The DoT Problem and Blizzard's Inability to Solve It

Community General Discussion
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So for a couple expansions now, the devs have created the DoT problem. They have designed in such a way that strong rot specs cannot really exist. What I mean by this, is that if they have a spec with very strong and effective DoTs then that spec quickly becomes overpowered then nerfed into oblivion.

This is so because they have leaned heavily into CD, Burst style gameplay. High peaks of performance with low valleys in-between. DoTs need to do their damage before the DoT ends, or effectively they are clipping off their DPS. So if they make shorter DoTs that tick harder and just need to be re-applied the class quickly does more damage than most other classes in encounters, because effectively there is no downtime. Also this completely makes the class too strong in PvP with the burst nature of things.

A lot of this is balancing and the difficulty of getting a Rot spec to work in a Burst spec age. I truly miss old affliction and survival hunter. Specs that were light on burst, but could just apply constant and good DPS through an entire encounter. They did good or Great AoE and could apply and reapply DoTs quickly.

Right now the closest thing we have to a Rot spec is Balance Druid. Yep. Thats where we are. Their main DPS is to keep Stellar Flare, Sunfire and Moonfire up constantly. Then spam Wrath and spend their AP on Single Target or AoE. But keep those DoTs Ticking. Affliction is designed around Malefic Rapture. It has ways to apply a lot of DoTs quickly, not to have them do a lot of Damage, but to make their MR hit hard. Shadow Priest basically is pigeon holed into picking Misery to Put its 2 main DoTs up quickly, then spam to filler so it can spend its Short Devouring Plague DoT spender or its Mind Sear. And fluctuate around 1min CDS or 2min CDs. BM hunter is basically a Rot spec. Where it just does constant Damage all the time. Not much crazy burst, but waves of DPS instead of Peaks and Valleys.

Any of the big brains out there have any ideas on what they could do, if anything to bring back some Rot Specs? What in your opinions could be done to adequately design a DoT based spec that works. My personal Favorite was Legion Affliction. Im not sure if we will see that again.

5 Likes
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Snapshotting should be a mechanic for all DoT specs. Feral (to my knowledge) is the only spec in the game that still utilizes it.

I don’t think DoT specs are the issue. To me it’s how much instant gratification other classes have that is the problem.
Nothing makes me want to log off for the day more than being in a dungeon, casting Seed of Corruption, having it pop, and then having the DH / Rogue / Warrior instantly AOE them all down before my DoTs can do anything.

Blizzard tried to tone this down with things like AOE caps on spells. People lost their mind. I get it, being handy-capped by the system doesn’t feel good.

Personally, I think the play is for Blizzard to just own the fact that M+ sucks for DoT specs and to be ok with letting specs like Aff die off in M+. Want to do M+? Play Destro.
Have DoT specs focus on PVP / ST raiding.

I’d be totally fine with that. Back in the day Frost Mage would be the “PVP spec”. Their mastery barely even worked in raids. It was fine because Mages would just play Arcane or Fire.

The MoP talent trees converted the community into “I’m a Fire Mage” not “I’m a Mage” and it’s done a lot of damage in the long run. We’re only a couple months into the new, “old” style talent trees. Maybe the community will go back to playing the class not the spec.

I know I’ve rerolled from Aff to Destro (Destro isn’t even doing that good) for the first time since late BFA because the talent trees have more marriage between the two specs.

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Brilliant take. What about shadow? I have no choice other than shadow…
What about balance? Feral is almost completely different class…

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It is a crappy answer, but there is no other easy solution. DoT specs need mobs to stay alive long enough for their DoTs to do damage, but M+ is designed around killing things as fast as possible. The two types of playstyle are incompatible, and there is no way to make slow DoTs competitive in fast-paced gameplay…well, not without creating the other secondary problems they already pointed out.

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Ok so are we talking exclusive content for dot classes beign raids? If you wanna totaly abandon portion of playerbase from one type of content and your argumebt is “coz they are good in raid or pvp” then reality should atleast slightly reflect that suggestion. Currently dot specs are total trash in m+ and in raids with some of them beign OP in pvp but that has nothing to do with the fact that theyre dot specs.

Funny part is that dot specs are trash in raid specialy because they nerfed dots so they wont be over the top good in raids… so final result is bad everywhere.

Its like me saying …yo melees are op af in m+ and because of that they should nerf the living crap out of them in raids and completely abandon these specs…just because.

What about making the spec more fitting for dungeons…giving them tools to compete instead of throwing them into the bin.

For me this is an absolutely bad take.

1 Like
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i think blizzard thinks that dot are too passive to be a real playstyle.

Even in Wrath, doing affliction warlock - your highest deeps will be a shadowbolt

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It is not Blizzard’s responsibility to manage your Department of Transportation. You need to speak to your elected comptroller about these issues.

2 Likes
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Not really. It has lost almost all of its snapshotting.

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I don’t think it is possible outside of increases to the length of encounters. All things being equal, burst will still have the advantage of getting burst windows as bookends depending on timing.

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Tiger’s Fury, Bloodtalons?

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On the thread’s topic:

FFXIV removed most dots from almost all jobs in it’s latest expansion.
The devs probably realized dots are bad and hard to balance and don’t really bring much in exchange for existing.

I think WoW should go the same route or go even further: Just give up on dots entirely. Affliction could be back to their original design route: a debuffer, feral and balance druids don’t have any problems being a single target damage or cleave specs (as proven fact in the last few expansions).

Dots arent really something that a modern game like WoW is today needs.

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Snapshotting, and returning aff to how it was in MoP, malefic rapture is in the same boat insanity was: it cannot be balanced, it’ll either overperform or underperform.

Most class problems with modern WoW come from them removing things that were added for a reason.

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Everything is designed around killing things as fast as possible.

DoT up a bunch of trash is fine, but if they’re all wailing on you, it doesn’t really help that they die all at once if you die first. Obviously there’s mitigation for that (kiting, VW tank, etc. etc.) but the problem remains.

I don’t care for the “cooldown” play style. Destro doesn’t really suffer from it that much. Sure, I have my Infernal, but it’s long enough that it’s an exception, rather than in the rotation.

Constrast that to my Frost DK which wants to blow, like, 3 or 4 cooldowns all at once – about half the appropriate skills inventory in one go. Then it’s just sit around. And I pretty much can’t stand that playstyle.

A Blood DK is one big DoT, round up the camp, become the Singularity of mobs and damage, and do Local AOE to them all. While they’re not technically DoTs with kiting, the effect is the same – anything close the the DK (eventually) dies, and the DK just sucks up the damage. Take on an an elite, however, and you may as well grab a sandwich.

Curse of Agony is the worst DoT Warlock have in this case, because it ramps up the damage. Dracthyrs DoT are just plain long, and mobs die before half of it ticks off. Mostly wasted cooldown.

It’s very hard for DoTs to compete with burst damage. If it does, then they can be too powerful, since all of their damage would be front loaded, or their durations short (then you’re just tab spamming DoTs, which…well, kinda sucks honestly).

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Do you still think this?

Give mobs more health in lower difficulties. Specs with flatter damage curves start to have this problem when things die too quickly, so make them live long enough before people start running 17-18 fortified.

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Except the two premier DoT classes of Aff and Shadow do fine on trash regardless of fight length. Their damage in AoE isn’t really DoT based and both got ways to apply their DoTs to multiple targets quickly. If anything Affliction is near S tier in uncapped AoE like Ancient Protector because of Sow the Seeds+Soulflame does ridiculous damage.

The issue with both specs is they do stinky garbo ST damage (comparatively) when specced for AoE. Well, Aff does bad ST in any build, but it is REALLY bad when you don’t take the Rapture nodes and are down a DoT because you took AC.

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I also miss sustained damage and DoTs. Specifically affliction and survival too. It’s a unique playstyle. I even liked the stacking ret paladin seal from Wrath-WoD. It’s sad that it gets phased away.

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Affliction is the only real DoT spec. Over half of my casting is refreshing my 7 debuffs. Even Malefic Rapture has now been relegated to applying a debuff every 6 seconds.

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This isnt true at all.

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Only bloodtalons i believe.

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I posted a little while ago that DoT specs don’t even play like DoT specs anymore, and people responded like I’ve got a screw loose.