I want DH range where I cant cast at him but he can nuke me until I phase out range.
Make purge great again
Either way works ā point is Blizzard is stuck in outdated totem mindset because their coders are too poor to find the original code and edit totems without breaking the game, or they just donāt care about shaman having a class identity.
Never played Enh but I leveled a Frost DK to 120 with the intention of making it my main in SL ( undead theme and all ) but the GCD use to setup damage really turned me off.
Part of the appeal of playing shaman is living the class fantasy (as many have mentioned before). Searing totem was an original ability in vanilla, and I think thereās a nostalgic value to it.
When it was initially announced that searing totem was going to be available for all specs I was really excited, as it was one of my favorite abilities.
To those arguing that searing totem is useless because it provided terrible dps; thatās not really the point of totems. Totems are a defining class feature that some people enjoying using. Sure, getting rid of one searing totem would still leave an array of other totems. However, searing totem had its place as a steadfast turret. It use to be something you could have constantly at your side, actively battling along side you (at least in vanilla anyways), which was helpful with revealing rogues (as someone else had mentioned). As a healer, it was nice having it out doing some damage while you where busy managing everyoneās health. Although it wasnāt meant to be your main ādamage dealerā, it was respectable.
I see a lot of belittling of players because they like searing totem. Who cares what other players like? If searing totem the defining feature for others to enjoy the class even more, so be it. Doesnāt really affect you as to what other people enjoy, so who cares?
All in all, there are still many that enjoy having a totem they can summon to battle along their side.
If you want the player to be the source of power, why not play mage, or druid at that point? You mentioned spirit animals fighting along side you, how does that differ from hunter?
I feel like when you say ālay to restā the totems, youāre actually ālaying to restā an iconic feature of the class. Sure we can strip the shaman of totems, but the shaman would just be a generic version of any other spell caster class at that point.
I miss Sentry Totemā¦ Magma Totemā¦ I liked the utility that Totems bring, as long as they arenāt the mainstay.
Blizz could have added Totemic Projection into each totem and let us move them around to our hearts content.
Butā¦ hopefully they figure something out with our class identity.
Because the game is not vanilla anymore ā¦ and wasting a GCD every time you move because you need to put a totem down will ruin the DPS of shamans as the game is designed towards high mobility encounters .
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Good riddance. One less trivial CD to manage is always a good thing.
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Why this isnāt just turned into a stronger guardian type cooldown is beyond meā¦Itās iconic, and a simple rework of the totem into the guardian classification would solve everything (increase the range, no worry about it dying to low hp because hp is non-existent). Meanwhile, Beastmastery gets spitting cobra ( essentially the same thing but working properly with meaninful damage) as a high level talent option.
Blizzard clearly hates working on Shaman.
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I agree Iām kind of sad that the ability is gone. However what makes me more sad is the lack of totem play in general. I liked that the class was a support class in some ways. Iām a big fan of Everquest and I always enjoyed how they had the Bard class which had a very important role of buffing up a team. These days not many classes can offer buffs to their friends. I understand the need to enforce meaningful gameplay but these days there are only 3 rolls: Tank, Heal, DPSā¦ support is gone entirely.
My suggestion is that Shaman be given a fourth totem focused build which allows the Shaman to be a buffing class. Iām no game designer but to keep it from feeling too passive have it so that there is some form of buff maintenance similar to healing.
Lastly without utility totems it feels like totems are kind of pointless. So why even bother having unique totems for each race? I just think that totems in general are a big part of what made Shaman in WoW stand out compared to other games.
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me too friend. It was some class fantasy and the rpg they were trying to bring backā¦
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Being a buff bot never worked. It hurt the class, hurt its design, and hurt its ability to get into a raid.
Personally I hate how bards are in EQ. They are a class that has to be ridiculously stacked for your raid.
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I hear you, I really do. Perhaps the bigger picture is that classes are becoming too narrow. I had a great experience last week playing my Paladin. I was a DPS Pally and our tank was a Pally as well in a normal dungeon. The boss we were fighting decimated our team with an AOE attack but me and the tank survived. Using my heals and his we were able to fight the boss and even win. It was an epic moment which really shows the diversity of the Paladin class. I think what WoW needs at this point is more utility. If someone drops in your group itād be great if another group member can pick up the torch and carry on. Right now if your tank or healer dies there is a very good chance that the party will wipe.
I havenāt been following the Shadowlands class changes too closely but what Iāve read makes it sound like some of that utility will be coming back? Iām not sure if itāll be enough though to allow a DPS shaman to on-the-fly switch over to healing if the main healer has fallen.
Why wasnāt searing totem given treatment to make it an actual dps cooldown in the vein of Rokhanās Greater Serpent Totem
This would have made too much sense I guess.
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If your tank/healer dies and you can continue because a DPS can seamlessly transition into the role mid fight, that just means the content is trivial.
If you remove the need for specialized roles to be required, then you just load up 5 dps and do whatever.
this being said i have tanked situations as ELE stacking PS and with EE/PE long enough for tank to rez in M+. Granted this wasnt high keys and I just kited them with totems and TS.
I would love for more totems but they would have to be meaningful and not an after thought.
More HP. If they require dps to swap to them then they should require some serious dmg to kill. Why can a hunter summon 3 additional pets and they have more health than the hunter? Why can a lock have 50 imps and they dont die in one CL? If we arent going to have good defensives or really strong self healing or an immunity then give us impactful totems with high sustain or high burst or high utility but stop making them fragile.
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I think we are of two different minds because our viewpoints are not the same. My guess is youāre a hardcore raider? To give context Iām not and Iāve only ever raided once. Itās not trivial to be able to have emergent gameplay in your game but rather it shows gameplay diversity. Though I only have limited experience in raiding I wouldnāt suggest to change that. However with casual adventuring I think the game can benefit from diversity. Of course in 20 and 40 person groups people are going to need to have roles. If they didnāt itād be like hearding cats:
Raid leader: āAkston is healing, back off Bubblies!ā
Bubblies: āBut it looked like he needed help!ā
But again diversity doesnāt = triviality. Tons of games throughout gaming history have had diversity within player roles and they do just fine. Iām not suggesting a huge world shattering change in how the game works Iām just saying more ways to play can be a good thing. I donāt like it when games get so fine tuned that there is only āone way to playā a class, one spec that works for the majority of the content. But weāre off topic here for Shaman I think totems need to make a return. How should they come back? Thatās up to blizzard but for players who have been around since launch Totems were always a big draw to the classā¦ sure we old timers could go play Classic but it just feels like something was lost with the Shaman class identity. Just my opinion though.
Totems are still a draw to the class and largely make or break what race I will play. If the totems are doodoo, no ty.
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This just feeds into my tinfoil hat theory though. Totems largely havenāt been changed for nearly 3-4 expansions.
I truly believe that the code is so old / poorly documented / the people that wrote it no longer work there that the current team has areas of the game that they donāt understand. And if they try to figure it out, they break the game.
Example: Totems not being overhauled
Further evidenced by classes not truly being iterated on, and instead getting a borrowed power system that layers on top of everything else and can be tuned individually from the older codes.
/tinfoilhatoff
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Right, and using 2 talents on a major cd as a stop gap I feel is slightly different. If we are just talking about giving some hybrid classes some intense short term burst abilities to fill in while waiting for a battlerez, i get ya there. I just dont particular want dps to easily be able to switch roles mid fight. I should have clarified.
I am not against diversity. I donāt feel a single person being able to cover multiple roles easily is diverse.
I am not saying that shaman need only 1 spec that is the correct way to play. Only that if you are enhance/elemental you shouldnāt be able to easily switch into a healing role mid fight. That would break the game in other areas.