On Shammy totems, circa patch 2.3.
Draezele recently posted about changes that can be implemented for the Shaman class in World of Warcraft (WoW). The proposals made got me thinking, especially since this isn’t the first time Shaman issues have cropped up.
Firstly, I’m amazed that no one’s come up with a Shaman equivalent of Venantes, the Hunter mod with expandable buttons for things such as traps, aspects, and pet abilities. Admittedly, I may have simply missed this type of mod, but it’s certainly something that other Shammy players ought be aware of.
With mobile encounters since Burning Crusade (BC) went live, totems have been an annoyance since they need to be re-dropped as the fight progresses. Blizzard threw a band-aid on the problem by allowing Shamans to unsummon totems and recover some of their mana back, but this isn’t a solid solution. Instead, there ought be an ability that allows a Shaman to “unroot” totems, so that they travel with him. During this time, the “clock” on the respective totems is paused, and the effects of the totems are paused as well. Once the Shaman has found his new position, he can drop the totems again, which would unpause their clock and function accordingly. Since mobility is much less of an issue here, more Shamans will keep their totems active, which can only be good for groups accompanying Shaman characters in instances.
As far as durability is concerned, I have no qualms with making most, if not all totems invincible. This is because the Shaman should have clear benefits when positioning himself properly, and be weaker when drawn away from his totems or forced to be mobile. This would make the Shaman a much more potent defensive player in Battlegrounds, while decreasing his buffs when he is forced to go offensive. In many ways, this fits the concept of the spiritual leader well.
An interesting addition to this new mechanic of “floating-but-inactive” totems would be to create “reverse” effects which kick in when a totem is placed into its mobile mode. For example, when an Earthbind totem is unrooted, it could instill a minor speed buff on the Shaman, but would therefore continue its clock, unlike totems that have no such secondary effect. Similarly, a floating Earthbind totem could “unbind” the Shaman from CC effects, per a two-to-three second “tick”.
These days, I’m tempted to side with Blizzard that the totem mechanic is inherently a good and balanced one, so long as some tweaks are implemented that force Shamans to rely more on totems, but gain benefits accordingly.
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I really like the concept of being able to pick up your totems and then redploy them (although one could argue that it’s not far from our current system other than requiring mana and global cooldowns to drop). This has some potential for abuse (pulling them up if you see a rogue going after them, for example), so they’d have to think this one carefully. Alternate buffs while carrying totems is also interesting, but would be difficult to balance as well.
I’m pretty certain that invulnerable totems wouldn’t fly, however, as there aren’t very many abilities that are completely uncounterable (although most by dispel). I fear that the nerf cries would be overwhelming, to the point that we’d probably wind up in even worse shape. But we can dream, right?
As for addons, I’m not familiar with Venantes (although it sounds similar to zHunter, which I used with my hunter). However, there are several mods that give similar functionality, such as TotemTimers, GotWood and YATA (I’ve only used TotemTimers, but have been very happy with it - it has easy drop boxes, plus the ability to set “default” totems that you can simply click on without going through the menu).
Thanks for the mention, and I’m glad you pointed me your way. I especially enjoyed your dual-boxing post since I’ve been considering getting a second account to run exactly the same hunter/shaman setup.
One of the biggest problems with totems is that they cost a fair amount of mana when they’re not providing benefits for their full duration. This tends to ingrain poor habits in younger Shamans, in that they ignore totems for a good amount of time because they want to save on mana use. However, if totems can be picked up and “frozen”, then when they are re-deployed, the Shaman saves on mana and can keep one totem active through numerous fights, as he can time when to “freeze” a totem to make the most of its duration.
Now that I’ve thought more about it, the idea of two “stances” for the Shaman would be ideal. One stance would be the current “grounded” totem stance (I’ll call it the Physical Stance), while the other would be the “frozen” stance (what I’ll call the Spiritual Stance).
In close-quarters PvP combat, it’s often an enormous hassle to drop all four totems on account of the global cooldown. However, if a Shaman can cast totems in Spiritual Stance, he’s effectively queued up his totems for a particular encounter. By entering Physical Stance, the Shaman immediately drops up to four totems, and is at full buffed capacity when the encounter begins. This would somewhat close the gap between Shaman totems and Paladin Blessings.
If there are too many nerf cries, mobility can be somewhat more restricted by putting a cooldown on the stance switch, such that Shamans can’t keep freezing their totem timers every couple seconds.
I’ll have to check out the addons you mention. Despite playing numerous classes, I think my Shammy is the only character that uses all of Bongo’s button bars, and he has the most cluttered interface of any character I’ve seen.
Thanks for stopping by, and good luck on the dual-boxing; drop me a line if you have any questions about your setup if/when you get around to it.
[...] Draezele and Mendax.org’s WyldKard go back and forth on how to fix shamans. WyldKard focuses particularly on totem mobility. It’s a subject near and dear to my heart as [...]
That’s funny… Venantes seems to be a hunter version of Totemus:
http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/5723/
(Which I’m pretty sure is the original), I think there’s a warlock version as well… maybe more.
Totemus is alright… sure it looks cool, but I find the bubble design can be trouble in a pinch. That’s why I like TotemTimers. Maybe the name throws people, but it’s an expandable totem menu that’s real easy to use.
I’m not a big fan of addons in general… but I can’t play my shammy without TotemTimers.
http://downloads.curse.com/details/5492/
Bliz really needs to just put this in the UI.
Look at “Totemus” mod - all of these sphere mods are derived from the original Necrosis for warlocks, but Totemus is really quite good. It includes totem timers, and a lot of flexibility along with the expandable buttons (one per totem element, one for weapon buffs, etc.).
TOTEMUS - your button bars will thank you.