Why were DoTs nerfed in PVP?

I took a break from this game back in September when Destiny came out. I came back to the game in March, and it turns out that either the duration or damage of all DoTs was reduced against players. To most powers this isn't a huge deal as most would only have 1 DoT in their loadout, but as an Electricity player, this is a crippling blow to the powerset overall. Not only are ALL DoTs excluded from WM crit bonuses, but they've ALL been nerfed as well. Why did the developers do this? Did the developers just forget about the DoT powersets completely when doing this? I just don't get the logic behind this. There are a lot of overpowered abilities in PVP, from Fire Tank's healing ability to HL stuns and stupidly short vulnerability windows, not to mention Nature's wolf form. But DoTs were certainly not gamebreaking the way they were before they were nerfed.

DoT's are considered "safe damage". Being able to deal large sums of damage over a period of time without the need of opening up to counters. Not to mention DoT's deal continuous damage even after the user is countered.
This was done in overall to promote a more risk vs reward environment in PvP.

Season 3 brought out many many welcome changes and unfortunately some very unwelcome changes. I can't tell you why, DoT stacking was never a problem I encountered. I believe it was part of an effort to have arenas mirror legends.

Have we seen any sort of payoff? Mepps can be quoted on how what has been done for PVP hasn't exactly increased participation.

DoTs being nerfed is not the reason PvP's population is not increasing. It is due to constant ignorment of feedback and allowing PvE mechanics to run rampant in PvP.

Well you'll always hear more threads about what is wrong with PvP than "thank you" threads.

Even when GU47 fixes combat responsiveness, AM/WM imbalances, and Legends Imbalances are still a huge problem. Fixing CC/Breakouts was only part of the problem. PvP still has a ways to go. I just hope GU47 at least brings back a few more people to PvP again.

Not to mention the busted breakouts that turned quite a few people off from it. They've been broken, in 3 days from now, exactly 8 months. They've been broken for roughly 15% of this game's lifespan now, which is pretty damn absurd. At least we're finally getting a fix though.

As per the topic at hand, it was meant to increase the risk/reward aspect of the game. Part of the problem though is that the developers simply performed a blanket nerf to them, without really taking into account things such as vulnerability and a player's ability to avoid the DoT.

Because apparently only HL, Rage and burst power matter. So much for variety in PVP. There's a reason everyone is only 3 powers now. I thought this was DCUO, not PrecisionUO lol.

If my enemy receives the blue immunity from countering me after I have applied a DoT to them, they don't continue to take damage from the DoT until the immunity has expired. Also, in the Electricity AM, there are 2 points of obvious vulnerability (Arc Lightning, and Voltaic Bolt). It's hardly "safe damage" IMO. Also, unlike with burst damage, the recipients of a DoT attack has the time to heal or shield themselves through the bulk of the damage after the move has been applied, or even avoid it completely (in the case of AOEs). I think this was a bad move on the dev's part.

I believe the DoT nerf was meant for powers such as Nature and Rage, which you can obviously imagine why. Though instead of bringing out individual powers they took all of them down together.

Well, thanks for giving me a clear answer to the question guys. Guess it just comes down to dev oversight (or some other unknown gamebreaking variable we weren't aware of that was making Electricity way overpowered in PvP ). I think it's fair to say that whenever the devs make some kind of sweeping change to PVP, it always benefits or cripples some powers more than others, and only leads to more imbalance. We saw this in the agnostic gear and what it's done for Fire Tanks compared to other tanks. And we can see it in the DoT nerf that has crippled Electricity in an attempt to balance other powers. I just hope the devs look into this. But who am I kidding lol.

Fire tanking wasn't an issue until it got it's own restoration increase and the devs didn't bother to adjust it's healing in PvP. It really has nothing to do with gear.

So Fire Tanks aren't OP due to the healer level resto they have thanks to the agnostic gear?

They became powerful no doubt, but did not enter the realm of OP until Gu43.

Again, no. When GU41 hit they were actually at pretty acceptable levels, WITH the agnostic gear. The issue came down the line when the devs gave fire it's restoration changes without actually adjusting the amount of healing fire gets in PvP. Even if they did have role gear, they still would have had to adjust the restoration on it to put it at acceptable levels, and the whole issue with having to manage multiple sets of gear would have been solved had they simply reduced Fire's healing percentage in PvP.

So no, either way something would have had to have been adjusted at some point to balance out the increase in restoration.

Ahh I see. Thank you (and The Enquirer) for the explanation

This is just my speculation but it would appear that the Last Laugh DLC (and it's failure) has caused Arena PvP to become persistent back-burner concern for the development team.

As I have said before. PvP fixes are like food rations during an apocalypse.

Yeah I wouldn't dispute this. PvP seems to be generally an afterthought in this game. The entire AM system and how they are (not) balanced in PvP is testament to that.

It's evident that when it comes to PvP feedback, the developers tend to cherry pick through the feedback. We're here now because they listened too feedback. Shields and reflections were nerfed thanks to feedback. PvE trinkets and consumables were taken out thanks to feedback. HT mods and trinkets were removed thanks to feedback.... Need I continue?

It's true that certain combat functions haven't been optimal for quite some time which has been a deterrent. That doesn't negate the fact that they have responded to players wishes and still no grand PvP mode full of life. But of course a buggy combat system may just be the root of it all.