Making a Damage over time spell interesting

[Devalut]

Here's what I got so far:

Spoiler

Lichfire - level 1

Causes 8 + (10% INT) spell damage per second for 7 seconds.

-Each tick of damage spreads to 1 new target with the source's remaining duration, maximum of 5 targets.

- Should the target should die under the effects of Lichfire, all nearby enemy units will become afflicted with a fresh Lichfire with 2 + (10% INT) added to their current duration.

5 second cooldown

Want to add some synergy or at least some mechanics/minigame since this would be for a long dungeon crawl like map.

Any thoughts on interesting stuff would be welcome!

 

[cleavinghammer]

Is it a spell for a boss or a player character?

Does it spread to any random target or just those in close range?

For a long game, maybe something that does increasing amounts of damage (and HP to 1) but with longer intervals, like 500 every 5 minutes.

 

[Devalut]

The map is a large dungeon crawl with varying difficult units

- For a hero
- spreads to one random target (within 450 range)

 

[Michael Peppers]

I assume you're going with some sort of standard rpg with skill trees and such. Imo the best way to add synergy is to make the spells grant additional effects to the ones further down the skill tree, for example:

Spoiler: Example

Lich's Curse
Causes x units in a medium area to be slowed down by 30%
If a unit affected by Lich's Curse is hit with Lichfire it will suffer double damage from that spell and spawn a skeletal minion after death

Of course the additional effect could be anything, from increased damage to a faster spread of the Lichfire between units affected by that debuff. Be creative!

 

[Devalut]

Oh I do like that (Mr. Peppers)

Unfortunately it's limited to 5 spells as I'm not too advanced to create a skill tree!

Currently for the Necromancer I have:
Innate: Summons a strong single summon skeleton that gains stats based on the hero, (Dies if new skeleton is created as I don't want the player having a legion to deal with.)
Reg1: Aoe periodic damage and then delayed blast (Recycled from Spell request, Damage heavily reduced of course), I'm kind of leaning for this to be the ultimate, but generic aoe large boom is rather lack luster.
Reg2: Bone Armor - Diablo 2 clone, simple defensive ability that can give some beef to allies and self
Reg3: this ability I'm trying to boost up a bit
Ult: Undecided

Edit: I'm now really liking the curse idea, I think I will move the Skeletal summon to the ult and simply make it absorb corpses and kills into it's strength, then move Lichfire to the innate, Perhaps 1.5% or something lower of the target's missing health will be decent in the late stages!

A simple Aoe curse, double damage from lichfire, and a short lived skeletal summons.
Marvelous, thank you!

 

[Michael Peppers]

Glad to help

 

[noob]

How much int would the caster get?
Maybe if there is a hero with reliable ways to move opponents you can start tagging all the monsters in the dungeon.

 

[Devalut]

Mmm, That's just strictly balance later on, as the damage was really intended to be every half second instead of each full second.

Although I like that idea of spreading an existing cast, I"ll do some tests.

 

[Astrella]

Spreading is a thing you can do. Different conditions could work together in certain ways, e.g. if you are soaked in oil and set on fire the fire condition might do extra damage. Things that happen when other abilities happen, e.g. a DoT heal that heals extra whenever the original caster casts another spell or hits an enemy with a spell. DoTs that refresh under certain conditions, etc...

HoTs does a lot of interesting things with DoT's in my opinion.

 

[Devalut]

Im not too familar with hots, do you know any that come to mind?