Glyph of Stoneclaw totem

I've seen this mentioned in a few threads, and I've brought it up myself, but I'm really agonising over the decision as to whether I really want to use it now I'm closing in on being more useful in PvP.

It was a no-brainer for my resto spec - I didn't lose anything useful - but it's tougher for my elemental specs.

At the moment, they each use Glyph of Lava, Glyph of Lightning Bolt and Glyph of Flame Shock (sorry, no item tags there because it just makes the text unreadable).

I DO struggle to stay alive against more than one whirl-winding warrior, even with instant GW to bug out, so I could definitely use some more survivability, but I don't know which of the existing glyphs I would drop.

So, for you more experienced PvPers.... could you tell me if you use this glyph, and what your thought processes were in deciding what glyphs to actually run with?

Thanks in advance.

Don't know about others. But I use this glyph on all my shamans. The way I see it is this: Let's say without it, you have to hit your "spread out" button to get out to avoid AOE dmg. Then no doubt you will stop casting and lose damage. And if you cast one less lightning bolt due to this "moving out". That to me, is a huge loss.

So personally, i don't think other glyphs are as good as this one. It absorbs around 4k dmg after you drop the totem. You can immediately replace the stoneclaw totem with others (earthbind, tremor). And not lose the buff.

(I couldn't access my old forum user, make a new user and start over -__-)

I use it. 4000 health shield.

power word: shield shaman

Otlecs it depends whether you are talking about open PVP or arena.

I never found it too useful in arena, seemed like it was gone instantly, and none of the glyphs I had before were ones I could really sacrifice: lava, shocking, and thunder

Ya stoneclaw is useless in 5v5. Open pvp its ok, but still kinda pointless.

I thought the general thought was this was a required totem? Ditch the lightning bolt, that's pretty useless for pvp where as the stoneclaw can make the difference in close fights.

Most of the top 5v5 shaman use it. It's not useless...

As a single player shaman its good in arena, but as a boxer shaman in arena its fairly useless

Interesting stuff.

I'm talking about BGs and WG at the moment, where I'm gaining experience before suffering the humiliation of my first dip into level 80 arenas, so ultimately it would be for arenas too.

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You can immediately replace the stoneclaw totem with others (earthbind, tremor). And not lose the buff.

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Although losing one of my existing glyphs is somewhat of a difficult choice for me, the bigger problem was that I was finding it hard to rationalise losing my other earth totems (tremor, stoneskin and often earth bind too).

I didn't realise before that the buff wasn't lost on dropping a new totem, so that's really useful information.

It's a cheap experiment in any case, so armed with all the information in this thread, I think I'll give it a bash this weekend.

Cheers all.

Out of interest I was wondering if those of you that have this totem on all their shammies use it in rotation? I realise that the totem has a long cooldown, but if you are losing the shield quickly, is it possible to cast it on rotation ala tremor? If so, we are potentially talking 16k in shield per 30 secs for the whole team which sounds pretty nice.

Cheers

From the way you've phrased it, I think you're mistakenly thinking that a single stoneclaw shields the whole team.

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Use: Your Stoneclaw Totem also places a damage absorb shield on you, equal to 4 times the strength of the shield it places on your totems.

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It's just for you and your own totem so there's no value in a rotation :)

My opinion:

I used it for some months now and my conclusion is that is isn't worth a Major Glyph slot in Arena. Because of what reason? Because when drop the Stoneclaw Totem, it consumes the Tremor Totems. I could slap Tremor down again with Call of the Elements but then they all pulse at the same time which is bad. So I need to put it down with the old rotation, which takes about 2 seconds. In that time the 4000 damage shield is already consumed.

It is nice to have at the beginning of arena, but he, lets face it, with the proper gear/gems/professions you can nuke 1 down anyway.

Glyph of Shocking
Glyph of Lava
Glyph of Wrath

Those are THE Arena Glyph in my opinion and the ones that suited me the best.

I hope that I gave you a good view from my perspective.

Junglelove,

-Menthu

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Originally Posted by Naysayer

Most of the top 5v5 shaman use it. It's not useless...

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Argh. First off, I am the top shaman in 5v5, and the 2 of us boxers at 1900+ right now are not using it This was discussed long ago and here's the reason. If stoneclaw totem didn't eat a GCD, then it would be much more useful. However it does, and in boxer 5v5 it consistantly takes LESS than a second to take 5k aoe damage. So if you cast this, the problem is you just wasted 2 full seconds (1gcd+1 tremor recast) to shield yourself for less than a second, not to mention your tremors will no longer be staggered. That's essentially like standing there doing nothing for 1-1.5 secs. That time is much better spent rotating thunderstorm or healing.

And yes lightning bolt glyph is a raiding glyph for long duration rotations. Not gonna buy you any kills with it.

This is in my guide which is almost complete, but the best 3 glyphs are lava, shocking, and thunder... with TOW being a decent 4th option in place of shocking or thunder (shocking is a must for arena tho).

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Originally Posted by asonimie

Argh. First off, I am the top shaman in 5v5, and the 2 of us boxers at 1900+ right now are not using it This was discussed long ago and here's the reason. If stoneclaw totem didn't eat a GCD, then it would be much more useful. However it does, and in boxer 5v5 it consistantly takes LESS than a second to take 5k aoe damage. So if you cast this, the problem is you just wasted 2 full seconds (1gcd+1 tremor recast) to shield yourself for less than a second, not to mention your tremors will no longer be staggered. That's essentially like standing there doing nothing for 1-1.5 secs. That time is much better spent rotating thunderstorm or healing.

And yes lightning bolt glyph is a raiding glyph for long duration rotations. Not gonna buy you any kills with it.

This is in my guide which is almost complete, but the best 3 glyphs are lava, shocking, and thunder... with TOW being a decent 4th option in place of shocking or thunder (shocking is a must for arena tho).

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No you're not. The top 5v5 shaman plays on my server.

Stoneclaw helps you in matches that begin with a rushdown gib attempt. Gives you an advantage and dropping one of them immediately before they drop one of you, which is huge. Gives your healer some room to breathe. Don't tell me it's useless, that's ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Naysayer

No you're not. The top 5v5 shaman plays on my server.

Stoneclaw helps you in matches that begin with a rushdown gib attempt. Gives you an advantage and dropping one of them immediately before they drop one of you, which is huge. Gives your healer some room to breathe. Don't tell me it's useless, that's ridiculous.

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Please link this boxer on your server that is currently higher rating than asonimie.

If your talking about shaman solo than yes you got a point, but only on a comp where the shaman would be the focus.

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Originally Posted by Naysayer

No you're not. The top 5v5 shaman plays on my server.

Stoneclaw helps you in matches that begin with a rushdown gib attempt. Gives you an advantage and dropping one of them immediately before they drop one of you, which is huge. Gives your healer some room to breathe. Don't tell me it's useless, that's ridiculous.

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I believe he means top boxer shaman.

You don't have to lose tremor totem staggering while refreshing the shield either.

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Originally Posted by Naysayer

You don't have to lose tremor totem staggering while refreshing the shield either.

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How's that?

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Originally Posted by heyaz

How's that?

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Same way you stagger your tremors. Just add stoneclaws and empty comas in your macro accordingly on the shaman not casting tremor and you'll never be without a staggered tremor.

hmm what shaman isnt casting tremor totem?

Edit: removed, you aren't worth it.

http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/team/...an/shaman/any/

Not to start a flame war here. Just to discuss the options.

I might be too focused on the problem and did not look at the whole picture. Statistically, I don't recall losing any of my matches due to fear. Sometimes, I even want them to fear me. So I take less damage when spreading out (30% dmg reduction when feared). I am having trouble staying alive when cleave team melee AOE me. Since all my guys are standing together facing one direction, when they run in and melee AOE, I have to either turn or move, avoid damage is only one of the reason. More importantly I have to make sure my guys are facing the melee. This turning and facing takes time. I think stoneclaw buys some precious time for me. Combined with divine sacrifice, I am buying a few seconds that I don't have to worry about dying. Around 1500, no teams are dumb enough to take me head on. They come from behind and start with CC. When I am heavily CCed, they start their AOE game.

Now if you are saying you can just instantly kill the melee , no need to move at all, or you can move turn and face in less than 1 GCD, or even your gear and healer are good enough to keep you alive. Then by all means, add more dps, reduce that CD on TS.

So the question is how exactly do we deal with melee. Veteran boxers seemed to have mastered it. Please share the wisdom.

For the record, I've been TS + root these guys. But paladin with freedom, rog lock down, and warrior with shield always have their way with me. and I've been dropping stoneclaw all this time to buy time.

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Originally Posted by remanz

Not to start a flame war here. Just to discuss the options.

I might be too focused on the problem and did not look at the whole picture. Statistically, I don't recall losing any of my matches due to fear. Sometimes, I even want them to fear me. So I take less damage when spreading out (30% dmg reduction when feared). I am having trouble staying alive when cleave team melee AOE me. Since all my guys are standing together facing one direction, when they run in and melee AOE, I have to either turn or move, avoid damage is only one of the reason. More importantly I have to make sure my guys are facing the melee. This turning and facing takes time. I think stoneclaw buys some precious time for me. Combined with divine sacrifice, I am buying a few seconds that I don't have to worry about dying. Around 1500, no teams are dumb enough to take me head on. They come from behind and start with CC. When I am heavily CCed, they start their AOE game.

Now if you are saying you can just instantly kill the melee , no need to move at all, or you can move turn and face in less than 1 GCD, or even your gear and healer are good enough to keep you alive. Then by all means, add more dps, reduce that CD on TS.

So the question is how exactly do we deal with melee. Veteran boxers seemed to have mastered it. Please share the wisdom.

For the record, I've been TS + root these guys. But paladin with freedom, rog lock down, and warrior with shield always have their way with me. and I've been dropping stoneclaw all this time to buy time.

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You're exactly right, stoneclaw totem buys you time. Unfortunately it costs time too. Time is everything in 5v5. I'll touch more on this in my guide I'm writing, but one of the main themes of real 5v5 is Kill a DPS ASAP. What you're observing is true, those stoneclaws are prolonging your death.... but when it's done you'll still die.

And I wouldn't say any of us have "mastered" melee. They suck and its difficult to out-dps healers on a melee sponge who's weaving around you. Honestly I usually either kill melee after a TS, or I kill the ranged support and completely ignore the melee. I once put down magma totems and then put so much dps / interrupt pressure on the healers causing them to run away... that 2 melee died from my magmas lol. Good times. I'll leave it at that for now as I'm already writing a huge post on general arena info.

Also spreading out isn't very viable. It will reduce the damage you take but it completely kills your precision and dmg output. Facing issues FTL

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Originally Posted by Naysayer

Same way you stagger your tremors. Just add stoneclaws and empty comas in your macro accordingly on the shaman not casting tremor and you'll never be without a staggered tremor.

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Way too many globals, not worth it for that shield.

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Originally Posted by asonimie

Edit: removed, you aren't worth it.

http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/team/...an/shaman/any/

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Fucking badass, I'm the #9 ranked team IN THE WORLD!! =)

I use stone claw quite a bit in the BGs to buy time if I'm retreating to the rear of a paticular fight (ie, AV where it tends to be 20 on 20 and I'm not getting focused but rather pot shots and aoe).

But let's say you replace stoneclaw -- what to replace it with? I know some people have said wrath and while that looks promising, that gylyph only works if each shaman has the totem of wrath down, correct? Ie, no magma or frost resist totems, right? Currently I drop two searing totems, ToW and frost resist for my fire totems.

my preference is lava, shocking, thunder

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Originally Posted by heyaz

Way too many globals, not worth it for that shield.

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You're supposed to use the shield preemptively, not during the action. Like a priest stam buff, shield, or warlock sac re-summon.

They should rename it to Glyph of 434 stamina buff. We all know how "useless" 434 stamina is, right asonime? I never even let priests use fort on me or pallies Kings me in arena because it's "useless". Opponent is just going to blow through it in 1 second as asonime said.

Thunder is much more useful. You know when you've used that 5th thunderstorm and the fight isn't decided yet, and you really need that extra thunderstorm? Yah man, all the time.

http://www.improvresourcecenter.com/...es/popcorn.gif

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So the question is how exactly do we deal with melee.

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This is perhaps the broader question behind my original post, but I'll wait for the two promised guides to read about that :)

To be honest, it's good to see that there's no "obvious" right answer. Not only does it make for some good morning-coffee-entertainment (thanks guys) but it means I wasn't necessarily being just plain stupid when I was struggling to make the decision for myself.

In the meantime, I've taken it on just one of my guys (my normal resto-specced "leader") and tried to work it into my survival rotation.

It definitely saved me a few deaths last night in WG and AV, but then I'm not at the stage of the game where a single GCD will make or break an encounter for me yet - I'm barely beyond the mindless keyboard mashing stage!

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Originally Posted by remanz

interact with target is a keybind where you can configure it to bind to a key in the key binding manual. The function itself is restricted thus cannot be invoked in a macro. it has to be keybind.

After bind it to a key, you have to turn on "click-to-move" in the interface manual. Now when you hit this key, it will turn and run towards the target trying to interact with it (friendly) or attack it (melee attack for hostile).

Now for the real usage, after a fear all your guys will face random directions, you hit this key for all. They all turn and face your target. and try to run towards it. You hit your "stop moving" key. finally start casting.

I used it in arena like this. Ret paladin run in with freedom on or arm warrior blade storming, I basically press and hold my spread key. All my shamans are start to run towards different directions. Then "interact with target" => "stop moving" => "FS , Lava burst FTW". This way I ensure at least 3 of my shamans will face the target. If i don't move, they do the melee dance. and they avoid all 4 spells that I casted.

Now, i bet someone might come out and say this is useless :P

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Well i posted in another thread related to interact with targets for how I deal with melees. This is all I come up with. Not a life saver or game winner in arena yet. 3 key presses is the draw back. But I say worth a try. And it is very funky to look at also. 4 guys running, turnning and attack. Almost god (bot) like.

I use that in PvE all the time, and it works because I use a target-based (assist) system.

I sometimes use it in "world" PvP too, when I know there's a smelly horde somewhere nearby but can't find him because he's hidden in a building - interact with target sends the drones towards them just like a pet on attack :)

BUT in BG and WG PvP, in preparation for arenas, I'm using a focus-based system that doesn't reveal who I'm ACTUALLY going to nuke.

And there's no interact with focus key :(

For me, though, this was more about how to survive a melee assault and right now, with my fairly uncompetitive skills, the stoneclaw totem seems to be worth a glyph slot.

Perhaps when my skills and survivability improve I'll feel that it's a waste of a global cooldown, but right now I've come to the conclusion that it's a Good Thing.

Otlecs was asking opinions for experienced PvPers. It's clear that there no active 5v5 shammy teams on Emerald Dream. 'Nuf said.