What happened to Searing Totem?

[ryjkur]

Got into beta and I was excited to hear they are adding Searing Totem back in the game.

Keeping myself in combat to not get sapped after blind/polymorh/fear was gonna be life saver in many arena situations but I can't see it in game, what happened? Was it too broken in PvP?

[Unholyground]

It felt like shit to upkeep and it was doing very little damage, it didn't mesh with the rotation in a meaningful way either.

[ryjkur]

It felt like shit to upkeep and it was doing very little damage, it didn't mesh with the rotation in a meaningful way either.

Well, they should have at least kept it for extra toolkit purpose. Not having nice little things like that is what makes enha bad in PvP.

[Yaersulf]

As someone who played enh back when searing totem was a thing, I do not miss it at all. I hope it never comes back, good riddance.

[Unholyground]

Well, they should have at least kept it for extra toolkit purpose. Not having nice little things like that is what makes enha bad in PvP.

They gave us wind Fury totem which is way better.

[Wowforlife79]

Well, they should have at least kept it for extra toolkit purpose. Not having nice little things like that is what makes enha bad in PvP.

What extra toolkit purpose was searing totem providing? There's really no purpose for it. It wasn't fun/exciting to press or maintain it and didn't provide/add anything back to our class. At least not in the iteration they had in the beta.

[ryjkur]

What extra toolkit purpose was searing totem providing? There's really no purpose for it. It wasn't fun/exciting to press or maintain it and didn't provide/add anything back to our class. At least not in the iteration they had in the beta.

Like I said keeping me in combat so no rogue can sap me after blind/poly or whatever. It was just as useless in PvE for 3 expansions without any issues.

[StillMcfuu]

Well, they should have at least kept it for extra toolkit purpose. Not having nice little things like that is what makes enha bad in PvP.

Without a Totem Bar it seems totem gameplay is dead. Blizz cba to add Totem Bar back to the game to give shaman the unique and impactful toolkit it once had.

[Keilvog]

I understand why they removed it but I think they could've instead modernize it and make it interact with something.
For example, extending your flame shock duration or attacking all flame shocked targets

[Zeek Daniels]

Got into beta and I was excited to hear they are adding Searing Totem back in the game.

Keeping myself in combat to not get sapped after blind/polymorh/fear was gonna be life saver in many arena situations but I can't see it in game, what happened? Was it too broken in PvP?

Searing totem is a useless ability in the shaman toolkit when we have flame shock. Searing totem is nothing but a dot that only hits one target. It doesnt switch targets well and its damage is trash compared to flame shocks dot. When searing totem was originally removed from the game blizzard rolled its damage into flame shock which made flame shock infinitely better because flame shock can be applied to multiple targets.

When they brought back searing totem i knew this would be the end result same with fulmination. Both were removed around the same time for different reasons but justifiable reasons. With the shadowlands announcement of bringing them back blizzard clearly forgot why they removed those spells in the first place and it took them half the beta to remember why they removed searing totem in the first place and took them till a month b4 prepatch to give back maelstrom and remove fulmination. Blizzard literally did a 360 showing they dont actually know how these classes play, going back to spells and mechanics that did now work expansions ago and bringing them back and then removing them for the exact same reason they stated expansions ago.

There are ways to fix searing totems problems and theres a way to fix the impactfulness of shaman resources. But blizzard is unwilling to make those changes because of the effects it would have on the other strengths of the spec.

Without a Totem Bar it seems totem gameplay is dead. Blizz cba to add Totem Bar back to the game to give shaman the unique and impactful toolkit it once had.

Theres zero difference between having and not having a totem bar if all the totems are just spells anyway. An extra bar that serves the same purpose as a regular spell bar does not give an impactful toolkit. Its just a UI element.

[StillMcfuu]

Searing totem is a useless ability in the shaman toolkit when we have flame shock. Searing totem is nothing but a dot that only hits one target. It doesnt switch targets well and its damage is trash compared to flame shocks dot. When searing totem was originally removed from the game blizzard rolled its damage into flame shock which made flame shock infinitely better because flame shock can be applied to multiple targets.

When they brought back searing totem i knew this would be the end result same with fulmination. Both were removed around the same time for different reasons but justifiable reasons. With the shadowlands announcement of bringing them back blizzard clearly forgot why they removed those spells in the first place and it took them half the beta to remember why they removed searing totem in the first place and took them till a month b4 prepatch to give back maelstrom and remove fulmination. Blizzard literally did a 360 showing they dont actually know how these classes play, going back to spells and mechanics that did now work expansions ago and bringing them back and then removing them for the exact same reason they stated expansions ago.

There are ways to fix searing totems problems and theres a way to fix the impactfulness of shaman resources. But blizzard is unwilling to make those changes because of the effects it would have on the other strengths of the spec.



Theres zero difference between having and not having a totem bar if all the totems are just spells anyway. An extra bar that serves the same purpose as a regular spell bar does not give an impactful toolkit. Its just a UI element.

I'm talking about how the game played with totems when we had the totem bar.

[bloodmoth13]

It felt like shit to upkeep and it was doing very little damage, it didn't mesh with the rotation in a meaningful way either.

out of all the shitty abilities coming back that was the only one i wanted to see. There are ways to make it not suck, its sad they didnt bother.

[TigTone]

Imo they should have had Totems be summoned using maelstrom and be buffed at 5 maelstrom.

For example at 5 maelstrom drop a fire totem (lasts 45 seconds) and it sets off the spell Fire nova every 15 seconds.

[Kithelle]

It felt like shit to upkeep and it was doing very little damage, it didn't mesh with the rotation in a meaningful way either.

You mean they took the totem that used to be a drop and forget, added a cooldown and limited duration to it yet left the damage being of little significance, added it to a rotation that was already kinda bloated, and then just threw in the towel after not really doing much else?

[freddy090909]

They "unpruned" it with no intention of us using it, with extremely low damage.

My guess is, instead of trying to add it into our rotation, they opted to just remove it again.

[ryjkur]

They "unpruned" it with no intention of us using it, with extremely low damage.

My guess is, instead of trying to add it into our rotation, they opted to just remove it again.

even tho it does extremely low damage and no one would use it in PvE it would be helpful in many situation where you wanted to keep yourself or enemy in combat.

[Grimbold21]

Should've just have like it was in... what was it, MoP? When we had a button to just drop 4 totems at the same time and we could move them around any time we wanted to. You could even pre-set what totems you wanted in that group.

[crazyswayzee]

searing totem was my personal lifesaver in wotlk when it did matter alot against rogues as one you the previous posters said. now in arena the only thing you can do to stop blind into sap is putting down your earth elemental which only lasts a minute. if you are no shaman healer or something you maybe dont get it but this shit is important.

and btw searing totem is personally "important" for me because its part of my class identity. but instead of that, we got primal strike or what the shit is being called for 10x the mana and 0,1x the dmg the new frost shock does. so if blitt dont want to give us back our totems, as they promised when they announced shadowlands, then blizz can put my primal strike up their ***

[tru]

More globals for less rewards and more clutter. It would have to be rebuilt ground up to incorporate it truly the way it is deserved.

[music49]

I'm glad they acknowledged it was boring, but I would have tried to change it rather then just give up. With flame shock having such a low up time, I would have made searing totem, add to the up time to the target it hit, or lowered Flame Shocks CD when it hit a target with Flame Shock. Just something like that could have made it so much better. But blizzard ALWAYS knows best right?