So I was thinking about something that's been a little annoying after talking about Summoner. It's something we've all seen and thought about. We know DoT damage takes place every 3 seconds, but WHICH 3 seconds is it? We want to know not because we're curious, but because it might not need the remaining 2 seconds, or maybe it does, and we're afraid to either re-apply it too soon or let it run out.
So I propose an idea to either replace timers completely, or at least as a character setting we can check to replace them. Instead of a timer, make it a countdown that will count how many times left the effect will take effect. So for example, Bio lasts 18 seconds, and this means it'll take effect 6 times. Instead of the timer starting at 18, it would start at 6, and every 3 seconds the number would drop.
This could be worked into the game in 2 different ways. The first being to replace the duration entirely with the number of ticks, the second to just be more of a HUD change. Ideally I would prefer the first, to replace the duration entirely, which would have both a benefit to it and a detriment to us players.
It's been stated in 3.0 that DoT's are going to be affected by Speed directly. If this change were implemented, this would mean that even with more speed, DoT's won't do more damage with just a single cast on its own (it will over time due to it running out faster, though). This would balance the aspect of Speed affecting DoT's, since having them activate more often over the same duration would eventually be overkill (the lack of this would be our detriment).
However, it would be easier for us to manage. Even with 0 speed, spells take 2.5 seconds to cast (except Bio 1 and Aero, among other spells). This means that when the counter reaches 1, we can start casting, and most of the time the effect should take place while we're casting and we can get the full benefit of the DoT without applying too early. With more speed, even though the DoT should run out faster, our spells will also cast faster, so the effect speed has on this particular instance is negated.
If this were to just be a HUD change, then all that would happen is the number would represent how many ticks were left, and it would be a little tricky when the number of ticks went directly to 5 instead of 6, since we casted it just before one of those 3 seconds passed.
I think this would be a pretty good idea, and given the time left until the release of Heavensward, and the change to DoT's coming up, I think it's the perfect time to implement this idea. Though it's not as if we can't play the game as it is, I think it would be an improvement to the current model.