Totem Stomping macros on the way out...

[Stealthy]

More good news for shammies...alothough this one will take a while to implement.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/1586...ng-macros.html


In defense of Totem Stomping Macros


There has been a lot of QQ from Shamans regarding this topic lately. While I understand their frustration, I don't think they have valid arguments to complain.

First of all, shamans have to understand that most mechanics in this game have counters. Just like you have totems that are counters for diseases, poisons, fear, and spells, your totems have counters.

And guess what: the most effective counter against your totems are pets.

Now, not all classes have pets. In fact, only 3 of the 10 classes of the game have permanent pets:
Hunters, DKs and Warlocks. Of the remaining 7 classes only 3 have summonable pets on a long cd that last for a short period of time: Frost Mages, Enh Shamies and Balance Druids. Is not like every single class of this game has this counter for your totems.

Second, these pets can be countered too. You can kill them. Enhancement and Elemental shamans should have an easy time killing these pets alone, if they are so worried about protecting their totems.

Third and lastly, you can't complain about the fact that these classes don't have to spend a GCD to kill your totems. That point is not valid. I know it doesn't seem fair, but that's how pets work. Deal with it. Pets are a separated entity from their master. You can crowd control his master, and the pet will still be able to crowd control you. This is not only a shaman problem. This is a game mechanic that has always been there:

-A fel hunter can silence when I already silenced the warlock (thing that drives me nuts)
-A fel hunter can continouslly eat by buffs without the warlock having to spend a single GCD.
-A frost mage can command his water elemental to freeze me while he's almost done casting that frost bolt. Guess what, that didn't use his gcd neither.

Your points in favor of totem stomping macros are not valid. Pets are a counter for your totems, a counter a few classes have. Learn to deal with that.

A whole different point, is that some pet mechanics need a nerf.
[ Post edited by Arween ]

</INS>class > skill > gear
that's it.



Arween


2009-03-24 04:19:48

Re: In defense of Totem Stomping Macros


From our POV, there is no defense of totem-stomping macros.

If you want to take the time to give your pet a command and a target to kill a totem, great. But to be able to neutralize a core mechanic of the class so easily because you are clever enough to copy a macro off of the Internet is not skill.

The only reason they still exist are technical limitations, not because we like the design. (And please don't feel the need to offer your technical suggestions. )





Ghostcrawler


2009-03-25 17:13:23

Re: In defense of Totem Stomping Macros

Q u o t e:
I don't understand how you can say "there is no defense of totem-stomping macros" when the players themselves have offered numerous ways to fix it.

I said "in our minds." You can come up with all the defenses you'd like, but until you hit on one that is so profound that it forces us to change our design, our intent is that they are bad for the game. We currently don't have a system in place to prevent totem-stomping macros, but we are woking on one.

Q u o t e:
The problem isn't that totems can be killed, it's that there is no downside to it save for Stoneclaw Totem.

Totems are designed to be easily killed. Their advantage is that the shaman can do other things while the totem is doing its thing. That is essentially the heart of totem balance.

If you command your pet to kill a totem, we don't have a problem with that. That is no different than a player deciding to use an attack to kill a totem. But note the key word there: "deciding." When you are able to kill a totem solely by virtue of the fact that you are a pet class, you have made no decision. You have made no commitment of resources. Your pet is just going and doing its own thing. That crosses a line for us. Your pet is not a totem. It is not nearly as easy to kill. Thus we require that you spend some amount of your bandwidth telling it what to do.

I can understand how other players might feel differently though. We think macroing an ability like Rune Strike or the old Kill Command isn't an exploit (though it might not be the most dynamic game design in the world). Having a macro that targets the most injured player and heals them, or automatically decurses, is an exploit. The difference is going to be gray sometimes and we just have to make a judgment call when that happens.

[Toned]

that or /petattack is restricted to the masters current target only.

[Iceorbz]

I think just giving totems 10% of the shamans hit points is sufficient, its more a matter of a mage wanding your totem one time, or 15 damage from a pet to take one out that bothers me.

[Broken]

Its not like there are so many different Totem names, simply adding a condition for pets not being able to target totems via macros wouldnt be hard to implement from my pov. Could even implement it clientside.

But then again, i havent exactly had a chance to look at wow sourcecode

[defactoman]

Most likely end result?

Pet macro commands are removed from the API.

/fail

Probably nothing so drastic, or else they probably would of already done it by the sounds of their post. I'm sure there trying to think of a solution that doesnt break things that make hunters lives easier but that doesn't allow easy totem stomping. So im thinking something along the lines of pets being able to attack a totem by name when using a macro or giving totems a specific "type" or identifier in the game which pets won't attack if given a macro kill command.

[genocyde]

If you command your pet to kill a totem, we don't have a problem with that. That is no different than a player deciding to use an attack to kill a totem. But note the key word there: "deciding." When you are able to kill a totem solely by virtue of the fact that you are a pet class, you have made no decision.

This is a terrifying statement to me. For example.

If you command your multiple toons to kill a mob, we don't have a problem with that. That is no different than ONE toon deciding to use an attack to kill a mob. But note the key word there: "deciding." When your toon is able to kill a mob solely by virtue of the fact that another toon is, you have made no decision. Therefore, we can no longer allow macros to target anything based off another units target and only the "player / target / focus" unit frames still exist, in addition all target of X (i.e. focustarget, targettarget) commands removed.
-multiboxingArmageddon

I Mean, obviously that won't happen but things like
/cast [target=targettarget] healmacro
are only different than a totem stomping macro by way of semantics, I'm not making the decision to heal the enemy's target if your not making the decision to have your pet kill the first tremor/grounding he can find. Personally I hope they make the targeting system more robust, they seem to lean this way with "new enemy unit frames coming for arena".

As for totem stomping macros I couldn't care less, make totems AoE food again for all I care. Make stoneclaw totem make all other totems untargetable and unkillable while it is alive, give it pet like health and take it off global cooldown. Take it off it's totem slot while your at it and make it a "Master totem" i.e. not take a earth/fire/water/air slot. Make it a pet that carries your totems around with you, possibly looking like a big walking totem pole with flames for eyes.

[defactoman]

I think what there trying to say here is they dont like the idea of tacking a macro on top of everything you do that makes something "brainless". A targettarget heal macro wouldn't be usable like a totem stomping macro which is why it's not even on the radar since it activates a global cooldown. What they dont like is that every attack a hunter can make could technically have this "target totem /pet attack" macro attached to it. Trivializing the thought proccess behind killing totems.

This is why they specifically mentioned rune strike and other abilities as a gray area, because its along the same lines. However rune strike and such don't disable such an important part of someones class (and has a certain cost attached to it). If all of a sudden runestrike randomly dispelled a pally buff they would have a problem with it :P

[Stealthy]

It's not just that it's macro'd - it's macro'd with no GCD, which means u can keep spamming the macro without lowering your normal DPS.

Blizz just want there to be an associated cost with the decision to go after a Shaman's totem's - i owuld expect Blizz to change /petattack to trigger the GCD, since a pet on defensive stance will automatically go after the master's target as soon as they start attacking...but who knows?

Cheers,

S.

[Multibocks]

now that's a great idea! Tie the macro /pet attack to GCD and they can no longer spam it with abilities, yet they will still attack whomever you are targetting. Makes the decision to attack totems not so easy.