99th totem thread...

[Horrify]

I don't see what the problem is. All 3 shaman speccs have a place in PvP (an overpowered one at that) and totems are a fun mechanic. I don't understand where all the bitching is coming from.

[bateman]

I don't see what the problem is. All 3 shaman speccs have a place in PvP (an overpowered one at that) and totems are a fun mechanic. I don't understand where all the bitching is coming from.

You would understand the problem if you knew anything about pvp.

[Omanley]

I don't see what the problem is. All 3 shaman speccs have a place in PvP (an overpowered one at that) and totems are a fun mechanic. I don't understand where all the bitching is coming from.

shaman specs have a place as bloodlust bots in pvp. mages get time warp so that´s that.
all that´s left for enh is offensive dispell with a 6k mana pool
all that´s left for ele... well, is there anything? ele burst wont wotk quite as well because of higher health pools

resto may be still around, but from what i heard other healer specs are raised more than resto, so it´s probably worse than the others as well, but at the very least not overpowered.


and totems are the very incarnation of lackluster'ness. the only thing of them which could be considered as utility is earthbound, tremor and grounding.

-with how much spells fly around since tbc and grounding totem being reduced to vanish through any spell, damaging or not, grounding became very unreliable
-earthbind isn´t bad, but not as good as frost nova, desecration, piercing howl or freezing trap because it can be destroyed and hinders other utility
-tremor is pretty much ineffective against halfway decent players as those will destroy it right before or after the fear

soooo what are totems? a fun mechanic? nope they are not. not since vanilla

[Dundebuns]

Sigh... people here are even going 'lol elemental 2 shotting waah!' when it just isn't true. Against 1.2k resilience, Lavaburst crits for 5-6k. It takes a hwile to set it up, you can see it coming a mile away, and if someone is focusing on the shaman, they pretty much aren't going to get it off. If you get 2 shot by a shaman, stop cheesing PvP in your ilvl 277 stuff.

[Taalyn]

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

That's not the shamans fault, that is Blizzards fault for crappy design. They said they never meant for PvP to turn into burst and they're fixing it for Cataclysm. To say our PvP is fine now and therefore will be fine in Cataclysm is a gross mistake.

[Jynks]

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

The totem system is fine as far as I am concerned, the issue is the low health and ease of destruction of the totems.

Having to choose between EB, Tremor, Stoneclaw or WF and Grounding as examples doesn't bother me, I am quite OK with that. The versatility of those buffs is great and being able to quickly swap what you are doing is great.

Having to (in a raid setting) choose between a 100yard (non talented) aura or a 30 yard (40 yards talented) totem I know what I'd be going for.

In a PvP setting the problem I have with totems is their poxy nature, you so much as sneeze near one and it dies and while I realise Stoneclaw will "protect" them a bit it doesn't really do so to the point of it being worthwhile. A cooldown plus not being able to use the school that provides the most benefit seems pretty pointless.

Enh at high arena levels is viable in 1 comp. Beastcleave; and why does that work?
A: becuase of the massive pressure you can push on your opponents in the 1st 45s of the match. Our supposed key class functionality (totems) play a very small role in that spot... and even less so with mages getting heroism as well in Cata.

[Gunwolf]

The totem system is fine as far as I am concerned, the issue is the low health and ease of destruction of the totems.

Having to choose between EB, Tremor, Stoneclaw or WF and Grounding as examples doesn't bother me, I am quite OK with that. The versatility of those buffs is great and being able to quickly swap what you are doing is great.

Having to (in a raid setting) choose between a 100yard (non talented) aura or a 30 yard (40 yards talented) totem I know what I'd be going for.

In a PvP setting the problem I have with totems is their poxy nature, you so much as sneeze near one and it dies and while I realise Stoneclaw will "protect" them a bit it doesn't really do so to the point of it being worthwhile. A cooldown plus not being able to use the school that provides the most benefit seems pretty pointless.

Enh at high arena levels is viable in 1 comp. Beastcleave; and why does that work?
A: becuase of the massive pressure you can push on your opponents in the 1st 45s of the match. Our supposed key class functionality (totems) play a very small role in that spot... and even less so with mages getting heroism as well in Cata.

I don't think Totem HP is much of an issue at all really. There are only two totems that people target in PVP....thats cleansing and tremor. Cleansing is being removed so Tremor is the only one, and thats understandable.

My concerns with totems are...

PVE: Range. Need 50+ range cause I don't mind dropping totems between bosses, but I hate dropping totems multiple times in the same boss fight cause my raid can't always get my buffs.

PVP: Buffs vs Utility. All Shaman have to accept the fact that the buffs they have up all the time in PVE are completly gone in PVP. Your Earth totems are always twisted, fire is used for dps, water for cleansing, and wind for grounding. There is simply to time or gcds to include buffs along with moving around, countering enemy abilities, and using your own shaman spells.

We need a way to have atleast 2 buffs on us always in PVP like other classes do.

[Vargarii]

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.

I commented about utility alone, and said to refer to that alone rather than quote the differences in armor class and hybrid tank vs hybrid healer or defensive cds.

Then you went and did exactly that and are trying to call me out about pvp.

PVP is not arguing utility. Utility is needed in pvp, but they are two different things, and to try to change the subject from totem utility to pvp is derailing your own thread. The only mention you had about pvp was that your suggested changes would make them useful in pvp. This was made AFTER your argument. They are not one singular subject, and oyu can't try to use the other to bash my comments about totem utility.

---------- Post added 2010-08-11 at 06:04 AM ----------

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 ultimate talent, and additionaly penalized by it having a cooldown
-shamans are penalited to being immoble while aoe´ing in melee, and still being forced to go into melee as ele (because of earthbind 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.

This is somethign that gets said alot, and I've never really replied to it.

In my opinion this is a vast overstatement of how things are. This has literally never happened to me on any character except my dk tank in the beginning of wrath.

You aren't going to get denied groups because of totems. While it may happen once and a while, the general outcry is to make it appear as if it will happen all the time, and that is just not the case.

/edit: This is in response to the raid spots of shaman vs others


---------- Post added 2010-08-11 at 06:05 AM ----------

I don't see what the problem is. All 3 shaman speccs have a place in PvP (an overpowered one at that) and totems are a fun mechanic. I don't understand where all the bitching is coming from.

I fail to see where shaman are currently OP in pvp.

[bateman]

I commented about utility alone, and said to refer to that alone rather than quote the differences in armor class and hybrid tank vs hybrid healer or defensive cds.

Then you went and did exactly that and are trying to call me out about pvp.

PVP is not arguing utility. Utility is needed in pvp, but they are two different things, and to try to change the subject from totem utility to pvp is derailing your own thread. The only mention you had about pvp was that your suggested changes would make them useful in pvp. This was made AFTER your argument. They are not one singular subject, and oyu can't try to use the other to bash my comments about totem utility.

---------- Post added 2010-08-11 at 06:04 AM ----------



This is somethign that gets said alot, and I've never really replied to it.

In my opinion this is a vast overstatement of how things are. This has literally never happened to me on any character except my dk tank in the beginning of wrath.

You aren't going to get denied groups because of totems. While it may happen once and a while, the general outcry is to make it appear as if it will happen all the time, and that is just not the case.

---------- Post added 2010-08-11 at 06:05 AM ----------



I fail to see where shaman are currently OP in pvp.

Your post makes no sense.What are you trying to say? I see you defending ghostcrawlers ignorant comments about totems to the death, but you yourself admit you dont know shit about pvp.The thread is mainly concerned with pvp where enhance is gimp.I like how you ignore my comments about a "hydrid tank"(what the fuck is the difference between a hybrid tank and a hybrid healer? where do pallys and druids fall into this, since they can do all 3 roles yet have more utility and actual defensive CDs) having BETTER self heals than the shaman which is according to your definition a "hybrid healer".

[Vargarii]

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.

This is your first post. What about this signifies this thread is about enhancements pvp issues? Even your title has nothing to do with that line of thinking.

Don't shift your argument and then try to blame it on me.

The differences between hybrid tank and hybrid healer was that those classes that have the option to be a tank, unlike shaman, are clearly going to have more survivability options and defensive cooldowns. That argument has little to nothing to do with the totem system, or totem utility.

It's clear from your last reply to me that you are just going to argue because I disagreed about totems, and try to use pvp arguments to lean against, since that's all you've got going for you, despite them not being relevant to our initial disagreement.

[bateman]

This is your first post. What about this signifies this thread is about enhancements pvp issues? Even your title has nothing to do with that line of thinking.

Don't shift your argument and then try to blame it on me.

The differences between hybrid tank and hybrid healer was that those classes that have the option to be a tank, unlike shaman, are clearly going to have more survivability options and defensive cooldowns. That argument has little to nothing to do with the totem system, or totem utility.

It's clear from your last reply to me that you are just going to argue because I disagreed about totems, and try to use pvp arguments to lean against, since that's all you've got going for you, despite them not being relevant to our initial disagreement.

what the hell are you talking about? did you actually read my initial post? The thread was concerned with pvp 1st, pve a distant second.Stop trying to change the subject just because you cant hit 1200 in 2v2.

Also I see you intentionally ignored my response about pallys and druids.Didn't have a answer to that one did you? Your argument is flat out ignorant.

[Vargarii]

what the hell are you talking about? did you actually read my initial post? The thread was concerned with pvp 1st, pve a distant second.Stop trying to change the subject just because you cant hit 1200 in 2v2.

Also I see you intentionally ignored my response about pallys and druids.Didn't have a answer to that one did you? Your argument is flat out ignorant.

Are you even serious? I quoted your orignal post. The only statement about pvp is this:

"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"

Literally everything else was about totems. As is your title. You are looking more and more ignorant and childish with every post.

You even quoted me back:

"The differences between hybrid tank and hybrid healer was that those classes that have the option to be a tank, unlike shaman, are clearly going to have more survivability options and defensive cooldowns. That argument has little to nothing to do with the totem system, or totem utility."

This was about the pallies and druids. If you don't understand that they fall into both areas, I don't know what to do for you. They get those abilities because they are related to their other spec options. That isn't to say that other classes don't have better defensive cds than shaman, because they do(hell, only enh shaman even get SR).

Talking about any pvp rating I have on this character wouldn't even matter, because I purposely chose not to devote my time to pvp on my shaman. There is not enough effort vs reward in it. I don't really have interest in trying to pvp with a class with such hardships, whether blizzard or others say it is well balanced for pvp, because that is a joke.

The thing is, I was never arguing with you about pvp. The only argument I made was about totems, and that I feel there is no problem in losing your 2 buffs for utility totems, and having to redrop them afterword. I'll stand for this in both pve and pvp, because in both areas shaman have bigger problems than totems. Despite this, there are still pages and pages of totem discussion. What have we gotten out of this? 2 new totem talents in Enh tree that are shit.

[bateman]

I'm not going to respond to everything in your post because I simply don't have the time, but it boils down to this:It's wrong that shamans are the ONLY class that is unable to use any of their buffs in pvp.

The typical totem drop(for enhance) looks like this Tremor/earthbind/Stoneclaw shield(twist these depending on situation) > Searing(in cata not live) > Cleansing(maybe healing stream with this removed?) > grounding.Do you see any buffs in there? didn't think so.

[Vargarii]

I'm not going to respond to everything in your post because I simply don't have the time, but it boils down to this:It's wrong that shamans are the ONLY class that is unable to use any of their buffs in pvp.

The typical totem drop(for enhance) looks like this Tremor/earthbind/Stoneclaw shield(twist these depending on situation) > Searing(in cata not live) > Cleansing > grounding.Do you see any buffs in there? didn't think so.

Cleansing will be gone.

Since you want it to be about pvp, then I can just drop the argument alltogether because I currently have no interest in shaman pvp, and therefore don't have a rightful place in it.

The only way I'll care about shaman pvp is if cata hits with more changes than there are currently, and they somehow manage to make it more worthwhile instead of just claiming it's well balanced.

[Alarsen]

The only "totem problem" that I know of, is the fact that we have too few totems. Hell, I'd love it if they could add more totem types, like frost totems that someone wrote about a while back.

Totems is the definition of a shaman, so I don't really get why so many people don't like them. Makes me a sad shaman

[Omanley]

This is somethign that gets said alot, and I've never really replied to it.

In my opinion this is a vast overstatement of how things are. This has literally never happened to me on any character except my dk tank in the beginning of wrath.

You aren't going to get denied groups because of totems. While it may happen once and a while, the general outcry is to make it appear as if it will happen all the time, and that is just not the case.

/edit: This is in response to the raid spots of shaman vs others

that isn´t a response to what i said in any way? so do you actually have even one answer against any of my arguments? I dont think you do because it´s 100% true.

the only things shamans can currently really look forward to is cata indoor ghostwolf and (resto only) healing rain (whereas we dont no if indoor wolf survives beta and wether healing rain will be worthwhile in healing amount)

the only thing shaman currently has to show of is:
bloodlust (going away as a unique advantage)
purge (enh, the most frequent user in pvp will get his manapool drained in cata)
wind shock

and enh wolves

[Vargarii]

that isn´t a response to what i said in any way? so do you actually have even one answer against any of my arguments? I dont think you do because it´s 100% true.

the only things shamans can currently really look forward to is cata indoor ghostwolf and (resto only) healing rain (whereas we dont no if indoor wolf survives beta and wether healing rain will be worthwhile in healing amount)

the only thing shaman currently has to show of is:
bloodlust (going away as a unique advantage)
purge (enh, the most frequent user in pvp will get his manapool drained in cata)
wind shock

and enh wolves

I didn't respond to the arguments because there was nothing to disagree with. What I said was that the idea that you will not get raid spots and such, because I misread and had thought that was in there(because Rouncer has made pretty much the exact same post on beta forums, only with the underlying argument that it is going to cost raid spots).

I basically responded to nothing since that wasn't your post, and my post was a waste of space.

[Deleted]

We don't want to have to balance the game around the assumption that Earthbind or Tremor Totem are up 100% of the time in a raid, which they would be if they also gave you the Strength of Earth buff. (For starters, we'd have to give equivalents to other classes since otherwise having a shaman would be a huge advantage.) Once you remove Tremor and Earthbind, (and disregarding Stoneclaw and Earth Elemental as super situational) then you're left with Strength of Earth vs. Stoneskin, and the powers of those two really aren't comparable. If you have one shaman, drop Strength of Earth. If you have two, or someone else who can bring that buff, then you can add Stoneskin. If you really need Earthbind or Tremor for an encounter, then you can live without Strength of Earth. Most of the time in PvE when you need those other two, it's not for the entirety of the fight anyway.

The reason they will not bake the buffs in the totem school or in a talent given by a GC.
Now this is pve PoV but will not do it for pvp cuz of that.

Try something else as an idea - give totems a personal(!) buff for the shaman that last half/full duration of the totem and is say 80% of what the totem provides(someething like Tow glyph for elem atm) .
Edit: Just to clarify - these buff should be prob baseline and i guess they shouldn't stack with the original ones from the totems or we will be forced to maintain them and be balanced around that :|

[Axelnomad]

I dont see the problem, while totems do get stomped you act like the shaman class as a whole is a failure in pvp and you try to compare their buffs to that of a death knight. And I think Blood lust/heroism is a pretty big buff to be used in pvp, plus you get the almighty purge which destroys trees and consumes many of the precious buffs you are complaining about, I feel that you need to learn more about pvp before you complain. Come cata things are likely going to be a little different, but I am sure there will be changes that will have shamans remain viable.

[Omanley]

I didn't respond to the arguments because there was nothing to disagree with. What I said was that the idea that you will not get raid spots and such, because I misread and had thought that was in there(because Rouncer has made pretty much the exact same post on beta forums, only with the underlying argument that it is going to cost raid spots).

I basically responded to nothing since that wasn't your post, and my post was a waste of space.

well okay. maybe it wont cost raidspots for lowbob raids, but any raidleader with a little standard considering dps will probably not take an enh shaman. frost mages have pretty much anything. mobility, utility, good cc etc. the only thing which currently misses is a little dps.

that was enough to take frost out of raids. enh has much more issues atm. how can you be so certain enhance wont simply die out before it has the chance to be denied in raids?

atm, cata shaman cant compete in any department besides heal, so why would a raidleader still take you if not as resto?

they make enh even harder to master, and add a totem as a combo stacker which is really bad for mobility.

we´re pretty much the hardest to play well melee in cata, with subpar dps, and inferior in everything else. you didn´t disagree with my points so you actually agree, dont you?

im still holding off the pre order of cata ( unlikely for me to buy it as it stands ).

totem overhaul is needed because it´s totems, and they have to be awesome or we aren´t worthwhile to play.