I don't get the love for Poison

[Snarky]

[WuTang]

On 9/11/2025 at 9:48 AM, EnjoyTheJourney said:

There is no way that firing off a ranged debuff that affects a smaller number of mobs and has a smaller resistance debuff is "more impactful" than affecting more mobs and applying more than twice as much resistance debuffing to all but one or two mobs in the same amount of time. That's like arguing up is down, pregnant is not pregnant, alive is dead, air is water, earth is sky, and so on. There has got to be something that can be improved with how a character is played if they can't make a team move faster with venomous gas and envenom versus just envenom. 

Fire off envenom while in mid-air and then land in the middle of the next spawn and drop poison trap. Ideally, do that just ahead of the team's alpha strike so everything is choking on a proc'd up poison trap mini-nuke while the team's fire blaster is starting up their nuke sequence. If the team's fire blaster has their nuke started and your poison character wasn't already in melee range, preferably with poison trap already working, then that was a missed opportunity to make lieutenants and higher melt faster.

Team play can be pretty chaotic, so it won't always happen. Still, whenever you're not already in melee for the team's alpha then you're not leveraging venomous gas to the extent that it can be. 

 

I'm not saying Venomous gas sucks. It's just overkill on mobs that already die extremely quick. 

 

But a couple things...

 

In my original build I did not take Poison Trap due to self-imposed theme restrictions. I recently discovered this was a mistake. Poison Trap is a must take. And maybe that's where I was failing. Not having that big CC to drop and help kill and add soft mitigation. I still stand by VG being superfluous when underlings already die to one (maybe two) alfa strike from the team without it.

 

I have respec'd the build to include Poison Trap and I've kept Venomous Gas, due to a change in plans with this one. I'll now be using him in 4 star content, where VG is absolutely valuable, since huge piles of mobs tend to last way longer and the team is focused, tight, buffing and barrier cycling, and there is always a tank. In that climate VG has time to shine.

 

Any who happy poisoning!

[tidge]

On 9/30/2025 at 1:41 PM, WuTang said:

In my original build I did not take Poison Trap due to self-imposed theme restrictions. I recently discovered this was a mistake. Poison Trap is a must take. And maybe that's where I was failing. Not having that big CC to drop and help kill and add soft mitigation. I still stand by VG being superfluous when underlings already die to one (maybe two) alfa strike from the team without it.

 

And when it is the Poison character tossing the alpha strike, VG becomes really superfluous.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

 

And when it is the Poison character tossing the alpha strike, VG becomes really superfluous.

Is a team's alpha strike not those things a team does over a period of a few seconds when making contact with a new spawn? In a team of 8 players, why would that team's alpha only be the first power activated against a spawn by a press of one a button by one team member, with any passively activated powers somehow and mysteriously being excluded from consideration as being part of the alpha? 

The debuffs in VG are helpful for both reducing incoming damage to the entire team and for increasing team damage done to enemies. That's a good thing and it's worth noting that they tend to take effect relatively quickly when heading into melee range with new spawns. It seems awkward and arbitrary to exclude the effects of VG when considering the effectiveness of a team's alpha strike against new spawns. 

Edited Sunday at 08:31 PM by EnjoyTheJourney

[tidge]

I've already explained my thinking earlier in the thread. In a nutshell: If I (solo) or on a team need Venomous Gas... then the solo/team needs a LOT more. For me it is a sunk cost problem: I compromise too much to make Venomous Gas "move the needle", instead I can wallop enemies with AoE so that I don't need to try to leverage the PBAoE debuffs from Venomous Gas. I'm not (solo) alpha-striking with Poison Trap... if anything that's a power to use after the alpha strike.

 

I've yet to find myself on a team where Venomous Gas would make more of a difference than single-target debuffs for whatever remaining 'harder' targets.

 

I'm sorry if my personal play experience trying to make VG work has led me to a point where I dis-recommend it is "yucking in your yum".  I'm simply (re)reporting that I've tried to make VG work, and I've never found it to be a better power choice than something else.

[dukedukes]

The sound VG makes afflicting everything it touches makes it a worthy pickup for me. I enjoy challenge so posturing myself to survive the resulting attention from mobs is what I like to call fun.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

 

5 minutes ago, tidge said:

I've already explained my thinking earlier in the thread. In a nutshell: If I (solo) or on a team need Venomous Gas... then the solo/team needs a LOT more. For me it is a sunk cost problem: I compromise too much to make Venomous Gas "move the needle", instead I can wallop enemies with AoE so that I don't need to try to leverage the PBAoE debuffs from Venomous Gas. I'm not (solo) alpha-striking with Poison Trap... if anything that's a power to use after the alpha strike.

 

I've yet to find myself on a team where Venomous Gas would make more of a difference than single-target debuffs for whatever remaining 'harder' targets.

 

I'm sorry if my personal play experience trying to make VG work has led me to a point where I dis-recommend it is "yucking in your yum".  I'm simply (re)reporting that I've tried to make VG work, and I've never found it to be a better power choice than something else.

You waited a fair while before posting a single line response and it seemed clear that something about what you quoted came across to you as untrue and worthy of correction. The wording and brevity of your response seemed to purport to state a general truth, rather than a conditional truth that is based on your preferred playstyle. 

If the effects of VG are definitionally excluded as being part of a team's alpha then, yes, the effect of VG on a team's alpha is null and void. But, it seems arbitrary to exclude the effects of VG from the effects of a team's alpha. 

To permanently lay to rest a key argument you've been implicitly setting forth, perhaps without realizing it, using VG doesn't necessarily mean a team "needs" VG to be successful or effective. VG is effective at speeding teams up by passively increasing damage done by all team members, thereby cutting down on the average number of clicks needed to defeat most spawns, and by passively and without any button clicks reducing incoming damage^. In a nutshell, "less clicks for better clear speed" is its primary contribution. Maximizing the percentage of the time VG debuffs are applying to mobs is how you maximize the "less clicks for better clear speed" buff that the poison set can apply to teams. 

There are some marginal cases where the added debuffs from VG may be a deciding factor for the team succeeding or failing. Those are probably marginal cases, though, and there would probably be other powers on such a team that are also helping to push that same team just over the line needed to succeed. So, even in such cases it seems a bit arbitrary to single out VG as the power that the team "needed." 

^ Before something picks a nit, one button click gets VG going and it can carry across multiple game sessions. So, technically one button click is needed, but in practice activating VG is done before engaging with enemies. 

[tidge]

59 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

 

You waited a fair while before posting a single line response and it seemed clear that something about what you quoted came across to you as untrue and worthy of correction. The wording and brevity of your response seemed to purport to state a general truth, rather than a conditional truth that is based on your preferred playstyle. 

 

 

I was somewhat surprised that this thread was still going after the end of August; by my reading the content after that point was repeating what had already been stated... you'll forgive me if I joined in with others in also repeating what I'd already said. I think @WuTang has been explaining my own perceptions of the power, and how it interacts with teams. I can forgive any inability to read between the lines of a single line response: A solo character has to be providing the alpha strike.... and for my own characters I find taking Venomous Gas (instead of something else) to get in the way of providing solo alpha strikes, and pretty much working against trying to solo alpha strike. This is my experience... I've tried to make VG work (solo and on teams) and it simply doesn't work for me. I'm faster solo without it, my teams didn't play faster with it.

 

If I think anything about the part I quoted is wrong, it is the implication that their is some unconditional truth about how taking VG is superior to not taking it. Mechanically: it's a base 1 Accuracy PBAoE set of (resistable) debuffs. Typically I've found such powers to pretty meh, unless they provide something like a -Speed... but that's my opinion, just like it appears to be a contrary opinion that Venomous Gas is a critical and necessary T9 power from Poison.

[dukedukes]

VG helps my characters initiate pulls, it's equivalent to 12% defense (for troller) against +3 before potential to hit resists, you get some -damage sprinkled in to help. Since I always initiate pulls when I play poison the alpha always includes the VG debuff in its damage. Saying the -res doesn't matter ignores damage is a sum of its parts (-res is a multiplier... pretty good), and instant -res on an alpha is a big thing other debuffers will have a hard time accomplishing, VG has the fastest application at <.5 sec. You think because VG may not make the difference between wiping and clearing a pack or the mobs would die a few seconds later it's useless? You could describe any power with that assessment. If you successfully utilize VG you're using the poison set better than those who don't utilize it, unless you die (rarely happens for me these days). It would be very odd to argue against that.

 

If you're fine with not being optimal it's no biggie to have your preferences. You can have fun being sub-optimal too. If I play with a poison character who doesn't use VG I'll be question marking internally though. Same for tankers who are oblivious to aggro, gravs who use sing as a ranged damage dealer, or other sub-optimal play styles. I don't mind playing with these folks but I do wonder about the justifications people have, if any (I generally assume ignorance), so this thread has been informative. I do understand having an aggro aura feels risky, for those people I'd recommend debuffers that don't put you in harms way. Play however you want of course.

[WuTang]

11 minutes ago, dukedukes said:

VG helps my characters initiate pulls, it's equivalent to 12% defense (for troller) against +3 before potential to hit resists, you get some -damage sprinkled in to help. Since I always initiate pulls when I play poison the alpha always includes the VG debuff in its damage. Saying the -res doesn't matter ignores damage is a sum of its parts (-res is a multiplier... pretty good), and instant -res on an alpha is a big thing other debuffers will have a hard time accomplishing, VG has the fastest application at <.5 sec. You think because VG may not make the difference between wiping and clearing a pack or the mobs would die a few seconds later it's useless? You could describe any power with that assessment. If you successfully utilize VG you're using the poison set better than those who don't utilize it, unless you die (rarely happens for me these days). It would be very odd to argue against that.

 

If you're fine with not being optimal it's no biggie to have your preferences. You can have fun being sub-optimal too. If I play with a poison character who doesn't use VG I'll be question marking internally though. Same for tankers who are oblivious to aggro, gravs who use sing as a ranged damage dealer, or other sub-optimal play styles. I don't mind playing with these folks but I do wonder about the justifications people have, if any (I generally assume ignorance), so this thread has been informative. I do understand having an aggro aura feels risky, for those people I'd recommend debuffers that don't put you in harms way. Play however you want of course.

 

I challenge your "sub-optimal" claim, as you are likely not to have any hard data to back it up other than feels. This happens in performance cars too. We call it "seat of your pants horse power." But without a dyno, and a few passes down the track, you really just "feel" like it's the best thing on the road.

 

I'm not going to retype what I've already stated...

 

But...

 

Envenom and Weaken are far superior and they both cycle back up quickly. Does VG add, sure, not saying it doesn't. I'm saying it doesn't add enough to move the needle, to use @Sovera words.

 

Now I've played a few times since the respec and yeah Poison Trap is the difference maker, not VG.

 

If you ran an ITF at +4 with the same team (all 50 and all geared) ten times in a row, half with VG on and the other half with it off, you will not notice a difference and if you do it'll be within the margin of error...well except that in the run without, you don't have to hop into melee unless you want to.

 

But hey, you do you boo. I'm sure you have fun with your "optimal" build too.

 

From a min/max perspective, I do see your point. But from a big picture POV, VG is but a speck.

[dukedukes]

16 minutes ago, WuTang said:

From a min/max perspective, I do see your point. But from a big picture POV, VG is but a speck.

 

There's people who choose their epic based on a -18% res ST power, or pick up a -7.5-10% ST res pool power. I will gladly take a 18.75-25% 15 ft aoe that doesn't require me to do anything but exist for it to apply, you just have to pay the aggro tax (a big "just" really). All the other debuffs are useful too. If you ever want Envenom to do 65-85% -res instead of 40-60% -res (a 41.6% to 62.5% increase) look no further than VG.

Edited Monday at 01:51 PM by dukedukes

[tidge]

3 hours ago, dukedukes said:

 

There's people who choose their epic based on a -18% res ST power, or pick up a -7.5-10% ST res pool power. I will gladly take a 18.75-25% 15 ft aoe that doesn't require me to do anything but exist for it to apply, you just have to pay the aggro tax (a big "just" really). 

 

The power does require a ToHit check (affected by Enemy Level), and the ToHit check is at the time of the PBAoE 'tick'... and the tick is modulo whatever is happening between the server and the client. Don't forget: Poison also includes a ST base -30% Resistance debuff in Envenom (which is also a source of -Regen, which is important for 'big sacks of HP')

 

In team play (and solo as well, but it doesn't feel like folks care too much about solo play in this discussion) the effects of -Res really only matter if the number of attacks goes down because of the application of a -Res debuff. I haven't seen it take more attacks to clean up scrubs, and by the time bosses are left the ST debuffs get the job done.

[Psyonico]

29 minutes ago, tidge said:

The power does require a ToHit check (affected by Enemy Level), and the ToHit check is at the time of the PBAoE 'tick'

VG is auto hit

[Frosticus]

Seems like the mechanics of the poison set remain a mystery to some even after all these years.

 

If you've never read my poison guide please do, it is perhaps the most interesting set in the game.

 

If you have read it, then this shouldn't be a matter of discussion. You just take VG.

 

 

[tidge]

5 hours ago, Psyonico said:

VG is auto hit

 

I was going by what I saw on City of Data....didn't scroll down enough. 

 

Nevertheless, it really has made no difference in my experience in clearing spawns.

Edited Monday at 11:11 PM by tidge

[Snarky]

On 10/5/2025 at 1:16 PM, EnjoyTheJourney said:

Is a team's alpha strike not those things a team does over a period of a few seconds when making contact with a new spawn? In a team of 8 players, why would that team's alpha only be the first power activated against a spawn by a press of one a button by one team member, with any passively activated powers somehow and mysteriously being excluded from consideration as being part of the alpha? 

The debuffs in VG are helpful for both reducing incoming damage to the entire team and for increasing team damage done to enemies. That's a good thing and it's worth noting that they tend to take effect relatively quickly when heading into melee range with new spawns. It seems awkward and arbitrary to exclude the effects of VG when considering the effectiveness of a team's alpha strike against new spawns. 

Ran a Sara Moore last night on my Dark^3 Corruptor. The kill rate was EXTREME.  We finished in slightly under an hour.  I would forego Tar Patch most of the time.  Unless my Nuke and Incarnate Nuke were on cooldown.  Only when soloing away from team would i do my usual Fear Cone, Stun AoE, build up, tar patch, incarnate nuke, nuke chain.  It was way too slow.  The team was rolling

[WuTang]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

Ran a Sara Moore last night on my Dark^3 Corruptor. The kill rate was EXTREME.  We finished in slightly under an hour.  I would forego Tar Patch most of the time.  Unless my Nuke and Incarnate Nuke were on cooldown.  Only when soloing away from team would i do my usual Fear Cone, Stun AoE, build up, tar patch, incarnate nuke, nuke chain.  It was way too slow.  The team was rolling

 

I'm thinking some on here have yet to experience this. But this is much the reason I think that the ST/splash debuffs are plenty in normal content. Some here seem to be laboring under the impression that Poison's VG is the linchpin to any team. The majority (outside of a 100% PUG) of my runs are like what @Snarkydescribed. It's like the Fire x3 Blaster build that you built, I can hit Build Up and Aim before Inferno, but really just one of them is MORE than enough. Do I do more damage with both? Mmhmm. Do minions and lieutenants all die when I use just one? Mmhmm. Actually, I think they die even without Build up or Aim. But the bosses and EB and up will generally still be standing in +4 content. I am almost always first in on my (Snarky's) Triple Fire Blaster too, so any Poison on the team might feel some certain way about that kind of speed.

 

PUGs though, if I'm totally honest, still clear really fast, especially if it's less than 54. Now perhaps when I exemp down far enough...don't know...

 

I was once on what was originally recruited as a Defender only ITF, but they only got 5 so they opened the last 3 spots up to the rest of us scrubs. I hopped in with a Brute, Sav/Bio, I believe. I was just along for the ride. They didn't need me or anything else, I was sort of like VG on that team.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

I've been along for quite a few teams for which envenom is the only poison power I'll consider using fairly regularly because movement speed seems to be the main limiting factor for clear speed; maybe weaken would be applied to AVs on such teams, but that's about it. VG will still be engaged because the cost to run it is functionally nonexistent when endurance management is consistently under control. Which it can be with careful build choices, without making major compromises. 

 

Obviously all minions and lieutenants are going to fall over in the first few seconds for each new spawn on extreme teams. So, it's usually differences in defeat times for bosses and EBs that will determine whether, for example, a KM ITF will clear in noticeably under 30 minutes or not. That's where the passive application of a 12% damage multiplier^ such as VG is most likely to make a difference for clear speed. 

^ VG provides a passively applied damage multiplier of about 12% or higher to +3 mobs, after purple patch effects, and assuming that only the -res effects of VG provide any help with clear speed (a conservative assumption, but let's roll with that). One of the reasons a figure of 12% is probably conservative when considering the effects of VG on clear speed is that regen has a way of extending defeat times for mobs with more hit points, which gets reflected in how DPS calculations increase in a non-linear way as pylon defeat times decrease, especially when doing particularly high levels of damage. Another reason that a 12% increase in clear speed is probably conservative is that sometimes resistance debuffs are reducing resistances that were noticeably above zero, in which case the damage multiplier they provide is larger than their nominal value. For example, a (nominal) 12% resistance debuff becomes a 24% damage multiplier for any damage for which the (+3 level in this case) enemy to which it is applied has a native 50% resistance to the damage it is receiving. 

With overkill damage potentially being substantial it's possible that clear speed won't increase by exactly 12% because of VG. That's going to be true for most other debuffs as well, though. Plus, for most other debuffs activation time is required that could instead have been used to pile on even more damage. So, the value from using them is even more in question than it would be for VG. Which, again, costs absolutely zero activation time to apply to mobs. Snarky is basically acknowledging this when mentioning that tar patch isn't worth using when a team is clearing things at extreme speed. VG is worth using, though, because, once again, its functional cost is nonexistent once endurance management has been organized and it probably will make at least some marginal difference to clear speed. 

DarkCurrent has done some interesting, granular work comparing defenders and controllers. The level of precision in measurement is much higher than that being shown by anybody in this thread (myself included, to be fair). I'd be a lot more interested in differing views about VG if there was at least some level of precision in the measurements being done, instead of just a determined, resolute willingness to keep making the same assertion that "I don't see (much of) a difference." But, you're arguing against math and, well, math is math and it shows a lower end double digit increase in clear speed is likely from passively applying VG to mobs. Clear speed seems likely to drop by a couple of minutes or a few minutes for most TFs, except perhaps on extremely fast teams. You might not notice a difference. But, unless you have measurements to show otherwise there's no good reason to disbelieve the underlying math. 

Edited 9 hours ago by EnjoyTheJourney

[dukedukes]

5 hours ago, Snarky said:

Ran a Sara Moore last night on my Dark^3 Corruptor. The kill rate was EXTREME.  We finished in slightly under an hour.  I would forego Tar Patch most of the time.  Unless my Nuke and Incarnate Nuke were on cooldown.  Only when soloing away from team would i do my usual Fear Cone, Stun AoE, build up, tar patch, incarnate nuke, nuke chain.  It was way too slow.  The team was rolling

 

With Darks 3 sec cast times I could understand not wanting to use it, though I'm not sure your attacks would be any more efficient. VG is a toggle so there's no effort involved. I just combat TP or spit jump (it's advanced poison stuff... don't ask) into fights and VG does its job without me accounting for it.

 

1 hour ago, WuTang said:

I'm thinking some on here have yet to experience this.

 

I guess not... Well, it's good you picked up poison trap to help out teams like this, or are we team blaster now? The goalposts keep moving around... hard to keep track. I do still remember my Envenom is ~60% better than yours, so that's cool.

[WuTang]

Laboratory math is often strained to hold true when put in real life tests. This game has variables stacked on stacks of variables. Across an entire TF run it would be near impossible to account for the "biggest" contributor of the clear time. You couldn't even get consistent numbers solo'ing. I said VG adds, I'm not taking that back. It just doesn't actually add that much when the rubber meets the road.

[WuTang]

3 minutes ago, dukedukes said:

I guess not... Well, it's good you picked up poison trap to help out teams like this, or are we team blaster now? The goalposts keep moving around... hard to keep track. I do still remember my Envenom is ~60% better than yours, so that's cool.

HAHAHA!

 

Cherry picking at it's absolute best.

 

Nice try though. The goalpost ain't moving, you just can't split the up rights.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

 VG provides a passively applied damage multiplier of about 12% or higher to +3 mobs, after purple patch effects, and assuming that only the -res effects of VG provide any help with clear speed (a conservative assumption, but let's roll with that). One of the reasons a figure of 12% is probably conservative when considering the effects of VG on clear speed is that regen has a way of extending defeat times for mobs with more hit points, which gets reflected in how DPS calculations increase in a non-linear way as pylon defeat times decrease, especially when doing particularly high levels of damage.

... But, you're arguing against math and, well, math is math and it shows a lower end double digit increase in clear speed is likely from passively applying VG to mobs. 

 

In my experience, the dominant "math" is "how many more attacks to defeat the spawn?". If only 70 more damage will do the trick, doing 12% more than 70 to defeat the spawn isn't speeding up defeat times by 12%. By the time this sort of debuff has a measurable effect... we are either talking about playstyles that can be considered "inefficient"(*1) or are of limited circumstance(*2). Even when adventures are advertised as "kill most", it is extremely rare that I see a team trying to "kill most"... of course I have to remind myself that 51% of spawn defeats would qualify as "most".

 

(*1) for example, in some circumstances 'dragging' bosses from one spawn to the next can be more efficient than standing around to defeat a boss.

 

(*2) for example, standing around next to a GM or some other bag of HP.

[dukedukes]

12 minutes ago, WuTang said:

HAHAHA!

 

Cherry picking at it's absolute best.

 

Nice try though. The goalpost ain't moving, you just can't split the up rights.

 

I can do the math on how much better my Envenom is, is 60% not enough for you? How much better does VG need to be to break through the threshold for you.

[WuTang]

27 minutes ago, dukedukes said:

 

I can do the math on how much better my Envenom is, is 60% not enough for you? How much better does VG need to be to break through the threshold for you.

Passion for Poison...glad to see it my guy.

[dukedukes]

Just now, WuTang said:

Passion for Poison...glad to see it my guy.

 

It's not just poison... According to your logic nearly every -res debuff available in the game is not worth taking. Goofy thinking at best, the only valid criticism of VG is it notifies mobs. Enjoy your blaster.