An interaction that has existed in the game since the very beginning is that if you control all four basic Totems from Totemic Call, then you can't use your Hero Power again until at least one of the Totems are destroyed.
I still pay my respects to Wrath of Air Totem.
As of the most recent patch though, Lead Final Designer Aleco Gereco confirmed on Twitter (or rather... X, thank you Elon Musk) confirmed that this change is intentional and you now can continue to keep summoning Totems even if you already control all four of them. It's difficult to determine exactly why this limitation existed in the first place or why Blizzard felt the need to change it just now after all this time, but if you're a Totem lover who's been frustrated at not being able to press that button when all four Totems are in play, then you can rejoice!
Quote From Aleco It's true! This change should be live with the 27.0 patch. This interaction might not come up super often, but when it did come up in the past I found it to be super frustrating. The whole team was very on board for this change and I'm very happy to see it live!
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Comments
With all the totem support in the past few expansions, I'm glad Blizzard finally made this fix, better late than never
Doesn't happen often your totems stay alive long enough. It's a nice change though. Would have been a more interesting change if it would have been a RANDOM totem instead of a 5th basic one. After all you needed 8 mana to get them all four out.
Imagine...lol
Mrgrlr mrgrlnar!
<Music to my ears!>
I'm not sure I ever saw any of my totems survive long enough for this to come up. Though cards like Totem Goliath exist, and I'm guessing the game didn't care how the totems were summoned. Still, the change seems like a good a idea no matter how rarely it would be relevant.
Keep in mind that you can instantly get all 4 totems with Totemic Evidence. Before you would need to hit the button before playing this card in order to get 5 totems. Now you can do it either way. Just a little help to avoid misplays.
Even Shaman probably runs into this more just because you’re smashing that 1 mana button every time. But the deck also has other minions to play, and other ways they generate the same totems.
It is weird when you consider Chisel didn’t care what basic totems were already on board. And playing Odd Shaman you could summon the same totem every time with the upgraded hero power.
Great! Now make it so the fifth totem summoned is the spell damage totem!
Always felt dumb and needlessly restrictive, glad to see it fixed!
I think a core reason why this restriction was in place was because the foundation of Shaman totems in WoW. If you had a Stoneclaw Totem in play, you couldn't summon a second one with the original one still in play.
Given that Hearthstone has migrated away from the basics of WoW and into it's own realm, this change is appropriate and needed. Having this hero power stopped because you have summoned all the totems puts a hindrance on Shaman as a whole. With all other classes that summon a minion, unless there is no room left on your side of the board, you are able to activate it.