Damage over Time

Damage over Time, generally abbreviated as DoT and or simply dot, refers to inflicting some damage on one's foe which will be applied at a regular interval for a limited duration. Typically in World of Warcraft, the damage is applied every X seconds, where X varies from one tick (when periodic damage is dealt once, one interval) to the next. A DoT may be applied using a variety of methods — from a spell, a trap, a weapon, a poison, or some other form. Most DoTs are target specific, but some are also used as Area of Effect (AoE) attacks.

While all damage dealing classes have some form of DoT, the Affliction Warlock and Shadow Priest are most reliant on DoTs as the backbone of their DPS rotation.

See also: Area of Effect, Buff, DD, Debuff, Healing, HoT, Utility.

Discussion
Damage over Time effects are most effective when they are allowed to run their full course. Also, DPS based on multiple DoTs has a significant ramp-up time as it takes several Global Cooldowns to apply them all to a target. As such, DoTs provide sustained DPS, without the "burst damage" of an equivalent Direct Damage attack.

DoTs in PvE are most effective in extended fights against one or more long-lived targets, and least effective in short trash pulls where the targets are downed quickly, or fights that require frequent switching to new targets. DoT-reliant Warlocks and Priests can find it hard to maintain competitive DPS against trash without high-end gear, and will often fall back solely on Area of Effect spells in those situations.

In PvP, DoTs are vulnerable to being dispelled, but have the advantage of continuing to cause damage if the caster is silenced, out of range or even dead. This leads to tactics such as the Warlock's infamous "dot, dot, dot, fear". The target has no chance to dispel the DoTs until they have broken the fear, while the caster is free to heal, run away or cast further offensive spells while their opponent takes damage from the DoTs. To compensate for their vulnerability to being removed before they have fully affected a target, some DoTs will also cause additional damage or other effects if dispelled. The priest DoT Vampiric Touch, when improved with Sin and Punishment, causes the dispeller (and nearby allies) to be feared for 3 seconds, while the warlock DoT Unstable Affliction will damage and silence the dispeller, and the elemental shaman DoT Flame Shock, when improved with Lava Flows, grants the shaman that cast it a powerful haste buff for a few seconds if dispelled.

As of patch 4.0.1, all DoTs can crit, and all spell DoTs and some physical DoTs innately scale with haste. Unlike prior implementations of DoT haste scaling, DoTs do not lose duration when affected by haste. Rather, the game engine will add additional ticks to the DoT to keep the total duration of the DoT as close to the original duration as possible, plus or minus up to half of the (hasted) time between ticks.

Also as of patch 4.0.1, DoTs no longer can be 'clipped'. Previously, if a DoT was refreshed before it had expired, the tick timer was reset, causing a delay of up to double the normal time between ticks between the last tick that occurred and the first tick of the refreshed DoT. Now, the tick timer is constant. If a DoT is refreshed before it expires, the duration of the DoT will be set to the normal total duration plus the remaining time before the next tick. In other words, the ticks will continue to occur at the same time interval as they were, and the new DoT will have the normal total number of ticks, plus one, and have a duration between the normal total duration and the total duration plus one additional tick. This means that refreshing a DoT between the second to last tick and the last tick (the one that occurs as the debuff fades from the target) will result in zero lost damage or wasted globals.

Examples

 * Death Knights with Icy Touch, Plague Strike, and Unholy Blight.
 * Druids with Moonfire and Insect Swarm (in generic caster or Moonkin form), Rip, Rake and Pounce (in Cat Form), and Lacerate (in Bear Form).
 * Hunters with Serpent Sting, Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap as Area of Effect DoT.
 * Mages with Living Bomb, and Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, or Pyroblast (although these are primarily DD spells, they also add a small DoT even when offspec), If specced, fire spells criticals will put on the enemy a dot through Ignite talent which deals 8-40% of the damage done for 4 seconds.
 * Paladins using Seal of Truth and Consecration in a way. If specced, Divine Storm and Judgement spells criticals will put on the enemy a dot through Righteous Vengeance talent which deals 40% of the damage done for 8 seconds.
 * Priests with Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and Devouring Plague.
 * Rogues with Deadly Poison, Garrote, or Rupture.
 * Shamans with Flame Shock (a DD spell with DoT). Magma, and Searing Totems may also be considered DoT (or AoE).
 * Warlocks with Immolate, Corruption, Curse of Agony, Curse of Doom, Seed of Corruption, or Unstable Affliction.
 * Warriors with Rend, also if specced, their melee criticals will apply a Deep Wound that deals 60% of weapon damage.

Limitations

 * Most spell-based or poison-based DoTs can be cured by potions or dispelled.
 * Most methods of Crowd Control are broken if the target has a DoT on them.

Tips

 * Rogues and Cat Form Druids who stealth while a DoT is still on them will come out of stealth when the next tick of damage is inflicted. Vanish will briefly prevent DoTs from pulling a rogue out of stealth.
 * First Aid and Fishing will be interrupted by a DoT.