You can't compare a massively debuffing set to a minor buffing and heavy healing set.
Poison stems from its ability to weaken the hell out of an enemy, while Pain Domination has the ability to strengthen its allies with minor buffs, while also throwing in a couple great self buffs for the most part.
Pain Domination cannot handle stronger enemies like Poison can, and thus- in most situations- Poison will outpreform Pain Domination, while in more moderate to minor situations with reasonable enemies, can out-preform Poison.
Poison for powerful enemies and AV soloing/PvP
Pain Domination for your other moderate PvE and PvP needs.
P.S.
Pain Domination can handle larger numbers of reasonable enemies. Poison was (as has been discussed) probably created with PvP in mind.
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You can't compare a massively debuffing set to a minor buffing and heavy healing set.
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In general, statements along the lines of "you can't compare things that are functionally different" always bothers me. Not only is it possible to do so (in fact, comparing things that are functionally identical is rather pointless), but that's exactly what you go on to do. Both sets have healing. That can be compared. One set has debuffs and the other has buffs. Those are not apples and oranges, but rather different sides of the same coin; for instance, an accuracy buff can be compared to a defense debuff, as both improve chances to hit (same goes for damage debuffing/resistance buffing, and so forth).
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Poison stems from its ability to weaken the hell out of an enemy, while Pain Domination has the ability to strengthen its allies with minor buffs, while also throwing in a couple great self buffs for the most part.
Pain Domination cannot handle stronger enemies like Poison can, and thus- in most situations- Poison will outpreform Pain Domination, while in more moderate to minor situations with reasonable enemies, can out-preform Poison.
Poison for powerful enemies and AV soloing/PvP
Pain Domination for your other moderate PvE and PvP needs.
P.S.
Pain Domination can handle larger numbers of reasonable enemies. Poison was (as has been discussed) probably created with PvP in mind.
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Now see, that wasn't so hard, was it? Bravo! 
Do the buffs from Enforced Morale and World of Pain really seem minor?
I think Bookkeeper_Jay's point was that comparing different functionalities generally don't get you very far, thus he compare's the only aspects that can be; general playstyle roles. What Bookkeeper_Jay provided was a qualitative comparison, when you seemed to be asking for a quantitative analysis. And his point stands, certain aspects of Poison are difficult to compare. How does -Special, -Heal, or Paralytic Poison compare when Pain Domination has no equivalency? From the 'other side of the coin', how do you compare the +regen in Pain Domination when Poison has none?
And I would agree with Bookkeeper_Jay's comments on the playstyle differences. I'd also add that Pain Domination is the team oriented set of the two.
Grizz
"When Chuck Norris can't go on, Petra Majdič perseveres!"
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I think Bookkeeper_Jay's point was that comparing different functionalities generally don't get you very far, thus he compare's the only aspects that can be; general playstyle roles. What Bookkeeper_Jay provided was a qualitative comparison, when you seemed to be asking for a quantitative analysis. And his point stands, certain aspects of Poison are difficult to compare. How does -Special, -Heal, or Paralytic Poison compare when Pain Domination has no equivalency? From the 'other side of the coin', how do you compare the +regen in Pain Domination when Poison has none?
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You draw comparisons the same way countless threads in this forum form evaluations, including virtually all of the build guides: when you run out of close analogues, you weigh utility, and basically make a list of pros and cons. Poison Trap doesn't have to be similar in nature to, say, World of Pain in order to gauge which will contribute a more consistent level of effectiveness. Everyone seems to be able to agree that Poison Trap is--to be generous--a highly situational power, and everyone can agree that getting a constant boost to accuracy, damage, and DR is always welcome. Point goes to PD. And so on, down the line.
Having said all of that, I started playing my Necro/Poison mastermin today, and it certainly defied all of my fond memories. Alkaloid, Envenom, and Weaken each drew large quantities of END (13-16 a pop), and generally didn't make my character more effective in PvE either solo or in groups. Not sure if anything's changed, or I just had "memory creep", but brother was it a bummer. A PvP powerset? Maybe. A powerset for people who devote themselves to fighting AV's all the exclusively? OK, whatever--not relevant to how the vast majority of folks play. Anyway, I'll bring PD online with another build and make my own quantitative analysis.
The funny thing, is that Pain Domination was not and is not meant to handle stronger enemies.
Poison debuffs basically every aspect of the enemy while Pain Domination provides support in the form of a single debuff.
One is meant to weaken, the other is meant to provide support.
No matter how you analyze it or break it down that's how it works. And it is very simple and easy to reach a conclusion that you can't compare the two sets in the ways you want to.
They both preform very different roles while, if I may use a VERY lax term, "slightly" dipping into the other's role from time to time.
Bottom line is: Poison lets you neuter an enemy (and by neuter I mean severely crippling a single target or several foes), and Pain Domination lets you provide utility support through buffs and heals.
If you wanna debuff stuff while having a small amount of mitigation through healing then do it.
If you wanna provide healing and buffing support with slight debuffs go pain.
...Poison>Pain!!
(runs away as he knows how obvious his trolling is.. bad Vel..bad)
Whining about everything since 2006.
Ammo switching for Dual Pistols was my idea:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=135484
Mngwa>Vel_Overload!
(runs faster) 
Impossible! *Siphon Speed Mngwa* muhahahaha i got you now!
Whining about everything since 2006.
Ammo switching for Dual Pistols was my idea:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=135484
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Anyway, I'll bring PD online with another build and make my own quantitative analysis.
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Well.....you can play both sets all you want, but in the end you'll be comparing subjective experiences. Which simply can't be quantified( not unless you're running a survey of people who prefer one over the other). I think you're actually wanting to know which powerset is "best." Good luck with that, since the only answer I can give you is "that which you think has quality." Which is a terrible answer, I know, but Zen like questions usually garner Zen like answers.
I suspect that you have already made up your mind as to what you think is "best", and any arguing with you on that is mostly moot. So, good luck and have fun with PD. If you come up with any interesting observations about the playstyle, do share.
Oh, and the guides section is lacking on guides on PD. Especially slotting and tactics. Just saying, 
.
Grizz
"When Chuck Norris can't go on, Petra Majdič perseveres!"
Personally I do prefer pain domination as it does make keeping my minions alive easier. The buffs/debuff are just a bonus.
You can't really compare then...
Now,what you can do is to put a situation and test who overcome it the better.
Then sit down and enjoy the flame war
I want /Fire stalker. Because nothing says stealth like dumping a can of gasoline on yourself and lighting a match. -Morac
Yes, you can compare them. People likely have and will continue to compare different powersets, in sharp contrast to arguemnativat assertions that it cannot be done. You actually can compare apples and oranges too, btw. They're both fruits, once has more vitamin C, one is crunchier, and so forth...
Can you compare them in a way that nobody can dispute? No. Because there's always going to be somebody who disagrees. That's life on the interweb.
The more I think about it, the more I find a single-target-oriented powerset to be the wrong kind of support for a mass-pet class.
Agreed with you, but with what purpose will you compare then?
Apple and orange can be compare but the final result will be "null" unless you are looking a specified result.There will always be people that like apple more and orange more than apple.For those type of person the information is meaningless. For instance the only thing that would matter is the negative result of the fruits we could get, making the one with less negative effect the best option.All in all, as long both of then are good, I will have not problem to keep eating then.
Will put a situation to compare then:Average team,Average missh.
I personally find /PAIN superior to /Poison because in a huge team been able to buff other player will make a better impact on the group performance than just been able to debuff one or two boss every now and then.In short, /Pain benift more from bigger team while /Poison lose performace when the numbers of targets is increasing.
I want /Fire stalker. Because nothing says stealth like dumping a can of gasoline on yourself and lighting a match. -Morac
I just reached level 20 with my Thugs/Poison MM, and while not a perfect comparison I have a /pain corr. (Yes, I understand the implications of a cross AT comparison, keep reading.)
I feel that the lack of being able to heal yourself with poison has a big impact and ultimately Poison is counter intuitive - single target heal doesn't work when you can ultimately have a horde of people, Gang War on its own can bring poison to its knees, and while Gang War isn't going to be everyone's problem it is a very good example.
Edit: I just ran into a room with two boss level enemies, so single target debuff is not helpful in this case. And honestly, if it were available to MM I think everyone would take Kinetics - FS is target dependant so that really wouldn't be super helpful for soloing but let's face it, Targeted PBAoE heal > everything.
@Drake Crator - Chosen of Mystra Super Group Leader/Founder
Diffidentia Angelus - 50 Willpower/Dual Blades Tanker
Solar Baron - 50 Fire Blast/Energy Manipulation Blaster
Adonis Soul - 50 Earth Control/Storm Summoning Controller
Constantine Krauss - 50 Kinetic/Psyonic Blast Defender
There isn't a really easy clear-cut answer, like most people have said.
Pain is a healing set, specializing in restoring lost health to teammates and pets. It works best in tandem with resist-based melee sets that can absorb a few hits without dying. It has no noteworthy offensive potential - PB is not even half a build up worth of +damage, and WoP is even less, and neither are perma without global recharge bonuses. As far as overall survival, traps is somewhat better. Pain relies mainly on synergies with resistance sets and player skill (eg. fast response to lost health) to compensate for the lack of controls present in other sets such as Dark or Traps. Suppress Pain's hands-free +regen makes the set less mind-numbing, as giving allies 15hp/sec or more in extra regen is quite valuable.
Poison is a single target shutdown set, placing high priority on locking down single noteworthy targets. Player skill is pretty important for poison, since you must generally select the most dangerous targets you can and stack Weaken on them, or use PP to take them out of the fight. Poison works best with teams that are pretty survivable already and it is ideal in fights against enemy groups with annoying effects such as Malta (Sappers can be held or weakened so bad that their saps do nothing, engineer stun grenades and tazers can be gimped to very short durations, etc.). Poison is fairly weak in large spawns of enemies, as the number of threats goes up while the number of enemies you can lock down remains constant. It is also not very effective against enemies whose only real source of danger is damage, such as freakshow tanks or Statesman.
Others have spelled out the playstyle differences between /pain and /poison. I tried a thugs/pain MM to around 20 before I couldn't stand it any longer and deleted him; my thugs/poison MM is 41 and going strong.
For soloing - regrettably, I never got a team for the /pain MM - the /pain heals were simply inadequate to keep my thugs alive against un-debuffed, un-controlled enemies, and the ability to heal myself was simply inadequate to keep me alive after they died. I haven't had such a problem with /poison, and soloing EB's isn't a problem.
Alkaloid is pretty well able to serve the healing needs of my thugs. I went into Medicine for Aid Self to have a bit for me, and I use Aid Other to supplement Alkaloid in serious situations. Alkaloid's enough to make a meaningful contribution to team healing needs too. It's absolutely not enough to support identifying yourself as a healer or conceiving of the character as filling chiefly that role, but it's enough when slotted to make your ST heal another contribution to a team.
If I were to make a tankermind, I'd consider Pain for the AOE heal. Even then though, I'd remember Dark and Twilight Grasp and would quit thinking about Pain for that purpose.
If your goal is to be a team healer/buffer and you'd rather do it with a MM than a corruptor, I can see Pain as the secondary of choice. Based on my own experience at least, that's the only time I'd touch it again.
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Others have spelled out the playstyle differences between /pain and /poison. I tried a thugs/pain MM to around 20 before I couldn't stand it any longer and deleted him; my thugs/poison MM is 41 and going strong.
For soloing - regrettably, I never got a team for the /pain MM - the /pain heals were simply inadequate to keep my thugs alive against un-debuffed, un-controlled enemies, and the ability to heal myself was simply inadequate to keep me alive after they died. I haven't had such a problem with /poison, and soloing EB's isn't a problem.
Alkaloid is pretty well able to serve the healing needs of my thugs. I went into Medicine for Aid Self to have a bit for me, and I use Aid Other to supplement Alkaloid in serious situations. Alkaloid's enough to make a meaningful contribution to team healing needs too. It's absolutely not enough to support identifying yourself as a healer or conceiving of the character as filling chiefly that role, but it's enough when slotted to make your ST heal another contribution to a team.
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I don't really follow you here. PD's array of healing was inadequate, but Poison's paltry Alkaloid was adequate? Non-sequitorish.
Given how slow, held, inaccurate, and kittenish the rest of Poison makes the enemies, even Alkaloid is sufficient for the healing needs. Given how utterly free to do all they want to my poor henchman PD left the enemies, even its far better healing ability was unable to keep up with the damage they took.
How's that?
If /Pain heal/buff wasn't enough to keep you Pets alive, your are doing something really wrong.
I want /Fire stalker. Because nothing says stealth like dumping a can of gasoline on yourself and lighting a match. -Morac
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If /Pain heal/buff wasn't enough to keep you Pets alive, your are doing something really wrong.
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Could be, could be, though I haven't had such a bad time with any other MM secondary, or with thugs/ otherwise.
I hate not developing any support set - it's a personal mission to get a character with every defender primary and controller secondary to 50. As of now, I'm not there yet for storm, empathy, thermal, and cold domination. (Characters working those up are at 44, 20, 35, and 26 respectively.) If I could stand it, it would give me a sense of satisfaction to get someone with /pain to 50 too.
If I feel like venturing that again, do you have any primaries to recommend? Or PD guides? The last I looked, they were meager and generally bad. I suspect I'd be aiming at the team healer role, so a primary that didn't take micromanagement may be preferable.
as long as we're comparing these two. I'd like to point out the innequalities between /TA and /FF for MM's. /TA deals way more damage and has infinitely more useful debuffs. While /FF only has bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. What if the mob has deadly pin attack? You'll be missing your acid arrow beats deadly pin attack then won't you?
In the rock paper scissors of secondaries /FF only ever throws paper while /TA throws them all and volcanoe.
Back to the matter at hand. I like the way that /pain helps me deal with strong single targets by reducing the effects of end drain, slows, debuffs, mez and all other forms of nasty nasty that bosses and up toss at you like candy out of the worlds largest pinata. It's totally great for solo play with all of it's -special, -speed, -recharge and -regen and the hold it has is second to none. With all of those things in the pain set I almost never need to furiously spam heals on my pets.
Owait. I forgot, the set that has a more varied toolbox for damage mitigation has less healing, while he set that has one debuff on a long cooldown and a mixed bag of buffs has a lot of healing.
Funny how that all works out. It's almost like these things have some kind of mass or density or weight and they're sitting on some kind of seesaw or scale or something and they do that thing that weights on a scale do when they stack up against each other in equal proportions. What is that thing? I just can't remember.
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as long as we're comparing these two. I'd like to point out the innequalities between /TA and /FF for MM's. /TA deals way more damage and has infinitely more useful debuffs. While /FF only has bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. What if the mob has deadly pin attack? You'll be missing your acid arrow beats deadly pin attack then won't you?
In the rock paper scissors of secondaries /FF only ever throws paper while /TA throws them all and volcanoe.
Back to the matter at hand. I like the way that /poison helps me deal with strong single targets by reducing the effects of end drain, slows, debuffs, mez and all other forms of nasty nasty that bosses and up toss at you like candy out of the worlds largest pinata. It's totally great for solo play with all of it's -special, -speed, -recharge and -regen and the hold it has is second to none. With all of those things in the poison set I almost never need to furiously spam heals on my pets.
Owait. I forgot, the set that has a more varied toolbox for damage mitigation has less healing, while he set that has one debuff on a long cooldown and a mixed bag of buffs has a lot of healing.
Funny how that all works out. It's almost like these things have some kind of mass or density or weight and they're sitting on some kind of seesaw or scale or something and they do that thing that weights on a scale do when they stack up against each other in equal proportions. What is that thing? I just can't remember.
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Fixed that for you
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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as long as we're comparing these two. I'd like to point out the innequalities between /TA and /FF for MM's. /TA deals way more damage and has infinitely more useful debuffs. While /FF only has bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. What if the mob has deadly pin attack? You'll be missing your acid arrow beats deadly pin attack then won't you?
In the rock paper scissors of secondaries /FF only ever throws paper while /TA throws them all and volcanoe.
Back to the matter at hand. I like the way that /poison helps me deal with strong single targets by reducing the effects of end drain, slows, debuffs, mez and all other forms of nasty nasty that bosses and up toss at you like candy out of the worlds largest pinata. It's totally great for solo play with all of it's -special, -speed, -recharge and -regen and the hold it has is second to none. With all of those things in the poison set I almost never need to furiously spam heals on my pets.
Owait. I forgot, the set that has a more varied toolbox for damage mitigation has less healing, while he set that has one debuff on a long cooldown and a mixed bag of buffs has a lot of healing.
Funny how that all works out. It's almost like these things have some kind of mass or density or weight and they're sitting on some kind of seesaw or scale or something and they do that thing that weights on a scale do when they stack up against each other in equal proportions. What is that thing? I just can't remember.
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Fixed that for you
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I'll make my sarcasm more obvious next time.
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as long as we're comparing these two. I'd like to point out the innequalities between /TA and /FF for MM's. /TA deals way more damage and has infinitely more useful debuffs. While /FF only has bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles. What if the mob has deadly pin attack? You'll be missing your acid arrow beats deadly pin attack then won't you?
In the rock paper scissors of secondaries /FF only ever throws paper while /TA throws them all and volcanoe.
Back to the matter at hand. I like the way that /poison helps me deal with strong single targets by reducing the effects of end drain, slows, debuffs, mez and all other forms of nasty nasty that bosses and up toss at you like candy out of the worlds largest pinata. It's totally great for solo play with all of it's -special, -speed, -recharge and -regen and the hold it has is second to none. With all of those things in the poison set I almost never need to furiously spam heals on my pets.
Owait. I forgot, the set that has a more varied toolbox for damage mitigation has less healing, while he set that has one debuff on a long cooldown and a mixed bag of buffs has a lot of healing.
Funny how that all works out. It's almost like these things have some kind of mass or density or weight and they're sitting on some kind of seesaw or scale or something and they do that thing that weights on a scale do when they stack up against each other in equal proportions. What is that thing? I just can't remember.
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Fixed that for you
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I'll make my sarcasm more obvious next time.
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I got it, but I didn't think the die hard 'healer' types would so I modified it to be more clear.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
I've been away from the game for a good long while. In its day, Poison was extolled for its single-target heal and a varietty of debuffs. I've been looking at the Pain Domination set and it seems to be in many ways a better set--on paper, anyway.
Not only does PD seem to handily steal all thunder when it comes to healing, but anything Poison debuffs--accuracy, defense, resistance, speed--PD seems to have a buff for. All other things being equal, a buff is better than a debuff; not only does a debuff require accuracy, but a debuff only lasts as long as the debuffee lasts (and ideally, that should not be long at all).
My question isn't if Poison is any good--I know from experience it is effective at what it does. But I have to wonder if PD is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room?
Alkaloid < Soothe, Soothing Aura, Nullify Pain
Antidote < Enforced Morale
Elixir of Life < Conduit of Pain
Like I said, I've been away, so I don't have the empirical evidence that you guys are likely to have. I do notice that PD is stair-stepped so that at lower levels it's nothing but healing, with the buffs reserved for higher levels. That makes it tough to draw a straight-up comparison between, say the Envenom debuff and the Painbringer buff. I'll be rolling a couple of mastrminds (Necro/Poison and Thugs/PD), but in the meantime, what say you?