Benefits of Totems

Hello everyone. While chatting with the community about totems, and what their proposed removal would mean for us Maplers, I've seen the new Ignition content (such as Extreme Monster Park, etc) occasionally mentioned, along with the suggestion that this new content will actually be better than the totems that are being removed.

I'm here to argue that this is wrong for two reasons:

  1. First, this is a false dichotomy. Nobody is suggesting that we keep totems and forgo the Ignition update in exchange. Those of us who want to keep totems wanted, and expected, that we would continue to be able to use them alongside the upcoming Ignition content.
  2. Second and more importantly, I believe users are vastly underestimating the benefits and usefulness of totems to nearly if not all content in the game. To try and help clear up this misunderstanding, I've decided to try and brainstorm all of the uses totems have in the game:

Some Benefits of Totems:

  • When farming, totems increase the spawn rate and limit of mobs on the map, which in turn increases kill rates. This means more EXP gained, and faster levelups.
    • Both mains and mules benefit from getting more exp:
      • With the upcoming release of Odium, there will be new content to access all the way up to level 275. That means that there's always something significant and new to gain and unlock even up to that level. For true sweats, this goes up to even 280 or higher for final damage against Kalos and the eternal set, which will be obtainable for top players starting next year, and even easier after that.
      • For low-level legion and link mules, toteming is a great way to make the grind to 200 and 210 easier. When you have so many to do, it's important to make the process as comfortable as possible.
      • For those of us who have leveled our mains and are working on high-leveled mules, such as bossing mules or 250 mules for legion blocks, the increased exp benefits from totems continue to be useful!
    • Although we are getting Monster Park Extreme in Ignition, which will be a good source of exp periodically, it will be only accessible for characters level 260+. This new benefit will not be extended to characters below that level!
  • More mobs killed also means more mesos gained while farming. This is especially true for players who get most of their mesos from farming. If you don't already have several bossing mules that can kill Lomien and below in 30 minutes or less, the loss of farming mesos will especially affect you!
    • Nexon has introduced a small star force cost nerf (20%) to go along with the proposed totem removal. However, this isn't even enough to cover the loss in farming meso rates that will happen with totems, which could be 30% or more. This means that, for players that farm mesos while training, even star forcing will effectively become more expensive with this change!
  • Nodestones are another important progression items directly tied to the number of mobs you kill. Killing more mobs means more nodestones, which means more opportunities to roll those elusive perfect trinodes, and faster level-ups for trinodes and skills!
    • For mains where high-level nodes is a gateway to party bossing, this is an especially important obstacle to overcome that toteming makes easier. With less nodes, it will become harder and take longer to break into hard bosses.
    • Even characters that have finished nodes can still use more nodes for mules. Nodes on a 210 link skill mule can make the difference between four totems 200-210 and less than one totem.
    • Bossing mules and 250 mules especially need lots and lots of nodes to get them to the minimum level of funding needed to succeed. Players who progress to this point especially need lots of nodestones!
    • If you play an explorer, you can benefit from having a stockpile of extra nodestones for job change, which necessitates its own vskills and trinodes.
    • Characters that want to take advantage of special nodes, such as Fatal Strike (which is a must-have for some folks for bossing) need extra nodes for nodeshards to craft them weekly!
  • Droplets (Arcane River Droplet Stones and Stone Origin Droplets) drop from mobs from Lachelein to Limina, and are important for getting Arcane Umbra Gear.
    • The Arcane Umbra weapon is very powerful, and a huge upgrade from AbsoLab.
    • For folks who already have the weapon, the Arcane armor is also an upgrade, albeit a smaller one. The sooner you get it, the sooner you can start throwing boss flames on it!
    • Even if you're getting very lucky with Arcane box drops from HLucid and onward, you can still use the droplets for extra Arcane copies for starring past 17*. This is especially important for the Arcane Armor, which is currently BiS and will continue to be for a long time.
    • Even after you finish your Arcanes, you can still buy weapons or even armor for your bossing mules that are having bad luck with box drops!
  • Familiars are a very lucrative source of power that we have in GMS that KMS doesn't have. However, because of their difficult upgrade mechanics, especially in Reboot where we don't have red cards and have to rely on familiar drops, it's imperative to get as many familiar card drops as possible across your maple account!
    • Boss damage familiars, or comparable lines like critical damage, can be a very large of source of strength for any character, but especially mains looking for ways to improve.
    • IED familiars are a great source of the stat, especially when used to compensate for characters that would otherwise have low IED, letting you roll off IED on WSE, or when facing high-PDR lategame bosses like Seren and Kalos.
    • Drop familiars on main and mules can make farming to 250 and onward more lucrative (especially on totem!), or bosses drop more goodies, such as cubes, flames, and MVPs that you can spread around your characters, and of course those elusive pitched boss drops! More familiars -> getting more drop% sooner -> more pitched boss drops!
    • Healing familiars are a great help for some bosses, especially Will and VHilla where healing is blocked.
    • Even after you get good familiars on your main, a mule can benefit from the strength and utility familiars provide.
  • What about Daily Event Coin Capping? With totems the many tasks events make us do, whether it be kill mobs or fulfill a host of other tasks like popping runes, killing emobs, using Pollo/Fritto/Inferno Wolf portals, every single one of these benefits from the enhanced spawn that totem use brings.
  • Arcane Symbols are one of the most important sources of strength midgame and onward. The best way to get them is by doing Arcane River dailies, many of which are kill quests.
    • Totems make doing your dailies faster, especially if you have a lot to do or if you are running them on multiple characters. Toteming for dailies can make the difference between doing more of them in less time without getting burnt out! More dailies done -> more progression!
    • Because of the stat they provide, higher-level Arcane Symbols give you lots of flat power.
    • Higher-level Arcane Force means better multipliers in the Arcane River and more damage against the mobs there, which is essential to leveling your character and progressing to 250 or onward to Cernium!
    • Of course, every Arcane River boss also has an Arcane Force multiplier. Your Arcane Force can be a gate to clearing every single one of these bosses from Lucid to Black Mage and liberation, so the more dailies you can fit in, the better chance you have of achieving these goals.
    • Although it's super rare, small numbers of Arcane Symbols can drop from mobs, too, and the more mobs you kill, the better chance there is of this happening!
  • Sacred Symbols are an important source of progression for characters level 260 and higher. Unfortunately, the Grandis daily kill quests can be quite lengthy: 2,200 - 3,000 mobs total daily for two symbols, with more from Odium on the way. Toteming for these dailies makes them go by much quicker, especially for a quest you need to run for years to max these symbols out!
    • Like Arcane Symbols, good Sacred Force is necessary to training in Grandis, where exp rates can triple or quadruple or more even the most lucrative Limina maps.
    • Sacred Force is also necessary for fighting late-game bosses Seren and Kalos. With the eternal set on its way, getting Kalos clears next year is a high priority for anyone looking to break into the next level of gear progression!
  • Scrapyard and Dark World Tree weeklies are another good use of extra totems. If you're looking to get Abso gear on main, or looking to gear up mules and you aren't already getting HLomien carries every week, you're gonna have to do a LOT of these weekly kill quests. Totems make them easier, especially for the super slow/hard to farm maps that you might occasionally get stuck with.
  • The fact of the matter is just that toteming is more fun. Going from a high spawn rate to a slow one is not more challenging in any way - it's just boring! There's something frustrating about being used to mobs spawning right away, and then having to go to waiting in an empty map for ages for them to show up.
  • Totems are also more flexible than people give them credit for. The fact is that you're not locked into two-hour playing sessions with them, and you never were! There's nothing wrong with using a totem for a 30-minute session or less.
    • The fact that one needs to use totems for the full two hours or it's a "waste," and so that we're better off without them, is a fallacy at its core. What's a bigger loss, only using part of a totem, or never getting to use another totem again?
    • If you're clever with your timing, you can use a totem before daily or weekly reset and do several sets of dailies/weeklies/event coin capping on a single totem. I've done this many times and I'm going to continue to do it until my last totem is gone.

If we lose totems, every single one of these benefits I've listed will be lost, and all walks of gameplay that I've mentioned will be impacted for the worse. Please don't take away our Wild Totems!

Let us keep what makes GMS special!

Obviously, this isn't an exhaustive list, just the first things I could come up with off the top of my head while drafting this post. Please share in the comments some other uses totems have!