Project Lore

Content patches often bring class changes of the raw number variety, but rarely do we see mechanics almost completely reinvented. Shamans' lives are about to get a whole lot easier, as Blizzard intends to give them their very own hotbar for totems! The new bar will hang just over the left side of your core action buttons, just like a Warrior's stances or a Paladin's auras, and feature four slots where you can drop totems, one of each element. As there are currently twenty-three totems available to the class, this should help cut down on clutter (assuming you're like me,  and keeping all of them readily available just in case you might find the rare use for most of them). This Shaman might still be alive if he was using the new hotbar! Several other buttons will be available on the hotbar just as soon as you achieve the level needed to learn them. Call of Earth, for example, will replace Totemic Call, while a whole new spell, Call of Fire, will drop all four totems at once. Those Shamans who currently rely on macros to do this will be pleased to know that Call of Fire operates using only one global cooldown, making it even more efficient. Likewise, there are Call of Air and Call of Water spells, which essentially function the same as Call of Fire, but allow you to drop two more (different) sets of totems, so you can queue them up as the situation calls for it. Each of these can be hotkeyed for easy access. A total of eight new buttons on your screen might seem like a lot, but it's certainly better, and more organized, than the alternative. Ultimately, this should eliminate several problems for the class, including resetting your totems after they've been destroyed in PvP combat or quickly moving them to avoid adds while questing or running an instance. I, for one, am happy with these changes. My primary alt is a Shaman, and setting down totems before any given encounter gets to be a pain, to the point of not even bothering for most trash pulls. It should also make tasks like dropping an emergency Cleansing or Tremor Totem more convenient. Overall, it looks like 3.2 may be shaping up to be a bigger release that originally anticipated. What do you guys and gals think? Does this sound like something that would appeal to you, or are you just going to continue sticking with macros? Gives us your feedback below!

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