Damage Over Time (Darkest Dungeon II)

Damage Over Time or DOT is a combat mechanic in Darkest Dungeon II.

## Overview

🔸DOTs are harmful effects inflicted on Heroes and enemies via skills and combat items. Typical DOT effects include **Bleed**, **Blight**, and **Burn** (excluding **Strangle**, a unique DOT). These effects can stack and deal a fixed amount of damage on the targets whenever they start their turn. Similar to most **Debuffs**, DOT effects last for 3 turns and has a 100% chance to be inflicted via all skills by default. Heroes can increase said chance by equipping certain trinkets. If a DOT attack is a critical hit, the DOT effect of the attack will ignore 20% DOT Resistances of the target and last for 2 additional turns if it manages to bypass Resistances. Unlike physical damage, DOT values can not be reduced by any means - it can only be completely negated by DOT Resistances. Due to its damage-per-turn mechanic, DOT is particularly handy for wearing down enemies with multiple actions per turn and killing ones with **Death Blow** Resistance (who are already on **Death's Door**). DOT will not take effect when a target it affects uses skills that does not expend an action (**Worship** of Evangelist and Cherub, for example).

### 🔸DOT Resistances

* The **Bleed**, **Blight**, and **Burn** Resistances (RES) are displayed as **BLD**, **BLGT**, and **BURN**, respectively. DOTs have a chance to be negated by respective DOT Resistances of targets they affect. For example, an enemy or Hero with 20 **BLD** Resistance has 20% chance to resist a **Bleed** effect whenever they are hit by a skill with default DOT chance (100%) that inflicts **Bleed**.

* It is important to increase the DOT Resistances of Heroes as many DOT effects can easily wear Heroes down if stacked several times. Some enemy skills can inflict particularly huge DOT effects, such as Deacon's **Exultation** (10) or Lord's **Bilious Cannon** ( 6). Heroes can boost their DOT Resistances via skill **Buffs** (Plague Doctor's  **Ounce of Prevention**), trinkets (Heat Shield) as well as combat and Inn items (Clotting Poultice). In addition, the DOT Resistances of a Hero can be increased or decreased depending on their positive or negative Relationship with other Heroes. As such, achieving multiple positive Relationships gives Heroes a much better chance of withstanding DOT attacks. Each positive/negative Relationship will increase/decrease all DOT Resistances of a Hero by 5.

* DOT Resistances can be reduced by **Debuffs** from certain skills (such asOccultist's upgraded  **Malediction** or Whipper's **Infernal Taskmaster**) and combat items (such as Toxic Ichor).

### 🔸DOT Removal

* All DOT effects will be automatically removed from all Heroes whenever a battle ends. DOTs can also be removed by combat items and certain skills. In combat, Heroes can entirely remove **Bleed**, **Blight**, and **Burn** from themselves when they use Bandages, Antivenom, and Burn Salve, respectively. Medicinal Herbs can remove all DOTs at once.

* Plague Doctor and Hellion are so far the only Heroes that possess skills capable of curing DOTs ( **Battlefield Medicine** and  **Adrenaline Rush**, respectively). Some enemies, such as Evangelist and Cherub, can use **Worship** onDeacon and Cardinal to clear all DOTs from them.

### 🔸Forced DOT Triggering

* Typically, DOT only deals damage at the start of its target's turn. However, some Heroes and enemies can use their skills to force DOT to deal most (or all) of its damage instantly (and remove the DOT in some cases). The damage dealt is counted as physical damage. For example, if an enemy is currently suffering from a **Bleed** effect for 3 turns (5 damage for each turn), a skill capable of triggering 100% of **Bleed** amounts will instantly deal 15 physical damage to said enemy.

* Plague Doctor andRunaway are so far the only Heroes that can instantly trigger DOT on targets by using  **Cause of Death** (affects all basic DOT types) and  **Backdraft** (only affects **Burn**), respectively.  **Cause of Death** can trigger 75 - 100% of DOT amounts, while  **Backdraft** can trigger 50 - 75% of said amounts. Unlike  **Cause of Death**,  **Backdraft** does not remove DOT and its damage dealt to a target does not directly derive from the DOT amount on the target, but rather from the DOT on an enemy standing in front of the target. Her Ladyship, a unique variant of the Immolatist, possesses the **Combustion** skill which can trigger and remove all **Burn** amounts on a target.

### 🔸**Strangle**

* The unique DOT effect, **Strangle**, has differrent mechanics and is exclusive to the Dreaming General's Tap Root. **Strangle** can not be resisted and will only affect Heroes if they stand on a Rank with 3 **Tangled Growth** effects applied to it. After the first turn of combat, Tap Root will use **Creeping Growth** to apply 1 **Tangled Growth** on 2 random Ranks. Once applied on a Hero, **Strangle** deals 2 damage per turn, increased by 2 for each turn it remains on said Hero. After being removed and re-applied, the damage value will reset back to 2.

* The main way to remove **Strangle** is hitting the Tap Root with any skill or combat item - for each hit, Tap Root will use **Receding Growth** to remove 2 **Tangled Growths** from a random Rank with at least 2 **Tangled Growths**. The other way, which is far more dangerous, is letting the Dreaming General use **Nightmare**, which will remove 2 **Tangled Growths** from all Hero Ranks at once. **Nightmare** will only be used if all said Ranks have 3 **Tangled Growth** effects. The first **Tangled Growth** effect inflicted on all Ranks on the first turn of combat can not be removed and will last for the entire duration of the battle against the Dreaming General.

### 🔸Reginal DOT Focus

* Depending on regions that Heroes traverse, they will encounter regional enemies with different focuses on DOT and DOT Resistances. The Plague Eaters in the Foetor region possess particularly high **Blight** Resistances and primarily inflict **Blight** via their skills. The Lost Battalion in the Tangle focuses on dealing **Bleed** while having high **Bleed** Resistance. In the Sprawl, **Burn** will be a dominant DOT threat as all Fanatics are **Burn**-resistant and can inflict **Burn**, mostly after they use **Ignite!**. In the Mountain region, the Cultists will mostly inflict **Bleed** and have low DOT Resistances overall.

## List of DOT Skills

### 🔸DOT Skills of Heroes

* Many Heroes introduced in Darkest Dungeon II possess skills that can inflict DOT on enemies, while some completely lack said skills (Man-at-Arms andLeper). Each Hero has their own focus on a DOT effect. For example, thePlague Doctor's skillset places emphasis on **Blight**, while theRunaway entirely focuses on dealing **Burn**. ThePlague Doctor and theOccutltist are so far the only Heroes capable of inflicting all basic DOT effects.

* Some Heroes can apply DOT effects on themselves or their teammates using their skills, which only include  **Ruin** (Leper) (upgraded) and  **Wyrd Reconstruction** (Occultist).

* In some cases, a skill does not directly apply DOT on enemies. Instead, it allows other skills and item uses to inflict DOT. The only skills with such mechanic are  **Firestarter** (Runaway) and  **Malediction** (Occultist).  **Firestarter** enables a Hero to inflict **Burn** on enemies through their own skills and items, while  **Malediction** forces an enemy target to receive a random DOT effect each time it takes damage.