Need help understanding DoTs

Community General Discussion
1

Maybe I am overthinking this.

I am questioning how DoTs work based off your stats or power and the refresh mechanics.

Suppose I am a warrior and I cast Rend and I have 8k strength.
Rend will tick for 4k for a total of 52k damage.

That is the baseline.

Now suppose I get a strength buff like power potion and now I have 9k strength.

  1. Should I reapply Rend or any dots since now I have more strength so it will do more damage?

Now if the stat proc wears off.

  1. Does reapplying rend (overlapping with pandemic) use the baseline damage ? Or does it roll the higher damage value with a new duration?

Thanks for reading

2

What you are referring to is called snapshotting, and no it isn’t needed for most DOTs anymore. Once upon a time, this was a major player in dot class rotations. For example, affliction always wanted to apply their dots when they had haunt + trinkets + pot up and then not refresh until they ran out, because if they refreshed the new dot would do less damage. That is not the case anymore, and instead dots are what we call “dynamic”.

That is, for Most Dot abilities, you do not need to reapply - the damage it deals is going to be dynamic with your current level of stats at the time of the damage tick.

There are a few random spells that still snapshot, where you would have to update, I believe feral has 1 or 2 ability that still does this.

Otherwise, no, if you apply rend with 8k strength and it ticks for 4k at the first second, then pop your potion, the second tick at 2 seconds will tick for 5k (or whatever the new number would be)

Edit: Someone below listed the feral spells, bloodtalons and tigers fury.

2 Likes
3

Yes I remember there was a word for that! I remember it used to be big for feral druid bleeds

4

They update dynamically since like wod. Exception being Bloodtalons/Tiger’s Fury.

5

Im pretty sure it works on a tick by tick basis so no need to reapply.

Like I’m 90% sure I can press schism after using purge the wicked and not worry about it. Same with an intellect trinket. Although we’d miss out on a few ticks higher damage.

Don’t quote me though because I am absolutely clueless.

6

Okay so I cast Rend at 8k strength it ticks for around 4k

Then I get a STR proc now I have 9k strength. The original rend I cast from before the proc will tick for more without having to reapply is that right?

7

Yes

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8

Yes, you do not need to reapply

Rend at 8k strength = 4k tick
Pop potion, cds, etc
Same rend at 10k strength without refreshing = 5k tick

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9

The only spec in the game that uses snapshotting as a mechanic now is feral druid.

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10

alrighty thanks everyone!

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11

Meaning that any buff you get, will be applied to your damage profile in a passive manner, and then drop off automatically when the buff runs its course

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12

Looking for a video with 3 kitties a bear-cat thing and a kitty weaving resto.

13

I believe feral is the only spec that snapshots, though I may be mistaken.

As for feral snapshotting, it applies to two abilities, rake and rip. The abilities that adjust the snapshot number are only those found in the druid/feral toolkit. So no external buffs from other classes or items affect the snapshot total.

14

If you use a damage buff on yourself while a DoT is on a target, the DoT will update and get stronger before it falls off.

TL,DR.

15

Yes. Snapshotting does not exist for like 99% of DoTs and each tick will update dynamically with your stats. The same can be said for like bloodlust increasing your haste and increasing the tick rate of all your active DoTs.