Poison Changes: Minor Tweak

[BitCook]

I have tried to like and play Poison over and over and every time, the set seems underwhelming and janky to play.  With no heal, no defense or resist based powers in the set it's also perhaps the most squishy of the support sets.

I'd love to see one or perhaps two changes that I think would keep it's unique position in Support sets, while addressing some of it's many shortcomings.

(1) Change the Radius of the debuffs.
The mechanic of a ST debuff with a splash radius is cool, but the radius is so painfully small that in practice, it's close to a ST power.  Contrast that to Time or Dark which have similar debuffs and 25ft radius, Rad has a 15ft radius.  8ft is practically single target in a lot of content.  I get that eventually you will get Venomous Gas, which is a PBAoE debuff... but again, it's only 15ft.

For the ST debuffs, give them either a 20 or 25ft radius on the splash.  That would let you swap targets in a chaotic fight and have a reasonable chance to either covering all the foes, or getting the double coverage you need.

I would love to see the Venomous Gas increase to 25ft like the other PBAoE debuffs, but that might be too much given the -RES in it.

(2) Make Alkaloid affect the caster, add a RES all component to it.
I'm not sure what the value would be, but giving it a +RES (all) or +RES (some) on the order of 10-15% or so would go a long way to giving the set a decent survival mechanic.  Additionally, it would be a fairly unique one giving a support set a status resist for self.

I really want to like poison, but each time I play it, it becomes a relatively frustrating experience and one that I can usually alleviate by playing other sets which have similar debuffs and some survivability tools as well.

Edit: Stupid OP referenced the wrong power.  Alkaloid, not antidote 🙂

Edited November 22, 2022 by BitCook

[Outrider_01]

2 hours ago, BitCook said:

With no heal, no defense or resist based powers in the set it's also perhaps the most squishy of the support sets.

Alkaloid is the heal for allies, very much like Storm has O2 Boost

 

Only thing Poison needs is like 10-12 ft splash radius.  About the size of a hit box for a player and like 6 things around them. 8ft hits 3 targets on average.

[BitCook]

I would agree except... it's also a set that wants to be melee based with nearly zero mitigation powers.

I do think it needs a little bump of something to help it play in Melee range.   ...and I meant Alkaloid, not antidote.  Stupid user 🙂

[Yaliw]

Poison needs a bump of some variety. What that looks like, I don't know. As of right now, it's basically a melee support set and should be rewarding to play that way, not punished.

 

 

[Rudra]

I never liked the poison set when I tried it, but I have friends that swear by it over the other support sets. So I'm kind of split on the OP. On the one hand, I would like to see poison as a set I can enjoy, but on the other, I don't want to take away something my friends really enjoy.

[biostem]

I wonder how difficult it would be to have it where when you use your primary debuffs, they leave a little "pool" or puddle around the target, which lasts for a short while, and any enemies that pass over it suffer a similar, albeit reduced, effect...

[Major_Decoy]

I still like the idea of giving the Venomous Gas toggle a proc, so you could have a chance of debuffing enemies at range. Just make sure that it's classified as the same debuff so it won't stack with itself.

[Sirius.Games]

The 12-15 radius seems more reasonable. Still a compromise for higher -res but not essentially single target.

[Uun]

Poison definitely has a learning curve. I've taken it to 50 twice on HC (controller and defender) and it can be a complete beast. You need to embrace living in melee range and overlapping the debuffs. My Poison/Sonic defender is quite tanky. I'm on board with a modest radius increase for Weaken and Envenom to 10-12 feet. Anything bigger than than that and the recharge would have to be nerfed. Venomous Gas is fine at 15 feet. I don't support making Alkaloid an AoE or adding +res(all) to it. If you're healing stuff, you're playing Poison wrong. I skipped Alkaloid entirely on my defender. Not mentioned above, but the other change the set needs is a wider arc for Neurotoxic Breath.

[BitCook]

I have taken it to 50 twice as well.

 

What I was aiming to do, is make the set a little more functional to play. The radius seems like a no brainer. There are other sets with equally as good a buffs that have a significantly higher radius. So I don't think this is a balance issue.

 

What the set lacks, is any sort of additional defensive mitigation. For a set that's supposed to live in melee, right off the bat there's a dichotomy.  Giving the set a resistance power would help with that.  Alkaloid seems like the right power and would actually make you think about taking it.  That is, assuming that it worked on yourself and had some sort of +res(all) component added into it.

[Uun]

10-15% resistance isn't going to do much for you, particularly in melee. You want to stack defense on top of the -tohit the set already provides. On my defender I run 40% S/L/E (without Tough/Weave), with Rune of Protection available if things go sideways. 

[Crasical]

Venomous Gas gives -12.5% ToHit and -18.75% Damage with a 15 foot radius as a T9 power.
Time's Juncture gives -15.625% ToHit and -25% Damage with a 25 foot radius as a T3 power.

 

Now, Venomous gas has -25% Resistance and -12.5% Defense, but they don't help if you're dead! Venomous Gas asks you need to get in melee and the *no* skills to give you any survivability. Your T9 is less 'safe' than the power you can get in /time at level 4, and Time has a bunch of other support to keep you alive while Poison has none.

 

The set's lack of personal protection, making you work without a safety net, is my main problem with the set. Giving Envenom and Weakness some actual AoE so that you can just *go all in* on debuffing whole spawns to the point where they can't kill you is a great direction to go in. Maybe make them leave clouds or puddles or something.