How can I tell which Shaman Totems Stack and Which Don't?

[Yixum]

I'm finiding it difficult figuring out which Totem's are able to stack and which are not. I realize I'm probably just being dense, but if someone could help me out and tell me which ones do/don't or tell me how I can tell for myself, I'd appreciate it.



Thanks!

[sparvath]

log in 2 shamans and try the various totems out

[Ozbert]

Off the top of my head:

Totems providing a buff/aura:
Fire/Frost/Nature resistance: no Flametongue: no Stoneskin: no Strength of Earth: no Totem of Wrath: no Windfury: no Wrath of Air: noReplenishing totems:
Mana Spring - no Healing Stream - yesOffensive totems:
Fire Nova: yes Magma: yes Searing: yes Earth/Fire elemental: yesDefensive totems:
Earthbind: no - a single totem will affect all nearby mobs, so there's no point dropping more than one
Grounding totem: yes - each totem will absorb a different spell
Stoneclaw: yes - each totem will taunt nearby mobs
Tremor: yes - if the totems are dropped in a staggered fashion, the fear-breaking pulses will be more frequent

[Otlecs]

Tremor: yes - if the totems are dropped in a staggered fashion, the fear-breaking pulses will be more frequent
Has anybody absolutely, unequivocally proven this to still be the case?

There was a flurry of posts some time ago (3.1?) which suggested that the totem "pulse" timers are now synchronised server-side and staggering them makes no difference - they all pulse together.

Ditto for the Cleansing totem.

And, since I'm thread hijacking, can anybody confirm which of the totems still breaks enemy stealth in PvP? :whistling:

[Creazil]

...And, since I'm thread hijacking, can anybody confirm which of the totems still breaks enemy stealth in PvP? :whistling:Earthbind Totem breaks stealth, if it's improved (aka roots).

[Zal]

Tremor: yes - if the totems are dropped in a staggered fashion, the fear-breaking pulses will be more frequent
Has anybody absolutely, unequivocally proven this to still be the case?

There was a flurry of posts some time ago (3.1?) which suggested that the totem "pulse" timers are now synchronised server-side and staggering them makes no difference - they all pulse together.

Ditto for the Cleansing totem.

And, since I'm thread hijacking, can anybody confirm which of the totems still breaks enemy stealth in PvP? :whistling:
tremor totem DOESN'T STACK, get a few enchancement shamans to drop the totem if specced for the extra buff it can give and you'll notice that even when staggard (the buff resets when it pulses) the buff durations will become the same after 1 pulse from any totem.

[Simulacra]

I'm pretty sure tremor totems stack because if I just use one on King Dred my team run around like headless chickens, if I use 4 staggered they don't. I've killed dred quite a few times.

[Otlecs]

I guess we still don't have concensus here then :)

With my Shammy team leisurely cruising to 80 (77 at the moment), I use one Tremor Totem in PvE and three - unstaggered - in PvP just to buy me some time to kill people before they totem-stomp. I couldn't think of any way to imperically prove whether they stack so I haven't actively tried it out myself.

I do find the Earthern Power pulse argument quite compelling though.

Thanks for the hint on breaking stealth too. I can't help feeling there must be more than just improved earthbind that breaks stealth though, so I'll grab my poor old level 60 rogue for some experiments in duels over the weekend and report back!

edit: readability FTW!

[Otlecs]

So, I just had a quick play and found that Stoneclaw (no, that's not a mistake... I do mean Stoneclaw!) and the fire totems break stealth. Unimproved earthbind doesn't, and I don't have any character with that talent so I can't check.

Interesting about Stoneclaw though!

A quick Google confirmed that it's been that way for a while, with no comment form Blizz on whether it's intentional :)

[mmcookies]

So maybe this is why my shammies have been feared for longer since I recently came back to multiboxing (I always drop tremor staggered).

Anyone know of a mob that consistently fears so I can test this out?

[ElectronDF]

I think the witchdoctors that look like the broken south of the cenarion expedition town in Zangermarsh drop a tremor totem. But they are like lvl 62 or so, so you might resist if on a high char. Only high one I can think of is Dred.

[Ualaa]

Well unequivocably, they used to stack.

I would have four shammies each drop a Tremor.
Roughly half a second apart (4 presses over 2 seconds).
Fear would last no longer then half a second.

In 3.1 they changed the pulse timers to 3 seconds from 2.
Which means, if you're feared at any given time:
- Tremor pulses immediately (0 seconds).
- Tremor pulses in 1 second.
- Tremor pulses in 2 seconds.
- Tremor pulses in 3 seconds.

Fear does sometimes break immediately for me.
But it sometimes takes 3 seconds, which generally means I'm out of range of the Tremor Totem too.





In Ulduar 25, on Auriyaya (cat lady, however you spell her name), we run with three shammies in the raid.
They tried putting healers in three different groups, with a shammy per group and Tremors dropped in sequence, not all at once.
All of the healers have the fear end at the same time.




I'm very much leaning towards they all pulse on the server clock.

[mmcookies]

So really the only use for multiple tremors now is to cover a wider area so you won't run out of range?

[Otlecs]

So really the only use for multiple tremors now is to cover a wider area so you won't run out of range?
In PvE, that's pretty much it. In PvP, with totem stomping, the other obvious benefit is that the enemy has more to go through before you become vulnerable to fear :)

[Zymurgy]

So really the only use for multiple tremors now is to cover a wider area so you won't run out of range?
In PvE, that's pretty much it. In PvP, with totem stomping, the other obvious benefit is that the enemy has more to go through before you become vulnerable to fear :)

This is what I would do with multiple Shaman in Raids where fear was a concern. Tremor is one of the Group only buffs too. So if your team is in a Raid and not on the same group multiple Tremor's are still good.

As for PVP 3.2 is eliminating Totem Stomping, Thank you Blizz!

[Fizzler]

I know there was some changes to Totems recently. I would love to see what you folks are typically dropping. Understandably this will change depending on the fight but when you roll up to a trash mob what is your standard set up?

[Ogloo]

or just watch this.. thanks to the orgional poster!

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=23412&highlight=tremor