Good secondary to pair with Poison?

[TungstenShark]

I am trying to play powersets I have never played before, or ones that flat did not exist when I stopped playing Live. I thought I'd give Poison a whirl. My first thought was to pair it with Water, as it has some synergy (a lot of the attacks include -Def) and the powers are easy enough to re-color to fit a poison/toxic theme. Thought I'd ask if others have a fun pairing they'd recommend. I am probably only going to use 5 powers in Poison and do something fun and use the Experimentation Pool for some additional attacks (Toxic Dart and Corrosive Vial) to tie in to the theme (meaning I'll have to take 3 total powers out of Experimentation). I am also going to use Speed (Hasten), Fighting (Boxing/Tough/Weave) and Leadership (Maneuvers/Tactics/ probably Assault too). I think if I laid it out right in my head, I'll have room for 7 powers from my secondary set. I am going to try to use Procs as much as I can.

 

Anyway...what did you find fun to pair with Poison and why?

[biostem]

Darkness is nice because poison lacks a self heal, and life drain is simpler to use than dehydrate.  You also benefit from a greater tohit debuff as a defender, and the immobilize is useful to keep enemies at range, (and clustered together for poison's small AoEs).

[TungstenShark]

Thanks @biostem...Dark was one I considered as well. You make good points!

[Bionic_Flea]

Ice is nice because you can stack it's two holds with the two holds in Poison, and all those holds can be heavily procced.

[TungstenShark]

14 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

and all those holds can be heavily procced.

Ooooh, proc-y goodness!

[MoonSheep]

fire tends to be the most potent secondary for poison, i made one last year after reading this good guide on poison/fire defenders:

 

reasonable damage of fire combined with low animation times allows for good progress. 5 slotting dominate in the psi mastery with procs makes for a fast and highly damaging attack chain

[Carnifax]

10 hours ago, biostem said:

Darkness is nice because poison lacks a self heal, and life drain is simpler to use than dehydrate.  You also benefit from a greater tohit debuff as a defender, and the immobilize is useful to keep enemies at range, (and clustered together for poison's small AoEs).

Darks cones don't really play well with the Poison tier 9 though. You really want to exploit that extra 25% -resist it gives you. Water you can at least use the AoE and Whirlpool point blank. 

 

Rad is an option. It's proccy, the "cone" is skippable anyway and you get a PBAoE and a (slow) AoE along with a Snipe. Plus it's a close theme fit. 

 

Elec might work too. Poisons trap does -Recovery rather than Regen so gels a bit with Short Circuit. And it gets a decent AoE in Ball Lightning (and no cones). Not the most thematic for you though. 

 

Word of warning on Corrosive Vial, at the moment it's very poor indeed. 

 

 

[Uun]

 

[Dahkness]

 🔥

why?

cause 🔥burns down the competition.

[arcane]

My level 50 poisons are:

 

/dark def

/ice def

/dp def

ice/ corr

grav/ troller

elec/ troller

 

My Poison/Dark is my #2 main toon and will always be my favorite Poison, but, that being said, I picked a couple of these combos when I still PvP’d, and I would agree with generally prioritizing something with multiple real AoE’s over cones, like /fire, /rad, or /elec. Not that there’s anything wrong with Targeted AoE but something with PBAoE like /rad or /elec is really maximizing that synergy factor. For general play that will be most impressive. But you can also solo AV’s and stuff in which case my Poison/Dark is very good at that 🙂 Water would also be a nice option if you can’t pick between AoE’s of other sets and Dark’s self heal - Water getting both. 

Edited July 2, 2022 by arcane

[Xandyr]

I'm in the process of doing a Poison/DP defender. On paper it seems like Chem rounds would stack perfectly with Poison. Cryo rounds would also to an extent. Throw out your debuffs, jump I'm the middle so the T9 will neuter them, fire off HoB with Incindery rounds, hop back a little, switch to Cryo, shoot a few times. So now the enemies have their resistance, to hit, damage, and recharge all debuffed. They're practically sitting ducks. 

 

On paper. Haven't gotten to really test it, but it sounds fun (and active).

[Voltak]

On 5/24/2022 at 8:57 PM, TungstenShark said:

I am trying to play powersets I have never played before, or ones that flat did not exist when I stopped playing Live. I thought I'd give Poison a whirl. My first thought was to pair it with Water, as it has some synergy (a lot of the attacks include -Def) and the powers are easy enough to re-color to fit a poison/toxic theme. Thought I'd ask if others have a fun pairing they'd recommend. I am probably only going to use 5 powers in Poison and do something fun and use the Experimentation Pool for some additional attacks (Toxic Dart and Corrosive Vial) to tie in to the theme (meaning I'll have to take 3 total powers out of Experimentation). I am also going to use Speed (Hasten), Fighting (Boxing/Tough/Weave) and Leadership (Maneuvers/Tactics/ probably Assault too). I think if I laid it out right in my head, I'll have room for 7 powers from my secondary set. I am going to try to use Procs as much as I can.

 

Anyway...what did you find fun to pair with Poison and why?

 Poison/Dark blast 

Very good synergy, potent burst healing, the only burst healing out of all secondaries. 
To hit buffs to add or stack. 
The soft controls. 

Ice is another one for the slows

Water for the heal and the AoEs.  

[JayboH]

On 7/2/2022 at 11:13 AM, arcane said:

My level 50 poisons are:

 

/dark def

/ice def

/dp def

ice/ corr

grav/ troller

elec/ troller

 

My Poison/Dark is my #2 main toon and will always be my favorite Poison, but, that being said, I picked a couple of these combos when I still PvP’d, and I would agree with generally prioritizing something with multiple real AoE’s over cones, like /fire, /rad, or /elec. Not that there’s anything wrong with Targeted AoE but something with PBAoE like /rad or /elec is really maximizing that synergy factor. For general play that will be most impressive. But you can also solo AV’s and stuff in which case my Poison/Dark is very good at that 🙂 Water would also be a nice option if you can’t pick between AoE’s of other sets and Dark’s self heal - Water getting both. 

What do you think about your DP version

[Nostromo21]

I made a Spider-Woman defender too a while back & being recently inspired to try some defenders (being a mostly solo carebear) I've tried some out.

Storm/Dark most recently was very controlly & a little squishy, especially when I ran out of End, which I was constantly.

 

So, my Jessica Drew is thematically Poison/Energy, as I thought that fit best. Even at low levels, she is head & shoulders above Luna Tempest (the other defender).

She also flies, so can Envenom from the get-go, snipe a lot of damage with Power Bolt/Blast & seems to never run out of End, make of that what you will. The next couple def & to-hit debuff powers virtually make her untouchable. Shame poison has 3 powers that only work on allies, which means I'll hardly ever use them & therefore most likely skip them, eh.

 

I'll play her through to 20, see how she tracks, but so far, I am preferring the Blastender approach of "the best defense is a strong offense" 🙂.

If anyone has a good levelling/power guide for a Poison/Energy defender, would be much obliged folks.

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Nostromo21

[CFIndustries]

I like to play concept alts and have a soft spot for Poison. I found Poison/Dark alot of fun and easily recolored for a poison/toxic look (using a mix of Bright or Dark themes). A Water/Poison corrupter is alot of fun (and brutaly effective) so I bet a defender would be fun too, and also very easy to recolor for a poison/toxic feel.

[You]

But which one is most synergistic with Poison?

 

I actually have a Poison/Sonic sitting at 50 for a long time.  Originally I wanted to maximise the -res potential.  Now I am debating whether the combine effect of +dam AND -res of a Kin/Sonic may serve the purpose better. 

 

So now I am planning to level a new Poison but have been going back and forth on various secondary without settling on anyone yet. 

 

Overall, which secondary can best take advantage of the debuff potential of Poison?

[Uun]

25 minutes ago, You said:

But which one is most synergistic with Poison?

 

I actually have a Poison/Sonic sitting at 50 for a long time.  Originally I wanted to maximise the -res potential.  Now I am debating whether the combine effect of +dam AND -res of a Kin/Sonic may serve the purpose better. 

 

So now I am planning to level a new Poison but have been going back and forth on various secondary without settling on anyone yet. 

 

Overall, which secondary can best take advantage of the debuff potential of Poison?

For-res, I don't think anything tops Poison/Sonic. I've got one and it's a beast. Envenom + Venomous Gas provides -65% and Sonic provides a minimum of -20% to a max of -44%. Kin is certainly good too, but doesn't provide the safety Poison does from -tohit.

[Ringo]

Poison/Elec

 

Short Circuit + Poison Trap = Enemies aren't just sapped, they stay sapped.  Something only Thermal and Poison can accomplish

[Ankhammon]

Once made a Poison/Psi char who only needed two powers to effectively provide huge amounts of mitigation for the team I was on. I'd use Psy Scream plus Neurotoxic Breath while following close on the tail of the tank to cause 143.75% -Rech to the baddies.

 

Then, if needed, a quick heal on the tank and blast away or debuff the clumps or throw in the aoe hold or lots of other stuff. 

[Psyonico]

4 hours ago, Ankhammon said:

 I'd use Psy Scream plus Neurotoxic Breath while following close on the tail of the tank to cause 143.75% -Rech to the . 

That's actually really interesting, swing as Neurotoxic Breath is usually a skip power for me.

[Yaliw]

I'm going to argue that energy blast is great for poison since poison desperately needs some mitigation- especially since you need to be in melee for your fart cloud.

 

Now I know what you're thinking! The knockback is bad with the fart cloud. Well yes but thats why we have KB2KD slotted in our aoe's. Now you can keep enemies around you. For single target attacks, you could slot KB2KD but I find it unnecessary.

 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Yaliw

[Uun]

14 hours ago, Psyonico said:

That's actually really interesting, swing as Neurotoxic Breath is usually a skip power for me.

I used to skip it until I discovered it procs really well.

[moobiman]

Does poison have a bad secondary pairing? I feel like most of them benefit from or add to poison well except maybe archery and energy

[TygerDarkstorm]

16 minutes ago, moobiman said:

Does poison have a bad secondary pairing? I feel like most of them benefit from or add to poison well except maybe archery and energy

Think you answered your own question there, mate. 😛

[Ringo]

Despite being a close range set, I don't think Rad Blast really helps Poison or vice-versa