What's the deal with poison?

So I've noticed in the game as well as the forums, no one really plays/talks about it as if it was a taboo subject. Not just that but, the few times I have heard the mentioning of poison is usually followed by, "this power is a wanna be Rad" or as i like to call it "Rad's ugly step cousin that didn't make it to the ball".

So, what i guess I'm asking here is, can any one bring some light on this second AT (in particularly when pairing it with idk lets say illusion ^_^)

Come on Local Man give me your 2 cents ;-)

I would normally speak up about poisons but just lost power at my place and using my phone is a pain.

Poison isn't terrible but it's also not really remarkable. The set suffers from a kind of whiplash-y change in strategy at level 38, where suddenly a set that was primarily cone based adds a PBAoE power. Poison also shoulders three very average powers from heal sets (a single target heal, a anti-mezz, and a rezz). The single target heal travels in a very slow arc and in many cases the recipient might just die before it hits them. And for some reason, Antidote doesn't proliferate damage resistance to your whole league like Increase Density does.

Overall the set feels to me like it is one "good" power away from being great. As it is kind of the arena with Trick Arrow and Sonic Resonance, not so awful as to be unplayable, but really not that great either, and convoluted in terms of what it is trying to do. Unless you happen to play it on a Ice, Elec, or Fire troller the sudden introduction of a 15ft radius PBAoE at level 38 is a truly nasty surprise if you weren't expecting it. Where Radiation has a power like this, it is optional enough to preserve the set overall; Poison really needs its toggle and the whole set suffers for it. (One suggestion at the time of the last beta was for the cloud to last a while after you "touch" an enemy with it, but this wasn't done, so to get the effect you have to stand within 15ft of enemies all the time.)

pros: it has holds. So make your controller really able to lock down everything.

Cons: I only saw one form of -regen and it was -50. which is garbage.

Also, if you really want the extra holds time manip will give them to you as well but with the added bonus of extra recharge and defense.

Strong single target debuffing and weaker aoe debuffing is actually the opposite of what you want since hard targets resist debuffs so heavily. It can out aoe debuff rad, but it lacks the survivability tools to do well in close range needed to use the pbaoe toggle. There is nothing special about it's teammate support powers at all (I'd actually say even storm is better at teammate support, though a lot of people would probably disagree). It has a fairly average single target hold with zero secondary effects, and it has a watered down version of the poison trap from traps. For a set that seems to be designed to debuff hard targets it's lacking in the most important debuff against them, -regen.

About the best thing you can say about it is that it's playable. If I was comparing all the support sets I'd rate poison dead last, no question. Please don't play it without understanding that it's lacking critical tools needed to have its own niche or be a good set.

Thanks all i appreciate the feed back. Honestly i just wanted to know why this power was so dam underplayed. I mean Bubbles and sonic are as well but they seem to get a bit more action els where. As oppose to poison, idk if it's me but i just don't see it ever. BTW Oedipus my bf is in love with all your toon's names, he says your a clever dude lol ;-)

I had always heard that Poison is incredible with single target debuffing making it a great AV killer. After reading this thread, without prior experience myself, I'll have to look into that myself before I create any Poison characters.

Coming from the perspective of playing poison since CoV beta, envenom is the -regen power. At one point on the mastermind version, it was my understanding that the debuffs in envenom do not stack EXCEPT for the -regen. Even on base recharge of 12 sec, you could get around 3 stacks in 30 seconds with modest recharge enhancements. That is nowhere near the burst numbers from EM Pulse, Howling Twilight, or Lingering Rad, but it can be steady -regen.

Poison functionally works better with masterminds since you can put noxious gas on your pet: bruiser, demon prince, commando, grave knight. With the debuff on a pet, your character can spam the -regen in a safer non-melee distance. The devs made it PbAoE for the ranged sets with no pets to utilize it better, but imagine having noxious gas on a fire imp, jack frost, or stoney instead of the more squishy controller.

The sonic tutu is ally based, I think the poison noxious gas should have been as well.

Envenom and Weaken are excellent powers.

/Poison Trap can be Godly with Procs. It's even more impressive than the Traps version on /Poison Trap.

Overall the set needs a whole lot more. Look here for discussions between me and fellow poison users about the set.


http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=272649

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...=275445&page=5

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=268129

well damn. Poison for MM's sounds pretty terrible lol.

Mid's says the debuffs are AoE for MM's..I guess it needs a update?

Personally, I'd never take Neurotoxic Breath cause it doesn't do damage. Mitagation becomes less and less attractive to me. Although, I could see it being effective for a MM...I'd never say it was the best Poison power..

Also VG should function like Hurricane. Debuffing mobs for a few seconds after the power is shut off for a safe Oh crap power.

On paper, Poison is actually extremely competitive. It offers huge -Resistance debuffs. As in -63% Resistance to a single target on a Controller.

The problem is that the delivery method is ridiculous: to do that, you have to first hit the enemy with Envenom, then lure a second enemy within a few feet of the first and hit it so that the effect splashes, and do all of this while standing within 15ft of the target. Against an AV, especially on a trial, standing within 15ft is grade-A stupid, especially on a set with no heals, mezz protection, defense, or resistance.

If Posion's PBAoE effect lasted 30 seconds after enemies left the cloud, you'd only have to run in and out every so often to replenish it. In fact, you'd be rewarded for bouncing all over and tagging as many enemies as possible. It would totally transform the set.

But I also think the set needs better -Regen, and also that a second cast of Envenom should stack the Splash effect on the main target without having to lure another target nearby. I mean, what is the point of being a single target specialist and then having your single target debuffs beat by sets that gave little up? The -Regen should be at least -200% per cast.

The first thing to understand about poison is you have very few powers to keep you safe. Poison is essentially a blaster set, killing the other guy first is the only way to stay upright.

My ninja/poison MM is a ton of fun and extremely effective, even before the poison buffs, IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS. It's the squishiest, most damaging pets paired with the squishiest secondary, and DPS is your best mitigation.

Soloing small numbers of tough critters, A+, I did most of my levelling at +3x1.

Against large crowds of even weak enemies, F-

Once you get Barrier it's safer, but you'll darn well have earned your salt getting there.

I haven't tried it on a troller. On the plus side controller primaries have tools to keep you safer. But you'd lose bodyguard mode, my whole strategy relied on tanking for my pets while they maniacally chopped everything down. Also, the heal is superfluous for a 'troller, and you'd have to stick your own nose in the fight to get any mileage out of VG, yeesh. Another nice thing about MMs is you concentrate on spamming debuffs and the pets worry about the DPS.

It might be fun to on the most offensively minded 'troller set, presumably fire?

I love playing my ninja/poison MM, but I expected a challenge, actually I expected it to be completely gimp and unplayable. When I found that I could thrive in certain situations if I did everything exactly right, it became a lot of fun.

One last comment about poison - when teaming with people who provide safety (bubblers, trappers, dark, 'trollers, etc) it's very blaster-like, just concentrate on damage and evil laughter.

I have really enjoyed Poison on controllers. I especially like Fire/Poison. I also like Poison with sets that have a confuse. But I will admit that if I had less control, I imagine I would faceplant a fair amount.

Lewis

I have a lvl 40 plant/poison I duo with a (willpower/street justice?) tank, and we run at +1/x6 just fine.

This is the controller board, so I assumed we were only talking about poison as a secondary. My point was that taking poison as a secondary does not gimp the character, and is quite fun.