Quote Originally Posted by tearagion View Post
This has been addressed numerous times, DoT doesn't necessarily need to occupy a debuff slot. Slipstream is a DoT effect on the ground, no debuff. Flamethrower is a channelled DoT, no debuff. A single debuff slot can have some nuance added to it by buffing it (whether it's before like bristle on BLU, or a hypothetical new effect that upgrades it while it's on the enemy), or by extending it (old Contagion). Even all that aside, their design doesn't reflect this debuff slot concern considering DoTs that do not take advantage of a DoT's properties exist (Sonic Break, Circle of Scorn), and Reaper has an exclusively personal debuff that exists with theoretically 100% uptime when it could just as easily behave like Storm's Eye or Gekko.
Hm... what if the main gauge for the caster is a 'dot receptacle' that you power up by many buffs with upkeep times, and that receptacle redirects that damage through a single persistent kardia-esque dot?

This opens up for ideas like a puppetmaster caster, treating the puppet like a voodoo doll, and kind of bypasses that dot hindrance that the system has.