DoTs vs. Burst

[Leodane]

Hi, collective,

I've been running Bard/Ment for a year or so, and it's lovely. Very powerful. Very bursty, supplemented with damage song. I recently gave necromancy a try in place of mentalism. It's...not great, but I've been trying to get the DoT mods for my gear for Life Steal and Death's Grasp (or whatever it's called.) I was looking at other DoTs, and Druid stands out. Lots of nature and poison. Does anyone have any experience with a DoT-focused build? The additional DoT damage doesn't seem that great - why would I DoT for 500 damage over 10 seconds when I could just burst for 500 damage, kill it, and not take 10 seconds worth of attacks?

Would a druid/necro DoT build be workable, do you think? I'll probably give it a whirl, but I wondered if anyone had any experience I could learn from. I'm a little nervous about the gear mods it's going to require - it's going to be ridiculously specific, without much wiggle room for random mods. I've already started stockpiling phlog in anticipation.

[Daguin]

I rely heavily on DoT for my Fire/Battle Chemistry build. Druid/Necro seems like two supporting classes which I generally try to avoid pairing, but I can understand the argument against that assumption. It might make for fun role-playing though?

[SleepyCrow98]

fire/necro mods on gear have some pretty good dots and burst potential when using things like deaths grasp and room temperature ball but you a very unlikely to find much gear to give you damage over time for lifesteal although i have found some that turn lifesteal into an area of effect so that may be appealing to you.

[cr00cy]

Genraly speaking, burst is better than DoTs. Hoever, there are some exceptions. For example most DOT's are direct health dmage, so they bypass armor. It can be helfull for builds that lack enough damage to deal with high armor targets.

Another advantage of DoT's is that they don't suffer from damage reduction when hitting multiple opponents. Direct damage is reduced, if you hit more than 3 mobs, but Dot's will be always applyed at full power. But then agin, there is not many AOE skills that apply dots.

Third, though I'm not 100% sure about this one, is that from what I saw Dot's are not gettign reflected. But liek I siad, I'm not 100% sure baout it, and only notable mobs with dmg reflection that I can think about are Manticores - and there are little reasons to farm them nowdays.

And, of course, DoT's are good source of additional dmage aginst bosses and elites in generall.

But, if you can build enough damge to two/three-shot mobs, you shoudl definitly do it over picking Dot's. Right now mosb dela too much damage (especially at higher levels). Tryign to wiat for Dots to do they job is too dnagerous, unless you have enough CC to keep yourself safe.

[Yaffy]

The additional DoT damage doesn't seem that great - why would I DoT for 500 damage over 10 seconds when I could just burst for 500 damage, kill it, and not take 10 seconds worth of attacks?

DoT effects generally have much higher base damage values than other mods. For the most part, if you compare a mod that adds or buffs a DoT effect on an attack or a mod that increases the initial damage, you'll find the DoT effect is always stronger, which it should be because of exactly what you said. In fact some DoT buffs are so strong they can basically double or triple the total damage of the skill. Instead of 500 damage vs 500 it's usually more like 800 vs 500 damage.

For example, a level 60 Agonize (The highest it gets currently) hits for 517 normally. The level 70 DoT mod for it adds +504 damage, which is basically doubling its damage. For comparison the normal "Agonize does X% more damage" mod only gives +58% more damage. In this case the DoT mod is adding about an extra 200 damage compared to the normal damage mod.

There are two issues with DoT abilities though.
The first is exactly what you mentioned, the fact that you have to wait for the DoT to tick down. This is pretty much par for the course for DoT skills and why they're stronger than normal attacks. The issue is that in Project Gorgon you'll generally find that you can burst down mobs very quickly which negates the need for the DoT's added damage. Even if the DoT mod would add more damage, you'll usually find that stacking direct damage mods on strong attacks will just kill things too quickly anyways, especially when you're getting lots of different mods on your gear. This means that DoT skills are generally only helpful when the enemies are tanky enough to live for most of their duration anyways, such as bosses or when you/your party's DPS is normally low (Such as when you're low level).

The second reason is that DoT damage doesn't scale with too many things. Direct damage mods scale with a lot more things, such as % based mods getting a boost from flat damage and flat based mods getting a boost from % based bonuses. This isn't nearly as big of a difference as it used to be before the somewhat recent damage formula update, but bonuses to direct damage are still much more common than bonuses to DoTs. DoTs only really have two ways to scale. Flat damage, which is generally rare or awkward to get outside of what the skill itself offers (Ex. Druid's fill with bile), and damage type % bonuses, which is usually what you have to rely on. For a damage type like poison, these are pretty common which is why poison is definitely the strongest and most viable form of DoT damage currently. Some other damage types like psychic have almost nothing and aren't worth building around although you can splash them in your normal build if you think you'll use them often.

For now, DoT builds aren't very good out of a select few, but mixing DoT mods with your direct mods can result in a much higher DPS if you can potentially get both for most normal builds. Generally if you feel like you are using an attack a lot, or if the attack is part of your opener then getting the DoT mod is probably worth it for more damage even if it isn't as noticeable as a huge burst attack.

As for current DoT builds, I believe the best skill by far right now is Spider because it gets a huge amount of poison damage bonuses. Before you had to run Spider/Druid because Spider didn't have much poison damage itself so you had to use Druid, but the recent buff gave spider a ton of its own poison damage. I believe Spider/Unarmed currently has the strongest potential DPS in the game by mixing poison DoTs and direct damage, but Spider/Druid is overall a more balanced skill set and Spider/Unarmed has a bigger set up time.
Knife poison builds are also pretty good, although for maximum potential damage you'd want Snapley's venom (Which are really strong but expensive) and lots of throwing knives which adds even more cost. When the dangerous enchantments were around, Knife/Spider was definitely the strongest DPS build in the game but incredibly gimmicky and horrible outside of simply doing DPS. It's still very high DPS but probably not worth the trouble. Snapley's venom on its own can do over 800 DPS on Knife/Spider, which can out DPS some maxed out damage builds on its own. Outside of Knife/Spider you can use Knife/Druid which is infinitely smoother to play or Knife/Animal handling if you like having a pet sewer rat.

Non-poison builds aren't generally as good since poison buffs are the most ubiquitous, but some other notables are Knife/sword with trauma damage which is pretty decent although overly reliant on a single mod to get fear on decapitate so you can backstab/gut in solo play. Priest/Battle chemistry has excellent support and healing while still having decent fire DoT damage and being good at farming because fire magic's indirect fire damage mod still works even without fire magic active (I don't know if this is true for this patch). Knife/Werewolf might be a pretty decent trauma build too, but I actually don't know how well it'll work because I've only theory crafted about it. It'd involve switching between wolf/human form in order to use both skill sets. It's good on paper but I don't play werewolf so it might not work as well in practice.

[Mbaums]

A lot of really solid information on here.
Necro has a lot of Psychic dots+mods (ie Indirect Psychic Damage +X), and it's hard to figure out what to do with them. I think a fun pairing with them is Psychology for single target DPS. What makes everything mesh is the Psychoanalyze mod that reads, "Psychoanalyze causes the target to take +16 damage from Psychic attacks for 60 seconds" because it works on indirect damage. Then we get the fear and group healing for pets making for a fun build. And let's not forget that indirect damage won't break a mez.

But the issue I have is: in a group, what the heck lives long enough to get the full duration of the dot? The efforts kind of go unnoticed vs anything with less HP than a Lieutenant in GK.

[Yaffy]

But the issue I have is: in a group, what the heck lives long enough to get the full duration of the dot? The efforts kind of go unnoticed vs anything with less HP than a Lieutenant in GK.

Personally I kind of feel like this is more of a problem with how players play and build rather than DoTs themselves. If a group can burst down a pull extremely quickly, then the group should be pulling more enemies in order to have less downtime. Players are naturally attracted to burst damage builds because they're good for soloing, but in dungeons this results in groups that pull a single mob, burst it down in 5 seconds, and then have to sit around for 20-30 seconds before pulling the next mob because they can't do good damage without their big nuke skills. A group that can pull enemies continuously without stopping would be much better for sustained DPS builds, and a group built around sustained DPS should have much faster clear time than a group built around burst.

One issue though is that a playstyle like this relies on a good puller who can actually survive for a decent number of time against multiple enemies. Not only are tank players uncommon, but "viable" tank builds are very limited. Because of the addition of enemy crits, now you need a very good tank build and/or support in order to reliably survive for very long. Plus, even if someone does have the ability to tank multiple mobs, I rarely see tanks pulling more than one enemy at a time just out of habit. If you do have a group with someone tanky enough to survive bigger pulls, then DoT builds get significantly better.

Even without a good tank though, if your group is killing mobs so fast your DoTs don't have time to do anything, groups should be trying to pull an extra mob right after killing their original pull with bursts to reduce downtime. Even if that one extra mob dies slower because all the burst damage builds ran out of steam, it should make the dungeon go much faster overall. This way you don't need a good tank since you're still only fighting one enemy at a time, and MOST builds should be able to survive against one enemy for long enough for DoTs to kick in outside of a Infiltrator critting you for 1000 damage.

[spider91301]

One issue though is that a playstyle like this relies on a good puller who can actually survive for a decent number of time against multiple enemies. Not only are tank players uncommon, but "viable" tank builds are very limited. Because of the addition of enemy crits, now you need a very good tank build and/or support in order to reliably survive for very long. Plus, even if someone does have the ability to tank multiple mobs, I rarely see tanks pulling more than one enemy at a time just out of habit. If you do have a group with someone tanky enough to survive bigger pulls, then DoT builds get significantly better.

Even without a good tank though, if your group is killing mobs so fast your DoTs don't have time to do anything, groups should be trying to pull an extra mob right after killing their original pull with bursts to reduce downtime. Even if that one extra mob dies slower because all the burst damage builds ran out of steam, it should make the dungeon go much faster overall. This way you don't need a good tank since you're still only fighting one enemy at a time, and MOST builds should be able to survive against one enemy for long enough for DoTs to kick in outside of a Infiltrator critting you for 1000 damage.

My sword and shield mod setup is made to act like a pseudo tank I can aggro with shield use a shield speed buff and run around the room while the group picks all the enemies 1 by one or if we are in a tight spot I just use fight me you fools from shield run and drag the entire room leaving a managable number of foes that my team can probably handle and not wipe while the rest chase my ass down the hall the left overs become manageable for my group basically hit and run and with 101% avoid death mods I can avoid being crit instant killed like twice in a row lol once I get all the pieces for the staff setup imma see if which is better staff and shield or sword and shield also when ever I use Decapitate or finishing blow I instant recover a couple hundred armor that I can sacrifice with push onward for a instant heal on top of armor heals from shield and the fear necklace from halloween that I can scare crap and make them run I have made a pretty solid build if I do say myself I prefer single target over any other damage in the game 1k armor and 730 health meh good enough

[Deldaron]

I think PG is still working on figuring out its group dungeon crawl play style. It's rare that you play with a proper tank let alone a healer. In a properly laid out group with tank/healer/dps/cc I think you could benefit a lot from combining DoT style with CC (throw poisons up and freeze the enemies).

Two things that I think make this difficult are the lack of visibility into what effects are currently on a mob to know what you've already hit with you DoT/when it ends and then power management. More specifically I mean power drain from movement and the persistence of combat after enemies have died. It would be a highly effective strategy to slowly move through a dungeon picking up mobs tagging with DoT and then a fear/freeze while tank calls aggro, but you'd run out of power constantly based solely on the fact that you're moving.

I think this is why it's often favorable to have a tank run kite a pull back to a stationary group who can blast AoE bursts on repeat - it slows you down, but it takes less focus and wastes less power.

[xerandus]

In regards to mods for indirect damage, I don't know if it is a bug or not, but based on the tool tip, mods like indirect psychic damage +% only modify DoTs that are built into the ability from the start, not DoTs that come from gear mods.

For instance in my Fire Magic/Shield build, I have a total of +94% indirect fire damage. Fire Breath 6 does 168 damage over 12 seconds, which is modified up to 330 over 12 seconds. I have two gear mods that each add 140 fire damage over 10 seconds. Those damage values are not modified by the +94%.


Another common tactic I see with DoTs vs. using a burst is that you hit them with the DoT then fear them. Critter runs off taking damage, all the while not attacking you.

[Golliathe]

A short version for anyone still reading is that if you like to pull lots of things while solo dots are better. If you are trying to pull 3/time then go for the aoe burst.

If you are fighting a target that takes a while to kill (say an event boss or even a thick lvl 70 boss) dots have time to work and can do more damage.


Priest/Battle chemistry has excellent support and healing while still having decent fire DoT damage and being good at farming because fire magic's indirect fire damage mod still works even without fire magic active (I don't know if this is true for this patch).

If that's true and you can use priest/bc without fire active then you might want to report it. There were a number of people taking advantage of the fact that until about 2 months ago you could stack 94% extra fire damage from dots without having fire active. As far as I know any gear that was built like that received the legacy tag.

The mod was changed and specifically says now: while fire magic is active.

I wouldn't call it an exploit per say but more of clever use of game mechanics (that was clearly not intended).

In regards to mods for indirect damage, I don't know if it is a bug or not, but based on the tool tip, mods like indirect psychic damage +% only modify DoTs that are built into the ability from the start, not DoTs that come from gear mods.

I just looked at some BC gear in my bank and you might want to make a ! about the damage calculation. The extra fire burn from BC mods (not inherently part of the ability) is most definitely getting modified.



Another common tactic I see with DoTs vs. using a burst is that you hit them with the DoT then fear them. Critter runs off taking damage, all the while not attacking you.

You can also use root or mez.

[Daimes]

DoTs are in a kind of mediocre state as you get more and more geared with a party of people. Generally speaking, DoTs rarely have an opportunity to go the full duration of the DoT before the affected mob dies. With the party I run, the general use of DoTs are to dump them on a mob we don't want to deal with, then CC the mob and let the DoTs chip it away while we fight other mobs (a good CC is fearing a mob away from you; from what I understand, CCs like fear can't be broken by DoTs, while regular burst will break CCs).

However, the dev team is in the process of looking at DoT damage as a viable way of adding decent damage to any builds you conjure up. If I'm not mistaken, DoT effectiveness will be buffed, and certain mobs (especially dungeon mobs) will have their HP pool raised to allow DoTs to actually have enough uptime to affect the fight. Don't quote me on that, though.