Quote Originally Posted by unit187
chain heal is nice but there is a chance it will just to another players you dont want to heal and also it is only 3 targets. When you get heavy AoEd you need to do 5 targets heal, and fast

about dispeling. So what are you gonna do if one of your toons get sheeped? wait 10 sec on one place? thats isnt that good
and poison cleansing totem isnt godly against rogues because it can fail dispeling rogues' poisons so you have to wait another tick... so anyways you more likely will have to remove poison by yourself

about tremor, it does not remove those effects right away after landing. Tested 1000 times in pvp and pve. It can start pulsing whenever it wants withing 5 seconds.
Just quoting the stuff I'm going to comment on.

Chain heal automatically prioritizes the chain heal bounces. It finds the people with the highest health deficiency and goes down from there. Even as a player, I don't have a reaction time that fast. Besides, a priest spamming prayer/circle of healing will go oom faster than a shaman spamming chain heal. Final note - for sudden burst aoe damage, you CAN NS-maxchainheal. Not saying they're BETTER than priests - if the situation calls for sudden and massive aoe healing without regard to mana then sure, priests have higher HPS if everyone's taking damage... but shaman are surely capable alternatives - more capable, in my opinion, than pallies and probably druids as well if the druid wasn't loading everyone up with hots before the aoe.

Finally, it's my experience that people put on heavy offense, like AoE, to force you into excessive defense. As a shaman, when met with heavy AoE or focus fire, my strategy is to meet fire with fire - if their AoE is in my face, I make it so the AoE doesn't WANT to be in my face - earthbind, frost shocks, fire nova totems, etc. Typically the moment a aoeing mage meets resistance they blink the hell out of there. But that's just my experience and my way of doing things - you can take my information and do whatever the heck you want with it. Play the game how you wanna.

There ARE ways to prevent sheeps. Earth shock is one of the fastest counters, and pretty obvious. Even my resto shaman has her stopcasting earth shock macro and uses it FREQUENTLY. Second is grounding totem. Granted, every class has it's weaknesses, but chances are in a group with 4 dps and a priest who do you think is going to get sheeped? The dispeller. So it's a moot point anyway - with no earth shock you're going to have to trinket out of sheep on the priest anyway - why not prevent the sheep with earth shock/grounding? It's just another option to priest/paladin dispells.

As for tremor, it has been my experience 100% that it pulses on the first drop, then pulses on a timer after. I would say, at this point, opinion on this can be reader discretion. Roll a shammy on the PTR and try it out if people are considering using tremor totem effectively in their group makeup. Your experience may vary, but my experience with tremor has been flawless. Casting it prior to the fear, though, is 50/50 - you can easily run out of range of the totem between pulses.

Lastly, totems have 5 health, but seriously... the only time I've seen people destroy my totem is the ones who have totem targeting macros -- and they go straight for grounding totem. The best time to cast grounding is in the middle of someone casting CC - they either have to step out and wand it, in which case you get to earth shock them the next time they cast - or they have to let your grounding totem eat their CC. Earthbind may not seem like much, but when a rogue pounces on my mage buddy I just earthbind + poison cleansing and that rogue is useless.

The truth is most people are too dumb or in too much of a rush to manually target and wand/throw something at the totem.

Why waste a CoEx when you can have CoA or elements, since the totem does just as good? Why not complement your CoEx with a tremor totem if you're facing another warlock? These are all OPTIONS.

I will readily admit that the shaman's enemy in PvP is getting caught by CC and getting spell interrupts. Knowing that fact, all I'm emphasizing is the tools to minimize those weaknesses. If you choose not to use earthbind or tremor totem, that's your loss. The shaman buff system isn't perfect, but you rarely see it played to its full potential.