Cloudburst Totem: How does it work?

Classes Shaman
1

Heya!

Last night I wanted to try it. I read some guides on how to use it, and in theory it reminds me of the prevoker’s Stasis spell, but in practice I can’t handle it. The guide says it will absorb all healing for 18 seconds except those from other totems, and then you can use it to release the healing. But the totem would last 5 seconds on the ground and then disappear. I placed it at my feet and was far away from mobs, so it wouldn’t take damage from mobs. When the totem disappeared, the icon would change for 5 seconds and then go back to the totem icon, ready to be used again. So is there a timer to reuse it? Can’t I choose when to use it to release the absorbed healing? With Stasis, I had 30 seconds to release the healing, but with this totem, I have very little time to do so, and if I don’t, I’ve wasted the totem. I know they’ll remove it in Midnight, but I like using my character 360°. Can someone clarify my thoughts?

Thank u :raised_hand:t2:

2

Keep in mind that the totem will automatically trigger when the timer runs out.

The best practise with constant damage going on is to use it, forget it exists, keep healing normally, and it will pop at the end. Due to it scaling with healing you do, the more time it is out, the more healing it will do.

There are some cases where it is better to pop it, but not worth it getting into min max at this point. If you drop it, it will automatically do what it needs to do.

3

Totems dont take damage from mobs. Here is the thing with CB totem:

  • The healing it absorbs from you, is 30m away from the totem. So you have to cast things 30m away from it.
  • The healing explosion after it expires (or you trigger it) will heal everyone 30m away from YOU, not from the totem.

Keep that in mind.

CB totem lasts for 17s with talents. The way to use it can be condensesed in 2 scenarios:

Scenario 1:

  • On CD during non-critical moments. Such as packs in dungeons and stuff like that.

Based on it’s CD, you can have 1 CB totem down practically at all times. Which will be storing all your healing. You can use it in 2 ways:

Let it expire. And 99% of the times all that healing will drop on the tank. Which is good. Less babysitting…

Someone get’s blasted with an ability. For example, someone forgot to kick a “bolt” and there will be a major AoE in some secconds and you want people toped off before that. In that case you manually pop it to dump all the healing on that 1 player.

It’s basically a “lay on hands” in this scenario.

Scenario 2:

  • Timed placements during some mechanics.

This happens 90% of the time in bosses or mini-bosses. Example: Major AoE or some ST nuke on a player. You drop CB totem 1 or 2 seconds before, and then you start healing. You spam CH or HS on people, but that wont prevent that persons’s HP from getting closer and closer to 0. At a critical moment, you pop CB totem early and you instantly top people’s HP from 10% to 100% in 1 button. And keep healing untill the mechanic is over.

To make it work in this scenario, you need to practice the bosses. And plan your placements beforehand. Sometimes combined with CDs. And sometimes, you drop it like 5 or 6 seconds before the mechanic. To maximize the healing stored, knowing that it will pop on it’s own 17s later exactly when you need it during the mechanic.

Il give an example:

1st boss of DB. There are 2 mechanics there that hurt: The explosion before the beams. And the heal absorb.

There are times where both mechanics overlap very, very close to one another. And that’s when people die.

What you do (on top of using your CDs normally) is to drop a CB totem 7/8 secconds before the heal absorb. Such that it’s charged from prior healing. Then, when the heal absorb mechanic comes, you pop CB totem and instantly remove all the heal absorb from the whole party. 2 CH and everyone is toped up and can survive the AoE blast from the beams 3s later.

Hope this helps.

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4

Helpful explanation, thanks :+1:t2: I play the Totemic build and reading your explanation, it is more convenient for me to use Cloudburst totem than Healing stream totem (which sometimes seems to me that it does not heal enough, I noticed it from +9 onwards) and then it would save me mana to have free healing, especially chain heal (I use the totemic + chain heal build, so imagine the waste of mana if people do not use cd :blush:).

I read somewhere that this totem, unlike the others, has a health bar and that it’s not recommended to use it in melee or in situations where there’s AOE damage. That’s why I never considered it. So, since I now have to learn how to use it, what level range do you think I should be in to learn how to use it? I’m almost done with the +10 level. I was thinking of going down anyway, continuing to climb and learn how to use the totem, because I think and believe that the more difficult a key level is, the better you learn to use your character.

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Dont use CB totem if you run Totemic. HS totem out-performs it in every scenario. Reaon being that it heals 2 people for 100%. Plus all the buffs. CB totem dosent do that.

Farseer runs with CB totem. Because all the ancestor duplicate healing also feeds the CB totem. So it gets filled up faster.

The only difference between Totemic with HS and Farseer with CB is the healing profile. Totemic has more sustain passive haling. Farseer has 0 passive healing, but more burst healing. And in the current dungeon pool, burst healing is more valuable than sustain healing.

That is why you are forced to use CH in totemic (which should not require a single cast of CH). You try to compensate for the burst healing you are lacking from CB and Farseer builds.

Totems are like pets. Pets have HP too. But have you ever seen a hunter pet get 1-shot by standing in a swirlie next to the boss? :slight_smile:

IMO you got confused by some PvP post. Because in PvP you can target and kill totems.

CB totem is not strictly required untill 12+ and above. IMO.

But I recomend that you switch to Farseer + CB as soon as possible. So you can begin practicing how to use it. Especially because Farseer demands active healing (instead of passive). So that will take time to get used to.

One suggestion I can give is make sure you have VohDoo addon (or similar) with click-on-party frames macros. It will make healing with Farseer 10x easier, and hence, you can get 10x performance with it.

I can tell you what my keybinds are if you want. Just let me know. I can give you a ton of typs on Farseer healing.

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CB totem is set by default on every shaman talent build I’ve ever read. Both Farseer and Totemic all the guides set CB totem. Then they tell you that you can also change it if you want, but they set it as the first choice. When I was leveling I played Farseer with CB totem and I found it difficult to learn to play the shaman also because Farseer without the tier set is unplayable, but I kept it until I started doing m0, from there I changed it to Totemic and it was like a door opened in my brain and I immediately learned to play the shaman and I instantly understood how the shaman worked. I never went back to Farseer until m+8 when I wanted to try it again but with HS totem. And I have to say that Farseer heals a lot and that the ancestors are strong (with the tier set) but I didn’t enjoy that build, I tried it again to see if it was still Arab for me, but no in the end I understood it. The only thing I didn’t understand was how CB Totem worked, and now that you’ve explained it to me, I’ll try it with Farseer sometime, but my goal is to get to the top using only Totemic + Chain Heal, because that’s the build that taught me how to use Shaman. It’ll be difficult, I know, but if they don’t pick me, I’ll always have my key to play.

1 Like
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Play whatever talents you want. The uber-meta picks from WoWHead are meant only for CE or 0.1% performance.

I can tell you right now, that you can pick talents at random and L2P will produce more performance over time than the talent choice. And if Totemic is where you feel more comfortable and can L2P better, then Totemic it is. And dont let anyone tell you otherwise.

With that said, my intentions were just to have a conversation about min-maxing RShaman. Just for fun. Never to tell you what to play.

At the moment, all Totemic builds recommend HS totem.

https://www.wowhead.com/guide/classes/shaman/restoration/talent-builds-pve-healer#dungeon-totemic-chain-heal

Farseer has the advantage that it has much less passive healing. A lot more of the HPS is in your hands.

There is one advantage in learning how to play Farseer. Because you need to actively react to damage, you learn how to use Totemic better. The fact that you mention that you go OOM with Totemic (because you cast CH) indicates to me that you still got some space to grow in Totemic. Technically, you should never cast a single CH. ALL your AoE should come from timing your HS properly with Lively Totems.

I personally like Farseer much more than Totemic. Totemic for me was a huge boredom in S2. And I disliked it a lot. What is it that you dont understand about Farseer? It seems pretty straight forward to me… HP bar goes down, cast something to get it back up.

8

I understood it :dracthyr_blob_dance_animated:

Will you be upset if I tell you I made a bit of a mess? :thinking::orangutan:

What I didn’t understand at first with Farseer was that the strength of the build was the Ancestrals, not the Totems. I realized this after learning to play the Totemic build, which relies exclusively on Totems (and it’s the playstyle I like most about Shaman). Relying on Ancestrals with Farseer bores and bothers me, which is why I don’t enjoy using it.

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Nope. Not upset. I just let you know of what the “theoretical best” is. That way, when you do you mess with talents you can better understand what advantages and disadvantages you get with your choices.

I still dont get that though. Usually, what people dislike about Farseer is that you have to press more buttons. Because otherwise you dont heal. You dont have an OP HS totem that heals for 30% on it’s own.

So “boring” is not the word I would use to describe Farseer. “Stressing” would be more appropriate.

Besides. It’s just 3 buttons: Riptide, CH and HS. That’s it. Because you dont play with Healing Rain at all… Or Downpour… and you dont have to track Deluge.

Technically speaking, it’s the same gameplay as Totemic. In your case. Because you cast CH a lot from what you say (when Totemic should not). So the same 3 buttons (Riptide, CH and HS).

I suspect that you “feel” the difference because you dont use proper addons. Which ones are you using by the way?

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Yes, I find the Farseer build boring, stressful and heavy at the same time. I feel the same way I did when I played Feral. Again, it heals a lot with the tier set, but I’m not having fun with it. Let’s just say I don’t like the ancestral.

And that’s the boring part of the build. You don’t have totems. You only have ancestors.

The same spells I use with Totemic. Except that CH is the last spell I cast because it consumes a lot of mana. I focus more on Riptide and Healing Sourge. Even though I have 2 charges of Riptide, with the Ancestrals you have 3, if not 4 with the build focused on Riptide + Chain Heal.

No one. I don’t need it.

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We have different PoV on what “boring” means. For me, boring is having some NPC totem do things for me. I dont like that gameplay.

If I want to heal player A, I select and press a button to heal player A. Not drop a totem and have him heal player A while I watch Netflix.

But hey. Variety is what makes this game cool you know. :slight_smile:

And keybinds? Say you want to cast 1 riptide on the tank. What keys do you press?

I am asking because healer UI is a FUNDAMENTAL part of our roll. The WoW UI is designed with the DPS (and Tank) PoV in mind. Those are rolls that focus on some blob of enemies infront of them, and who have to follow a pre-determined rotation of buttons that auto-target enemies.

That is not the healer PoV. It’s unique. Our roll is: Health bar goes down, do something to get it back up. And we do not have a pre-determined rotation.

So. Using a DPS UI + DPS keybinds… clearly hurts healer performance. And it’s not hard to imagine why.

That is why I ask. Because it’s even more important than the spec you play, or the talents you choose. It’s the #1 most important thing.

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So you shouldn’t use Healing Rain in a raid unless you want a totem to heal for you. But if you put it that way, even the ancestors heal for you :zany_face: since to heal well you have to rely on them and not on totems.

Yes, I also like healing like this, but you use the totem to heal the entire group and in the meantime you can do some damage to the mobs and the boss, while the children take some light damage. But i prefer a free pirate site to Netflix :smirking_face:

Click on the target you want to heal and press mouse button 1. Riptide=1, Healing Source=2, Chain heal=3. End. I only bind the most important spells, I click the others with the mouse (left button).

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I don’t use HR at all. I don’t even have it talented. For M+ or Raid.

Ancestors dont heal for me. They duplicate my healing. Ancestors is like saying: Healing Surge heals for 30% more.

Basically. If an ancestor is with me. And I stand and do nothing at all… My healing is 0. And the ancestor also heals for 0. And CB totem will heal for 0. To heal something I have to press some buttons.

Unlike totemic with HS totem. Who, alone, is responsible for 50% of your HPS. With out you doing anything …

Let me get this streight. You do this:

(A) Select a target.
(B) Press a button to do something to it.

If that’s the case (correct me if I am wrong)… You heal like a DPS. If you healed like a healer, your performance would double. Even with totemic.

I suggest working with click on party frame macros. The first advantage is that instead of 2 actions, its only one action.

So no “selecting the target”. Just “heal”. That’s it.

Your actual target should be an enemy (to DPS). Usually the 1 mob you need to kick all the time… Read bellow why

Then. I suggest that you bind heals to the mouse clicks. This is what I use:

  • Left Click = Riptide
  • Right Click = HS
  • Shift + Left = CH
  • Shift + Right = Dispel
  • Cnt + Left = Earth Shield (to weave the target)

That way, you hover over the party frames and click on boxes. You instantly cast what is binded, with out having to target that player.

As for DPS: The keybinds above only work if you hover over a friendly frame. If you hover over an enemy frame (the target “box”), I also have my DPS soells binded on clicks. Left Click is Lava Burst … And so on…

And I want it that way to have the mouse next to the party frames. So its easy to weave DPS and heals.

Now. You have freed up 1,2,3,4,5, FRTGCV binds for other things. + Shift doubles that amount. And now you can easily fit all your utility there.

If you do that. Your performance will double. Guaranteed. Both in HPS, and DPS, and kicks/utility and mobility. Its literally impossible to die to any swirlies like that. And you will be #1 in kicks all the time.

An extra bonus is that your APM is cut by half. You go from ~ 70 (assuming you play perfectly) to 40. 20 if you play totemic.

That is why I asked if you use Healbot, Vohdoo or Cell addons. Because THAT is what they do by default. If you want to do that on your own, you need ElvUI and Clicke addons and build the UI from scratch.

And the WoW default UI for healers is ansolute garbage. Its not workable.

I

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