Are Totems still a big part of the class?

Classes Shaman
1

I’m thinking of leveling a Shaman (I will 100% be leveling a Shaman when classic hits) and I’m just wondering if Totems are still a big part of the class?

I love the idea of dropping totems and helping out my group with DPS/Healing

2

Not as much as they used to be, by miles. Elemental has one they can talent into (Liquid Magma Totem), and a talent that drops self-buff totems (Totem Mastery), Resto still has Healing Tide and Spirit Link. Enhancement… Uh…

They all have utility ones, if you wanna count those. Stun, slow, anti-fear thingy.

As far as I remember that’d be it.

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3

what a disappointment (I’m OP not sure why it choose the other character when I logged in)

4

I don’t mean to discourage you from playing Shaman, though, I still love the class to death. But yeah, if that was the main thing you liked, sadly it ain’t how it used to be. :frowning:

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5

Fortunately, shaman are no longer tied to the totem handicap.

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6

Resto shaman uses Healing stream totem, healing tide totem, spirit link totem, can talent into cloudburst totem and earthgrab totem. Can talent into earthen wall totem and ancestral protection totem.
Enhancement shaman can talent into totem mastery
Elemental shaman can (and almost always does) talent into totem mastery, can talent into liquid magma totem
All three specs have earthbind totem, capacitor totem, tremor totem.
There are also several totems that can be picked up for PVP. Not nearly as many as they used to.

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7

The only thing that saddens me for real is that, almost to mock the fact, the character selection screen still shows that totem there…

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8

I see my totems all the time :woman_shrugging:

9

I currently use (as resto):

Earth Bind Totem (slow)
Capacitor Totem (stun)
Spirit Link Totem (oh god, the tank is dying)
Healing Tide Totem (here, have extra heals)
Cloudburst Totem (stores up and releases heals)
Earthen Wall Totem (absorbs damage)
Tremor Totem (mass dispel of fear)

Half my action bar is totems, and I have three others in my talent tree I’ve chosen not to use. There are several totem options in the PvP talent list as well. So, yeah. Totems, totems, totems.

Totems are still a huge part of resto shaman-ing. It’s not as big as it was in Vanilla, but they’re still huge.

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10

Totems are still a big part of our gameplay, but compared to classic totems, they have gained in power but also lost uptime. They lost a lot of their buffing for more utility, which makes it more interesting overall in terms of gameplay.

Classic shaman and even into cata was basically a buff bot where mostly what you did was drop totems for your party members based on what group you were in (caster totems for casters, melee totems for melee). Outside of that, you basically were a chain heal bot as nobody will touch you as ele or enhance because of the hybrid tax. You do serve a vital role, windfury totem is amazing, strength of earth totem also provides a nice strength buff for the melee DPS. But your entire value is in those totems, so you have to stop what you are doing every 2 minutes to drop a new set of totems.

11

And lust was exclusive to Shamans in vanilla right …

12

Lust came in BC.

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13

They added the spell that let you summon all 4 at once later on though. With Totemic Mastery, you still end up casting totems every 2 minutes. I miss having group buffs.

14

Yup, I think it was Wrath or Cata when that feature came about. I remember you could select your totem in a menu. It was cool, but definitely not around. Totems were also group only in classic so they had to figure out where to put you or who would benefit the most from your buffs. It was fun outside of the annoyance of spending 4 globals every 2 minutes to drop totems.

15

I still use them all the time, but if I forget to drop them, it’s not the end of the world.