Figuring Explosive shot out...

[stridspitten]

So, I felt I needed to make a quick post about this.

Generally, I feel a gap between how I feel the Explosive shot spell works, compared to what "people" write about it.
In my mind, when I use this, if the proc is up, I shoult fire of one ES, then fill 2seconds of w/e (arcane/cobra... etc). Then fire off another ES, repeat filling the gap, etc. This to let the burn/blast-effect be used efficiently enough.
However, I have never seen suggestions of this anywhere, just a "fire it all away, dont mind waiting" comments, without to much explanation behind it.

I did manage to find this comment on icy veins:
Whenever you get a Lock and Load proc, you should simply fire the Explosive Shots one after the other. Prior to Mists of Pandaria, this was a small DPS loss, due to the way the Explosive Shot DoT worked, but it is no longer a problem.

Am I completely wrong thinking this would "waste" the blast/burn effect? When I check my dot/debuff's on targets, whenever I let this happen, proc is up and I fire away 3 ES in a row, they replace the current one, they dont seem to stack in any way..

Insight please?

[WeaselHunter]

short answer is the DOT mechanic is changed and you don't CLIP or lose any damage. You might not see a full 9 ticks in logs but the damage total of 9 full ticks is still there...

thus firing 3 explosive's back to back to back, then onto other shots is your optimal dps

[Noctifer616]

Any tick that is lost has it's damage added to another tick. So even if you only have 7 or 8 ticks, you will still have the same damage as if you had 9 ticks.

[eschatological]

It doesn't stack, but as people said, it uses what is called an Ignite mechanic (after the Fire mage effect). Say you fire one off, and it lands at 0s:

0s: 45k spread over 3 ticks, first tick goes off for 15k
1s: Another 45k over 3 ticks lands, old ES is at 30k over 2 ticks, they get combined to 75k over 3 ticks, so it ticks for 25k on this tick
2s: Another 45k ES over 3 ticks lands, old ES is at 50k over 2 ticks, they get combined to 95k over 3 ticks, ticks for 31.66k.
3s: 31.66k tick
4s: 31.66k tick

IOW, instead of 9 ticks of 15k each, they get rolled into each other for increasing ticks over 4s.