I am pretty sure I gave you the answer to your implausible situation that doesn’t exist.
The entire premise of your post seems to be talking about old buff totems in todays WoW as if they are coming back. That isn’t happening.
Sorry.
Lemme get this straight, you’re talking about buffing abilities that don’t exist? Or rather abilities that may or may not come to exist in the next expansion?
Also, if you’re talking mechanic-wise, killing the shaman is the hardest way to get a totem not to work. Try killing the totem or moving the person out of range. Hope this helps.
This almost doesn’t involve totems period. I’m looking at the concepts of external buffs in terms of power balance.
Buffs applied to a character has certain benefits and costs, and generally low risk. Buffs external - here to mean they can be removed by any character despite not having Purge - has far more risk. That’s fine. But is the power level comparable?
Risk and reward should really be moving together.
As for your assertion that the Shaman is the harder thing to kill, the depends on its HP bar when the totem is dropped. If I’m about the kill a shaman, and he drops EB or Stonewall, I have no reason to pivot off of the shaman. Now, you might not anyway, but the point is if I were a paladin at the same health level and I buffed someone as I was about to die - doesn’t matter.
Totem buffs are not purgeable, as opposed to others. That should factor into the balancing as well.
If by EB you mean Earthbind, definitely you have no reason to even get rid of the totem. Stonewall (Earthen Wall) works in this case, yeah, but that’s it’s core concept: something that wants to be killed instead of the shaman.
In any other case, no matter the HP level, the sham has more than 5 hp left. Kill the totem (SF, CS, HS, SLT, etc).
Edit: adding (Earthen Wall)
Totems in game are just treated as if they are spells. As we all know from other classes like mages, warlocks, etc all spells have a duration and upon death they just go away. The same with our totems they are just another spell. Unless you can convenience Blizzard to change them they will always be considered a spell and nothing more.
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No. The shaman can be killed more quickly than a totem in many circumstances. The “more than 5 hp” thing doesn’t make sense, especially in PVP setting where no one hits you for 4 damage, and there’ often multiple people on you at once.
Ok.
I think I’m missing the punch line. Here. Yes. They are just spells. What’s the change about what I said?
Edit: typos
Well it does make a lot of sense. It’s just another route to get rid of the totem buff. I really don’t see your point, the shaman’s death causing the totem to vanish is highly negligible since if you have a good totem it’s gonna get sniped even if it lasted post-death.
The OP I think was advocating that totems be treated differently than as a spell. In real life Totems are scared things and yet we treat them as nothing more than just a cheap thing we place up. So, I think if we as shamans asked as one for Blizzard to treat them differently than just a simple spell and present a valid argument. Blizzard could change it. However, how that valid argument would be is not for me to say.
…yeah. That’s the point. The totem can be sniped. The buff cannot.
Totems were horde’s auras in vanilla. When the pally dies, the aura was gone. They could have changes it when they removed auras, but I guess they liked the concept, or more than likely, just didn’t notice.
Your house always has power, but you need something plugged into it to do anything.
Right so the appliance should give better buffs with a cord than with batteries.
Right, but the power (the elements) is still there when the appliance (the shaman) is unplugged.
Also, daisy chaining wires in your house (elements to the shaman to their allies) weakens the power. There is also nothing saying those totems you’re using are weak. How to you make tremor more powerful? Extending the time isn’t power.
The totems we have aren’t buffs, so making them more powerful consists of extending time, or adding other aspects, which would be too much.
If it wasn’t, then the Dwarf Priest in Classic wouldn’t be OP.
What good does making things last longer do if it goes away when you die? Most people, including Blizzard obviously, don’t have a problem with the totem fading at death. This whole arguement seems a little nitpicky, for something that won’t help us secure a raid/mythic+/PvP spot. If we’re asking for changes, I’d like to see something that really makes a difference.
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