is instant, unavoidable, and on a short cd. Our CPT takes 5 sec to work, can be killed or avoided by running out of range, and is on a longer cd then other aoe stuns. It makes it inferior in almost every aspect. I would gladly sacrifice 1-2 sec on the stun if it was almost instant or had a much shorter cd. Its weaknesses heavily outweigh it's minor "strength" of 5 sec stun.

Warrior Shockwave - 4 second stun
Shadowfury - 3 second stun
Remorseless Winter - Not unavoidable

I did forget Monk Leg Sweep (because they are the new class and thus I didnt remember all their abilities) but the new class always gets very strong toys. Think of Death Knights at the start of Wrath and how incredibly strong they were, it will take some balancing first and we have no idea how their other abiltiies will interact. If you read my post I was talking about if they made CPT instant with no down side at all, just an instant 5 second stun (effectively Leg Sweep).

[Sarevokcz]

Full comparisons? There are a minority of voices in this thread who are looking at things in a balanced manner, they're completely drowned out by the loud screeching about Capacitor totem's limitations.

there are none

Lets assume you're 100% right and Capacitor totem will prove worthless in arena (you're not, but lets assume.)

I havent commented on how strong Capacitor is strong or not at all in this discussion, but nice jumping to conclusions

In that case shaman only have a stun if you're using the Primal Elementalist earth elemental. Oh woe is them. Now they're forced to rely on merely:

• A multitude of snares,
• Potential roots,
• Ranged CC,
• A survival cooldown or two (depending on talents),
• Reliable, frequent self healing, (Whether healing surge or HST)
• An on demand speed boost whenever required, for however long it is required.
• High burst potential
• Truly monstrous new cooldown (Ascendance)

And that's before we get into the spec specific stuff like elemental being able to cast on the move and possessing Thunderstorm, or enhancement being a melee that partially ignores armour.

Before we all go Chicken Little about how the new toy isn't what we wanted and we may as well fling it out of the pram it might be a good idea to consider the totality of the class and it's wide range of abilities in PvP? Perhaps in that context a stun that doesn't always work exactly as you want it to is not the end of the world?

Dunno what you are trying to point out here, I havent commented on PvP, arenas or RBGs and shaman viability either. All Im pointing out, that this theat is full of hyporicsy from both sides, not just one.

[Endus]

This is totally wrong. Here is a repost of the list I made a few pages back:

Warrior Shockwave- (4sec stun, 20sec cd) Instant aoe cone
Monk Leg Sweep-(5 sec stun/knockdown, 25sec cd) Instant aoe
Lock Shadowfury- (3sec stun, 30sec cd) Instant
DK Remorse Winter- (6sec stun, 1 min cd) Takes 5 sec to stun but an aura around the DK so he can follow you

Some other similar aoe CC:
Priest Psychic Scream- (8 sec fear, 30sec cd) Instant, 5 targets
Lock Howl of Terror- (8+sec fear, 40sec cd) Instant, 5 targets
Warrior Intim Shout- (8 sec fear, 1min cd) Instant, 6 targets

Almost every other AOE stun in the game is instant, unavoidable, and on a short cd. Our CPT takes 5 sec to work, can be killed or avoided by running out of range, and is on a longer cd then other aoe stuns. It makes it inferior in almost every aspect. I would gladly sacrifice 1-2 sec on the stun if it was almost instant or had a much shorter cd. Its weaknesses heavily outweigh it's minor "strength" of 5 sec stun.

And just like when you listed that before, comparing AoE stuns to AoE fears is not a reasonable comparison. Fears have a LOT of weaknesses stuns don't have. At least you removed the AoE root you'd included the first time.

Nobody's claiming CPT is the best stun in the game. Just that the charge-up is balanced out by the large AoE and long duration of the stun.

I ask you, what is the ADVANTAGE to having a totem version of a spell over a regular one? What is the SIGNATURE feature of totems?

You can center abilities on your totems, rather than on you, which has uses for positioning purposes. And sure, for the most part it's a restriction. So? It doesn't NEED to bring advantages. What advantages does dual wielding give for Fury Warriors? It doesn't give them double DPS. It means they need more hit rating to not miss. It means they need twice as many weapons to upgrade, and to enchant both.

Killing totems should be possible, but why does it have to be easy? Killing a totem in the past took alot more effort then it does now with replacing it alot easier then with the longer cd's we have now. We have also gained some totems that are important to our overall effectiveness. They removed cleansing and tremor to make it harder to easily negate other classes important effects, what has been done to make it harder to negate our totem effects? They should atleast require 2 instants to kill IMO.

They need to be easy to kill because if they're too hard to kill, nobody would bother. If it takes you two GCDs to kill a Capacitor Totem, that's ~1.5s per GCD, meaning you're running close to the glyphed timer. Haste reduces that slightly, but human reaction time increases it. That means killing it is risky, so instead you'll just move away. Killing it stops being a reasonable choice.

And no, it's MUCH harder today than it was in the past to kill totems. Prior to patch 3.2, if there were a decent hunter or warlock on the other team, you could not drop totems. They would die as soon as they spawned. With zero effort required and almost no DPS loss on the part of the player. Stoneclaw Totem never made it all that hard to kill totems, either. At 80-85, it was a 4k shield, which was still one normal instant attack by basically anyone. A dual wielder might not kill it with an offhand attack, but it wouldn't make it challenging.

And lastly; we didn't lose Tremor Totem. It still exists, and if anything is a more powerful version, especially for PvP. The old version was stomped by anyone who had a fear, and could be stomped even if you were feared, before it could tick. The old version was only "better" if you were facing someone who spammed fears and never stomped totems.

[Omanley]

Because we're Shaman.

Don't like relatively fragile totems? Wrong class to play, since that's our fundamental class-defining mechanic.

Totems are our class defining mechanic. No one said anywhere that they had to be fragile though. They happen to be fragile, yes (and that since classic). But never was it said that it couldn't change at one point.

Again I have to bring forward warrior stances. Aren't they as much a fundamental, class-defining mechanic? With their restrictions to not charge in berserker stance and not intercept in battle stance? Do we still have that crap? NO?! Removed in MoP. Stances are still their, but crappy and limiting aspects of stances are gone.

Honestly I see no reason as to why outdated totems are fine, while outdated stances are not and get improved.
Or what about hunter pets? Pet Loyality, having to tame pets to lern abilities and all that stuff. Was it broken? NO?! Or hunters having to use a quiver and ammo. Was that broken? NO?! All of that were class defining traits, which were taken out.

We had this discussion already, and really, if something is bad you can run away from the problem and say: "It's always been like that, have to deal with that", or "I dont like this, someone has to do something about this. I'll voice my opinion, maybe I'm heard".
Totems by themselves are a nice mechanic, the old restrictions are not.

[Endus]

Totems are our class defining mechanic. No one said anywhere that they had to be fragile though. They happen to be fragile, yes (and that since classic). But never was it said that it couldn't change at one point.

Again I have to bring forward warrior stances. Aren't they as much a fundamental, class-defining mechanic? With their restrictions to not charge in berserker stance and not intercept in battle stance? Do we still have that crap? NO?! Removed in MoP. Stances are still their, but crappy and limiting aspects of stances are gone.

And honestly, I don't like that change. For much the same reasons as I like totems pretty close to as they are.

Every class needs weak points. That should be the goal. The idea with group play would be to get other players strong where you are not, and where you can make up for their weaknesses in turn.

[rogas]

Every class needs weak points. That should be the goal.

sign ... i just want to stun people ;-) that's all ...