Totemic initial reaction

[Razgard-draenor]

Ok, since the last hero spec got added into alpha, figured I’d make a thread for initial feedback/reactions.

Of course what follows is my opinion but everyone is encouraged to give his own opinion.

My personal feedback:
Actually I was pleasantly surprised by the hero tree, but that might have been because of my low expectations (was expecting a redo of vesper totem). To be clear, I do not believe that the tree is perfect, or even one of the better hero spec trees, but that it actually has potential.

Specific Feedback:
The good:

• Surging totem:
  It actually seems fun to use. It addresses some aoe problems while not being “restrictive” on the rotation.

• Windfury totem:
  This part could have gone with Surging totem, but it is so good that it deserves its own point. AT LAST! we now can give WF totem without having to drop it, just by being near other people.

• Wind Barrier:
  Giving us one of the better defensive past legendaries is actually pretty useful. Tuning might be off, but otherwise pretty happy with that one.

• Lively Totems and Reactivity:
  One iteration of searing totem that I do not hate. Having the visual/theme of the totem without having to drop it seems really good, although 8 seconds might be too few. Hope we get some nice visuals for that one.

• Oversurge, Earthsurge:
  While I do not like those talents (because they only interact with specific talents, what I actually like is that there are ALL choice nodes that you can avoid. Really nice touch.

• Whirling Elements: Earth
  This is the one part of the capstone that actually excites me. CDR tied to an interesting choice between 2 powerful abilities. Might create some issues though with Elemental Blast, since giving us 12 seconds cdr when we can it, actually overcaps because we still need the maelstrom stacks to cast it.

The bad:

• Surging Totem:
  The biggest thing that worries me is the fact that this does PHYSICAL damage. Considering that mastery is one of the most desired stats for enh, it feels weird to have one of the “exciting” new talents not scaling with it.
  Worst case scenario we are in a scenario that it needs buffing each patch, or even worse we use it just for the buffs it provides (making it a worse WF totem, that we have to use every 20 seconds instead of 2 mins).
  I think switching the damage to flamestrike like Sundering would be better.

• Totemic Rebound, Oversurge:
  Tying talents to just stormstrike or Ascendance seems weird for some spells that mainly storm build uses. Ignore this if there are talent changes that fix that.

• Whirling Elements: Air and Fire
  While the concept and visual/theme is good, the only part that excites me is Earth.
  Both Air and Fire feel lackluster, both from power level and mechanically.
  The fact that they are “tied” to rotational abilities we use anyway, and being weak enough to not actually make us care about them, feels like they are gonna be ignored.
  If the intended playstyle is for us to ignore those 2 procs, why not make them more interesting?
  You can make the fire one make your next Lava Lash trigger a Fire Nova, and the air buff to increase damage of next Crash Lightning or make the next stormstrike fire a LB.
  People below will probably have way better ideas for that.

Anyway what are your opinions about the spec?

[Irontoaster-amanthul]

i think it vastly improved from the datamined version before, but still has a way to go.

surging totem on paper is great but brings some issues for both resto and enhance.

for resto healing rain currently in M+ is basically used as a dmg tool not as a healing tool. Now if you play with 2 range players, it probably will always drop outside of mob groups.
kinda would be nice if you could set a focus for the totem that it will drop healing rain on.

for enhance that will mostly work better. Still have minor movement of mobs issues but since it is recast frequently, it is okish.

@Razgard-draenor

Wind Barrier:
Giving us one of the better defensive past legendaries is actually pretty useful. Tuning might be off, but otherwise pretty happy with that one.

I love and hate the addition.
Defensives are our rarest good. So if you add a def cd to one hero tree and not to another you have a massive imbalance already. If high end content is similar to now, the thing with more defensives will win and this alone will just kill off stormbringer/farseer.

everything is just some random cluster crap that has few impact and will just add a little dmg or healing, which i guess is fine?

while I agree that stormstrike does not make sense if you play it from elementalist view, I think they should go away from elementalist vs storm design in general and make both buttons, stormstrike and lava lash good for both builds. That also only works if BOTH will lose the massive CDR / Reset crap. let them have short cd but not back to back to back resets or in ll case just 1s cd with procs and haste.

Being gcd locked is awesome, but enhance currently is way over loaded with things you want to press. There is just no cds that let you use other things in between.

I kinda miss a totemic overload button or something that just lets the totem go boom with huge dmg or heal

[Rev-alonsus]

i’m really excited about Totemic. It seems to hit the nail on the head thematically . My only concern is the same on live shaman. A 9 button rotation with extra CD’s and utility on top is simply to much. Desperatly hoping they rejig the talent tree a bit