How these skills are working?

Akubi - Lost City

Hello all, I have some questions about venomancer's skills:

1. Bramble guard. Should I give this buff only for tanks in parties? I heard of other vms that it helps for tanks to keep aggro. but sometimes clerics are crying why they didn't get it.
2. Lending Hand. When I should use this skill? Should I give spark only for tanks?
3. Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form). Has anyone tryed this skill? I'm fox form vm only, I think I will buy it. Should I? Does Physical defense reduced by 100% really working?
4. Fox Wallop - Demon. Are there any demon vms and have this skill? How does effect : the 20% chance to make all hits critical for 5 seconds really working? Is it look overpower skill?
5. Consume Spirit. Has anyone this skill 10lvl? Worth?
6. Sage and Demon sparks. Sage - 500% weapon atack, Demon - 650%. All says that fox form vm must go for sage, but demon spark looks much stroger? Is it huge 150% different?

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

1. ALWAYS bramble barbs BMs. Most sins want it too. Anyone else - ask. The effect of bramble is to deal damage to anything that hits you, and that does draw aggro. Clerics often don't want that.
But some, at some times, do. So ask.

2. Lending Hand. VERY dependant on situation. Generally I save mine for the cleric, after they put up blue bubble. But throwing some at the tank is also a good idea.
Mostly I wait for people to ask, or to use an obvious "This eats sparks" skill.

3. Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form). Oh yeah. the myriad rainbow skills ROCK.

However - you only get the armour-break effect maybe one time in ten, and the mindbreak about the same. It's not reliable, and it eats chi and mana - 800MP each time! And the fox version is short ranged...
But it rocks. Do get this skill.

4. Fox Wallop - Demon. Dunno.

5. Consume Spirit. Ehhh.... it's pretty good. I didn't buy it to 10, but at lower levels it's still quite nice. My problem with it isn't the health loss (which is quite small) but that I'm not usually lacking for other fox skills to use. I much prefer using transfuse and then leech life to keep my mana up.

6. Spark - the difference is only to weapon attack, NOT to your skills, which almost all use magic attack. So except for fist-foxes it's not actually very important. The "Most veno go sage" thing is because of Soul Degeneration - 20% HP in one shot is a BIG chunk of time off of a boss.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

Akubi - Lost City wrote: »

1. Bramble guard. Should I give this buff only for tanks in parties? I heard of other vms that it helps for tanks to keep aggro. but sometimes clerics are crying why they didn't get it.

The reflected damage counts as damage done by the target for aggro purposes. Tanks will want this. Squishies will not (makes it harder for the tank to pull the mob off them if they steal aggro). Clerics who are tanking will probably want it since if they get stuck healing themselves, they can't do as much damage.

2. Lending Hand. When I should use this skill? Should I give spark only for tanks?

Usually I give it only when asked or if I know the tank or cleric has used a skill that costs a spark or two. For clerics, that's immediately after they put up BB (blue bubble, costs 2 sparks to restart if they're interrupted). Barbs are a bit more conditional. They have the best pdef debuff you can keep sustained on a mob (50%) of all the classes, but most don't use it because they can't generate enough chi to use both Flesh Ream and Devour at the same time. Many of them don't even know they have the Devour skill because all they've had drilled into their furry heads is "Flesh Ream Flesh Ream Flesh Ream". If you find yourself with a barb who uses both Flesh Ream and Devour (puts the Ironwood icon and a green leaf-like icon on the target), count yourself lucky and feed him as many sparks as you can so he can keep it up (both skills consume chi).

If the group is large, and there's an axe BM in the group and he's using Heaven's Flame (the gold dragons swirling around), I feed him sparks as often as I can no question. The skill costs two sparks, but doubles damage for 6 sec (9 sec if Demon). Basically, it's a 100% Amp. And it's AOE. Doubling your entire group's damage for 6-9 seconds will far exceed what additional damage I can do with two sparks.

Be aware that the Sage/Demon versions (level 99) reduce the cooldown to 15 seconds.

3. Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form). Has anyone tryed this skill? I'm fox form vm only, I think I will buy it. Should I? Does Physical defense reduced by 100% really working?

Yes it works, but you only get the effect about 20% of the time. Still, once you get your mana use under control (have a cleric heal you after you ST, or use event food), it's definitely a good skill to toss in for additional damage in groups. For solo, I did some calcs and the average damage I get from the DOTs and mind/armor breaks just about equaled the extra damage I'd do if I used the chi for spark eruptions. So I don't use it solo to save on mana.

The caster version is also good for when you're spam healing. It has no cast time, so you can squeeze it off between spam heals.

The fox version is AOE but has a 15m range. The caster version is 25m range but single target. Most people get the fox version first.

4. Fox Wallop - Demon. Are there any demon vms and have this skill? How does effect : the 20% chance to make all hits critical for 5 seconds really working? Is it look overpower skill?

After a lot of math, I concluded it wasn't worth it outside of PvP or certain "I'm gonna die unless I get lucky" situations in PvE. Your average damage output using the chi for sparks is higher than if you use it to spam Fox Wallop hoping for the 5 sec of criticals thing.

5. Consume Spirit. Has anyone this skill 10lvl? Worth?

If you play in fox form, it reduces your DPS too much to be worth it. It does the same damage as a regular melee hit (which you normally do every 0.8 seconds), but takes 1.9 seconds to use. Just use event powders to replenish mana (herb yuanxiao once you get to level 75).

I've actually found it more effective just to use ST to give myself a full mana bar, and Leech my hp back. Unlike Consume, Leech does pretty good damage. If you're a heavy build, all this will change around level 80 / when you reach about 2000-2500 patk. Around that point, your DPS from regular melee attacks will surpass your DPS from using skills. So aside from debuffs and the occasional Leech, there's no need to use mana while in fox form.

6. Sage and Demon sparks. Sage - 500% weapon atack, Demon - 650%. All says that fox form vm must go for sage, but demon spark looks much stroger? Is it huge 150% different?

Again, after a lot of math, if both do 1.25 attacks/sec and triple spark as often as possible, the Demon fox ends up doing slightly more damage than the Sage fox w/ Sage melee mastery. The difference is small - around 3%. But a Demon fox with -interval gear and a mag genie with a chi skill could probably leverage that to around 20% or more.

That said, Sage Soul Degen will immediately reduce your fight time by 20% (and benefits the entire group, not just the veno). So I don't really see this as an overwhelming advantage for Demon.

XxRaynaHeart - Sanctuary

Akubi - Lost City wrote: »

Hello all, I have some questions about venomancer's skills:

1. Bramble guard. Should I give this buff only for tanks in parties? I heard of other vms that it helps for tanks to keep aggro. but sometimes clerics are crying why they didn't get it.

I keep it on tanks only, unless others ask for it.

2. Lending Hand. When I should use this skill? Should I give spark only for tanks?

Spark when tank needs it, and if anyone else asks for it.

3. Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form). Has anyone tryed this skill? I'm fox form vm only, I think I will buy it. Should I? Does Physical defense reduced by 100% really working?

20% of the time, it will work.

4. Fox Wallop - Demon. Are there any demon vms and have this skill? How does effect : the 20% chance to make all hits critical for 5 seconds really working? Is it look overpower skill?

I personally think it's not worth it.

5. Consume Spirit. Has anyone this skill 10lvl? Worth?

Not worth it, IMO.

6. Sage and Demon sparks. Sage - 500% weapon atack, Demon - 650%. All says that fox form vm must go for sage, but demon spark looks much stroger? Is it huge 150% different?

IMO, go for Sage.

/tenchar lol