Ok, so I legit stopped playing when shammy totems were neutered at MoP, and I was wondering a few things:
1.) Why were they removed? (Mana spring, strength of earth, etc)
2.) Are there any plans to bring them back in the future?
Old shaman totems were so nice to have for utility and buffs in raids. I definitely could see them brought back to cement Shammies (even if it’s just to one spec, say ele) as a utility dps that brings a number of unique buffs per raid.
And for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about or didn’t play back before MoP, shamans could summon 4 totems (kind of like totemic mastery) that provided buffs to people within 40 yds. They had no cd but cost a decent amount of mana (that you could unsummon and get a mana refund), and you could select 1 earth, 1 fire, 1 water, and 1 air totem (wow, speaking about this reminds me of the quests to unlock them way back on azuremyst. Loved it).
You could summon them all at once and they lasted for 5 minutes or until you unsummoned, or moved them (could only have 1 of each type up at once).
This would definitely bring shamans back into the PvE spotlight. I only hope that Blizz thinks about bringing them back. I feel like shaman rn is a shell of its former self and that Blizz is just severely undercutting their potential. I know I’m not the only person who feels this way.
2 Likes
Makes me wonder if MMO intentionally dropped the RPG for marketing and development purposes.
Are you longing for a deep story about becoming a shaman, instead of a quick flip to max level able to be shortcut by the low price of $59.99?
Seems like you are looking for the immersion more than the playability. New shaman isn’t terrible with totems, but removing GCD on them would be a tasty treat for those longing for unique identity through totems.
i dont want a plethora of buff style totems that are necessary to drop for raids. I do however agree that there should be some totems that buff raids to add to our utility base. Haste/spell power/attack power buff or healing stream totem baseline and for all specs would be great additions. We need more unique interactive totems, like Tremor that would help. Even individually, like buffing our survivability by adding in Stoneskin totem etc. That would really play into the fantasy Shamans with totems.
But again, i dont want 4 buff totems (earth, air, water, fire) that i have to reapply every time i use a unique utility totem. 1 or 2 would be great though and they can differ per spec.
3 Likes
I mean, if we wanna talk about having shamans be a necessity we could just go back to when you needed a shaman for battle rezzes way tf back.
You didn’t need to summon all. There was just an option to quick summon up to 4 of them. You still had the option to summon individual ones and they’d provide buffs like increase to strength and agility (earth), mana regen (air), haste increase (air), spellpower increase (fire), and of course healing stream.
I just feel like right now, shaman doesn’t really have an identity for raids (besides resto). They provide some aoe damage but can easily be dwarfed by other classes for aoe. They’re not really big on single target either. I feel like they’re this weird hybrid class that feels like you’re doing a lot visually but you’re not doing much in the numbers unless you’re REALLY well geared.
The old totems were a serious handicap to all shaman.
Shaman personal damage was nerfed to compensate for totems.
Raids wanted 1 shaman, and no extra. The totem buffs did not stack. You just hurt your raid way too much with multiple shaman.
I would be seriously disappointed if we returned to being a neutered DPS spec, that brings totems and are mostly there to “not die” rather than contribute any personal dps. It would kill our dungeon viability as well.
1 Like
I dont understand why people dont get this and why so many have this misplaced nostalgia with totems and that game play.
You can see this with priests on zul.
“We just need a priest for Mass dispelling. Literally just stand there and MD.”
Or locks on Ghuun.
We just need a gateway. You dont even have to dps just make sure you dont die and gateway is in the right spot.
On mythic Mother to cheese the first room.
We need rsham for link to make it easier then melee through the wall.
Shaman was gimped in performance because they made everyone else better. Why would you want to be handicapped so you could be a personal buff but to a raid/team.
Now if you want to bring a totem weaving playstyle to shaman to make it more interesting or challenging then I’m down.
3 Likes
Because Totems were a handicap. Destroyable buffs you can run out of the range of are not a good design. Things like searing totem and fire nova totem were extraneous 1% damage at best.
Not only that but a lot of totems were removed because SIMILAR skills on other classes were also removed. Most mana skills were pruned, for example. Specially since RDPS classes moved away from mana for doing DPS. It wasnt just mana spring/tide that were removed.
Also totems still exist. All 3 specs have several totems to their disposal. The important ones, like Resto CDs, CC ones and PvP ones. Ele and Enh have Totem Mastery. Enh can drop totems that buff Windfury.
[quote=“Kazgaen-shattered-hand, post:7, topic:53417, full:true”]
Because Totems were a handicap. Destroyable buffs you can run out of the range of are not a good design. Things like searing totem and fire nova totem were extraneous 1% damage at best.[/quote]
100% this. Shaman aren’t totems. They never should have been. The original devs had some weird “voodoo spellcaster” concept in their heads (probably based around the trolls, considering the way they talk) without realizing the design they were really taking on.
They took a class based on casting spells using the 4 elements and tried smashing all 4 elements into each of 3 specs, without realizing they could have made 4 specs, each based on a single element.
Shaman should have been what Druids became, but due to shortsightedness, we have a 2 lacklustre (overall) DPS specs and a middle of the pack healing spec.
Blizzard, don’t be afraid of this. You can still salvage our class. Tear it open and 4 form it into a 4 spec, single element per spec class. The result could be AMAZING.
Elemental is not lackluster right now. At all.
Totems are a touchy subject. On one hand… They are what made us shaman. Shamanism using totems is what we are based on, like it or not. It is our class flavor, our uniqueness… It was shaman. On the other hand however… totems where so poorly executed that the shaman itself had to suffer because of it… damage… healing all that jazz.
Now… let us look at mages in bfa. Right meow. They got arcane intellect back… but how much of the mage was nerfed so they could buff the team that extra 3% int ? (Why 3? … scrolls of course!) There wasn’t any. Blizzard could give shaman impactful buff totems, Like returning mana tide for resto, giving skyfury to ele in pve… and of course… the big daddy of wanted totems… Windfury for enh in pve.
These totems could be “larger” raid cds… like a DH darkness but offensive in purpose. It can be done, and it could be done well.
Now… the last part. What I think. My totem suggestions would be neat, but at the end of the day I wouldn’t want them to exist. Blizzard hasn’t earn’t back my trust in balancing classes around such things, especially after the disrespectful 8.1 changes enh got… you poor shaman.
It saddens me to say that I would rather no totems than poor totems but, at this stage there is little choice. It would be a huge risk to add these totems into the game… and after the launch of bfa and how bad we where… It isn’t a risk im willing to accept or take right now.
3 Likes
Raids wanted 1 shaman, and no extra
False. Raids wanted at least 1 shaman for melee group, 1 shaman for caster group, and 1 shaman for healer group. Melee Group got Windfury Totem and Strength of Earth Totem, Caster and Healer groups got tranquil air and mana tide totems. Depending on the raid comp it was common to see up to 6 shamans in a raid.
If you were lucky you got to be the single enh shaman with nightfall.
I was mostly referring to the WotLK era, where there was no tranquil air. I was part of a very high end guild at the time. I was the token shammy.
Plus, they overwrote regular player-applied long-term buffs, effectively erasing them after the totem was gone. I pretty mush stopped using them in raids because players kept complaining about their buffs disappearing.
“Raids wanted 1 shaman, and no extra” - Totems worked on a party level and not raid level. There was a lot of planning involved with what totems would be used for which party. I personally don’t miss the old style totems though.
Totems became raidwide with their buffs.