thoughts on poison->venemous_gas

[cohRock]

Venomous Gas (VG) is the tier 9 toggle power for the poison set.  It is a debuff aura weakening foe resistance, damage, defense, and toHit.  It has a relatively high cost of 0.52 end/sec, but its numerous debuffs would seem to make the cost worthwhile.  Since it is available for defenders, corrupters, and controllers, I decided to post in General rather than one of the archetype forums.

 

For controllers I don't see an issue with it.  Most (all?) controller sets already offer a debuff aura of their own, and stacking Venomous Gas on top of that could be great.  I don't have a /poison controller, but it sure seems like it would be nice.

 

Defenders and Corruptors face a side effect of VG which controllers do not.  I learned in play today that your character cannot simultaneously be debuffing foes with the aura and using a full-strength snipe.  If you are far enough away that your aura is not affecting foes, then you will be able to snipe at full power.  However, if foes are being debuffed, snipe will be debuffed to its lesser state by the ongoing aggression of the aura.  But it's a good aura!  Do you feel that the trade-off of losing mid-battle full-sniping to keep the aura up is a worthwhile one?

[LiquidBandage]

There is no one answer to your question. It all depends on (1) your primary/secondary power set choices and (2) your build and (3) how you play.

 

I have Venomous Gas on my Ice/Poison corruptor and I love it. It only really comes into play against AVs/GMs/Hamidon or if the group has a tank that I follow into groups. As soon as I get my target within the aura, I stack Weaken Resolve (Force of Will pool) then Weaken (poison) then Envenom (poison) and go to town (either damage or stacking single target Holds). Whatever it is, it melts fast. 

 

I typically leave VG on all the time and use it as the flow of play dictates. If I see a troublesome foe (Fake Nem or Paragon Protector etc) that won't just go down in two hits, I swoop in and get the VG going and debuff away. 

[nihilii]

I could be wrong, but I don't think you can use slow snipe in ANY combat instance, unless you haven't been attacking or attacked. So Venomous Gas shouldn't change a thing in the respect of being able to slow snipe mid-fight, as you cannot slow snipe mid-fight unless you've been slacking.

It's also worth noting fast snipe is always superior to slow snipe... Even at 0% tohit. The extra damage you get from slow snipe does not make up for the longer animation time.

 

But perhaps I'm being pedantic. For me, Venomous Gas is an awesome debuff, always worth it and comes with no downside.

[Heraclea]

My issue with the power is that my squishies are almost inevitably stealthies.  The last thing they need is a toggle that puts them in combat when trying to get around a mob. 

[Dark Dove]

13 hours ago, cohRock said:

Do you feel that the trade-off of losing mid-battle full-sniping to keep the aura up is a worthwhile one?

In almost all circumstances for the way I play, yes.  I almost never use long-snipe on any character though in any meaningful way; it seems to actually slow down my DPS if I take the time to wait for slow snipe to be active and then wait for the full animation time, when I could be instead just rotating through my attacks again during that time.

 

This essentially means I put zero value on slow-snipe, so Venomous Gas or any other positive value ability will take priority, for me, barring very special circumstances. There are good reasons to not use Venomous Gas, but for me, this isn't one of them.

[tidge]

13 hours ago, cohRock said:

 I learned in play today that your character cannot simultaneously be debuffing foes with the aura and using a full-strength snipe. 

Pro-tip: Fast Snipes benefit (+Damage boost) from (up to +22%) +ToHit, but Slow Snipes do not.  I'm not sure what AT Build you are working with, but if you want MOAR DAMAGE from a Snipe, consider adding a Kismet +Accuracy (really +ToHit) IO to an always on Defense power, Build Up options and/or the Leadership pool. 

 

As others have written: The Homecoming Snipes are part of my regular attack chain on most characters.

 

As for Venomous Gas: My Mind/Poison Controller could not leverage this power (while solo, and most PUGs didn't really need it.). I tried it while leveling up, but a significant amount of the time, this character was dealing damage/control from ranged cones:  Terrify, and (Primal Forces) Energy Torrent. That specific build also focuses on Holds and Confuses, so the PBAoE debuff simply wasn't helping it with most content. It also doesn't have particularly good defenses, so standing among enemies to debuff them (and excluding targets from the arcs of cones) just wasn't helping with missions.

 

I do believe that a /Poison Controller could be made such that the PBAoE from Venomous Gas would be more valuable for more content, it's just that for my particular concept/build I found it very lacking.

[cohRock]

Thank you-all for the replies.  I avoided saying what his archetype was thinking thread could go off topic with folks asking why i didn't post in the archetype forum.  Poi'Tho is currently a level 41 Psy/Poison corrupter.  He hasn't started working sets yet.  @nihiliiYes, it is awkward to use slow-snipe in midst of battle due to the delay, but sometimes I do sometimes pause long enough to enable it and fire.  If foe is already damaged enough for scourge to activate, the already-high damage from slow-snipe is pretty darn high.  That said, @Dark Dove point is valid that with the waiting time, overall DPS might be reduced since I'm not doing any other damage during that period.  So maybe I should be happy with slow-snipe as an opener and be satisfied with fast-snipe's damage during battle.

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, cohRock said:

maybe I should be happy with slow-snipe as an opener and be satisfied with fast-snipe's damage during battle.

 

That's the most damage efficient method of using Snipes. Sometimes it's useful to start with a heavy hitter on the boss before aggroing, but afterwards the extra damage from a slow snipe can be made up by throwing 3 seconds worth of attacks into what would have been the Interruptible period that is the difference between fast animation and slow animation times.