For an EG druid on a boss kill that lasts for a few minutes, I will agree that DOT's can come to about half of a druids total damage, hence the need for stacking, as without the stacks thats a large portion of a druids DPS gone.Half of the druids skill dmg is from DOTs and storm touch gets evaded constantly and typically doesn't do much dmg over strike and has an insane cool down which CD reduction gear doesn't help a lot unless it's godly which we know how often godly/void items drop. So if you aren't relying on tic dmg, then you only have 2 skills left and 1 is slow and evades a lot. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean.Any Druid relying on DOTS to kills mobs is leveling slower than they need to. Even solo DOTS should only get one, maybe 2 tics max. The burst skills work much better for short term kills like lixing while DOTs really only carry their weight at end game.
nerfing dots nerfs the speed of druid leveling more than it already is
If you just switch to vines having the same cast time as bees and bees the same duration as vines with an initial dmg on cast like rend, then it helps with leveling slightly as there are less interruptions. Then give storm touch the same cooldown and cast time as strike. That would significantly help.
Another possible fix however is to just make there be a reduction model for DOT for each time a new one is cast on top. If only one, full value, if 2, each does 80% damage, with a cap around 1/2 damage at 4 on a boss.
I was always a fan of melee while dots were ticking away... Specially since they take 5 seconds before they even do any do dmg. On haste, the auto dmg can add up decently.
This being said, the main point of contention was that any DOT nerf would kill a druids ability to level, but I maintain that any druid leveling is only getting 2 tics max on 4*'s (from my personal experience where my druid was otudpsing all the rogues and rangers I used to lix with, @ everyone who says druids are bad to lix with -.- ).
I've never played an EG druid, only got to level 176 before I server jumped so I won't go to speak on evasions, I'll assume your description of storm touch to be accurate. However either proposal that I suggested would ultimately increase a druids DPS.
Whether a flat nerf or a nerf that only comes into affect the more DOT's that are added on.
*Post edited to clarify certain things