A percentage of a percentage is always going to be a weak relative increase.
to be fair, if DoTs simply stacked in intensity, it wouldn’t be much of a problem
for some reason, i thought BL2 DoTs did that, and didn’t just refresh the duration, i thought i read somewhere that said they stacked up to 6 times in that game, but i honestly can’t remember
in this game, there’s definitely no stacking in intensity at all, it’ll only refresh the duration
but, yes, while a percent of a percent is a low number, a lot of low numbers can still add up to a big number over time, and “over time” is… literally in the name of DoT, so you’d expect a DoT’s strength to be in the “over time” aspect, as in, having it be backloaded
quick math/long rant time
i have a Bitch that hits for 226, with a 285 radiation proc, while the fire rate is 10/s, and reload is 3s
radiation lasts for 8 seconds
10 shots a second with a 50 mag size means i have to reload every 5 seconds, for 3 seconds, which is also 8 seconds
assuming those timings are perfect and everything is 100%, radiation would only deal 2,280 DoT damage every time the gun itself dealt 11,300 damage, and that’s ignoring crits
that sounds like absolute hot flaming garbage
but if DoTs stacked to, let’s say, like, 10?
the first second, after 10 shots, assuming each proc’d, it’d deal 2,850 damage, give or take the in-betweeny-damage because of the way DoTs deal their damage, i think they’re in packets of 3 times a second, and how the timing would connect them, but, yea
with the remaining 4 seconds left for the entire clip to empty, the radiation procs would deal 11,400 damage, totaling to 14,250
then, during 3 seconds of reloading, dealing an additional 8,550 damage
so by the time the weapon dealt 11,300 damage, and was ready to go with the next reload, the DoT would have dealt 22,800 damage
that’s A LOT in comparison, a little over twice as much
now, if we reduce the DoTs damage by half, or make it only stack to 5 instead of 10, assuming some odd balancing takes place, that’d still be 11,400 damage being dealt from 10 shots, in the same time the Bitch got to fire its entire clip for 11,300, and reload
again, assuming first 10 triggered each hit, which is unlikely, so while it sounds strong, it’s not “that” strong
and then, again again, we’re also not counting crits, which would still favor the actual guns damage, because i don’t believe critting on a status proc’d hit increases the DoTs damage
but that IS what’s supposed to be the pros and cons to these, or, at least, you’d expect it to be;
the benefit of direct hits is it’s frontloaded, and can crit for more damage
the benefit of a DoT is that it’s backloaded, meaning while you do other things, such as action abilities, swap weapons for other elements, take cover, loot, etc, you can still deal the damage
the cons to a direct shot would be that you need to crit to make the most out of it, and you need to be constantly firing to make the most out of it
the cons to a DoT would be that you can’t burst something down as fast as direct shots
that’s what a DoT should be doing, but that’s not how it works at all in this game, i’m pretty sure that most of the time, besides a few VERY SPECIFIC things, such as the Cutsman, the melee 100% chance burn relic, and… well, while leveling up to 50, DoT damage is so negligible, you could effectively have a 0 status effect chance in this game, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING would change in your experience at level 50 Mayhem 3
plus, as an added note, Amara, being the elemental powerhouse that she is, is able to have that DoT duration doubled, and even further than double due to class mods, allowing it to backload even more damage, which is exactly what you’d expect from the elemental character, or at least, in my opinion
this would give her even more access to even more time to do everything else, such as swap weapons for different elements, save ammo, do other actions, shoot other enemies, etc
plus, applying other weak elements such as from the Tsunami or Conflux —if it scaled well— would also be… interesting, if they stacked, even if they dealt like half or even 25%
25% twice is still half, and we have 4 DoT types in this game, so that’s still really powerful
-shrug-
it just seems like this game favors big damage modifiers for insta-crit-kills on everything, even bosses
it’s basically fine, that’s how BL2 was, and i still enjoyed thousands of hours in that game, and i’m expecting the same out of this game, but, meh
as a bonus edit side note of a side note involving Amara:
infusion dealing 40% damage would also still be really powerful, if DoTs stacked
assuming you hit for 1,000 damage, you hit for 600 base and 400 elemental, then maybe 200/s or even 100/s DoT, that 200/s or 100/s racking up to 2,000/s or 1,000/s is still also lot, and this is also ignoring other elements being available to do the same