Advice on an effective DoT build?

[Drew8limbs]

Hey, new member been playing for a month or so. I have tried a bunch of builds but I can't get the feeling I want or the RP I want out of any of them yet. I would greatly appreciate any help! 

I want a super solid build, I really don't like being a total glass cannon, but I also want to do nasty DoT and not be overcomplicated with combos and buffs and set ups before each fight. I don't mind micromanaging for my MC but the "cast 4 buffs switch 2 weapon sets then your combo is set up now target this Skelly and get flanked on all your beef and you're done" style doesn't speak to me.

I really wanna play a DoT build, I've heard some of you guys mention helwalker/ancient but I just die far too often. I really like the sound of bloodmage/ancient because of wizard DoTs mixed with Druid DoTs, however I just don't know. I'm open to any help you'd be nice enough to offer. What classes are good at damage over time and is there any good combos to make a fun build that bleeds stuff out? 

Edited February 5, 2022 by Drew8limbs
Needed to mention things I forgot initially

[limaxophobiacq]

If you want to be the anything but a glass-cannon and deal damage over time Paladin/Wizard isn't a bad bet. You can even do DoT to yourself with Sacred Immolation. Steel Garrote/Blood Mage is considered optimal but other combinations are fine if you find Woedica and Steel Garrote disposition restrictions too annoying. Beyond whatever DoT wizard spells you want to cast key abilities are Spirit Shield, Llengraths Safguard, Lay on Hands, and Stoic Steel to be very hard to kill.  Wizard are admittedly not as heavy on DoTs as druids are though.

Bloodmage/Ancient is likely better of picking one of them and going single class .

Edited February 5, 2022 by limaxophobiacq

[Boeroer]

How about Paladin/Streetfighter with mortars?

You will be very fast, sturdy enough and can apply Toxic Strike, Gouging Strike and Brand Enemy to a bunch of enemies very quickly. Gouging Strike and Brand Enemy never end - so it's a death sentence. Brand Enemy is even an auto-hit. Add some Arterial Strike against moving targets.

[dgray62]

Another possibility is soul blade/trickster. Both rogue and cipher have some great DoT abilities, and also have some great defensive buffs to keep you alive as well.

[Drew8limbs]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

How about Paladin/Streetfighter with mortars?

You will be very fast, sturdy enough and can apply Toxic Strike, Gouging Strike and Brand Enemy to a bunch of enemies very quickly. Gouging Strike and Brand Enemy never end - so it's a death sentence. Brand Enemy is even an auto-hit. Add some Arterial Strike against moving targets.

That sounds really fun. I really like Holy Slayer a lot. One question, do the mortars hit friends? Because I had one build I found I loved but chill fog hitting allies ruined it (tactician/blood mage). I could spam a bunch of chill fog but it hit my party a bunch. 

Thanks for all the replies guys, this is really helpful. I was also wondering about herald because I saw that chanter may have an AOE dot and paladin may have a DoT too? Plus skeleton summons are cool . That sounded kind of good. 

[NotDumbEnough]

It depends on what you define as Damage over Time. Some of the most powerful abilities in the game are actually pulsing spells that hit repeatedly in an area rather than applying a damaging debuff. Priest symbols in particular are extremely strong and have no friendly fire problems. Great Maelstrom is even stronger but does have friendly fire. If you mean DoT as strictly just damaging debuffs then a single class Ascendant probably has the best damage over time in the game.

[Boeroer]

You can also have a look at the Chanter. "The Dragon Thrashed" and "Come Sweet Winds" are DoT chants. The latter even heals you a bit (which technically makes you sturdier, too).

You can again combine this with Paladin for the nice Brand Enemy ability (it is not only nice because it is an auto-hit - which is not only nice but awesome - but also because it is a really fast cast and has 0 recovery time, cheap, too).

Add the Blackened Plate later in the game an play a Death Knight that just drains the life from all surrounding enemies passively - by just walking among them. And then curse their guts with Brand Enemy. Sturdy as hell, too. Exalted Endurance + Come Sweet Winds will stack their healing, several armor passives... 

You could solo with such a character because your DoTs will eventuall kill all enemies while you are too sturdy and have too much passive healing to get killed (if you are going for a shield setup). 

Or a Battle Axe + Bleeding Cuts for more melee DoTs. Saru Sichr (Morning Star): also nice.

Invocations will come as piemont cherry on top. 

[Kaylon]

The druid has many dots, but there are many enemies immune to disease/poison in the game.... A rogue (streetfighter can easily work here with Powder Burns debuff) using mortars can apply many dots in an AoE. Add an ascendant who can also spam dots and you have a great combo. If the streetfighter feels too squishy you can use a trickster instead.

[Boeroer]

12 hours ago, Drew8limbs said:

One question, do the mortars hit friends?

Nope, mortars do foe-only damage.  Also they deal pierce/slash damage which is uncommon for firearms (no problem with pierce-immune enemies) and the AoE rolls against reflex instead of deflection. Obviously you want a lot of INT because it enlarges the AoE. 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Boeroer

[thelee]

i'm surprised druid hasn't got more mention as a dot approach, because druids do butt loads of damage via dots (ignoring cheese*).

 

2 hours ago, Kaylon said:

The druid has many dots, but there are many enemies immune to disease/poison in the game....

while druids are pretty exposed to poison/disease immunity, in terms of dots i'd say that the majority of them are not disease/poison keyworded (secretly or not). Insect Swarm and Infestation of Maggots, and IIRC also Touch of Rot & Autumn's Decay are non-disease, non-poison, and using just those alone your druid will do tons of damage in most sitautions. Plague of Insects is the main one that is impacted by disease/poison immunity. (Also depending on how you define "DoT", Wall of Thorns and Venombloom are poison-based). edit: there's also taste of the hunt, but it's single-target.

 

* including cheese, a wizard with combusting wounds and a party full of pulsing effects will do absolute bonkers amounts of damage against anything not fire immune.

Edited February 6, 2022 by thelee

[Tomucci]

Multiclassing with forbidden fist could be cool for dot dmg because of the enfeeblement on their forbidden fist ability which extends negative effects by 50%

Can be paired with rogues arterial strike or toxic strike, or on ciphers soul ignition and disintegrate for instance, both make for strong front line dps options too, trickster starts stronger because of mirrored image (and shadowdancer is a very fun class to play) but when transcendent gets borrowed instinct they become very strong on the front line too

[Drew8limbs]

Thanks so much for all these replies, I've skimmed these boards sooo much and seen a lot of you post before. 

I'm actually enjoying blood mage assassin a little too, it's just so squishy, I just wonder if it gets better past a certain level? Dual axes with modal the rogue dots and combusting wounds, chill fog etc has been super fun. I have legitimately 15 characters level 5-12 so I can switch builds and test stuff out. I can speed run the heck out of port maje. 

Its just such a shame DoT druid can't be more powerful, it would be so fun to mix it with a paladin or rogue and be actually good. I hate spirit shift mostly but FoD from wolf form was legitimately cool af. Great sword devoted Berath priest almost scratched my itch with touch of rot but the rest of the kit just wasn't for me which is such a shame because the role play was legitimately exciting. 

And yeah chanter/pally looks super interesting, another thing I find myself being dissatisfied with is builds that are stuck to gear. I've not seen a lot of the weapons and armor in the game so builds that find two perfect pistols early on and some armor just don't excite me. 

Thank everyone for throwing build ideas at me. 

 

 

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

Yeah, I echo the sentiments of thelee, Druids are the king of DoTs, particularly if you consider spells like Returning Storm to be one. And you have a good variety of elements to choose from too. Spells like Insect Swarm and Touch of Rot do tons of damage for how early you get them.

I will also throw out there that a Tempest sounds near perfect for what you seem to be asking for, subclass of shifter, fury or an ancient depending on how you play.

-Barbarian gives you a lot of extra natural health for durability, and Frenzy gives casting speed, damage, and more hp (keep them in the back mostly to not get wrecked by the deflection loss. Blooded applies to spells too if Im not mistaken, so if you get below 50% hp, your DoT ticks will get a nice damage boost.

-the thick skinned passive, carnage and one stands alone both work with spiritshift, so enjoy being an invincible superbear cat or boar who does a ton of damage

-if you want to lean into the DoT aspect even more, blood frenzy upgrade actually applies to a lot of spells. So you can get a DoT even on your instant damage spells if they crit. Not sure if this applies to Returning Storm, its kind of wonky what it applies to. I prefer spirit frenzy for the staggered effect though, a ton of your spells target fortitude and brute force should apply to deflection based spells too, so you essentially give yourself a big accuracy bonus (crits mean longer DoTs)

This build isnt really dependent on gear either. You can pretty much run around naked and spiritshift when you get into melee, you essentially already carry your best equipment around for free from the start of the game.

[Constentin Lévine]

57 minutes ago, Porkchopsandwiches247 said:

Not sure if this applies to Returning Storm, its kind of wonky what it applies to.

Sure that work ; Blood and Spirit Frenzy are applied on rolls (crit for Blood Frenzy) and Returning Storm do a roll each time the tempest proc. Contrarily to pure DoT spells like Insect Swarm that have a roll only at the beginning, but it is a status effect that is applied, not a damage roll. That is why that doesnt remove Entropy. 

Because of this spell, druid is the king of DoT imo, but another really nice build focused on DoT I tried is a MC Cipher (Psion) and Druid (Ancient). Disintegrate, Soul Ignition, Plague of Insects ect.

SC Cipher is crazy on solo target DoT by the way, with Death on 1000 cut. And because of Shared Nightmare, my next sentence get an incredible taste :

Another really good stuff for DoT build for all classes is coming from Scrolls, since Shining Beacon, Insect Swarm ans Plague of Insects are available with convenient Arcana.

[Boeroer]

Blood Frenzy and Spirit Frenzy apply to all spells that do a hit roll and either crit (Blood Frenzy) or hit (Spirit Frenzy). A problem is upgrading from Spirit Frenzy to Spirit Tornado: suddenly the stagger effect will no longer work with spells anymore. So either you skip Spirit Toprnado or install the Community Patch (where this behaviour was fixed). Blood Storm doesn't have that problem.

Good point with adding another DoT with Blood Frenzy on top of DoT spells.

Kills by DoT will also trigger Blood Thirst (0 recovery for the next action) by the way. 

Blooded does indeed work with spell damage, including DoT ticks. 

What a Tempest lacks is any form of accuracy improvement. And unless you pick Berserker (which can be nice because all non-Fury druids have plenty of healing options) you'll also lack PEN, at least on PotD. An Ascetic doesn't have these problems (Enduring Dance + Thunderous Blows) and can even give +10 INT and +10 MIG (if Helwalker) or enfeeble for +50% DoT duration (Forbidden Fist). On the other hand quite some Druid DoTs do raw dmg so PEN is a non-issue for those. Also Blood Thirst + DoT's can be really fun to play bc. of what I said above.

Speaking of Forbidden Fist: that's pretty funny in combination with a Druid's own Tanglefoot by the way. With very high RES and some hostile-effect-reduction gear/food and Clarity of Agony you can make it so that you are only hobbled for a very short amount of time (multiple times) and get a lot of wounds from that. Also works well with a Wizard in the party and Binding Web+Dex Resistance (for example as Wood Elf). 

A Ranger with Takdown Combo can apply its +100% dmg bonus to DoT ticks without the effect getting removed (normally Takedown Combo gets removed after the target receives a damaging hit). This can realöly boost the potency of the DoT against single targets. Ranger also has some nice ACC bonuses. So a Ranger/Cipher for example can boost Disintegration with +100% dmg which is really hefty. Ranger/Druid can use it for Taste of the Hunt for example - but apply Takedown Combo AFTER using Taste of the Hunt, else the initial hit roll of TotH will remove the effect of TDC. 

A really good non-caster DoT option besides Rogue is SC Ranger with Whirling Strikes. The DoT ticks are per second (and not like most other DoTs per 3 secs) and they stack with stuff like Bleeding Cuts for example. Sure... SC Ranger is not doing much DoT before reaching PL 8 then - except with Wounding Shot and a DoT weapon maybe (battle axes, Siru Sichr, Effort, Stalker's Patience etc...). So maybe not a preferred pick for somebody who wants to have DoTs all the time - but still good.  Also Bleeding Cuts/Saru Sichr/Effort/etc. will unlock Predator's Sense as a bonus.     

Edited February 7, 2022 by Boeroer

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

I dont notice the lower accuracy on my Tempest too often simply because you can debuff the enemy so much. As long as you have a chanter in your team (I always do lol) you can have A Long Nights Drink on. Between that + Staggered from Spirit Frenzy, youre dropping enemy fortitude by a ton, and most your DoTs target Fort. Then with Brute Force even your autoattacks and some spells will too. And you can always just shout at them or roar at them in bear form to lower their resolve too. The reflex based hits of your storm spells are the only ones to miss out there.

Consequently, Firebug (multi hit bounce)+Fort debuffs+Brute Force+blood frenzy can weirdly start doing a lot of DoT damage. I dont recall if blood frenzy stacks actually, that could be pretty funny to ping pong between two enemies.

Sidenote: as a Forbidden Fist, wouldnt you have so many points in RES and lower INT generally? I feel like that might kill your ability to do long lasting area DoTs, although because of enfeebled you should be fine on single targets.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Porkchopsandwiches247

[Boeroer]

Blood Frenzy doesn't stack unfortunately.

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by Boeroer

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

39 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Blood Frenzy doesn't stack unfortunately.

 

But if DoTs apply their first hit on application (as I think I remember reading), if it gets ‘overwritten’ multiple times on each new application, wouldnt you sort of get a bonus 4 raw damage on every crit? (If you get my meaning)

[thelee]

38 minutes ago, Porkchopsandwiches247 said:

But if DoTs apply their first hit on application (as I think I remember reading), if it gets ‘overwritten’ multiple times on each new application, wouldnt you sort of get a bonus 4 raw damage on every crit? (If you get my meaning)

i believe the way it works is that the game just extends the duration of the debuff, so it doesn't count as a fresh application.

the behavior that you're talking about mostly really works for stacking dots (bleeding cuts, combusting wounds, etc.).

[Porkchopsandwiches247]

Just now, thelee said:

i believe the way it works is that the game just extends the duration of the debuff, so it doesn't count as a fresh application.

the behavior that you're talking about mostly really works for stacking dots (bleeding cuts, combusting wounds, etc.).

That sucks! Lol thanks for the information though.

Getting a pretty reliable DoT on top of tge normal firebug flat damage isnt the end of the world though, still pretty solid.

[Boeroer]

44 minutes ago, thelee said:

i believe the way it works is that the game just extends the duration of the debuff, so it doesn't count as a fresh application.

Right  

[Boeroer]

Speaking of DoTs:

A Furyshaper can summon the Blood Ward. Unlike other health-draining effects like Old Siec - which are quite limited when it comes to draining health from AoE dmg, multihits, DoTs etc. - Blood Ward draws life from any kind of damage you deal, including DoT ticks and... everything basically.
This means that if you build a SC Furyhshaper with a lot of DoT sources (DoT weapon, poison, items like Hylea's Talons, Blood Source, Pather's Leap and so on) there will be a constant stream of incoming healing (as long as in range of the ward). Of course other damage (Carnage, Barbaric Retaliation, Barbaric Smash, Dazing Shout/Driving Roar and whatnot) will add more healing on top, but instantly instead of a steady trickle. Combine with regeneration gear such as Ring(s) of Greater Regeneration maybe and a pet that heals on kill and so on.
Maybe also a nice, unusual basis for a DoT build...? The Bloodsucker!  

Wards can be withdrawn by a fellow Priest and still function just fine. I believe it also works with Beetle Shell - but Withdraw is better bc. of the untargetable effect.   

[masterty66]

On 2/6/2022 at 10:40 AM, thelee said:

i'm surprised druid hasn't got more mention as a dot approach, because druids do butt loads of damage via dots (ignoring cheese*).

 

while druids are pretty exposed to poison/disease immunity, in terms of dots i'd say that the majority of them are not disease/poison keyworded (secretly or not). Insect Swarm and Infestation of Maggots, and IIRC also Touch of Rot & Autumn's Decay are non-disease, non-poison, and using just those alone your druid will do tons of damage in most sitautions. Plague of Insects is the main one that is impacted by disease/poison immunity. (Also depending on how you define "DoT", Wall of Thorns and Venombloom are poison-based). edit: there's also taste of the hunt, but it's single-target.

 

* including cheese, a wizard with combusting wounds and a party full of pulsing effects will do absolute bonkers amounts of damage against anything not fire immune.

I'd echo this. Druids (specifically, Ancients) can do a ton of Dot damage and to a surprisingly more varied enemy list than you'd expect as many of their spells work on things you might not expect them to. Best of all a lot of these spells are foe only aoe and have huge radiuses. 

[Boeroer]

Helwalker/Ancient at 10 wounds and with Duality of Mortal Presence:INT has a ridiculous AoE size with Plague of Insects.  

[Dalzar]

I never player sc ancient before but It Is so much fun. I am playing as a natural godlike and stacking all the Power levels i can ( necklace, potion, litany, spine of The thicket green, prestige).  In my party I  have furyshaper spamming dazing shout and using heart of fury with saru sichr,  sc psion spamming disingrate and secret horrors, vatnir for buffing , willbreaker and Ben fidel, eder for tanking and dots and my barb is the prime healer because the blood ward is insanely good.

 

Only "problem" is ( i am playing with bpm and community patch) that I forget to go melee with avenging storm and nature's terror because enemy keeps melting away.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Dalzar