New fire nova totem

[yaki]

Nice catch.. they either LoS the instant LvB or the 4x Totems, but likely not both.

Almost rather they suck up the totems...if they're out of LoS, they generally can't shoot you back either.

[heyaz]

Almost rather they suck up the totems...if they're out of LoS, they generally can't shoot you back either.

The super high rated teams will do this though... they;ll get within 1 yard of range and fire off stuff to annoy you forever, or if you're unlucky, global your main, while the best you can do is flame shock which just gets dispelled. If you start casting lava burst they run back long before it ever goes off. I've got a good video of us against a top 15 team that was amazingly efficient at this. On one map we gave up and rushed them just to see what damage we could do. Another time we got them all in range, but you'd be surprised how fast a ele shaman can ghost wolf out of range when he was right in front of you when you started casting.

[Clovis]

I got to use this in BGs -- it was kind of fun, I got three rogues with it.

Areas, well its hard to say - we only did 3 games and each time was against a 2500 team - they weren't good, just a standard ele / destro / hunter wizard cleave team - I dropped two quickly and then stopped casting spells (lag?) but didn't really get a chance to use it as we were the only ones queuing - at least they were from our server.

[Altsoba]

Maybe I'm wrong since I didn't try it yet but I really don't understand how this cannot be good.

Melee is still one of the problems for control/damage etc and with this you don't have to worry about facing, so you can drop magmas for ticking damage, blast this and it'll put some pression on healers to heal the melee while at the same time you can be casting your normal "rotation" against ranged and healers. It's definitely better than the old fire nova imo but again maybe time and experience will prove that I'm wrong.

Now, the real problem and the reason why it gets less usefull since it must be used with moderation it's mana cost... But I like the overall idea behind the "new totem functionality".

[drevil]

i want my old stun back, the only reason i used these totems

vs 2k+ teams with everybody having 32k+ life,
the mana cost (22% base) and range limit (10") makes it very sucky.

[Clovis]

It may improve with practice but I tend to be outside of the small range when I need it.

The real limiting factor is the 1.5 second global - which means it can't be followed up immediately with thunderstorm.

So basically this is a finisher move against melee where previously a lot of used quad TS to finish off that warrior/rogue/DK

[Zappy]

Rogues are going to hate us. Just dropping 4 magma totems can eat a rogue to half HP within a few seconds. I can't tell you how many matches I've played where a rogue is stunning one of my guys good enough to where I can't get a finisher off due to one or two of my guys being CC'd. Most of the rogues I've faced at higher ratings typically won't cloak until they know I'm focusing them, which now, I can focus on their ranged, forcing the healer on that target, and let the magma totems eat away. When I see the rogue get to half health from the totems, hit the nova totems followed by a thunderstorm or two and no more rogue.

I need some more testing to confirm, but one thing I thought I noticed was that my nova spell went off even while stunned.

[Ualaa]

It still costs a global to cast this spell, so while you're doing the AoE, you are not also pressuring ranged.

If it were off of the GCD, so you could do both, that would really create some pressure.

[Kruschpakx4]

If it were off of the GCD, so you could do both, that would really create some pressure.

i hope that blizz is going to fix that... atm too much mana intensive and ineffective against caster teams :/

[daviddoran]

I have to say, Its won me 2 games. Although I suck at 5x, the sheer aoe burst of 5 novas going off at once has helped immensely. I drop magmas, then nova, then thundersshock, and if it doesnt kill anyone, it hurts enough players so much that its hard for healers to keep em all up. The stun never really worked for me, it always was either too late, or the totem got wanded down.