When I was a young gamer, I always thought spells/abilties in RPGs that dealt damage per turn were super annoying. they usually never went away after the fight and would still afflict the character when the next battle popped up unless taken care of previous. I would try and quickly kill any enemies that cast those abilities so I wouldn't have to deal with it.
When I got into World of Warcraft:Burning Crusade I was instructed by my older brother to roll a Warlock and at level ten to pick the 'Affliction' specialization. He wanted to see how Warlocks played at max level but wasn't willing to take the time to play one and so gave me the duty to level to 70. I casted my spells and watched the spells 'tick' as the monster took damage from the spells at the same time I was attacking it with other abilities making the battles go by quickly.
Used the Talent Calculator on Wowhead
I suddenly realized how great Damage over Time was as I started throwing my DoTs on enemies at a higher level and being able to take it down With a little bit of effort (and my Voidwalker!). The feeling of accomplishment over defeating a tough enemy was exciting and allowed me to blow past enemies/quests that other classes had difficulty with dealing straight damage.
The appeal of slowly draining my enemies of their health stuck with me as I found myself PvPing and watching my DoTs tick as the fight progresses and suddenly the enemy would realize they were about to die from the DoTs and quickly try to save themselves. It was incredibly funny watching their characters run away before dropping to the ground as the last DoT ticked and their health hits 0.
Maybe that makes me sound a little sadistic but it is amazing how many players forget to check their health bar as a skirmish progresses and I recognize when the player has that realization that their health is suddenly(to them) low and they try to pop all of their healing spells/items to try and stay alive.
As my gaming progressed past WoW I found that I've kept up my preference for DoTs.Not in any order but in New World(applying bleed DoT with the Rapier/spear), Hunt:Showdown (Causing bleeding and Poison with different bullet types), Diablo/Last Epoch(Speccing gear/abilities into DoT spells/abilities) and other games I just find myself going down the 'Damage over Time' damage type.
Perfect if I had trouble surviving against a specific minion type. Img Source
I've recently started playing 'Wizard With A Gun', Where the population uses projectile based weaponry with enchanted bullets, and out of all the damage types/combos available, I allocated my resources down the 'poison/warlock' bullet/path.
Surprisingly fun game! Would recommend.
Need to farm the materials for more poison
When starting a new game I was given a choice of difficulty and I chose one that was harder than I expected. I find myself focusing on maneuvering and dodging more than actually aiming my weapon. Well my choice to focus on 'Damage over Time' hasn't failed me yet, I pop a particularly tough enemy with a few Poison rounds and spend the next few minutes dodging and kiting while maintaining their DoT stack with 'carefully' placed shots(I am just shooting in their general direction).
Out of range but those DoTs are still ticking!
The boss hits extremely hard but I got poison stacks on them. I am trying to roll while shooting.
It's partially my fault for choosing the difficulty but the attacks in this game hit my character pretty hard and I lose all my acquired items on death! Can't let that happen but I also don't want to be in range of their attacks while I am engaging them. So DoTs are here to save my day!
I just love the mechanics of DoTs in games, how they interact with different enemies and how they seem unimportant until they really ramp up the damage per tick. It also sets a timer in a fight which can cause impressive enemy players to make a mistake as they now have to think about more than the fight itself if they can't manage to defeat me in a timely manner. Ironically, I have become the dreaded enemy I hated in those older RPGs as after that initial fight if I meet an enemy in combat again I find myself being the focus target in a skirmish by multiple players, because nobody wants to deal with DoTs.
I don't know if other players have a preferred damage type when it comes to games but I would be interested to read any comments for others.
Thank you for reading.
Happy Gaming!