How to fix our totems in PvP, forever

[cokane]

I dont see how macro that send pet for our totem is exactly same effort as changing target.

And totems position doesn't help at all in that case. What's the point for me to going out of LoS of my partner to place totem behind the pillar, so other team can't destroy it on sight?

I'm a goddamn totem caster i want to rely on my goddamn totems as much as druids rely on their shapeshifting, and there is nothing wrong or 'L2P' with that. Maybe the reason why you say that is cause you've never met good enough team that keep your totems down.

I can't claim I'm a shammy expert but I've played about 50 or so matches on it before and imitated better shammies I've faced in 2.1k+ brackets on mains and I found while specific totems do get destroyed pretty fast, positioning DOES help tons.

Every class has problems and flaws but pros deal with it instead of crying over it. Mage is a burst and cc class huge suffers from LOS the worst out of all dps class and unable to CC a paladin, druid, warlocks and to a lesser degree; a rogue.

Do I cry about it? No, I deal with it and lrn2play.

EDIT: The games on the shammy was around 1750-1850 bracket in 2s.

[cokane]

There are no macros to void MS, shapeshifting, bubbles, iceblocks, death coils, yada yada, blah blah, and so on and so forth.

Psst, google automacro.

[Asmo]

Seriously, there are macros to do some annoying things, but tell me you can negate a MS. Tell me you can dispel a bubble without at least targeting someone. Besides mass dispel, but even that takes you thinking about what you're doing. I mean when we really get down to it, the hunters and locks who use the macro aren't even trying. It's facerolling at it's best and no one can dispute that.

[Instant]

If you'll notice almost everyone who suggests a fix is merely poiinting out that fact that the "pet problem" makes totems far more unreliable than other classes core mechanics. There are no macros to void MS, shapeshifting, bubbles, iceblocks, death coils, yada yada, blah blah, and so on and so forth. It's simply a matter of allowing a class to have decent use of their mechanics without others negating them without actual effort. Cause i'm damn sure every other class would get a wicked case of the sniffles if they had to deal with anything remotely similar.

I agree with most of that. Problem is that w/o random name of totems, i.e tremor totem = asfgh tagdj, you will always be able to /target tremor. If they change /target system in wotlk so you have to use full name, then adding just a shaman name will prevent 'me kill shaman totem' button.

Of course every class has it's flaws in pvp. And shaman sucks most in pvp. I'm not whining now, nor saying i hate blizz for that, im just saying, cause it's truth. Mage have problem with cc 3 classes? Great i have problem with cc all 9 classes, i can't blink out of stuns and cant go iceblock bla bla bla... Of course you cant use bloodlust (althou you have icy veins) and you dont have my tools. But really you want to start a 'discussion' what tools you have which i dont and vice versa? I wonder how you would feel if your elemental was one shotted with a wand attack. Pretty damn cool eh?

As for googling automacro i dont think there is a macro that helps you when druid just shifted to travel, removed all snares and doesn't care bout what you're doing. Nor is there a macro that helps you with bubble (unless you're a priest and doing mass dispell). And to end this before it starts, IM NOT saying these abilites should be nerfed one bit.

[cokane]

Seriously, there are macros to do some annoying things, but tell me you can negate a MS. Tell me you can dispel a bubble without at least targeting someone. Besides mass dispel, but even that takes you thinking about what you're doing. I mean when we really get down to it, the hunters and locks who use the macro aren't even trying. It's facerolling at it's best and no one can dispute that.

While I agree retards with downs can play locks and hunters (I'm serious) you also need to consider totem mechanics.

For example:
Poison-cleansing: You don't need to target yourself or party members to have it dispelling poison.
Earthbind: It auto slows shit in pulses, again, set it and forget it
Grounding Totem: It autoabsorbs offensive cast, you don't need to activate it with a clutch reaction
Tremor Totem: look above


Imagine if totem effects were buffs. You wouldn't have problems with people using macros to kill totems but you would still have lolhunters & lolwarlocks removing ur buffs with lolarcaneshot and lolautocastdevourmagic and reapplying them one by one to yourself and partner would take x2/3/4 times more GCD compared to redoing all the buff in midst of combat by dropping totems.

The user has been banned for this post

[cokane]

I agree with most of that. Problem is that w/o random name of totems, i.e tremor totem = asfgh tagdj, you will always be able to /target tremor. If they change /target system in wotlk so you have to use full name, then adding just a shaman name will prevent 'me kill shaman totem' button.

Of course every class has it's flaws in pvp. And shaman sucks most in pvp. I'm not whining now, nor saying i hate blizz for that, im just saying, cause it's truth. Mage have problem with cc 3 classes? Great i have problem with cc all 9 classes, i can't blink out of stuns and cant go iceblock bla bla bla... Of course you cant use bloodlust (althou you have icy veins) and you dont have my tools. But really you want to start a 'discussion' what tools you have which i dont and vice versa? I wonder how you would feel if your elemental was one shotted with a wand attack. Pretty damn cool eh?

As for googling automacro i dont think there is a macro that helps you when druid just shifted to travel, removed all snares and doesn't care bout what you're doing. Nor is there a macro that helps you with bubble (unless you're a priest and doing mass dispell). And to end this before it starts, IM NOT saying these abilites should be nerfed one bit.

Blink is a fucking joke, cold snap doesn't reset ice block 1/4 the time. mages can't heal themselves. mages wear cloth.

Also, as poor as shammies are in PVP, resto shammies eat mages alive.

I have 3 lvl70 classes and a lvl65 and I can guarantee that a mage is the most gimped class in TBC, even moreso than shamans.

[Instant]

Imagine if totem effects were buffs. You wouldn't have problems with people using macros to kill totems but you would still have lolhunters & lolwarlocks removing ur buffs with lolarcaneshot and lolautocastdevourmagic and reapplying them to yourself and partner would take x2/3/4 times more GCD compared to redoing all the buff in midst of combat and wasting precious GCDs.

Yea, except that our buffs doesn't follow us around. And if you'll make 3 steps from tremor, and you got bad tick you're going for full duration fear... and believe me i'd like to have buff that would remove my poisons instantly, not every 5 second tick. Even if applying it would take 1.5 GBC instead of 1. Also highest rank arcane shot costs more mana than rank 1, and devour magic would be actually awesome, maybe it would leave my Earth Shield alone.

Oh god... please dont start with me. I knew you were some whiny mage who's mad at whole world cause of how much his class suck. I told you already i dont want to start discussion bout that. Only thing i can write you is similiar to what you wrote. L2P then. ^_^

Discussion with you has no point. You're not being objective.

[Qwaygon]

well actualy author place a good idea here, but most of replyers are so dumb that they are compare hams/shiv/lance/lowerRankShot/etc with "no brain activity spamming pet macros" ... i would realy glad if hunters have to select my totem manualy and press some button to kill them (like any other players) ....however the bad thing is that discussing it here will give NO result except spam from ppl who does not know what they are talking about... but alvays have IMO in all questions. what you must do - is place you advice somewhere on blizzard's feedback forum

p.s. English is not my native, so... sry

[Durth]

Haha I laughed when someone said that resto shamans eat mages alive...

I NEVER lose to a resto shaman when I play my mage.  Ever. I'm not frost spec of course. That may explain a bit.

But more on topic, I think the current system is fine. It doesn't seem to make sense to fix something that isn't really broken. Making it so you had to type in the entire name would only end up nerfing things in PvE.

[Blikje]

Doing /target tremor will target anything with tremor in it's name, so that wont'work. What could work is naming the totem Stimpy's totem and put the kind of totem in the <> beneath the name, this however is harder to read and isn't in line with all other targetable objects in the game. Maybe they should make it so you can't use /target with a name to target a players totem but you can use /target totem but you just won't know which one your going to target?

Problem with ranged spamming lower rank skills to kill your totems... I don't understand why they keep lower ranks in the game for mana users in the first place. If they do want to keep them it should get a penalty or something, it's nice in some pve situations but in pvp there might be several cases where it gets annoying. I'm a mage and i wouldn't know why it would be terrible if they removed lower ranks after you learned a higher one, that way my spellbook is a little bit cleaned up as well.

[mrchee]

I'm a mage and i wouldn't know why it would be terrible if they removed lower ranks after you learned a higher one, that way my spellbook is a little bit cleaned up as well.

Polymorph rank 1 costs 60 mana, rank 4 costs 150. Same exact effect in PvP. Mages would cry foul if they removed low ranks, as it would increase mana cost for PvP sheeping (pigging/turtling ;D)

[Instant]

Downranking IS important part of game. Healers rely on that heavily. At least Resto shaman. Both in PE and i PvP.

[woeye]

Prefixing the player's name wouldn't help at all. The really powerful macro API allows you to read stats like class and name of your target. Once you had spotted the shaman you would have its name and there for the name of the totem as well. Thus the totem name would have to be unpredictable, for example by adding a timestamp and not the name of the shaman.
Furthermore it's also possible to just invoke /target tremor like said before. Therefore it would require fundamental changes, I guess.
From a PvE point of view macros are nice. But from a PvP point of view I do not like them at all. Personally I feel that macros in WoW are way too powerful. But that's just my opinion :-)

[Eleena]

First of all, my shaman is not my main, my warrior is. However, shaman is the ONLY class I have been able to enjoy besides warrior. He is my only other 70, all other alts withered away by mid 20's :P. He is mainly enhancement, but I have done the resto thing as its the best way to get through heroic pugs. I cant comment on arena as elemental (and I doubt I'd ever spec it) but I have some experience as Enh and as Resto, nothing fancy but I hang around 1700-1800, similar to my warrior.

Now the biggest problem from a neutral standpoint IMO when it comes to totems isnt when players kill them with hamstring or icelance or other similar GCD moves. If you think rationally, they spend the same effort to kill em as we do to place em. Now that we will have physical school for totems so we can place when we get counterspelled or silenced, and 1.0 second GCD for totems this will be overall a win for us to get into totem place/destroy wars. It would be unfair for us to be able to place all four totems in one GCD since they are immune to AOE, and must be destroyed one at a time per GCD at fastest.

What the lamest thing is, in my opinion, when pet classes use macros built into their spammy spells and abilities to make their pet attack specific totems, usually tremor or grounding but my WF totem gets a lot of it too. What this means is that we must spend our effort to place totems which the enemy's pet destroys without effort or notice even from the pet owner.

How to fix this? Easy. This is not even my idea, its something from a thread on shaman forums I read months ago. Add our shaman's name to the front of all our totem names. If my shaman is named "Stimpy" (not his name) then when I drop tremor totem it would read "Stimpy's Tremor Totem <Stimpy's Creation>."

With this SIMPLE change, all pet totem attack macros will fail.

Discuss

I love the idea, and I'd be tempted to write a small rant on why, but then again most people already mentioned that! =)

and to those saying go home... well /pity at you really...

[1qaz2wsx]

Sounds like a pretty good idea. Only thing that changes is macros getting partly broken. Cause you can target all entities named after the shaman through addons like Proximity, but it really depends how the opponent is positioned. It will target the one closest first. which means all ranged classes shouldn't be much affected by this change.

I think totems needs more health. If you have to spend more time destroying the totems, you might reconsider. Also it could be an idea to add some debuff that procs when you destroy totems. For instance short earthbind effect, short stun (I know stone claw got this already) or some sort of root effect for a second or 2.