#0 - March 23, 2009, 1:12 p.m.
We hoped that this signalled a review of totem mechanics. It said...
Q u o t e:
In this thread, we are looking for feedback on totems as a mechanic. This question is more open-ended and higher-level than some of the topics we bring up for discussion. You can explain what you don't like about totems, or how they would work if it was up to you.
There are only a couple of ground rules:
For purposes of this thread, please confine the discussion to totems and don't list everything you would like changed about the shaman class. Don't review talents or other spells. Just talk about totems.
Totems are a class-defining feature for the shaman. We are not going to remove totems and we do not wish to marginalize them. We are totally open to ideas that make them cooler, however.
And in the EU version we responded, and in the US we responded.
We gave masses of feedback, the US thread ran to 76 pages. The number of pages is not a reason to implement change. But I think the strength of the feedback was the universal common issues that were raised. These showed how clunky the totem mechanic is, and gave a number of solid ideas of how to improve, some relatively simple.
So we held our breath.
3.1 hit the PTR, and the changes as a result of the feedback seem to be limited to merging of disease/poison cleansing. None of the problems have been addressed and the developers have been silent on the prospects of future changes.
Testing on 3.1 seems to getting towards the latter stages, we are seeing tweaks in each PTR push rather than massive changes. So I guess that means that we are unlikely to see any significant changes to mechanics in 3.1.
This saddens me.
I think Shamans are the lowest population class, and the totem mechanic is probably one reason why. The problems were crysallised in that feedback and while some people had unrealistic expectations of what can be delivered in 3.1 (totem poles seemed to require a bit too much work), others seemed simple and effective solutions to the clunky mechanics (calling our totems to our current location and refreshing duration).
I'm not saying we are broken beyond repair, but we have issues that need addressing or in the class homogenisation the clunky totem mechanics will leave us as a rarely played class because for many it is simply not fun.
Totems should be a fun and different mechanic that has pros and cons compared to standard buffs. Otherwise they are now mostly just cons. I'm not pleading for "blue" comment, but I think generally the Shammy community would like to know if totems are still being looked at, or whether the poison/disease cleansing merge was it.
