Project Lore

Look Kids, It's Greg Street! I love Ghostcrawler (again). Not only does he have one of the coolest jobs around (one which likely made him grow a thick skin and an endless supply of ponies) at one of my favorite developers, but he gets to help design, create and then announce some of the craziest stuff to grace World of Warcraft. It isn't one of those crazy, eye-popping, jaw-dropping announcements that has me firmly cheering for him, but a declaration of renewed support for the Battlegrounds.  Sir Pinch-a-lot had this to say about the neglected instanced PvP scenarios: "I will agree that we need to focus more on BGs. And to be fair we are in this very next patch, and there will be more announcements at Blizzcon." Of course we know that the second statement is true, thanks to the Isle of Conquest.  The second clause of the second statement only makes me more excited for BlizzCon 2009.  That being said, I don't think I'll be sitting through a whole PvP panel just to (hopefully) see an upcoming BG or just hear a quip about the possibility of one "soon."  The real interesting part to me is the first sentence, the admission that BGs have fallen by the wayside.  It's plainly obvious that Arenas have been the focus of PvP since their inception as part of TBC, due largely to the drive for a WoW eSport (my words not GC's). Senor Cangrejo points out later in the post that Arenas receive extra attention due to class balancing issues.  According to GC the 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 battles are far more useful in class balancing than BGs thanks to the very nature of BGs.  Meaning in BGs your goal, to capture the often spread out objectives, isn't very good at providing useful information.  After all, killing is a common occurrence, but not actually required.  On the other hand the whole point to an Arena is to dominate the other team.  The fast, localized and furious battles end up giving Blizzard more information on class issues than any other PvP mechanic, and that's why Arenas  receive additional attention. I'm a much bigger fan of BGs than I am of Arenas, so I am glad that the developer will attempt to rebalance their attention in my favor.  If only we could get a Tarren Mill vs Southshore style world PvP experience back into the game. Are you ready for a new BG, or are you more of an Arena fan?

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Patch 3.2 is bringing sweeping changes to all sorts of PvP. Blizzard has been trying to push arenas to give WoW an "e-sport" status, perhaps hoping to follow their Starcraft model for longevity. As such, patch 3.2 is bringing major changes to PvP to extend the meta-game of arenas, notably hitting the issues that Ghostcrawler outlined. The first major change to note is the resilience mechanic. Resilience's major selling point has been reducing the chance that the player will be critically hit and reducing the damage players receive from critical strikes. Its lesser benefits include reducing the effect of mana-drains and the damage done by DoTs. Now, instead of only applying to DoTs, the damage mitigation applies to all damage done by players. This is a huge buff to resilience. Most players don't even notice a survivability difference from having resilience until they are at at least 500 resilience, and don't even think you will be effective unless you have at least 800 in this season. However, with all the stats you have to "sacrifice" by using PvP gear instead of PvE gear, many players go into arenas with tier 8 and clean house by bursting down the other teams with no problem. With this resilience change, Blizzard doesn't have to worry so much about itemizing resilience to take less of an item's allocated stats. Players will see much higher returns from resilience much earlier on, and resilience will become much more valuable in arenas, to the point of trumping every other stat. Expect price hikes on resilience gems! Another implication of this is higher survivability overall. Its a subtle nerf to RMP (rogue/mage/priest) in 3v3 as well as as cleave teams (teams that focus on damage rather than survivability). RMP has dominated the 3v3 bracket for quite awhile now and its hardest matchup has been defensive teams with good survivability. The viability of cleave and RMP teams is going to tank, and it its viability is always going to fluctuate proportionally to the survivability vs. damage trade-off. The second huge change to arenas is the change to the 2v2 bracket. The new tier of gladiator gear will require ratings in either 3v3 or 5v5, not 2v2. Your 2v2 rating can still be used to purchase furious gladiator stuff going into season 7, but if you can break 1500, you are going to need a 3v3 or 5v5 to get the new gear. Casual arena players who can't break 1500 won't care, but 2200+ players that have all of the furious gladiator gear already probably won't bother too much with 2v2. For those players or those who can play 3v3 or 5v5 as well as 2v2, the only reason to 2v2 is if their 3v3 and 5v5 can't net them things like the Gladiator title and Frost Wyrm. With less serious competition in the 2v2 bracket, I predict that 2v2 ratings will be easier to get in season 7, and arenas will continue to be more accessible. Blizzard has been trying very hard to push 3v3 and 5v5 since everyone is so concerned with 2v2, such as with the 3v3 and 5v5 rating buffs. Its difficult enough to balance classes to work in both PvP and PvE, let alone battlegrounds, 2v2, and the larger arena teams. This officially gives them an alibi to not have to balance 2v2 as carefully and make some sacrifices to 2v2 balance in order to ensure that the top tier of players playing in 3v3 and 5v5 have the best experience possible. The maps have also gotten some tweaks. The two new arenas in Wrath have been considered to be terrible, gimmicky, buggy, and random by the majority of the player base. They are even disabled for some tournament play. Dalaran sewers is getting a little bit of love. Its getting 25% bigger and the LoSing (line of sight-ing) on the crates is being adjusted. Mounts are also now usable in this arena. This gives this map more room to breathe and a better mechanic for LoSing instead of those tiny crates that are too close to the edge. Ruins of Lordaeron has had some terrain issues fixed with the tomb in the middle, and a couple of gravestones have been added for LoSing, while the starting alcoves have been removed (I wonder where players start after this change...). Finally, lets not forget the profession changes. Alchemy has a whole new mechanic and all the professions are getting buffed. Is this the best patch for arenas yet, or could you care less?

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Honestly, I really didn't plan on covering Armor Penetration as part of this reoccurring column. For starters, the statistic is largely a junk statistic, due to its low usage on our fancy pieces of gear. Mainly, it's because the stat has never been fully understood, until now. A Blizzard Poster by the name of Ghostcrawler - you may have heard of him - revealed the in-depth calculations behind the statistic and ultimately what has had theorycrafters confused since its inception. To my knowledge, this is the first time Blizzard has revealed a formula, and only because of all the confusion surrounding it. Thanks to Patch 3.1 and some friendly pointers from Heartbourne, I've been on a bit of a math kick, which made yesterday's post all that more interesting to me. I must warn you that this discussion is going to have Algebra, serious algebra. Before we get into the complexity of the formula, here are the three things that seem to have held the theorycrafting up for so long. If you aren't a math fan hopefully the bullet points will help you grasp the concept. Otherwise, allow your eyes to glaze until the conclusion. Up To: This is a key phrase in the stats' tooltip that seems to be overlooked often. Simply put, the number displayed is the maximum percentage of armor that can be ignored. It isn't a guaranteed number because of the following two pieces that Ghostcrawler revealed. Constant: Blizzard didn't want Armor Penetration to be too powerful at the high or low end (read level) of the spectrum so they came up with this little diddy. The magic Armor Constant (will be refereed to as 'K' below) is an easy to calculate number that changes significantly when a mob is over level 60. Cap: The Cap, combined with the K, causes the "Up To" statement in the tooltip. If the Cap is lower than the target's armor, then said Cap is used in the Armor Penetration calculation rather than the actual target's armor. If this is the case, then the effective armor reduction will appear lower than the stat lists. The numbers for the first example are being lifted directly from Ghostcrawler's post on the topic, but to try and reduce confusion, I have left some extraneous information out and added additional explanation. If you grasp the original post, then the following block will be redundant. Our formula will focus solely on endgame content, level 80 and level 83 (boss mob) NPCs. Important numbers: Level 80 Constant (K) = 400+85*targetlevel+4.5*85*(targetlevel-59) = 15232.5 Level 83 Constant (K) = 400+85*targetlevel+4.5*85*(targetlevel-59) = 16635 Armor Cap = (targetarmor + K)/3 Example Mob: We will stick with Mr. Street's example, a level 80 warrior creature with 9729 armor. The player attacking has 30% Armor Penetration and no other modifiers. Calculation: Our armor constant (K) in this case = 15232.5 Armor Cap = (targetarmor + K)/3 = (9729 + 15232.5)/3 => 8320.5 The formula choses the lower amount (Armor Cap or actual armor) to apply the penetration stat (.30) to: ArmCap * ArmPen = lost armor => 8320.5 * .30 = 2496.15 Thus 2496.15 of the target's armor is ignored, effectively leaving the creature with 7232.85 armor: armor - armor lost = effective armor => 9729 - 2496.15 = 7232.85 Comparison: If it wasn't for the "Up To" statement then the calculation would certainly be off, since the player only sees a reduction of 25.66% of the target's armor. Due to the usage of the Armor Cap, the Armor Constant was selected, reducing the amount lost below the 30% that you may have expected. Example Boss: For our quicker second example we have selected a boss mob with 25000 armor being attacked by a toon with 30% Armor Penetration. Calculation: K = 16635 Armor Cap = (25000 + 16635)/3 => 13878 lost armor = 13878 * .3 = 4163.5 effective armor = 25000 - 4163.5 = 20836.5 Percent lost = 4163.5/25000 = 16.6% Conclusion: Armor Penetration is certainly not a statistic that you should be gearing out for. As you can see, your penetration percentage actually goes down against a well armored opponent. The original poster of the thread claimed that the toon in question had 116% Armor Penetration, but only reduced the target's armor by 66%. Talk about a loss. Although we may not have known the mechanics behind the calculation before, theorycrafters were correct in assuming that all our other stats are more important. Gear for Hit, Expertise, Agility, Attack Power, Strength, etc, as Armor Penetration is a third rate stat for Melee DPSers. For rogues, warriors, death knights and feral druids, the statistic should be weighed above Intellect and Spirit, but below seemingly every other modifier.

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<QQ>I touched upon this subject last week in my farewell to Warhammer Online post, but it has raised its ugly head once again.  For all intents and purposes, Blizzard has no facility implemented - and in use - to disseminate crucial or important information to the mass of World of Warcraft subscribers.  Yes, they have the official forums and the front page of WorldofWarcraft.com, but they don't use these facilities to their utmost potential. Rather than being a haven for important discussions, details and announcements, the majority of the forum is used as a soapbox by angry and disenfranchised players.  Blues do creep in and drop bombs on the community here and there, but their efforts are trivialized by how few of us absorb the morsels.  To top it off, the same question or topic is then brought up a week later.  The front page of the MMORPG's official website is employed as a facilitator to a degree, with contests or huge announcements disclosed, but it misses the mark when compared to what it could easily offer. Bloggers, players and apparently even Ghostcrawler are fed up with the lack of a central information repository.  It doesn't have to be anything glamorous, new or even incredibly up-to-date.  To make most QQers happy, all Blizzard would have to do is a weekly wrap-up of important blue posts.  Just a quick summation of the hot topics with direct links to the discussions and we'd be so much happier.  Sure, bloggers would have to remain on the prowl for daily updates, but the average playerbase would enjoy the information being delivered in a nice package for them.</QQ> There is also a flip side to this.  Rather than placating critics like me, the developer would likely draw more casual subscribers into the forums if they had a "safe" starting point like this.  From what I have gathered from anecdotal evidence, most of my casual friends fear the forum is some sort of mystical creature with a thousand or so maws.  Perhaps it is all the clutter that comes from the repeating topics, the hatred spewed or the know-it-all attitudes.  Or, to lift Ghostcrawler's statement, maybe it is a "perfect storm" of the three. I rarely frequented the forums when I was a hardcore player because of this very issue.  It wasn't until I when I relapsed into real life that I began lurking the forums on a regular basis.  You know, to stay hip and all.  But lurking is all I ever do...How often do you frequent the forums and in what capacity?  Poster or lurker?  You seem to love our wrap-ups, but would you want Blizzard to do one of their important information on a weekly basis? And yes, I know that ProjectLore or any number of sites could do this, I just feel that Blizzard should be doing it to keep their customers informed.  Plus, as you can see by our growing list of talented bloggers, we have serious business to discuss, dissect and diss! Diss is still a common colloquialism right?  Oh god, am I getting old?!

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The difficulty of World of Warcraft has been a hot topic since Wrath of the Lich King released last November.  The second expansion brought players three raids (four if you include Vault), raids that were conquered in only three days.  Most of us wanted to reserve judgment on the latest expansion until the "normal" players had a crack at the high end content.  I would wager that we can call it now, the raids are indeed incredibly easy.  My evidence?  The fact that completely random PUGs are able to tackle all the raids.  Back in The Burning Crusade I considered Karazhan a challenging PUG, constantly dreading the raid when it wasn't a full guild run. World of Warcraft's upcoming content patch hopes to change the issue of difficulty, if only a little bit.  Ghostcrawler stated on the boards that the encounters in Ulduar - there are fourteen of them - have been designed to be more difficult from the get go.  However, everyone is hung up on the announcement of the upcoming mana regeneration nerf.  If you missed that bit of news, Blizzard will be nerfing base mana regeneration by 40%, forcing users to conserve and use mana regenerating abilities properly.  Paladins will have a different set of buffs due to the way they regen, but the nerfs will effectively match other healers' pain. At first glance, the nerfs seemed to be an artificial way to make the game hardier.  Rather than designing some difficult encounters, Blizzard simply nerfed healers.  On the surface, this would only make WoW more difficult for the nurturers out there.  It is really so much more than that.  Ghostcrawler defended the move, giving a soon to be classic example of why healers needed to be nerfed. The decision came down to the fact that raiders could simply "stand in the fire" and be carried through the damage by healers that wouldn't run out of mana.  This is obviously a bad way to play the game, taking easily avoidable damage just because it can be outhealed .  Blizzard wanted to make this kind of boss burning strategy obsolete in Ulduar, hence the mana nerf.  Off the bat, I expect most raids to use the age old scapegoat of blaming the healers for the raid dieing.  Until players actually learn the encounters, get out of the AoE or avoid any damage that can be nullified by player abilities, Ulduar should be a step up in difficulty.  Which will make PUGing it more challenging. If the raid is managing to play the encounter correctly, but healers run OOM, then Ghostcrawler has two points for those players.  You either don't have the correct gear for Ulduar, or you are playing the encounter incorrectly.  Oh, and by no means is Mr. Street attacking the priestly classes, "if the idiots stand in the fire, guild kick them." So yea, Ulduar should be more difficult, due to design and a retooling of the various healing classes.  All that being said, Ulduar is no Sunwell, "it is not a huge leap up in difficulty from Naxx, but it is a step up."  Before you start complaining that Ulduar is two easy, be sure to have all 11 of hardmodes comepleted.

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A few weeks ago I dished out some controversial viewpoints on the upcoming Dual Spec.  In no way shape or form was I saying that the ability to easily swap specs wasn't a useful feature.  Hell, I know I could get some use out of it, especially when I decide to PvP again.  The reason for the post was to express my concerns for what the feature could mean for the future of certain classes in raiding, namely Mages, Warlocks, Rogues and Hunters - the non-hybrid classes.   Some agreed, a handful took offense, but everyone formed their own opinion, which we are entitled to. Many other bloggers out there brought up an entirely different point.  Would the additional of Dual Spec change the way that Blizzard designs Talent trees or encounters?  In short, these players were worried that Blizzard may do some funky things in the WoW's future.  Such as having one spec be the PvE spec and another dedicated as the PvP spec.  On the PvE side of things, the designers could envision a fight requiring the use of 10 tanks while every other encounter remains at the two or three mark.  The thinking behind such madness is simple, you can always just respec right after. Thankfully, Ghostcrawler put this one to bed.  In a post on the forums he flat out stated that "we are going to design instances and talent trees while pretending this feature does not exist."  Greg Street for President! Blizzard will be ignoring the feature because they do not want to assume that everyone will purchase it.  In fact, they expect that only the more "high level" players will bother dropping the 1000 gold.  Instead of treating the mechanic as something the design team can play with, they are viewing it as yet another quality of life feature.  After all, it only stops players from hearthing back, dropping 50 gold and distributing their talent points after they are summoned back. Blizzard could have used the feature as a way to extend their options for encounter design, but have decided - at least for now - to stick with their current toolbox.  What do you think, should the company keep the extra hammer in there, or did the correct call get made?  Normally I would be all for new encounter mechanics, but I think such a radical shift would upset the majority of the populace.  Before you scream that they are placating the casuals, the decision is also sound from a design standpoint.  You shouldn't design something based on a feature that isn't available by default.

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I'll admit that Dual Spec is going to be a game changing mechanic.  There is no denying that.  The ability to trivially change from one layout to another, glyphs, button layout and talents all together, is an exciting idea for most classes.  While appealing to the PvP/PvE crowd - that is, the players that switch back and forth around their raid schedule - Blizzard also believes that the changes will create more tanks and healers per realm.  How many people will go DPS with a Tank/Healer off-spec, rather than a PvP survivability or solo PvE off-spec remains to be seen.   Then there is the issue of one's ability to play their vastly different spec... I'm not saying that the idea isn't a valiant effort on Blizzard's part to fix the various issues it's tackling.  If anyone can pull off such a drastic change, it's Blizzard and their slew of talented designers (oh, right).  My pessimism creeps in because Blizzard and the general WoW populace seems to think that the mechanic will fix all of these issues.  Poof, everything is perfect.  Hasn't Patch v3.0.8 taught us anything? All things considered, I think these problems will be eased, not solved.  The PvP/PvE crowd will be the only sect entirely satisfied.  Although they may start wanting a Tri Spec setup, ya know, for solo PvE.  The quantity of tanks and healers will be split with the PvP crowd, while quality comes with practice.  The first few months could be rough as new or rusty tanks and healers get back into their groove.  I still expect to see plenty of LF2m Tank/Healer either way. Then there is my concern for SolidSamm.  What about the non-hybrid classes?  Warlocks, Hunters, Mages and Rogues are all designed to do one thing, DPS.  Without the ability to offer drastically different specs (don't forget, pet tanking is going bye-bye) we could be left fighting for far fewer spots in raids than before.  If you had the option to take a geared face-melter who could also heal if someone leaves, or an arrow-flinging Hunter, why would you confine yourself to just the Hunter?  Dare I say that the feature will create more homogenization? Scary thought indeed. Initially, I was ecstatic about the Dual Spec feature.  After mulling it over with a certain Horde buddy, I wouldn't mind it not coming with Patch v3.1, or at all in its present condition.  Are you as paranoid about the change as I am, or are you entirely for it?  There are also the issue of Dual Speccing loot drops.  I won't even get into that.  This is one of those things were I hope I am wrong, but I can't see all my points being incorrect.

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In this interview with Nethaera, Ghostcrawler has revealed a lot of the specifics about the upcoming dual spec system. Up to this point we've been given hints about how the system will work and what will be included, but this time GC has unveiled much more specific information. Some of the key points from the interview:

• Only level 80 characters will be able to purchase a second spec. This may be changed based on feedback.
• The Lexicons of Power located in major towns are required to switch specs. Additionally, scribes can create an item that allows a group of players to summon a temporary lexicon of power. The only other restriction (so far) is that specs cannot be swapped in combat or in arenas.
• Paying for a respec will only clear talents from a character's active spec.
• A Gear Manager is going to be added into World of Warcraft. This will not automatically change the character's equipment after a spec change, but will be configurable to quickly change weapons, trinkets, or entire outfits. Sounds like an integrated Outfitter or Itemrack.
• Hunters will no longer have to pay a trainer to respec their pets. Blizzard didn't want an extraneous step for hunters to have to go through to change their pets' talents. Hunters will also be given a new spell (on a long cooldown) that will allow remote access to the stables.
• As we've heard before, glyphs and action bars will both be tied to the talent spec, changing along with the talent switch.
• Talent points will be configurable before the get saved. This allows players who are respeccing to allocate talents with the ability to double check and avoid having to respec again just to move a couple of points.
• It is indeed Dual Spec, not Tri or Quad spec, for now. In the future, they may allow for more than two specs to be used in the system.

All of this is pretty exciting news. With a lot more of the details hammered out, it seems like this may be coming even sooner than I had thought. We'll still have to see how the whole dual spec system has shaped up when it comes up on the PTR, but I am very enthused about the idea of having more than one talent build available.

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Everyone's favorite class designer hit the official forums during maintenance day to inform us that class changes for Patch 3.1 would be announced soon.  For those who don't already know it, Patch v3.1 will be Wrath's first content patch, with the main feature being the addition of an all-new raid known as Ulduar.  Popular speculation has Yogg-Saron - the second known "Old God" - or parts of him as the final boss.  Piggy-backing on the big content patch are numerous other tweaks, such as the classes changes discussed below. Making good on Ghostcrawler's promise, Eyonix threw up Part 1 of the upcoming changes.  However, only Rogues (yahoo), Priests and Shamans currently have a short-list of changes, every other class is "coming soon."  I am no Shaman, nor am I an expert Priest, but it seems pretty obvious that both classes have been buffed overall in the listed changes.  As for what my lovable little gnome thinks about his upcoming changes?  Awesome. PvP, that is the big change for Priests.  The notes specifically state that Shadow PvPers will see increased survivability thanks to a buff to Shadow Form which reduces magic damage along with physical damage.  Although no specific modifications were detailed, Eyonix notes that the developers are looking into making Holy have "additional PvP utility."  All the Discipline Priests shouldn't feel left out though, they get an entirely new ability, Power Word: Barrier, which is essentially a PW:S for their group.  Blizzard even through in some love for the whole class, adding Divine Spirit as a core ability. Shamans of the Elemental and Enhancement varieties also scored some additional, although undefined, PvP utility.  Following that, Dalaran's lag should be slightly lower come v3.1 thanks to the streamlining of Totems.  Mana Spring / Healing Stream Totems and Disease Cleansing / Poison Cleansing Totems have been combined. They are now two totems rather than four separate lag-inducing pillars of doom.  The nature-friendly class has received one modification that might be viewed as a nerf, Chain Lightning will jump to four targets, but do less damage.  The less damage could mean for the fourth jump or that the overall DPS output by CL will be lowered The number one change I was looking forward to for Rogues was how Blizzard planned to tackle the annoyance of keeping Hunger for Blood active.  For the none rogues out there, the spell had to be spammed three times, wasting two extra global cooldowns and 60 energy, to max it out.  Then it had to be refreshed every 30 seconds to keep it up.  While refreshing didn't break stealth - you could refresh while creeping to the next mob - it was incredibly annoying to worry about an ability with such a short duration that was so desperately needed.  The new HfB is a self-buff that can only be used when a bleed effect (anyone's bleed) is active.  While the need for a bleed is indeed a nerf, the 6% damage increase - from 9% with three stacks to 15% with no need for stacking - should help soothe that irritated skin. Like the other classes, rogues have also seen a selection of buffs beyond the HfB change.  Added haste, lower cooldowns and additional damage to various talents and abilities should make every rogue happy.  However, we do not know the exact amount these favorable changes will impact us, due to the numbers on a few of tweaks not being unveiled. The rest of the classes will be revealed in the upcoming parts of Eyonix's post.  Please hold off on the complaints until you see your own buffs.  Remember, these notes are not comprehensive and therefore do not list all the changes.  On the flip side, they can also be thrown out the window at a moment's notice. All of the changes do seem to be buffs, so perhaps Blizzard is saving all the nerfs for one giant post to get all the QQ out at once...Sly devils. In other news, numerous bugs have been found in WoW recently, but the developers are already hard at work on hotfixes. Update: Eyonix has posted more class changes.  Warriors, Warlocks and Druids should check out the post covering Part 2 of the changes.

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I am a shaman, like William Shatner, so totems are a big part of my in-game identity. Blizzard understands that totems are a class defining feature, but their current implementation is a little... lacking to say the least. Ghostcrawler, class designer and prolific blue poster on the official forums, recently posted a thread soliciting feedback from shamans on how totems should be revamped. To me, there are really two aspects of totems. Firstly, there is PvE, where they have great utility. It takes a minimum of four seconds every five minutes to cast them. Sometimes they can be set it and forget it, but this doesn't take into account fights where being mobile is very important, or where different totems need to be dropped in different phases of the fight. Also, my totems seem to get destroyed in fights quite often, so I have to keep tabs on my totem timer bar even if we aren't moving. In PvP, dropping all four totems is not a common occurance for me, unless I am defending some type of flag or node. While I am on some sort of offensive rush, using four seconds in a fight against a ret pally or death knight just to drop totems that will either be outranged very quickly or disappear when I die seems pointless. Exceptions to this are when I drop tremor, earthbind, grounding, maybe a stoneclaw to get treants off of me, or a magma totem to flush out rogues (which never seems to work). On to the actual totems themselves. Some of them have unique, very useful features. Two of my favorite totems in the game are tremor totem and grounding totem. Dispelling fear and absorbing spells, these totems can save fights singlehandedly. Unfortunately, there are also some totems that are not as useful. Sentry totem is the first one that comes to mind. Even things like Strength of Earth and Windfury, while great buffs for melee classes, are immobile and destructible versions of different Death Knight abilities. The original design of totems, as I understand it, was to provide stronger buffs than other classes due to the ease of removing them. With the consolidation of raid buffs and simplification of raid composition, this aspect was removed. I know it's difficult to balance against too many powerful buffs that come from a single class, so I can understand that some of the buffs need to have other sources. Unfortunately, the downside of totems remained while the benefit was reduced. While I know that totems aren't perfect, I am not a very good class designer. I leave it to those smarter than myself to solve the problems with totems, and it seems like GC and the class designers at Blizzard have come to a point where they need to know how the shaman community views totems. If you are a shaman (or even if you're not), let the developers know your opinions by posting in the thread. Shaman love is always appreciated here on Project Lore.

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