Searing totem range increase

[Sagemor]

Personally im still finding it funny that people are claiming Ancestral Swiftness and Totemic Reach will be "mandatory". Ill be specing this way: http://wowtal.com/#k=kuMWgg-buc.a79.shaman. Why? because i enjoy being a hybrid and happen to come across a situation where i either a) need to off heal, or b) take some damage (which is reduced to begin with) and use less of my healers mana because of my talents.

[Spongy]

Personally im still finding it funny that people are claiming Ancestral Swiftness and Totemic Reach will be "mandatory". Ill be specing this way: http://wowtal.com/#k=kuMWgg-buc.a79.shaman. Why? because i enjoy being a hybrid and happen to come across a situation where i either a) need to off heal, or b) take some damage (which is reduced to begin with) and use less of my healers mana because of my talents.

You sir no offence will not get into any decent guilds like this. Please explain to me what the gains of your talents actually are like why would losing 3% crit as a caster dps be a good thing. Or why would not having 15% run speed so you can put something else on your boot enchant ( which wouldn't even give you 15% speed boost so would be worse anyway.) Having Ancestral Swiftness means less downtime running more uptime doing dps and it will take less time to move out of bad situations or aoe effects blah blah.
Having a even greater range on your totems means you can position your in better places and dont need to be in the middle of a raid to provide your buffs

[Endus]

http://wowtal.com/#k=_bW9gQVm.a79.shaman.

Show me these 3 points?

You've got 1 point left over.

Totemic Reach is only about a 5 yard increase on Searing Totem.

Most buff totems are overwritten by other class abilities which don't share the range limitation.

So there's your three points. The one left over and the entirely optional 2 in Totemic Reach. You don't really have much else to put them in, though, since your choices are Totemic Reach for buffing/ST, Reverberation for a very negligible damage boost (you can get a Fulmination off .5 second sooner at the start of a fight if you had full stacks), or Elemental Warding/Ancestral Resolve for survival. You could even take points out of Ancestral Swiftness, in theory, but I think it's too valuable for survival and DPS to do so.


Please don't confuse your preferred spec with a mandatory spec. There's nothing about squeezing 5 yards out of Searing Totem that makes a 2 talent point investment mandatory. Compare the budget with Elemental Reach, which grants about three times the benefit, AND boosts shocks and your other damage spells. Totemic Reach would be more valuable if totems were still unique and/or more powerful buffs, but as it stands, it's not that big a deal. In a 25-man, you'll likely have someone else providing the buff. In a 10-man, there's probably no reason for DPS to be out of range, even if you have to spread out a bit.

[Spongy]

You've got 1 point left over.

Totemic Reach is only about a 5 yard increase on Searing Totem.

Most buff totems are overwritten by other class abilities which don't share the range limitation.

So there's your three points. The one left over and the entirely optional 2 in Totemic Reach. You don't really have much else to put them in, though, since your choices are Totemic Reach for buffing/ST, Reverberation for a very negligible damage boost (you can get a Fulmination off .5 second sooner at the start of a fight if you had full stacks), or Elemental Warding/Ancestral Resolve for survival. You could even take points out of Ancestral Swiftness, in theory, but I think it's too valuable for survival and DPS to do so.


Please don't confuse your preferred spec with a mandatory spec. There's nothing about squeezing 5 yards out of Searing Totem that makes a 2 talent point investment mandatory. Compare the budget with Elemental Reach, which grants about three times the benefit, AND boosts shocks and your other damage spells. Totemic Reach would be more valuable if totems were still unique and/or more powerful buffs, but as it stands, it's not that big a deal. In a 25-man, you'll likely have someone else providing the buff. In a 10-man, there's probably no reason for DPS to be out of range, even if you have to spread out a bit.

Ok its not just squeezing 5 yars out of a totem its all of your totems. (I thought I would add in that in a 10 man your not always gunna be within range of a tanks as we have a 40 yard cast,) Eg resistance totem your wrath if you only in a 10 man raid or your stoneskin there is plenty of situations that it will come in handy. Also with reverberation your only thinking of current content where the 4 set tier 10 makes flame shock last longer without this we will be having to renew our flame shock so really its a help.

[Darcam]

I agree with Endus here. "Nice to have" talents isn't mandatory. There are also situations where Earth's Grasp would be nice to have but that doesn't make it mandatory. So yeah - 3 talent points at 85 for those "nice to have" talents

[Gilian]

Personally im still finding it funny that people are claiming Ancestral Swiftness and Totemic Reach will be "mandatory". Ill be specing this way: http://wowtal.com/#k=kuMWgg-buc.a79.shaman. Why? because i enjoy being a hybrid and happen to come across a situation where i either a) need to off heal, or b) take some damage (which is reduced to begin with) and use less of my healers mana because of my talents.

This can be a good spec for certain fights where surviving > DPS (maybe). But I don't think this should be a main dps spec. You lost 3% crit and 15% movement speed and instant GW which are all good dps increases. You will also have to stand at 35 yards (?) to do max. dps.

Also if you are a good player you don't need 10% less damage taken and 15% more healing received. And why not spec into Elemental Warding instead of Convection or Reverberation while you are at it?

[Schippi]

http://wowtal.com/#k=_bW9gQVm.a79.shaman.

Show me these 3 points?

convection point somewhere else, totemic reach isnt mandatory, swiftness isnt madatory

im targetting to http://wowtal.com/#k=_bW6FwIm.a79.shaman.
range is matter of preference

[Volitar]

I would say Totemic Reach and Ancestral Swiftness aren't direct dps increasing talents but being able to work with more room (ie totem placement) and being able to move out of (insert void zone spell here) faster=more dps and put a better enchant our on boots is a DPS INCREASE

[SkodLife]

http://wowtal.com/#k=lvN3y61Q.a79.shaman.
is more my taste...

Mainly because I will use Thunderstorm more with both glyphs.

Who cares about 5 extra yards? It's better with 35 yds than 20.
We just need to make Blizzard either increase the baseline and/or remove that dreadful talent (and a better AI) and we might actually be the best spec in game.

[Volitar]

http://wowtal.com/#k=l1kV-42h.a7t.shaman.qgiyFu

is what im going for hoping we have no mana problems(yay earthquake for fun i guess?)

[Kob]

It's not a problem in pve, only in pvp.

I love pvp as enhancement atm (on the beta) but in BGs I have to re-drop searing totem literally every 8-10 seconds. It's fucking ridiculous.

And then ppl start kiting you... so frustrating ><

[Endus]

Ok its not just squeezing 5 yars out of a totem its all of your totems. (I thought I would add in that in a 10 man your not always gunna be within range of a tanks as we have a 40 yard cast,) Eg resistance totem your wrath if you only in a 10 man raid or your stoneskin there is plenty of situations that it will come in handy.

Totems last 5 minutes, and there's absolutely no reason you need to drop them where you're standing. Run in, drop totems, shift back out, start DPS. With threat becoming an issue again, at least you've got something to do while the tank gains a threat lead.

I'm not disputing that 40 yard radius totems are good, but they aren't necessary. It's a radius, remember. With base 30 yard totems, you can cover people within a circle 60 yards across. That's most boss fights, if you place totems correctly.

Also with reverberation your only thinking of current content where the 4 set tier 10 makes flame shock last longer without this we will be having to renew our flame shock so really its a help.

Which is why I put a point in Reverberation myself.

You've got that point in Convection, and unless something seriously changes with our mana/cost scaling, you will not be losing mana in single target fights, even without Convection. Go test it out; find a target dummy, do your full rotation, don't use Mana Spring, don't spec into Convection. After 5 minutes, if you're below 80% mana, I'll be surprised. You will quite likely still be at 95%+.

[Lusitan]

i dont know how many of you, are actually in beta, but any specc without Convection, you will be shooting yourself in the foot.

I've been raiding in beta since they opened the raids, changed speccs so many times i lost count.

with last beta build, im with this http://wowtal.com/#k=xzB-L7AP.a79.shaman.

Acuity - 2/3 - and possible will be 0/3 as we progress on raid tiers, the 2 points used were to compensate for my reforging, basically i trade the 2% crit from this talent for mastery.

Elemental Warding helps tons on heroics, especially the healers, theres so much AoE damage in so many fights, its a good talent to take.

EQ is useless theres no other way to put it.

On-topic:

Searing Totem AI is horrible, the ammount of wipes it caused in Heroic Dark council fight is unbelivable, when i found out it was ST causing i was really pissed, mainly cause he doesnt stop attacking the first target inflicted with the DoT, and when the golems get the shield u need to stop attacking them or they get buffed up, i switch my target normally but ST sticks with the same golem until its duration is over.

theres was a few solution i used to fix it:

- recast it when u change target
- cast Flametounge instead
- dont cast fire totem at all

i went for last option, in the end, as we had a Demo lock in the raid, as i cant be arsed babysitting a totem.

[Volitar]

i dont know how many of you, are actually in beta, but any specc without Convection, you will be shooting yourself in the foot.

I've been raiding in beta since they opened the raids, changed speccs so many times i lost count.

with last beta build, im with this http://wowtal.com/#k=xzB-L7AP.a79.shaman.

Acuity - 2/3 - and possible will be 0/3 as we progress on raid tiers, the 2 points used were to compensate for my reforging, basically i trade the 2% crit from this talent for mastery.

Elemental Warding helps tons on heroics, especially the healers, theres so much AoE damage in so many fights, its a good talent to take.

EQ is useless theres no other way to put it.

On-topic:

Searing Totem AI is horrible, the ammount of wipes it caused in Heroic Dark council fight is unbelivable, when i found out it was ST causing i was really pissed, mainly cause he doesnt stop attacking the first target inflicted with the DoT, and when the golems get the shield u need to stop attacking them or they get buffed up, i switch my target normally but ST sticks with the same golem until its duration is over.

theres was a few solution i used to fix it:

- recast it when u change target
- cast Flametounge instead
- dont cast fire totem at all

i went for last option, in the end, as we had a Demo lock in the raid, as i cant be arsed babysitting a totem.

That is pretty disappointing to hear =/

[Deleted]

Cheer It also hits waaaaay better than before :3

[Spongy]

Which is why I put a point in Reverberation myself.

You've got that point in Convection, and unless something seriously changes with our mana/cost scaling, you will not be losing mana in single target fights, even without Convection. Go test it out; find a target dummy, do your full rotation, don't use Mana Spring, don't spec into Convection. After 5 minutes, if you're below 80% mana, I'll be surprised. You will quite likely still be at 95%+.

Yeah the point in convection was a slip up meant to go in reverb. But I still think having a increased ranged on resistance totem etc is still going to be very good.
Anyone who says Ancestral Swiftness isn't a mandatory talent clearly has no idea about raiding. It decreases the amount of time you have to spend running out of bad stuff, into good stuff. Reduces the chance of you dieing. Increases the chance that you will get to a collapse point on a raid in time, I'm sorry but anybody who wants to get into a serious raiding guild will have to have it talented. You can't argue otherwise.