Poison: A Primer
By
Ben_Arizona,
Posted on: 2010-02-26 14:15 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Great summation of Poison, makes me even more excited to test a Demon/Poison MM when it comes to test
Nicely laid out guide, Guy.
One question on Noxious Gas - does it debuff all enemies once only, or does the infected henchman continually pulse the debuff field?
e.g. I cast it on my Oni. A Longbow warden then walks up to the oni 10 seconds later. Is the Warden debuffed?
Yes, its a persistent debuff aura for its duration on the pet. Think of it as a click pet-based RI/EF in one.
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
I like the pictures....
Can I has numbers pwease?
For some reason, this post made me want a /Poison toon!
However, I couldn't help but wish it was for a CORR over a MM.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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I... gave you numbers. What more do you want!?!???!?|
Originally Posted by Tokyo
Can I has numbers pwease?
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Originally Posted by BrandX
For some reason, this post made me want a /Poison toon!
However, I couldn't help but wish it was for a CORR over a MM. |
I have a Mercs/Poison build for PvP. Very good. However, whatever build you go with -- avoid Poison Trap. Its completely useless. I promise you will never, ever notice it do anything. People have been complaining about it for years now.
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I'm sure it's been brought up plenty of times, but I see no reason that Poison couldn't be ported over for corruptors. Henchmen powers could become ally powers, and it seems right in line with what corruptor secondaries should do. Blueside, it would probably also be a fine secondary for controllers, though some would complain about heroes using an "evil" power set.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
For some reason, this post made me want a /Poison toon!
However, I couldn't help but wish it was for a CORR over a MM. |
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Casting time, recharge time, base debuff percentiles....etc. d;D
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
I... gave you numbers. What more do you want!?!???!?
Poison is one of my favorite powersets. I'd love to see it get some attention in the next round of proliferation. |
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Check the game for cast and recharge times; they're not terribly important to knowing what the powers do.|
Originally Posted by Tokyo
Casting time, recharge time, base debuff percentiles....etc. d;D
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Base debuff values are documented in full in the first post of this thread. Read it next time kthx.
Recharge times can be very important.
Your guide makes no mention of the 300 second recharge on Noxious Gas, for example, which has a huge impact on how you use that power.
That may be, but it's a tactical consideration more than something that goes in this kind of introductory guide. I don't want to bog down the article with all manner of cryptic numbers when all people really want to know is "What does this power do?" before considering if they should take it.
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it should do -1000 regen like the traps one =P
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Originally Posted by Lewisite
I have a Mercs/Poison build for PvP. Very good. However, whatever build you go with -- avoid Poison Trap. Its completely useless. I promise you will never, ever notice it do anything. People have been complaining about it for years now.
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One question about Noxious Gas - what is the duration? None of the usual resources list a duration, just a recharge. I checked mids, RedTomax and the in game numbers at the MM creation screen (which show nothing about the power beyond the base stats - end cost, recharge, activation). Does the power last until the pet is dismissed/dies or does it have a fixed duration? With a 5 minute recharge it needs to have a decently long duration to be worth much and without it the set strikes me as kind of blah.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
I think it lasts 45 seconds, with each pulse laying down a debuff that lasts 20 seconds according to this link on Red Tomax, and I believe I've had this confirmed on the boards too.
http://www.redtomax.com/data/powers/...as.Noxious_Gas
"Lifetime: 45" suggests that the henchman keeps spewing it out for 45 seconds, and the duration of the debuff is how long it lingers on each enemy since the last pulse. So at best it lasts about a minute, like when you cast it on a pet standing next to an AV.
Is that right?
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Oh christ, it could do *anything* and it would be better than it is now. It sucks big ;P They should just make it identical and everyone is happy.
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Originally Posted by Gearford
it should do -1000 regen like the traps one =P
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Alkaloid is completely awful.
Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
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Alkaloid is a great example of how a power can become better through frankenslotting.|
Originally Posted by Vanden
Alkaloid is completely awful.
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When you first get it, it heals for too little, recharges too slow, and costs far too much endurance for what little it does. But, once you frankenslot to max out healing, endurance reduction, *and* recharge, the quick recharge makes it quite effective at keeping a single target standing against some pretty tough mobs.
This is true because the benefits of (almost) halving recharge time and (almost) doubling healing, on their own, come close to quadrupling the healing potential of alkaloid, while halving the endurance cost leaves your MM with close to eight times the healing effect realized for each point of endurance spent, which leaves more endurance for doing other, helpful things.
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Anything you just said about Alkaloid can be said about every other healing power. The difference is that every other healing power has much better base stats, except for O2 Boost, and O2 Boost at least affects the target almost immediately instead of having a leisurely wind up followed by travel time for the projectile to reach its target. Moreover, O2 Boost is in a set with much better AoE than Poison. In addition, since Poison is only available to Masterminds, you are GUARANTEED to run into situations where Alkaloid is not enough, because a slow, weak, single-target heal is not enough to keep six targets in the green. Frankenslotting can improve Alkaloid, yes, but all it can do is take it from terrible to less-terrible.|
Originally Posted by ShoeTattoo
Alkaloid is a great example of how a power can become better through frankenslotting.
When you first get it, it heals for too little, recharges too slow, and costs far too much endurance for what little it does. But, once you frankenslot to max out healing, endurance reduction, *and* recharge, the quick recharge makes it quite effective at keeping a single target standing against some pretty tough mobs. This is true because the benefits of (almost) halving recharge time and (almost) doubling healing, on their own, come close to quadrupling the healing potential of alkaloid, while halving the endurance cost leaves your MM with close to eight times the healing effect realized for each point of endurance spent, which leaves more endurance for doing other, helpful things. |
Poison as a whole is very weak. People claim it has amazing debuffs, but my experience would suggest otherwise, and I think the numbers back me up.
Let's take a look at everyone's favorite debuff, -ToHit. Poison has two sources of this, Weaken and Neurotoxic Gas. Weaken does 11.25% -ToHit, enhanceable to about 16.75%. Neurotoxic Gas does 12.5% -ToHit when used on a T3 minion, and can't be enhanced. That's a maximum of 29.25% -ToHit. Fine for minions and lieutenants, but you can't have NG up for every mob. Moreover, minions aren't usually worth a Weaken. Now, bosses have base 75% hit chance, so that's 46.75% base chance ToHit when they've got both debuffs on them. But wait, often times you're fighting bosses higher-level than you. That both increases their tohit chance and reduces the effectiveness of your debuffs. Next, we need to realize that around 50% or more of your damage output is from your T1 and T2 pets, which are lower level than you and even more levels below the boss.
What all this means is that even with both sources of ToHit debuff on this boss, he still has a better than even chance of hitting your main sources of damage. Most bosses have enough damage to kill your weaker pets in two hits in an AoE, even with the max damage debuff applied to him. Start fighting EBs and AVs and the situation gets even worse.
Success against hard targets with Poison depends as much on your Primary, inspiration use, and management of pets as it does on your Poison powers, perhaps more.
I have two high-level MMs: A Thugs/Pain and a Mercs/Poison. Here's how a typical EB fight will play out for each.
Mercs/Poison: Give the Commando inspirations, hit him with NG, and send him into melee with the EB. Pray the EB or its mob doesn't hit him with knockback, because if he's not attacking, he's not drawing aggro. Hit the EB with my debuffs and pray Commando keeps aggro, because I can only heal one pet at a time, and if the EB's attention turns to me and the rest of my pets, I'm losing two of them, minimum, because they're weak and don't have insps. Usually fail once or twice.
Thugs/Pain: Buff thugs with World of Pain, pop a break free, jump and EB and hit him with Anguishing Cry. Taunt EB with Challenge. Stand away from EB and spam Challenge and Nullify Pain, standing near pets for Nullify Pain occasionally to heal Bodyguard damage. Rarely fail more than once, if at all.
In my experience, an AoE (self) heal and a pool power (Challenge) is more powerful against EBs than the entire Poison secondary.
Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
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Thanks! I tried really hard to come up with the completely original idea all by myself... *cough*|
Originally Posted by Trickshooter
Stylish little headers, there.
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Originally Posted by Vanden
In my experience, an AoE (self) heal and a pool power (Challenge) is more powerful against EBs than the entire Poison secondary.
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For Poison, you've focused on the -ToHit in Weaken and Noxious Gas, but ignored -Recharge or -Speed in Neurotoxic Breath. I think if you switch around your strategy with Mercenaries a bit, you can do better by taking aggro to yourself and keeping some distance via Neurotoxic Breath.
I have a petless Mastermind with Poison, and it can take down a particular selection of Elite Bosses solo. I'm still experimenting with Longbow Ballista, and I'm convinced I can do it with my build, but I haven't quite succeeded on that one yet.
If I can almost take down a Ballista with no pets using the Poison secondary (which means no Noxious Gas), then maybe your experience with the set has not been comprehensive?
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I ignored the -Speed and -Recharge because it doesn't matter; the -Recharge doesn't come into effect until the boss or higher has used all its attacks, sometimes more than once since some enemies have so many attacks they can string together a lengthy chain before the -Recharge really affects their output. Plus, because of the way recharge times are calculated, that hefty-sounding -65% recharge debuff only means that the enemies' attacks take 33% longer to recharge, hardly gamebreaking.| For Poison, you've focused on the -ToHit in Weaken and Noxious Gas, but ignored -Recharge or -Speed in Neurotoxic Breath. I think if you switch around your strategy with Mercenaries a bit, you can do better by taking aggro to yourself and keeping some distance via Neurotoxic Breath. |
-Speed doesn't help with combat unless the enemy tries to run away, or in specific cases when the enemy tries to melee you, but then you have the headache of keeping your T3 pet in melee for NG.
The numbers and my experience simply don't show Poison being a powerful set. When my EB fights consistently end when, after I apply my debuffs, the Commando loses aggro for whatever reason and the EB turns and two shots nearly all of my pets with AoEs, there's little room for interpretation.
Issue 16 made me feel like this.
Warning: This poster likes to play Devil's Advocate.
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While I don't have strong opinions about Poison, I think -recharge is underestimated. Its value is less in preventing an enemy from attacking and more in the fact that enemies with one or two particularly annoying powers won't be able to use that particular power as often - AOE mezzes and debuffs are the first thing that comes to mind, but there are other examples.
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Originally Posted by Vanden
I ignored the -Speed and -Recharge because it doesn't matter; the -Recharge doesn't come into effect until the boss or higher has used all its attacks, sometimes more than once since some enemies have so many attacks they can string together a lengthy chain before the -Recharge really affects their output.
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Nice guide.
And the only two things I'd note are:
Elixir of Life cannot be used to rez pets (which isn't any different from any other MM rez, but does on occasion get asked,) and
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re: PVP, with the i13 changes, pretty much *any* hold will affect a player. The question's purely one of duration, as all mez protection turns into mez resistance.
| There's a sinister secret to the power as well: there's a 0.2% chance (one fifth of one percent) that the gas will deal a magnitude 1,000 Hold to the target for 4 seconds, both in PvE and PvP. This is well more than enough to choke the strongest playes, Heroes and Arch-villains no matter what kind of status protection they happen to have. |
Poison is a buff/debuff powerset available only to Masterminds, and it's one of the most versatile and interesting grab bags of different power types available in the game. Amidst its ally buffs, enemy debuffs and status effect powers, the toys themselves come in different forms from normal cast powers to a debuff anchor and even a placeable trap.
The single-target nature of Poison's more prominent debuffs makes it more effective against individual stronger enemies rather than multiple weaker enemies, but the sheer number of possibilities in the set as a whole make it useful in just about any situation.
Alkaloid is a single-target heal power that takes very little time to cast and serves as a respectable aid in combat. The intensity of the heal is not all that impressive, at least compared to dedicated healing powers like Soothe from the Pain Domination powerset, but it's good in a pinch and serves well with the relatively low hit points of a Mastermind's Henchmen. The power can be compared to Aid Other from the Medicine pool, and unslotted, it does take a fair chunk of Endurance to cast.
A quirk about Alkaloid is that it grants a non-stacking +15% Resistance buff to Toxic damage to the target for 60 seconds.
Envenom is a single-target debuff that affects the opponent with -22.5% Defense to all, -30.0% Resistance to all and -50.0% Regeneration for 30 seconds. Although the power only affects one target, it's a staple in the Poison diet because it makes the enemy significantly easier to defeat. Especially for Masterminds, who deal low damage as a rule, this is a way to deal greater damage to the target than is available through self buffs. This is all not to mention making the enemy easier to hit, such as those Sky Raider Force Field Generators or Rikti Drones.
The complement to Envenom, which makes an enemy easier to defeat, Weaken makes the enemy less able to defeat your character or the team. Its primary use is to affect the target with -22.5% to all Damage and -11.25% ToHit for 30 seconds.
An additional bonus is a -74.5% debuff to a slew of secondary effects for 30 seconds, such as status effects, defense buffs, movement debuffs and endurance drains. This means that hitting a mezzer or Sapper with Weaken will significantly reduce the trouble they can cause to the team.
Joining the ranks of the "breath" powers comes this little gem of a cone power, which affects the targets with -65.0% to both Recharge as well as Movement Speed for 20 seconds. This is extremely useful for reducing incoming damage as well as keeping the foes from scattering very quickly. The power can be set to recharge in less time than its affects actually last, which means you can keep the whole battle choking on your stinky breath.
The power also has two 25% chances for short-duration magnitude 2 Holds, with means that every once in a while, it will even Hold a boss. The Holds are purely anecdotal and have few practical benefits, but it's a fun little quirk about the power anyway.
Returning to the world of ally buffs, we get the most two-sided ally Rez power in the game. On the one hand, it's a significant benefit because in addition to being revived with full HP and Endurance, the target is affected with +200% Recovery, +100% Recharge, +30.0% to all Damage, +22.5% ToHit and +15.0% Resistance to Toxic damage, all for 90 seconds.
However, after that 90 seconds is up, the ally's body rejects the poison and ends up with a debuff instead. It starts out with a magnitude 1,000 Hold for 4 seconds, which will make the ally stop in his tracks and vomit; suppressing the effects of any defensive toggles he has active, which isn't something you want happening during combat. After the Hold wears off, the target is affected with -30.0% to all Damage and -22.5% ToHit for 45 seconds.
As with any rez power, Henchmen can't be brought back to life, so this can only be used on ally players.
Antidote is a standard-issue, single-target status protection power that grants the ally significant protection from Hold, Stun, Sleep, Terrify, Immobilize and Confuse; and resistance to Sleep, -Recharge and -Speed; all for 90 seconds, and these effects stack with multiple casts of the power.
Following up on the out-of-place Resistance buffs, the power also grants non-stacking +15.0% Resistance to Toxic damage and +7.5% Resistance to Cold damage for 90 seconds.
The second control power of the set, Paralytic Poison is an unassuming magnitude 3 Hold that lasts for about 10 seconds from a Mastermind and recharges in 16. Other than the super-cool animation, there is nothing else to know about this power. Having said that, though, it is a hold that can be applied permanently, so it's nothing to shake a stick at.
Poison Trap releases a cloud of knock-out gas on the battle field. You have to take a moment to place it on the ground, which can be interrupted, and when it detonates, the cloud puts enemies to Sleep, has a 2% chance of a short-duration magnitude 3 Hold, and has a 1.5% chance of -10% Endurance to target.
It is worth noting that this power is different from the Poison Trap in the Traps powerset.
The kingpin of debuff powers. In fact, that little overlay on the icon is known as "mega debuff," and Noxious Gas is the only power that uses it. You select a Henchman to infect, then they emit a gas that debuffs all enemies around them with -Damage, -Resistance, -Defense and -ToHit. The exact amount of each depends on which Henchman you infect:
First Henchman (3 of them): -15.0% to all Damage, -22.5% Resistance to all damage, -15.0% Defense to all, -7.5% ToHit
Second Henchman (2 of them): -20.0% to all Damage, -30.0% Resistance to all damage, -20.0% Defense to all, -10.0% ToHit
Third Henchman (1 of them): -25.0% to all Damage, -37.5% Resistance to all damage, -25.0% Defense to all, -12.5% ToHit
These values graciously stack with the effects from Envenom and Weaken, which can make for some serious debuffing for that one target who happens to get hit with all three powers. The sums come to -60.0% Defense to all, -47.5% to all Damage, -67.5% Resistance to all damage, and -23.75% ToHit.
There's a sinister secret to the power as well: there's a 0.2% chance (one fifth of one percent) that the gas will deal a magnitude 1,000 Hold to the target for 4 seconds. This is well more than enough to choke the strongest Heroes and Arch-villains no matter what kind of status protection they happen to have.