Your view on /Poison

/Poison is one of the few powersets I’ve never dabbled with. For the first time, I have a concept that I feel meshes with it thematically (except for that funky ‘toss a ball of ectoplasm to heal someone’ of course). But alas, I am steeped in trepidation - I’ve read the criticisms towards /Poison.

I’d love to hear the opinions of those who’ve played the set.

On paper I have always found its -resistance to look interesting, until I read the fine print and realize it doesn't stack. I find Acid mortar from traps to be a stronger source, is only a single power, and I get get up to 3 out at a time. Even if it is a shotgun compared to poison's rifle.

I am meh about -defence.

That said, concept should trump effectiveness. If it is fun to you, that is all that matters.

Sometimes I enjoy it because it's debuffs are pretty good against one or two enemies. But most of the time I find it to be one of the most frustrating sets I've ever played (and keep in mind, I took Trick Arrows to 50 pre-Issue 7).

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

As much as I’m a theme ***** with my toons, I’ve also deleted a few through the years due to underperformance. I've had friends and SG mates inform me that it'd make me cry, and I've read bad press on the powerset, so I asked the question kind of expecting this affirmation.
I can repurpose my concept to something else. Thanks for the cold, hard truth, gang.

It's pretty lackluster, could use some minor improvements:
- Neurotoxic breath needs to be something more than just a slow cone aoe, like say make it have blast set level damage and change it to a ranged target aoe. The mag 2 hold is pretty rare, but I'm ok with that since holds and -recharge effects have very little synergy.
- It would be nice if Paralytic Poison dealt damage over time, seriously for a set built around poisons as a theme there is almost no damage (give Ice arrow some burst cold damage too).
- buff Envenom and Weaken's aoe radius from 8 to 20, because 8 is so small it might as well be single target and similar click debuffs use 20 to 25 for their radius (Acid Arrow also needs this treatment).
- Antidote needs its cast time reduced by 0.53 seconds to match clear mind and enforced morale (Thaw and Clarity also need to be reduced).

My main is a DP/Poison Corruptor. I love him, but the set could really use some attention.

(+) Poison is a potent single target debuffing set.
(+) Poison Trap is a potent AoE mez and proc delivery system. This skill is really good, probably the best in the set.
(+) Poison is a fun theme (for me at least).
(+) Poison has -Special on a fast recharge; this is really good for PvP.


(-) Poison has terrible AoE debuff geometry.
(-) Poison is a single target specialist with arguably the worst -Regen capability of any set that recieves it. If any set is deserving of a -500% value, this should be it.
(-) Poison is the only set outside of Trick Arrow with NO form of self buff what so ever. On top of this, it forces you to enter melee range to use its tier 8 and 9 powers.
(-) When used as a secondary, Poison is the only power set in the entire game that forces a player to take an ally targeted power at tier 1. This means it is completely useless for solo Controllers from levels 1-32 and solo Corruptors from levels 1-41.
(-) I feel that a single target rez (Elixir of Life), a single target heal (Alkaloid), a single target mez protection (Antidote), and a single target hold with no secondary effects (Paralytic Poison) saddles this set with the four least desirable skills from sets like Pain, Kinetics, Empathy, and Dark Miasma. If a significant portion of skills were going to be largely reskinned then cut-and-pasted into this set, why did they have to be 4 of the crummiest and most often skipped iterations?

These suggestions are sincerely superb.

It just feels ~right~ for poison to have a DoT componet built into the debuffing portion of the set. Odd that the devs didn't roll that into the original concept.

I have a Water/Poison at 26 and the only time I've used the debuffs is int he Double Feature event. Most of the content is too easy for them and the targeted heal is nigh useless as I solo or PL most of the time.

Would really like a larger aoe for the debuffs and some of the powers looked at, if not completely revamped (Paralytic Poison for one, the heal for another).
Could be so, so much better...

I really like the idea of adding -regen components to the poison primary. I don't think the added debuff would be so 'game breakin' yeah that is funny. Poison should be the anti-regen set.

I just finished taking a plant/poison controller to 50 and had fun doing so.

Having said that, the comments are spot on. The debuffs need a wider radius for splash and some of the powers need something more, be it a little more -regen, a little more damage, or additional sources of debuff to stack.

If you are going to play this set, I highly recommend that you do so on a controller. Poison has more holds than most other buff/debuff secondaries and adding in weaken means that you can hard lock lots of things other controllers cannot.

Plant/Poison was a fun combo to level, but I don't think I would enjoy it on a water blast.

Poison needs help and needs it bad. It is not popular for many of the reasons listed and more. The devs have run through some sets "several" times yet Poison with its OBVIOUS short comings is left to linger.

It is pretty clear even the devs don't have any love for Poison.

The good news is, /Poison did get tweaked recently, so the devs were aware of the problem.

The bad news is, the tweaks to /Poison were ineffective, and some of the specific tweaks (half the effect, tiny 8' radius, still tohit checked, still unstackable) didn't even pass the laugh test. Since when is this some trinity MMO where we're afraid of good debuffs?

But I'll echo the "build to concept" advice. Worst case scenario, you can load up on primary powers and pool powers, your secondary is nerf-proof, and may even get a proper buff in the future.

Poison will not keep you alive very well.

It allowed you to apply a substandard To Hit debuff one enemy at a time - now it allows you to splash an ally or two with half of that.

I tried it on a Ninja MM and it was an exercise in frustration.

It probably works OK on a Controller, but even then I'm having a hard time seeing it as being better than anything else. There are other sets that provide better offensive debuffs.

I'm trying it on a Thugs MM now, and hope the innate Defence of the pets keeps them alive.

So for a Corrupter, it probably works better with primaries that provide some defensive abilities like Ice rather than Fire. But I'd still say you're better off taking Radiation and colouring it green for most posionous character concepts.

I made a Water/Poison for thematic synnergy (poison looks nice colored blue) but I have a feeling I'm going to regret it later. I got to 50 on a Necro/Poison MM, but I never felt she was a good character once I hit high level content (I really think I got there just because I liked her, not because she was effective). I just really want Poison to be good since I like the graphics and splash :/ But I think it still needs more love.