How to Not Suck at Shaman, Enhancement Edition: Beating Other People With Sticks: Totems and Synergy
Introduction
Talent Specs and Important Abilities
The Stats You Need and Why They Play Well Together
The Shock and Awe of Shocks and Windfury: A How-to
Beating Other People With Sticks: Totems and Synergy
Enhancement Fashion: Loving Leather
Totems! Totems! Totems!
Totems are the defining characteristic of the shaman class. Over the levels, quite a few of them are collected and (certainly in my case) some are used only once to see what they do. Some, such as Poison or Disease cleansing totems, or the spell resistance totems, have situational uses. Some fall into the more general category, and those are the ones that need the most explanations.
Generally, all totems only affect your party, not the entire raid. Additionally, they have a range of (untalented) 20 yards, beyond which they provide no benefit. Any totem that provides a passive buff can be refreshed any time prior to its two-minutes. The totems, notably the fire or water totems, that have active effects (mana spring, searing, etc.) should expire before they are replaced so the full benefit is received. With only having to juggle the six-second shock cooldown and the ten-second Stormstrike cooldown, keeping totem uptime high should be an easy task.
All totem effects are based on untalented effects.
Earth Totems
Strength of Earth: This is your “default” earth totem. It increases the Strength of all nearby party members by 86. For most, that means 172 AP which translates to roughly 12 DPS added to white damage for all melee classes and more benefit depending on how specials scale with AP.
Tremor Totem: This totem pulses every four seconds to break fear, sleep, and charm effects. When you are fighting mobs that do any of the above, this is the totem to drop.
Fire Totems
Fire Nova Totem: Fire Nova Totem go Boom! One of the weaknesses of the Enhancement Shaman is AoE DPS. we are single-target creatures. Between this and magma totem, we can contribute at least a small amount of AoE DPS. Some things to note: creatures can and will target and destroy the Fire Nova totem before it goes off if they are not being tanked. With the 15 second cooldown on this totem, it is a good idea to use this totem first, then a magma totem, then this again, if the pull isn’t over.
Magma Totem: As with Fire Nova totem, the Magma Totem is about it for Enhancement Shaman’s ability to do AoE damage. The range is small, but be careful when using these as the damage can break CC and generates threat.
Searing Totem: Somewhat of your “default” fire totem. In situations where there is no CC and all targets being tanked, use this totem, it does increase your dps, but it is uncontrolled.
Air Totems
Grace of Air Totem: Adds 77 agility to nearby party members. Rogues, Feral Druids, and Hunters will love you for this. AP and Crit for them. It’s the air totem that should be your default because it benefits everyone, but it probably will not be. Most of the time, you’ll be dropping Windfury if you’re in a melee DPS group. Some exceptions to this, if you are in a group of rogues/feral druids/hunters or with a feral druid tank or with a warrior tank who is generating sufficient TPS and rage the avoidance boost from 77 agility is worthwhile.
Windfury Totem: The air totem your dps warriors, paladins, and swords rogues want. The benefit this totem gives your party outweighs just about any benefit Grace of Air will give you. If your raid is close to the threat cap, giving your warrior tank this will probably be the best thing you can do for raid dps (and to save your own skin: ankhs get expensive).
Wrath of Air Totem: Worth a short mention, if you get stuck in a caster group for some incredibly silly reason, or are with a paladin tank and are nearing the threat cap, this may be the way to go. Buffing the casters outweighs GoA for yourself, though I’m not sure whether a paladin tank would want this or WF totem. If you are getting threat capped, ask.
About the GoA and WF divide
Ideally, you can get around this problem by having a resto shaman in the raid as well. Windfury totem is a huge benefit to the heavy but slower hitting melee classes. It is no benefit to shaman, druids, or hunters. Rogues end up kind of split on it. If you have a resto shaman, it may be the best use to have them in the tank/melee group to drop SoE and WF, leaving you in the hunter/druid group to drop SoE and GoA.
The Elemental Totems
The Earth Elemental Totem and the Fire Elemental Totem are not totems you want to count on, but they are handy and useful to have available. The Earth Elemental summons a pocket tank that does okay against groups of mobs (it does much better if it gets healed, too), and the Fire Elemental… well, instead of dropping any other fire totem, you would drop this one. Really good against groups of low HP mobs. When you drop either elemental totem, there is a two-minute cooldown on the other, so you cannot have both active at the same time.
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