Totem Talk: 3.2 PTR log
by Matthew Rossi 
Jun 27th 2009 at 12:00PM
When you get a good PuG, of course, you keep running until you just can't stand anymore. Today I was in that very circumstance, a PuG that went together so well that we slid from CoT to Utgarde Pinnacle to Utgarde Keep to the Nexus in short order. While the Band of Guile dropped yet again (seriously, I should start charging spellcasters who want rings, as Annhylde's Ring also dropped) there was one moment that struck me as a good reason why I play a shaman. A badly timed disconnect on the part of our healer and one of our DPS led to my switching to heal the tank through three mobs, only to see him and the other DK (who I will charitably say was somewhat inexperienced in his/her class) go down when another proto-drake was added by a corpse exlosion. At this point, low on mana as I was, I managed to pop my Feral Spirit, Shamanistic Rage, Fire Elemental Totem, and Heroism to burn the last add down while restoring my mana in the process.
Yes, it was a one in a hundred fluke chance that everything lined up so that I had the cooldowns necessary to pull it off. But that's why I love playing a shaman nowadays: we really are, in some ways, the most truly hybrid of the hybrid classes. As enhancement, I managed to go from a DPS role to a healing one long enough to get through a trash pull and when that went south I had enough options to successfully transition to a panic button offensive attack on an elite mob and kill it. I can't really sustain that kind of healing as enhancement (except maybe for a Vezax attempt, if I do the 'spec enhancement and gear elemental' thing) but I can actually do a decent job as a fallback healer and can even still DPS to build up Maelstrom procs so that my heals are instant cast while doing it.
Quite frankly, it's been my experience playing a shaman (especially as enhancement, which might well be the most hybrid spec of the most hybrid class) that makes me think that including priests and warriors as hybrid classes is unfair to them. The ability to switch on the fly and use cooldowns to great effect as a panic button is something I've written about before for shamans, but it seems that in Wrath we've gotten even better at it. And frankly, in patch 3.2 we're going to be even better still at it with the debut of the new totem interface.
As you can see in the above interface, each of the three shaman call abilities (Call of Fire, Call of Air and Call of Water) has its own tab on the toolbar, and within each tab there are four other tabs for earth, fire, water and air totems. Each of the three calls has one of each easily selected and saved within and can easily be clicked and dropped on demand. You can very easily set and reset which totems you use eithin each call ability simply by accessing the bar above your main action bars.
It's actually a very simple process once you grasp it, and it doesn't take very much effort at all to do that. I've currently created a 'resto' set of totems (my call of water set), a 'caster DPS' set (my call of fire) and my basic enhancement totems under call of air. Totemic Call, now Call of Earth, allows you to pull up your totems instantly as it does on live. It's even not really very onerous to change your totem set: for instance, if you know there will be DK running with you it's the work of a couple of seconds to switch SoE with Stoneskin or Tremor in your toolbar so that you're not dropping an overwritten totem for the duration of the run, then switching back to your preferred order once the run is over.
So far I've not had as much time to test out as many of the changes as I would have wanted to: I've not yet gotten a chance to heal more than a fast Obsidian Sanctum run since the new five man instance and 10/25 man raids at the Argent Coliseum are not accessible yet on the PTR. I did a Naxx 10 as enhancement and have to say that the totem bar changes alone made that much more tolerable and the new Shamanistic Rage is pretty sweet, you'll end up using it every time it's up and being glad that it's up more often, even with the lesser return per use. Restoration does seem overall better, but it's hard to tell when you're not really able to put it to the stress test of a full Ulduar run, and I simply haven't had time to get in any runs as elemental. This bothers me because I now have a full set of Tier 9 elemental gear (with gems and everything) sitting in my bags, waiting for me to put it on and go blast my enemies with the power of lightning. Wind, fire, all that kind of thing.
I did manage a few Isle of Conquest runs as elemental, however. Since there were no real changes to the spec in 3.2 (so far) the only really noticeable change is that you can drop your totems faster. I'd hardly claim to be an expert at the elemental PvP playstyle (and especially not in a new BG I barely understand the rules to) but I didnt feel like anything much had changed for the spec. If I got the drop on someone before they could stun/root/snare/CC me I could do some reasonable damage, and if not I spent a lot of time waiting to die. The changes to resilience didn't really seem to be prolonging my life all that much, but other people seemed to be able tos tand up to an instant cast Chain Lightning or a Flame Shock/Lava Burst combo a lot better than I expected them to. I think at this point I'm willing to say that I'd like to see elemental get some buffs of some kind to help it keep up, and I should have more of an idea after doing some raiding as elemental as soon as the Coliseum opens up.
So far I've not had as much time to test out as many of the changes as I would have wanted to: I've not yet gotten a chance to heal more than a fast Obsidian Sanctum run since the new five man instance and 10/25 man raids at the Argent Coliseum are not accessible yet on the PTR. I did a Naxx 10 as enhancement and have to say that the totem bar changes alone made that much more tolerable and the new Shamanistic Rage is pretty sweet, you'll end up using it every time it's up and being glad that it's up more often, even with the lesser return per use. Restoration does seem overall better, but it's hard to tell when you're not really able to put it to the stress test of a full Ulduar run, and I simply haven't had time to get in any runs as elemental. This bothers me because I now have a full set of Tier 9 elemental gear (with gems and everything) sitting in my bags, waiting for me to put it on and go blast my enemies with the power of lightning. Wind, fire, all that kind of thing.I did manage a few Isle of Conquest runs as elemental, however. Since there were no real changes to the spec in 3.2 (so far) the only really noticeable change is that you can drop your totems faster. I'd hardly claim to be an expert at the elemental PvP playstyle (and especially not in a new BG I barely understand the rules to) but I didnt feel like anything much had changed for the spec. If I got the drop on someone before they could stun/root/snare/CC me I could do some reasonable damage, and if not I spent a lot of time waiting to die. The changes to resilience didn't really seem to be prolonging my life all that much, but other people seemed to be able tos tand up to an instant cast Chain Lightning or a Flame Shock/Lava Burst combo a lot better than I expected them to. I think at this point I'm willing to say that I'd like to see elemental get some buffs of some kind to help it keep up, and I should have more of an idea after doing some raiding as elemental as soon as the Coliseum opens up.
Check out more strategies, tips and leveling guides for Shamans in Matthew Rossi's weekly class column: Totem Talk.Filed under: Shaman, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Drahliana Jun 27th 2009 12:18PM
Important note for dual-speccing Shamans the Calling Spec preferences don't change when you change spec so you can't save two sets of prefs for each Calling spell. I've got one for elemental, one for restoration, and a catchall one for soloing so far.
Angus Jun 27th 2009 12:32PM
It's supposed to.
Put in a ticket. That was specifically mentioned when announcing the new system. It would save preferences by spec with Dual spec.
Superthrust Jun 27th 2009 12:36PM
helpful news....gotta remember that now.
Drahliana Jun 27th 2009 1:07PM
My standard action bar preferences changed, but the selected Totem slots (which included Wrath in the Fire column) stayed with me moving from elemental to restoration. It generated an "unknown totem" error when I tried the Calling spell.
Angus Jun 27th 2009 12:31PM
In before "where are the Horde shaman pics?" ;)
Has the increase in base health made a major difference?
My Tauren got picked on by an add while trying to heal the gauntlet in Heroic UP and it was over before I could get a heal off.
The new totem system looks nice.
Superthrust Jun 27th 2009 12:38PM
tauren shaman, IMO, are the best shamans really for soloing and sometimes pvp...
They have the stun that no one else has. Sure, its only 1-2 seconds, but its a stun for good...gives enough time to pop off a FAST heal or an insta heal or something. But, other than that, i think every shaman has something good about them...just preferring T-shamans to the others. My 2 copper.
JustinScott Jun 27th 2009 12:58PM
Personally i prefer the draenei shaman, for the Heroic Presence. That 1% can help, maybe not a lot, but a little, and means i can gem for something else other than hit. Maybe say, AP?
Angus Jun 27th 2009 6:40PM
Sure, its only 1-2 seconds, but its a stun for good...gives enough time to pop off a FAST heal or an insta heal or something.
1.5 second cast time on stun.
1.5 second GCD
2 second duration and subject to DR.
I have had someone get out of the stun before my GCD was up. I did not get a heal off, and the only instant heal is in the resto tree with a 3 minute (soon 2) CD.
If they removed that horrible stun and gave Tauren something useful very few people would be upset. It's great lore wise, but in practice it is only really useful for stopping mobs in a consecrate as they start running past you towards the AE crazy warlocks or helaers.
Eros Jun 27th 2009 6:50PM
Angus warstomp is a) a 0.5 cast time and b) not on GCD.
everything else is correct.
Dah Jun 27th 2009 12:33PM
Ugh, more goatmen. I tried to send you pictures of a troll shaman and either you didn't get them or you're RACIST!
...ok so you're probably not racist, but you do need some Horde up in this blog!
JustinScott Jun 27th 2009 1:01PM
Oh, and tauren are just ugly lol =P
Drahliana Jun 27th 2009 1:09PM
My preferences hordeside in descending order are. Tauren, Orc, and Troll. My Troll shamans tend to come off on the witch doctor side.
Jalaris.Ghostlands Jun 27th 2009 1:25PM
The new totem bar is SWwweeeeeEETTT! It clears up so much real estate for me. I can't say enough good things about it.
Now if Bliz can do something about the El Shammy itemization... I'd probably give birth to a full grown herd of elephants.
JustinScott Jun 27th 2009 1:28PM
Question:
With the new totem interface, do you still have to carry all 4 of the "totems" (earth, fire, water, air) in your pack? I cant remember and im too lazy to check the patch notes.
devilsei Jun 27th 2009 1:37PM
I remember seeing that relics for shamans have a note that says "Acts as fire, earth, water, and wind totem".
So I'm pretty sure as long as you have a relic that says that, you dont need your totems
JustinScott Jun 27th 2009 1:40PM
Well, all the relics that go in the ranged slot always say "Acts as a Earth, Fire, Water, and Air Totem" and that was before the new interface, so i was jw.
Elmo Jun 27th 2009 2:30PM
Wasn't this in the Q&A? I don't know if they implemented it though.
but they planned on making the totems in your bag fit in the Relic slot and it would get upgraded when you learn a new element.
like you have a earth relic for 1-9 and then it upgrades when you learn the fire totem at lvl 10.
katyanna Jun 28th 2009 4:24AM
ummm, you know you haven't had to carry those around like at least since the beginning of Wrath, right? Mine have been sitting in my bank for awhile now.
Spiraea Jun 27th 2009 1:55PM
"When you get a good PuG, of course, you keep running until you just can't stand anymore."
Amen! I had such a great PuG group last night. We did Heroic AN, H CoS, H UP, and 4-manned Heroic Nexus after the rogue got disconnected after the first boss. The mage in the group was a bit of a loose cannon and died quite a bit but other than that, it was amazing. I didn't want it to end! Exact opposite to the night before where the rogue and hunter kept stealing aggro from the tank and causing a number of wipes. I wanted to completely give up on healing after that :(
Dreadmaker Jun 27th 2009 1:59PM
'...we really are, in some ways, the most truly hybrid of the hybrid classes.'
You know, I see your point here, but I disagree with you. I think that while shamans may take silver, druids are sitting pretty with gold.
We have the same healing abilities as you do, and we have an additional one: clinch tanking. Yesterday, I was running a heroic to gear my feral spec, and the tank spontaneously died because he got double crit (not-capped... not my choice. guildie of a pug). I immediately hopped into bear and gained enough threat in a second or two that the party could continue DPSing fully. The healer immediately realized what happened, and started to heal me instead; worked out great.
I've also done the same thing as you, healing when the healer died, and because of innervate, I can basically heal infinitely for 20 seconds.
I think they both have potential, but I really don't believe that shamans beat druids in this regard.