Totem of Wrath stacking

[Razesdark]

So I managed to get my 3x Shaman up to level 50 today and got myself Totem of Wrath on all 3 of them.

Then I noticed that it stacked. I was quite excited!
Never expected that to happen.

But then I also noticed this post on the bluetracker:
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/8/9023694157-totem-of-wrath-stacking-imba.html

So is this actually a bug ? Or only in the WotLK due to the changes they made to it?
What do you think ?

[wrs]

Aye, they do stack, but it appears that most go with NS by the time they hit 70.

[entoptic]

that blue is fucking clueless.

[moji]

Well, for your average shaman, ToW isn't that awsome, so they usually get NS for an instant attack. Boxed shaman use ToW because it's never just 3%, it's 9%- 15% crit, which is huge by comparison. I imagine though, they'll limit it somehow, or else everyone will want 10 shaman in their raid.

[Stabface]

It really does need to get reworked, along with Windfury / Wrath of Air and some other abilities as they are just too OP'd as it stands right now. But it's only beta so we'll see how things sort themselves out.

[Skuggomann]

Found it fitting to post this here, ohh boom i miss ya :S


http://bp3.blogger.com/_DSQJpDGba3Y/R4Jev3CYsJI/AAAAAAAAAE8/6hWfaDK_8aU/S847-R/tt_banner.jpg

BTW ToW is == god!

[Sam DeathWalker]

I think I read something about they stack in groups but not in raids, can't remember, and Im the last person you should listen to lol ...

[Zub]

all totems are currently party only. not raid.
The fact that they stack however is a different matter.

most totems will become raid-wide in WOTLK, but will the ones that stack still stack? who knows.

I can't imagine what your raid of 25 shamies will be like if Wrath stacks and is raid wide... 6% spelldmg x25 and 3% crit x 25 >.< that's alot of damage.
I doubt they will stack however.

[sqeaky4100]

Yeah, theres no way that will stack in WoTLK.

Either they reduce the buffs a LOT and make it stack ( like now )... or make it stack party-wide only

[Crayonbox]

The link is talking about the WOTLK Totem of wrath. The current totem of wrath is 3% crit and hit. They are changing it to 3% crit and 6% increase spell damage.

Because the buff is raid wide, I am going to assume that they are changing it so that it does not stack. This is of course an assumption, because a % spell damage increase buff being stackable raidwide is stupid and imba. They will change it to either raid wide non stack or stackable party only.

Will most likely be raid wide unstackable.

[Zub]

Will most likely be raid wide unstackable.

yup that's what i would put my money on as well.
and the enhance shamies can provide the flametounge totem.

[Turenn]

Seems like you all are forgetting that the totems will only affect the raid members that are inrange of the totems....don't go crazy till WotLK goes live.

[Ðeceased]

anyone else fantasising about a 40 man shammy AV :thumbsup:

all you need is one attacking team and one defending team of 20 shams and there is no way in hell anyone is getting past them :P 20 tremor totems + 20 healing stream totems + 20 ToWs + and for emergancies... 20 fire elementals muahahahah

20 grounding totems.... <3

[Drizzit]

20 fire elementals

wow that would be something. Would it be better to use them all at once or just keep putting 1 out every min (20 min cd). you will at least have 2 out at once, but then you can have the oh shit button.

What you could do is have d play d at first (for the zerg) then have the offense grab the first gy. Once the first gy is capped have o switch to d, and have the old d move to up to meet the capped gy. Kill the boss on the way up. (at the first gy there is another bottle neck that the new d can defend). then have the old d go on offense.

But if you have 40 sham (maybe get a tank for the boss). Then just zerg there boss (i think that with all the totems and elementals you could take the boss down without capping anything.

[sicsid]

Does anyone else have the sudden urge to transfer toons to one server so 40 Shammy AV can be done? :P

I can just picture it, mass destruction!

I used to run WSG with 10 mages(not boxed), now that was fun, sheeps and total pwnage.

[Biz]

If they are going through the trouble of making them not stack in raids I don't know why they would let them stack in party. Especially seeing that they're making them more powerful. It would be crazy. 30% more spell damage? not gonna happen. I'm pretty happy that I didn't reroll a shaman group.

[Shuri]

Honestly, I don't know why it stacked to begin with (no offense to you shaman teams). If you have 5 warlocks in your group with imps out did you get 5x blood pact? If 5 warrior put up battle shout do you get 5x the results? I was shocked when I first found out it did stack, it almost seemed like it was a bug. Though it is awesome to see the totem forest go down and see someone get instabgibed :thumbup:

[Aradar]

It appears to me that the stacking is going away unfortunately; however, being a holy trinity setup, I think the new talent Elemental Oath makes up for it. Instead of 3 ToW for 9% hit and crit I'll have Elemental Oath up most of the time if not always for 6% crit and reduced mana cost (pally will be happy) + 3% crit and 6% spell damage from the one ToW. The loss of +hit is a bummer but I can cope with this swap. Obviously this change will be felt more by the 5 shaman teams.

[raz]

Definitely not stacking once Wrath comes out according to blue:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9023694157&pageNo=1&sid=2000#16

It's inevitable, but I'll be interested how it works out exactly.

[Jaese]

EO is +crit damage, not straight +crit.

[Aradar]

EO is +crit damage, not straight +crit.

Thanks for spoiling my mood... :cursing:

I totally missed that, read what I wanted to see instead of what it actually stated. Oh well.

[Xar]

Here is the question that nobody is asking.

What are you going to get INSTEAD of Totem of Wrath? You can't just say NS, because you'd still be losing Thunderstorm. I guess one Shaman will have ToW in my group, then the others will drop searing totems or something?Since respeccing NS for pvping I haven't switched back though I think about ToW from time to time, LOL. I just don't want to spec back and forth when I want to hop into a BG for a few hours and NS makes PVP so much more fun. :) When pvping I always drop magmas when rogues get close. I even use them in instances to help burn down multi pull mobs.

Edit: Meant to also add that Thunderstorm might be a reason for me to give up NS in Wrath but I'll have to try it out.

[Drizzit]

Thunderstorm might be a reason for me to give up NS in Wrath but I'll have to try it out
more Thunderstorm fun. ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=11811')

i think it will be worth it if your on a PvP server :P

[Aradar]

Here is the question that nobody is asking.

What are you going to get INSTEAD of Totem of Wrath? You can't just say NS, because you'd still be losing Thunderstorm. I guess one Shaman will have ToW in my group, then the others will drop searing totems or something?Well they are talking about re-designing ToW again so it depends on what the new rework is but I guess that can be said for the whole beta. Anyhow, I'm kind of at a loss becuase I have the holy trinity set up like you. Thunderstorm looks awesome but with the pally their I try to spec my shaman as though the pally will actually be doing his job and with that assumption, thunderstorm just becomes an oh crap spell and therefore not a top priority. But at the same time, I don't really want NS either becuase the last thing I need is a Shaman doing an instant strike before my pally builds up threat.

[Xar]

Here is the question that nobody is asking.

What are you going to get INSTEAD of Totem of Wrath? You can't just say NS, because you'd still be losing Thunderstorm. I guess one Shaman will have ToW in my group, then the others will drop searing totems or something?Well they are talking about re-designing ToW again so it depends on what the new rework is but I guess that can be said for the whole beta. Anyhow, I'm kind of at a loss becuase I have the holy trinity set up like you. Thunderstorm looks awesome but with the pally their I try to spec my shaman as though the pally will actually be doing his job and with that assumption, thunderstorm just becomes an oh crap spell and therefore not a top priority. But at the same time, I don't really want NS either becuase the last thing I need is a Shaman doing an instant strike before my pally builds up threat.I dunno, my 5 shaman have never prematurely NS'd themselves! ;)

I have one keybinding for my standard chain lightning and one keybinding for my death ray macro which pops EM + NS + trinkets + CL. So using that macro requires me to press my green-layer shift button on my n52 before it fires.

[Aradar]

Here is the question that nobody is asking.

What are you going to get INSTEAD of Totem of Wrath? You can't just say NS, because you'd still be losing Thunderstorm. I guess one Shaman will have ToW in my group, then the others will drop searing totems or something?Well they are talking about re-designing ToW again so it depends on what the new rework is but I guess that can be said for the whole beta. Anyhow, I'm kind of at a loss becuase I have the holy trinity set up like you. Thunderstorm looks awesome but with the pally their I try to spec my shaman as though the pally will actually be doing his job and with that assumption, thunderstorm just becomes an oh crap spell and therefore not a top priority. But at the same time, I don't really want NS either becuase the last thing I need is a Shaman doing an instant strike before my pally builds up threat.I dunno, my 5 shaman have never prematurely NS'd themselves! ;)

I have one keybinding for my standard chain lightning and one keybinding for my death ray macro which pops EM + NS + trinkets + CL. So using that macro requires me to press my green-layer shift button on my n52 before it fires.Yeah, but between my pally spells, shaman heals and shaman attacks, my n52 is full unless I start using muliple layers. Plus for my abilities such as NS, I just throw them in the macros to be used whenever available which would lead to "premature" NSs. In addition, you have 5 guys doing the same thing, does it really matter where the threat lies? Having only 3 dps shaman, the "death ray macro" isn't quite as usefull to me.

[Overflo]

The only problem i see in this scenario, is the fact that by making them not stack at all groups with more then one elemental shaman(assuming non dualboxing) will have a wasted talent that is supposed to be rather game breaking for them as are the 31 pt and 51pt. Making it stack unlimitedly raid wide is rediculous and unfair obviously, i believe (bias for multiboxers) it should not be able to stack more then 5 times or a party can get it stacked up to 5 times but the raid only recieves 1. I know it is a farfetched arguement but damaging abilities stack such as vampiric touch and each priest can regenerate mana almost unlimitedly, i don't believe thats been buffed raid wide but it still effects then entire group of people who are specced for it. now imagine only 1 priest could vampiric touch, then 4 other priests would have a wasted 41 point talent, much like this scenario is translating into. Once again a farfetched comparison but noteworthy nonetheless.

Raid wide this is unfair but in a party it shouldn't matter. How useless would healingstream totem be if it didn't stack, id use it because there aren't enough other totems but point being its not that good, and what about damaging totems such as searing, they don't provide a buff but using 5 of them can be considered stacking as they are all functioning independently of the other and aren't gimped by the fact that there are replicas. Same with tremor and grounding totems which would stack unless blizzard caused 1 spell to consume all grounding totems.

But 24 grounding totems isn't fair either as casters would be a joke, u could be in greens at 80, any boss who only casts spells wouldn't have a chance.

Anyways, im rambling, they should rework the totem if making it non stackable is the only solution due to ToW's new power.

[Stabface]

Unless I'm mistaken, most any 25 man raid boss that casts spells is generally not affected by grounding totem.

[Havelcek]

Here is the question that nobody is asking.

What are you going to get INSTEAD of Totem of Wrath? You can't just say NS, because you'd still be losing Thunderstorm. I guess one Shaman will have ToW in my group, then the others will drop searing totems or something?Well one shaman will have the flametongue totem down...that's a nice +spell boost.

[Aradar]

Here is the question that nobody is asking.

What are you going to get INSTEAD of Totem of Wrath? You can't just say NS, because you'd still be losing Thunderstorm. I guess one Shaman will have ToW in my group, then the others will drop searing totems or something?Well one shaman will have the flametongue totem down...that's a nice +spell boost.

Thats what my Resto Shaman drops.

Same here but they are changing Flametongue Weapon to be spell damage so if you have 5 shammies there won't be any point. As for the pally/shaman team, it will still help the pally as the resto shaman will be sporting the new Earthliving Weapon.