Mastermind Poison Revamp!

So, after 5 years of playing this game on and off I've finally had enough with Poison. The Poison Powerset for Masterminds is sadly not up to par with the other choices. Of course there will always be a 'best' and 'worst' but in Poison's case, it is very very low on the ladder. But why? Well, there are a few reasons:

1. Noxious Gas' tooltip is a myth. Have you ever tried to see what Noxious Gas' numbers are? You can't. This, I feel is a turn-off for people trying to see what/how Poison performs once it is fully powered-up. This needs to be corrected. This isn't a personal opinion; this is fact. Fix the tooltip so we know what kind of numbers Noxious Gas is pulling.

2. Antidote has no backup. Antidote isn't a bad power. It's a carbon copy of Clear Mind. The issue is that it has no support to back up it's nice mez protection. Poison either needs better dmg/tohit debuffs or more healing. As a set called 'Poison' It's understandable that more healing wouldn't make sense. So lets give it an extra effect and possibly change the name to sound less 'healy' and more 'Poisony'

Toxicity: (same effects as Antidote)+Enemies deal X damage to themselves when they hit this ally. The damage doesn't have to be huge, but it fits the Mastermind playstyle of buffing their pets to dish out more damage and it actually gives them a reason to pick up Antidote/Toxicity. Tankerminds may not enjoy this power. Yet, Tanking as Poison is generally not a very good idea.

3. Envenom and Weaken should just be combined. It's bad enough that Poison has single target debuffs. It's even worse that it has 2. This is a wasted power slot. Just combine both of them and replace whichever one you moved with something else to help round out Poison. This single target debuff with the effects of both would be a fair power. Dark Miasma, Traps, Trick Arrow and even Thermal Radiation have AoE Debuffs so lets make that new free slot do something cool:

Infection (Anchor): Infect a target enemy. All enemies including your targeted enemy suffer from an infection that reduces their Regeneration and Movement Speed. It also has a small chance to confuse them for a few seconds (Think Arctic Air confusion.. like 2 seconds). This would help Poison keep enemies in line and stacks well with essentially every other power in the set without stacking too much of any one particular debuff. The -Regeneration doesn't have to be on par with Lingering Radiation, but would it make that much of a difference if it was?

4. Poison Trap is pitiful. It's effect is actually cool. It just takes forever to use and can be interrupted. I suggest just turning it into a Targeted AoE with the same effects just without the interrupt. Ofcourse Recharge, Endurance cost, duration and accuracy can be tweaked. The effects would remain the same.

With these changes Poison would be slightly more noob friendly while finally giving Poison some useful abilities to play with pre-38 (When the set finally becomes useful) Naturally my suggestions are just there to get everyone's mind working, not to say it's the best course of action.

The ONLY thing I agree with is fixing or replacing poison trap. The only thing it's good for is skipping. It's worthless as it sits now.

The heal needs to be sped up a bit and/or increased for its END cost.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Poisons Trap = Traps version. The Traps version works 110% perfectly. Make it so.

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

1 is simply a technical issue that I agree needs to be fixed.

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Originally Posted by Vel_Overload 2. Antidote has no backup. Antidote isn't a bad power. It's a carbon copy of Clear Mind. The issue is that it has no support to back up it's nice mez protection. Poison either needs better dmg/tohit debuffs or more healing. As a set called 'Poison' It's understandable that more healing wouldn't make sense. So lets give it an extra effect and possibly change the name to sound less 'healy' and more 'Poisony' Toxicity: (same effects as Antidote)+Enemies deal X damage to themselves when they hit this ally. The damage doesn't have to be huge, but it fits the Mastermind playstyle of buffing their pets to dish out more damage and it actually gives them a reason to pick up Antidote/Toxicity. Tankerminds may not enjoy this power. Yet, Tanking as Poison is generally not a very good idea.

I don't really get what this means. A mez-breaker is a great power for any support AT to have access to. I'm not clear why it needs "backup" in the form of other support effects. Also, it is not a carbon copy of Clear Mind. Instead of +Perception it has Cold, Toxic, and Slow Resistance, the last of which is incredibly potent and useful.

Additionally, from previous developer comments, "reflection" type effects cannot be done in the engine.

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3. Envenom and Weaken should just be combined. It's bad enough that Poison has single target debuffs. It's even worse that it has 2. This is a wasted power slot. Just combine both of them and replace whichever one you moved with something else to help round out Poison. This single target debuff with the effects of both would be a fair power. Dark Miasma, Traps, Trick Arrow and even Thermal Radiation have AoE Debuffs so lets make that new free slot do something cool: Infection (Anchor): Infect a target enemy. All enemies including your targeted enemy suffer from an infection that reduces their Regeneration and Movement Speed. It also has a small chance to confuse them for a few seconds (Think Arctic Air confusion.. like 2 seconds). This would help Poison keep enemies in line and stacks well with essentially every other power in the set without stacking too much of any one particular debuff. The -Regeneration doesn't have to be on par with Lingering Radiation, but would it make that much of a difference if it was?

Combining Envenom and Weaken would not be "fair". Assuming the devs weren't completely ignoring balance, it would actually be a significant nerf to the set, as now the set's primary stock of debuffs would be in a single power, with a significantly high endurance cost and recharge time.

An infection power actually sounds like a cool idea, especially since they could potentially re-use the Chain Lightning effect rather than a plain AoE. However, Poison already gets significant -Regen (which I'm not really sure is all that generally useful in an AoE anyway) and an AoE slow later in the set.

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4. Poison Trap is pitiful. It's effect is actually cool. It just takes forever to use and can be interrupted. I suggest just turning it into a Targeted AoE with the same effects just without the interrupt. Ofcourse Recharge, Endurance cost, duration and accuracy can be tweaked. The effects would remain the same.

I pretty much agree with the posts above - just swap in a clone of Traps' Poison Trap. The extra -Regen might a bit overkill, though...

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With these changes Poison would be slightly more noob friendly while finally giving Poison some useful abilities to play with pre-38 (When the set finally becomes useful) Naturally my suggestions are just there to get everyone's mind working, not to say it's the best course of action.

I'm honestly a bit flabbergasted that you think /Poison is entirely without use or worth until Noxious Gas. I know the set isn't exactly stellar compared to others (due to a whole can of worms worth of reasons, such as how Dark Miasma was slowly built up into a borderline overpowered set), but useless?

There should be no doubt that Poison trap NEEDS to be replaced. Regarding Poison Trap, Wonderslug said the following in the recent Poison Trap thread:

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Poison Trap applies an initial sleep, then creates a gas cloud that attempts to apply an unenhanceable 4-second hold and an enhanceable 10% end drain once per second. The catch? They each have a 2% chance to occur. That means that any given target, provided it stays in the cloud for the entire duration, has a 54.5% chance (0.98^30) of never getting hit by a hold, and a 54.5% chance of never getting hit by an end drain. In fact there's a nearly 30% chance that the cloud will do nothing at all whatsoever to any single target, again assuming it remains in the cloud for the entire duration. It is easily the most worthless power in the game, because while plenty of powers are weak, and plenty of powers have effects that are considered not beneficial or hyper situational, (Poison) Poison Trap is the only one I can think of with a nearly 1/3 chance to literally contribute nothing at all to things it hits.

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I feel strongly that Noxious Gas should be looked at as well. For comparison we can look at Painbringer, the other buff that MM's get at tier 9. Unfortunately for Poison, the comparison is not very good.

Noxious Gas
Pet target only (pet level determines effectiveness)
Recharge: 300s
End: 22.75
Duration: 45s
Range: 30ft

Painbringer
Ally target
Recharge: 300s
End: 13
Duration: 90s
Range: 80ft


Wow. Painbringer is better than NG in all kinds of ways. Just the ability to cast Painbringer on allies rather than only pets is MASSIVE. NG is only good on melee pets, Painbringer is +REC, +REG, and +DMG which means it's good on ANYONE, melee, support, ranged, DPS whatever. The +REC and +REG mean that Painbringer is useful both in and out of combat, NG is only good in combat. Painbringer even has twice the range and costs a lot less END!

In this comparison Noxious Gas is all kinds of inferior. There are a bunch of options to make it better though.

- Make it a toggle. If it's going to be SO limited in targets it can affect (pets and then by pet level) and effectiveness (melee only, combat only) then it can just be on all the time.

- Remove the varying effectiveness based on pet level. This would open it up to more Mastermind primaries. Right now it's not ideal for any set that doesn't have a melee pet as the top pet.

- Make it target teammates instead of just pets. Just that could make the power a ton more effective. It could also then be ported more easily to other AT's. As it is Poison can't ever be proliferated.

There's a similar thread on the MM boards, I stole some of this post from one of my posts there.

Just as a side note - comparing range is rather pointless there. It doesn't affect the power's effectiveness. Just how close someone has to be to have it applied to it. And since t's set to be applied to pets... *shrug*

Also, it looks like you're ignoring what Noxious Gas actually does:
-Defense - in an AOE around the pet. So EVERYONE has a better chance to hit.
-Resistance - So, not only does everyone have a better chance to hit, they hit harder.
-Damage - so if that pet gets hit, they're hit for less.
-Tohit - so there's *less* of a chance they'll get hit.
Chance for hold - and being a "vomit" animation, well...

Recharge isn't as useful for a pet. Noxious Gas does quite a bit, and does it in a Pet-based AOE.

Versus Painbringer:
+Recharge - again, not as useful for a pet.
+Damage - Are we looking at a single target or a pet that uses AOE? And this doesn't help the REST of the pets, and the rest of the TEAM, hit harder (as the AOE -Resist (all) does.)
+Regen - meh.

About the only thing that could really be said is "Let me put NG on anyone."

See my Guides and Tutorials

I have a very strong dislike for the entire "set trpas" mentality of long-activation interruptible setupu powers like mones, bombs, the gas trap, the gun drone and so forth. It feels like they were designed for an entirely different game, one where preparing an ambush and strategically drawing enemies into it was a major part of gameplay. In City of Heroes as it stands right now, that tactic is a last resort if your direct-application powers fail, and it attaches an unnecessary time investment, forcing one set to spend considerable set-up time to achieve what another can in real time.

As such, I would argue for turning Poison Trap into a tossable power. Toss a vial on the ground over a short range (call it Caltrops range) and have it stay there until someone steps on it. If thrown at someone's feet, then it would trigger immediately. That way it gets to serve as a trap AND as a direct-application power. I feel the power's actual stats also need tweaking, but I won't get into that.

Also, Noxious Gas is a really uncomfortable power. If you picked Mercenaries, Robotics or - like I did - Necromancy as your primary, then you're put in a no-win situation. If you want the best effect out of Noxious Gas, then you have to place it on your ranged henchman and put that in melee, which isn't ideal for said henchman. If you choose to put it on a melee henchman (if your set even HAS one), then it operates at a lower power level. Making its power unrelated to henchman class sounds like a superior idea.

I can kind of understand why Detonator deals more damage with a higher-class henchman, but at least with that you can resummon the henchman once killed. With Noxious Gas, you need the henchman alive for the effect to linger. I'm not too hot with putting that on team-mates, but at least letting me pick the henchman I put it on would give some flexibility.

Or... Why not put the power on ALL henchem at the same time? Obviously it wouldn't be allowed to stack between then, but it might be pretty cool

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.