blizz sorc

[ElementEight]

Blizzard isn't really a dot, though; it's repeated damage over an area... over time, somewhat ironically. Kind of' the same way frozen orb isn't really a dot, even though its damage is delivered over 2 seconds or so.

I'm thinking an actual dot involves a debuff - not repeated damage that's the result of a condition (such as standing somewhere). Otherwise, getting hit repeatedly by attacks would be considered a dot; that'd be weird.

[Kintara]

Blizzard isn't really a dot, though; it's repeated damage over an area... over time, somewhat ironically. Kind of' the same way frozen orb isn't really a dot, even though its damage is delivered over 2 seconds or so.

I'm thinking an actual dot involves a debuff - not repeated damage that's the result of a condition (such as standing somewhere). Otherwise, getting hit repeatedly by attacks would be considered a dot; that'd be weird.

A DoT is a "set and forget" effect. Someone holding an attack cursor on you is actively targeting you, but a DoT gets set down someplace, or on someone, and then you get to do other stuff. This is what makes DoTs nice.

[ElementEight]

A DoT is a "set and forget" effect. Someone holding an attack cursor on you is actively targeting you, but a DoT gets set down someplace, or on someone, and then you get to do other stuff. This is what makes DoTs nice.

Your definition can't be right since there can be channeled dots (such as Life Drain in wc3 or WoW). Hard to define something so simple, eh?

[Elfik]

Blizzard isn't really a dot, though; it's repeated damage over an area... over time, somewhat ironically. Kind of' the same way frozen orb isn't really a dot, even though its damage is delivered over 2 seconds or so.

I'm thinking an actual dot involves a debuff - not repeated damage that's the result of a condition (such as standing somewhere). Otherwise, getting hit repeatedly by attacks would be considered a dot; that'd be weird.

I guess that's why they clarified on the tooltip that it wouldn't stack, whereas a debuff-type DoT would by definition not stack with itself (eg. rend, poison dart). So in other words, Blizzard is more like corpse spiders or something, except that corpse spiders actually does stack, but Blizzard doesn't.

[ElementEight]

I guess that's why they clarified on the tooltip that it wouldn't stack, whereas a debuff-type DoT would by definition not stack with itself (eg. rend, poison dart). So in other words, Blizzard is more like corpse spiders or something, except that corpse spiders actually does stack, but Blizzard doesn't.

Good observation.

Blizzard doesn't stack because they've choosen so. It did back in D2! They could make corpse spiders not "stack" as well, but if we really get down to it, could we consider spiders with a mind (which are more like untargetable summons if anything) of their own dots just because they deal their damage over a period? Could we call 3 meteors falling over 20 seconds on an area a dot? The fact that the damage is dealt over a period isn't what define a dot; it's only a component. So then, what is the other component? A debuff? The fact that they don't "stack" with themselves?

[beauzulu]

ok, blizzard not stacking is kinda lame but probably needed due to the "prism" rune effect on diamond skin
but i mean playing around with the idea of making blizzard & meteor really spammable i made this build http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...UjT!XWe!ZbZYYZ
just spam the hell out of blizzard and meteor after using diamond skin, and between the uses of diamond skin just keep spamming them and use electrocute to get back to full AP then rinse and repeat
seems pretty powerful, but a bit glass cannony

[Elfik]

ok, blizzard not stacking is kinda lame but probably needed due to the "prism" rune effect on diamond skin
but i mean playing around with the idea of making blizzard & meteor really spammable i made this build http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...UjT!XWe!ZbZYYZ
just spam the hell out of blizzard and meteor after using diamond skin, and between the uses of diamond skin just keep spamming them and use electrocute to get back to full AP then rinse and repeat
seems pretty powerful, but a bit glass cannony

To be honest I think the prism effect is overpowered and will get nerfed, but that shouldn't affect Blizzard too much one way or the other, since blizzard is non-stackable. Prism is much better used with more spammable AP-heavy offense, such as disintegrate, meteor, arcane orb, etc. To think of combining prism, power of the storm, arcanot, and power hungry passive, and +AP on crit gear, it gets ridiculous. Sure prism has a cooldown, but reducing casting costs by 15 is just overpowered. With evocation, the cooldown is 12s, so half the time skills costs 15 less AP, not to mention the damage absorption. No, it should be more like, reduced by 5 AP. Or reducing the duration of diamond skin to something like 4-5s instead of 6 would help balance it more.

[ElementEight]

I like that rune because a defensive skill becomes offensive as well. That's good design.

I wonder how damage will compare to AP efficiency. I've always made builds by trying to stack as much +%damage as possible, but it seems like max AP & generation may be good as well, especially with this particular rune.

[bladesofwar]

DoT is simply Damage over Time. Blizzard is still a form of a DoT because in its one cast/use it does damage over time. Even though life drain in WoW is a channeled effect it is still cast/used once and then channeled doing damage over the time it is channeled, which is why that would be considered a DoT. However, doing multiple attacks over and over would not be considered a DoT because it is not one cast/use that causes that Damage over Time.

[Elfik]

DoT is simply Damage over Time. Blizzard is still a form of a DoT because in its one cast/use it does damage over time. Even though life drain in WoW is a channeled effect it is still cast/used once and then channeled doing damage over the time it is channeled, which is why that would be considered a DoT. However, doing multiple attacks over and over would not be considered a DoT because it is not one cast/use that causes that Damage over Time.

In that case Ray of frost and disintegrate would be DoTs? I guess not since one cast can be as short as the shortest damage/animation ticker. I haven't played WoW so I don't know how life drain works and if its the same as RoF?

But whatever a DoT is, making extra categories for skills is not a bad thing if it eases discussion of them, so I wouldn't mind that a "DoT" has a more limited definition in D3 than in the general sense of the word, which is what I think elementaleight was getting at.