[Arena] Totem Theorycrafting?

[Finges]

My team is ever so slowly crouching towards 70 and BG/Arenas... I've been trying to soak in as much information as possible... and a few questions have arisen out of some of the things I've read.

1. Totem Cast sequence.
I was thinking about an optimal cast sequence for totems for a standard arena layout. This is if a player wants to only smash 1 button 4x to get all their totems down.

Assumptions:

1. A standard totem layout is as follows
   1. 4 Grounding totems
   2. 4 tremor totems
   3. 4 Water totems... some mix of poison/healing/mana
   4. 4 fire totems.. doesn't matter
2. Most players want to front load their groundings totems
3. Tremor totems and poison totems should be staggered

In my illustration I'm going to use 4 staggered poison and 4 searing.

Toon 1: Tremor Grounding Searing Poison
Toon 2: Grounding Tremor Poison Searing
Toon 3: Grounding Poison Tremor Searing
Toon 4: Poison Grounding Searing Tremor

I believe for a 1 button x 4 smashes cast sequence.. this would be optimal? I've gone through a lot of the cast sequences posted and haven't seen this one recommended? Maybe I'm wrong.

The bold/underlined poison spots would be where I would fill in healing/mana totems for poison for the most optimal pulsing of poison totems. Although if you were going to do less than 4 poisons.. that would allow you to front load 3 grounding totems... with the following:

Toon 1: Tremor Grounding Searing Poison
Toon 2: Grounding Tremor Mana Searing
Toon 3: Grounding Poison Tremor Searing
Toon 4: Grounding Healing Searing Tremor

What do you think?


2. Tremor totems.
Why would you need more than 3 staggered tremors down at a time if you're setting up stationary somewhere. From my reading... tremor totems pulse every 3 seconds. And the GCD on totems is 1 second. So if you're using a cast sequence macro to plant your tremor totems... and have a sequence like the one below:

Toon 1 - tremor, , ,
Toon 2 - , tremor , ,
Toon 3 - , , tremor ,
Toon 4 - , , , tremor

Wouldn't toon 1 and 4's tremor pulses be on the same timing? Would this allow for the use of a 4th earth totem.. such as earthbind?

[Bluepants]

Hi there.

I suggest making it a 3 totem macro, leave the fire totems out of it..
This is VERY handy for half of your AV matches, when u drop fire elems.
It also lets you refresh totems while waiting for fire nova totem to do its thing ;)
I also suggest using 3grounding and 1 wrath of air, having a seperate key for 4 groundings if you need to refresh.
That 101 spelldamage is a huge buff.
I also use 3tremor 1 earthbind, so any warrior charging in, sure as hell isn't getting away.

[Boylston]

I'd like to second Bluepants' feedback:

I recommend:
3xGrounding, 1xWrath of Air
3xTremor, 1xEarthbind
4xPoison Cleansining (probably need to add a disease in there for WotLK..)
4xSearing, then drop Nova/Magma as needed

I also recommend having a 3-key setup for the earth/water/air totems, leaving the fire last. One, it's not nearly as defensive as the others. Two, you can safely reapply all your totems with your fire elementals out.

I advocate using four separate keys so that cast sequencing never goofs up. I've been using U-I-O-P and J-K-L-; for my PvP and PvE totem loadouts. I have separate keys bound to 4xGrounding, 4xNova, 4xTremor and other important drops. The 4x Grounding key I use a lot in PvP after I'm engaged with casters. Yes, it eats the WoA, but it helps so much with survivability that it's worth it.

[Boylston]

I thought I'd include the mappings I use. Read these Top to bottom, since I press U-I-O-P in sequence. "Main" and "2,3,4" correspond to my characters.

Button U: 1-Tremor, 2-Grounding, 3-Grounding, 4-Grounding
Button I: 1-Poison, 2-Tremor, 3-Poison, 4-Earthbind
Button O: 1-Wrath of Air, 2-Poison, 3-Tremor, 4-Poison
Button P: 1-Searing, 2-Searing, 3-Searing, 4-Searing

Basically, first totem-drop is key to provide a bare minimum of Fear/Polymorph protection. It also gets all the groundings out at once so that they can be refreshed at basically the same time later. Second and third totem-drops get poison protection out and the Earthbind/WoA utility totems dropped. They also stagger two more tremors.

I used to have one of the alts drop the first Tremor, since they tend to be a little behind the main... thinking that it would be farther away from wand-monkeying warlocks. Didn't seem to make any difference, so I have my main drop the first one now.


PvE loadout included as a bonus!

Button J: 1-Mana Stream, 2-Healing, 3-Healing, 4-Healing
Button K: 1-Wrath of Air, 2-Grounding, 3-Grounding, 4-Grounding
Button L: 1-Tremor, 2-Stoneclaw, 3-Stoneclaw, 4-Stoneskin
Button ;: 1-Searing/ToW, 2-Searing/ToW, 3-Searing/ToW, 4-Searing/ToW

[Bluepants]

:thumbsup: I forgot water totems!

In the arenas I use 3poison cleanse and 1 mana spring... Mana spring is sooo nice for those back and forth runs on blades edge...
Purging the other side, while still having your mana topped off.

Ill write another macro for the non rogue teams too, so i can drop 3healing stream and 1 mana spring

Bottom line in total is : Keep the fire totems seperate

[Darm]

I've seen one ground totem eat two spells if those two spells were cast at the same (or very close to) time.

Can the opposite happen? Can a single spell wipe out two ground totems if those two ground totems were placed at the same (or very close to) time?

[Bluepants]

I've seen one ground totem eat two spells if those two spells were cast at the same (or very close to) time.

Can the opposite happen? Can a single spell wipe out two ground totems if those two ground totems were placed at the same (or very close to) time?

No it can not ive blasted a grounding totem with 8 spells several times... Lightning bolt has traveling time, and the totem is not destroyed until the spell hits.
so.. LB-Shock = 8-10 spells in 1 totem :S

The way grounding totems work, the spell that is cast will go to the first active grounding totem that is in range of the target.
I do believe this is defined by buff slots, so.. The first cast totem, should be in an earlier slot, making that the first target to get hit.

Cast spell>Grounding totem buff on target? Yes=Target= grounding totem
No= Target = player

The Grounding totem buff stays on the target until the totem is destroyed.
The further back a totem is, the longer the traveling time is. With talents giving 30yard totem range, a fireball has 71yards maximum to travel before it hits the grounding totem.
A lightning bolt has a max of 66 yards, that is enough time to get CL off too.
If you replace a grounding totem while a spell is in mid-air to the old totem, it will hit the spot the totem was when the spell was cast, the new totem will not be destroyed.
A good rule to get the most of your grounding totems is to fight infront of them, maximizing traveling time and therfore giving a better chance it will soak 2 spells

And yes i desperatly hate locks for instant cast, instant hit spells... They chew grounding totems like it is no tomorrow.

Almost forgot the best tip i can give: When you see a grounding totem in arena, target it and cast chain lightning, the lightning will jump to close targets.
If you on the other hand were to target a player, the totem will soak the entire spell.
The reason behind this is that totems do not recieve party buffs, like other totems, therefore the grounding totem will just be the first target in the CL, the spell will not be redirected and soaked, it will destroy the totem, and because the jumps on CL are counted as AoE any other grounding totems will not absorb the next jump.

[magwo]

Very useful information here.