DoT Duration Feedback

WrathOfInnos

I have to say I'm disappointed by the new DoT durations. I wasn't thrilled with the idea when it was first announced, but I was at least hoping to see some planning behind the durations and uniqueness between builds. Everything going to 20 or 30 seconds is IMO a bad idea, that removes the individual feel of each class and removes the option of full DoT rotations (you would need 20 bar slots).

This could be done so much better, allowing players to choose between micromanaging timers or cast and forget. It could be based around other class skills, allowing things to line up nicely for static rotations (which is not the case currently).

Let's discuss examples. Necromancer is heavily based on casting Blastbones every 3-4s (depending on range). This was always awkward with 10s skills like Wall/Boneyard and the 16s skeleton. Why not make Boneyard 12s so it could align nicely with a casting pattern for either Blastbones timing? Siphon has always been 12s and could remain so, which also worked well with 12s Entropy. Skeletal Arcanist/Archer could become 24s.

Nightblade has a different cadence, based around bow procs every 5th skill. However I've been told that many with high ping or an imperfect weave prefer to cast it every 6th skill. Why not embrace both of these options? This could be a good instance to utilize the 30s DoT timer (divisible by 5 or 6) for skills like Path, Shade and Cripple. This gives a lot of time for casting spammables and executes. Maybe offer a 10 or 20s morph for those that would prefer more timer juggling.

Warden is the one I find most baffling. Shalks has always been a semi-spammable with timing every 3rd skill (much like Blastbones). Why was it converted into a weird 10s "DoT"? Many players like the 3-based rhythm of Warden, and some even like the 6-beat of Subterranean Assault. Why not keep both of these options for Shalks morphs, and plan other timers to be based on multiples of 3 and 6? Winter's Revenge at 12s worked great, but I'm not opposed to it becoming 24s. Extend Fetcher to the same duration as WR. The bear is ready to cast about every 24s so that could also fall into a static rotation, and 24s Netch, Lotus and Frost Cloak would all work well. I don't think the 8s Subterranean with 20-30s DoTs in v8.1.0 is helping anyone.

Sorcerer seems to be having an identity crisis. The Crystal Weapon buffs succeeded in making stam sorc very unique with a strong 2s semi-spammable, as well as one with 4s effective cooldown (Bound Armaments). Changing Crystal to have lower damage and lower cost makes sense, but Armaments was already arguably underperforming. It just did not do much damage compared to similar skills (Blastbones, Merciless Resolve, etc.). I can only imagine reducing the Armaments proc down to typical spammable damage was a mistake, there is no reason to slot it on PTS. If the 2/4 second cadence persists then Stam Sorc could be based around these timers, using 16 or 20 second DoTs. Maybe something like 16s lightning splash + caltrops and 32s hurricane would work.

I haven't mentioned the magicka side of Sorcerer (which is very different than the current stam meta). It has been primarily based on curse timers (either 6s or 12s), with some random Crystal Frag procs mixed in and a dynamic combination of spammables and executes. A multiple of 12 would be ideal for the class DoTs (pet activation and lightning flood or liquid lightning), as well as Boundless Storm going to 36s or possibly 48s.

Templar is an interesting one because it doesn't have a strong driver for timers. Historically it had a lot of 10s DoTs (Blazing, Barrage, Reflective, etc.), but also had some strange timers mixed in like 6s purifying light (or 9s PotL) and 12s Ritual of Retribution. This one could go any number of ways, but I'd lean toward embracing the factor of 10 because it is easy and no other class does this. Blazing could remain 10s or go to 20s. Purifying/PotL could be either 5 or 10, and Ritual could go to 20s.

Dragonknight has also had some strange and mismatched timers. With FoO, Embers, Engulfing, Eruption and sometimes mixing in Stone Giant as a debuff. They have a melee semi-spammable in their toolkit, but rarely use it since casting more whips is typically preferable. This seems like a good candidate for longer DoTs, and is a throwback to the Elf Bane meta. I could see something like Embers and Engulfing being 15s, while FoO and Eruption go to 30s.

Generic skills like Wall of Elements and Blade Cloak can keep 2 duration options, and players could choose whichever fit best with their other skills. Something along the lines of 12s or 20s would fit just about every build.

Obviously these are just examples, I'm not saying they are perfect, but each class would at least feel different. I'd like to see more thought put into the gameplay of each class and synergy between their skills. Slapping a 20s or 30s time on every skill in the game is not good design.

Necrotech_Master

i dont mind the duration changes so much as the flat dmg nerfs

the timers i think make sense to try to get a good rotation and your post lays out good feedback on that, but the real problem is the dot dmg per tick and the abysmally slow tick rate

if the dot is 20 sec but only ticks 10 times, why not just keep it at 10 sec and remain at the 1 tick per second? 1 tick per 2 sec is very slow already and then with the actual dmg per tick getting nerfed across the board its going to make them feel even less noticeable

not to mention others bringing up enemies moving out of a ground dot, slower tick rate = less dmg done and the need to recast it anyway

Cadbury

The Shalks DOT change is baffling to me. I wasn't exactly a fan when they made Subterranean Assault a double hit because I had a hard time casting it too soon or not at all. Eventually, I got used to it. But now they're changing the timing again.

auz

The change to dot timers is the worst part of the patch notes, imo. 3 or 4 dot and 15+ spammables in a row is just tedious. I appreciate closing the gap and all, but surely there has to be a better way.

I like some of op suggestions, but any dot 20 secs or more should be bought back in.

Asdara

As a said and demonstrated in a previous post, duration IS NOT the issue, Tick rate is.
Bringing all dot to 20 sec, i mean okay, that will feel clumsy but also be easier on rotation.
BUT cutting by half the number of ticke they do, its so wrong.

WrathOfInnos

I also don't like the 2s tick rate. Particularly for skills that proc enchants (Wall, Hail, Stampede and Cloak), this is a significant change. It also reduces all status effect procs, which are a key part of certain DoTs (like Winter's Revenge). Spaced out healing ticks sound horrible for incoming damage spikes. That will be all be another discussion because I haven't fully investigated the impacts of tick frequency.

I'm guessing that change is to reduce server messages/calculations for performance reasons. I doubt there will be a full revert, but if we can push back on a short list of skills most affected maybe those can be reverted.

katorga

Will 20s dots with 2s ticks even be viable in 90% of the game content?

Most things die so fast, you will be lucky to get 2 ticks of weak damage.

WrathOfInnos

Cadbury wrote: »

The Shalks DOT change is baffling to me. I wasn't exactly a fan when they made Subterranean Assault a double hit because I had a hard time casting it too soon or not at all. Eventually, I got used to it. But now they're changing the timing again.

@Cadbury ikr. Next we'll see blastbones that takes 12s to walk to the target. Or maybe Bound Armaments that stacks 15 daggers over 15 seconds.

BretonMage

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

if the dot is 20 sec but only ticks 10 times, why not just keep it at 10 sec and remain at the 1 tick per second? 1 tick per 2 sec is very slow already and then with the actual dmg per tick getting nerfed across the board its going to make them feel even less noticeable

not to mention others bringing up enemies moving out of a ground dot, slower tick rate = less dmg done and the need to recast it anyway

Yes, exactly.

I like the reasoning behind their desire to make rotations more forgiving, after all better accessibility is always good. Extending the DoT duration to 12s or 15s while maintaining the same damage at one tick per second would do it. That would be very helpful for casual players, whilst not actually buffing DPS. The only benefit I can think of for high level and lower level players alike would be increased sustain, which isn't bad, is it?

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I haven't mentioned the magicka side of Sorcerer (which is very different than the current stam meta). It has been primarily based on curse timers (either 6s or 12s), with some random Crystal Frag procs mixed in and a dynamic combination of spammables and executes. A multiple of 12 would be ideal for the class DoTs (pet activation and lightning flood or liquid lightning), as well as Boundless Storm going to 36s or possibly 48s.

Right. I don't believe we need to standardise everything, but timers need to be able to fit in a rotation. Critical Surge going to 36s, WoE on 12s (one tick/s), Daedric Prey maintained at 6s. That would be effective, and actually very helpful for newer players to learn the concept of rotations.

Holycannoli

I'm starting to suspect more and more than the DoT duration and frequency change are for server performance more than anything else.

I could be wrong but I can't think of any other reason for them.

Krym

BretonMage wrote: »

Right. I don't believe we need to standardise everything, but timers need to be able to fit in a rotation. Critical Surge going to 36s, WoE on 12s (one tick/s), Daedric Prey maintained at 6s. That would be effective, and actually very helpful for newer players to learn the concept of rotations.

you'd still need to track individual skills with individual timers, at that point might as well keep it as it is.

I assume the devs increased it to 20s almost everywhere for several reasons:
- 20s is an extension for almost all dots and buffs, 10 would mean they'd have lengthen/shorten them to make them "fit" (inb4 NERFS!!11)
- 20s gives enough leeway to inattentive players to recast skills and weave in the meantime (much easier to weave your spammable than 2 bars)
- 20s doesn't hurt as much in damage if the dot falls off (ticks for less and less frequently now, less serverload and less burst for pvp)
- same length and longer duration means people can pay attention to not stand in stupid instead of focusing on their bar the whole time while trying to weave and keeping skills up
- 20 is a nice round number, and makes rotations more static (again a benefit for lower end players).

people also need to remember numbers can (and will) change, I highly doubt the numbers will stay as they are now. it shouldn't be that hard to up damage even with everything else left in place which would benefit some players.

the new spammable windows of 10+ seconds also is less of an issue in actual combat, given what else is going on, not to mention all the movement the encounter team designs fights with.

EDIT (since it was brought up in another post): longer dots and higher tick interval also makes it easier for players with a higher ping.

WrathOfInnos

Krym wrote: »

you'd still need to track individual skills with individual timers, at that point might as well keep it as it is.

I assume the devs increased it to 20s almost everywhere for several reasons:
- 20s is an extension for almost all dots and buffs, 10 would mean they'd have lengthen/shorten them to make them "fit" (inb4 NERFS!!11)
- 20s gives enough leeway to inattentive players to recast skills and weave in the meantime (much easier to weave your spammable than 2 bars)
- 20s doesn't hurt as much in damage if the dot falls off (ticks for less and less frequently now, less serverload and less burst for pvp)
- same length and longer duration means people can pay attention to not stand in stupid instead of focusing on their bar the whole time while trying to weave and keeping skills up
- 20 is a nice round number, and makes rotations more static (again a benefit for lower end players).

I disagree. 20s timers are so long you would need to rely on timers to track them. Back when DoTs were 6-8s that was not the case. You could easily count out the 6 steps in a static rotation, and I think that still applied for 10s rotations. Nobody is going to count out 20-30 steps, even if steps 6-30are all the same spammable.

This change forces everyone to keep an eye on timers, and effectively is more like a dynamic rotation than a memorized/muscle memory static rotation.

It's true that fewer ticks and ling duration are more forgiving if slightly overcasting or undercasting DoTs, but ideally you would want to cast them right when they expire and that is still just as difficult or more.

BretonMage

Holycannoli wrote: »

I'm starting to suspect more and more than the DoT duration and frequency change are for server performance more than anything else.

I could be wrong but I can't think of any other reason for them.

I saw someone mention that on Reddit. If that's true, then making the game dull and awkward to play isn't the answer anyway. But if they are absolutely committed to this... how about stretching it out to 1.5s tick with 50% extra damage per tick? Seriously we just want to avoid interminably long fights and ineffective AoEs.

Krym wrote: »

you'd still need to track individual skills with individual timers, at that point might as well keep it as it is.

I assume the devs increased it to 20s almost everywhere for several reasons:
- 20s is an extension for almost all dots and buffs, 10 would mean they'd have lengthen/shorten them to make them "fit" (inb4 NERFS!!11)
- 20s gives enough leeway to inattentive players to recast skills and weave in the meantime (much easier to weave your spammable than 2 bars)
- 20s doesn't hurt as much in damage if the dot falls off (ticks for less and less frequently now, less serverload and less burst for pvp)
- same length and longer duration means people can pay attention to not stand in stupid instead of focusing on their bar the whole time while trying to weave and keeping skills up
- 20 is a nice round number, and makes rotations more static (again a benefit for lower end players).

I totally support giving players a little extra time for their DoTs, but FORCING everyone into slower, less effective combat is a... controversial move with no benefit. And would do nothing to prepare newer players for harder content.

What they need to do to help newer players is nicely aligned DoTs that expire at the same time. So buffs that can be reapplied at the same time as the DoTs, because they're the same duration or double/triple the duration. So Crit Surge at 33s and WoE at 20s was a disaster in my rotation.

Otherwise, leaving DoTs unchanged would be fabulous.

EDIT (since it was brought up in another post): longer dots and higher tick interval also makes it easier for players with a higher ping.

Maybe, but the boss isn't on higher ping. I play on high ping. Longer rotations would not help at all; in fact I want bosses dead faster now than when I was in an area with low ping. Faster combat = less aggravation.

WrathOfInnos

I posted this in the main feedback thread, but I'll put it here as well since others brought up tick rates. The reduction is causing problems with enchant procs:

I've noticed a problem with the 2s tick frequency on certain abilities that proc enchants. For example, 3 of the most useful enchants are berserker, crusher, and weakening, all 5 second buffs/debuffs which are used along with the infused trait to make the cooldown 5s for full uptime. This works on live, but on PTS the skills that can activate the enchant now do not tick every 5s, only 4s (too early) and 6s (generating downtime). This results in max 86% uptime on these effects, which is a problem when something like weakening is a key piece of surviving a one-shot.



Technically we can work around it by planning a rotation that light attacks on the back bar every 5s to proc then enchant, but 99% of players will not be tracking this. It is another (unintended?) nerf that lowers the floor, both in group buff uptimes and individual DPS (losing an average of 90 weapon and spell damage from Berserker uptime).



You may think the answer is to use damage proc enchants instead, since they have a base cooldown of 4s, and this becomes 2s with infused (even numbers, line up with DoT ticks). However, this does not work in practice because DoT ticks have millisecond variation that cause them to randomly fall outside that 2 second cooldown and fail to proc.

For example, I tried an Infused Poison Glyph with Unstable Wall. In theory it should proc on every tick of the wall (11 total over 20s, each spaced 2s apart). In practice the enchant only hit 6 times and failed 5.



You can see the cause with the timestamps above. At 4.008s a Wall tick correctly procs the Poisoned Weapon, but then the next Wall tick lands at 5.995s (only 1.987s after the previous) and the Poison glyph is still on cooldown. Its next proc is at 8.076s, which is 4.068s between procs (not the stated 2s for an infused glyph). After 8.076 it again fails to proc on the "10s" tick at 10.041, and this trend continues through the entire 20s DoT duration. I did manage to get lucky and win the RNG game at the 14s tick, after getting a proc at 12s. It seems to be a random 50/50 chance of consecutive procs.

I don't know if this is technically a bug, but it's certainly unintended cooldown behavior on enchants combined with DoTs that don't tick consistently. It could easily be solved by making the cooldown 1.9s instead of a rigid 2s.

For the 5s buff/debuff enchants, I would recommend extending the duration to 6s and giving them a cooldown of 11.8s (5.9s infused).

Alternatively, we could just keep weapon line ground DoTs at 1s tick rate. This includes Wall of Elements, Volley, Stampede and Blade Cloak.

francesinhalover

Being honest i dont mind it, granted for me 15 seconds is the best duration.

My issue is endless lasts 30 sec. And all the other skills 20.

So it will be really annoying to use endless in rotations

colossalvoids

Their best bet for their accessibility goals should've been making dots more like eruption was treated, so you can recast the ability without making it a heavy resource drain and also retaining its power level through scaling to the duration, for example after 12 sec it could ramp up in damage for ones who prefer longer duration etc. options are here and it's already implementable so I don't see a reason to shoehorn everyone for a boredom fest at once making a lot of playstyles obsolete. They have tools, just use something.

prof_doom

The whole 2 second thing just makes too many problems. Enchantments don't proc right, healing is now very clunky, combat is slower, ground AOEs are pointless.

If they want to extend durations and insist on not increasing the damage done too much, I'd rather see 1 tick per second for 20 seconds at half the current value than the current value every 2 seconds.

BretonMage

colossalvoids wrote: »

Their best bet for their accessibility goals should've been making dots more like eruption was treated, so you can recast the ability without making it a heavy resource drain and also retaining its power level through scaling to the duration, for example after 12 sec it could ramp up in damage for ones who prefer longer duration etc. options are here and it's already implementable so I don't see a reason to shoehorn everyone for a boredom fest at once making a lot of playstyles obsolete. They have tools, just use something.

I was thinking along similar lines, except conversely, after 12s, damage would decrease (or stay the same) so that players will not be penalised for having a faster rotation, whilst still keeping some damage ticking for those who can't quite manage it yet. But yeah, they shouldn't force everyone into a longer fight.

Necrotech_Master

francesinhalover wrote: »

Being honest i dont mind it, granted for me 15 seconds is the best duration.

My issue is endless lasts 30 sec. And all the other skills 20.

So it will be really annoying to use endless in rotations

if it was 1 tick per second, a 30 sec endless would have 22 sec of ticks at max maelstrom bow bonus

if its 1 tick per 2 second like they are planning a 30 sec endless would only have 7 tick at max maelstrom bow bonus

not to mention to stupid small area of effect that enemies are already prone to walking out of and you *might* get half of those ticks to land

at that point it might almost make sense to just use the larger aoe version that lasts 20 sec, more chance of all of the ticks actually hitting enemies and your only giving up 5 ticks at 1 tick per 2 second

Faulgor

colossalvoids wrote: »

Their best bet for their accessibility goals should've been making dots more like eruption was treated, so you can recast the ability without making it a heavy resource drain and also retaining its power level through scaling to the duration, for example after 12 sec it could ramp up in damage for ones who prefer longer duration etc. options are here and it's already implementable so I don't see a reason to shoehorn everyone for a boredom fest at once making a lot of playstyles obsolete. They have tools, just use something.

Giving all DOTs the Eruption treatment would make intuitive sense.
That gives you ultimate freedom of when and where to recast your DOTs, which is a tremendous QOL benefit especially for ground-based DOTs.

Heck, go all-in crazy and give DOTs infinite duration, as long as you can sustain them, why not. Would probably require some cost adjustment but it could be funny.

Then, you'd just have to figure out how to make the boring part of the rotation interesting again. Personally I love Crystal Fragments here because the proc forces me into a dynamic rotation without having to watch the UI all the time, as the cue to change your rotation is part of the game already.

In earnest, using Eruption as a template is the best and most elegant solution I've heard so far in regards to DOT accessibility.