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 23 hours ago 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 13 hours ago 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