Detailed description:
At times, mostly due to space restrictions or possibly Eternal Storm being active on a totem, Grove Mind will not properly summon the correct amount of totems. This might be expected due to space or not wanting to eliminate totems with the Eternal Storm proc on it. However, the system will still fully deduct the mana cost for the maximum amount of totems it can summon.
What were you doing at the time?
When fighting in tight hallways and summoning Thorn Totems with Grove Mind I expect that the system will summon as many totems as it can with its static formation within the space and deduct the mana cost accordingly. Particularly since Grove Mind states the mana cost is additionally increased per totem summoned.
What happens instead is that the entire mana cost is deducted for the full amount of âsummonableâ totems that Grove Mind can summon.
How consistently does this happen?
The less than full totems amount being summoned happens regularly whenever you are fighting in a tighter space/corridor, what is the issue (if it is one) is that if a totem within the static formation is blocked, it will not summon. The full mana cost deduction happens every time the skill is used.
Video
Please note that my build only has 3/4 of Forested Expanse node, so the expected number is 4. As you can see, since the wall is blocking the 4th totem on the second attempt. The first attempt is to show that sometimes it will not summon any if your cursor is carelessly placed. Both attempts reduce the amount to 108/195 mana which is the amount required for all 4 totems.
Yea I have the same issue but it appears to be a design decision. If you hold ALT while hovering over Grove Mind youâll see it mentions, âThorn totems that would be created in innaccessible locations are not created at all, but still increase the mana cost.â This means that it is intended to work that way.
HOWEVER: I feel like this is extremely bad feeling for the player and Iâm sure you would agree. The totems that are summoned in inaccessible locations should be summoned as close to originally intended location as possible. Whatever reasoning or pro-con system someone uses to try to say the intended way is âbalancedâ or âcreates decision for the playerâ or such doesnât matter. It feels like complete trash, it feels like youâre getting robbed over and over again. I often donât get totems in places that visually seem like I should for one reason or another. Summon the totems as close as possible and call it a day.
We even see this thread pop up time and time again in bug reports so itâs very obvious that it is not at all obvious to players that the talent should work that way. Even if there was a giant banner clearly mentioning it, rather than in the alt for more information, Iâm positive players would shun the talent for the above reasons and just not take it at all most of the time.
Perhaps this thread would work best in Feedback although Iâm sure many players would be searching Bug Reports first for it. Edit: And in fact there are already 2 threads I see in Feedback mentioning this issue.
Didnât see the alt text so I would agree that this is working as intended as it makes a specific note about it. Not sure if itâs a limitation of the system of not being able to track the individual totem mana cost and deduct accordingly or what it is.
Luckily this doesnât affect boss fights, but it can make several common maps a fair bit harder to run as they are mostly corridors and confined spaces.
Thanks for pointing out the alt text
I think what kinda makes it feel âbadâ is that the Shaman mastery is pretty mana intensive as it is, typically with totems you are probably going either Avalanche or Earthquake which are also mana burners. Add to it using either Tornado or Maelstrom and youâre dipping into mana debt or toting the line pretty regularly. So the mana waste on totems not being summoned really makes an impact.
Thatâs also not to mention that Shamanâs defenses rely pretty heavily on totems to be effective.
I hope Devs take a look at this at some point. Still love my shaman and heâs still my main just a matter of adapting and trying to be smart with placement in the meantime.
