Anyone else witnessed a bug with Grounding Totem not absorbing the charge when you throw DOTs on a guy? It just says Immune over and over again on consecutive casts. Is it some trick/exploit? Is there a work around? Is it being fixed on the PTR (no mention of it in the patch notes)?
There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.
Yes, it's intended that DoT damage will not destroy grounding totem. It's not intended that grounding totem should be able to eat more than one DoT spell when they are cast in succession, which is what Bibdy is saying he's seen happen.
I've played a shaman for roughly a year and a half and seen this bug happen constantly. What I haven't seen, however, is a way to ever predict when it's going to happen. Seems to be more or less random.
Fucking grounding totems eat two of my spells all the time. It follows the same law as frost nova it seems where if it's still up while you cast the second spell, they both get absorbed. Though sometimes it just chain-absorbs polymorphs or something wierd like that. Only safe bet is to destroy it. Have your mage hit ice lance when one is up and the totem will eat it.
Anyway, this is a well known bug, though blizzard has shown an unusual precedent for fixing bugs recently that I've not seen before. They've now "fixed" arcane missiles so they can no longer channel through obstacles (essentially making the spell absolutely useless). That functionality was in the game since day 1. Still haven't fixed blink though. Even so, I wouldn't count on it being fixed anytime soon.
It's not just DOTs, the totem will just redirect anything that doesn't outright kill it. I played around with this in a battleground the other day, and the shaman's totem redirected 9 consecutive casts of Curse of Tongues. I thought it was supposed to pulse and give party members in range the buff every so often? Or did they change it such that non-damage spells don't consume the redirect buff?
Good thread, something I have been wondering for a while myself
Its been broken like this for a very long time. I'm tempted to say since WOW launched but my memory of events that old mixed with a hesitation due to not knowing the game as well back then as I do now. So far all attempts to get blizzard's attention on it are that 'its working fine'. In the olden days I just PVP'd with the imp out most of the time anyway and it killed the totem for me for free.
Grounding used to be bugged to absorb infite numbers of tongues and dots. It certainly doesn't seem that way anymore. It is however incredibly annoying and refreshes fast. Get a macro to get your fel hunter to hunt down and destroy them would be my advice.
Grounding used to be bugged to absorb infite numbers of tongues and dots. It certainly doesn't seem that way anymore. It is however incredibly annoying and refreshes fast. Get a macro to get your fel hunter to hunt down and destroy them would be my advice.
Its kind of fickle. Most of the time it eats an infinte amount of stuff, sometimes it doesnt.
certain non DD spells are treated as hostile spells (thats just what i like to call it) and will negate the grounding totem effect (absorb 1 spell per 10 seconds). however there are also many spells that aren't labeled as hostile which don't trigger grounding totem but still get absorbed by it.
i haven't tested which warlock ones are which much but for mages, spellsteal, counterspell, and detect magic do not count as hostile so the grounding totem will absorb an infinite amount of these unless destroyed. polymorph however is treated as hostile and the totem can only absorb 1 every 10 seconds..
also there is that whole spell in the air thing (frostbolts, fireball etc). so if u use a spell that takes time before reaching a target and then follow it up with an instant spell before the first one landed, they will both get absorbed.
Today I had a match against another restoration-specced shaman and encountered this bug too. While trying to purge him his shield away three times in a row, and all the attempts got absorbed. But when I wen't closer to him I was able to purge him the very next attempt. I know it's quite anectotal and the following explanation is only speculation, but there might be a bug when your opponent is in range of your spell but his totem isn't the buff is not removed. No testing done, though.
Grounding totems are not fun since most of the time it eats my spells. I have a pet totem eating macro:
/petattack [target=grounding totem] that I use when I see a Shaman around.
Only torment the voidwalker spell got an immune message and didn't eat grounding.
Succubus lash of pain wasn't eaten either, soothing kiss was though :'(
Chain casting cot at my pet shaman got double immune of cot near too the refresh time of the grounding but never more than twice in a row.
Additional fun stuff tested
A shaman can go into negative ap. Him in healing gear with curse of weakness had a character sheet ap of zero but gained -2 mana from shamanistic rage. Careful removal of all mp5 gear and getting into 5SR using frost shock demonstrated that mana was in fact lost by shamanistic rage in this case.
Frost diminshing returns as expected. Frostbrand had no diminishing returns.
Pets set to aggressive or defensive would agro a stoneclaw totem if and only if they had auto attacked the shaman, master's command overrode a pets natural inclination to attack weird totem things.
Sitting down and then getting windfuried on the first attack didn't seem to give auto crit on the windfuries.
Felguard does not get WF on his weapon :'(
Pet character sheet does not despawn when your pet dies. Pets stats are reset though.
Things I forgot to test but will later
Range to grounding being a factor.
Casting a travel time spell then instant, instant getting 3 immunes from a grounding near its refresh time.
This has a lot to do with lag - if your client doesn't receive the buff-has-been-stripped update quickly enough your casts will continue to be absorbed, as your client thinks that the Shaman still has the GT buff on and therefore the casts are redirected.
There's really not a whole lot Blizz can do about it.
Grounding totems are not fun since most of the time it eats my spells. I have a pet totem eating macro:
/petattack [target=grounding totem] that I use when I see a Shaman around.
I love you. For the longest time I couldn't think of a way to get my pet to attack the totem via a macro without changing my target / focus. If they get broken totems I get an angry demon to destroy them. You speak in demonic now, boy!
DOT and rot.
Travian: Phased Weasel, -144 | 61, Damascus.
This has annoyed me forever, because a really good shaman in 2v2 or 3v3 will hide his grounding totem well and my only way to reliably get rid of it is to tag the shaman with a SWD -- which hurts me in the process.
I do know it'll absorb 2+ spells if they hit reasonable close -- it's much like how you can get a crit out of frostbolt + ice lance on a frost nova'ed victim before the frost nova breaks. Latency and client to server communication has a lot to do with this.
This has annoyed me forever, because a really good shaman in 2v2 or 3v3 will hide his grounding totem well and my only way to reliably get rid of it is to tag the shaman with a SWD -- which hurts me in the process.
I do know it'll absorb 2+ spells if they hit reasonable close -- it's much like how you can get a crit out of frostbolt + ice lance on a frost nova'ed victim before the frost nova breaks. Latency and client to server communication has a lot to do with this.
Isn't that more because frostbolt is a missile and hasn't actually landed when ice lance (which, though it appears to have a missile, always hits instantly) is cast? You can't do a scorch+ice lance to get double crits reliably, but frostbolt+ice lance works all the time, assuming you're far enough away. If you're too close, it won't work.
This is also what happens if you do a fireball/frostbolt+instant cast at some grounding totem-protected shaman. The missile spell won't actually have hit when the isntant is cast, and thus they are both directed at the totem, usually with the instant hitting it first.
Also, as far as I recall, shadow word:death'ing a shaman protected by grounding totem whon't do any damage to you, as the spell kills the totem. Though, I guess the mana lost isn't that great.
"Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
- Clark's Law
My hunch is that the "every 10 seconds" isn't applied when it absorbs the spell, its on some independant timer. So when you throw a dot or something towards the shaman, see IMMUNE, and expect it to not absorb again for 10 seconds it's really just a crapshoot. I know it usually takes me 1-3 casts to land tongues on a shaman at the start of a given game.
Alternatively, you can wand once after you see "immune." Then you can resume your regularly scheduled dotting and pillaging.
Sure, there are plenty of ways to kill it. None of them are really convienient, especially wanding. Between the initial immuned cast, the global cooldowns, and that stupid autoshooting, you're looking at over 4 seconds of wasted time. That's more effective than a cheapshot, plus I wasted some mana.
What's the logic behind not being able to dot totems anyways? It's not like mechanical units or other nonliving things share the immunity.
My hunch is that the "every 10 seconds" isn't applied when it absorbs the spell, its on some independant timer.
That's exactly it, the refresh is timed off when the totem was dropped, not when it last ate a spell. So if I'm really lucky, it can eat a non-DD spell and be ready to eat another before their GCD finishes.
04/28/07, 2:38 AM
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