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Ramas' Guide to Shaman Totems

Everyone who's played Horde has seen a totem. This article is my attempt to help people make sense of them and use them most efficiently, as well as share a few tips I've picked up after many, many hours of happy Shamaning.

Earth Totems

Earthbind ? This is one of the first totems you get as a shaman. It has no upgrade and very low mana cost. Its stated purpose is to create an area in which all enemies' movement is slowed. This is useful to snare a mob that tries to run, allowing you a few more swings at its back before it gets away. It is also helpful when you are trying to flee from a fight. Drop an Earthbind totem behind you as you run and hope it pulses and snares your pursuer. At high levels this totem is most often used in PVP, where it has two additional useful effects. It can snare a flag runner in WSG, and I often use it in conjunction with Frost Shock to slow down those annoying druids. Even more important, if you are PVP flagged this totem will cause rogue stealth to fail in its area of effect. At this point you can drop a Flame Shock on the rogue and his stealthing days are over for a while.

Stoneclaw ? AoE taunt totem. The only thing I use this totem for much is when I'm running past (or from) a mob that I haven't done much to agro. It buys me a few extra seconds to continue running unmolested as the mob eats the totem.

Tremor ? Very situational, this totem is either mandatory or useless depending on what you're fighting. Starting in WC against the druids of the fang (who cast sleep), this totem has a place in any fight where the mobs do a sleep, fear or charm effect. Most recently I've used it against the Wyrmkin in Sunken Temple to remove their sleep. Know your mobs, and if they try to shut down your party members, try this totem.

Stoneskin ? One of the two most-often used earth totems. As a restoration (healer) build this is my primary earth totem. It prevents a good fraction of incoming damage and with a decent tank it really helps with healing duty. I also drop this totem any time a party caster is going to be doing an AoE nuke on the theory that every little bit helps and they're going to be taking a LOT of damage.

Strength of Earth ? The other all-purpose earth totem. Enhancement builds love this one as it adds a pile of strength to the party. My rule of thumb is that any time you're fighting mobs that aren't a huge threat to the tank (such as clearing into an instance) this is a good choice, since the protection of Stoneskin isn't as important and can be mitigated by faster kills. Like all the melee-buff totems, it gets better in proportion to the number of melee classes in your party.

Water Totems

Disease/Poison Cleansing ? Use these whenever the mobs you're fighting generate disease/poison effects. They're the most efficient curative spells in the game. They've won me fights against spiders, ghouls, scorpions, and all the other really annoying status-ailment mobs in the game. They are absolutely mandatory against things like spider bosses. Casting this totem is cheaper than casting two of the single-target cure spells, so anything that causes more than one debuff in a fight is worth the totem unless you really need the fire resist totem up (more on this in a moment). The poison cleansing totem is also fun against rogues who think they can snare and mind-numb you in PVP.

Fire Resistance ? As with the cleansing totems, use this when you fight fire elementals and things that do most of their damage with fire. It protects against the melee hits of fire elementals in addition to any fire spell. No real tricks with this one.

Healing Stream ? The default water totem. I use this one in nearly every fight that doesn't include poison, disease or fire. The extra little bit of damage it heals is great in combination with Stoneskin, and it means that if a caster is damaged but the tank regains agro, you can let the totem heal her for you. People complain about this one not healing very much, but it's the most mana-efficient heal in the game if you have the time to let it work. Drop it early in a fight and forget about it.

Mana Spring ? Generally not efficient enough to worry about. It actually doesn't gain the casting shaman much mana, if you include the casting cost. If you're in a caster-heavy party it might be situationally useful. You're better off using healing stream in nearly all cases. One time that I do use this totem is after a series of rezzes or during a short med break (assuming you have more mana than the others in your party).

Mana Tide ? I originally spent the talent points to get this one. Not worth 16 talent points (including all the other mediocre talents required to get it). I'm not sure it's worth one talent point. Too little, too late and not often enough. My best advice on this one: hope Blizzard fixes our restoration tree to make its capstone worth bothering.

Fire Totems

Frost Resistance ? See Fire Resistance above.

Searing ? I love this when I'm soloing. It's very efficient damage over time, and efficiency is of paramount importance when soloing. In a party I use it a lot against boss mobs or when there's no crowd control going on. Like all the damaging totems it will break sheep/shackle way more often than you'd like, and I consider it more trouble than it's worth if you're in a group where control matters.

Fire Nova ? This one is awesome for AoE waves. Let the warrior Demoralizing Shout or the mage cast her first Arcane Explosion, then drop the fire nova totem. This keeps it alive for those few critical seconds before it goes off. Elemental build shamans like this totem more than I do for obvious reasons.

Magma ? My most frequent use for this one is to detect rogues in PVP. It's also nice in an AoE wave after your fire nova totem goes down.

Flametongue ? This added damage can be nice, and it combos well with grace of air (see air totems below). Things to note about the weapon-proc totems however: they do not stack with rogue poisons, sharpening stones, or alchemist weapon-buff oils. Make sure your party is aware of this if you want to use Flametongue or Windfury.

Air Totems

Nature Resistance ? See Fire Resistance above.

Windfury ? Another weapon proc totem. It has the same stacking problems as Flametongue above, and it also only affects the main hand weapon of dual-wield classes. If you're in the right group it's a nice dps boost but in most parties I prefer Grace of Air. This puts me at odds with a lot of the shaman community, but I've examined the dps of my groups at some length and stand by my conclusion.

Grace of Air ? My favorite air totem. The rogues and hunters in your party will love you, and the warrior will dodge and crit more often. I prefer this one to windfury for most groups. It stacks with everything, adds dps to the dps classes and makes your tank more durable. If you want to stack on a weapon proc, you can use Flametongue and the dps of this combo is significantly better than Windfury + another fire totem.

Windwall ? It's stoneskin for ranged attacks. I don't usually bother since it's easier to just close and kill the people shooting my party.

Sentry ? Be careful using the falling exploit with this totem if you know about it. Blizzard has declared it bannable in PVP and is ?Working on a fix for the bug? that causes it. Otherwise this is a toy.

Grounding ? This one is the trickiest totem in the list, and another of my favorites. If used correctly against spellcasters it can give you and your party a huge advantage. Any spell cast against a single party member (not AoE's) will be absorbed by the totem. This can redirect an incoming nuke, but that kills the totem. Even better is that if the caster tries a non-damage spell (slow, polymorph, root, etc.) it will not kill the totem and will be rendered useless. This totem is great in PVE against certain mobs, such as the trolls in Zul'Farrak or Sunken Temple that cast Hex (turns you into a frog). It's also a lot of fun in PVP when you get to watch that fire spec mage incinerate your poor little totem for 2000 fire damage as you calmly walk up and hit him with your hammer.

Totem Combinations

There are a few common totem combos that I use. I tend to drop at least three totems (earth, water, air) in every fight and will always customize the totem layout depending on party needs. In most fights I use Stoneskin, Healing Stream and Grace of Air, subbing out resists or cleansing totems as necessary. For tough fights I add Flametongue or Searing (if it's a single mob, like a boss fight). For clearing trash I use Strength instead of Stoneskin. It may feel wasteful to use totems in every single fight, but as a healer I find it really saves me mana in the long run to have the party fully buffed. Grace of Air is around 250 mana, which is less than any of our shocks. The extra 67 agility on the rogue can easily make a difference of 500 damage (comparable to the nuke) against an elite mob, and then the rest of the benefits to your party are just cake.

It helps if your party knows how you're using the totems. If the tank is pulling with a ranged weapon, have the totems ready on incoming. If he's charging, run behind him and drop totems once you're in range. This can also be helpful on boss fights since it automatically gives the tank a few seconds to build agro on the boss.

Don't forget totems while solo, either. I run Stoneskin, Healing Stream and Grace of Air with either Windfury or Rockbiter on my weapon, and then hardly cast any nukes. The mobs don't die as fast as they would if you burned them, but against even-con nonelites you can kill mobs fairly quickly with almost zero downtime, and with the totems up you're in good shape if you get adds. Sometimes against high dps mobs I add in a searing to kill them a bit faster, or twist in a nuke or a Lightning Shield.

Remember that if there is more than one shaman present, most totems do not stack with themselves. In a multiple-shaman group, take a few moments to work out with the other shaman present what totems each player will be using. At the very least, this allows a group to have both stoneskin and strength of earth up at the same time.

During a raid, it's probably a good idea to make sure that shaman are evenly distributed throughout the groups. Don't have two shamen in one group and none in another. This allows as many people as possible to benefit from the totems.

Conclusion

Modify your totem use to fit your play style and your group. If your group is you and four armsbuild Mortal Strike warriors, then you should probably be using windfury to make their Arcanite Reapers hit more often. If you're in a group with a druid tank and three mages, then Mana Spring is probably more useful than I made it out to be. The beauty of the totem system is that you customize buffs on the fly, so use that to your advantage and don't be afraid to change totems mid-fight if something changes.

As a final note, I heartily recommend you get Melki's Totem Timer addon and learn to use it. It keeps track of which totem you have in each slot, what the remaining duration is and when it expires.