Is it time to remove dots from the game?

[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.

[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.

[Lersayil]

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.

You could slap another personal damage buff on it instead of the DoT and it could function the same. Personally I was thinking more of a rework akin to NIN, where sen have more meaning than the number you have at hand. SAM can be awkward / fun to optimize, but the casual level rotation logic absolutely is simplistic.

I was just voicing my opinion that ideally we shouldn't make it even more linear.

[Cyreil]

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

[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.

[ElHeggunte]

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.

DoTs are typically one of your highest potency abilities though, making them any more powerful would make them OP if nothing else changed. SE could remedy this frequent confusion by changing the tooltips to show you the total potency over the course of the duration instead of just the potency per tick.

[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

[Ultimatecalibur]

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

Paladin's rotation exists because it has a DoT. Without Goring Blade it would have been just spamming Royal Authority combos (followed by Atonement x3) between Requiescat burst windows. With the introduction of the DoT in HW, Paladin actually had a rotation compared to the Rage of Halone spam of ARR.

Dragoon's DoT exists to give a second, if not being the primary reason, to alternate between their 2 combos.

Bard's DoTs are pretty much the foundation of the jobs rotation with pretty much everything else rewarding you for maintaining the DoTs.

These 3 jobs need their DoTs. Thunder is actually one of the abilities most detached from the Black Mage rotation and is in many ways there more as filler during their Umbral Ice phase.

[Mikey_R]

Paladin's rotation exists because it has a DoT. Without Goring Blade it would have been just spamming Royal Authority combos (followed by Atonement x3) between Requiescat burst windows. With the introduction of the DoT in HW, Paladin actually had a rotation compared to the Rage of Halone spam of ARR.

Dragoon's DoT exists to give a second, if not being the primary reason, to alternate between their 2 combos.

Bard's DoTs are pretty much the foundation of the jobs rotation with pretty much everything else rewarding you for maintaining the DoTs.

These 3 jobs need their DoTs. Thunder is actually one of the abilities most detached from the Black Mage rotation and is in many ways there more as filler during their Umbral Ice phase.

Might as well add Monk to that list. Need to have something other than snap punch to use in Coeurl Form after all.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Might as well add Monk to that list. Need to have something other than snap punch to use in Coeurl Form after all.

I knew I forgot something.

They had been removing DoTs though, eve from jobs that are built on them as Flaming Arrow and Miasma II can attest.

Flaming Arrow was causing entity limit problems in hunts and World Boss FATEs which is why it was removed. Miasma II was creating a 3 DoT single target rotation when it was meant to be an AoE only ability it was replaced by direct damage aoes.

With that said. I do think that some jobs need DoTs in other to have a complex rotation, such as SAM, PLD, BLM and DRG. I'd also argue that Healers and BRD should have a way to have AoE DoTs (including the aforementioned skills) but I do think that they a token one is unnecessary since WAR, DRK (Fracture and Scourge were removed), DNC, RDM (both have no DoT), were doing fine without them.

Fracture and Scourge were removed as part of the big debuff/DoT purge of StB due to the total number of DoTs and debuffs put out by the average group of characters in HW causing the visible debuff/DoTs limit to regularly be exceeded in 24-man+ content and sometimes exceeding the total debuff/DoT limit in open world content. The ShB purge of the resistance down and damage down debuffs likely means that DoTs could be reintroduced without causing problems.

The reintroduction of Fracture and Scourge would likely be applauded (if they also returned with gauge increase effects) as the DoTs would add some much desired complexity to those jobs.