Riot has basically said they don't like DoTs because they lack clarity:

• As the caster, it's hard to appreciate how much damage they do.
• When hit by one, it's hard to tell how much damage it's going to do.

Both of these are NOT problems with DoT, they're problems with how we show DoT in game.

#The real problem is there is no visual indicator of how much TOTAL damage a DoT will do.

There's a really simple solution. When you get hit by a DoT, your health bar immediately shows how much damage you WILL take in a different color (kind of like Tahm's grey health shows how much shield you WILL get). Then this hp ticks down while the DoT runs. Here's a really quick mockup:

http://i.imgur.com/Tz9HvyU.png

######I know this particular example might not work well for color-blind people, but we can change the colors in color-blind mode.

2015.6.17 Edit

Since some people have been discussing things like "What if they get shielded during the DoT?", here's an alternative design that works better with shields:

http://i.imgur.com/yNghdzP.png

http://i.imgur.com/BfaHbXA.png

2016.07.03 Edit in Response to Riot Reinboom

[{quoted}](name=Riot Reinboom,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=i2xERtsd,comment-id=003b,timestamp=2015-09-15T04:40:20.853+0000)

I like these types of clarity gains. :3

I experimented with something akin to this (in a few different iterations) earlier in the year for different effects. We ran into some problems with it, namely along the lines of it feeling really bad when it was wrong. We have a lot of small adjustments that can make damage prediction not be accurate. Examples: Resistances can change a lot (like going in and out of Abyssal Range). This was especially bad when the dot types were mixed (e.g. true damage and magic damage). Penetration isn't consistent. It looked REALLY weird when interacting with shields.

-snip-

Getting accurate prediction is just a hurdle though. So this isn't a "we won't do it", but more like it was uniquely difficult enough that we just focused on something else for the time being.

Here's an idea that I believe addresses these concerns:

On hit:

https://i.imgur.com/LWyzkB9.png

As the DoT ticks down:

http://i.imgur.com/rfWO6RR.png

This solves the "prediction is inaccurate" problem in a different way. Instead of making prediction more accurate, it makes the display less precise. Take this example:

http://i.imgur.com/e5MMZKE.png

Is Kat going to die, or live with a sliver of health left afterwards?

She's going to live. There's 1 pixel of health bar left at the end.

Prediction doesn't need to be perfect; it just needs to be as good as the way you display that information. And perfect information is not needed to make DoTs feel impactful.

2017-10-27 edit

A strict wedge might make it hard to see shields if there's a long-running DoT. You could mitigate this by colorizing the top part, instead, or aligning the bottom of the wedge to 1/4 of the way up the hp bar, instead of all the way at the bottom.