It's safe to say that I'm ridiculously pumped for the release of the WoW minis game. Unfortunately, it's still a ways away and I have a lot of questions about the game! So I've decided to start a series of posts about possible game play elements that have yet to be discussed or completely revealed. For the record, everything I'm speculating is just that--speculation.

First topic: Dots & Hots. This topic was inspired by what John wrote in today's news post.

*5. Type: There are a few different types of Action Bar cards. For example, some cards are attacks, some are heals, and some are buffs or debuffs. As you can see, Flash of Light is a heal card, so a character plays it to heal damage from a target.

Do you think Hots/Dots they will be in the game? Or are the buffs/debuffs just armor/resist increasers? How do you think they'll work? Oh, and for those of you unfamiliar, we're talking about Damage over time and Healing over time.

Here's my vision of how it might go down:
I think dots/hots would fit well in a game in which time is governing body. The question is, how to execute them? The first part is how the damage is calculated against resists (heals aren't resisted so I'll talk about them later). I can see it going one of two ways. 1) It's calculated like an attack. A Priest uses Shadow Word: Pain on Vindicator Hodoon (because we know his resist). SW:P would most likely be in the box instead of an action card in this type of setup. Let's say SW:P gives a 6 die roll with a crit giving +1 dmg (which I know is boring so someone please come up with something cooler!). So the priest rolls, and he gets all 6 hits, no crits. Now Hodoon rolls his resist and lucky him, he gets both, leaving 4 dmg getting through. Hodoon will now have that 4 dmg spread over X amount of time (I'll talk about time in a minute). 2) A Warlock uses Corruption on Hodoon. In this example, Corruption would be an action bar card because it doesn't require a roll from the Warlock. Corruption would do something like 8 dmg over X amount of time, doing 1 or 2 dmg at each interval (I haven't which dmg amount would be more balanced. Thoughts?). However, at each interval when dmg is done, a resist roll is made, as opposed to one resist roll at the beginning. With this method, Hodoon could resist all the dmg from the dot.

But what will the time intervals be? I think it could be three things: 1)Every time the caster of the dot/hot has a turn 2)Every time the target of the hot/dot has a turn 3)Once every so many ticks of the game clock after every character has had a turn that round (i.e. If Hodoon has a dot on him that is supposed to do dmg on GC tick 3, but Ruby has a turn on 3, Hodoon won't take dmg until after Ruby has moved). Also, concerning hots, they would just heal however much dmg over each time interval.

Which methods do I like? I like both of the damage calculators. I think different abilities will call for different resist rolls. For time intervals, I like the third because it can be adjusted for different strengths of dots/hots. A weak dot may hit for 3 ticks in a row for a small amount of dmg. A strong dot may hit for more dmg, but only once every 4 ticks, 3 times total.

If dots were included in the game, there would also need to be a way to remove the dots. Of course there could be an action bar card and/or a box ability to do this. There could also be a method of removal if you go with the 2nd method of rolling resists (the one with multiple resist rolls). Something like if you roll a crit on a dot resist you dispell the dot.

I'd love to know what you guys think about this!

I play a druid so Dots and Hots are important to me and Id love to see them in game, and I think your spot on the dot about time being the governing body of these rules and how they will fit in :)

I planned out some rules under my Illidan for WoW minis thread as my interpretation of how I'd do things like standing in AoE damage that ticks. For example Illidans Flamecrash - That left an AoE marker that would damage everyone on or adjacent to that hex, and placed 3 DOT markers at regular time intervals on the main clock (in this case placed at intervals of 2 ticks each), anyone in the AoE would roll damage against them when the game clock reached those time intervals.

As for a heal over time, it would come in Actionbar card form I'd guess, so when you cast it on someone, you tap the card and place it on their character card to show it in effect then similar to the above - place Hots markers at time intervals on the game clock to show when effects pop.

The catch with that though is if you have lots of effects going, it could become confusing with keeping track of whos Hot is that, whos DoT is that etc, and clutter up the Game Clock and bog down a fast playing game - hopefully there will be a nice clean and elegant way to compliment the Base10 system.

Having it pop everytime someone activates might be less cluttered, but doesnt give a regulated time effect - Hots and Dots are supposed to tick at a constant time, so if you swing with your massive axe it will take longer before your heal effect or damage effect kicks in.

Just a quick thought, you could use a UBase with an empty model stand to count the time of a DoT.  Fow example, if it lasts for 6 ticks and goes off once every other tick you set the HP dial to 6 and the clock dial to 2 plus the current turn.  Then every turn you reduce the HP dial and when the the GC matches the clock dial you enact its effect and move the clock dial up by 2.  With a system like that I think you could make the language on the card a little clearer.

I guess we will see something simple - I imagine a tick every time the game time goes to 5 and 10.

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WoW Rules Knowledge Level 2
Player Management Level 2