yep. i haven't played a druid or eq in forever but i'm pretty sure the first tick counts as DD which has an even higher chance of breaking root. regardless of if that's right or not, the dot ticks messing with root and mez's are a big reason not to cast flame lick.

>putting your party at constant risk of a wipe for 4dps

There is no dd on flame lick, so don't worry about root breaks from that! It is why root rot is such a popular tactic for druids (unlike shaman who often like to melee rot since their dots all have nuke components).

The real point here is these druids should have got a primal before sleeper awoke ;).