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Are magic DoTs useful in any situation? Anyone I've ever heard says they're not; that it's better to simply keep recasting the appropriate spell. Perhaps an option stanza could be introduced at level 100, 125, 150, or so elemental magic that (for a reasonably high cost) allows offensive channeled spells not to be channeled. They could be cast like normal spells.
Low levels of this stanza would artificially cancel the DoT earlier (assuming the spell hadn't been resisted already, or however damage DoTs are canceled normally apart from the player breaking the channel). I expect it would be best if the number of active DoTs per player was limited, either statically to 1 or to some low number, higher in higher levels of the anti-channel stanza.
Perhaps AoE stanzas could be added to magic DoTs, too, with the DoT being broken if _any_ mob/player resists?

Edit: Damage channeled spells only. I'm not suggesting afflictions have these modifications.

Make channeled spells not channeled? So make them direct damage? :o

My first suggestion to make DoTs more useful would be "don't have walking break the link". That'd make them an interesting tactical difference from Direct Damage spells.

But yeah, one way or the other they need to be made more useful.

*sigh* How often have I wished for that. When soloing, the link spells are utterly useless to me. The discrepancy between my level and the areas I try to walk (=hide & run) through is to high. I've reached 198K death penalty right now ;-)

If I could at least walk while I cause an animal to fear me that would make my life much livelier. I wouldn't want to make it easy though: Let this be costly. Introduce a new stanza, similar to "concentrate", that is more like "concentrate and mutlitask" (I'm bad in providing concise names). That stanza is of course levelled (like all stanzas), and puts a high debit on the action. So you need to pay with lots of sap/hp/time/etc credits to make use of it. It would make sense that walking while keeping a mental link to an aggressor intact is very strenuous.

I personally think that we already got magic in movement implemented by weapon enchantments. I would prefer to make the dot damage increase over time, reaching a level slightly above double nuke damage (dps).

This would make dots an alternative when link stability is not the issue (ie. your target is below your elemental level). Using dots would take away your freedom to drop in a heal or do any other actions while channeling damage. But it could be an alternative in many situations where the best option is stupidly hitting one key over and over again now (and almost falling asleep). It would require much attention to deal dps above the double nuke level. And it would probably deprecate the cast breaking exploit to increase dps.

No, make them like bleed where you hit, then it keeps doing damage for a time unless you kill the mob.
I like this. Casting anything while walking was a favorite skill of mine of one class in a class-based RPG I've played. As long as you had that skill (the stanza in the spell here), you could walk while casting, just slower: up to 75% of normal walking speed. There was no extra casting cost (I do think it should cost here). If the point's really to make DoTs more useful compared to direct damage spells, I'd think something like this should only be able for DoTs. Perhaps higher levels of the Free [libre] Cast stanza (copying the other MMO's name) would allow faster movement at a higher cost.

You mean like 'Fear' and 'Root' spells? I've always thought that they should stay as they are. I was frustrated by the link breaking when I was training spells on Silan, but I can see the logic behind this. The 'Root' spell for instance works best with a team, where one player roots the target to the spot (repeatedly if necessary) and the other (s) dance around firing off acid or poison (or whatever) spells from a safe distance. I use 'Fear' to buy me time so I can change weapon, armour etc.

The only ones I'm talking about are the DoTs (Damage over Time). That is acid damage over time, ice damage over time, etc., not afflictions.

Ah, that could be interesting too.
We could have that AND my suggestion as two completely different kinds of DoTs, even. Finally get a wide variety of tactical choices around here :D
Same here. DoTs are not afflictions.

The most simple and IMO reasonable solution would be to make the DoT's only breakable by direct hit from a mob. Just like it interrupts you while casting direct damage, it would only interrupt your DoT by either hitting you, or going away to more than your-casting-distance.

Some damage adjustments might be needed for that (possibly to nerf DoT further), but it would at least make some sense, and give some use to it while soloing.

This way if you put DoT on something and know the place well to not run into other agros, or social helpers, you could use it. If the mob is fast, or you have no idea if you'll run into other mobs, use direct damage. This would involve player skill (i.e. not the character skill), and would be fun to master.

Or if you have a tank keeping a mob, you could also DoT for the period (costing you sap for sure), which is also a reasonable team play between either healing, or helping to kill it quicker.

DoT's should work like bleed - single hit makes an enemy take damage over time without the link needed. Otherwise it's not damage over time , but more like Damage when Linked. That way an DoT Missile spell would deal direct damage AND damage overtime without linking, so you could cast the next DoT spell whioch Would (or wouldnt) stack against the previous DoT (afaik Bleed stacks - so should DoT's).