How's /Poison?

[BasiliskXVIII]

I haven't played in a long while. I'm getting back into the game, tinkering with some alts, and was thinking about running a /Poison Corr. I know back on live it was generally considered a pretty poor secondary. But then, so was Trick Arrow, and I know that's gotten a fair amount of love since moving over. Has it gotten any love? Or were the haters on live just wrong?

[Octogoat]

Poison is solid you won't be disappointed

[Maelwys]

Its raw effects are still pretty weak, mainly due to Purple Patch and Archvillain Resistance negating a large portion of Debuff effects. IMO the AoE -res debuffs are the best part... although unlike Tar Patch from Dark (for example) they don't stack with themselves.

 

Lots of its powers take a fair number of useful procs though.

 

Edited December 28, 2024 by Maelwys

[Uun]

Poison only has 4 must-take powers (Envenom, Weaken, Poison Trap and Venomous Gas). The rest are optional, skippable or can be used as mules. This gives you a lot of build flexibility. Poison is best played in melee range. As a result, avoid pairing it with blast sets with lots of cones. PBAoEs and ranged AoEs are your friends.  (I ignored my own advice and have a Poison/Sonic defender, but I wanted to maximize the -res. I've also got an Illusion/Poison controller.) 

 

 

[tidge]

On my Mind/Poison Controller, Poison is a pretty good secondary but it is somewhat forgettable, I'll share my choices for the secondary:

 

Spoiler

Level 1:                 Envenom            

 (A) Shield Breaker - Chance for Lethal Damage

 (*) Shield Breaker - Defense Debuff

 (*) Shield Breaker - Accuracy/Defense Debuff

 (*) Shield Breaker - Defense Debuff/Endurance/Recharge

 (*) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage

 

Level 4:              Weaken Resolve            

 (A) HamiO:Lysosome Exposure (Accuracy / -Defense / -ToHit) Level  53

 (*) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage

 

Level 16:              Elixir of Life       

 (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All)

 

Level 24:              Paralytic Poison              

 (A) Ghost Widow's Embrace - Chance of Damage(Psionic)

 (*) Neuronic Shutdown - Chance of Damage(Psionic)

 (*) Unbreakable Constraint - Chance for Smashing Damage

 (*) Gladiator's Net - Accuracy/Hold: Level 50+5

 (*) Gladiator's Net - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge/Hold: Level 50+5

 (*) Gladiator's Net - Chance of Damage(Lethal)

 

Level 30:              Poison Trap       

 (A) Unbreakable Constraint - Hold: Level 50+5

 (*) Unbreakable Constraint - Hold/Recharge: Level 50+5

 (*) Unbreakable Constraint - Accuracy/Hold/Recharge: Level 50+5

 (*) Unbreakable Constraint - Accuracy/Recharge: Level 50+5

 (*) Unbreakable Constraint - Endurance/Hold: Level 50+5

 

Level 32:              Alkaloid              

 (A) Preventive Medicine - %Absorb

 

I quite dislike Poison on my Defender. I don't have a Corruptor.

 

I tried really hard to make Venomous Gas work, but I simply could not build a character that could hang out in melee range and survive. Trying to do so felt like I was making a LOT of peculiar choices just to try to get the VG ticks to work against enemies while taking huge amounts of aggro (melee, ranged, AoE). In my mind, I was spending a huge amount of design (and play) space just to try make a T9 work.... for 18% damage resistance that is mostly for the benefits of allies who may or may not care (or be able to do anything about) me taking the aggro.

 

It isn't the only T9 in the game that I find disappointing, but it is one of them.

[Death2Tyrants]

/Poison is an acquired taste.... just don't taste too much of it before building up immunity.

 

It hasn't gotten any love since your experience on live. I think it could use some tweaks to make the throwaway powers more compelling and desirable IMO.

 

On the flip side the throwaways can make room for more pool picks earlier.

 

Of the ATs that currently have access to it my best experience with /Poison has been with Defenders and Controllers and I wont touch the set again on an MM. 

 

The biggest drawback is surviability gets squirrely vs larger mob groups especially if they are spread out. It is geared for hard target killing.

 

While it is true the main hits don't stack and nor do the splash effect, you can stack the main hit with a splash for ~1.5x effect. Getting the most out of your Tier 9 requires getting in melee range.

[Octogoat]

13 hours ago, Death2Tyrants said:

/Poison is an acquired taste.... just don't taste too much of it before building up immunity.

 

Never bet against a Sicilian when death is on the line...

[BasiliskXVIII]

So, I ended up going with a Beam Rifle/Poison Corruptor and I'm finally up to 30 with her, mostly soloing, but running some TFs in between too. I figured I'd bring my impressions here in case the title catches someone's eye and they're curious. I've skipped a lot of the "help other people powers" as is my wont as a Corruptor. I've only got a very few IOs slotted, so this is basically my impressions on SOs:

 

• The game is entirely different before and after Venomous Gas. I was squishy AF before, and now I can barrel into crowds with near impunity, even unslotted.
• Almost everything is click-based, so it can get pretty dang end-hungry. Slotting for end reduction is nearly a must.
• Having good targeting binds is a must, because you'll want at least a targetnear bind and a targetnext bind on tap to maximise the use of Weaken and Envenom.
• Poison Trap is not nearly the same as the version from Traps. It seems to get a lot of stick because of that. However, the Lockdown Proc gives it a decent bit of usefulness in controlling minions, and its deployment time is much faster. It needs to be slotted for Accuracy to make the most out of procs though.
• Beam Rifle is not an ideal choice for primary. I built the character before seeing Uun's advice on that one. However, it is also very single-target focused and its cones can be leveraged by hopping out of melee and back in so it's at least manageable.
• Neurotoxic Breath is a lifesaver at lower levels both to help group enemies up and to help get away when you're getting overwhelmed (Which will happen often enough). Its usefulness drops off a lot as enemies get more powerful ranged attacks, though.
• Weaken's -Special blows my mind. Even with the Corruptor's weaker modifiers, judicious use against enemies with annoying status effects turns 5-10 second holds to 1-2 second holds, Which is good because you're SUPER vulnerable to Mez.
• It's pretty hard to justify using your secondary for most mobs in team content since they just melt so fast and the AoE is so tiny. Even Alkaloid is so slow to deploy that it's hard to use where you'd want.

It's a weird, very glass-cannonny build, but I am having fun with it because it is quite different. I really would like to see the AoEs of the main debuffs to get improved radiuses, similar to what Acid Arrow got in /TA. I'd even be willing to give up the stacking of the ST and AOE components if that were the necessary cost. Weaken especially, if it had a decent chance to hit whole spawns instead of one guy, maybe two if you're lucky, would improve the survivability a lot.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Poison characters can benefit a lot from having fold space, wormhole, and/or singularity in their powers list. All of these powers help you to move mobs into melee range of your poisoner, which helps survivability once venomous gas has been taken and slotted up.

 

Fold space is probably more than enough in many situations, allowing you to bring ranged attackers that never seem to group up into "bear hug" range with your poisoner. Using corners and other terrain features to group mobs up can also be quite helpful, especially when soloing. 

 

Bringing mobs into melee range with your usually fragile corruptor, controller, or defender can quite understandably feel uncomfortable at first; it tends to take a while until you gain enough experience with the set for that feeling of discomfort to change to a grin. 😁

[Teklord]

I have fold space on a rad/rad defender for the exact same reason. Being able to bring everything into my 15 ft radius debuffs  is essential for my survival. I love using RI, EF on a big target then fold space followed my three radial AOEs and possibly a judgement AOE. If I were to build poison I would do the same.

[Wimbochismo]

I have a Beam/Poison Corruptor I'll give my 2c on. Venomous Gas is 15ft radius, melee range is 7-8ft. You can still leverage ranged defense while effectively utilizing VG, especially with Hover.

 

In fact I've had some tank-light groups where I've had to effectively pseudo-tank. The aggro on VG is so strong I'll just Fly/Hover around picking up enemies before letting them ball beneath me. This also lets me utilize the dot spread from Beam very nicely. Strong teammate blasts will still rip aggro but it's surprisingly effective for the initial clump. It's also highly survivable with the worst to watch out for being things like aoe, mez, and enemies with large hitboxes.