Post by drspendlove on Jun 20, 2018 21:52:30 GMT -5
Toxin Terror is currently a level 5 Combat Medic talent that costs 12 Initiative with the effect:
"In crew combat, bio-threat hits 2 targets causes -2 Initiative, -10 Bio-Poison Resist for 3 Turns".
These two targets must be the front-two ranks and this ability cannot be used from the back rank of your own formation.
I argue this isn't strong enough to justify using. Even if I were the type to emphasize Bio-Poison damage a lot, that isn't quite enough dropped resist for 12 initiative. If you don't have *any* other crew member using bio-poison damage, that is incredibly weak, as you've just used up 12 of your own initiative to deal slightly more damage on future attacks that you'll now be making fewer of. (Not to mention your healing duties just took a backseat!)
The initiative debuff is nice, but with the targeting limitations, it still doesn't justify its use very often. I propose one of a few small changes to make it enter the realm of competitive talents:
A) Bio-Poison resistance drops by 20 instead of 10.
This option still doesn't make it worthwhile to be used by the Combat Medic him/herself, but at least synergizes well enough with other classes for a theoretical DoT CC build.
B) Initiative debuff is -3 instead of -2.
This starts to pay off its own initiative cost much more quickly.
C) Lower initiative cost to 9. (If either A or B are also changed, 10 would be an appropriate reduction instead.)
This is still more costly than a direct attack but is now slightly cheaper than any CM healing action. If I had 10 initiative in a turn, I'd seriously consider applying this debuff before performing my Cleansing Purge later in the round, and I still won't run into penalty initiative the next round.
"In crew combat, bio-threat hits 2 targets causes -2 Initiative, -10 Bio-Poison Resist for 3 Turns".
These two targets must be the front-two ranks and this ability cannot be used from the back rank of your own formation.
I argue this isn't strong enough to justify using. Even if I were the type to emphasize Bio-Poison damage a lot, that isn't quite enough dropped resist for 12 initiative. If you don't have *any* other crew member using bio-poison damage, that is incredibly weak, as you've just used up 12 of your own initiative to deal slightly more damage on future attacks that you'll now be making fewer of. (Not to mention your healing duties just took a backseat!)
The initiative debuff is nice, but with the targeting limitations, it still doesn't justify its use very often. I propose one of a few small changes to make it enter the realm of competitive talents:
A) Bio-Poison resistance drops by 20 instead of 10.
This option still doesn't make it worthwhile to be used by the Combat Medic him/herself, but at least synergizes well enough with other classes for a theoretical DoT CC build.
B) Initiative debuff is -3 instead of -2.
This starts to pay off its own initiative cost much more quickly.
C) Lower initiative cost to 9. (If either A or B are also changed, 10 would be an appropriate reduction instead.)
This is still more costly than a direct attack but is now slightly cheaper than any CM healing action. If I had 10 initiative in a turn, I'd seriously consider applying this debuff before performing my Cleansing Purge later in the round, and I still won't run into penalty initiative the next round.
