Bio-Poison improvement

[Keukotis]

Bleed is pretty good now. It's not amazing against everything, but having it trigger every single action means it's great to use against enemies with lots of initiative. It has a niche. That's cool and makes it fun and more effective. Cool + fun + effective = excellent game design!

Bio-Poison needs some love too. Could it be made to trigger not just every turn, but also whenever the enemy moves, whether through its own action or by enemy talents? This makes some sense (moving would pump the poison through your veins), but also gives it a niche. It would also synergize well with Snakebite on the Combat Medic, a talent that could use a boost anyway (I feel it should directly cause Bio-Poison rather than add weakness, but that's another matter), as well as all other abilities that push or pull enemies.

Example: You see an enemy swordsman in position 2. Your Combat Medic hits with Bio-Poison slugs then your Soldier uses Blowback to push the swordsman to position 3. The swordsman takes poison damage on the push, then again on their turn when they move back into range in position 2.

You could even add a small amount of Bio-Poison to some existing push/pull moves or vice-versa if you like the idea. Because those moves always push/pull after the damage, they'd have internal synergy with the effect by ensuring it applies at least once right away. Examples: perhaps Hunter's Challenge would apply a small poison effect before pulling, or maybe Bio-Agent Flechette would gain a pull effect.

This could be a cool niche to add and would definitely make Bio-Poison as desirable an effect as Bleed, as well as adding some cool synergy to your combat team.

[Keukotis]

I should note: I understand all Bio-Poison effects would need to have lowered Bio-Poison damage if this change were to be implemented. As it is, they are currently balanced for only hitting a single time each full combat turn. That's just really, really slow in a game where most combat doesn't go past turn 1 or 2. Having lower Bio-Poison damage but the ability to trigger it through push/pull or the enemy's own movement would be a fair trade-off, I believe, while making it a much more fun and tactical effect. Also more dangerous when used against you!

[fallen]

@keukotis - cool concept, but we don't intend to change Bio-Poison to work more like Bleed. One of the major goals of changing bleed to per-action was to differentiate the two.

[Keukotis]

Oh I understand. I don't want it to work more like bleed either. I feel this is quite different. I just want Bio-Poison to be useful. Currently it is not, because combat just doesn't last long enough for it to trigger in most fights. This is just one idea of how to improve it.

[drspendlove]

Hmm, if we're thinking of improving bio-poison... what about a small buff such that 50% of the HP damage dealt via bio-poison is also applied to morale?

[mishaadams198828]

Yeah being subjected to biological warfare tends to demoralize people. Being sick is no fun.

[Cory Trese]

I do like the concept of triggering Bio-Poison damage on push and pull.

There were a bunch of good discussions around this during the alpha.

The concept of allowing push and pull to move opponents into the "gas cloud" was also suggested, basically letting you copy the debuff.

Another suggestion for Bio-Poison was around how it stacks -- instead of linearly have it stack more aggressively.

The fact is that Bio-Poison damage doesn't "cost" that much in the STF balancing equations, so the Talents aren't out of balance with the current implementation.