Dots Quality of Life Change

[Benfe23]

Arcane pulse is my favourite dot in the game. Not necessarily because it does way more dmg than other arcane dots, but because all the stacks do not expire on expiration. Instead, it is just stack by stack, allowing me to refresh later than usual if i get some forced downtime while i cannot target (or dmg) what im focusing on.

Niac's biting cold, and eledar's electric surge do not function the same way unfortunately (nor would druid dots i think, but im not sure if those can be stacked). The root of the problem is that there is an incredibly short grace period when aforementioned dots have done all their dmg, but r still on target and ready to accept refreshing. It certainly does not help either that while inspecting the target im dotting, the durations tend to jump around a few secs here n there, making refreshing at the most ideal time an exercise in futility. I have found myself far more likely to lose all the stacks entirely, cause whatever random lag or ability delay had my cast land later.

In short i am forced into refreshing these dots a few secs early, hence losing out on 1 tick of dmg. To take this further, i am even forced into situations when i am not able to refresh the dots. Most prominent example that comes to mind is strahd doing his mist mechanic, wherein he completely disappears for a lengthy period of time, and the dots just fall off.

It would be an incredibly welcome quality of life change if niac's biting cold, and eledar's electric surge (and any other stackable dot in the game) lost only one stack upon expiration, instead of all of them.

Thanks.

[Xgya]

To be fair, the expected behavior of those would be that each of the DoTs has its own internal timer. If the spell in a way that made sense balance-wise (casting X spell for Y mana should result in Z damage), this is how it would work.
Getting to keep the spell up three times on a target for the cost of one is already pretty nice.

Think about it this way - you're basically paying three ticks of the damage (assuming you already have three stacks) out of 21 to get 21 ticks worth of damage back up on the target instead of 7. You're paying 1/7th more for your spell in order to cast it back three times.

[Benfe23]

To be fair, the expected behavior of those would be that each of the DoTs has its own internal timer. If the spell in a way that made sense balance-wise (casting X spell for Y mana should result in Z damage), this is how it would work.
Getting to keep the spell up three times on a target for the cost of one is already pretty nice.

Think about it this way - you're basically paying three ticks of the damage (assuming you already have three stacks) out of 21 to get 21 ticks worth of damage back up on the target instead of 7. You're paying 1/7th more for your spell in order to cast it back three times.

Nonononono. And no. I do not think u understand what im actually asking for.

[Anuulified]

I have to agree with Ben. The dots should not end all at once. But I would go a step further. I routinely get hit with 6 and 7 stacks of dots at once frome one mob. Players should have that ability as well AND a way to cure them. 1k+ damage a tick instantly, with 180 mrr is a bit much.

[Xgya]

Nonononono. And no. I do not think u understand what im actually asking for.

I understand what you're asking for - for the dots to get removed one stack at a time, like the epic spell does.
I don't think it's a good idea, hence my lengthy response. This isn't really Quality of Life as much as asking for a buff to the highest no-save heroic damage spell Wizards get access to.
(By comparison, in the same amount of time those stacks take to expire, a Wizard could cast 3 Polar Rays spending the exact same mana and deal 375 base damage instead of Niac's 493.5)

That epic spell is, well, epic. It's an ability chosen at level 29 that competes with other epic-level feats.


Players should have that ability as well AND way to cure them. 1k+ damage a tick instantly, with 180 mrr is a bit much.

I don't see what the difference is between inflicting a small dot multiple times and one larger one, so no real issue here. However, the ability to cure DoTs DOES sound rather nice.

[glmfw1]

Without Quicken and with current performance:

Cast once, duration 16s
Cast twice, 10s of base damage + 16s of double damage
Cast thrice, 10s of base damage + 10s of double damage +16s of triple damage
Start again



With suggested change (DoTs expire over time) and without quicken:

Cast once, duration 16s
Cast twice, 10s of base damage + 6s of double damage + 10s of single damage
Cast thrice, 10s of base damage + 6s of double damage +4s of single damage + 6s of double damage + 10s of single damage
Cast four times, 10s of base damage + 6s of double damage +4s of single damage + 6s of double damage + 4s of single damage + 6s of double damage + 10s of single damage


Due to the long cooldown, the change would render the spells fairly useless unless you used Quicken all the time, increasing the SP cost. At present, even without quicken, the cooldown allows for other damage via casting in the meantime.

[Xgya]

Without Quicken and with current performance:

Cast once, 7 ticks
Cast twice, 4 ticks of base damage + 7 of double damage
Cast thrice, 4 ticks of base damage + 4 of double damage + 7 of triple damage
Cast four times, 4 ticks of base damage + 4 of double damage + 11 of triple damage
Each following cast adds 4 more ticks of triple damage.



I replaced seconds with ticks here. Because while the spell deals damage every two seconds, it only does so 7 times.
1 tick here is 23.5 damage.
The first cast gets you 7 ticks, for 164.5 damage. As opposed to Polar Ray's 125 for the same mana. At that point, Polar Ray still wins out in speed.
The second cast earns you a total of 18 ticks, or 423 damage. Still, 4 casts of Polar Ray (I'm lowering Ray's cooldown to 5 seconds here for clarity) is a bit ahead in the speed department.
The third cast earns you 33 ticks. 775.5 damage. At that point and further, Polar Ray loses out both on speed and resources.
The fourth cast and beyond adds 12 ticks per cast (4xtriple), for 282 damage per cast, or well over twice the game's highest level no-save damage spell.

The tradeoff for DoTs should be "more damage at the expense of speed".
Which the base spell does. It deals more damage on its very first cast than the game's highest level no-save pure damage spell, but takes a while to work.
Thing is, at some point, casting Niac's against a monster deals damage faster than casting spells that deal direct damage, entirely mitigating the speed factor that should, in theory, be the spell's weakness.
Hell, the second cast and beyond deal more damage per cast than Disintegrate that does require a save.

TL;DR: DoTs shouldn't be able to win out in speed over direct damage, but should win in the resources department. Current system makes them do both.

[Tilomere]

I don't see what the difference is between inflicting a small dot multiple times and one larger one, so no real issue here. However, the ability to cure DoTs DOES sound rather nice.

A scroll of Globe of Invulnerability should clear lower level spell related dots.

Make sure to combine it with a scroll of grease.

[Zretch]

I understand what you're asking for - for the dots to get removed one stack at a time, like the epic spell does.
I don't think it's a good idea, hence my lengthy response. This isn't really Quality of Life as much as asking for a buff to the highest no-save heroic damage spell Wizards get access to.
(By comparison, in the same amount of time those stacks take to expire, a Wizard could cast 3 Polar Rays spending the exact same mana and deal 375 base damage instead of Niac's 493.5)


Dots are traditionally more mana effecient in games like this because they take longer to apply their full effect (burst DPS vs sustained DPS) and in most situations (clearing trash), the mobs will die before the DoTs full wear off, let alone are stacked multiple times.

Niac's has a 10 second cooldown and requires 16 seconds to run to full effect. 20 seconds to get 3 stacks out, and 36 seconds before the final stack ticks off. Polar Ray has a 5.5 second cooldown and does all its damage instantly, which is 16.5 seconds to apply full damage. Polar Ray has a higher DPS, a much higher burst DPS, and lower effeciency. That's balanced. Extending the stacks is already possible and is already taken into account for balancing purposes, so having the DoTs tail off rather than just suddenly drop is far more a "quality of life" improvement than a "I think it's a bad idea and could break the game" consideration.

[Tilomere]

So having the DoTs tail off rather than just suddenly drop is far more a "quality of life" improvement than a "I think it's a bad idea and could break the game" consideration.

It will break the game though. Imagine champion dots tail off, or divine punishment from enemy caster clerics. Ouch. I don't want dot stacks from enemy casters to take a minute to wear off before being able to open a door, or to spend a minute
after fighting a cruelty champion chain healing.

It is like fixing the destruction spell to deal damage regardless of deathblock. Yes, player clerics could really use a boost, but caster level 30-90 enemy clerics no-save 1 shotting everyone with untyped damage as a side effect probably isn't good for the game. You have to be careful adjusting spells that enemy mobs use.

[Enoach]

I have also thought that having Elder's and Naic's dots working like Arcane Pulse where the timer counts down a single stack would be a good improvement.

However, I would also add that I think they should consider the cooldown to also work the same. One advantage Pulse has is that you can apply the multiple stacks quickly and do not have the 10s cooldown between application. This allows you to reach the higher tiers faster. I think the spells should stay at 3 max stacks, leaving Arcane Pulse's 5 stacks as part of the differential of being an Epic Spell.

[Angelic-council]

I have also thought that having Elder's and Naic's dots working like Arcane Pulse where the timer counts down a single stack would be a good improvement.

However, I would also add that I think they should consider the cooldown to also work the same. One advantage Pulse has is that you can apply the multiple stacks quickly and do not have the 10s cooldown between application. This allows you to reach the higher tiers faster. I think the spells should stay at 3 max stacks, leaving Arcane Pulse's 5 stacks as part of the differential of being an Epic Spell.

I agree with Enoach so much here. ^

[Xanthrawl]

It will break the game though. Imagine champion dots tail off, or divine punishment from enemy caster clerics. Ouch. I don't want dot stacks from enemy casters to take a minute to wear off before being able to open a door, or to spend a minute
after fighting a cruelty champion chain healing.

It is like fixing the destruction spell to deal damage regardless of deathblock. Yes, player clerics could really use a boost, but caster level 30-90 enemy clerics no-save 1 shotting everyone with untyped damage as a side effect probably isn't good for the game. You have to be careful adjusting spells that enemy mobs use.

They could always make mob version slightly different. Like how a mob that casts cyclonic blast gives no saving throw, but a PC doing do gets a reflex save.

I'm aware there is very little opportunity to monetize something like this, and therefore unlikely to get done. But this is a good idea that is not game breaking in ANY way for players. Casters tend to be pretty far behind the DPS curve. This wouldn't even narrow the gap, but it would give some wiggle room on boss fights to throw a scroll, or not be 100% zoned in on your spell rotation.

[Benfe23]

Without Quicken and with current performance:

Cast once, duration 16s
Cast twice, 10s of base damage + 16s of double damage
Cast thrice, 10s of base damage + 10s of double damage +16s of triple damage
Start again



With suggested change (DoTs expire over time) and without quicken:

Cast once, duration 16s
Cast twice, 10s of base damage + 6s of double damage + 10s of single damage
Cast thrice, 10s of base damage + 6s of double damage +4s of single damage + 6s of double damage + 10s of single damage
Cast four times, 10s of base damage + 6s of double damage +4s of single damage + 6s of double damage + 4s of single damage + 6s of double damage + 10s of single damage


Due to the long cooldown, the change would render the spells fairly useless unless you used Quicken all the time, increasing the SP cost. At present, even without quicken, the cooldown allows for other damage via casting in the meantime.

Im not following where all this is coming from. The 2 dots in question always tick one at a time. U seem to be thinking that if i u have 3 stacks of niac's on a boss, it will have 3 seperate instances of the same dot. That is false.


They could always make mob version slightly different. Like how a mob that casts cyclonic blast gives no saving throw, but a PC doing do gets a reflex save.

I'm aware there is very little opportunity to monetize something like this, and therefore unlikely to get done. But this is a good idea that is not game breaking in ANY way for players. Casters tend to be pretty far behind the DPS curve. This wouldn't even narrow the gap, but it would give some wiggle room on boss fights to throw a scroll, or not be 100% zoned in on your spell rotation.

Exactly, monsters tend to have different versions of the same spell, hence rendering it unlikely that anything would change on the gameplay front in that regard. It is also pretty darn rare u get more than one stack of the dot. Globe of invulnerability is also a gr8 suggestion someone else made to get rid of them.

[Xgya]

Dots are traditionally more mana effecient in games like this because they take longer to apply their full effect (burst DPS vs sustained DPS) and in most situations (clearing trash), the mobs will die before the DoTs full wear off, let alone are stacked multiple times.

Niac's has a 10 second cooldown and requires 16 seconds to run to full effect. 20 seconds to get 3 stacks out, and 36 seconds before the final stack ticks off. Polar Ray has a 5.5 second cooldown and does all its damage instantly, which is 16.5 seconds to apply full damage. Polar Ray has a higher DPS, a much higher burst DPS, and lower effeciency. That's balanced. Extending the stacks is already possible and is already taken into account for balancing purposes, so having the DoTs tail off rather than just suddenly drop is far more a "quality of life" improvement than a "I think it's a bad idea and could break the game" consideration.

Polar Ray's DPS is 125/5.5seconds.
Three-stacks Niac's is 493.5/16 seconds. In 16.5 seconds, Polar Ray will have dealt 375 damage. At three stacks or higher, Niac's DPS is higher than Polar Ray. It DOES take a bit longer to get to three stacks, which is what keeps the spell in check, but the fact remains that its boasts both mana efficiency and DPS once it reaches that point (so, any fight that lasts more than 36 seconds).
The baseline spell already deals more damage per cast. Allowing people to make the spell's DPS higher than a spell that's supposed to be pure burst is overreaching. The suggestion above is asking for that superior DPS to be easier to keep up while also increasing the damage per cast of the spell.
It's not Quality of Life, but a buff to an already strong spell.

[zehnvhex]

I would imagine it's important to keep the two concepts separated.

Having it drop off one stack at a time I see absolutely no issue with. It, as other people have said, is simply a QoL request at that point. The current iteration makes it a nightmare and you're battling the UI more then you are battling the monster. The ability to track debuffs/DoT's in DDO is one of the worst in MMO history and anything that makes it less of a chore should absolutely be championed.

As to the second idea, being able to quickly get the ball rolling at the cost of efficiency I feel is a good decision for players to be able to make. With all the bugs/supression/issues surrounding Niac's, it's not like this would bust the game wide open. You're not going to see a bunch of R10 Strahd videos based on using Niac's. At most you make the one guy in the game playing a water savant kinda happy.

[Zretch]

Polar Ray's DPS is 125/5.5seconds.
Three-stacks Niac's is 493.5/16 seconds. In 16.5 seconds, Polar Ray will have dealt 375 damage. At three stacks or higher, Niac's DPS is higher than Polar Ray. It DOES take a bit longer to get to three stacks, which is what keeps the spell in check, but the fact remains that its boasts both mana efficiency and DPS once it reaches that point (so, any fight that lasts more than 36 seconds).
The baseline spell already deals more damage per cast. Allowing people to make the spell's DPS higher than a spell that's supposed to be pure burst is overreaching. The suggestion above is asking for that superior DPS to be easier to keep up while also increasing the damage per cast of the spell.
It's not Quality of Life, but a buff to an already strong spell.

Niac's is a situational spell that allows for some spell efficiency. Yes, the spell is strong, but it's also a DoT with a slow windup, which is garbage in many trash clearing situations. It takes ~20 seconds to get Niac's to 3 stacks, in a group, how many mobs are alive for over 20 seconds? 1-2 per quest?

You're not getting extra stacks, and you can already keep the DoT up at max stacks with a single refreshing cast. It's quality of life, IMO.

[Zretch]

It will break the game though. Imagine champion dots tail off, or divine punishment from enemy caster clerics. Ouch. I don't want dot stacks from enemy casters to take a minute to wear off before being able to open a door, or to spend a minute
after fighting a cruelty champion chain healing.

It is like fixing the destruction spell to deal damage regardless of deathblock. Yes, player clerics could really use a boost, but caster level 30-90 enemy clerics no-save 1 shotting everyone with untyped damage as a side effect probably isn't good for the game. You have to be careful adjusting spells that enemy mobs use.

Don't Soul of Cruelty DoTs work this way already? Regardless, I wouldn't have a problem with DoTs tailing off (especially DoTs with a max stack of 3) as long as they either allowed for a way to cleanse them, or they stopped the utterly ridiculous way they handle interruption for common actions. I'm sorry, but a 2 point per tick Howler Quills DoT should not prevent my character from twisting a doorknob top open a door or his ability to look in a mirror. :)

[Xgya]

Niac's is a situational spell that allows for some spell efficiency. Yes, the spell is strong, but it's also a DoT with a slow windup, which is garbage in many trash clearing situations. It takes ~20 seconds to get Niac's to 3 stacks, in a group, how many mobs are alive for over 20 seconds? 1-2 per quest?

You're not getting extra stacks, and you can already keep the DoT up at max stacks with a single refreshing cast. It's quality of life, IMO.

2 casts currently gives 3 spells' worth of damage.
With that change, it would give 4. (the first cast, then two stacks for a whole duration, then the final stack counting down)
By the same token, casting the spell 3 times would deal 9 times the base spell's damage, as opposed to currently 6.

[Zretch]

2 casts currently gives 3 spells' worth of damage.
With that change, it would give 4. (the first cast, then two stacks for a whole duration, then the final stack counting down)
By the same token, casting the spell 3 times would deal 9 times the base spell's damage, as opposed to currently 6.

Over an extra 16 seconds. No DPS increase, just efficiency. Letting the stacks fall off, on the other hand, results in a pretty massive DPS loss.
It's a pretty common trade-off in many, many MMOs. Direct damage spells are front loaded and less efficient. DoTs take longer to ramp up, and are only higher DPS / more efficient if they run their full duration. Heck, the stacking mechanic with long cooldowns is very punitive on short fights, so I don't see it as an issue at all to allow for some sunshine from an efficiency standpoint to allow a decreasing DPS "tail" at the end if the mob is still alive and the caster is no refreshing the DoT.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't see DoT efficiency as being as large a problem as you do in a game where the majority of the time you spend in the quest (fighting trash) the DoTs aren't optimal.

[Xanthrawl]

Over an extra 16 seconds.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't see DoT efficiency as being as large a problem as you do in a game where the majority of the time you spend in the quest (fighting trash) the DoTs aren't optimal.

Both of these points.

Everyone that has played a caster knows that dots are for bosses. Trash gets danced, held, webbed, charmed, insta killed, etc. Casters are SO far down the boss DPS totem pole that this would still be a complete non-issue.

[Xgya]

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't see DoT efficiency as being as large a problem as you do in a game where the majority of the time you spend in the quest (fighting trash) the DoTs aren't optimal.

I think damage spells overall need an overhaul, especially in epics, but I also reiterate that this isn't Quality of Life as advertised, but a direct buff to the spell.

You're right - most of the quest is spent casting things that aren't damage. When it DOES come to damage, these DoTs are already in the top spot without a need for a change.

Magical DPS as a whole needs retooling, but if that does happen, I don't think it should start with these spells either.

[SpartanKiller13]

A scroll of Globe of Invulnerability should clear lower level spell related dots.

Make sure to combine it with a scroll of grease.

I should try these out more! Although the DoT's I usually encounter are probably >level 4 spells :( Still, I'm sure there's a surprising amount of stuff to be blocked by it.

Since the Wiki is down, asking here: do the Globes block allied spellcasts?


Niac's is a situational spell that allows for some spell efficiency. Yes, the spell is strong, but it's also a DoT with a slow windup, which is garbage in many trash clearing situations. It takes ~20 seconds to get Niac's to 3 stacks, in a group, how many mobs are alive for over 20 seconds? 1-2 per quest?

You're not getting extra stacks, and you can already keep the DoT up at max stacks with a single refreshing cast. It's quality of life, IMO.

It's a DoT; it should be garbage for trash clearing situations. That's literally the point of Damage over Time. IT TAKES TIME. However, stacked Niac's is fantastically efficient and very good vs tough enemies, and by the time you have access to it you should have plenty of spell slots that you can use for trash clearing, so you can't even argue that it blocks you from those or that it's a waste to carry.

Just use non-DoT's on trash/squishy stuff, and use DoT's on tough/named enemies. Think of like Memoirs. There's two tough enemies, and you basically spend half of your time in-quest beating them (assuming you're running on a difficulty that challenges you at least mildly). DoT's are great for that sort of stuff!