A Solution to /Poison: Have Envenom and Weaken mimic the motions of Jolting Chains

I was over reading the Controller forum and found this thread http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=236649

When I saw the below explanation of the "AoE" of the power, I pictured the debuffs in /poison doing this. Many other games have biological abilities than "infect" nearby enemies, and since this kind of "travel" from enemy to enemy is now in the game already, it could be applied to Envenom and Weaken.

Any of us who have played /Poison know it's extremely difficult to put these debuffs on the many multiple enemies in a large team, so we have to very carefully pick and choose the best targets. That's all well and good, strategy is nice, except every other debuff set gets AoE debuffing AND more utility. This could be a nice way to level the playing field for the only unique MM secondary (seems like they should care about it more since it IS unique)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex Jolting Chain starts out like a regular single target attack. If you hit you hit, if you fail you fail. However unlike most attacks, on a successful hit, Jolting Chain temporarily tags the target. After a short pause that target emits two separate, invisible AoE blasts, each with a 15ft radius (about the size of Fireball). Each of these blasts has a target cap of 1. This means only enemy can be hit by it, but also means the AoE rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls against every available enemy in the area of effect until it either hits one of them, the StreakBreaker forces a hit, or it misses every single available, untagged target (EXTREMELY unlikely when there are a few enemies in range with average defense). Targets that are hit are then tagged, and after a brief pause they too emit an AoE. And then it happens again. In the end, up to 15 enemies can be hit. The basic chain formation looks like this:

I'd love to see poison get some love, its so niche that its actually pretty useless for most stuff, its by leaps and bounds the weakest of all the sets. its also the only set that really only works at all with a few primaries. lol, they couldn't make it worse

Hmm, if they do this I hope they don't nerf the effects too much (I like crippling single targets/semi crippling a few targets)

While it would be nice to have more AOE effects in the /poison set, I second the concern that any AOE love bestowed by the Devs will come with a nerfing of the ability of the set to bring difficult single targets, eg, AVs, to their knees.

I have a lvl 50 thugs/poison, and teams are often surprised at how smoothly AV or GM fights go with /poison on board. My main complaint about the set now is that few players actually realize the contribution that /poison can make on something like RSF or AV-heavy TFs/arcs.

Given the choice, I would prefer to keep single target potency over having more AOE.

How about since currently neither power stacks (I think. I know Envenom doesn't because I can't halt regen, only slow it), then when using either debuff, the initial target gets the full effect. Every "split" gets a 20%, stacking debuff (up to 80% of the total), which is overwritten if hit by the direct debuff.

I'd just like to feel more useful in a team on my Thugs/Poison. I can slow groups, I can TRY to hold some, I can debuff the toughest enemy and the heaviest hitter, and when it's up I can use Noxious Gas, but I can't do much to feel like a team contributor unless it is against a GM or AV. This would just give people a reason to pick poison instead of seeing that darkness can drop a tar patch at nearly every mob, and give defense, and other debuffs (including stacking -regen)...