Another blast set idea: Toxic Blast

[EmperorSteele]

"Toxic" is a damage type in the game, but there's not really a damage set based primarily around that damage type, unlike for say, Fire, Ice, energy/negative energy, etc. So, heck, let's fix that! This is a Blast set for Blasters, Defenders, Corruptors, and Sentinels. You use slimes, oozes, noxious gases, and more, to inflict pain and discomfort on your enemies.

But, everything's gotta have a gimmick these days, right? So, for Toxic, how about "Poison Counters". The more poison counters an entity has, the more it will be affected by other debuffs and mez effects. Each power will have a different chance to apply a counter to an affected target, based on how easy it would be to stack the effect and how powerful the ability is otherwise.

Poison Counter: Lasts for 30 seconds. Each stack of Poison on a creature makes Accuracy, Defense, Regeneration, Recharge Rate, Resistance, and Slow debuffs used against them 5% more powerful, Endurance drain effects 5% more potent, and mez effects last 5% longer. An entity can have up to 5 stacks of poison counters at a time.

Most of the attacks would deal their full damage via DoT, but otherwise, would be close to a typical blast set. I also imagine the blasts looking like streams of toxic sludge or poison gas, instead of being delivered via needles like some existing toxic powers in the game.

Quick Toxin: You lob a softball-sized ball of slime at an enemy, dealing a small amount of toxic damage. Damage: Light (Ranged/Toxic). Recharge: 2s. Chance for Poison: 10%

Toxic Tendril: You unleash a stream of chemicals right towards your opponent's face, hoping they choke on it. Damage: 3 ticks of Ranged/Toxic damage over 1.5 seconds, totaling to a Moderate amount. Recharge: 4s. Chance for Poison (per tick): 5%

Horrid Breath: You burp out a noxious toxin in a 90 cone in front of you, affecting a max of 12 creatures up to 30 feet away. Enemies who already have Poison Counters may be rendered helpless for a few moments as they are forced to vomit (5% chance per counter; vomiting will remove all existing counters). Damage: Moderate Ranged AoE/Toxic. Recharge: 16s. Chance for Poison: None on targets that already have poison counters, otherwise, 7.5%.

Forced Ejection: Your hands erupt with a powerful, concentrated blast of hardened sludge. The forced of the blow may knock weaker enemies down or away from you. Damage: High Ranged Smashing/Toxic. Recharge: 10s. Chance for Poison: 10%.

Contagious Contaminant: You launch a glob of slime at a foe, which explodes on impact, dealing splash damage to other nearby foes (within 15 feet). Damage: 5 ticks of Ranged Toxic Damage over 3 seconds, totaling to a High amount.  Recharge: 16s. Chance for Poison (per tick): 5%.

Surge: You let your toxins build up pressure to make your next few attacks more potent. For 10 seconds, you have +50% ToHit, +50% damage, and the chance for Poison counters on each hit is doubled. Recharge: 90s.

Toxic Gas Cloud: You summon a cloud of deadly gasses and contaminants to fill a 20' area within 80' of you. Foes within this area will be slowed (-25% run speed), take light toxic DoT, and will have a high chance of getting poison counters, as well (20% every 3 seconds). Note that some foes may try to escape the cloud, ala rain of fire. Recharge: 60s.

Corrosive Sludge: This volatile mixture of chemicals will burn or melt most substances. Does not poison a target, but instead will debuff their defense (15%) and resistance (10%) for a short time while dealing damage (values shown are Defender numbers). Damage: Moderate Toxic DoT over 10 seconds, totaling to a High amount. Recharge: 45 seconds.

Patient Zero: You mix a volatile concoction within yourself, which explodes, dealing a large amount of damage to nearby foes (within 25'), and making the immediate area hazardous to any remaining foes. You are left weakened by the explosion, but most foes may elect to retreat instead of taking advantage of your weakened state. Damage: High PBAoE Toxic damage, followed by Moderate Toxic DoT for 6 seconds (12 ticks; only lasts as long as foes remain in area). The initial burst has a 25% chance to poison affected enemies, with each tick of DoT having a 15% chance. Self: -500% endurance recovery for 5 seconds. Recharge: 145 seconds.


Some notes: I'm fairly sure an idea like this has come up before, but a quick search didn't show anything recent.

The % for the poison counters is somewhat arbitrary. I don't think it's necessary for a minon to have to get 5 poison counters, they'd be dead well before that happens, even if the chance was 100%. It's more to help with Bosses, EBs, and AVs. I imagine it should be doable to get/maintain 5 poison counters on a strong foe for the 30 seconds they persist, but it shouldn't be like "bam bam boom, ok, max counters!". I would want players to work for it a little. I also wanted the Poison effect to only really be noticeable after about 3 stacks or so. It's supposed to be a bonus/incentive for maintaining fire on a target, but not something you absolutely NEED for the set to work.

I figured an effect that enhances debuffs would be more interesting than just... debuffing the foe. Not super powerful on its own, but if you're a Toxic Blaster on a team of Defenders... congratulations, YOU'RE the force multiplier now!

I had originally worked out that different ATs would have a different chance to apply the poison effect, or have different values... however, that would make things complicated. What would happen if you had a Toxic blast Defender and a Toxic Blast Blaster both attacking the same foe? Also, Blaster debuff values are so low, that the 25% debuff potency wouldn't amount to anything game-breaking. So, decided to keep it all simple, and let their default damage/debuff values speak for themselves.
 

There's no snipe. I... kinda lost the plot on that. I suppose "Forced Ejection" could be shifted to T8 and made into the snipe, but I figured a soft control (KD) would be more beneficial earlier in a hero's (or villain's) career. I also don't think a snipe fits thematically with this set? But, w/e, I'm not married to the idea that a set doesn't need a snipe.

My initial concept for this was just slime blasts, but then gasses and liquids came into play, and... I can see how a set like this would be used to make gross concept characters, so maybe it's a non-starter. Though, that kind of concern didn't stop the devs (current and OG) from making water-based powersets, so, maybe "what some people MIGHT do" isn't too huge of a concern?

Any thoughts on how this could be improved?

Edited Thursday at 07:11 PM by EmperorSteele
Apparently I missed part of a power description, oops!

[Greycat]

Yeah, been asked for in various guises before. Still for it, at least as a concept. And actually, yeah, as much as I love my snipes - and wish they could be kept "slow" - I have a hard time seeing a toxic blast snipe, thematically. (And not all blast sets have them anyway, even ignoring sentinels.)

 

Honestly, I wouldn't mind a "toxic themed powersets added" patch. I'm personally waiting for a toxic armor.

[Snarky]

All i have is a name for the toon… Forum Dweller!

[Shin Magmus]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

All i have is a name for the toon… Forum Dweller!

I have nothing to add because Snarky already stated it.  This is one of the most Toxic Blast online spaces I've ever seen. 

[TygerDarkstorm]

Toxic feels so underused in game, totally down for a toxic blast set.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about the gross concept factor; there's already a lot of other sets in game you can make gross concepts with (I have an earth/poison controller whose concept is poo, so yeah, it gets done already lol).

[PoptartsNinja]

47 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

Toxic feels so underused in game, totally down for a toxic blast set.

 

That's because it didn't really start as a damage type of its own. Toxic was originally untyped, unresistable damage that didn't respect typed defense (I think it was still affected by positional?). Which made a lot of low level mobs (Vahzilok, Hydra) absurdly dangerous back in the day, since their acid vomit ignored resistance.

 

Eventually, Toxic became its own damage type and Toxic resistance was added (in I4?)--but toxic defense wasn't. And almost no sets had toxic resistance at first, which is why Forcefield's Deflection Shield grants +40% toxic resistance.

 

Eventually eventually, Toxic Defense was added too (in CoV, I believe, when the Arachnos EATs were given toxic damage) and Toxic became a full actual damage type. But it's been a journey, and Toxic is still weird because of it.

[Jacke]

10 hours ago, Snarky said:

All i have is a name for the toon… Forum Dweller!

 

AKA Basement Neck Beard.

[Snarky]

29 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

AKA Basement Neck Beard.

[Shin Magmus]

     Toxic is also the most resisted damage type on average in the entire game.  Since it didn't originally exist within the game, there are basically no enemies that are weak to Toxic.  There's a misconception that enemies don't resist it either, but they actually do because many enemy powers had Toxic resistance added just like the player powers did.  In descending order the 4 worst damage types in the game, on average, are: Toxic, Lethal, Smashing, Psy.

 

     Amusingly, the situation is inverted when you have 1 or more Spiders on your team because all versions of Venom Grenade inflict a self-stacking, no-cap debuff of -20% resistance to 7 types and -40% specifically only to Toxic.

[EmperorSteele]

3 hours ago, Shin Magmus said:

     Toxic is also the most resisted damage type on average in the entire game.  Since it didn't originally exist within the game, there are basically no enemies that are weak to Toxic.  There's a misconception that enemies don't resist it either, but they actually do because many enemy powers had Toxic resistance added just like the player powers did.  In descending order the 4 worst damage types in the game, on average, are: Toxic, Lethal, Smashing, Psy.

 

     Amusingly, the situation is inverted when you have 1 or more Spiders on your team because all versions of Venom Grenade inflict a self-stacking, no-cap debuff of -20% resistance to 7 types and -40% specifically only to Toxic.

I hadn't considered that, good call! Do you think it probably be more beneficial to give the set more straight up resistance debuffs, then, as opposed to trying for something fancy, in order to make up for this? Or would that be stepping on Sonic's toes (the blast set, not the hedgehog)? Or maybe the one debuff power in the set should have larger numbers attached?

Edited Friday at 12:27 AM by EmperorSteele

[srmalloy]

19 hours ago, Greycat said:

Yeah, been asked for in various guises before. Still for it, at least as a concept. And actually, yeah, as much as I love my snipes - and wish they could be kept "slow" - I have a hard time seeing a toxic blast snipe, thematically.

I have a Dark/Plant Blaster, Toksichniye Podlesok (Токсичные Подлесок, 'Toxic Undergrowth'), with her Dark Blast powers recolored black/green to create the effect of shooting various types of toxic attacks, with the -ToHit effect of Dark Blast rationalized as decreased muscular control from the toxins. You can do all sorts of things if you play with visuals and pick appropriate secondary effects.

[Glacier Peak]

10 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

Toxic became its own damage type and Toxic resistance was added (in I4?)

Issue 3

[Enamel_32]

There's plenty of animations and effects to borrow from too, between poison, water blast, and probably a bunch of other powers I'm forgetting.