Lots of threads around this on the official boards that usually derail, I'm aiming for brief: Necro dot revamp (and necro in the group game as kind of a tag-along subject that isn't necessarily served by a dot revamp) appears to be a big task or unsolvable pretzel applying the methods used successfully for other classes. So what if we looked at it in a totally different way?
I mean, can we get (or at least) approach a positive result without doing the dot revamp at all?
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I'll give a couple of "out there" examples, but really I'm thinking the playerbase could come up with something doable (and better than my two quick concepts) if we think outside of the dots.
1. Some form of AA ability that was a "channeled casting mode"... like a many, many repeat single target rain nuke --maybe it splurts up in power the longer you run it... Use the ability, spell bar is greyed out until you exit the channeled casting mode. --or something. The point being it wouldn't have to be a debuff, and it would be better on a huge HP target than weaving sets of dots. Sure, you become "one button" for direct DPS on raids, but that allows playing with the other spell slots in between channels?
2. This is possibly more of a group game thing... but if focus effects can be dropped on a character and instantly mod % of damage done, mana cost and duration... why not have an AA "stance" toggle. Default mode does nothing, as-is on live. "Burst" stance clicked on and your dots do 3x the damage for 3x the mana for 1/3 the duration (or whatever math would be needed to make at least a range of necro dots bursty --the goal wouldn't be to cast that many dots on a single mob in group play so it only needs to make some of them viable). --maybe you do a "raid" stance that is only activated when in raid of at least 18 people that is more generous on the mods... so 5X the damage for regular mana and duration (or whatever actual balanced math would be).