It's unofficially official...

[Rydex]

I only used Kunark poisons a few times for duels (most were resisted) at level 45 and skill 170 or so. Having spent a great deal of time raising the skill for little to no use made me give up poisons. When PoP was released poison seemed to be a great new skill again. In the weeks after the quest was found I pushed for making the GM vial, spending most of my plat on the seal and skill ups.

At first the poisons seemed to be a great new toy, until I started to parse them. Bite of the Shissar (125 DD) added maybe 2% DPS if I had more than one proc a fight. Wasted Flesh (DoT) turned out to be the best DPS increase, IF it proced early in the fight, up to about 4% DPS. Of some note for raiding might be Mental Implosion (mana burn), but for grouping I have not seen an area where enough casters (only cleric NPCs really matter here) are packed for it to be useful.

While I still have a stash of Bite of the Shissar and Wasted Flesh, the only poison I have used in the past year is Spine Rend when there is no other snare, and then only sparingly. To complete a LDoN adventure it takes up to 6 doses. I would rather use the SBD and half my DPS unless time is getting close. It might take 10 min extra to finish, but it took a few hours to round up the supplies and make the poisons.

This might be ok if it was a spell you memorize and keep recasting, but a 2% and 4% (if lucky) increase that is a huge time sink is not worth the use.

Kunark poisons are useless in PvE. First they are not stackable, making it hard to keep a decent supply of them. Second, applying them after every fight is not possible in a good group, where pulls are almost constant. The mob is at 75% by the time you have poison applied, wasting more DPS than gaining.

I would hope all future poisons would be in PoP style. Poisoning ranged items for other classes are a great idea and would allow the skill to be marketable depending on the price. More if not all supplies being sold by vendors would be a nice improvement (I only farm vendors, poisons aren’t valuable enough to farm mobs anymore). Increased duration and damage on proc poisons would help and be a simple addition.

Servile
65 levels of theiven, yet still poor.

Rydex
65 Nature Walker

[Aeght]

Even just alternative recipies might be helpful. One of the greatest pains of poison making (and use) is gathering the parts. If more of the newer zones had parts for poisons, even those of existing levels, then they might be somewhat less annoying to keep in stock.

That said, the other listed suggestions of some bigger/better poisons to match the risks of the new zones would be welcome too.

Aeght
lvl 65 rogue

[Turlo Lomon]

Absor, this thread on the sony boards may be what you are looking for.

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/...message.id=564

[Zaephod]

As a non rogue i think Bane Damage poisons would be good. Specific poisons against specific mod types.

[Raddan]

you asked, now read

#1 modify throwing so it is at least useful as a pulling tool. and then.....

#2 allow us to permanently poison arrows and throwing weapons so we have something to sell....SOME reason for the mind numbing farming.

#3 less resists. A HUGE reason we don't use poisons is after ALL the effort required, they are resisted SO frequently. What good is a hate-reduction poison if the high level mobs resist it so freakin' often?

#4 two poison effects at once. We have a weapon in each hand, why can't we have one poison on one blade, and one on the other?

#5 mez poison. A poison that renders the mob completely (no casting) paralized for 30 secs to 1-1/2 mins. It would be impossible to immediately stop attacking once the poison landed, so the poison would also have to grant a 10 second immunity that gave the chance for the rogue to stop beating on it.

After TWO expansions of ZERO additions or improvements to this skill, you have to ask what/why? That's just horrible. You should be ashamed and embarrased. I offer rogues are THE most dedicated to our class, so we failed to make your ears bleed with our complaints, and the development team takes advantage of it. We get into groups on our reps of DPS. At least put in an in-game parser so we can prove our mana-independant contributions.

And how about a blind poison with a realistic and helpful effect? If suddenly I found myself unable to see, I would not immeditely run in a random direction as fast as possible, somehow able to navigate changes in elevations of terrain and twisting hallways without getting slowed down, never mind falling down. Mobs should not go anywhere, and their ability to attack and defend should be greatly reduced.

[Talisen]

Poison to sell to other classes = just plain wrong. You're thinking more like a trader than a rogue.

Mez poison = just plain wrong. Stun, snare, slow..sure. Mez? No.

Poison Mastery is almost completely out of date, even I stopped making poisons with how little they help..and I've always been big on using them. Reduces apply time each level? Useless. Makes it so you can't fail to apply? Useless.

How about we get an additional +1 poison damage to our weapons per level? Now THAT would be worth it!

[Goradoc]

What about rogues having the ability to make poisons for other people to use by making augments that could go into Type 7 (or whatever number the weapon slot is) items? The poisons could be like the PoP procs (only better please). Maybe the augments could have charges or something, so that they could be used in special situations (e.g., raids) so they wouldn't be permanent and people would have a reason to come back.

Speaking of augments, SoE is apparently considering allowing tradeskillers to make solvents that would permit augments to be removed and reused in new equipment. I'd suggest that maybe poisonmaking rogues be the the ones allowed to make these solvents, rather than opening it up to brewers, alchemists, etc. We have suffered so much for so long, it would be nice to have this skill possess some market value.

[Maisie]

#2 allow us to permanently poison arrows and throwing weapons so we have something to sell....SOME reason for the mind numbing farming.

I like this and if shamans can sell thier potions and be useful in that way, I dont see anything unbalancing about Rogues doing it.


perhaps if they swindle me out of twice as much money? that would be roguish?

[Raddan]

Don't give me credit for thinking of the poison something permanently thing, it's been mentioned 100 times before, including by someone else on this thread.

And that's my point. Our friendly neigborhood SOE developer wants us to believe he is interested, and he may very well be, but 2 expansions, and not one stinkin' new recipie???

I don't know if this is a practical way of thinking about what is right for a computer game, but in the real world, could you poison an arrow or blade, and pass it on? Sure, 'cept for the fact you would have to use it rather soon else I would assume the poison would drip off the blade or dry up. That sounds like "no rent" to me. Mage's sell summoned "no rent" items. Why not rogues? Why not allow it for the simple fact we'd have something to pass out at raids besides baked goods? example, /rs send a tell to Doc for Virtue, and /tell Raddan for poisoned arrows. Rangers firing away with resis lowering poisoned arrows? Monks pulling with shrunken's laced with a snare poison? Seems pratical and reasonable to me. (If for some reason by Bristlebane's graces they did put this in, please let us poison stacks at a time, lol).

I just want SOMETHING. SOE, let us prove our DPS contributions with an easy-to-use in game parser. Or make poisons useful. I was all excited to try out my hate-reduction poisons in ToV, and when I got the chance, with resis after resis, I felt like I had just wasted a huge amount of time and money.

As far as the mez poison, that seems completely pratical to me. A posion that locks everything up for a short duration certainly would be EQ practical, as well as real-world compatible. My impression is the previous poster/flamer is locked into specific roles for specifc classes, i.e. since EQ started, rogues can not mez, so they should not be able to now. I say SOE missed the boat and they are welcome to fix it. We would be a poor-man's crowd control anyway, as we pray to Bristlebane our proc would #1, go off in short order, and #2 not get resisted. But in an emergency, or for casual, as opposed to critical, crowd control (like a normal difficulty LDoN), it could be useful. If my memory serves, rogues could sorta mez with cudgel's in the pen and paper RPG's from which EQ evolved, and a competing title, currently in beta, empowers rogues with this ability. So where you get it's "just wrong" I don't know. What IS wrong is a third expansion of more powerful spells for the casters, and nothing for the melee's. Try opening your mind just a wee bit before you flame, kk? thx.

You didn't flame, you claim? You were just offering another opinion? Then give us something other than "it's just worng". I argue a drug that has a "mez" effect exists in the real world today, is practical to put in the game, and would give rogues an ability they have in games related to Everquest. You, however, only criticize.

one last note, potions were always a big part of medieval RPG's, I wish they were more a part of EQ. And all of those SO concerned about making other PC's rich, it sounds like jealous whining to me, and that's a very broke rogue talking. If more cost effective potions (to make) could be introduced, which gives me the ability to take out some mob that I could not handle before, I'll be a buyer, and if I make some shammy rich, so be it.

[KyrosKrane]

As far as the mez poison, that seems completely pratical to me. A posion that locks everything up for a short duration certainly would be EQ practical, as well as real-world compatible.

While the concept of a poison that freezes a target briefly is sound, game mechanics wouldn't support it. A typical high-level rogue will be hitting the mob something like 2-4 times per second. So, in the course of one second, consider this scenario.

Turn attack on wayward mob
hit one: hit for xxx. Proc goes off, mob mezzed
hit two: miss
hit three: hit for xxx. Mez breaks
hit four: hit for xxx.
Attack off.

Your mez lasted less than a second because it's simply not possible to react fast enough, given current game mechanics, latency due to Internet lag, and sheer human reaction time.

If you insist on using a mez, you'd have to add a five-second Divine Aura-like effect to the mezzed mob as part of the proc. Then, IF lag isn't too bad, the rogue is paying attention, AND the player has fast reflexes, the rogue would have a chance to turn off attack before he breaks his own mez.

Instead, consider a poison that procs a ten-second stun. It has the same effect you're looking for, more or less -- it freezes up the mob briefly, but you don't have to worry about turning off attack or missing the proc message.

[Raddan]

I agree KyrosKrane, a period of immunity, as I mentioned in my first post in this thread, would be required, because it would be impossible to turn off attack fast enough.

The scenerio I envision is a group in a LDoN with no bard or chanter. The tank/puller brings 3. In this case, the rogue would have to quickly apply the poison, which can be done with a high skill and a custom UI, and then jump on the adds, while the rest of the group stays with the MA. Once the rogue gets a proc, and the add is mez'd, he moves to the next add.

He would then have the choice of clicking off the mez effect from his buff bar and joining the fray, or sit back and waiting to see if the mez broke at a bad time, in which case he/she would need to re-mez. So the rogue may have to truly sacrifice his DPS if he was going to serve as emergency CC. A fair trade off IMHO.

Thinking out loud, if SOE changes it so actual weapons and not "slots" are able to be poisoned, the rogue could switch out from a regular piercer to one pre-laced with the mez poison. Once he got things under control, he could switch back to the non-mez-poisoned poker and resume the DPS role. But again there is a flip side, if applying a poison made the dagger no-rent, as the arrow and shrunken scenario I mentioned previously, there wouldn't be many blades worth sacrificing.

I am no programmer, I am a customer. I see no reason to ask for the way it should be, rather than what is easier for the SOE development team.

Would a 10 second stun be worth the farming and the cost? I think the usefulness of said poison would only be a have-it-ready-in-an-emergency thing, and a longer duration stun be required to make the effort (of making the poison) worth while.

What might be a better alternative all together is give rogues an ability similar to assassin strike where if the attack is from a "hidden" position, with a blunt object, they have a chance of a mez, or a long duration stun, whatever you want to call it...the equivalent of a wack on the back of the head.

The tank pulls and someone calls out "add." The rogue goes into sneak/hide mode, switches to a blackjack, positions him/herself behind the add, fires up the ability, and strikes! Seems like a viable solution, albeit not part of the tradeskill debate.

Again, what I am looking for is some time and effort from SOE that directly benefits the rogue class. Spells come out with every expansion, as do new recipies for all the other tradeskills, 'cept for one, make poison. Throw a little love our way please SOE. Don't forget us again in OoW.

[AbsorEQ]

Sorry for taking so long to reply and for not getting names in my quotes, you know who you are...

#2 allow us to permanently poison arrows and throwing weapons so we have something to sell....SOME reason for the mind numbing farming.

I don't think you're going to see:
a. Permanently poisoned anything. This would wipe out the idea of rogues making poisons for themselves. It would basically mean that you'd make one dose of a poison and never make another until you changed weapons.
b. It seems to me that poisons should remain rogue only. Selling them for others to use isn't something that sounds good to me.

#3 less resists. A HUGE reason we don't use poisons is after ALL the effort required, they are resisted SO frequently. What good is a hate-reduction poison if the high level mobs resist it so freakin' often?

Is this the case? I'd like to hear from others that use poison regularly. I recently talked with Rytan about resists on a few poisons and he seemed to think that they were fine, though I think I can freely admit that I know very little about the whole process. Keep in mind that if you try to convince me that they are super weak and need to be unresistable I'll ban your mother.

#4 two poison effects at once. We have a weapon in each hand, why can't we have one poison on one blade, and one on the other?

Two problems here. This is a code thing that I can't address and have no idea about how hard it is to accomplish. Secondly it would effectively double the power of poisons and I'm not at all sure that is a good idea.

#5 mez poison.

No. Don't start asking for rez poisons or charm poisons either. I do not want to water down any class distinctions with new poisons.

After TWO expansions of ZERO additions or improvements to this skill, you have to ask what/why? That's just horrible.

I don't "have" to ask what or why. I did, however, want to get some input. Sorry for taking up your time. Please take out all of your frustrations on me, though, if it will help.

Poison Mastery is almost completely out of date, even I stopped making poisons with how little they help..and I've always been big on using them. Reduces apply time each level? Useless. Makes it so you can't fail to apply? Useless.

How about we get an additional +1 poison damage to our weapons per level? Now THAT would be worth it!

Not sure if that's possible, but I'll see what folks say. Any other ideas about how to make Poison Mastery better that matches more with how the other masteries work?

And that's my point. Our friendly neigborhood SOE developer wants us to believe he is interested, and he may very well be, but 2 expansions, and not one stinkin' new recipie???

Oops, skipped the rest of this post. I have a blind spot for the uncivil.

A

[Wyloc Wormwood]

/wave Absor

no wait come back! lol

ok mate ive said my bit in other posts so you know where i stand haha.

Keep in mind that if you try to convince me that they are super weak and need to be unresistable I'll ban your mother

haha ok so either keep them as they are eg "super weak" (they are) and make them unresistable, not the way i think we should go imo. or keep the resist check and up the power of the poisons a lot.
the tiny, tiny dps increase of using the proc based poisons just isnt worth time/money, let alone that these are "advanced" poisons that you have to skill up to make.
poisons are something that should be special and deadly, atm its something to many rogues shy away from because for the return there seams little point.

the ideas put around of making poison augs sound nice, but i doubt we'll see something along those lines anytime soon, im not having a go im just sure you got more than enough on your plate as it is right now.

there are plenty of ways to limmit the use of new Grandmaster deadly poisons if you felt that once made they were to powerful eg a gang of 5 Rogues teaming up to assassinate a target(that might be to close to being able to solo for xp and loot /mock)
in the end all we want is for the poison line to be looked at, it badly needs upgrades for Rogues to look at it as something worthwhile.

there just isnt any OOOooo in it, poisons atm are a little less that a minor irritation from a bee sting the the backside of an elephant.
there was nothing put in for this skill in LdoN or GoD ummm thats 2 expansions to a class skill (unlike like alchemy) come on mate shed some light on what youve been holding onto for so long or were we really just not worth it?

[Raddan]

I sincerely apolgize

BAH! Uncivil? The lines put in quote were interpreted to be uncivil? I don't see how that can be the case, and more importantly, that was not my intention. But it does not matter. Obviously, you felt offended and therefore I am truely sorry. If we were having a face to face conversation and the lines were spoken instead of typed, you would have noticed my voice did not raise, my body did not become animated. I failed to make it known that I respect the fact that a person with the ability to make a direct impact took their time to come here and read what we have to say, to directly solicite opinions of players. For that I apologize. I understand anytime you post in a forum such as these, you put yourself "in range", but it was not my intention to fire a shot.

The "That's just horrible" comment served no purpose other than to vent. It was out of direct frustration, but that is no excuse. And yes after two expansions with nothing new to something I percieve to be crucial to the character, and my experience of what I perceive to be a high resist rate on the very mobs a hate reduction poison would be useful, I am certainly frustrated. But this is Niami's and Ngreth's forums. My gaming experience has been greatly enhanced due to their efforts, so the last thing I want to do is embarrass or upset them. And you, A, took the time out of your day to listen/read. I should have had more restraint and I apologize.

I am passionate about my character, and I could debate/discuss anything rogue related endlessly. I am disappointed so many of our suggestions have already been dismissed. But the purpose of this post is to make it clear that I am truely sorry I turned you off so, and make it known offending you, upsetting you, or getting a rise out of you, was not my intention. Hopefully, the detail supporting my suggestions in my posts are evidence that they were not meant as simple flames.

"I'm sorry", to me, means if you had a chance to do it over again, you would. And I would. Although I stand by my suggestions as reasonable and appropriate, I should have approached the question better. My apologies to Niami, Ngreth and A.

[AbsorEQ]

/wave Absor

no wait come back! lol

ok mate ive said my bit in other posts so you know where i stand haha.


haha ok so either keep them as they are eg "super weak" (they are) and make them unresistable, not the way i think we should go imo. or keep the resist check and up the power of the poisons a lot.
the tiny, tiny dps increase of using the proc based poisons just isnt worth time/money, let alone that these are "advanced" poisons that you have to skill up to make.
poisons are something that should be special and deadly, atm its something to many rogues shy away from because for the return there seams little point.

the ideas put around of making poison augs sound nice, but i doubt we'll see something along those lines anytime soon, im not having a go im just sure you got more than enough on your plate as it is right now.

there are plenty of ways to limmit the use of new Grandmaster deadly poisons if you felt that once made they were to powerful eg a gang of 5 Rogues teaming up to assassinate a target(that might be to close to being able to solo for xp and loot /mock)
in the end all we want is for the poison line to be looked at, it badly needs upgrades for Rogues to look at it as something worthwhile.

there just isnt any OOOooo in it, poisons atm are a little less that a minor irritation from a bee sting the the backside of an elephant.
there was nothing put in for this skill in LdoN or GoD ummm thats 2 expansions to a class skill (unlike like alchemy) come on mate shed some light on what youve been holding onto for so long or were we really just not worth it?

I agree that there isn't any wow factor in poisons. Part of the issue here is balance. Unlike most of the other tradeskills, poisons add directly to damage. If they make a major impact then they change the balance of the class. If they do that then things need to be balanced with that in mind, and then the ability to make poison becomes a "requirement" to be the optimal rogue (something that I hear players worry about sometimes). I'm not sure that we want to try to make any tradeskill that integral to the DPS of a class.

And it's not that we've been holding out, it's just that there 14 million tradeskills and 14 million classes and zones and spells and items and quests and blah, blah, blah that needs to go into an expansion. Unfortunately there isn't always time to get all of the things the time and effort they deserve.

A