Suggestion Shaman Totems - Diversification Possible?

[Dakinara]

So i have messed around with the totems a bit and think they are quite fun, kind of a mix between the obvious wow type shaman meets a team fortress engineer (relatively weak character on own with great, immobile assisting devices). Obviously balancing is needed, but my other question is what may be possible to diversify the totems a little. Although the effects are different on each, they all kind of fit a niche of area of effect, limited range objects. Is it possible to program some of the totems to be single target instead of ae and / or diversify the ranges more?

I was thinking the firestrike totem with projectile fireballs would be more distinct if it had a longer range, but only fired at one target in range at a time, with the damage per hit / firing rate obviously subject to balance review. I dont know how you would program the ai, but for instance have it attack the closest target in range, or, if possible, give the shaman a scan type ability that marks an entity as a target for his single target totems. If this totem was made single target i think the cooldown should = duration or something similar so it could be up pretty much always.

I think it might be nice to similarly diversify the lightning stike vs forcepush type totems as well. I think the lightning strike could be focused as a medium range, medium duration continuous pulsing low damage aoe, whereas forcepush could be a short range, short duration but devastating aoe / push.

The snare and healing totem are probably fine in concept, although balancing is still needed. Similar to the firestrike totem, i think it might be cool if healing totem or an additional healing totem could be designed which would single target heal targets marked by the shaman in range, rather than just aoe healing everyone.

I guess overall my concern is that with everything being aoe and similar range, shaman has a lot of risk of falling into a "absolute mandatory group fight class" but maybe kinda meh in small encounters role, even once the numbers are balanced.

 

[malikdanab]

The way totem work/ how they can be altered.
* Something to do when it "Fire"s
* Something to do when it "Break"s (Not currently used, but Totem that explodes, anyone?)
* Blocks it's made out of (Only Material, no custom data)
* Custom config data, generally used with "Firing"
* A name
* Custom logic where applicable (Firestrike)

The reason they are like this now is that @0xNaomi didn't make roles for the totems. It's up to the balance team to differentiate the totems and balance them.

What I'm currently thinking:

Firestrike Totem-

• Single Target (We are puzzling over this since there isn't a way to make the totem target a specific character)
• Long Range
• High Damage
• Low tick rate
• Basically a "Sniper" turret

Shock Totem-

• Medium range
• Medium Damage
• Medium tick rate
• "Bread n Butter" AOE dmg/lvling tool

Force Totem-

• Medium/Low range
• No Damage
• Slow tick rate

It's kinda hard to balance atm since we don't have the full skill set, but don't worry, they won't be as bland as they are atm

 

[Dakinara]

thats cool, sounds like i was almost on the same wavelength as you guys lol. I dunno how single targeting can be programmed, but to me the most interesting option would be requiring the shaman to "paint" a target with some kind of debuff, and the totem would only fire at that target until the shaman selected someone else to be targeted.