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A proposed change for "sticky" DOTs
Teias
✭✭
One of the main goals of ZOS is to make the game more accessible for weaker players which is totally understandable. But with the current plan for "sticky" DOTs this goal will still be missed, since the overall dmg-output will drop regardless of your personal skill-level.
Yes, making DOTs longer will take some pressure out of your rotation and make it (probably?) easier for weaker players to pull off a decent rotation and therefore closing the skill-gap between high and low-end players, but weaker players don't profit off these changes when they still deal less dmg in the end.
Even just increasing the damage of DOTs again to a level where the overall DPS of your character on a dummy-parse stays the same compared to current live server still leaves the problem with invulnerability-phases or enemies that cleanse from DOTs when DOTs hold longer but tick for less.
All in all, the proposed changes may sound good on paper, but the longer you think about it, the less it helps the people they are supposed to help and actually make the game less accessible.
Because of that, I would like to propose a different approach to make the rotation easier for weaker players.
In my almost 5 years of raidleading-experience and analyzing logs to help people improve their damage, I discovered that the main reason people didn't do as much damage as others was "undercasting" or "overcasting" abilities.
This means, that they casted their DOTs either too late (so there was a gap in the dmg dealt by this ability which obviously results in lower dmg) or they re-casted their ability too early while it was still active (which means, they wasted a GCD, where they could have casted a spammable instead resulting in lower dmg).
To combat this, I propose a system where recasting a DOT too early doesn't only refresh the DOT but also makes it last longer to a certain degree.
Let's say (just to explain how this proposed system would work - the numbers aren't final) that all DOTs get a leeway of 2 seconds.
So, when you cast a 10 second DOT on a target it holds 10 seconds (obviously). But when you recast the DOT while it is still active on the target with 5 seconds left, it doesn't just get refreshed to 10 seconds, but instead gets refreshed to 12 seconds (10 seconds standard DOT-duration + 2 seconds leeway).
You still overcasted it but you are punished less for doing so.
If the DOT only has 1 second left and you recast it, the DOT gets refreshed to 11 seconds (10 seconds standard DOT-duration + 1 second leftover - since it's below the +2 seconds leeway).
All in all, this system should make your rotation less stressful since you are more flexible when you recast your DOTs and especially help the lower end players to do a better rotation with less gaps in their uptimes.
I've read a lot of threads in the forum regarding DOT-duration in general, and how DOT-durations as multiples of 10 (or 15 in case of stampede + carve) would make the rotation easier. With a X second leeway, you could easily combine skills with different DOT-durations (DKs have multiple skills with 14 second duration for example) even as a player who currently struggles with that and ZOS wouldn't have to touch DOT-duration at all.
Obviously, the same system can also be applied to sticky HOTs, buffs, and debuffs; basically anything that isn't ground-based.
This shouldn't change a lot for endgame-players. Their damage done should roughly stay the same since right now they are mostly able to already pull off a virtually perfect rotation. It sure makes their rotation easier, yet it shouldn't increase their dmg since they can do it without said help anyway.
The overall number of casts per skill in a fight stays the same. Just the point when you cast the skills changes a bit.
I’d love to hear the rest of the community’s thoughts on the changes proposed above.
I’m aware that the idea isn’t perfect yet and since it's just theory-crafting at this point, I am not sure how much exactly this would actually help lower-end players who struggle with their rotation, but it should still help them nonetheless.
So please tell me what you think!
Yes, making DOTs longer will take some pressure out of your rotation and make it (probably?) easier for weaker players to pull off a decent rotation and therefore closing the skill-gap between high and low-end players, but weaker players don't profit off these changes when they still deal less dmg in the end.
Even just increasing the damage of DOTs again to a level where the overall DPS of your character on a dummy-parse stays the same compared to current live server still leaves the problem with invulnerability-phases or enemies that cleanse from DOTs when DOTs hold longer but tick for less.
All in all, the proposed changes may sound good on paper, but the longer you think about it, the less it helps the people they are supposed to help and actually make the game less accessible.
Because of that, I would like to propose a different approach to make the rotation easier for weaker players.
In my almost 5 years of raidleading-experience and analyzing logs to help people improve their damage, I discovered that the main reason people didn't do as much damage as others was "undercasting" or "overcasting" abilities.
This means, that they casted their DOTs either too late (so there was a gap in the dmg dealt by this ability which obviously results in lower dmg) or they re-casted their ability too early while it was still active (which means, they wasted a GCD, where they could have casted a spammable instead resulting in lower dmg).
To combat this, I propose a system where recasting a DOT too early doesn't only refresh the DOT but also makes it last longer to a certain degree.
Let's say (just to explain how this proposed system would work - the numbers aren't final) that all DOTs get a leeway of 2 seconds.
So, when you cast a 10 second DOT on a target it holds 10 seconds (obviously). But when you recast the DOT while it is still active on the target with 5 seconds left, it doesn't just get refreshed to 10 seconds, but instead gets refreshed to 12 seconds (10 seconds standard DOT-duration + 2 seconds leeway).
You still overcasted it but you are punished less for doing so.
If the DOT only has 1 second left and you recast it, the DOT gets refreshed to 11 seconds (10 seconds standard DOT-duration + 1 second leftover - since it's below the +2 seconds leeway).
All in all, this system should make your rotation less stressful since you are more flexible when you recast your DOTs and especially help the lower end players to do a better rotation with less gaps in their uptimes.
I've read a lot of threads in the forum regarding DOT-duration in general, and how DOT-durations as multiples of 10 (or 15 in case of stampede + carve) would make the rotation easier. With a X second leeway, you could easily combine skills with different DOT-durations (DKs have multiple skills with 14 second duration for example) even as a player who currently struggles with that and ZOS wouldn't have to touch DOT-duration at all.
Obviously, the same system can also be applied to sticky HOTs, buffs, and debuffs; basically anything that isn't ground-based.
This shouldn't change a lot for endgame-players. Their damage done should roughly stay the same since right now they are mostly able to already pull off a virtually perfect rotation. It sure makes their rotation easier, yet it shouldn't increase their dmg since they can do it without said help anyway.
The overall number of casts per skill in a fight stays the same. Just the point when you cast the skills changes a bit.
I’d love to hear the rest of the community’s thoughts on the changes proposed above.
I’m aware that the idea isn’t perfect yet and since it's just theory-crafting at this point, I am not sure how much exactly this would actually help lower-end players who struggle with their rotation, but it should still help them nonetheless.
So please tell me what you think!
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