Michel_NA

I must be missing something here -- is there any reason to play a huntsman over a crab except for lolrp? I mean, they get comparable attacks, but crab gets all around better AoEs, and some of the best defensive abilities in the game. You use leadership pool powers to run 6 toggles? Are you joking? This build is not defensible from a practicle standpoint. The only way you can defend it is by making some fallacious appeal to "it plays different" or "it's a matter of personal preference" or some other such hogwash. I'm sure the "huntsman" build leaves a very "badass, guntoting" corpse.

Haha, wasn't snowjob one of the GI Joes? I always got a kick out of the name.

While nothing has changed about poisons, the, um, invention system and player economy was implemented, which makes slotting far less clear-cut. I also aged several years, which changes my perspective.. If you notice in the introduction, I made a point of saying that I would no longer be giving advice on slotting. This is because this is not a guide to a build, but a guide to a secondary. While mm's share obvious similarities in their primaries, there are certain differences that make slotting subjective. If you want a thug/poison guide (the best pairing) I suggest PoisonPill's excellent guide.

Michel Frost's UPDATED guide to /poison

Michel Frost's UPDATED guide to /poison

Michel Frost’s Guide to /Poison

Hi Folks. This is the long awaited (by me) update to my I7 guide to the poison secondary for masterminds. A lot has changed since then, and I hope to reflect these changes as sucinctly and accurately as possible. Please PM me if there are any issues. I am no longer giving ratings or slotting advice for powers.

/Poison: An Overview

The poison secondary is unsurprisingly focused on debuffs. most of the abilities require significant key-surfing to use effectively, as there are NO toggles or useful buffs of any kind. If you want to level while watching TV, try /FF, not poison. Like all of the mastermind secondaries, poison does offer some non-debuff related support – in the form of a gimpy single-target heal (alkaloid). It boasts 3 single target debuffs (envenom, weaken, paralytic poison), a debuff trap (poison trap), a cone debuff (neurotoxic breath), and a minion-based AoE debuff (Noxious Gas), a “mutate” resurrect (elixir of life), and a status effect cure/resist buff (antidote). That’s six debuffs and 3 support powers. Now, on to the powers.

Poison Powers

1) Alkaloid: This is the required 1st level power, and not a bad one. Alkaloid heals for a rather small sum, but it has a fast recharge, costs a moderate ammount and gives a boost to toxic resistance for a while. I use this power both in groups and solo. I would’ve taken it even if I’d had a choice.


2) Envenom: A single target debuff, envenom debuffs damage resistance, defense, regen rate, and the lucky recipient will be healed for less. It’s relatively inexpensive (13 power), with a longish reload time (12 seconds), but it lasts for 30 seconds This power will noticeably increase the rate at which a mob dies. It’s -regen stacks from the same player, but the other debuffs don't. Chain it on bosses, AV's, etc.

3) Weaken: Weaken debuffs one lucky mob’s damage output, accuracy, and “secondary effects”, meaning holds, sleeps, disorients, slows, etc. All of these effects will last 1/4 as long when fired from a Weakened mob, and instant effects (heals, knockbacks, etc) will be less effective. This is the best power in the set. It really shines on hard-hitting purple bosses, elites, and AV’s/Heroes. Reload and cost are identical to envenom.

4) Neurotoxic Breath: A good 60 degrees cone that slows movement and rech by 50% for 20 seconds, with a 30-second reload. This is shiver with a chance for a very brief hold. The hold is a bit strange. Basically, if you fire it and watch your combat spam, you'll see that besides the original effect, whose accuracy is modified by enhancements, buffs, etc, there are 2 static 25% to hit chances. If one of these hits, the mob is subject to a mag2 hold. If both hit, it's mag 3. The hold is about 4 seconds (that choking/convulsing animation).

5) Elixir of Life: Elixir is similar to /rad’s Mutation power. It’s a “combat” resurrect with a high cost and very short range, but the resurrected player will have increased accuracy, damage, attack speed, and endurance recovery. This is a brute’s best friend. When it wears off, it will cause a brief hold effect as the resurrected vomits up the potion. This cannot be used on your pets, and is therefore skippable if you solo a lot.

6) Antidote: This power will remove status effects and leave the recipient resistant to such effects. This has some use in groups, but I can’t recommend it.

7) Paralytic Poison: A single target hold. Holds are always welcome.

8) Poison Trap: The stinker of the set. This ability drops a trip mine-like trap that, upon detonation, releases a cloud of noxious vapors that causes a “sleep” state in all surrounding enemies (they stand there puking their guts up). It also drains some endurance, and has a chance to hold the mob that triggers the trap. This suffers from 2 detriments. 1) Sleep is not useful if you use AoE-oriented henchmen. 2) Mines are notoriously bad at going off on anything but a totally flat surface. If you plant this on an incline, good luck getting a mob to trigger it

9) Noxious Gas: An amazing power. To use, target a minion and click. That henchman will release a 10’ radius cloud that debuffs Acc, Dam, Def, and Res, while carrying a small chance to cause a brief hold (about 1% every half-second) for 45 seconds. The debuffs cannot be enhanced, but are modified by the rank of the henchman the power is used upon. Minions modify the effect by 0.75, lieu's by 1.0, and your boss by 1.25. The downsides are: 1) If you don’t have pets that engage in melee, it is unlikely that you will have the opportunity to use this power. So robo/merc MM’s will get very little play out of this, unless you want to send a hench into the midst of your foes. 2) It’s expensive, about a quarter of your power bar 3) it has a long reload, on the order of 5 minutes. This is the reason you see so many thug/poison mm's running around. With a little nudging, the bruiser is the best candidate for this power. Oni is the only other reasonable choice, but ninjas suck. Sorry. Necro can also get some play out of poison with its Grave Nights, but there are much better pairings for Necro out there (/Dark springs to mind).

Final Thoughts

Poison is a highly offensive, single target-oriented debuffing secondary with a cone-debuff gem in Neurotoxic Breath and a killer (although primary-dependent) final power in Noxious Gas. It is a useful power set both solo and in groups fighting lots of bosses, since its single target nature means it really shines when killing bosses/elites/AV’s. Solo it greatly increases the rate at which you can kill minions, and can turn that purple CoT mage at the mission’s end into a blind kitten with no legs. Poison is weak in that it doesn’t boast many defensive perks other than a heal and a rez. If you prefer an active play-style and like the challenge of soloing AV's and EB's, poison comes in very strong.

Interesting. I'll check it out and alter the guide accordingly.

Here's the link to my guide to the /Poison secondary

here

Michel Frost’s Guide to /Poison

Hello and welcome to what may be the first guide devoted to a mastermind secondary power. I chose to write this guide since the mastermind primaries are identical in terms of essential power choices and as such barely worth discussing. Some may debate this point, but when five out of nine of your primary powers are Absolutely Indelibly Require for each and every build, I feel like there’s just not that much wiggle room when it comes to power choices. With that out of the way, I’ll get to the meat of this guide; poison.

/Poison: An Overview

The poison secondary is an eclectic one. Like all of the mastermind secondaries, it focuses on support – that is, buffs, heals and debuffs. Poison is primarily debuff oriented. It boasts 3 single target debuffs (envenom, weaken, paralytic poison), a debuff trap (poison trap), a cone debuff (neurotoxic breath), and a minion-based AoE debuff (Noxious Gas). As far as buffs and heals go, poison has the only single target auto-hit heal (alkaloid), a “mutate” resurrect (elixir of life), and a status effect cure/resist buff (antidote). That’s six debuffs and 3 support powers. We can safely say that poison is a heavily debuff oriented set, focusing on powerful, single target debuffs, with some AoE eclecticism. Now, on to the powers.

Poison Powers Rundown

1) Alkaloid: This is the required 1st level power, and not a bad one. Alkaloid heals for a rather small sum, but it is the only single target heal available to masterminds. It also has a fast recharge, costs very little and gives a boost to toxic resistance for a while. I use this power both in groups and solo. I would’ve taken it even if I’d had a choice.

Overall rating: 8/10
Recommended slotting: 3 heal

2) Envenom: I would go so far as to call this the defining power of the poison set. A single target debuff, it debuffs damage resistance, defense, regen rate, and the lucky recipient will be healed for less. It’s relatively inexpensive (13 power), with a longish reload time (12 seconds). This power will noticeably increase the rate at which a mob dies. It’s effects stack, so if you fire a second envenom before the first one wears off, it will debuff the target multiplicatively. A must have.

Overall Rating: 10/10
Recommended slotting: 3 accuracy/2 recharge/1 defense debuff (note: you really, really want this to hit so that your other debuffs/pet attacks will have a better chance to hit. You might consider trading out a recharge for another defense debuff)

3) Weaken: Envenom’s twin brother, weaken debuffs one lucky mob’s damage output, accuracy, and “secondary effects”, meaning holds, sleeps, disorients, slows, etc. All of these effects will last about half as long when fired from a Weakened mob. This power also comes highly recommended, but you can probably wait on it if need be. Really shines on hard-hitting purple bosses, elites, and AV’s/Heroes.

Overall Rating: 9/10
Recommended slotting: 2 accuracy/2 recharge/2 to-hit debuff

4) Neurotoxic Breath: I didn’t take this until I respected at 32, and while I don’t regret the decision, Breath has been very good to me in the higher levels. The cone is –immense-, easily the broadest I’ve ever seen, at a good 60 degrees. Affected mobs will be slowed and have their recharge time increased. I don’t have numbers on this, but it changed the pace of a battle significantly. I almost always lead with breath, followed by envenom on my attack target. As a final note, this can cause a “choking” effect on some mobs affected by it. I’m not sure if this is a hold or what, but the choking mob can’t move or act for about 3 seconds after being affected.

Overall Rating: 7/10 – You can get away with skipping this, but I don’t recommend it.
Recommended slotting: 2 accuracy/1 range/1 recharge/1 end redux/1 slow (note: I’ve yet to find a slotting combo on this as it is not 6 slotted yet. The enhancements listed are just a musing on possible slots)

5) Elixir of Life: Elixir is similar to /rad’s Mutation power. It’s a “combat” resurrect with a high cost and very short range, but the resurrected player will have increased accuracy, damage, attack speed, and endurance recovery. This is a brute’s best friend. When it wears off, it will cause a brief hold effect as the resurrected vomits up the potion. This cannot be used on your pets, and is therefore skippable if you solo a lot.

Overall Rating: 5/10 – skippable if you solo
Recommended slotting: 1 recharge redux or 1 end redux or 1 range increase. Not worth more than 1 slot.

6) Antidote: This power will remove status effects and leave the recipient resistant to such effects. I play a Robot MM, and as such my minions are resistant to the more debilitating status effects. This has some use in groups, but I can’t recommend it.

Overall Rating: 3/10 – Good at what it does, which isn’t that much.
Recommended slotting: 1 recharge redux if you get it.

7) Paralytic Poison: A single target hold. Holds are something, in my opinion, that is always welcome. Whether it’s holding a boss with the help of another hold-toting player, de-toggling a behemoth’s Temp. Invuln., or just holding a mob still while you gank it, hold is your friend.

Overall Rating: 10/10 – How can you go wrong?
Recommended slotting: 2 hold/2 recharge/2 accuracy

8) Poison Trap: The stinker of the set. This ability drops a trip mine-like trap that, upon detonation, releases a cloud of noxious vapors that causes a “sleep” state in all surrounding enemies (they stand there puking their guts up). It also drains some endurance, and has a chance to hold the mob that triggers the trap. This suffers from 2 detriments. 1) Sleep is not particularly useful, particularly if you use AoE-oriented henchmen like me. 2) Mines are notoriously bad at going off on anything but a totally flat surface. If you plant this on an incline, good luck getting a mob to trigger it

Overall Rating: 3/10
Recommended slotting: 2 acc/1 or 2 recharge

9) Noxious Gas: As far as a final power goes, gas is disappointing. This power is an AoE click targeting a minion that will release a 10’ radius cloud that debuffs Acc, Dam, Def, and Res, while carrying a small chance to cause a brief hold. The downsides are: 1) If you don’t have pets that engage in melee, it is unlikely that you will have the opportunity to use this power. So robo/merc MM’s will get very little play out of this, unless you want to send a minion into the midst of your foes. 2) It’s expensive, about a quarter of your power bar 3) it has a long reload, on the order of 5 minutes. This is a power that can be useful, but I found my power-pool choices to have more utility. I’d like to hear from a necro/undead MM concerning the viability of this power.

Overall Rating: 5/10 – If you actually get this power to work, it can be incredibly devastating, effectively giving an AoE Envenom/Weaken/Paralytic Poison all in one convenient package.
Recommended Slotting: 2 Acc/3 recharge/whatever else
Power Pools

I find poison, despite its low individual power costs, to be a power-hungry pool. As such I took the fitness pool so I could blaze through relentless missions even faster. Fitness also helps with the End. crunch when upgrading your pets at the mission start. In groups and in pvp when you’re basically chaining Envenom/Weaken/Breath it can be a life-saver. That being said, it’s not essential to your damage output and is therefore optional, though recommended.

As is the prevailing trend among MM’s, I took the leadership powers of Assault/Tactics. This doesn’t mesh with poison in particular, but I recommend it. Tactics sports a resistance to confusion, which can really be a lifesaver when going up against succubi.

Final Thoughts

Poison is a highly offensive, single target-oriented debuffing secondary with a cone-debuff gem in Neurotoxic Breath. It is a useful power set both solo and in groups, and its single target nature means it really shines when killing bosses/elites/AV’s. Solo it greatly increases the rate at which you can kill minions, and can turn that purple CoT mage at the mission’s end into a blind kitten with no legs. Poison is weak in that it doesn’t boast many defensive perks other than a heal and a rez, and its AoE debuffs, aside from breath, are situational and dicey at best. Poison is a powerful set best utilized in solo and pvp play.