Easily the most annoying aspect of Totemic (especially for Enhance) is waiting the 10 seconds to move the Surging Totem again.
Totemic Projection should have a 3s cooldown IMO.
2 Likes
Iâd pivot and say the most annoying aspect of totemic is that the damage is tied to a totem area effect in the first place
totemic is raw garbage that needs to be completely redesigned (enh)
I think itâs got potential tbh, there are just too many talents that are super boring. Random WF buff, cd reduction on rare use-case totems, and even the final capstone Whirling Elements is convoluted and uninteractive.
What if for Whirling Elements they made it so that you got a buff every time you did frost+fire+nature damage in 10 seconds or smthn like that.
What if instead of a generic cd reduction, you got a mastery buff with cap totem stuns, haste buff with poison dispel, crit buff with tremor dispel, things like that to actually reward you using those totems. Because I mean seriously how many times have you found yourself wishing you could be spamming poison cleanse totem.
And I think (but am not optimistic about) they need to take the totem off the gcd just like totemic projection
This ^
I donât understand shamans that try to be totemic in PvE situations, itâs clearly made for raid environment, even there⊠not sure itâs going to be âthatâ good outside of Resto Totemic.
I know I already said what the âmost annoying aspectâ was but in terms of actual functionality, it has no potential. Both sides of the tree being in conflict for what button becomes priority is insane design, and screams that whoever stamped it for approval doesnât even play enhancement.
bit underwhelming for a capstone
I would certainly rather this thing be deleted or redesigned than to EVER have to use utility totems rotationally.
1 Like
Kinda wanted to try Totemic, but now not anymore! >.<
Totemic works if you want to push more than 3 buttons to do the rotation. Also Totemic as I said in another thread is nothing like the Shamans specs of old. With Totemic you have a build within the build. Do you want your primary damage to be Elemental or Physical? With Totemic, it will not do everything at the top, but will take one of those sides and be great at it. Design flaw? Well I guess we will see.
Playing does require some upkeep, and who you play with. If you play in a group where the tank is running around like a chicken with no head, then yes, your damage is going to be lower, because the tank would have moved the mobs out of your surging totem damage radius. This same playstyle will have you babysit the totem more as you will need to re-locate it during the fight.
If you play with a party you know, a tank who actually understands tanking, then the spec can be very rewarding and put out very good numbers. Remember as Enhance you have many utilities you can use, and in these new dungeons you will need them. So there is that.
I would say that if you are curious about Totemic, now is the time to give it a try. Try it while players are still getting their specs and gear together before M+ and raids come. Just do a follower dungeon and see how it goes. Who knows? You may like it.
I wouldnât mind if totemic for enhancement spec strapped the new totem on your back so you become a walking earthquake basically.
You BECOME a totem lol.
I didnât say anything about it becoming a part of the rotation. However, it would reward good gameplay. Know a fear is about to come and you prevent your whole party from getting feared? You get a big buff to a secondary stat. Itâs the same thing for the Whirling Elements change i offered. It would force you to understand your rotation well and it would reward proper execution of it.
And i agree its a bit weird how the two sides of the tree can be at ends with each other but I like that thereâs some competitive talent diversity.
For Enhance only, and with the current implementation of Surging Totem, you could have a talent saying âCasting Elemental Blast, Lightning Bolt, or Chain Lightning instantly moves your Surging Totem to the enemyâs locationâ which would streamline things too.
Automatic Surging Totem moving wonât work for Resto though.
Iâm not sure projection needs to have a shorter cd because the output isnât so crazy where I wanna have surging totem up 24/7 because of the mana cost of all the chain heals. Iâll just oom myself over maintenance healing if I hit it on cooldown. Not worth it.
this would be sooo nice
Totemic is a hinderance just like death and decay is for Death Knights. Theyâve been complaining about having to drop that in order to do AoE just to have the tank move the mobs out of it. I donât see Blizzard changing it. The most they might do is lower the CD.
Try it anyway. I like it. 
Doesnât seem like it will be viable when tanks start to race against the clock in Mythic Plus.
But Mythic plus isnât everything (not being sacastic, I mean it).
I would agree with you. This is why I am running these dungeons, to understand where the choke points are, and where the rush-through points are. I would still be losing damage, but to be able to put the totem down where the bulk of the mobs will be will be helpful.
Also using the stun totem, and healing totem, along with the other utility totems I think will make a difference in M+ the season, more than it has been in previous seasons.
Thats because the tree was designed for resto (which its actually amazing for) and just had enhance taped to it, its very clear they only really want us to play stormbringer
The talents do work with either Elemetalist build, a Storm build, and even a build that has not come up, a Physical build. Totemic though as I said in another thread is a build within a build spec.
I say this because of how the heroâs talents and tree work, you will either excel at physical damage, or you will excel at elemental damage. You will either use Lava Lash more for the lively totem proc, or you will use Stormstrike more for the rebound proc. With either builds, you will get both, but one will be far lesser than the other.
With the patch and buffâs, I would say that Elementalist builds now pull ahead due to the buff to Elemental Blast. Using Hailstorm or FireNova, you can weave in frost damage which causes the seering totem to proc its AOE damage. Looking at my details, it seems the proc was advanced as well, and it indeed procs more does more damage. The Physical stle build I have not played on live, but in Beta it was more focus on buffing physical damage and using tremor strikes with Legacy of the Frost Witch to maximize damage. It also does rebound damage.
So far for the current content, Totemic can do good damage and is on par with other specs. Elementalist build does flow well with Totemic once you get the rotation down. Admittedly there is a lot going on compared to the other specs, but I find it fun.
The other bonus for Totemic, the builds can be both AOE and ST. So need to change out builds, just adjust the rotation.
For Resto in dungeons/M+, Surging Totemâs Healing Rain will still be the #1 heal source, and thatâs not counting the damage for Acid Rain. Youâre supposed to manage Chain Heal through casting HST reactively as that is free and consumes buffs instead of casting Chain Heal on your own (although you should do atleast one Chain Heal per totem to consume Whirling Elements Earth). The issue is more about Downpour, since thereâs a time limit on casting it and can risky not being worth it manawise.
In raids, since Surging Totemâs Healing Rain will always hit 5 targets, itâs extremely efficient.
Thats the whole point of why it feels half baked and tacked on. Thereâs no clear direction of what build it wants you to play, and instead tries to make you play a gross combination of the two where the different builds main priority buttons are fighting for a spot in your already gcd limited rotation. Itâs only made worse by the totem actively trying to take up even more gcd slots with placing the totem and having to move it because they decided the effect should be under the totem rather than targeting an npc (which also is a change that strictly benefitted resto and strictly made it worse for enhance)
Except you cant utilize both builds in the class tree because you just straight up dont have enough points to do what the hero tree wants you to do, so you effectively do not excel at either
Except stormbringer still does more and requires half the mental capacity to play at that level, let alone the fact that you arenât tied to a totem that if the boss moves or the tank takes the mobs out of its range and you dont have projection up it actually does nothing for you
And stormbringer canât? You are constantly firing off tempests that are soft capped at 5 but hit as many targets as there are. You still have to swap to crash lightning and crashing storms to actually do aoe dps on both builds