So. Poison.

I played with a DP/Poison corr on Virtue a week or two ago that was rocking the hell out of Poison. Double Dragunn or something like that. Anyhow, its inspired me to give the set another look.

What does it play nicely with? I'm thinking troller or corr, leaning Corr. Maybe Dark Blast? Anyhow, thoughts and ideas appreciated.

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Stay Gold, Paragon. Stay Gold.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

Well, you want a set that is good at range to pair with it, considering that Poison is entirely a ranged set, and doesn't provide a whole lot of durability for the user in melee range.

However, this all changes at level 38, when you get one of the best powers in the set, and it's a PBAoE toggle, so then you want to be in melee range more (or almost exclusively). So you want to pair it with a set that has some melee options.

In short, you want to pair it with something that is both pure range and melee friendly, depending at which point of your career you're at.


In all seriousness, though, I think that it would work well with something like Electric Blast, Radiation Blast, Fire Control, Elec Control, or Ice Control. These sets, while having good ranged abilities, can also be good in melee range, so they can leverage all that Poison has to offer. I hesitate to say any of the weapon sets, like Dual Pistols, which might be a good candidate, because /Poison is a fairly busy secondary to have, and would therefore cause a lot of redraw.

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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus

Yeah what Aett said - I shelved my BR/Poison because haing to redraw every 5-10 secs was too annoying (and I don't mind redraw too much), and also due to the fact that BR's main AoE is a fast recharging cone and if I got him to 38 I wouldn't make good use of the cone or the PbAoE aura.

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Thematically, I have enjoyed my Radiation Blast/Posion corr.

Rad is relatively low on the melee range, so it has been working nice through about mid-20s (in relation to Aett_Thorn's) comments.

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I've been enjoying a Sonic/Poison corruptor, and also have a Necro/Poison mm. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea though.

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My main debuffer right now is a DP/Poison as well. Poison is a bit of a wonky set. For most of your leveling career, it is built around two single target debuffs that have a very small splash radius of 8 feet that functions at half potency. You also will be using a cone slow at times. The result of this is that you will be using debuffs at range and likely attacking at range as well.

However, at level 35 you receive your most powerful PvE skill-- Poison Trap. This skill is just lights out for your foes, having a 1 minute recharge and 1 second cast time. At level 38 you receive Venomous Gas, a second power that encourages you to enter melee range. The debuffs on Venomous Gas are not all that powerful numerically but are comprehensive in the breadth of their effects (-defense, -damage, -ToHit, and -resistance).

So here's why I went with Dual Pistols: There is absolutely no reason for you to enter melee range before level 35, and at level 32 with Dual Pistols you receive a an insanely awesome skill that encourages you to enter melee range in Hail of Bullets. Before level 32, Dual Pistols functions best at range which is pretty much how Poison plays until it recieves Poison Trap and Venemous Gas. The issue of redraw is negligable with a Corruptor as you always are debuffing early and attacking later. There isn't much cycling between attack and debuff phases with this set.

At level 50 my DP/Poison is pretty solid. I can spawn dive, hit Poison Trap to hold most of the spawn and spam procs while simultaneously debuffing with Venemous Gas. I will then use Enevenom and Weaken once each on the hardest target and then whip out the pistols for Bullet Rain->Hail of Bullets->Bullet Rain. Just one redraw point, and people are often dumbfounded when the see how much damage you do.

I will say this-- Poison isn't built particularly well compared to sets like Time, Dark, Radiation, Ice, Thermal, or Kinetics. It has an anemic single target heal that you are forced to take at level 1. It also is quite poor at keeping your character alive as it has terrible AoE debuffs, no self buffs, and no self heal. While it has some powerful single target debuffs, it is overshadowed by all of the above sets when fighting the most important PvE single targets in the game: AVs and GMs. All of the above sets can stack more -Regeneration than Poison, which is perhaps the greatest flaw with this set. It's a single target specialist that loses it's effectiveness against anything higher than a Boss class foe. That, IMHO, is a terrible game design and should be addressed with regards to Poison. If Poison is going to have terrible AoE debuff values and be set up as a single target specialist, it absolutely needs to have the -regeneration values that many of the other sets receive.

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Bring Poison to defenders!

Controllers already have it, so some hero ATs have it. It is all irrelevant anyway though because anyone can start hero/villain now.

So bring Poison to defenders!

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"Hi, my name is Ail. I make people sick."
A partial selection from my 50's on Freedom: Ail = Ice/Traps, Luck = Street Justice/Super Reflexes Stalker, Mist = Bane, Pixy = Trick Arrow/Archery, Pure = Gravity/Energy, Smoke = Fire/Fire Dominator

I think a poison def would be a lot of fun, but I'd rather see the devs address Julius' legitimate points before porting it again.

It doesn't need much to be made competitive, but it really does need something, if only a tweak or 2.

But in truth, thematically, if there was anything Poison should be great at, it's -regen. Or let the small ST heal be self targetable.. Or some other tweak that might improve survivability, especially earlier.

I think a neat quirk like a Grant Power (-regen) that's stackable so that the negative regen values are actually having a non-reisistable DoT effect might be a nice solution. It'd take some tweaking to find all the right values, etc, but it would be a nice option.

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Yeah, you would think, with so much focused on St debuffs, that Poison would be the go-to choice for wrecking AVs and GMs. Like some kind of Stalker-debuffer.

I will probably roll up an Poison/Dark Corr, if only to customize the powers into something that looks sickly and gross. Rad's PEW PEW PEW effects don't really jibe as well with that. Thanks for the feedback everyone!

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Stay Gold, Paragon. Stay Gold.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

I'm being lazy and coping this from a previous thread where I explained why I like my elec/poison corruptor.

"It has been more fun and functional that I though it would be. The sets compliment each other pretty well.
1. No attack cones so hitting the AOE's and staying in tight where venomous gas does it's work is easy. This also allows mobs to groups on you (if solo) so you hit more with your Debuffs.
2. Poison is pretty busy so voltaic sentinel is dishing out damage while you are using your poison powers. The AOE mostly can get MOBS down to scourge levels and VS can scourge just like your other attacks.
3. 2 Single target holds for bosses.
4. The hold in poison trap is long enough to to dish out a good chunk of damage with your primary and sap a nice amount of end (should be even better now that the -recovery is working) before they wake up. I'm about to start the patron arch fro soulmastery and power boost to make the end sapping even better.
5. You get Aim for when those debuff REALLY need to hit.
6. Most of all, the timing on the sets just "works" for me. The gap in the single target attack chain is kind of a signal to shoot out more debuffs. That is a person preference sort of thing but thought I would mention it. "

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

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"Hi, my name is Ail. I make people sick."
A partial selection from my 50's on Freedom: Ail = Ice/Traps, Luck = Street Justice/Super Reflexes Stalker, Mist = Bane, Pixy = Trick Arrow/Archery, Pure = Gravity/Energy, Smoke = Fire/Fire Dominator

I'm still waiting for the promised fix in the Poison proliferation.

Alkaloid and Envenom should be switched.

Of course this wouldn't affect Defenders so much.

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The game ends at 50. Smilegasm
Do not ever give Mind Control a pet. We need more control sets without pets.
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My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom

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I gotta make pain. I gotta make things right. I gotta stop what's comin'. 'Least I gotta try.

moving off of Corrs, I found poison was fun with MM's.

The set is so active that it gave me a lot to do while my pets fought.

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I had a thugs/poison MM back before the rework but he got to 50 and then deleted. Back then that was considered to be THE AV killer in game but I frankly struggled with it. I love the concept of poison - but I've not managed to make it work for me yet.

It may go well with a fire/ control or maybe even rad/ crupper... it'll be fun to find out

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