Is the "Totem of Undying" Overpowered?

Short answer: Yes.

Time for the long answer.

In a previous post where I discuss "Is Minecraft too easy?" I mentioned the totem of undying briefly. Specifically, how it has taken a lot of the fun and challenge out of hardcore. Since its addition in 2016, hardcore worlds have been able to run far longer than before, as the player can literally legitimately cheat death with it.

Fell into lava in 2015? Unless you had a Fire Resistance potion that you drank in time, that was bye-bye to your hardcore world. Fell into lava in 2016 and onwards? Totem would save you and even buff you with 40 seconds of fire resistance.

Got snuck up by a creeper in 2015? That was the end of your world. Snuck up in 2016 and onwards? TOTEM OF UNDYING TO THE RESCUE!!!

As well as preventing deaths from fatal falls and giving you that critical extra second to get the upper hand or flee in a close fight, totems save you from just about every situation.

There are a handful of times a totem won't save you. Such as being pummelled by the Wither, falling into the void, or being backed into a corner by a REALLY tough mob which hits you faster than you can equip the next totem.

And yes, while totems don't stack and they also mean you can't use shields, it has to be said: totems will save you in just about every situation.

I also mentioned LukeTheNotable in my previous rant where I brought up totems. And what better time than mention him again than when he has come under fire from the developers himself because he tried to do a Fine Brothers and TRADEMARK his series? Anyway, twitter drama aside, I mentioned how he has survived 2000 days, but has burned MANY totems along the way. Do I think that's cheating? Well... not technically. Totems are a perfectly legit item in the game, and Luke did a lot of work to get the number of totems he did. But in a way, it somehow feels less legit. Like, that is at least 20 times over the 2000 days that he should have died. It was impressive that he survived 300 days sure, but once he started gaining chests full of totems, it really didn't matter if he survived 300 days or 30,000. Once he had gained totem-induced conquest of his world, death itself stopped being a threat and the impressiveness of the length of time survived simply stopped mattering.

Once you have conquest of a world, you rarely die anyway.

I said it before and I'll say it again, if he survived 2000 days totemless, that would have been FAR more impressive. I almost think there should be a separate category for "surviving X days in Hardcore, totemless", where no totems are to be obtained.

But even outside of ruining hardcore, I do have another major problem with totems. And this is actually a pretty big issue I had with the 1.14 update in general. The 1.14 update had a nasty habit of making very powerful items too easy to obtain. Mending books stopped being rare once you realised you could exploit the game to always get a Mending villager who could sell you infinite Mending books.

But much more pressing, was the raids they added. 

The Elytra is arguably the most overpowered item in Minecraft. But yet here I am, ranting about the totem. The Elytra's power is balanced by the fact you get it RIGHT AT THE END OF THE GAME. Once you have beaten the Ender Dragon and braved the most dangerous place in Minecraft - the end void - you get the LIMITED EDITION Elytra as a reward. The Elytra is CRAZY RARE. There is no way to farm it, and you only get the Elytra at the end of a VERY long quest. Its power is justified by its insane rarity.

Totems actually USED to be well-balanced. Before 1.14, you actually had to go on a quest to find a very rare structure from far, far away to get a single totem. You had to find a village, trade with a cartogropher to get a map that would lead you to a Woodland Mansion. These mansions are CRAZY rare, you'd likely have to travel far further than ever before - maybe even 10,000 blocks - to find the mansion. Then you had to raid the mansion and kill the Evokers to yield maybe two or three totems. Totems were really rare, which was perfect considering how powerful they are.

Then they added raids, which not only made totems renewable and FARMABLE, but MUCH quicker to get. No more 10,000 block treks. Nope, this offered a much faster route to get loads of totems, which in turn rendered the Woodland Mansion totally obsolete and that entire side-quest completely impractical. It's sad when an update completely craps all over something really cool from a previous update.

Another issue with totems is that they often feel undeserved. At least, when I obtain them they do. Evokers are WAY too easy to defeat. They are one of the coolest mobs, but they suffer from too many weaknesses. Their health is low. They are completely vulnerable to ranged attacks and iron golems. The totem almost feels like it should be a drop from a mini-boss. The Evoker is anything but. In fact, I once tried to see just how easy Evokers are to kill. I punched one to death, on hard mode, with no armor. And I won. Evokers are actually massive pushovers, and therefore when I kill one without even really trying, I feel the totem is undeserved as I got it so easily. Yeah there are ravagers but they're not so bad - see my earlier rant on Tank enemies.

So in conclusion. Are totems overpowered? Yes. Is that a bad thing? It doesn't have to be if it's balanced properly. My issue is less the fact totems are too powerful, but more the fact they are too easily obtained and farmable through raids. Before 1.14, I really never considered totems as being broken or too powerful. There are ways they could fix this, such as excluding Evokers from raids and replacing them with the long-unused Illusioner. Make Evokers exclusive to the Woodland Mansions, and have Illusioners drop enchanted books or something. But for now, I guess Hardcore players are going to live for thousands of days with their chests filled to the brim with totems.