A specialization can’t rely on its most powerful tool being a low visibility totem that people run away from. And the thing is, even if they do stay in it - it’s weak. “Remaining stationary” and “PvP” don’t mix well - especially in a chaotic environment with 0 communication and random team mates.
My suggestion: ditch the totem part.
Rename the spell “Earthen Wall”.
The targeted player will pulse the shield on himself and nearby targets. The player becomes the totem. You can even add a cute little animation where the targeted player is carrying a totem on his back.
I’d disagree in that department, it’s pretty strong imo. That being said Redemolf’s suggestion is really good, and helps a lot. It’s not ideal, but it’s what we’ve got at the moment. I wouldn’t mind another way to get the benefit from the totem without it being stationary where a lot of people can’t even see it on the floor.
Or just make it so it’s easily visible for players like Disc’s barrier. There are some players who no matter what would walk out of it but at least average WoW player will see it.
To be fair I blame it on you being masochist playing Disc in the current patch. It’s not a spec for sane people. It’s so bad it’s sad to watch it. Holy is better in every aspect.
Of course I’m joking about blaming you but Disc is terrible anyway.
When I say “it’s weak”, I don’t mean it as “it doesn’t heal for a lot” - of course it does.
It’s weak in the sense that it forces your team to remain stationary, which really sucks for melee players because they either leave the totem and take more damage or they stay in it but they stop chasing after their target and lose pressure.
Unlike other “AOE heals”, Earthen Wall lasts a long time and is a rotational ability rather than a big CD like Priests’ dome, so it’s a massive downside and weakness for Shamans and their team mates.
I’m having WAY more success of my Castweaver than on my dragon & rsham.
The MW I can just be a healbot and even heal through bursts without using any CD. It’s pretty comfy.
Rsham is harder to play (more buttons, more “responsabilities” with utility and offensive play, garbage CDs) and the dragon just doesn’t seem to heal at all - people die through everything.
And annoy the sht out of them, so they troll you and dont stand in that on purpose. Human stupidity is a enemy, but I highly doubt blizzard will do anything about it for shuffle purposes. They clearly showed they dont care about it.
From looking at your gear my friend you can make few tweaks to improve your R Shaman experience. You went for mastery/versa/crit. Top R Shamans have 6-8% Haste as it significantly improve the experience of playing as R Sham. You can also push your Mastery to over 100%. You will heal significantly more with instants and totems. It’s one week till the end of season so I don’t be bothered about it but I recommend checking murlok.io website. You can see top player’s gearing trends. For many specs the meta was to use more crafts instead of Obsidian Gladiator gear. The versatility softcap is 30% it’s not worth going for more on many specs. Obsidian Goadiator gear has 70% versa and 30% other secondary stat proportion while crafted gear keeps the same ilvl int and stamina while having 50-50 versa and other stat. This way you can boost your mastery or get desired versa/mastery that are not available from vendor. Many R Shamans play Engineering gogles as they have only mastery while being same ilvl as conquest gear. While it seems small it would push your healing on both R Sham and MW to the limit.
I’d recommend you to follow the website in the next season
I got this character to level 70 three days ago. It’s fine, I’m not aiming for big goals with this one, it’s mostly end of season fun.
Optimization will wait next season.
I’m mostly annoyed by Earthen Wall for now. I’ve just had an Ele Shaman kite out of that totem today…How can you be a Shaman and kite your healer’s totems? Urgh.
That’s the downside of solo shuffle. You have these combos of specs that don’t work together. Neither Elemental Shaman nor Mage would live through meeles standing in Earthen Wall. If you double Earthen with Call of the Elements in early stage of shuffle round then maybe but a single Earthen Wall won’t make him live. Instead you can use it on Abomination Limb or any other spells that prevent him from kiting. Same goes for Mage - for example Arcane. He won’t survive Avatar + Crusade standing in your totem. There are more such spec combos like Ret and Holy Paladin spells applying Forberance or average Rets blinding off the dots or others dring stuns for Rogue.
I had similar rounds as Shadow Priest where againt meeles you have to go for CC on healer on CD to win the round as you’re not going to win doing PvE damage in meele lobby and my healer used Leap of Faith on me on my way for fear.
So I understand why they kite away from it. R Shaman is that weird healer that cannot just passively heal. It needs to be agressive and use it’s toolkit - Static Field Totem, Interrupts, Grounding, Purges, Hexes to build pressure. With proper gear it has a very good healing output but it cannot just trade CDs like H Paladin.