Twisting Totems: An In Depth Look at Totems in Classic WoW

By Wowhead Updated: 2020/04/05

Totemic Mastery And You!Shaman Class Quest Guide

What are Shaman Totems?

As a Shaman in WoW Classic you will find yourself using several totems at any given time regardless of the type of content you are engaged in, whether it be leveling, raiding, PvP, etc. Your success will depend greatly upon how and when you choose to use the totems in your arsenal.

Totems are broken down into four major elements: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air; within each of these individual elements, you will find several different totems with varying effects to enhance you and your allies in combat. You may only have one of each element of totem down at any given time, allowing you to have a maximum of four totems active at once

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Strength of Earth Totem: Since the Shaman class is limited to the Horde Faction during Classic WoW, you are sure to find yourself surrounded by Warriors making Strength of Earth Totem your go-to choice when deciding which Earth totem to use. Strength of Earth Totem is the only offensive Earth totem making it ideal to use in a group of melee players to increase their DPS, in addition, it's important to provide this buff to your tank to help maximize their threat.

Stoneskin Totem: This defensive totem provides a flat 30 damage reduction (max rank) to incoming melee attacks for party members within its range. While this damage reduction won't be noticeable on raid bosses, it's important to note that it can be incredibly useful while leveling, as well as situations where the tank might have aggro on several smaller mobs who don't hit hard individually.

Stoneclaw Totem: While flavorful, this totem is in the running for the most niche, you probably won't use this totem outside of leveling as a way to escape mobs, and even then you probably would be better off using Earthbind Totem.

Earthbind Totem: Whenever I think of shamans, I think of Earthbind Totem. Earthbind Totem provides shamans with a way to constantly slow enemies around the totem. This can be incredibly useful while leveling, in raids, and in PvP. Whether you find yourself in a situation where you need to kite enemies who are trying to attack your party members or trying to slow an enemy so that your party members can catch up, you should keep this totem in mind.

Tremor Totem: Without Dwarf Priests on Horde, you don't have access to Fear Ward making Tremor Totem the only external source for handling fear mechanics on Horde. This totem can be extremely useful for raid encounters that have a fear mechanic (such as Nefarian in BWL, or Onyxia in Onxyia's Lair) or in a PvP situation where you are against a class that has access to fear (Warlock/Warrior). It's important to note that this totem pulses the moment you drop it, and every 5 seconds after. With accurate boss timers, you can time the usage of this totem to break fear instantly.

Fire: Fire Totem

Searing Totem: The first of the fire totems is a turret that shoots out small bolts of damage every few seconds, while this totem isn't very good in a raid environment, it is quite useful while leveling and in PvP.

Frost Resistance Totem: While the Alliance have Paladins with Frost Resistance Aura, the Horde keep their friends warm with Frost Resistance Totem. As you can imagine, 60 frost resistance goes a long way when fighting enemies who use powerful frost attacks against your party. While there are many enemies that you could utilize this totem against, the most notable will be found in the final raid of the expansion: Naxxramas.

Fire Nova Totem: The big brother of Searing Totem, this totem provides a large burst of AoE fire damage to all enemies within range of the totem. Although you probably won't use this ability on cooldown, it can provide your group with a significant amount of damage in situations where you need to kill several smaller enemies in a short amount of time. It can also be quite impactful in PvP but, it's difficult to land on an opponent who is aware of the totem's existence.

Magma Totem: While Searing Totem provided a steady output of single target damage, and Fire Nova Totem provided a large burst of AoE damage, Magma Totem provides you with a steady output of AoE damage. This totem is best used to help your group kill a group of enemies who will last the full duration of the totem (20 seconds).

Flametongue Totem: This totem will see very little use as it provides your group with a weapon enhancement similar to the Shaman's personal enhancement Flametongue Weapon. Unfortunately for Flametongue Totem it is no match for the competition of Windfury Totem.

Water: Water Totem

Healing Stream Totem: While you won't use this totem very often because of it's mana inefficiency, this totem can come in handy when you are able to drop it before you engage an enemy allowing you to drink to full mana before combat.

Mana Spring Totem: Similar to Healing Stream Totem, this totem is ironically not generally worth the mana used to cast it, it can be advantageous to use this totem during a boss fight if you find yourself in the healer group; but, you are more than likely going to be in a group of 3 warriors and 1 rogue who won't benefit at all from your mana spring totem. Because of this, you are better of saving the mana and using Fire Resistance Totem when applicable.

Fire Resistance Totem: Since the first end-game content is mostly comprised of enemies who deal fire damage, this totem becomes the most useful and most often used in end-game scenarios. Use this against enemies who deal significant amounts of fire damage (Ragnaros in Molten Core is a CORE example).

Mana Tide Totem: The Father of Mana Spring Totem, this totem is the final talent in the Restoration Talent Tree and is commonly specced into when you first reach level 60. Often you will have a rotation of shamans that get swapped into a caster group to get the maximum value out of Mana Tide Totem, once the totem expires, another shaman will be swapped in to provide the caster group with another boost in mana. It's worth noting that eventually, you won't even spec into this totem as classes become less reliant on it for mana in the end-game.

Disease Cleansing Totem: As you can imagine, this totem is extremely useful if your party comes under threat from mobs who debuff your allies with diseases. It's worth noting that you won't use this often because you will be able to use Cure Disease for a single dispel, but if you find a situation to use Disease Cleansing Totem instead, you will get a lot of value out of it. This totem cleanses instantly when you drop it, and then again every 5 seconds.

Poison Cleansing Totem: Similar to Disease Cleansing Totem, you have a single dispel for poisons in Cure Poison but, if you find a situation in which your entire party needs to be cleansed of poison (such as the Loatheb boss encounter in Naxxramas) you will get a tremendous amount of value out of Poison Cleansing Totem. This totem cleanses instantly when you drop it, and then again every 5 seconds.

Air: Air Totem

Grace of Air Totem: Similar to Strength of Earth Totem, Grace of Air Totem will be used to buff the members of your group and provide them with one of the more versatile stats. It's worth noting that you might have to "twist" this totem alongside Windfury Totem but, without a doubt Grace of Air Totem provides arguably the most benefit to the most classes (Warrior/Rogue/Hunter/Druid).

Nature Resistance Totem: While this won't be as frequently used as Fire Resistance Totem, it is used in a similar fashion to mitigate attacks from enemies who inflict a lot of nature damage to your allies; most notably: Princess Huhuran in AQ 40.

Windwall Totem: The ranged version of Stoneskin Totem is probably going to be one of your least used air totem as there aren't many realistic situations where you'd use this totem.

Windfury Totem: The MOST powerful totem you have at your disposal: Windfury Totem provides your party members with a weapon enhancement that allows them a chance to gain an extra auto attack following any melee ability. Warriors and Rogues are going to benefit the most from this totem as all of their offensive abilities work with this totem. Windfury Totem is especially important because the extra attacks provide extra rage for warriors, extra chances at procs such as Dragonbreath Chili (used by rogues), AND it also enables the two-hand fury spec that relies on the warrior spamming Hamstring to get extra attacks from Windfury Totem. Needless to say, this is one of Horde's most iconic abilities and it makes shamans potentially one of the most reliable classes to pick as you look towards the launch of Classic WoW. It's worth noting that the weapon buff lasts 10 seconds allowing you to "twist" in another air totem, such as Grace of Air Totem, as long as you refresh Windfury Totem before the 10 seconds expires.

Grounding Totem: Odds are if you've ever PVPed with or against a shaman you have heard of this spell. Grounding Totem will redirect harmful spells as long as it is active because it has such low life, it will usually only absorb one attack; but, if the harmful spell deals no damage, it has the possibility to absorb more than one spell.

Sentry Totem: This totem can actually be quite useful for holding a choke point in world PvP, for instance, if you placed this at the entrance of Blackrock Mountain you could see how many and what type of enemies are approaching. If you wanted to take a screenshot you would be better off using Far Sight.

Tranquil Air Totem: A lot of people believe horde doesn't have a way to "control" threat but, when you get enough gear to where mana isn't an issue, "twisting" this totem into your rotation can have a huge impact on your raid's performance. Using this on threat sensitive fights can take a lot of pressure off of your main tank and allow your DPS to play more freely.

Advanced Tactics: Totem Twisting

"Totem Twisting" is an advanced play style for Shaman, for those that are interested in min-maxing. An average player could probably just drop Windfury Totem and Strength of Earth Totem and your melee players would be none-the-wiser; but, if you strive to really get the most out of your totem usage you will definitely want to weave in Grace of Air Totem or Tranquil Air Totem while the Windfury buff is active.

To elaborate: Windfury Totem applies a weapon enhancement to your party member's weapons for 10 seconds, and it applies immediately after you cast it. Because of this, you are able to perform a rotation where you drop Windfury Totem, replace it with Grace of Air Totem (or Tranquil Air Totem), and then cast a few healing spells with the time remaining. It's important to note that this is extremely worthwhile to do this as long as you are diligent about refreshing Windfury Totem.

Elemental Shaman BiS

Enhancement Shaman BiS

Finding Your Place In The Raid

There are a few potential places you can find yourself when it comes to being a Shaman in a raid environment: There's your standard melee group, standard healer group, and then finally there are a couple of variations of the Tank group

Standard Melee Group:

This is probably the most common group you will find yourself in, consisting of 3 warriors and 1 rogue you will be looking to keep up Strength of Earth Totem and Windfury Totem, while twisting in Grace of Air Totem for most situations, as well as Tranquil Air Totem on threat sensitive encounters.

Standard Healer Group:

Probably the LEAST common group to find yourself in, this group really only has a place in early end-game content where you might still be specced into Mana Tide Totem. While in this group you can still use your utility totems when applicable (think Frost Resistance Totem, Earthbind Totem, etc.) but for the most part, you will be using Mana Spring Totem for longer encounters such as a boss fight, or if you are clearing a lot of trash in one area. Mana Tide Totem is a great cooldown in a healer group, as it is essentially a group-wide mana potion, but as time goes on the need for it will fade and you will transition into a melee group with a spec of 0/22/29.

Tank Groups:

There are only two variations of tank groups in regards to shaman usage, and that is the decision to use one or two shamans in it.

If you only bring one shaman, the group plays a lot like your standard melee group: You'll maintain Strength of Earth Totem and Windfury Totem while twisting in Grace of Air Totem. It's very important to make sure the main tank is maintaining these buffs to maximize threat gain. It's also worth noting that if the tank is tanking several mobs you could potentially use Stoneskin Totem

If you bring two shamans into the tank group, you will simply be covering all bases: you'll still maintain Strength of Earth Totem which, because you have two shamans also allows you to use Stoneskin Totem simultaneously. Similar to your Earth Totem Usage: one shaman will keep up Windfury Totem while the other will use Grace of Air Totem. This composition isn't very common but, it's worth noting because it allows you to have 100% uptime on totems you would normally be twisting or using situationally.

Conclusions:

Shaman is one of the most important classes for the Horde faction. Totems such as Windfury Totem define the play style and meta for Horde players.

Efficient usage of totems in raid can provide your raid with extra DPS, extra mana, utility for many situations, and even burst damage in the right situations.

In PVP, a well-timed Grounding Totem can turn the tide of a battle, along with providing warriors with Windfury Totem shamans become a formidable opponent in every aspect of the game.

Shamans are an iconic part of the game's history and are a safe choice if you are looking to play a healer for Classic WoW, correct usage of your totems will cement you a raid spot in any guild you might find yourself in and will have proper groups asking to play with you more often.

Comments

Comment by 123user

Having played a Shaman through all Vanilla content, I would say twisting is essential to master, but not universally applicable. Just doing a couple of well-timed twists in a short encounter is going to make a difference. In my opinion, the only totems worth twisting are WF + Grace of Air.

What you want to do is use some Weak Aura for totems & have every relevant totem bound to hotkeys that are easy to press and get used to. Some prefer macros like #showtooltip /castsequence reset=9 Windfury Totem(Rank 3), Grace of Air Totem(Rank 3), Grace of Air Totem(Rank 3), but I personally didn't. Position yourself well from the start so that you can start twisting and casting without having to miss heal casts or -- worse yet -- allowing WF to fall off. When you need to move, you ideally move during the 1.5s GCD. Just as the pull is happening, you get a free twist (drop WF, then Grace) even before a single hit has been landed, and for a lazy Shaman, this 1 cast is often enough for minor trash encounters.

When twisting, your healing (or DPS) suffers massively, but it will notably boost melee DPS (~4% for 4 melee players). When you twist, you can only get 2-3 Chain Heals off in between totem casts. For this reason, you should only twist in encounters that aren't healing-heavy, and encounters that have predictable and manageable mechanics. The better your guild is, the more you can focus on twisting. If you care about healing logs, then you probably won't want to twist at all.

Once you get the 3/8 T2 and 5/5 T2.5 combo, Chain Heal becomes incredibly powerful and raid content challenging enough that you often won't find many chances to spend your GCDs on twisting. Shamans are the main raid healers, and some guilds won't even appreciate you twisting if your healing takes a major hit. However, if your raid has capable healers and enough DPS to keep encounters short, you can continue to do it through most content. Also, if you're not as geared as the rest of your group, then twisting will make you a more valuable raid member.

Here you can see a Shaman twisting in Naxxramas (Era), and during the run we can observe and hear him contemplate that:

His mana depleting faster than usual
Him preferring to just heal, but whatever, twisting is cool
Him never showing up in healing meters
He's in a tank group for increased threat/mitigation
Sometimes you just mess up the rhythm!
Can't twist on all encounters (Four Horseman, Sapphiron)

All of these points hold true. I didn't like to twist, because it simply requires more attentiveness and actions per minute. It's also a selfless act, and everyone knows it's always the most fun when you top the meters in whatever you're doing.

Another major caveat is mana efficiency. Twisting uses more mana than not twisting, and you simply can't have too much mana in Vanilla. I never quantified it, but you're probably bleeding close to a +1500 extra mana per minute, and it adds up. This might lead you to chugging more pots and runes than other healers, and it might not be fun for you.

As Enhancement, you should probably just keep twisting and stop casting shocks, since twisting results in more DPS than Frost Shock and you want to save that precious mana.

Twisting Totems: An In Depth Look at Totems in Classic WoW

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