Shaman Totem usage?

[crowdx]

Hi All,
so I have been looking around the forums and I am wondering are the totems Healing Stream, Stoneclaw, Searing and Magma the default totems everyone is using, i.e. the set that are most used except when certain instance situations need a different fight dependent totem drop.
I have just started leveling my shamans and so very much a noob with them, they are currently level 66 (with one sitting at 70 waiting for the rest to catch up :P )
All help welcome

[zenga]

I always drop a 4x4 set rather than dropping individual ones. My standard call of the elements looks like this for pve

toon a:
stoneskin
totem of wrath
cleansing
wrath of air

toon 2
tremor
frost resistance
fire restistance
nature resistance

toon 3
strength of earth totem
flametongue totem
healing stream
winfdury

toon 4
earthbind or stoneclaw
nothing
mana spring totem
grounding totem

Then i have a 6 different keys that pop (staggered)
- 4x fire elementals
- 4x magma
- 4x earth elemental
- 4x tremor totem
- 4x grounding
- 4x earthbind

Those are all staggered as that way i can control how much totems of each i pop (order is always the same). On special encounters i might change the default setup to more nature resist, etc ..

and obviously a fire nova key

I only

[crowdx]

cool , again being a noob, how do you stagger the totems? Just spam the macro while running and using round robin?

[Slimjim19]

you are staggering them time wise not location wise.

it would basically be a different cast sequence on each where the totem was in a different location

tremor totem,,,
,tremor totem,,
,,tremor totem,
,,,tremor totem

you really only need 3 and tap the button 1 time per second. That way it pulses every 1 second instead of every 3 seconds.

[crowdx]

Cool, excellent info

[Ualaa]

I stagger my Call of the Ancestors (or whatever the spell is called, where you drop 4 totems at once).
Actually have two sets of 4x totems, both staggered; not using the 3rd set of 4 totems.

My normal set (team with 3 shammies, warlock and paladin):
- ToW, Healing, Grounding, Tremor.
- ToW, Healing, Grounding, Tremor.
- ToW, Healing, Wrath of Air, Tremor.
My shammies are all glyphed for ToW.

AoE set, same team:
- Magma, Healing, Grounding, Tremor
- Magma, Healing, Grounding, Stoneclaw
- Magma, Healing, Wrath of Air, Stoneclaw

Have several totems on either round-robin, or 3x dropped now.
- Fire Elementals on round-robin (glyphed for 5 mins).
- Earth Elementals on round-robin (have not used since adding pally to the team).
- Earthbind on round-robin (haven't used this in forever).
- Grounding 3x now.
- 2x Cleansing, 1x Healing, on the same bind.
- A resist button, which has one shammy do Nature, one do Fire and one do Cold resist totems.

Probably others, but don't use them much, for my now entirely PvE team.

[crowdx]

So now that I have played my shammies a bit and they are half way through lvl 72 I am curious as to why people are using multiples of the same totems? From what I have researched most totems do not stack? What is the benefit?
Thanks again for the help

[Talos]

Some totems still 'stack' in some sort of way:

4x grounding totems -> 4 different spells being absorbed before having to replant them
4x healing or mana totem -> in the past only healing stacked, but right now also the mana totems stack. use 2x healing/2x mana or 4x one of them for extra effort (in pvp with 4 shammies i use 4x healing, in pve with my pally tank i use 4x mana).
4x searing/magma totem (or 1x ToW 3x searing/magma) for extra dps (or as Ualaa mentioned 4x ToW totems if they are glyphed for the extra ToW +% that is only on cast on the player laying down ToW)

[nimbuk]

Some totems still 'stack' in some sort of way:

4x grounding totems -> 4 different spells being absorbed before having to replant them
4x healing or mana totem -> in the past only healing stacked, but right now also the mana totems stack. use 2x healing/2x mana or 4x one of them for extra effort (in pvp with 4 shammies i use 4x healing, in pve with my pally tank i use 4x mana).
4x searing/magma totem (or 1x ToW 3x searing/magma) for extra dps (or as Ualaa mentioned 4x ToW totems if they are glyphed for the extra ToW +% that is only on cast on the player laying down ToW)

i was under the impression that healing totems stack, but mana does not. also, mana totems do not stack with blessing of wisdom (if you have a pally).

[cmeche]

Mana does not stack.