Survival Hybrid Build Veno

Isala - Sanctuary

I'm going to start this off with a couple of disclaimers.

First. If you're looking for an easy, make a ton of money like nothing, blast anything that moves, and dies almost instantaneously build, stop. Find the back button on your browser immediately.

Second. I know this build isn't perfect, and will be promptly torn apart by several people. It's cool. I'm just trying to present something other than a cookie cutter. Tear at will. It'll help me improve it.

Alright. Now that we got that out of the way, what exactly am I talking about here? Simple. I'm talking about a veno that does not die easily. Period.

Here's the thing. You see your builds for Fox, you see your builds for Pures, you see a lot of builds. Everyone of them has their niche, right? Well, what if I told you that there is a way you could make a veno that has attributes of almost all those builds? Interested? Read on.

First off, realize one thing going in. This is not a build for simple people. You need strategy to pull this off, as well as a LOT of patience. For one MASSIVE reason. This build attempts to do EVERYTHING. As such, you spend a ton of money on skills, and gear.

Here's the stats. Tweakable to fit your own play style.

STR and DEX. Keep them at your level + 4. That's right. This build will have Light armor capability.

MAG and VIT. Here's the catch. In order to do this build, you're going to have to sacrifice a lot of Mag. I set my Vit at a solid 60, and put the rest into Mag. What does that come out in the end? This.

Vit: 60 Mag: (Level x 3) - 53
Str: (Level +4) Dex: (Level +4)

Keep in mind, that you can use less or more Vit. Vit in this build is designed for one thing. Taking more hits. Although putting it in Mag would give you more Mag Defense, and putting it in Str would give you more Phys Defense, straddle the fence, so you can take both.

Those are the stats. Now here comes the strategy. As you can see, your Magic is gimped. Big time. You'll be 18 levels behind on all weapon equips, unless you can find gear that increases Mag. That's the best you can hope for. Gear that increases Mag and Vit.

So, what will you be wearing? At this point, people that have read everything will be going: "Durrrrrrrrrrr. Light Armor."

Right, but so very WRONG. You will be wearing Light Armor, yes. BUT. You will also be wearing Robes. "WHAT?!" You might say. Remember at the top when I said this wasn't cheap? That's why. You are going to maintain not one, but at least TWO sets of gear. Notice I said "at least". That I will discuss later.

So, what skills are we looking at here? As you will be fighting in both forms, here's the best of both worlds for you, which I suggest you focus on.

For Normal Form:
Venomous Scarab. This is your spam spell. Over and over and over again.
Ironwood Scarab. For power. It hits hard, and reduces Phys Def, so your pet kills faster.
Blazing Scarab. Not as important as the other two, you can still use this to add a little damage to help your gimpy magic cause some pain.

Metabolic Boost. HP heal. 'Nuff said.
Nature's Grace. MP heal. Again, 'Nuff said.
Soul Transfusion. Switching MP and HP allows you to have double the capacity for both.
Bramble Guard. Because you reflect damage with it.
Summer Sprint. Because running faster is always better.

The others, you could buy, but I suggest you save your spirit/money for these:

For Fox Form:
Befuddling Mist. Lowers Accuracy. Helps you survive by making your foes miss.
Leech. Get this. Max it. It will save your life.
Fox Wallop. Because it's a cheap spell with decent power that you can use to hit your opponents.

Purge. Because every Fox needs it.
Amplify Damage. Because a mob taking more damage is always a good thing.

Also, Spark Eruption. You'll love the extra power.

And as always, Heal Pet/ Revive Pet. Because we're the PET class.

And. Prioritize these. Melee and Wood Mastery. Because that extra damage affects everything you do.

Now. You might be asking... Why THOSE? Because of how you're going to play. If you've played a veno in an aggro area, you understand the downfall of multiaggro. Heal your pet, and those mobs come after you. With this build, you can meet the incoming HEAD-ON. That's right. No running. As the mob comes towards you, switch to fox form. Start using Befuddling Mist, and Leech to keep your HP up, and Fox Wallop to hurt. The mob will drop. And you'll still be alive.

Now... What if that mob is a caster? That's where the set of Robes comes in. Keep an eye on the behavior of mobs. If it casts, put on the Robes. If you get aggro, Fire Away! You might have to use a few pots, or Metabolic boost, but as before, you'll still be alive.

That is the entire essence of this build. No matter what happens. You will SURVIVE.

Let me give you an example of something you might love this build for.

An FB run. Your barb's up in front pulling aggro, smashing mobs, etc. Well. WHOOPS! He didn't pull aggro right on a melee group. Cleric heals the barb. Pulls aggro. A mob is heading straight for the cleric. What do you do? Your pet's occupied on the one the barb is attacking.

Solution: Switch to fox, and meet it en route. You can become an impromptu tank the cleric can toss a few heals at, or even ignore, until something better pulls aggro off you, or the mobs die.

You are a multifunctional machine. You have many, many solutions for many, many problems. They may not be as flashy, or as beautiful looking as the usual solution, but you'll do the job of a lot of other people.

Which brings me to one final point. One last thing absolutely necessary to talk about. Remember that "At least"? There is a reason for that. Your gimpy magic will hurt you, and hurt you bad, in places like TT. Your pet heals will never keep up with bosses. So, what are you going to do? Simple. Find gear, no matter how low, that gives you a ton of magic. You're going to be extremely squishy, to the point of dying, if something happens to notice you. This is a very high risk method. Now... If you can get amazing Mag bonuses in your regular gear, cool. But if you can't, find as many pieces as you can so that you can equip a weapon as close to your level as you can get. It should suffice.

Here's a few side tips to anyone planning on using this. Get as many mats of any sort you can. Apothecary is your friend, and so is making your own awesome gear. And, please, please, don't try this without an extended inventory. It WILL end in tears.

Questions? Comments? I'd love to hear your input on this build.

Yourmom - Lost City

Ok so you're basically going LA with 60 vit for extra HP. I guess that's useful for the hp, but I don't know if its worth it to lose that much magic. 18 levels behind in your weapon is a lot. Even as a regular LA build with a weapon my level I feel like my damage isn't enough.

Besides the actual build, the playstyle and skill guide is pretty good. The only skills that I don't see that I use a lot are Lucky Scarab (stun) and Noxious Gas (aoe). I use the aoe a lot while i'm grinding (nix can hold aggro on multiple mobs just fine) and I use stun basically on cooldown in pvp.

I'm not sure how I feel about going fox form and tanking mobs. Yeah I could probably take a few hits, but that's what I have a pet for. I prefer to save my charm for pvp. I'd rather have my pet hold aggro on 2-3 and spam heal it than grab one myself.

Isala - Sanctuary

It is annoying to have so little magic, which is why I suggested the gear stuff.

And, you're right. Those are good skills. I figure people can upgrade them once they get the basics to simply fight down first. This is really just a starter guide. A "Here's what to start with".

And yes, we do have pets. I just got tired of feeling like he was the only reason I was even alive. I tried Robes to start... I was not happy with them. So, I started tweaking, and tweaking, and tweaking. This is what I ended up with. It's just an alternative, really. It does tend to work more than one would think. That Leech/Mist combo saves my bacon all the time.

Obsessed - Heavens Tear

Seems like this build just tries to do everything, which is well.. too much in my opinion. At least in the earlier levels, where the levels fly so quickly. I'm sure it works wonders on bordom levels though, using all the skills, but trying to do everything is very inefficent... so it really is for people who like to take their time and/or are bored.

Yourmom - Lost City

I think if I were on a pve server I'd be a lot more willing to try something like this. I wouldn't mind trying out fox form skills more, maybe tanking a mob just using leech. However right now I don't think it would work that well, because if I'm tanking a mob and I get attacked (by another player), its not hard to get the mob to kill me and I lose xp. If its my pet on the mob and I get attacked, I'm going to be able to make sure I get away from the mob and the player would have to kill me themselves.

Same reason I started grinding with my phoenix rather than golem, so I have some kind of chance when I get jumped instead of having to switch pets.

Zhoelle - Sanctuary

It's an interesting idea, but seems like hard work to get it to work. Your guide is well written and has all the necessary disclaimers though, so if anyone else tries it, at least they'd be going in with eyes wide open.

For me, I like the light armour build, but would find giving up that much Magic for Vitality would seriously hurt.

Buddhabless - Lost City

imo the extra vit is unnecessary, I'm a Light armor veno and have no problems surviving with 3 base vit (i restatted down to 3.) you have to remember venos have many ways to mitigate damage which include foxform (befudling mist, leech), bramble hood, and intersoul switch.
On top of that you can also use apothecary pots(3k dmg absorb, 8 sec invulnerability) as well 30% dmg reduce charms to keep you alive, in addition to your HP/MP hiero and standard potions.

not having those extra points in magic really gimps you grind speed and your ability to break through hierograms in pvp.

devildee

I think making a veno like your guide is describing would suck bigtime. When you take the mag from a veno you remove damage and pet heal. You will kill super slow and your pet will die ALOT. But you will be a little bit more tanky (not even enough to tank without a pet).

I don't get it. b:laugh

Isala - Sanctuary

I'm looking for the high end at this point. I've seen some of those highest weapons, IE the ones up in Lunar Glade. A level 95 weapon costs 280 Mag to equip. With my build, at 105, I'll have 315-53, or 262. On legendary gear, and stuff like that, it's a walk in the park to get an extra 18 points just to equip a weapon. Meaning, that in reality, I can equip the highest gear. I just can't for now.

And, yes. This is a very PvE build. I've got a veno on the PvP server, and I wouldn't even dream about doing this to her.

I understand that it seems absolutely pointless to some people to sacrifice Vit for Mag, when like it has been brought up, we get some great skills to tank, but I can actually take two mobs at once on my own, while my pet does the same. It comes down to the skills you have on your pet, as well. Things like boost, toughen, and threaten are a godsend. So, yes, while it slows my kill speed, I can kill more at the same time, making it just as effective as an int veno for kill time. Because, yes. I tank GOOD. I drag 10-15 FB19 mobs behind me at a time to farm for Darkness Stamps. Granted, it's not that big of a deal, but I enjoy this build immensly for the tanking abilities. I'm nowhere near a barb, or BM, though, but I don't try to be. I know my limits, which is something I really have to be aware of using this.

Dioica - Sanctuary

This sounds interesting, and would help keep me from pulling aggrow from my pet, but I think I would be take some of my strength and dex and drop them into magic.

I find plenty of gear which has +dex and +strength or -10% requirements, and I think maybe getting strong pet heals might help me if I need to wait several levels before I can equip my pretty new armors.

So.. maybe dex and strength = my level -10? This would give me an extra 28 magic. (But, even better, would be if I had my gear mapped out for each level so I could be putting my attribute points where I need them instead of having spent some extra points?)

Sabai - Heavens Tear

Interesting idea, you might if money isn't a problem, reset stats later maybe 40-50's to speed leveling up since you recommended buying scarabs.

Another idea, if you dumped the VIT into mag and just +3 your gear, you can get that much HP out of it for coin instead of stat points. I'm up to 1K extra HP just from gear now. It is by level though so a +3 level 20 robe would not have as much bonus HP as a level 40 +3 so extra mag could be key to extra HP later.

GL with the project, I'm interested in trying something like this too for fun.

Isala - Sanctuary

Sabai - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Interesting idea, you might if money isn't a problem, reset stats later maybe 40-50's to speed leveling up since you recommended buying scarabs.

Another idea, if you dumped the VIT into mag and just +3 your gear, you can get that much HP out of it for coin instead of stat points. I'm up to 1K extra HP just from gear now. It is by level though so a +3 level 20 robe would not have as much bonus HP as a level 40 +3 so extra mag could be key to extra HP later.

GL with the project, I'm interested in trying something like this too for fun.

Hmm. That does sound like it would work. Relying on gear to do the heavy lifting for me would still give me power, but ungimp me... I might have to look into that. Reset scrolls aren't that expensive. For now, I could restat myself to have more power. But... I've kinda gotten comfortable with this. And with what I have planned anyway at the highest levels... I'd have to buy another couple reset scrolls.

I plan on using my gear bonuses to give me enough magic to equip the highest weapon, and then restating to put every little bit of extra Mag into my Vit. This is endgame, of course, so I won't be doing this for a long, long, time, but I figure, if I can equip everything, the extra magic power, while useful, and very good for that extra bit of power, could be put to make me even more durable. Because, in the endgame, I'm looking to make a veno that can do PK and TW without ever having to worry about getting sniped. I won't have the kill speed to smash through charms without severe tactics, like the Spark Eruptions, but I won't have to worry about being oneshotted by a passing archer.

On that note. *points to signature* That 70+ Archer had to actually take about 4 shots to kill me. From what I've read around here, he should normally have been able to have either Oneshot, or Twoshot me. So, this build is slowly proving itself to have its uses.