Mael, so DoTs are an issue and this is why:

Let's assume max haste. Lets assume max talents. And let's assume Necro. I have a shaman that is high level, but they still are second fiddle to Necromancers.

So lets say at level 97 I do the following

Ignite Blood- 212 every 3 seconds (or 70 dps) with talents and hits all mobs
Asysytole (or whatever)- 150 every 3 seconds (50 dps) with talents and hits one mob (procs corpse explosion if corpse explosion is maxed, but is the only poison damage to do so)
Life leech DoT- 71 every 3 seconds (23 dps) but it heals!
Engulfing darkness- ~175 every 3 seconds and increases ( lets say an average of 230 a tick gets us to 76 dps)

Alright that is 219 DPS per a single mob, or add 46 dps for Life Leech and 280 dps for ignite blood given a 5 mob pull, so max= 519 DPS per one cast cycle of DoTs

These dots take about 1-2 seconds per cast with max haste to get off. Lets just say 1 second because that is easy. So it would take 4 seconds to build up to 519 DPS, with each cast successively building up to that gloriously level 39 DPS number.

Now lets take the free DD spell:

Assume max haste, assume not shit gear, assume high crit and high crit dmg because I am at 71% and 140% respectively. We are not even going to remotely consider the invoke fear talent.

1 cast of fireball (though talents) has a 70% chance of doing 4k damage to three targets in 2 seconds. So thats roughly 12k damage in 2 seconds, or 6k dps.

I realize that the 70% is going to skew it a little, but the vast gap between 519 (fuck it lets, triple it and say 1500) and 6k makes the number one dot class not really a dot class at all. I chain fireballs better than my wizard (no talents there yet though!), but what I want to do is burn legions of mobs down with the ebola virus and ass cancer.

My recommendation is to think that no class is going to have a mob up for more than 5-20 seconds. Any dot time that goes beyond that particular time, is a total waste of resources. Perhaps make dots only last 15 seconds, so the dots are used up on mobs and do more damage for their mana/cast time investment, because right now it is what we call a sunk investment. Those necros out there using DoT builds are doing so out of nostalgia and at their detriment.

I know you have plans to make int and cast skills more impactful, but itemization really hurts DoTs as well. With DD, I can stack crit and effectively double or triple my DPS, but there is no way to do that with DoTs.

Anyways, I have pretty much always played a DoT class in every MMO and RPG where it was available because I believe they are the finesse class that has the most potential and the hardest learning curve. Someone like me who is literally always trying to exact the most efficiency out of anything love DoT classes for precisely this reason.

What do you think, Mael? How can we make DoTs more impactful and relevant for both Shamans and Necros?

edit: confused some terminology here.

Yah, I think they could be shortened to something more like 1 tick over 20 seconds or even 30 seconds. I'll think this over more. I kind of like the 1 tick per second thing anyway. It reflects NG's faster pace better.

Yeah NG is definitely faster paced. For a browser game, your target audience are those people who do not really have the desire, commitment or time to sit down and play a game that requires installation and follow through.

The best fun this game had for me was the pre-life leech nerf. Now finding gear feels like a grind due to the slow pace of it all. Ideally as a player, at max gear, max level, any class should be able to roll through 5 up non-stop Hell farming should their build be solid.

Regarding DoTs and pace, if you kill a mob with 40 seconds left on the DoT timer, then all that contribution is wasted, but if you let it tick, it is also wasted because, frankly, you are fucked and dead.

The rogue poison skill is similar - feels like a waste to "cast" a skill that does ~160ish dmg per second when you're doing 7500dps with everything else. It's probably more of a scalability problem than a problem with DOTs in general on the rogue side though since that 160ish dps isnt that bad when you're only doing 1500dps.

Would it be possible to give DOT's a chaining effect? Like if you kill a mob with the DOT on it, have the dot chain to any adjacent mobs.

Would be a nice mechanic to include along with an overall DPS buff so that they don't feel like such a wasted cast.

I think simply shortening the tick intervals would make these skills much more useful. I'm thinking a range anywhere from 15-45 seconds would be good. This would introduce some strategy, too, since you'd want to cast in a particular order for the best results.