In defense of Totem Stomping Macros

#0 - March 23, 2009, 9:29 p.m.

There has been a lot of QQ from Shamans regarding this topic lately. While I understand their frustration, I don't think they have valid arguments to complain.

First of all, shamans have to understand that most mechanics in this game have counters. Just like you have totems that are counters for diseases, poisons, fear, and spells, your totems have counters.

And guess what: the most effective counter against your totems are pets.

Now, not all classes have pets. In fact, only 3 of the 10 classes of the game have permanent pets:
Hunters, DKs and Warlocks. Of the remaining 7 classes only 3 have summonable pets on a long cd that last for a short period of time: Frost Mages, Enh Shamies and Balance Druids. Is not like every single class of this game has this counter for your totems.

Second, these pets can be countered too. You can kill them. Enhancement and Elemental shamans should have an easy time killing these pets alone, if they are so worried about protecting their totems.

Third and lastly, you can't complain about the fact that these classes don't have to spend a GCD to kill your totems. That point is not valid. I know it doesn't seem fair, but that's how pets work. Deal with it. Pets are a separated entity from their master. You can crowd control his master, and the pet will still be able to crowd control you. This is not only a shaman problem. This is a game mechanic that has always been there:

-A fel hunter can silence when I already silenced the warlock (thing that drives me nuts)
-A fel hunter can continouslly eat by buffs without the warlock having to spend a single GCD.
-A frost mage can command his water elemental to freeze me while he's almost done casting that frost bolt. Guess what, that didn't use his gcd neither.

Your points in favor of totem stomping macros are not valid. Pets are a counter for your totems, a counter a few classes have. Learn to deal with that.

A whole different point, is that some pet mechanics need a nerf.

Ghostcrawler

#115 - March 24, 2009, 5:19 a.m.

From our POV, there is no defense of totem-stomping macros.

If you want to take the time to give your pet a command and a target to kill a totem, great. But to be able to neutralize a core mechanic of the class so easily because you are clever enough to copy a macro off of the Internet is not skill.

The only reason they still exist are technical limitations, not because we like the design. (And please don't feel the need to offer your technical suggestions. :) )

Ghostcrawler

#492 - March 25, 2009, 6:13 p.m.

Q u o t e:
I don't understand how you can say "there is no defense of totem-stomping macros" when the players themselves have offered numerous ways to fix it.

I said "in our minds." You can come up with all the defenses you'd like, but until you hit on one that is so profound that it forces us to change our design, our intent is that they are bad for the game. We currently don't have a system in place to prevent totem-stomping macros, but we are woking on one.

Q u o t e:
The problem isn't that totems can be killed, it's that there is no downside to it save for Stoneclaw Totem.

Totems are designed to be easily killed. Their advantage is that the shaman can do other things while the totem is doing its thing. That is essentially the heart of totem balance.

If you command your pet to kill a totem, we don't have a problem with that. That is no different than a player deciding to use an attack to kill a totem. But note the key word there: "deciding." When you are able to kill a totem solely by virtue of the fact that you are a pet class, you have made no decision. You have made no commitment of resources. Your pet is just going and doing its own thing. That crosses a line for us. Your pet is not a totem. It is not nearly as easy to kill. Thus we require that you spend some amount of your bandwidth telling it what to do.

I can understand how other players might feel differently though. We think macroing an ability like Rune Strike or the old Kill Command isn't an exploit (though it might not be the most dynamic game design in the world). Having a macro that targets the most injured player and heals them, or automatically decurses, is an exploit. The difference is going to be gray sometimes and we just have to make a judgment call when that happens.