Supposedly totems are an iconic aspect of the Shaman class. In Vanilla this was obviously represented by the Shaman’s use of totems in their role as a support class to buff the raid. Unfortunately the idea of a support class doesn’t really fit into the game that we play now, and neither do permanent totems, which appear entirely underwhelming when compared to other abilities, and don’t impact gameplay at any real level.
But when was the first time we’ve ever seen a totem in WoW? The answer is the very first cinematic. We see a Tauren Shaman Man-fight (cow-fight?) a bear. With a totem. And what does he do with this totem? Does he stick it in the ground? Does it sprinkle water on him or spit out little fireballs? No, he slams the bear in the face with it. And so I ask you, why do we need ground-placed totems at all? If you want to make totems an integral part of the shaman identity, why not turn totems into a weapon, or an item similar to the relic slot item we used to have in the earlier expansions? A totem could be a self cast buff that empowers us in some way, something that we can actually do something with that really effects our gameplay as a shaman, rather than providing some piddly low impact buff. The Highmountain heritage armor has you carry a totem on your back. Why can’t this be what Shaman totems are? Totems could exist in the form of equipable items that we carry on our back that provide us with some sort of enhancement, something that we pre-equip or cycle through in order to use the right totem for whatever we’re trying to do.
As an example, think of Earthshaker from Dota. He carries a totem on his back, and uses it as a weapon to smash face, slam the ground, and to empower himself. This seems like a much better way to make totems an iconic part of the shaman class rather than some gimmicky low impact stick in the ground that provides a passive buff you don’t really feel, all while getting lost in the melee clutter and never actually seen by anyone.
And if you’re wondering what to do with all of the totems we have now, the answer is simple. Keep the abilities and remove the word totem from their name. There’s no reason any of our totem abilities need to be totems. they can all be regular abilities that are either cast on the ground or at the shaman’s location.
Yeah I like this idea like what if instead of totems like now we have a new crafting system like how dks have rune forging for weapons and we craft our totems we carry around either on our backs or around our waist for special effects depending on the totems we pick. That would be amazing imo
Auto-attacking and waiting for windfury procs in modern wow will be as unenjoyable as unpruned totem, I promise you. Go ask frost DKs how much they loved all the downtime in their rotation in Uldir. 2H enhance can exist as a cosmetic choice, but mindless auto attacking for big RNG crits won’t help the spec in any way.
It’s only better at a cosmetic level. Neither totems nor 2h windfury are what enhancement needs to be engaging or competitive. The above proposal was about turning totems into something entirely different from ground placed buffs and minor effects, as these things are entirely outdated in modern wow. I’d much rather see a big glowing totem on my back that I actively engage with in my rotation to augment my gameplay rather than a stick i put in the ground for the equivalent of a battle shout buff or an imp fireball. 2H windfury was fun back in the day, when pretty much all any class did was spam a filler spell or auto attack, but it’s as out of place as buff totems are in the current game. I’d have no problem with smashing face with a big hammer instead of two little ones, but I don’t want my gameplay to revolve around auto attacking, and I think pretty much any raider who has to play their class for 3 hours a night would agree
How does giving enhance back 2h without changing anything make enhance PVP fun?
You would just do way less dmg than what you already do. Even enhance shamans in classic wow aren’t having fun. Even enhance shamans with epic 2H aren’t having fun. They are getting crapped on while waiting for a WF proc that doesnt really do anything that is above 50% HP.
I choose neither? That isn’t the only option we have. As far as I can tell, neither are welcome ideas by the majority of people who play enhancement at a high level and understand the problems of the spec. If you want 2H windfury, you’re welcome to continue playing classic, since that’s the only point in time where it ever made sense, and even then it was mediocre. Imagine trying to afk auto attack praying for good RNG in PVP in a world where every single class has some sort of mobility and cc to prevent you from doing exactly that. The only way it would ever work is if it were so broken that you could one randomly one-shot people, and that would be neither skillful nor fair.
Back to the original point of this thread, there are a great many things that could be done to improve enhancement’s gameplay and core mechanics, and we don’t need to simply revert the spec to some prior point in history in order to accomplish this. I’d like to see some new ideas rather than a half-baked revert, because that’s how you’ll get searing totem. Do you want searing totem? I think not.
better then useless totems the only good thing in shadowlands so far is frost shock is coming back.
you dont need to play at a high level to understand the spec has bad game mechanics like attacks that are buffs that buff other attacks that waste a gcd…lol.
you dont need to play at high levels to understand that enhancements rotation is just plain bad.
If its a dps increase to do it, you have to do it. That’s how mythic raiding works. You’ll never be able to justify giving up free damage on progression.
I like it. It’s not as if it’s an empty CD. They do damage, and increase damage for all other attacks. When the enh meta in Legion removed frostbrand, I lost interest, and just stopped playing until right before the BfA prepatch.
I enjoy that aspect of the playstyle. Enh isn’t perfect, I would like to see SS CD removed, sundering to go baseline and the proc moved from SS to sundering (not the same kind of spammy proc SS has now, more like the fury/arms(?) execute proc), shocks brought back, and hailstorm made baseline. I feel like this would create a fun dynamic playstyle, that uses more of the toolkit, more often.
I love needing to use all of the elements in my rotation, hitting baddies with fire, ice, earth, and lightning in a flurry.
This list way for 2h to come back to frost. Obviously we can not use all of the suggestions as it is concerning the runes that DK’s can put onto their weapons. But yes we can get it back.