Poison Trap is basically useless, right?

I'm playing a Mercs/Poison at level 29 now, and I just want to plan ahead a bit. It seems I have one power available that I can use either for Poison Trap, Paralytic Poison, M30 Grenade (Already have burst, but not slug), or Teleport Ally. I probably won't do Paralytic poison, since it has a really short duration of only 6.4 seconds, and a long recharge of 16 seconds so it can't be stacked. (By comparison, a controller's hold lasts 15 seconds and recharges in 8)

Reading through what Poison Trap does, its only reliable effect seems to be a sleep effect. I'm thinking if I use that on a bunch of enemies, my commando or medic is just going to hit them with a big AOE and immediately wake them up anyway.

So.... I guess that just leaves M30 Grenade and Teleport Ally as possibilities. Any thoughts?

I've never taken it for the /Poison MMs I've made, I have yet to see one person defend it with even an obscure situation where it's useful. Other "hated" powers seem to at least have a scenario to use it, like the cage powers or some of the high mag kb powers. I haven't heard of such a use for this Poison Trap.

I guess if your pets get wiped, this could buy you some time to get away. Something else that could do the same - superspeed.

It's been years since the last time I use Poison Trap on my first lvl 50 Merc/Poison. I remember I dropped it very soon because the trap has 4s interrupt? Does it still have 4s interrupt?

The Sleep effect isn't useless and the -endurance isn't useless but I do question 4s interrupt if it's still there.

None of the primary pets can drain endurance so the -endurance effect isn't going to be overwhelming. Maybe you can combo it with patron? And even that is a stretch.

The thing with -end effect is that you either drain it to zero and KEEP it at zero, or you don't drain at all.

I guess I wasn't factoring in that the sleep effect is recurring as long as the gas lasts (or is it?) So, even if the commando wakes them all up with a grenade, they'll fall back to sleep, right?

Also, you can't get a real benefit out of the Sandman Self Heal proc with it, can you?

The only thing I can think I used it for which made it usefull was when I dropped in in the street and watched a member of the Family walk on it. I then left but giggled.

That I think is it's only use. I had stealth so essentially it can only be really called a PVP power. I can definately see how that would work, but thats only because of said statement above.

Otherwise...Just skip it and take something else

Mids has Paralytic listed as a 9.5 second base hold duration, which means you can slot it so it is stackable - just for only 5 or so seconds depending on how you slot it. If you have the slots to spare, my vote goes for M30 as extra damage is nice with mercs. If not I'd say snag Paralytic with minimal slotting to mez any pesky mobs in a spawn, like Sappers.

Back in the day, I was invited to the City of Villains beta. I knew from the beginning that my first villain would be Robots/Poison mastermind. I won't say poison is underdeveloped, but it is challenging. I tried like crazy to make poison trap work. I toe bombed. I pulled around corners. Not only is the power not likely to hit foes, it's also very difficult for foes to set it off in the first place. I even took the time to lay as many traps as possible in a proposed kill zone. This power is the PITS. Even flurry does a LITTLE damage. Even repel can be used for positioning and if you are good for knocking bosses on their butts. Heck, even as hated as blackhole is, the power does what it advertises.

I have said before, I will repeat here for emphasis. Just port over the poison gas trap from the traps set and call it a day. If that's too much regen debuff for a poison user, just strip that debuff from the power. Even the reliable choke hold for the short duration in poison gas trap would be a huge improvement.

On a guess, it used to behave like /Trap's Poison Trap at some point. Basically for every enemy within range, a separate cloud is generated, thus those low proc chances are multiplied for every additional target adjacent to it. Course, they eventually limited it to only one cloud.

Though really, even if those proc chances were higher, the biggest problem is that those effects just aren't that useful.

Ha, well then, the 1 scenario I thought it would be useful for in my prior post above (hasty retreat post pet-wipe) it can't even help with due to 4 sec interrupt. Craptacular.

Another thing I discovered when I was trying to lay a whole mess of these useless boogers in front of a dead end room with a Family boss in it: my mastermind had the stealth/superspeed combo - completely invisible. As soon as I tried to place the trap within range of the boss, he sees me. Dropping the trap, even though it didn't go off, broke stealth. To me that's a crock.

It should just get a damage effect, like a DoT version of Trip Mine. It would at least make it fulfill a gap in Poison's abilities.

Personally, I always thought that Envenom and Weaken should be AoEs, which would improve the set in a big way.

But people always start in with this "Formula" bull crap and try to buzzshackle the idea.

The ultimate cost, of course, is having to take the power itself, lol. I did buy the disorient proc, though, just to make sure I have one in preparation. If it does indeed only fire once, it will be unfortunate.

I'm tempted by this power right now just because I need some controls. Retreating to another position in order to set it up isn't that difficult, because mobs tend to stay aggro-ed to my henchmen, and they're all ranged anyway. Also I have stealth so sometimes the mobs don't even mess with me at all. Weaken is great for single targets, but I could use an AOE.