Shaman Totem Tactics

A) Communication

This is very important for all party characters of course - and doubly so for the shaman as he may be fulfilling more than one role much of the time! Commonly I find myself doing 2 or even 3 at once - acting as a secondary healer, providing support with my totems and even off-tanking!

You need to both maintain awareness of the situation and keep up communication with your team members so that you are doing what the party needs you to be doing!

For example you may have been off-tanking, but then your party's primary healers announce they are low on mana! You have to step up here and start casting more heals until they are back on-line!

Your party may also ask you to drop certain kinds of totems, or refrain from using others. You may also need to change which totem you are using if the situation calls for it!

And another way communication comes in important is if you are in a party/raid with multiple shaman! Now remember, each shaman can only have ONE totem from EACH of the four elements active at once - but you shouldn't all be dropping the same one! (unless you have to!) As you have more than one shaman you want to combine support effects!

B) Totem Combos

(in order earth/fire/water/air)

Melee support - Strength of Earth/Magma Totem/Healing Stream/Grace of Air
(this is my most frequently used combo as being a shaman with a shield and fair enhancement spec I'm near the front line usually!)]

Alternatives for melee support include using Stoneskin totem, or one of the weapon buffing totems - either Flametongue (fire) Windfury (air)

Caster/priest support - Stoneskin/Searing Totem/Mana Spring/Grace of Air

Here Stoneskin affords some protection for your cloth wearers if they are meleed, while grace of Air does the same through some increase in armor and dodge chance. Mana Spring is better here to keep their mana levels up.. and as you are out of melee range here use your ranged fire attack totem!

DPS combo- Strength of Earth/Flametongue/Healing stream/Grace of Air -

This gives the strength (for power) and agi (for more crits) buffs.. as well as a weapon buff that further adds to DPS. Another combo that does the same thing is SoE/Magma/Healing/Windfury... Windfury totem gives the chance for extra attacks with more power, and Flametongue is replaced here by Magma for AE fire damage. Note: You should never use two "weapon buffing" totems together... it's a waste of a totem as weapon buffs cannot stack! This also applies if you have more than one shaman working close together.. only one of you should use a weapon buff totem.. choose who will be dropping it (and which one it will be!) beforehand!