Totems, Totems, Totems!

A new interface modification for World of Warcraft's Shamans has been announced on the WoW forums: the Totem Bar. Though you can check out the official announcement thread here, the followup thread here lays all of the changes out and provides additional information on the bars mechanics.

The Totem Bar will appear similar to a Druid's shapeshift bar, but will be customizable and able to hold up to one of each of a Shaman's elemental totems. It will also have a button for Totemic Call which is being renamed Call of Earth. The most interesting feature of the bar, however, is a button tied to a new Shaman ability: Call of Fire.

Available at level 30, Call of Fire will drop all totems on the Shaman's Totem Bar at once on a single global cooldown. The mana cost will be the same as if each totem were cast individually and any totems on cooldown will simply be skipped. New abilities Call of Water and Call of Air will also be trainable at higher levels and will function the same as Call of Fire. This will allow an endgame Shaman to design three preset totem dumps and call on them at will without blowing a ton of cooldowns.

Though this change doesn't address Shaman concerns about the survivability of totems, it sure goes a long way to help Shaman mobility without sacrificing the existing totem mechanics. I also would not be surprised if the Totem Bar that is introduced in the Public Test Realms will be a different creature than the one which ultimately drops in Patch 3.2 or beyond. Regardless, it is enough of a buff to make me revisit my Shaman alt. Frost Shock!