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Searing Totem

Searing Totem

3% of base mana
Instant
Requires Shaman
Requires level 16

Summons a Fire Totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster for 1 min that repeatedly attacks an enemy within 0 to 25 yards for (20% of Spell power) Fire damage.

Spell Details

Duration

1 minute

School

Fire

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

3% of base mana

Range

0 yards (Self)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

1 second

Effect

Summon (Searing Totem)
Value: 5

Flags

Guides

Elemental Shaman Guide

Elementals in
Draenor: A Guide
to Elemental Shaman

Enhancement Shaman Guide

Warlords of Draenor
Shaman Changes

Related

Comments

Comment by Alisdair

Good mana efficient damage. To make the best use of this totem cast it at the beginning of a fight so you get the full duration and use out of the mana spent. Can be dangerous to use in certain areas since it will automatically attack another target once the current target is dead.

Comment by ajmontroy

You need the fire totem item in your inventory to use all fire totems.. i'll be posting this on all fire totem abilities.

Comment by ajmontroy

You need the fire totem item in your inventory to use all fire totems.. i'll be posting this on all fire totem abilities.

Comment by ajmontroy

You need the fire totem item in your inventory to use all fire totems.. i'll be posting this on all fire totem abilities.

Comment by ajmontroy

You need the fire totem item in your inventory to use all fire totems.. i'll be posting this on all fire totem abilities.

Comment by ajmontroy

You need the fire totem item in your inventory to use all fire totems.. i'll be posting this on all fire totem abilities.

Comment by ajmontroy

You need the fire totem item in your inventory to use all fire totems.. i'll be posting this on all fire totem abilities.

Comment by ajmontroy

You need the fire totem item in your inventory to use all fire totems.. i'll be posting this on all fire totem abilities.

Comment by TheOnyx

Please mod this comment down. It was posted in the wrong place.

Comment by TheOnyx

When soloing single mobs, this totem will add a significant amount of DPS to your side of the battle. As far as fire totems go, it is the highest DPS fire totem against single targets, given that the fight will last about as long as the totem itself. For shorter fights, the Fire Nova Totem is probably the better bet, although it comes at a much higher mana cost.

Comment by Craje

at 205 mana and an a boost of somewhere around 30 DPS without plus to spell damage, this is the cheapest plus to DPS we have. May as well just throw it down every battle (depending on the battles length of course)

Comment by Ombrarossa

Each attack gains an 8% from your +Spell Damage bonus (I assume it benefits from Fire Damage)
(Source: http://www.wowwiki.com/Searing_Totem)

Comment by Naenthos

It may be wise to be cautious with the use of Searing Totem as it can attack non-aggroed hostile creatures. Other totems could do so, but only Searing Totem can target creatures up to 20 yards away.

Comment by clavarnway

As others have said, Searing Totems are brilliant in fights where mobs have teleport/blink/aggro wipes. Most of the time the mobs will head straight for the Searing Totem after a threat wipe, much safe than killing a raid member. :)

edit: We just did Leotheras and had the 3 Shamans in the raid drop max rank Searing Totems at every transition, and it worked GREAT! He ran for those totems every transition, bar none. This made is very easy for the tank to pick him up using a high threat ability so he doesn't run around killing people who had DoT's on him or HoT's on people.

Comment by dinnerbone

My Searing Totem seems to distinguish between CCed mobs and non-CCed mobs. Was this applied in an earlier patch or has the earthmother blessed my totems? =D
It breaks off it's attack if its firing on a mob that just got sheeped, and won't even consider attacking any mob that's under a CC effect, sheep ice trap etc.

Comment by Alderaan

Searing totem breaks sometimes the sheep of mages, but it breaks always the freezing traps of hunters.
It attacks by its own the aggressive mobs, but not the neutral ones.

Comment by Alderaan

Searing totem breaks sometimes the sheep of mages, but it breaks always the freezing traps of hunters.
It attacks by its own the aggressive mobs, but not the neutral ones.

Comment by dinnerbone

I've noticed today that my Searing Totem kept changing targets mid battle.
Whenever I would attack a mob down to 80% and let the totem finish the job, I would then pull another mob and manage to down him before the first mob dies. I looked at the combat log to see how much damage my totem was actually doing and noticed that it changed target as soon as the new mob came into range.
A few fights on, and I noticed that it seems to attack whatever I target, I've yet to properly test it in a group of mobs (will test in a few minutes and post the results), but has anyone else noticed anything similar?

Edit: Did a quick test and turns out I was wrong about it attacking what I attack, but it did switch target again during the fight for no reason that I can see.

Comment by Cofra

It is useful in duels, too. It can unstealth rogues.

Comment by ChipExcess

Seems also good from running away from mobs the mob attacks the fire totem instead. Not sure at higher lvls.

Comment by zolikk

I just love this totem in PvP. If Fire Nova is on CD, I often drop this, it confuses the hell out of players, most of them seeing the totem and wasting an attack on it. I don't know, probably it's just too frustrating to have two enemies throwing spells at you. XD

Comment by zolikk

There seems to be a problem: here at WoWhead, rank 9 and 10 of Searing Totem are both noted as trainable at lvl 75.

Comment by Out2conqr

Yay it's getting an upgrade as of Patch 3.0.8

Searing Totem (Rank 4) now does the proper damage for its rank.

So now it's gone from craptastic to less crappy. yay

Comment by Vahnara

At 2039 self buffed bonus damage (with fish feast still active and imp. elemental weapons 3/3) this was doing 495(lowest) to 530-ish(highest) normal ticks. And about 1050-ish crits.

Not a bad choice when in a raid and totem of wrath is taken care of and there's no need for a magma totem.

Comment by danroe

In a soloing situation, would this totem beat Totem of Wrath for DPS?

In a raid situation, of course NOT since Totem of Wrath affects the WHOLE raid

Comment by mrgalabama

where is the quest starter at? i cant find it? pls help

Comment by lameasstehmity

Judging by the comments on this totem and Magma Totem, it seems that Magma Totem is better DPS for single target ( and definitely groups ) than Searing Totem. This of course assumes that you are grouping with another shaman who is using FT totem or ToW

By guldbajer on 01/10/2009 (Patch 3.0.3)
Allright so I took a run in Stockade on the PTR from the start to the end of the left wing (to avoid too much stun). When I had all the mobs with me, Magma totem did hit for 667 ON THEM ALL. And we're talking.. around 60 mobs? So no reduction at all. Crit for 1400. Did around 16k dps. Me like.
2048 spellpower. (With FTW and Flask of the frost wyrm)
-- http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=58734#comments

By Vahnara on 02/03/2009 (Patch 3.0.8)
At 2039 self buffed bonus damage (with fish feast still active and imp. elemental weapons 3/3) this was doing 495(lowest) to 530-ish(highest) normal ticks. And about 1050-ish crits.

Not a bad choice when in a raid and totem of wrath is taken care of and there's no need for a magma totem.

-- http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=58704#comments

Comment by Technic

Also note the mana cost difference between Magma Totem and Searing Totem. Magma Totem has a 27% base mana cost compared to Searing Totems 7% base. Searing lasts 60 seconds compared to Magma's 20 seconds.

Comment by Daet

Sitting at about 3k spl power this thing makes up about 8% of my dps.

Hits for like 700 and crits for 1.5k - 2kish.

Unfortunately I can only use it when a lock goes Demo.

Comment by hiimjosh

Searing Totem is outstanding vs. other Shaman as the attack eats Grounding Totem.

Comment by toastmaster7727

The most interesting use this totem has is its ability to reset an attacking NPCs aggro range once it gets killed by that NPC. For example, level 19 twink is heading down a road in STV trying to avoid high lvl mobs. Drop Searing Totem to aggro random gorilla in the direction of the twink. Gorilla immediately attacks the close-by twink after one shotting the totem. Epic....

Comment by khalidatro

I am lvl 16
i place searing totem while killing a mob
once i kill it the totem attacks another mob (non-hostile ) and so on until either i die or it time ends
how can i remove the totem when i am about to kill the mob?

Comment by pitito

was sup guy i need some help my shaman is lvl 23 and still dont have the searing

Comment by Kitanue

Searing Totem is not affected by haste. It shot a training dummy 23 times in 60s regardless of having 0 or 700 haste. Each attack takes 2.6s to cast.

Comment by DavivMcD

Casts Attack, which actually has a 2.2s cast speed. On average, tests show the totem actually attacks about every 2.6s, due to the bug where pets will not always chain cast non-instant spells.

Comment by BrotherAlpha

Is this Totem going to be useful for Dungeons / Raids in Cata? I always drop the Flametongue Totem. (Or the Fire Elemental Totem if it is a boss fight.)

Comment by Sacrosterion

Will this benefit from the increased spell damage from flametounge? And if so, would it be each hit(every 1 second) of searing totem will deal 1900 damage? O.O

Comment by Vorph

With the recent changes, it is actually a must for every Enhancement shaman now. Its stacking debuff will make nice crits when you use Lava Lash.

Comment by CptQwark

I wish Blizzard increases the duration to 5 mins.

Comment by Epaedra

My Searing Totem /flew/ through the air towards a boss I was attacking (level 31 Ele Shaman, Direglobwhatever Giant Slime Boss). I'm still speechless. It flew through the air from where I was, trailing fire circles in its wake.

...

Is this normal behavior?

Comment by ClariceLispector

Well, I have a questions. Sometimes I use my Searing Totem and it doesn't attack at all. The description says it prefers to attack targets I have hit with Flame Shock or Stormstrike, but sometimes it just wont do any damage at all. Is this a bug or is it normal? Thanks.

Comment by superwario15

Still bugged as of patch 4.0.6. Iffy on mobs after the first attacked and will only work on training dummies if you have it flame shocked before you put the totem down. Will also only attack as long as flame shock is active on the dummy. (This is mainly a problem for Enhancement shaman)

Comment by dgdr1991

It is affected by Enhanced Elements.

Comment by eternalrest

If your Elemental or Enhance please use this over flametongue please!
enhance for the dot and elemental because all fire totems have totem of wrath built in for you!

Comment by Nottinylil

Sometimes it attacks, sometimes it doesn't. Its clearly 20 yards, whats going on? :L

Comment by Taraezor

For Mists...

If Enhanced then always have a Searing Totem down for Single target and a Magma Totem for AoE if AoE is worth it at the time (enough mobs). Exception is if you have Bloodlust/Heroism/Timewarp up - use your Fire Elemental for single target or just a few mobs.

If Elemental then always prefer your Fire Elemental. If Fire Elemental is on cool-down then one school of thought is to lay down your Searing Totem or Magma Totem as above. The other school of thought, I have seen at "min/max" websites is to lay the Searing Totem down only if your Fire Elemental cool-down is greater than 15 seconds.

TL;DR: Searing Totem is just *so* important for Enhancement but is your second choice for Elemental.

-------

For the nay sayers: It works as intended in PvE. You have an *active* target you are attacking with direct strikes like Stormstrike etc? Then your totem will do just fine. It will follow your lead. It will not lead the way.

Comment by Zephytoth

5.3. changes:
The following summoned pets/totems will now chain cast their spells with no delay between casts, allowing them to cast their spells more frequently in the same amount of time.
- Death Knight: Gargoyle
-Druid: Force of Nature (Balance, Restoration), Mirror Image (Symbiosis)
-Mage: Mirror Image, Water Elemental
-Shaman: Searing Totem
-Warlock: Doomguard, Terrorguard, Wild Imp

So this means the totem scales with haste now?

Comment by anodynex

Came here to find out why it doesn't work.

Comment by Verenikin

I wasn't aware totems had genders until Dr. Dealwell confirmed that searing totems are in fact, female. Screenshot: http://puu.sh/6p8lg.png

Comment by Pipkins

This is impractical if you are a Restoration Shaman. It ignores the enemies your party members are fighting, so unless you deal or take damage, it will not attack. Also, once the original target dies it will not automatically start on a new one. This wouldn't matter if you were Elemental/Enhancement, but it doesn't work for a healer as a small source of damage. Unless you're willing to constantly refresh Flame Shock on mobs, a better option would be combining Magma Totem with Totemic Projection, which can be used in a macro to quickly place it without having to get up close.

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