Is Poison Trap really as weak at -regen as it seems?

I spent most of my time during the 2xp weekend taking a fire/traps corrupter to level 30. I read several guides about traps, all of which commented on the -regen portion of Poison Trap as a great advantage when soloing AVs or GMs. I just got spanked by my first AV today (not surprising, still no IO sets) but the -regen didn't seem to be very effective during the 45 seconds it took me to face-plant.

I just took a closer look at the power and the description says it lowers regen for just 10 seconds even though it has a long recharge! Am I missing something? Why would all these guides talk about the -regen component when it last for a few seconds?

How do you know it wasn't effective during your AV fights? Defeating an AV isn't as simple as using a -regen power and then profit.

I just tested with a lvl 50 mob (even con to my Trapper) and -regen was in effect for around 30 seconds. The 10 seconds is the duration of a "pulse" (not sure if that's the actual term) and it pulses many times. Whether "many" = every 10 seconds or more frequently (I'm betting on the latter) I'm not sure.

The bottom line is, the debuff lasts for 30 seconds from one instance of PGT. At least that was the result of what I just found. So, the short and sweet answer to your question is "absolutely not". Your AV soloing problems were more a function of survivability and DPS. You also need to 3 slot recharge on an SO build.

Whenever you have a question regarding a power's effect you can craft a Power Analyzer mk 3 (or 2 or 1, depending on your level) and see for yourself.

PGT has the most powerful -regen debuff in the game. Only EMP/EMP Arrow have the same level of -regen and they have vastly longer recharges and shut down your recovery.

For reference:

-25% regen: Poison Dart (15s, 4s recharge)

-50% regen: Twilight Grasp (20s, 8s), Transfusion (20s, 8s)

-500% regen: Heat Exhaustion (40s, 120s), Benumb (30s, 120s), Lingering Radiation (30s, 90s), Howling Twilight (30s, 180s)

-1000% regen: EMP (15s, 300s), EMP Arrow (15s, 300s), Poison Gas Trap (30s pulsing, 90s)

PGT is the daddy of -regen. As Deacon said, you need to apply damage to notice it. It'll flatline the regen of pretty much anything, so whatever damage you do will stick.

Poison trap is one if the strongest powers in the game, PbAoe Auto hit! 2 Recharge and 4 Damage procs, stack em on the floor and draw the AV to you.

If you are a trapper don't run in, Lure is the aim of the game.

Thanks for the excellent responses to my initial question about the length of the -regen. I am extremely happy that my initial impression was incorrect. I am mainly soloing at x8 ad it's been great.

BurningChick, how ARE you slotting up PTG? It might be a tough choice for me between damage procs and something that gives me +def. I would really like to get to the positional soft-cap on def if I can.

One thing to note is that poison gas trap isn't *quite* autohit. When the trap goes off, it summons two separate effects - one is a one-shot 6s mag 3 hold, and one is the pulsing -regen -recharge chance to hold/vomit. According to city of data, the persistant pulsing part is autohit, but the initial hold isn't. So if you're relying on that initial hold for mitigation or if you want to give your procs one extra chance to go off (they have 4 chances to go off on the pulsing part, so this would be a 5th), you might want to slot some acc.

I think you can still do 4 basilisk + lockdown proc - I was planning to use the first 4 basilisk pieces (skipping the quad and proc since they're pool Cs), the lockdown proc, and an acc/hold/rech from one of the cheap sets. That gives you 60ish acc, a bit of end, and 80ish hold/rech, which seems like plenty to me - 60%+ acc gives you 90%+ CTH on +2s and at least helps some against even higher level foes, and the last 20% rech only gives you a few seconds.

You could also possibly replace the acc/hold/rech with the purple acc/rech if you can afford it, you lose a bit of (honestly unnecessary) hold and gain extra acc and rech.

As to whether damage procs are still worthwhile, I'm not really sure. They still do get a fair number of chances to go off (two immediately, plus 3 more at 10, 20, and 30s from the pulsing cloud), but I'm not sure it's worth sacrificing enhancement value for the procs. I haven't tried it for myself, so I'm not sure how well the numbers translate to in-game usefulness.

If you do want to try putting in procs without sacrificing enhancement value, I don't really see a way to do it without using purples. Purple acc/rech, acc/hold/rech and a regular acc/rech is enough acc and rech, and that gives you 3 slots for procs. Unfortunately, you'll be sacrificing any set bonuses. Alternatively, you could slot all of the purple set apart from the straight hold and fill the last slot with another proc. That's one less proc and is a bit light on acc, but you still get a recharge bonus. Of course, all of these will be very expensive, and I personally wouldn't bother.

My personal preference is to slot PGT for enh values and set bonuses. While Traps can be a monstrous procbeast, I'd rather get bonuses and use my primary (Fire) for damage. Going for a lot of recharge allowed me to pump out my high damage/AoE powers from my primary and have my secondary powers up asap.

I can see proccing being a more tempting choice for primaries that don't have as much absurd damage as Fire, but not at the cost of enhancing the core aspects of a given power. Damage procs are nice in PGT, but maxing the rech and getting good acc/hold comes first.

What I went for was 5 Unbreakable Constraints. Best damage proc possible in it, great acc/hold/rech and great bonuses.