Every Rose has it's Thorn, suggestions to renovating the Poison Powerset

[SeraphimKensai]

As it currently stands, poison is one of the least used support sets in the game and every night should have it's dawn. Here's the most requested suggestions for the Poison Powerset I have been able to pool from these forums and other sources. I have quite a bit of experience with the powerset having built several poison toons to max level and tweaked out as much performance from them as I could.

 

Poison is one of the few Powersets that you can literally get by taking only three powers if a defender or four powers for other AT's, and the issue is that some of the powers are pretty lackluster.

 

1. Weaken and Envenom have very small AoE ranges. The radius on these is eight feet. They are most often compared with powers like Radiation Infection, Enervating Field, Darkest Night, and Disruption Field. All of those powers aside of Darkest Night have a 15-foot radius, whereas Darkest Night has a 25-foot radius. Darkest Night is a bit of an outlier in it's radius although it is likely higher to compensate for the power not doing -res. Many have proposed a 15-foot radius, but I understand the debuffs in play here and suggest a compromise to 12 feet would be sufficient to address many peoples AoE issues on these two powers.
2. Alkaloid is an underused power and rightfully so. Thematically poison is about poisoning, and not healing. That said poison in the right doses is medicine. As is Alkaloid is a ranged single target heal and adds some resistance to toxic for theme. My proposal would be to change Alkaloid to a fast recharging PBAoE regen/recovery buff with a duration of 30 seconds that can stack with itself up to three times extending the magnitude of the effects and duration, and if cast while at max stacks, it causes an overdose and causes a lingering regen/recovery debuff that is slightly more potent than Alkaloid at three stacks. This would help a poison player better regulate the end cost of venomous gas down the road, but also cause some interesting shenanigans. Perhaps the player population would rather a potential overdose be limited to the poison player alone, as that would limit the potential for griefing.
3. Neurotoxic Breath, it's a very narrow 30° cone. It acts exactly like Shiver from Ice Control (although Shiver has a 135° cone). Proposal, add in a -regen &- def debuff with a 10 second duration, increase come to 80°, the same arc of Gale. Remove the slow effect.
4. Poison Trap. The -end/recovery of Poison Trap in this set is a joke at 1 second duration. Many people have argued about using the power with the same name from the Traps powerset and rightfully so, with it's -1000% Regen debuff making it superior in every fashion. Proposal, use Traps Powerset version and sunset this one. As a compromise I'd even be alright with a Poison Trap only doing 500% Regen debuff.
5. People get really turned off by the idea of spitting out their powers, so having options to have effect spray of their hands would likely convert quite a few people to playing the set on its own.

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by SeraphimKensai

[arcane]

12 foot splash radius, addition of 500% -regen to Poison Trap, and increasing arc on Neurotoxic sound fine.

 

Don’t think Alkaloid needs to be something that can affect the caster. Don’t think Neurotoxic effects need to change.

[SeraphimKensai]

12 minutes ago, arcane said:

12 foot splash radius, addition of 500% -regen to Poison Trap, and increasing arc on Neurotoxic sound fine.

 

Don’t think Alkaloid needs to be something that can affect the caster. Don’t think Neurotoxic effects need to change.

I assume you're fine with allowing the powers to come out of hands as well.

 

I was going back and forth on Alkaloid whether to make it a targeted AoE or PBAoE, and at first thought targeted, but figured moving it to PBAoE when I came up with the overdose aspect, as I didn't want other players to get overdosed without any recourse for the player as well.

[The_Warpact]

27 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

As it currently stands, poison is one of the least used support sets in the game and every night should have it's dawn. Here's the most requested suggestions for the Poison Powerset I have been able to pool from these forums and other sources. I have quite a bit of experience with the powerset having built several poison toons to max level and tweaked out as much performance from them as I could.

 

Poison is one of the few Powersets that you can literally get by taking only three powers if a defender or four powers for other AT's, and the issue is that some of the powers are pretty lackluster.

 

1. Weaken and Envenom have very small AoE ranges. The radius on these is eight feet. They are most often compared with powers like Radiation Infection, Enervating Field, Darkest Night, and Disruption Field. All of those powers aside of Darkest Night have a 15-foot radius, whereas Darkest Night has a 25-foot radius. Darkest Night is a bit of an outlier in it's radius although it is likely higher to compensate for the power not doing -res. Many have proposed a 15-foot radius, but I understand the debuffs in play here and suggest a compromise to 12 feet would be sufficient to address many peoples AoE issues on these two powers. Agree
2. Alkaloid is an underused power and rightfully so. Thematically poison is about poisoning, and not healing. That said poison in the right doses is medicine. As is Alkaloid is a ranged single target heal and adds some resistance to toxic for theme. My proposal would be to change Alkaloid to a fast recharging PBAoE regen/recovery buff with a duration of 30 seconds that can stack with itself up to three times extending the magnitude of the effects and duration, and if cast while at max stacks, it causes an overdose and causes a lingering regen/recovery debuff that is slightly more potent than Alkaloid at three stacks. This would help a poison player better regulate the end cost of venomous gas down the road, but also cause some interesting shenanigans. Perhaps the player population would rather a potential overdose be limited to the poison player alone, as that would limit the potential for griefing.  I'd prefer it was a targeted AOE that heals team members and poison enemies. 
3. Neurotoxic Breath, it's a very narrow 30° cone. It acts exactly like Shiver from Ice Control (although Shiver has a 135° cone). Proposal, add in a -regen &- def debuff with a 10 second duration, increase come to 80°, the same arc of Gale. Remove the slow effect. Agree
4. Poison Trap. The -end/recovery of Poison Trap in this set is a joke at 1 second duration. Many people have argued about using the power with the same name from the Traps powerset and rightfully so, with it's -1000% Regen debuff making it superior in every fashion. Proposal, use Traps Powerset version and sunset this one. As a compromise I'd even be alright with a Poison Trap only doing 500% Regen debuff.  I think mimicking Traps would be fine.
5. People get really turned off by the idea of spitting out their powers, so having options to have effect spray of their hands would likely convert quite a few people to playing the set on its own. Agree

 

I responded directly in the quote. 

Edited April 11, 2022 by The_Warpact
Forgot something

[Lazarillo]

I can get behind the ideas of buffing Poison, but to be honest, I don't really agree with most of the ways you'd do it.

 

1. There are already fairly sufficient AoE debuff sets. The "collateral" debuffs in Poison should feel more like a little bit of an extra, rather, I think they should stay in their current form that way, but increase in power (or make them irresistible?) to make them more focused on single-target strength.
2. Alkaloid is also more or less okay as-is for a t1 power.  It doesn't need janky mechanics (especially not ones that punish the player or a player's teammates for using them!), nor, again, doesn't it really need an AoE.  It just needs to activate a hell of a lot faster.  Also, it should be swapped in terms of power order for Controllers and Corruptors, so they're not locked into a teammate-only power.
3. Increasing the width and debuffs on Neurotoxic Breath? Sure.  But the Slow is its key feature at present; removing it is taking away pretty useful function while also breaking ye olde Cottage Rule.
4. Again, I don't really like the idea of taking a function away from a power (unless maybe if that function is given to another power in the set).  However, I also don't feel like the current state of Poison Trap is really so functional that, say, adding the effects of the Traps version, while also adding the effects of the Poison version to the one in Traps, would hurt.
5. Okay, this one I can get behind pretty much 100%.  Although the Monkey's Paw of such things is that the alternate would probably be those awkward "double punch" or "do-the-whammy" twohanded motions that are awkward-looking on basically every power they've ever been added to.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Lazarillo

[Uun]

1 hour ago, Lazarillo said:

There are already fairly sufficient AoE debuff sets. The "collateral" debuffs in Poison should feel more like a little bit of an extra, rather, I think they should stay in their current form that way, but increase in power (or make them irresistible?) to make them more focused on single-target strength.

In the original incarnation of Poison, Weaken and Envenom were single target. At some point they added the 8-foot AoE, but made the debuffs affecting the secondary foes 1/2 the strength of those affecting the primary target. If the AoE was widened but still 1/2 strength, how would this diminish the focus on single-target strength?

 

I'm in favor of widening the cone of Neurotoxic Breath and adding an additional effect, but I don't think -regen or -def are the right ones. I think the slow should stay. Envenom already has -regen and -def. I would support increasing the -regen in Envenom and eliminate allowing it to stack.

[biostem]

If they lowered the recharge on the chief debuffing powers, their AoEs can be kept smaller.  I think poison's trap should be able to be thrown.  I'd like to see alkaloid given a small AoE, like envenom and weaken.  It'd be great if the defender/corruptor/controller version of its T9 could optionally be placed on allies instead of just yourself as well.  I'd also like to see non-spitting animations made available for all of its powers.  Cheers!

Edited April 11, 2022 by biostem

[arcane]

Making Poison not play like a melee set or giving it a self heal is where I draw the line 🙂 No thanks to that

Edited April 11, 2022 by arcane

[Lazarillo]

2 hours ago, Uun said:

In the original incarnation of Poison, Weaken and Envenom were single target. At some point they added the 8-foot AoE, but made the debuffs affecting the secondary foes 1/2 the strength of those affecting the primary target. If the AoE was widened but still 1/2 strength, how would this diminish the focus on single-target strength?

I guess it's more that I'm thinking along the lines of "if Weaken and Envenom need a boost, it's not to their AoE".  If the set underperforms, but not due to their single target debuff ability, then fixes probably belong somewhere else.  If that makes sense?

[arcane]

15 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

I guess it's more that I'm thinking along the lines of "if Weaken and Envenom need a boost, it's not to their AoE".  If the set underperforms, but not due to their single target debuff ability, then fixes probably belong somewhere else.  If that makes sense?

The set doesn’t need a boost at single target stuff though. It completely shreds AV’s and pylons already. Buffs to single target capability would lean into that niche of Poison, but they’d suffer from diminishing returns because Poison is already god tier in that realm…

[Lazarillo]

15 minutes ago, arcane said:

The set doesn’t need a boost at single target stuff though. It completely shreds AV’s and pylons already. Buffs to single target capability would lean into that niche of Poison, but they’d suffer from diminishing returns because Poison is already god tier in that realm…

That's fair, but that's where that pesky "if" kicks in.  If those two powers do fine enough from that perspective, then they're not the ones that need a boost, as I see it.  This is where things like Poison Trap (already discussed) and Noxious Gas (which is pretty underwhelming for a t9) probably need looked at instead.

[aethereal]

But Everyrose was a Spines/Bio brute.

[Glacier Peak]

I had a Dual Pistols / Plant Blaster named 'Guns N' Roses'

 

Other than that, I've not played Poison because Cold Domination is already the best debuff set in the game. 

[arcane]

7 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Other than that, I've not played Poison because Cold Domination is already the best debuff set in the game. 

Well that’s a highly limiting way to play but you do you

[Major_Decoy]

I've said it before: I'd like it if Venomous Cloud, as well as being the PBAoE debuff, gave all powers that take accuracy enhancements a debuff proc that was the same as the PBAoE debuff. Just for the people who like to stay at range.

[Outrider_01]

Needs more spit and polish.

 

Actually more spitting, sort of the most original animation. Mace, axe, fire, ice share similar animation likenthe PBAoE melee attack.

[Zeraphia]

This is honestly selfish and asking for a lot, but quite frankly, it must be said. One of the biggest draws of Poison is the fact it is an endurance HOG, I actually think this set has the worst endurance management in the game besides maybe FF with 20 toggles all turned on.

 

I'd love to see one of these powers have a +endurance mechanic. The T9 + the rest of the set in use is a ton of endurance, the paradox of the set lies in the fact that if you solve one problem (ageless, the endurance issues are fixed) you encounter the fact that to use the T9, you have to get into melee range with no protection against crowd control (without P2W defense buffs.)

 

I would greatly enjoy some sort of endurance help somewhere in the set to offset some of its extreme endurance demands in comparison to most sets. It may not be the change that most are suggesting to it, but I think some sort of endurance help would greatly improve the set.

[bigfashizzel]

I like poison a lot and feel like it doesn't really need much. 

 

I'd like to see Noxious Breath have some value, maybe -def?  Would make it a good power for me, especially if you wanted to add damage procs.

 

I'd also like to see VG get suppressed when mezzed instead of detoggled.  Struggling with mez feels important, but is pretty punishing at the moment.

[Mr. Vee]

I like it as-is for the most part, love the jump into melee style as that's my usual style (even on sents). Would like to see neurotoxic breath made into a TAoE or PBAoE though. Even if it were another small radius splash it'd fit better than it does now. It doesn't work very well as a jump and look down cone and I'm certainly not going to open with it from range before jumping in with venomous gas. So for me it's basically only useful leveling or exemped below venomous gas levels when I can toss it after the more effective debuffs from range. My most recent poison I didn't take it at all.

[SeraphimKensai]

On 4/13/2022 at 8:48 PM, Zeraphia said:

This is honestly selfish and asking for a lot, but quite frankly, it must be said. One of the biggest draws of Poison is the fact it is an endurance HOG, I actually think this set has the worst endurance management in the game besides maybe FF with 20 toggles all turned on.

 

I'd love to see one of these powers have a +endurance mechanic. The T9 + the rest of the set in use is a ton of endurance, the paradox of the set lies in the fact that if you solve one problem (ageless, the endurance issues are fixed) you encounter the fact that to use the T9, you have to get into melee range with no protection against crowd control (without P2W defense buffs.)

 

I would greatly enjoy some sort of endurance help somewhere in the set to offset some of its extreme endurance demands in comparison to most sets. It may not be the change that most are suggesting to it, but I think some sort of endurance help would greatly improve the set.

That's why I had reworked alkaloid as I did in the OP, giving it some regen/recovery as a PBAoE to help offset the end cost as the powerset can be pretty end heavy and your right that venomous gas basically locks you into either Clarion or paying 2.5 mil every hour via p2w.

[arcane]

10 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

and your right that venomous gas basically locks you into either Clarion or paying 2.5 mil every hour via p2w.

Nonsense 🙂

 

People on this forum make far too big an issue about mez. I can only assume half of the forum literally only log in to solo +4x8 malta missions 24/7, because their described experiences don’t match any other reality I can fathom. A couple break frees an hour usually cuts it for me. Or a very occasional Rune of Protection, or Indomitable Will ofc. But yeah, I have one Poison  of 6 with Clarion, and zero characters that would ever rely on amplifier mez protection because it’s just not a huge deal.

Edited April 15, 2022 by arcane

[Tiger Shadow]

It depends on what you pair it with really. A /poison controller can lock down the mezzers relatively easily, while a poison/fire blast defender will find it a lot harder to do.

[Outrider_01]

I'm gonna throw in bigger splash on the 2 main debuff, but to 10.  Currently it's so small it's melee range around a tank as the target but doesn't hit that many often. Heck I don't care if it's set to a low cap kind of life sentinels with AOE.

[TheZag]

I was disappointed that the spit powers didnt have alternate animations.  I have a character on the bench because i hate spit coming out of their helmet.  Maybe ill come up with a new idea that uses one of the animal or monster heads for a poison spit thing.  Gonna need to be an entirely new character though since dual pistols wont go on my poison spit monster.

 

I always considered the debuffs as single target even though they have a small AoE.  Its not worth it to use on minions or LTs.  Its barely worth the time to put on bosses.  I usually only use them on EB or stronger so the fact that the AoE is small doesnt matter to me much.  It would be nice to have a similar size to other debuff toggles and if the only reason they are smaller is because they are smaller then make them bigger.

 

I would actually go the other way with alkaloid and give a small buff if you are using it on the same target several times.  Hit by it 3 times in 20 seconds and you get some debuff resistance for a minute or a bit of +recharge. 

[golstat2003]

On 4/15/2022 at 8:57 AM, arcane said:

Nonsense 🙂

 

People on this forum make far too big an issue about mez. I can only assume half of the forum literally only log in to solo +4x8 malta missions 24/7, because their described experiences don’t match any other reality I can fathom. A couple break frees an hour usually cuts it for me. Or a very occasional Rune of Protection, or Indomitable Will ofc. But yeah, I have one Poison  of 6 with Clarion, and zero characters that would ever rely on amplifier mez protection because it’s just not a huge deal.

 

Honestly I don't mind mez in this game, but a lot of players pretty much hate being mezzed . . . at all., even for one second. I agree, I just tell folks to bring break frees . . .or better yet just build so that you don't get hit.

 

I think of all the i13 pvp changes, for instance, the changes to mez, will probably be the ones that most don't want reversed. (For example of folks in this game hatting mez).