I am leveling a Enh Shaman just to try it out as I always wanted to give one a shot and was wondering if Totem Twisting is mandatory even for Casual Raiding, I don't mind doing it as it doesn't seem that annoying to do, but I am curious
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I am leveling a Enh Shaman just to try it out as I always wanted to give one a shot and was wondering if Totem Twisting is mandatory even for Casual Raiding, I don't mind doing it as it doesn't seem that annoying to do, but I am curious
TL/TR, no its not mandatory for casual raiding.
It highy depends on your group setup, their gear, and the boss you are fighting.
It is highly overrated and even a raid dps loss in many cases during T4/T5.
Pros:
- hybrid groups, consisting of ferals, hunters and warriors can get a dps increase from twisting
- if the shamans gear is still bad he can bring some contribution to the raids total dps with twisting
- in T6/T6.5 endgame, twisting in a good condition, for example at brutallus, can result in an important 1.5 - 2% raid dps increase
Cons:
- you have to use mana potions instead of haste potions
- you will lose global cooldowns for shocks and stormstrike
- if the shamans gear is on a par with the rest of the group, twisting will often result in a raid dps loss
- you have to twist windfury every 9 seconds, missing out on that, due to movement and boss mechanics is a dps loss over not twisting
More details:
Windfury totem places a 9 second buff on your party members, in order to keep it up for 100% you have to sacrifice global cooldowns on stormstrike and shocks. This lowers the shock damage, stormstrike damage and windfury damage.
With good gear, you will lose more dps from this than your group can gain from perfect twisting.
It will also lower your ability to purge, decurse and most importantly heal yourself and your mates during moments of high risk.
We don't have content where we are limited by enrage timers.
In order to have a smooth raiding and grouping experience we should in first place make sure we survive.
Preventable deaths will, without a doubt always result in the most dps loss.
In order to sustain twisting you have to use mana potions.
On warmane we play on a simulated 2.1 patch with a 2.4.3 client, with many 2.4 items available.
The availability of haste potions, which were a 2.4 item on retail, makes twisting much worse in the servers current state of content.
The use of at least 2 haste potions per fight will almost always outperform totem twisting pre T6.5.