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Meshuggenah
08-09-2009, 08:48 PM
Somebody replied to another thread (that I can't find) recently, saying that Blizzard had changed TT to work via the server clock, so that staggering totem's has no effect.

During my heroic farming today, I decided to test this using the Hall of Watchers room in HoL (Mobs AoE fear you when they die). With one TT down, I was feared randomly between 1-3 seconds, occasionally running far enough to catch more agro off other mobs. With 4 staggered totems down I was never feared for more than a second. I cleared the entire room, 15 or so fears at least. Every one broke in less than a second.

Anyone know where the information that staggering tremors doesn't work come from? It seems completely false to me.

Kromtor
08-10-2009, 12:08 AM
Good question, I was wondering this myself but box shammies

heyaz
08-10-2009, 12:42 AM
Not only do they not stack, but the tick is so long you will often get feared out of range of the totems before they break anything. It's been absolutely devastating for us in arenas, I usually have to trinket out of fear, but then I just get feared again by another class. Just another thing contributing to the AOE spamfest that is multibox arena.

Stealthy
08-10-2009, 01:36 AM
Somebody replied to another thread (that I can't find) recently, saying that Blizzard had changed TT to work via the server clock, so that staggering totem's has no effect.

During my heroic farming today, I decided to test this using the Hall of Watchers room in HoL (Mobs AoE fear you when they die). With one TT down, I was feared randomly between 1-3 seconds, occasionally running far enough to catch more agro off other mobs. With 4 staggered totems down I was never feared for more than a second. I cleared the entire room, 15 or so fears at least. Every one broke in less than a second.

Anyone know where the information that staggering tremors doesn't work come from? It seems completely false to me.

The change came in 3.1.0:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/patch3p10.html

Shaman

Cleanse Spirit is now properly in the Nature spell school.
Tremor Totem: Now correctly pulses every 3 seconds, up from 1 seconds.
The effects were noticed almost immediately by many boxers (including myself), especially in pvp, as we found ourselves getting feared out totem range much more often.

It's possible they changed something in the last patch with the implementation of the new totem bar...might be time for some more testing. Having two boxing teams, one priests or locks, and the other shamans - from opposite factions would seem to be the only way to do some solid testing. If only the PTR was still up! :(

Cheers,
S.

Dorffo
08-10-2009, 02:22 PM
So I went and tested this over the weekend - King Dred in heroic DTK.

Staggering the totems at 1 second per drop yielded an instant fear-break. The the fear icons would pop up over toons heads and they'd sorta move a little but would jsut resume casting (or just standing there as the case may be).

Dropping 1 or 4 all at once was drastically less fear coverage and I had toons running all over.

heyaz
08-10-2009, 03:08 PM
So I went and tested this over the weekend - King Dred in heroic DTK.

Staggering the totems at 1 second per drop yielded an instant fear-break. The the fear icons would pop up over toons heads and they'd sorta move a little but would jsut resume casting (or just standing there as the case may be).

Dropping 1 or 4 all at once was drastically less fear coverage and I had toons running all over.

How many times did you test it? King dred only fears me once during the encounter

Bovidae
08-10-2009, 03:56 PM
I wish the combat logged tracked TT pulses and gave the specific name...

Meshuggenah
08-10-2009, 08:48 PM
The change came in 3.1.0:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/patch3p10.html

Shaman

Cleanse Spirit is now properly in the Nature spell school.
Tremor Totem: Now correctly pulses every 3 seconds, up from 1 seconds.

The effects were noticed almost immediately by many boxers (including myself), especially in pvp, as we found ourselves getting feared out totem range much more often.

It's possible they changed something in the last patch with the implementation of the new totem bar...might be time for some more testing. Having two boxing teams, one priests or locks, and the other shamans - from opposite factions would seem to be the only way to do some solid testing. If only the PTR was still up! :(

Cheers,
S.


That quote doesn't say anything about the mechanics of when the totem pulses? 3 second pulse, staggered, still equates to a pulse every second or less unless there is, as I mentioned before, some kind of tie between the server clock and when totems pulse. Which, from my testing, there doesn't seem to be.

I'm not sure how to explain it, but I did HoL again today and tested the same way, with the same result. There is a noticeable difference in fear duration with more than one tremor down.

zanthor
08-10-2009, 11:55 PM
If you install "TotemTimers" it shows you the pulse.

Stealthy
08-11-2009, 12:41 AM
That quote doesn't say anything about the mechanics of when the totem pulses? 3 second pulse, staggered, still equates to a pulse every second or less unless there is, as I mentioned before, some kind of tie between the server clock and when totems pulse. Which, from my testing, there doesn't seem to be.

I'm not sure how to explain it, but I did HoL again today and tested the same way, with the same result. There is a noticeable difference in fear duration with more than one tremor down.

Yep, although the patch notes don't say specifically that staggered pulses no longer worked, this was when we started to notice problems with staggered Tremors.

Not saying you're wrong...if blizz has changed it back, it's awesomesauce! I just think that further testing via different sources would be a good thing. ;)

moog
08-11-2009, 06:53 AM
With 5 staggered totems out during phase 3 of Onyxia, my girls barely move before starting to cast again.

Although not scientific proof, this is from every fear in phase 3 from farming Ony over the last month or more, so I'm happy that the pulses aren't synched up and can still be staggered manually.

Slats
08-11-2009, 09:37 AM
So could you technically do this?

/castsequence reset=15/combat/dead Call of Elements,,,
/castsequence reset=15/combat/dead ,Call of Elements,,
/castsequence reset=15/combat/dead ,,Call of Elements,
/castsequence reset=15/combat/dead ,,,Call of Elements

So that you could tap your key 4 times and stagger the totem sets?

Curious.

I think the OP has raised a valid question - it was never stated in the patch notes that totems dropped in the same party are locked onto the same pulse rate - it WAS working like that - but his question is - does it still do this?

It seems a few tests done by different people have some good results - what WOULD be a good enough test for all the Senior people to reconsider there strong opinions on the subject?

Ellay
08-11-2009, 11:16 AM
From the movie Selz posted, it's pretty strong evidence that staggering them yields much better results. I'll play around with both methods but it may be more effective to drop them manually still instead of all at once.

Link to post : http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=23412

mmcookies
08-11-2009, 12:21 PM
Great, looks like they changed it back!

defactoman
08-11-2009, 01:09 PM
I've always been convinced that the whole tremor totems not staggering thing was that people were going from 1 second to 3 seconds causing people to percieve that it didn't work due to the high level of change involved. I stopped playing before they moved to 1 second pulses, so never got to experience it. When I started playing again it was at 3 seconds which is pretty close (if not exactly the same) as it used to be before the whole 1 second buff. I never felt any difference.

Dorffo
08-12-2009, 02:36 PM
How many times did you test it? King dred only fears me once during the encounter


I sat there and let him fear me for a good 6-7 minutes or so, was quite boring.

Multibocks
08-12-2009, 05:07 PM
edit: woops.