The changes to LA/HA don't really matter, imo. People who want to push for top DPS will still have to master it. People who don't care about it, or don't know about it, won't be too far behind them. How big of a DPS gap must there be for the most dedicated/practiced DPSers to find satisfaction and have fun with their gameplay? 10%? 30%? Is it not enough to be demonstrably higher than that other guy who doesn't try as hard? The gap will still be there.

The change to DoTs are more concerning to me, personally, and likely others out there like me. The durations will be longer and easier to manage, sure, but the overall DPS you can expect from a DoT will reduce.

So let's say I'm super noob struggling to stay out of the red stuff on the floor and roll dodge and whatnot, and I don't have the experience or skill to LA weave and use spammables and juggle DoTs all at the same time. DoTs are the easiest way to maintain damage for the low skilled player. Tag the big monster with ticking damage, then work on staying alive or improving positioning - hit a LA or spammable or self-heal when you are able to breathe here and there. Sounds like ZoS wants to make those DoT ticks count for less DPS by assuming players will do other things for damage in the extended DoT windows.

However... the lower skilled players also don't really watch the timers that closely (they are too busy trying not to die in harder combat). Those DoTs (which will soon count for less DPS) are going to be applied too early all the time (which could turn into a resource issue if DoT costs are going up in step with the durations), and that player is still going to be scrambling around trying to stay out of the fire and mostly only contributing to overall team damage by applying DoTs. So I don't think extending the DoT durations, while reducing overall DoT DPS, really helps the players they are trying to help. Plus, seems like a general nerf to any DoT based build with the unintended consequence of pushing players more into direct damage skills.

Ways to fix this? Maybe have a CP that makes DoTs tick X% faster, or boost the DoT CP, or what have you.

I understand keeping the DoT DPS the same while extending durations will make the DPS of a good player go way up from what it is now -- for example, squeezing in a few extra Blastbones between DoT re-application would be a huge boost, and something likely easy to achieve for many of the better players.

But by saying "we're extending DoT durations so less-skilled players have less APM to manage", you're also saying "we expect players to maintain current DPS by using these longer DoT durations to press other buttons during DoT windows and do more direct damage". More buttons are getting pressed either way --- either it's reapplying a DoT sooner or it's pressing a different damage button instead.