Poison Set Revamp thread

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Is the stupid cottage rule still in effect with Castle gone? That was his baby. I also agree about the resurrect - I want to keep it.

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Wow I'm kind of surprised so many don't like the set (or want to see lots of changes to it at least).

I have a Demons/Poison (lvl 50) MM and he was fine/fun to play with.

Yes there is the obvious Poison Trap that needs to have something done to it....anything really....


Beyond that the only two other things I'd like to see done would be to add (make) the heal an AoE heal and/or just reduce the end. cost and rchg rate so that you can heal pets faster. My Demons/Poison was hurting when in teams and before my ember demon got his PBAoE heal.

And last thing I'd like to see is Noxious Gas be able to be cast on a teammate as well; maybe add some -regen in the debuff too so that we don't have to rely on Envenom for the -regen. Of course, shorten the recharge time on it would be nice too

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Yeah that's another issue though, not all pets get heals. I like the toggle Noxious idea - probably should be high in end cost kind of like the one in Sonic.

I do have a question though - what set do you think is the worst performing secondary, if not Poison?

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Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
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My Merc/Poison is stuck at lvl 34 because of the obvious weakness of the set. I'm a 'numbers + fun guy' and I've played MMs since I9. The numbers are an important baseline but the Powers also have to be fun or there's no reason to play them.

Alkaloid: Despite the fact that it's the same as O2 Boost it's really not. The +Status Protect from O2 Boost is MUCH more useful than the +Toxin Resist from Alkaloid because there are MANY mosre sources of Mez than there are of Toxic damage. If the effects of the Power stay the same then the End needs to be cut and the heal raised to make up for the reduced utility.

Weaken and Envenom: These Powers are obviously designed to be used on the same target since they cover Def, Resist, Damage AND To-Hit. However even though they are great ST debuffs the high End cost and need to hit the target decreases their usefulness. First, they should have the same Recharge time so they can be coupled together without one needing an extra Recharge IO in Weaken. Second, they need a small AoE since debuffing the Boss does NOTHING for the spawn around him and the set lacks mitigation. So my idea is an 8' radius AoE splash with half the effect that the target suffers. They can't be stacked so the Recharge is fine.

Neurotoxin Breath is too narrow in its effect. It does Slow and -Recharge and that's it. First, have it do a small (10-20 points) amount of Toxic damage (which is seldom resisted). This opens it up to taking AoE Invention sets. Decrease the Slow and -Recharge to 50% and add in a small (5-10%) Def debuff. This will help the pets hit better (and defeated foes are the best kind) as well as opening the Power up to Def Debuff sets. It wouldn't hurt if the duration was upped to 30 seconds either to match Envenom and Weaken.

Elixir of Life: I think it's safe to say that MMs solo more per capita than any other set. So if you HAVE to put a rez power in the set ok. But how about you cut it to 50% Heal and cut out the vomiting part?

Antidote: Many buffing Secondaries have something similar to this so it's in line with other sets. However thematically +Cold Resist from an antidote? Seriously? Why not remove that and either decrease the End cost or make it a small AoE?

Paralytic Poison: Look, a Hold that you have to 3-slot with Recharge to be able to stack it! IF you're lucky! Cut the Recharge to 12 sec and add a small damage component (which many ST Holds have anyway). Then it can be stacked for a single target or used on two Lts.

Poison Trap: Enough has been said about cloning the version of this Power from the Traps set. I think that's a good idea.

Noxious Gas: Ok, unless the gas itself contains something contagious it's not something you can 'infect' someone with. However, if you change the name to 'Infection' that works thematically. However as others have stated the Pet in question HAS to be close to enemy for this to work and that's counterintuitive to half the Pet sets. Make it a Targeted AoE with a 10' radius and see how it works.

As an alternate possibility, alter the Power so it still affects your Pets but it's a PBAoE around the MM so he can infect ALL of his Pets before sending them in. If this means reducing the effectiveness in lieu of stackability from the Pets then fine.

Without any other forms of mitigation the set HAS to debuff the enemy and I don't mean just the Boss.

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"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"

Poison as the worst MM set? I'd have to say hardly. Heck even if poison only had Alkaloid I'd say it still trumps Trick Arrow. And I'll explain why.

Trick arrow has no heal. Pets die without some sort of heal. Ok so what makes up for that, a meaningless tohit debuff, resistance debuffs, and more resistance debuffs, and then there's even more resistance debuffs. Well the enemies will sure die fast but 3 powers that debuff resistance aren't going to keep the pets alive. The pets will hit often with the -def/-resistance arrow, will do more damage when enemies are in the sonic arrow, and do more dmg yet still with oil slick arrow. And yet when the enemy fires back they'll only be moderately damage debuffed to reduce the injury to pets. Now all these powers have bad recharge and you can't always get them off at the same time, and why would you need that much -resist, but even still the enemy is almost always hitting you and theres no way to buff or heal the pets making them significantly weaken than other sets. So while the enemies may fall rather fast so will the pets. And re-calling out pets over and over and rebuffing makes the set very slow to run. Often out of end and waiting on pets to come back up just to recast buffs and be back out of endurance again.

You could counter with glue arrow but if your pets run into melee range anyway then the glue only offers slow and that's still no heal/buff. Complete suck in my opinion and I've gotten a really good dmg dealing MM to lvl 35 but the amount of time I spend resummoning pets and recasting the buffs only to have to take no action while I rest and wait for my end bar to come back up makes it the worst set I've used. I get more out of poison then I do from TA. Not to mention the redraw of the bow if you use a MM other than Nin.... Cast Dark Blast then redraw bow yet again and fire off Glue Arrow. Rinse. Repeat. Faceplant. Give up...

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Pinnacle Heroes: Ilconke lvl 50 En/En Blast, Pane lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank, Kimil'Lee Draco lvl 50 Ill/Kin Troller, Blackest Blackness lvl 38 DA/DM Tank, il lvl 35 PB

Pinnacle Villains: X lvl 50 Claw/Nin Stalker, Knumbskull lvl 42 Elec/Elec Brute, Metal Master lvl 35 Bot/Bub MM, X'ile lvl 32 Mind/Psi Dom

If I were re-doing Poison my first thoughts would be as follows:

Alkaloid - reduce the endurance cost a bit.

Envenom - small aoe splash, similar radius to Acid Arrow.

Weaken - small aoe splash, similar radius to Acid Arrow. Reduce recharge to 12 to match Envenom. *Maybe* increase the values of the -tohit and -dam a bit (-special is great and all, but it's extremely situational).

(if either of the above have to stay as single target I really think they need higher values as they're not really any better than the aoe debuffs other sets get, besides the situational -special and -regen/heal... and since higher values may end up a tad too much I think a small aoe is a better/safer route to go)

Neurotoxic Breath - no change.

Elixir of Life - no change.

Antidote - no change.

Paralytic Poison - no change (*maybe* some -spd/-rech for targets that resist the hold).

Poison Trap - heh, pretty much any change here would likely be an improvement. Direct replacement with Traps' version would be fine. Or make the sleep part more like Static Field. Or the Hold part more on par with Volcanic Gasses. Or any number of other things.

Noxious Gas - allow it to be toggled on a player character (now you can proliferate to Corruptors!), and if the tech allows remove the scaling effect when placed on lower tier/level pets. Wouldn't say no to a reduced recharge, either.


I've tried all the MM secondaries, and Poison is the only one I've abandoned - it measures up when you're solo against small spawn sizes, but once teamed or fighting higher multipliers it's not doing much that other sets can't do just as well in a wider area.

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i had an idea for noxious gas and the whole "infect" angle. first, change the power to be a toggle that can be applied to either pets or allies and then make the debuff work as follows:

ever enemy within 15 ft. (same as disruption field) has a good chance (maybe 30% every 2 sec) to become infected with with the debuff for 30 sec (does not stack). that way it ends up applying it to every enemy in range eventually and works like a constant effect. but, to make things more interesting, each infected enemy also has a chance to infect other enemies. make this secondary infection maube 8 ft. range, 20% chance to infect every 2 sec but for half the debuff amount and only lasts 15 sec. this way the infection could be spread by enemies that run away or get knocked around, which is dangerous, and offsets the increased strength of this power.

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Heck no, Trick Arrow > Poison any day, any night. Fixed oil slick that wipes out all minions with all that -resist on top of a way to hold the entire mob with EMP arrow? Come on, Poison can't even touch that.

One of my favorite characters is a TA defender. The numbers are different, true, but Poison is far worse, but maybe you never got one high enough?

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My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom

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My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom

Havent read this thread yet..cause I am sure I will agree with it all. Just pointing out a similar one
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=255708

Listing issues when MMs, which covers the ones with poison as well as ideas and suggestions. I think a dev or redname was looking at that thread also.

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I'd make changes to Poison all right but the first thing I'd do is clarify what poison should be which is the premier debuffing set, as it stands right now /Rad out debuffs it if you don't count noxious gas which is easy to do considering how hard it is to get pets to stay close enough(And alive enough) for it to apply.

So here's what I say
Add a -resistance/defense to everything

Envenom-Unchanged but make it a small AoE (8 meter)

Weaken-Unchanged but make it a small AoE (8 meter)

Neurotoxic Breath-Fine as is with -recharge/-speed but add in a small (10%) -Resistance/-Defense debuff to it as well

Paralytic Poison -Shorten the recharge a tad but add a small (10%) -Resistance/-Defense debuff to it as well

Poison Trap- Copy it to the /Traps version but remove the -endurance and add in -regen and -to hit or something, for sure -regen here.

Noxious Gas- The infect thing works fine but lets us infect anyone including other players not just our pets.

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Jorrus 50 MercPoison Mastermind / Samuel Geary 50 Warshade/Triform
Relenia 50 DB/Will Scrapper / Jonas Geary 50 Cold/Storm Controller

'They don't call it a "Free Fire Zone" because it's filled with kittens and butterflies"-Obsidius

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My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom

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Leader of The LEGION/Fallen LEGION on the Liberty server!
SSBB FC: 2062-8881-3944
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I think my first MM was /poison too.

Anyway, I hope poison trap gets completely revamped. It doesn't make sense to be laying down traps that dispense poison when it comes out of my face.

It'd be cool if Alkaloid had a stacking Heal over Time effect like the clockwork Menders have, on top of the initial heal that is already there. That'd make it unique compared to other heals players can use.

The two main debuffs should have some kind of aoe debuff. Even if it's not as strong as the debuff on your main target, although it'd be nice if it were.

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A lot of great ideas floating around, perhaps we should compile a list of potential changes for each power and edit it into the OP so it can be seen more readily by red names. My first MM was thug/poison

I really like the idea of Envenom/Weaken having a chaining effect. I've always thought it would be great if there was a splash AoE that could debuff other foes, but chaining like it's an infection would make poison more unique. Playing off of that idea, what if they acted like the Contagious Confusion proc? Perhaps a 50% chance to do so (or less if that would be overpowered). It would still retain poison as ST centric but have the possibility of becoming AoE with each use.

Alkaloid I would love to see have the splashing effect. My MM's shelved at the moment but I recall using alkaloid and aid other in order to keep my pets alive. Alternatively, allow alkaloid to heal and give a regen buff to the target for the duration - however long the tox resist lasts. That way, if your pets are getting hit with a few different AoEs, alkaloid can keep healing pets you already healed while you heal the rest.

The same treatment I'd like to see be done for antidote. Get rid of the cold resist (but keep the slow resist) and make it a splashing AoE. Increasing its duration would be an alternative.

Neurotoxic Breath seems okay to me. Perhaps increasing the duration as others have suggested or add a -res/def effect to enemies who get affected by the hold (vomitting). They've busy puking so they should be more vulnerable to attack. -Tohit would be alright, as well.

Elixir is fine as is, in my book.

Paralytic Poison is ok, too.

Poison Trap would probably be the first thing changed if I had to guess. Obvious choice would be to just make it PGT from Traps. Someone had a suggestion of making it a location AoE that still slept and drained end (I think). So, maybe clone it after Static Field could be a decent alternative, too.

Noxious Gas is great at what it does, imo. Seems it's just the delivery that's problematic. A toggle like Disruption Field would be very nice or simply allowing it to be cast on any ally (could toss in modifiers per AT it is used on). More NG, the better. I used to destroy Granite tankers in PvP when it detoggled them and made them puke constantly. Well destroy anything, really. Tried soloing Deathsurge a couple times but I could only get him to 2/3 hp because he kept running away.

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SG: Guadians of Paragon - VG: Paragon's Darkness
The Usual Suspects: Fimboolvetr (Icer Tank), Tsukiyomi (Mind/Psi/Ice Dom), Smiting Dragon (Dm/Sr Scrap), Widow Mortis (NW)
Up and Comers: Ameterasu (Km/Reg Scrap), Arrhymian (Elec/Nin Stalk), TDMKII (Bot/Traps MM)

What I would love to do with poison...

Alkaloid: I like to idea of a Targeted Area of Effect Heal, an ally centered Transfusion if you will. This will however allow a Poison Mastermind to heal him/herself. Overpowered? I say no.

Envenom/Weaken: I think two mechanics would be a good addition to this power. The Single Target nature of the set is an interesting one and could remain intact while adjusting it.

• These powers could summon the same type of pet used for Shield Charge or Lightning Rod. The Target could get the full brunt of the attack while everyone inside of 10' could receive 50% of the debuff and everyone inside of 20' could get 25% of the debuff.
  
• These powers could also get the 'jump' mechanic which would have a chance to jump from the original target to five additional enemies hitting them for 25% of the full debuff strength.
  
• Only the original target can get debuffed to 100% effectiveness of the power. The rest can only go up to 75% from nonstacking debuffs*.

*What I mean here is that you can't get to 75% from getting debuffed by 25% in the 20' radius 3 times. That 25% debuff can't stack with itself, and the 75% effectiveness must be achieved though stacking other parts of the debuff (20'+10' for example).

Some numbers (Assuming these don't change):
Initial Target
-30% Defense / -30% Resistance / -22.5% Damage / -13.5% Tohit / -74.5% Special

75% Reduction Anyone within 10' of the initial target and hit by the jump effect. (5 people max)
-22.5% Defense / -22.5% Resistance / -16.875% Damage / -10.125% Tohit / -55.875% Special

50% Reduction Anyone within 10' of the initial target, or 20' and hit by the jump effect.
-15% Defense / -15% Resistance / -11.25% Damage / -6.75% Tohit / -37.25% Special

25% Reduction Anyone within 20' but farther than 10' of the initial target or hit only but the jump effect.
-7.5% Defense / -7.5% Resistance / -5.625% Damage / -3.375% Tohit / -18.625% Special


These two effects together ensure that the initial target is still debuffed the most, but others are affected up to 75% of the effectiveness of the original debuff.

(I like the idea of the jump effect, I just don't like relying on it for AoE debuffs and this is my proposed compromise to it. Anyone else like it or am I going overboard alone?)

Neurotoxic Breath: I personally like it; however there are a couple things I would change.

• Increase the duration of the debuff effects to 30 seconds.
• Increase the Recharge of the power to 45 seconds.

The set is already spam heavy to keep your debuffs going and a little more breathing room would be nice.

Elixir of Life: Nothing to comment about here.

Antidote: Personally I like the power. Pretty standard Mez Protection buff with some resist thrown in. There is one thing I'd change though. Let it grant Knock Back protection. This makes up for the fact that one of the unique parts of this power is useless to the Mastermind (slow resist for slow immune pets?) and lets any Melee pets using Noxious Gas actually get to their target without being tossed away before reaching them.

Paralytic Poison: This power is pretty 'meh' to me. It does what it is designed to do, but all it does is hold. I think adding another effect to it would be interesting. Give it -...debuff resistance?...( I don't know what it would actually be called). What I am seeing is something to the effect of, "I just hit that boss with Paralytic Poison and now any debuffs placed on him will be 25% more effective!"

Poison Trap: See 'Change it to Trap's Poison Trap' but leave in its current effects as well so cottage rule doesn't apply. They are worthless anyway.

And now the fun one...Noxious Gas: I think Noxious Gas is a little above 'meh', but it could use a few tweaks.

• Make it usable on teammates -This means that not only can you put it on people who would be smarter about positioning (hopefully) but it also can be ported to Corrupters easier.
  
• Make it both a pulsing effect like it is currently, but also proc-like in the sense that any power (meaning attack/debuff/mez/etc.) activated by the person with Noxious Gas will debuff the enemies hit -This brings parity to Melee vs. Ranged users of the power.

Most of the changes, especially Noxious Gas, would probably be a coding nightmare, but these are what I'd like for Poison.

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Favorite Hero: Computer (Empathy/Energy Blast Defender)

Favorite Villain: Gimp Computer (Fire Control/Psionic Assault Dominator)

I'm a big fan of /Poison conceptually, and one of my 50s working on incarnate stuff is my Thugs/Poison. There's no doubt /Poison is an under-performing set compared to other MM secondaries, but I love it anyway. The only reason my guy is bearable is that 1) he's an MM, and that allows much to be ignored, and 2) thugs are sturdier than several other sets such as ninjas and zombies. I'd love for /Poison to get some minor boosts, and I'd love it to be ported to corruptors and controllers.

My recommendations echo Biowraith's, and I've even copied some of his language here. In order to make these changes doable (i.e., not require huge amounts of dev time), none of these changes violate the cottage rule, and none should require huge coding changes as they all use existing powers as their basis (though that's a guess, I know very little about stuff like that).

Alkaloid - reduce the endurance cost.

Envenom - Definitely a small aoe splash (10' or 12'); a little better than Acid Arrow (which is 8'), as this and Weaken are the signature powers of the set.

Weaken - Maybe a small aoe splash, similar radius to Acid Arrow (8') or a bit better (10').

Neurotoxic Breath - no change.

Elixir of Life - no change.

Antidote - no change.

Paralytic Poison - For targets that resist the hold, some minor secondary effect would be nice, as it is a toxin after all.

Poison Trap - I really like the idea of the Static Field recurring sleep pulse. It would be a useful power on a MM if that were the case. (Who had the idea to give sleeps to MMs anyway?)

Noxious Gas - allow it to be placed on a player character or a pet, and remove the scaling effect based on pet tier. Another option would be to make it a toggle--much like an ally-based Radiation Infection or Enervating Field. I prefer the toggle option.

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I don't know... I think a lot of these suggestions don't do enough for this set. Honestly compare poison to dark or traps. It is really bad compared to those great sets.

In my opinion, most of these tweaks will result in a set thats still weak, but thought to be "fixed" in the eyes of the devs. It will still lose hard end game.

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Jorrus 50 MercPoison Mastermind / Samuel Geary 50 Warshade/Triform
Relenia 50 DB/Will Scrapper / Jonas Geary 50 Cold/Storm Controller

'They don't call it a "Free Fire Zone" because it's filled with kittens and butterflies"-Obsidius

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My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom

agree poison trap is completely junk ( maybe change it to a castable location AOE?). and the noxious gas should be castable on allies. end reduction across the board would also be nice. Other than that im fine with poison. But you can also proliferate it to Corrs and proliferate Rad to MM's would solve alot of ppls problems. But than they would complain the 2 toggles use too much end. I play alot of debuffers and in the 2 sets that is really the only things i would change in them.

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Talos Maltalomar lvl 50 Rad/Rad Corrupter - Triumph Server
Arack BloodThrall lvl 50 BS/SR Scrapper - Triumph Server
Rose's Kiss Lvl 50 Mind/Nrg/Ice PermaDom - Triumph Server

i'm not trying to bash ideas, but i think everyone is 'chain-happy' since the mechanic was introduced, and it makes sense for elec/ion incarnate but outside of noxious gas, i don't think any type of chaining is thematic for poison. splash seems way more thematic.

as for the arguments against elixir... the set has a heal and an anti-mez, so the rez is not out of place at all from that standpoint. and from theme... some poisons can be used for medicinal purposes in the right doses, so it is also within poison's theme.

i know i've suggested already, but for envenom/weaken, i like the idea that either part or all of the debuffs are unresistable, which isn't as much of an issue because they can't stack. either that or increase the debuff values or both.

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50: Ill/Kin(A+,R,J)-1047 badges RE/Dark(A) Fire/Elec Warshade BS/Regen Necro/Poison Ice/Fiery(A+) Son/Son Bane(A) FM/DA(A) DM/Nin Grav/Icy
lvling: Inv/EM DM/Sheild Arch/MM Bane NW Elec/Earth Grav/Elec Elec/FA Rad/Ice
Paragon Elite/Rogue Elite Joined Oct 2004