What does DoT mean in World of Warcraft?

World of Warcraft has many different types of damage and abbreviations, but perhaps one of the most commonly used is DoT.

DoT stands for “damage over time.”

This is used to describe an ability that puts a debuff on a target, continuously dealing damage to it for a set period of time as opposed to dealing all of its damage instantly.

Types of Damage over Time

Frequently spoken as “dots,” damage-over-time effects can be physical or magic.

Physical DoTs can come in the form of bleeds, which are common among warriors, rogues, and feral druids.

At the same time, there are many magic DoTs that characters can do. Most popularly, warlocks and shadow priests are known for their ability to deal damage by “dotting up” enemies.

Managing DoT effects can be important to optimizing your overall damage, but it’s just as important to know when not to use those abilities. Sometimes, DoTs can break important crowd control effects.

Additionally, if you are playing on a Classic server, you may need to watch out for the DoTs you use because of the debuff cap that exists on raid bosses. Especially in 40-man raids, making sure that certain debuffs are on raid bosses at all times takes priority over less impactful DoTs.

DoT is juxtaposed by another commonly used phrase HoT, which stands for “healing over time.”

HoT effects are regularly spoken as “hots.” Most popularly, HoTs are used by healing classes, namely restoration druids.