Dark or Poison?

I'm rolling up a new demon summoning mastermind. I was originally going to go demon/pain, but I tried that for a few levels tonight, and it was already getting on my nerves, so I think I'll go with something else. Thematically, /poison and /dark seem to fit best, but I've never played either one, so I'm looking for suggestions as to which is better.

Dark is easier, more fun and more powerful in most situations.

It even has more utilities, pet/stealth.

/Poison is the red-headed stepchild of MM secondaries, it's even less popular than trick arrow.

Poison doesn't have anything as weak as flash arrow or entangle arrow. It is single target, but it definitely can bring down tough targets early on.

Well, you don't see fans of other ATs asking for /Poison, do ya?

Poison has some good powers. Weaken is a beast whatever way you look at it. The issues with poison: its AoE mitigation is a sleep trap. This will only sleep those immediately over it when tripped-not after. Since pets can't be told to stick to their ST attacks, even sleeping foes will often be a problem for an active mastermind.

Envenom is supposed to be the secondary big hitting debuff, but instead it's a non-stacking -30% res, -50% regen, -22.5% def.

Since dark can layer its -50% regen every 8 seconds with twilight grasp, (stacking!) and has an aoe -res with -30% res, the only point where poison's envenom isn't worse off than dark is its -def. As it is ST, this is hardly a strength.

Last of all is poison's final power, noxious gas. This is a 20 second duration debuff that takes 5 minutes to recharge and has to (a) be on a pet at close range, and (b) will die if that pet dies.

So, Poison has three powers that range from kinda underpowered to downright impotent in practice. I would very much like if envenom had its stats boosted or became at least partially stackable, if the poison trap's -end could sap foes to impunity a la the cunductive aura for doms, (The trap's -end is pretty much useless as-is) and the noxious thing became a toggle. But that's not my call.

If you aren't the only support around, /poison makes a quite decent 'other-ran' support set. It's handy solo against a few, tough foes, and is indeed still strong versus hard targets. You'll find /dark to be a lot more versatile in many instances, though, and far tougher in all instances.

I love my Necro/poison mastermind, but he seems to have fallen prey to a very conservative balance when his secondary was drawn up.

Poison is very single-target.

Dark is more cones/anchors/AoE-ish

Both are great debuffs
Both have rez
Both have heals
Both have holds

Choose your weapon.

my first villain was a necro/poison, and i loved it, although i definitely solo a lot.

even though it is single target focused, the single target debuffs (envenom and weaken) animate quickly, and recharge fairly quick as well. at least quickly enough that between applying them on hard targets and controlling and healing your pets that you won't be waiting for them... unless you use them on the wrong enemy. weaken also has the very rare -special, absolutely neutering enemy mezs and tier 9s.

people complain a lot about the heal - single target with a delay, but properly slotted can heal a 1st tier henchman completely and substantially heal a 2nd and 3rd tier henchman. it also recharges very fast. with necro, you occasionally want a henchman to fall for soul extraction though...

its primary AoE control is not poison trap (i think i might have tried it but quickly dropped it), but neurotoxic breath - essentially shiver (wide cone -rech, slow) but also has a significant chance to hold targets as well.

poison's tier9 might not be up often, and will disappear if the henchman targeted is killed, but not only debuffs def, resist, tohit and dam, also has a small chance for basically an unresistable hold... which usually will occur at least once per casting. it will hold AVs!

with poison, you rarely let your henchmen choose their targets - attack my target is your best friend and i usually open by sending my henchman to my target while immediately after using envenom... outside of bosses, the enemy is gone before i even need to apply weaken. if i apply weaken, its to another enemy while my zombies chew through the one i just envenomed.

in short, poison is the single target debuffer. dark might have similar lvls of debuff, but i'd contend that poison can lay down its debuffs faster than dark - at least for small mobs. its also very strategic - you need to be very aware of both your henchmen and the mobs you're facing.

/Poison is quite bad but if you find other secondaries too boring (maybe due to too powerful), you may like /poison and /trick arrow as those two keep you very very busy.

If you solo most of the time, /poison is good. Other than that, you will have a hard time babysitting your pets with /poison secondary.

I have a lvl 50 Merc/Poison and Merc/Storm. It is like Night and Day. I didn't know I had such a rough time with /poison.

If you are new to MM, /Dark is definitely better.

I have not tried DS/Poison but I do have Thugs/Poison and I've got to say DS would be the only other thing I'd put /Poison on because the Demon Prince does go right to melee after it casts its Ice Blast (and sometimes it'll hold from range, too)... This might be a VERY good reason to go with /Poison and I plan to try it

The Demon Prince has PBAoE slow, keeping things inside of Noxious Breath in a way the bruiser can't, and he has that Hold which you can stack with the /Poison hold. (of course you can do that with /Dark, too) The space from 32-38 will feel weaker on /Poison than on /Dark because you have no AoE -RES to take advantage of all the AoE attacks the demons gain with the 32 upgrade, but after Noxious Breath that'll even out.

Still, /Dark is /Dark and there is a reason it's so popular...

One of my favorite toons is a 50 Thugs/Poison. Having said that:

Dark - One of, if not THE, most powerful sets in the game for any archetype that can take it. It does everything and does it well.

Poison - Very single-target oriented, which in a game where heroes/arch-villains have strong reisstances to debuffs, is a big minus (for me anyhow).

I often feel like my secondary doesn't exist in groups. I usually do breath, then just use attack powers and spot healing.

Don't get me wrong, Poison is a fun and functional set, but it doesn't compare to the big boys for end game content or grouping.