Understanding DoT (Damage over Time)

What is DoT?

While many special skills have an instantaneous affect, others cause an effect that occurs over multiple turns. Currently, these effects can last anywhere from 2 to 6 turns. Special skills that decrease an opponents health are referred to as DoT, or Damage over Time.

How is DoT inflicted?

Different heroes inflict DoT in various ways. This includes “Burn damage” (see Jahangir, Kelile, and Marjana) and “Poison damage” (see Oberon, Proteus, and Sartana) which is found amongst many heroes including those in season 1 and 2. DoT can also be found on seasonal heroes (such as vampires), challenge heroes (such as Morgan Le Fay), and HOTMs (such as Gravemaker). A full description of the various DoT effects is below. (More information on buffs and ailments can be found at the link below.)

Why does my DoT not match the hero card at the summons gate?

Occasionally, people report that their DoT hero is bugged as their special skill delivers less damage than advertised. This in fact is not a bug, but a feature pertaining to the evolution of heroes. As an example, below is the hero card for Colen (who afflicts “Burn damage”) as found in the summons gate.

image

For heroes that feature DoT, the amount of damage is a function of their base attack stat. In other words, the total damage inflicted will be less than that shown on the “advertised card” until the hero is fully leveled and the special skill is at 8/8. Below is an example of a partially leveled Colen.

image

With the introduction of emblems, it is possible to increase the DoT above that shown on the “advertised card.” This will occur as base attack stats are increased with emblems. Note that if you choose to emblemed the defensive path of the hero, you will not see a change to DoT. Below is an example of an emblemed Colen who has been buffed offensively.

image

How do buffs and troops affect DoT?

While buffs affect slash/tile attacks and special skills, they do not affect DoT damage. For example:

  • Attack buffs (such as that received from Brienne) will increase the initial hit delivered but will not increase the DoT amount.
  • Defense buffs (such as that received from Kiril) will decrease the damage delivered by the initial hit but will not decrease the DoT amount.
  • Counterattacks (such as part of Obakan’s special) will reflect a portion of the initial hit but will not reflect the DoT damage.

While buffs do not affect DoT, troops do. For example, below is an image of Gravemaker’s card with 7 talents following the offensive path. Note the DoT is 310 over 2 turns.

When paired with the following troop that offers a 22% increase to your attack, you can see that this is applied in the field for 378 damage over 2 turns.

Understanding this can help you maximize your use of DoT heroes.

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Thank you for this. I know it now but when I started i thought it was a bug too. I know there’s explanations in other threads but maybe you could do a detailed write up on mana boosts and troops. Like how emblems plus mana boost plus an ally boost can get an average hero from 10 to 9 down to 8 with troops mana boost from emblems and a boost from allies like khagan or Buchan. I think you could get to 7 But forget how. But maybe explain how to find how much more is needed in tiles to lower by one so how much percent boost you need etc. Thanks for this though.

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Thanks for this @littleKAF! It will be very helpful in my alliance. We have many new and learning players and this is absolutely perfect! Appreciate the time you took to put it together.

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Very clear and well explained!

20 well dones.

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I think this gets close. There is a typo in there twice (troop 28 should be troop 29). There are other posts in this thread that discusses some of the things you ask about not in the table (also, the table has raw data to assist with experimentation).

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Thank you. Glad they bumped you to moderator :+1: :star_struck:

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Thanks a lot :+1:

I can resist poison …20… :smiley:

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You are correct. Ranvir can resist poison.

image https://global.discourse-cdn.com/smallgiantgames/original/3X/9/6/966ecaa2895401a27a9fad74433071dd2e2d852e.jpeg

Also, Kingston can resist fire. I didn’t think of these innate abilities.

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thank you, great job! Proteus is one of my main heroes, and though his mana block is the highlight of his skill, it’s still extremely useful to know this as his DOT has won me a few raids.

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Has anyone noticed that the DoT in defense is DoT + Troops + 20%?

image

I have a few other examples with GM, Lady Locke, Morgan Le Fey, and all other DoT heroes.

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Good thread. Learning everyday

Yes, Defense teams have a 20% bonus to attack and defense stats that’s separate from intrinsic base stats and Troops.

As DoT scales with the attack stat, it’s normal that a DoT dealer on Defense has a higher DoT amount than the exact same hero on Offense would, even with the same Troop — and that it would be exactly 20% higher.


adding in additional info from our conversation in Beta about this

Yes, exactly, which has caused a lot of confusion for many people.

You can find mention of this in several other places, e.g.

Plus topics like these:

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Such a clear explanation and a wonderful post. Thank you thank you thank you!!! :pirate_flag::sunglasses::wink:

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Here is an example of damage over time(DOT) featuring two different kinds of it.
@zephyr1 @littleKAF
Feel free to add any explanation if needed.
It clearly shows the health meter draining after each turn on the heroes affected.
I will try to get a fire(burn) example and post that.
Hope this helps.

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Here is another video demonstrating DOT, this one demonstrates burn damage over time. The opposing player also has a DOT hero in Marjana.
Note:
Notice Marjana dying at 3:12 mark from DOT
Hope this helps. @zephyr1 @littleKAF

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Proteus does a lot of DoT but doesn’t appear to do any damage initially, unlike other poison heroes. Not very useful if you’re down to a just him with very few HP (or even a lot of HP) and there’s one enemy with more HP than the first damage Proteus’ attack will inflict. You still lose because the opponent gets a chance to hit back with enough of an attack to kill Proteus before dying.

Proteus isn’t the only one. Natalia is similar and the one of the new HOTM in beta is as well (Jean - fire damage).

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Also, the new HotM for January (Vela) introduces a new DoT type, which is water damage over 4 turns. What I like about DoT is the different types stack (I’ll post a video in a minute).

Question: Do elemental debuffs, like Guardian Flacon’s fire defense debuff, increase the corresponding damage DoT attack (burn for fire)?

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Here you can see burn, poison, and sand twister

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DoT is not affected by elemental buffs or debuffs. The thread below has some good conversation in the subject. DoT is addressed around post 10.

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