Is it time to remove dots from the game?

[Granyala]

With very few exceptions dots in shadowlands are just pointless busywork that lock you out of using your fun abilities. Want to use your cool big hitting ability as SAM? Not until you waste a sen on a dot cause "it's more dps". Dots should either be removed completely or reworked to do less damage, making them only useful for things like boss transitions so they're not part of a classes' core identity and rotation.

As a healer, I would actually like to return to managing my 3 DoTs instead of one that lasts for 30 seconds and just mash Glare in the interim.
I like DoTs, always have. 10yrs of ShadowPriest does that for you I guess.

[Bravely_Default]

No, it's not time to remove dots, this game is brain dead enough as it is nowadays.

[SomeRandomHuman]

I wish healers had more DoTs honestly. Hitting 2 buttons and an oGCD occasionally for dps is boring. Honestly just standing there doing nothing is starting to feel more entertaining at some points with the current state of healers.

SMN still needs work I won't deny that, but they took a step in the right direction this x-pac. I'm of the mindset that the egis should be rotational demis similair to bard's songs. DoT management on SMN isn't too bad. I only hardcast DoTs 1 time per demi-pheonix rotation typically.

There are some DoTs that I think should be brought back; like the tanks'. Can do a quick overall of the skill and make it a combo finisher for drk and slap it onto something for war. As for dps, well I personally enjoyed having a DoT to keep track of on everything, but I do agree that not EVERY job needs DoTs.

[fumofu]

DoTs are fun. There's nothing like watching something slowly die a little on the inside.

If anything needs to go away it's overly specific rotations.

Overly specific rotations are invention of savage players. They are completely optional for most of content therefore they don't really need to go.

As for dots, I don't get why every single job need them, therefore they should be removed from some jobs.

[Liam_Harper]

I'm surprised SAM is being used as an example when it has a very lenient DoT (only needs to be applied once per minute) and is fairly easy to apply at just 1 Sen. We also significantly increased our Midare usage this expansion and got a double Midare as a bonus on top. It's never been more big-number friendly.

DoT's add some depth. You get more value if you line them up with raid buffs but you can't reapply them too early or wait too long to reapply them. Then there's knowing how long a DoT has to tick to be worth applying, planning when intermissions will be or how long the target will live. Midare, you just hit the target in the face with it. Me do gud deeps now.

[Ririta]

Press a button every 20 seconds. Very stimulating.

This is what I thought when they turned Shadowflare into a cooldown. It went from a consciously casted spell, that had its costs and benefits, into a free "press this button when it lights up" cooldown...

[Cyreil]

They already have been, slowly. They have been cutting DoTs from the game since Fracture and Scourge.

[Gemina]

Ironically it's probably the opposite. Higanbana is the only thing keeping the SAM rotation going straight into brain-dead territory. Not sure about you, but repeating the Midare rotation non stop is extremely simplistic and boring to me.

That being said it has nothing to do with it being a DoT, so if they mess with the base 3 sen rotation in other ways I wouldn't care much if they changed it.

1575 total potency at the cost of a single Sen, which can be fired off after two GCDs, and grants a stack of meditation is quite possibly one of the biggest utility/damage abilities in the game. SAM is a very symmetrical job, so I honestly don't know what else to make the single Sen other than a DoT, especially one on the level of Higanbana.

It's really not about the simplicity of SAM so much as that both Higanbana and Gokken have enough situations where using them over Setsugekka is the better choice. Plus cone AoE abilities make you evaluate the field for the best target instead of just mindlessly blasting a circular AoE. SAM gets to make use of the majority of its kit no matter what content it is in, and this makes it a really fun job to play. It really is one most well-designed jobs in XIV, and you almost don't want them to even touch it. A good polishing here and there is all it needs.

I think why their DoT might 'feel' awkward is because it isn't on demand, and requires GCDs to not only build it up, but also use it. However, that is also a reason why it also so powerful, and why it contributes so much to interactive and interesting gameplay for SAM.

I'm surprised SAM is being used as an example when it has a very lenient DoT (only needs to be applied once per minute) and is fairly easy to apply at just 1 Sen. We also significantly increased our Midare usage this expansion and got a double Midare as a bonus on top. It's never been more big-number friendly.

SAM is a bad example for a job having a cumbersome DoT to worry about. I think that would apply more to jobs that already have plenty of other things to manage, and this heavily involves their own resources and how they build it up. SAM is pretty straight forward in the sense that there isn't a whole lot of decision making involved when it comes to building up their gauges. A lot of jobs sacrifice their GCD windows to build up their gauges when situations call for different abilities to be used, but this doesn't really happen for SAM. The only time their gauges don't build is when they screw up. Things become crafty for the Samurai when it comes to the expenditure of their resources so they maximize their damage without arsing themselves out of 1200+ pot attacks when their burst windows open up.

[Goji1639]

I'd say make them do more damage so it feels like you're including them in your rotation for a reason, instead of just delaying your real rotation for some measly 30 potency ticks.

[Jonnycbad]

Dots are a boring mechanic unless a job's function or gauge is built around it like brd or BLM. Giving a job a dot for the sake of having it feels pointless