So in season 3 everything is saying Stormbringer is the only spec to play for all content. My question is, how big of a difference is Stormbringer over totemic?
Are we talking like a difference of 5% or more, or less?
I just despise Stormbringer, I don’t find it fun, I find I’m just constantly spamming SS, but I don’t wanna hinder my group by a huge amount.
Lash and ele blast just got a decent buff, so I think you should be fine.
Would like to see a buff to totemic to increase overall fire damage and allow ele blast to proc voltaic blaze, which would help a lot evening out the difference.
It didnt do nearly enough to fix the real problem right now which is that totemic does tank damage in ST. Aoe we are okay probably middle of the pack just left behind hardcore in our single target and prio damage. IDK how blizz can fix it, but id like to see them try.
Pull some of the damage out of the totem and remove the cd from ele blast could possibly work.
I think the problem comes from our tier set being pretty weak and uninteresting tbh. Maybe the tier set makes prim storm fire ele blasts rather than lightning bolts would be cool
Totemic is miles behind Stormbringer in both AOE and single target. In Single Target Totemic is the worst spec in the game right now.
I personally hate totemic, as it’s very clunky and buggy. I was very excited about the changes they were doing to it going into season2. But it turned out to be unplayable in season2, mostly because of the bug where you could not spend Maelstrom Weapon stacks (this affected both hero trees). But more important bug, which was never fixed during season2, is where you do not get Hot Hands after consuming fire mote. It’s tragic when it happens.
I am not even going to bother to check if they fixed it in season3.
I refuse to play this clunky tree.
Managing that stupid totem, especially in M+ is so extremely tedious.
They are making the same mistake they made with Windfury Totem.
Just attach Surging Totem to your character, my shaman should be able to carry it on his back.
Currently you can play Stormbringer and spam SS all day.
Or you can play Totemic and spam LL all day.
SS on Stormbringer is so much better, it has 2 stacks, it resets itself, it’s reset via Legacy of The Frost Witch, it generates a ton of Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
LL on Totemic is super bad, has only one stack, can only be really used with Hot Hands proc, and even then you can only use it every other global. You have to use something else between, but there are no good buttons to press. You would like to cast some spenders, but LL does not generate enough MW stacks. It’s so bad and clunky.
I don’t understand why Totemic tree does not make LL work with Windfury Weapon.
There is also weird thing, that I cannot explain, that happens with LL cooldown. Game does not show correct cooldown, even when you use weakauras. Sometimes LL appears to be ready, but you cannot use it, when you spam the key, your character tries to make a swing animation, but nothing happens, since in reality LL is not ready yet. If you spam the button, the animation is repeated over and over again. It’s super weird. It makes you waste time, since during that time you are not using any ability.
Tierset is super weak as well. It was bugged for the entirety of PTR, so it was not testable. They fixed most pressing bugs just before the release, but the bonus itself was not really tested, and therefore was not adjusted properly.
Extra Primordial Storm from the set does not work with weapon enchants, and 4 piece bonus is just too weak. Nobody even plays Fire Nova anyways.
Enhancement AOE abilities - Fire Nova and Hailstorm are way too weak, this needs to be addressed. As band aid fix, they can maybe make Swirling Maelstrom baseline.
That was changed in season2. Back in season1 most of the damage was coming from the totem, and imo it was a lot more fun, compared to what it is now. Now the tree is based around Hot Hands and Lava Lash.
I also hate the change they did to Sundering, and how it resets now.
I have 0 confidence they will address any of the issues in 11.2.5. Hopefully they will rework the Totemic tree in 12.0.
That sucks, hopefully they buff it.
See it’s the opposite for me. I know LL can bug out, but I feel like the rotation/priority is so much smoother than Stormbringer. The sad thing is, after reading yours and other comments, I specced Stormbringer and went and whacked on the dummy, and just me haphazardly playing wack-a-mole and not tracking my tempest charges, I was out dpsing my totemic build by a couple hundred thousand. But I was bored, and I don’t like it haha
I struggled with it at first, but I found a WA for it that just tells me how many seconds are left on it, and then I get a verbal queue when I need to drop it again. I agree having to move it constantly is extremely outdated, especially considering how much of our damage is tied to it, but it’s still better than managing tempest imo.
When I get home from my current work trip I’m going to do some more playing around with it, especially since I picked up 2 set just before leaving and haven’t had a chance to play with it yet. It might grow on me.
Any WA’s you find mandatory while playing Stormbringer?
On Stormbringer everyone is using Nikyou’s tempest tracker WA. But in my opinion it has flawed logic and it resets incorrectly. I made my own with chatgpt.
You also need a WA to track progress of new tierset.
In general, I suggest you check out youtube guides by Zorthas.
He mentions, how important it is not not proc tierset at the end of the pull. Initially I thought it would not be a big deal, but after playing with it in some dungeons, proccing it as the mobs die in m+ is really depressing. So your really need to track that.
This leads to quite bad gameplay experience, you need to stop dps sometimes.
According to my own character, ST difference is around 300k and 5 targets is around 2million.
But I only have 2 piece so idk how accurate this is, but Stormbringer is definitely pulling ahead.
I’m ashamed to admit that it was just recently I learned that if Surging Totem is active I can recast the ability to relocate it next to me. I use an @player macro for the ability to remove having to cursor place it. This knowledge was a good QoL improvement to me. Oddly enough using the ability again as Resto doesn’t relocate the totem (even after using Downpour); you need totemic projection for Restoration.
The tier set bonus for Totemic is just comparatively trash for Enh and Resto. It needs to be buffed. I foresee two/three outcomes: Stormbringer gets nerfed and/or Totemic gets buffed.
I really hope totemic gets buffed. It just really embodies the Shaman class fantasy for Enhancement. You’re mixing so many types of damage schools, your weapon imbuements contribute more, you’re using totems, primal elements, etc.