I've been chewing on the idea of how to protect our totems without it being too OP. The three most common theme have been to change the names to prevent macro-killing, increase the health based on level or shaman health, or the killing of a totem to have a negative consequence to the killer. Changing the name of totems is VERY easy to overcome with an add-on or even creative writing of macros, so I feel this is a very poor way of protecting them. Increasing the health with shaman health is not a terrible idea, but finding the "right amount" to satisfy the shaman and the enemy would be challenging.
Negative consequences for killing totems seems to be the most appropriate form of protection. Think of us as "voodoo priests." We carry totems and call the powers of nature etc. Then you whack our extremely delicate religious icon that channels gods/elements ... and you don't suffer a consequence? -.- Pure silliness. Originally I thought totems should give different consequences based on the element of the totem you killed. I still think this is a very very good idea; however, it would end up being too powerful perhaps because they'd have to take a bit of time to look at maybe 4 totems to see if they wanted to kill them and which ones they would want to kill. At this point, no one would even waste time killing totems (which would make shamans happy) but there'd be no balance.
So instead of having all of the totems have consequences, give the shaman the ability to enter an elemental state (a "form" if you will). If you enter earth form, then destroying an earth totem has serious consequences (say... a 5-10s stun). If you enter fire form, then destroying a fire totem could cause 2k aoe damage around the totem perhaps. If you enter wind form, then destroying a wind totem would cause all enemies in a 40 yard radius to be slowed by 75% or snared? If you enter water form, destroying a water totem heals the party for 25% of max health or restores 50% of mana/rage/energy/runes?
I'm no developer and trying to balance it would be interesting. It doesn't stop there though because this could allow for some more balancing that shaman needs. On Beta, there is a lack of dps from elemental and enhance and a lack of hps from shaman with poor hpm. Earth form could be like a "defensive" stance for shaman whereas Fire Form could be like a berserker stance. Water form could be a "healing/regen" stance. Wind Form would be ... I don't know. Anything creative.
Shamans have been asking for a change to our mechanics. I think it would greatly improve all 3 trees of Shaman and the ability to be more reactive to situations instead of just spamming our 3 buttons (if we even have 3).