Best Damage over Time (DoT), Ticking Spells & Abilities?

[hansvedic]

I am interested in using a Death Godlike for one of my playthroughs, and I am curious as to what spells and abilities that either cause damage over time or cause damage every few seconds (ticks) people here have found to be most effective. Please note that while crowd control effects are great, I am first and foremost considering damage per tick, so to speak.

 

I've heard of a few really good ones already from my searches, such as the Plague of Insects + Alchemy combo, Chillfog, and Touch of Rot, but I am curious as to what other DoT/Tick damage effects are very good.

 

Any thoughts?

[omgFIREBALLS]

Brand Enemy (paladin) doesn't deal crazy damage per tick, but enemies can't get rid of it. It's permanent, it doesn't count as a fire ability so water won't dispel it (but it also won't dispel water). It casts super fast and has decent range, so you can get the dots rolling easily. Tip: Empower self to get zeal to dot even more targets - can't empower the brand anyway.

 

It works really well with tanky setups. It's what I've been doing over and over. If enemies aren't fire immune and don't have continuous access to healing, I'll brand some priority targets and bunker up.

 

If you're feeling lame you can even run from them; as long as combat doesn't end the DoT will stay. You can kill the grub boss below Neketaka by just branding it and standing outside range of its abilities. It will do nothing to you while it slowly burns down.

 

You can brand sigils. Sometimes you can stealth into range, brand and run away and let it slowly die before you engage the pack. The brand will only wear off the sigil if you get into combat and leave it again.

 

As I said, it's probably not the heaviest DoT, but if you enjoy outlasting enemies it's awesome. You'll also inevitably start feeling like there's way too many fire immune mobs ^^

Edited June 14, 2018 by omgFIREBALLS

[hansvedic]

Brand Enemy (paladin) doesn't deal crazy damage per tick, but enemies can't get rid of it. It's permanent, it doesn't count as a fire ability so water won't dispel it (but it also won't dispel water). It casts super fast and has decent range, so you can get the dots rolling easily. Tip: Empower self to get zeal to dot even more targets - can't empower the brand anyway.

 

It works really well with tanky setups. It's what I've been doing over and over. If enemies aren't fire immune and don't have continuous access to healing, I'll brand some priority targets and bunker up.

 

If you're feeling lame you can even run from them; as long as combat doesn't end the DoT will stay. You can kill the grub boss below Neketaka by just branding it and standing outside range of its abilities. It will do nothing to you while it slowly burns down.

 

You can brand sigils. Sometimes you can stealth into range, brand and run away and let it slowly die before you engage the pack. The brand will only wear off the sigil if you get into combat and leave it again.

 

As I said, it's probably not the heaviest DoT, but if you enjoy outlasting enemies it's awesome. You'll also inevitably start feeling like there's way too many fire immune mobs ^^

 

I suppose that, if one is going that route, one could make a Holy Slayer (Paladin/Rogue) that uses Sworn Enemy & Blinding Strike + the Gouging Strike upgrade. Hit someone once, and then sit back while they slowly die.

 

EDIT: Another option, of course, is to go Chanter/Paladin, and use Come Soft Winds as an additional drainer, with the occasional "Long Night's Drink ... Revenge of Morning" to counteract mobs that heal.

Edited June 14, 2018 by hansvedic

[Braven]

Brand Enemy (paladin) doesn't deal crazy damage per tick, but enemies can't get rid of it. It's permanent, it doesn't count as a fire ability so water won't dispel it (but it also won't dispel water). It casts super fast and has decent range, so you can get the dots rolling easily. Tip: Empower self to get zeal to dot even more targets - can't empower the brand anyway.

 

It works really well with tanky setups. It's what I've been doing over and over. If enemies aren't fire immune and don't have continuous access to healing, I'll brand some priority targets and bunker up.

I have thought about making a 3 per paladin tank that just uses branded enemy abusing the fact it has no accuracy roll. Multiclass with another class for more spells and then just do nothing but heal/buff. MIGHT/INT/RES can be maxed out while per/dex is dumped.

 

Druid has the most powerful DOTs. They are made even stronger by alchemy buffing poison spells. This makes plague of insects the most powerful DOT spell of all. Big AOE, raw damage, and massive accuracy/damage/duration from 20+ power level boosts.

 

Quite a few enemies are poison immue though, so it won’t always work. Luckily, druid has a wide variety of damage types they can inflict.

 

Returning storm is good for the stun effect, but it only hits one enemy at a time making it far less damaging than other AOEs.

 

Anything that has multiple accuracy rolls will do better since they are less devestated by a bad roll.

 

One thing the consider is that fortitude tends to be the hardest defense to hit, by quite a bit usually. Also, some spells have terrible penetration. Chill fog, for example, has really low penetration. It is still a great spell, though.

Edited June 14, 2018 by Braven

[Loren Tyr]

Aside from the Druid poison spells, poisons themselves are of course also strongly buffed by Alchemy (the descriptions don't show it though, those are only base amount for all effects). I don't know all of them off the top of my head, but for example Stone Joint does 9 + PL + 4 x Alchemy (plus bonus from Might, Death Godlike and over-penetration; Alchemy scales the penetration of the poison as well). So if you invest heavily in Alchemy it grows quite quickly. 

 

Main obstacle is getting them to stick of course. All poisons target Fortitude except Fugue Spores which targets Will, so always handy to have around for a professional poisoner :-D. I use an Assassin multiclass myself so the +25 ACC boost definitely helps against tricky targets (also: wacking people with morningstars, but that is great fun by itself already #MorningstarsFTW). On the other hand, a graze will do; graze/crit only seems to affect duration, which with high Alchemy is very long anyway. Obviously you do also need to separately hit with your weapon first for the poison attack to happen, though the duration on that is fairly long as well so you can try a couple of times if necessary. 

[MaxQuest]

I've heard of a few really good ones already from my searches, such as the Plague of Insects + Alchemy combo, Chillfog, and Touch of Rot, but I am curious as to what other DoT/Tick damage effects are very good.

 

Any thoughts?

Shining Beacon, Cleansing Flames are good.

Symbol of X [rank 8] although not a dot, deals respectable periodic damage.

Disintegration is nice. And would be superb if it wasn't targeting fortitude.

Rot Skulls is unfortunately much weaker than in PoE1. The DoT was ticking for 6 dmg and had a duration of ~43s at 29 MIG/33INT. Although it could also have really low penetration, which is shown nowhere.

 

Also there is a poison, Stone Joint iirc. Tooltip shows something like 10 damage / per 3s, no matter how high is your alchemy. But actually ticks for ~90 at 21 alch.

Edited June 14, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Dorftek]

Yeah Alchemy+poison is the strongest Singletart DoT in the game. With 20+ Alchemy it probably kills any target you apply it too. The poison "buff" stays on u for the duration of the poison but u can only apply it once per consumed poison. I tried using this with Serafens handmortar but it didn't work

 

My personal favorite DoT I'm this game is Arterial Strike when it is used with Handmortar on someone with very high Int and +AoE radius boosts. It's just so brutal to inflict this on 3-5 mobs at once and then let them melt as they walk toward u. This do require them to move however wich I assume is less effective if u are playing a party with tank. But it's just so satisfying :D

 

Grenades have great Dots. Rogues withering strike upgrade have a great DoT wich can be made into an AoE with handmortar. Wounding shot is kinda underwhelming but when used with mortar it's good. Deep Wounds on top of all this ofc. This probably work with Rod modal as well but Rods are not as stylish as a handmortar :D

[Loren Tyr]

At alchemy of about 11, Storm Toxin is also a permanent paralyze by the way (barring effects that shorten duration or clear it of course). 

[Raven Darkholme]

 

I've heard of a few really good ones already from my searches, such as the Plague of Insects + Alchemy combo, Chillfog, and Touch of Rot, but I am curious as to what other DoT/Tick damage effects are very good.

 

Any thoughts?

Shining Beacon, Cleansing Flames are good.

Symbol of X [rank 8] although not a dot, deals respectable periodic damage.

Disintegration is nice. And would be superb if it wasn't targeting fortitude.

Rot Skulls is unfortunately much weaker than in PoE1. The DoT was ticking for 6 dmg and had a duration of ~43s at 29 MIG/33INT. Although it could also have really low penetration, which is shown nowhere.

 

Also there is a poison, Stone Joint iirc. Tooltip shows something like 10 damage / per 3s, no matter how high is your alchemy. But actually ticks for ~90 at 21 alch.

 

Disintegration is kind of disappointing, since the description is wrong, but ofc it would be op if it wasn't.

Poisons are even stronger than 90 dmg, depending on which poison you use, the crush dmg one (was that Stone Joint?) ticked for 131 for me at 20 alch (char was level 13 and the giant cave grub just melted solo potd).

It seemed like a bad idea since cave grub has high fort, but the alchemy rank also improves the accuracy, like with the druid spells, that actually need to be fixed.

My assassin/Shifter seemed super mediocre until I got Insect plague, then it suddenly became boring because to op.

[Loren Tyr]

Yeah, Stone Joint is the crush damage one. But alchemy also scales penetration, so while the base damage at that level/skill should be a 94 DoT, you'd have gotten damage and overpenetration bonus (cause penetration would have been 22) on top of that.