The buff seem to renew itself 10, 20, 30 seconds after dropping the totem. If someone casts a spell 9 seconds after you drop it you'll get the buff back right away.

I think what's likely going on here (and I believe how it worked before), is that the it isn't so much as a CD, so much that the totem pulses every 10 seconds; just like our poison/disease cleansing totems pulse every 5.

So what happens is the Grounding Totem applies the redirect buff to everyone in range every 10 seconds, a non damaging spell will consume the buff and hit the totem, and then you have to wait until the next pulse until it is reapplied. This was how it seemed to work before the change, as it was possible for the totem to occasionally eat two fears back to back.

I have noticed other "issues" with totems that i wrote about on the suggestion forums, what do you say about these thoughts?

World of Warcraft (en) Forums -> [Shaman] - Magma totem Mechanics

Magma totem is fine.

Lightning Shield and our Elementals are exactly the same.

I think the final person explained it pretty simply in a somwhat trolling way in your thread.

Yes, i understand that, but somehow it feel like shamans lack a proper "solo-AoE" if you will.
(wrong thread for this maybe)

Honestly I've been doing some serious AOE recently with magma totem, and when thunderstorm is on cooldown I just rotate between chain lightning and tagging with a melee hit.

Now that we have weapons with decent melee power as well as flametongue melee damage isn't too shabby, and when coupled with CL it is rare I see a mob die that I can't loot.

It may be a little more work than other classes have on their AOE, but remember we can DPS outside of dropping our totem while most classes cant do both at the same time.

It is debatable of course, but not something I'd consider a priority, just a nice to have.

I'd say this thread is fine for any totem discussions.

I have been told that totems are destructable by pet macros again. Can somebody confirm it?

As far as I know, that issue was never addressed. I haven't done any testing, but I don't think there was a time that pet macros did not work.

edit: typo

Has anyone tested to see if having Stoneclaw down will allow Grounding totem to absorb damaging spells without being destroyed?

Yes but it still attacks the grounding totem. I dropped a grounding + stoneclaw (I had 2/2 Earth's Grasp at the time) and a resto druid moonfired a few tests.

Targeting me, stoneclaw took 1 hit, then the grounding died on the 2nd.
Targeting the grounding totem same result.
Targeting the stoneclaw totem it absorbed multiple hits (grounding may have dropped after 2 or 3, didn't really pay attention since the third scenario is rather unlikely).

The only 100 yard buff we've ever had (as Elemental) is Elemental Oath.

Totem of Wrath has never been more than 40 yards in its AOE debuff or in the raid buff.

Because it says "party members" in the tooltip of the spell? Unlike raid-wide buffs/auras that say "all party and raid members".

All water totems are just party wide.

Fire resistance totem is raid wide
and flametongue totem is raid wide, while it says only party in the tooltip

All water totems are party-wide except for Fire resistance which is raid wide. All other totems are raid-wide. Guess they thought mana spring and healing spring for the whole raid would be OP--but in our raids we stack 2-3 shamans in our healer group so that we can all get stacking mana spring. Isn't that what they were trying to avoid with the new buff system (where buffs with the same effects don't stack?). I don't understand their reasoning quite fully here--it seems a bit inconsistent, but it works out ok for me.

Current totem effects:

EARTH TOTEMS
Strenght of Earth Totem - RAID
Stoneskin Totem - RAID
Tremor Totem - PARTY
(Talented) Earth Bind - RAID

FIRE TOTEMS
Flametongue Totem - RAID
Totem of Wrath - RAID
Frost resistance Totem - RAID

WATER TOTEMS
Disease Cleansing Totem - PARTY
Poison Cleansing Totem - PARTY
Mana Spring Totem - PARTY
Healing Stream Totem- PARTY
Fire resistance Totem - RAID

AIR TOTEMS
Grounding Totem - PARTY
Windfury Totem - RAID
Wrath of Air Totem - RAID
Nature Resistance Totem - RAID

(If someone can test talented earth bind totem, I'll update the list. Blizzard definately should clarify the tooltips on totems.)

Updated post.

Well, the tooltip states "nearby friendly targets", which would mean for every friendly object in its range, without any constraint in terms of party or raid.

The tooltips as stated in this thread earlier are inconsistant, and can't really be trusted in case of totems. While some of the tooltips like healing stream and mana spring clearly state "group", others just use "party" even if they are raid wide. It would be good if party affecting totems would have "party" in them, and raidwide totems would have "party and raid" written in the tooltip.

"Nearby friendly targets" would indeed imply that it is raidwide, but without testing, it can't be really confirmed.

Talented earthbind indeed does work on ANY nearby friendly targets.

I think what he's getting at, and I agree, is that Magma Totem is awful for soloing 20+ mobs at a time in low level instances.

The problem is that Magma Totem doesn't tag mobs the same way as they would be tagged when a player attacks them

It works well enough if you drop into the middle of 6 gorillas, but it ends up being quicker to just chain lightning packs one at a time in Scarlet Monastery or Shadowfang Keep

I think the magma totem change they implemented for 3.08 was extremely simple (just setting the threat value on Magma Totem's attack to 0), but making it a viable aoe spell for wiping out lowbie dungeons in 3 pulls requires some more complicated implementation (since I don't know of any pets in the game that tag things for their owners)

While trivializing the leveling process even further probably isn't high on Blizzard's list of priorities, I think it'd be neat if they could put something in place when they get around to making Magma Totem useful in raids

I think the ability to AoE mobs in a low level instance is a non issue. If you wish to aoe nuke 20+ mobs in Shadowfang Keep for instance, its just as simple to open with a Thunderstorm (tagging all mobs correctly) and then having the magma totem finish off the mobs that managed to survive and are walking back.

Personally I find the use of Magma totems in 25 man raids pointless. The damage lost by having to run over to the aoe mobs and running back (feel free to thunderstorm during if you bothered to glyph it of course), as well as the damage other casters lose from having the spelldmg and crit taken away is greater then the damage provided by Magma totem.

However I find the aoe damage to be more then adequate when it concerns 5 or 10 man content. The ability to nuke while the totem is ticking is more then fair compensation for us having to run over.

So personally, I don't really see the point in us needing a channeled AoE spell, as the only real improvement would be for us in 25 man content, and I would assume the damage our spell would do would be rather disappointing (to compensate for the ToW still being up). Since the latest patch, our presence in raids is more then justified and no optimal setup would be complete without an Elemental Shaman (because a warlock that specs that deep into demonlogy loses out on personal dmg in 25 man contect, essentially giving us a unique buff). In a sence, ToW is our 25 man AoE ability.