APS Veno: Sage or Demon

Song - Dreamweaver

Hi,

I am working on building a LA Pure Fox Veno (No human skills, at least not yet). I have a few questions and hope to get some answers for:

1) Is it possible for a LA Fox to reach 5 APS?

Assuming that can be done, would Sage or Demon be more preferrable? Reason being...

2) Demon Fox Wallop has 20% chance to make all hits crits in the next 5 seconds. Therefore, there is a 20% chance you can do Demon spark and 25 crits in a row at 5 APS.

This was the main reason why I was tempted to build the APS LA Fox.

However, Sage Fox Form and Sage Leech would make going Sage a very tempting option.

I know I am still far from having to choose, but hope I can get some insight from you.

Thank you for your sharing in advance b:thanksb:thanksb:thanks

Dyskrasia - Heavens Tear

I don't think it's possible to reach 5aps in fox form because you can only equip magic weapons. There is a glitch to be able to use fists/claws in fox form, but it's inconvenient as you can't change back without relogging and it may or may not be bannable. If it WERE possible, you'd have to go with demon for the speed bonus from spark.

Laranda - Heavens Tear

Song - Dreamweaver wrote: »

1) Is it possible for a LA Fox to reach 5 APS?

No. It caps out at 2-2.22aps. Well, without glitching. Without Windshield too so it's actually a little bit higher. o.o

=Song - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Assuming that can be done, would Sage or Demon be more preferrable? Reason being...

2) Demon Fox Wallop has 20% chance to make all hits crits in the next 5 seconds. Therefore, there is a 20% chance you can do Demon spark and 25 crits in a row at 5 APS.

This was the main reason why I was tempted to build the APS LA Fox.

However, Sage Fox Form and Sage Leech would make going Sage a very tempting option.

I've got an LA Fox too, and I'm currently leaning towards demon with her. One reason is demon crush vigor has a chance of generating a spark. The other is that demon spark boosts fox damage more than sage spark would.

On the Sage side, The Fox/Mastery skills are really nice. Sage Amp is pretty nice too.

Hell_rayzer - Heavens Tear

im not an aps veno but i can tell u that venos are squishy(aps veno told me), so that 150% physical defense increase is very important. and leech will give 100% chance for hp regen, as for the other sage fox skills sage amp and soul D are pretty nice. Plus Melee mastery for sage gives 200% damage increase. better than the demon +3%crit ( my opinion)

Up to you tho.

gelnd

I have no problem with a veno loading up on -int gear for aps, but seriously... why the heck would you want to play as "pure fox"? Playing mostly in fox is great, but at least use human form to do things like ironwood and lucky. You aren't gaining anything by cutting yourself off from half of your skill tree, and you aren't losing anything by learning human skills. Actually, you'll be doing yourself a favor, since you won't be able to do a lot of damage skills with the fox skils at lower levels. And keep in mind this is coming as a light armor veno myself.

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

Venos get no attack speed increase from triple spark, either sage or demon.

Dyskrasia - Heavens Tear

Mayfly - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Venos get no attack speed increase from triple spark, either sage or demon.

o wups
I always forget when it comes up in a fox discussion :x

tweakz

APS is about skill-less phys atk

3spark demon: 700% magic attack and 650% weapon attack
3spark sage: 900% magic attack and 500% weapon attack

Squishiness for veno should be about equips: not stats. 150% pdef increase isn't so important if wearing good HA.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

im sage HA buffed in fox i have just shy of 25k pdef, which is just delightful.

if you want to get 5aps as a veno, your gonna want to go LA and then stat to wear fists, you need all the int pieces and -.1 fists/claws, and wind shield on your genie. since you'll be able to permaspark, go demon, for the higher weapon damage multiplier, your mag attack will suffer

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?
char=e1367bf5cbbf1bf8

you will have just enough magic to equip a TT90 weapon or a beamhoof slicer, which isnt terrible. if you where to go for 5aps on a HA, the best weapon you could hope for is a TT60, maybe a TT70 if you got the right magic rings to swap around.

glitchequiping for fisting in fox really wont give you much of a damage improvement if your permasparking, your better off fisting in human (you'll get better damage than a bm, since your spark is better) and you could swap weapons to debuff in human and fox, which would make you pretty damn sexy as far as nirvana squads go.

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary

A correction: Leech only has 100% chance to heal you on the sage version, demon and level 10 are both 80% chance (if it hits) to heal you for HP. The Demon version heals for 800 HP, level 10 heals for 680-something HP, and sage heals for the same, but is 100% assured to heal, as long as the attack hits.

This is all off the top of my head... I'm positive on the 100% for sage, 80% for demon, and 800HP for demon, but not the Hp amount for Sage and level 10. :P

As far as glitchswapping... I vote no on that.

I attempted to go this route, only with HA, but found that it was difficult to do exclusive physical damage. For the lower levels, if you're doing this build from the start... Get a set of LA and AA. If you are going to run a magic weapon, you might as well have LA and AA.

And my main veno was LA from 65 until 82... I went back to Arcane. If I decide to play again, I am going to go for Rank 8. But that's a ways off. LA has some disadvantages.

Do you like to spend large amounts of coins on repairs? I ask because as an LA Veno, using a magic weapon and casting through a TT 1-3 in a full squad would just DESTROY the durability on my weapon. I've got a Glaives of Divinity 2 socket +5 with two perfect Sapphires in it. It does very good damage on a full magic build. A LA build though, casting does nothing. If I go melee, I can break it in one run. I have no interval gear on that char. I actually carry around a Sakyamuni's Light 2 socket +5 with two perfect garnets in it for fox form. Doing two TT's, I'd have to repair between and after.

The advantages to LA are higher crit rate and you survive just about everything that kills a party. I did FCC, and not only survived, but low damage or not, managed to solo what killed the tank, cleric, and everyone else on a fail mob pull.

My personal suggestion to you is...

Don't bother with LA, fists, or interval on a Veno. From my personal experience with LA on a Veno, and seeing how the stat points pan out... It just isn't fun leveling at level 80 before you get tons of interval gear, and once you do, unless you go with fists, it's really not going to give you the damage you want.

And for the record... Someone, somewhere, on PWI, rolled a 4.0 Psy. b:surrender

tweakz

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary wrote: »

The advantages to LA are higher crit rate and you survive just about everything that kills a party.

Can you explain how higher crit rate is an advantage when it comes at the cost of patk? It's been shown here over and over that after 90, AA is superior for survival, and HA refines better. Sins and Archers only use LA because it suits the build they need for dmg.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

interval = high repair cost, which is mitigated by the speed in which you do things and the money you can earn.

leach = who cares its a useless skill, at best its a free pot when grinding weak mobs

Laranda - Heavens Tear

tweakz wrote: »

Can you explain how higher crit rate is an advantage when it comes at the cost of patk? It's been shown here over and over that after 90, AA is superior for survival, and HA refines better. Sins and Archers only use LA because it suits the build they need for dmg.

The actual advantage of LA in this case is they can use pdef ornaments to hit 2 aps. In order for HA or HA+AA to pull this off, they need evasion ornaments. I was looking into the effects of this through pwcalc. LA pulled ahead of HA+AA. Even under worst case, LA could work towards upgrading towards nirvana for +def levels. HA+AA can't do really do that.

HA vs LA is a bit flexible. In general, LA had better hp than HA with refines less than 7-8. (Note: I'm using the same technique HA uses to equip gear to increase the Vit LA has.) The difference with +10 Nirvana gear ended up being 574. The catch is LA catches up in PDef from refining the ornaments and has alot better mdef.

HA has better base damage, but the amount added via sparks is the same for both builds. LA has considerably better crit (+9%) since it's able to use Signs of Frost: Chaos while I had to bump HA down to Bands of Heaven's Jail just to equip the gear. LA also has an easier time swapping for +MAtk or -channel gear. HA needs the stat points from 3/4 ornament slots. That doesn't leave alot of room for -channel gear. 3 star ornaments with +stats and channel are the best bet for HA.

Defensively, AA Vit is far better than LA, but it caps at 1.54 aps. That's with a non-pataka. With a Pataka, it's 1.18 aps. The only other thing of note is AA Vit has alot lower accuracy than the other setups.

Links
(Note, the gear hasn't been sharded since I wanted to compare the armors themselves. Some of the gear is expensive, but I tried to keep those as equal as possible between the different armors.)

HA Nirvana
LA Nirvana
HA TT99 (Note, helm can be swapped out for a +hp helm.)
HA+AA TT99
LA TT99
AA Vit TT99

xxxdsmer

APS veno of any kind is a horrible idea.

what really makes APS bm/assn work so well is the demon spark which increases attack rate.

venomancers do not get any kind of attack rate or channeling boost from celestial spark, just different modifiers to phys atk and mag atk boosts.

and to even remotely play venomancer's intended role you must have at least a good magic weapon for lvl and at least the minimum magic to equip that weapon, otherwise your petheals and everything else are ****.

if you want a tough veno that can survive even better than what Sarrafeline wrote about, i'd suggest a PROPERLY built HA veno. I've soloed insane phys atk aoe bosses that killed off the rest of the squad, as well as survived many aoe's that my LA and AA veno friends didnt even stand a chance in.. even with a BB going. not to mention the classes that typically easily kill venos (anything melee or that deals physical damage otherwise) find it quite difficult to kill me (unless they're obscenely refined, in which case would put them on a whole other level way above any class or build that isnt obscenely refined).

and with some brains and resourcefulness, magic classes still find it difficult to kill me (again unless they're obscenely refined).

but currently i'm lv90 (IIRC) and wearing HH90 greens, and either the HH90 glaive (good for magic attack) or the requiem blade (decent for mag atk and phys atk).. depending which piece of my headgear i'm wearing. i wont say my build dosen't have its weaknesses, or that its the best (an AA high mag friend of mine can tank some of the non phys-aoe bosses that hit a bit harder than i can heal for)... but its my favorite build, and if done right your magic attack dosent suffer as incredibly bad as everyone would lead people to believe... and you can get to 12,000+ pdef quite easily (even without buffs.) and i'm demon.. sage foxform would make that probably 14,000+ pdef quite easily (and this is just with 90 greens.. i'm not even talking lunar/99's/nirv. armors)

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

if you can get 4.0 without spark bonus and 5.0 with windshield than the speed increase from spark is irrelevant since 4.0 is permaspark, with the added bonus of switching to fox to amp and purge, and ironwood, an LA demon veno is the second best DD in a nirvana squad, next to a sin, your not going to be able to solo much of anything, and really not gonna be all that useful outside of nirvana, but if you got an archer main, and a veno alt on the same account, why not do it, just for the extra nirvana money.

Maiira - Sanctuary

"Using fists in an animal form is a game exploit and is bannable. We advise against such behavior. We hope this has clarified any questions you might have had on this issue."

this is the message that i recieved when i submitted a ticket asking about fists in fox/tiger form a few months ago, 2 of my barb friends have been banned for the use of their decide claws in tiger form recently. as far as going aps with veno...

this is my current gear build http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=8bfba101adec838c WITHOUT SHARDS OR REFINES. i was too lazy to plug them all in on pwcalc.


you should also look through the forums. i have posted similarly and seem posts identical to this one many, many times. some ppl say the only stupid question is a question not asked. however if u have a class of 30 ppl, and every person asks the same question 1 after another. after the first 3-4 ppl you begin to wonder how many -censored- people there are in the world.

Yesiger - Lost City

tweakz wrote: »

Can you explain how higher crit rate is an advantage when it comes at the cost of patk? It's been shown here over and over that after 90, AA is superior for survival, and HA refines better. Sins and Archers only use LA because it suits the build they need for dmg.

Sins and Archers only use LA because it suits .

gelnd

Yesiger - Lost City wrote: »

Sins and Archers only use LA because it suits .

Tweakz has a point regarding this... Sins and Archers are pretty much forced into using LA because anything else gimps their damage by taking a lot of points out of dex. I'm not one to say LA is ****, but yeah... I think we'd see more HA fish and elves if they could do the same damage they do with LA/dex build.

Lyritha - Heavens Tear

I have no intentions of using fists on this character. Fox form is fine. I am sage LA/-int survival is fine... unless I get hit by a rank 9 wizard with no damage reduction on then it wouldn't matter which character I'm playing on... as for those claiming that LA is bad for a veno it isn't bad at all... you get to keep a decent amount of magic attack while having a decent amount of physical attack. So it is kind of the middle of the road you can make it work if you want to.

For those that do not Arcane is your route... however as far as 5APS... not needed unless you just use the character to win the tiger event.... (secretly buys resets to wear claws for event)

Mauntille - Heavens Tear

Lyritha - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I have no intentions of using fists on this character. Fox form is fine. I am sage LA/-int survival is fine... unless I get hit by a rank 9 wizard with no damage reduction on then it wouldn't matter which character I'm playing on... as for those claiming that LA is bad for a veno it isn't bad at all... you get to keep a decent amount of magic attack while having a decent amount of physical attack. So it is kind of the middle of the road you can make it work if you want to.

For those that do not Arcane is your route... however as far as 5APS... not needed unless you just use the character to win the tiger event.... (secretly buys resets to wear claws for event)

Could you clarify the red part for me please? My understanding is that you get your phys attack from your str modifier, not dex, meaning that HA/AA would suit venos better than LA. (Endgame ofc, and with tomes/adds on edngame gear the stat points aren't as big of an issue as they are in low levels.) You'd get what, more crits? And marginally more p.def or m.def as opposed to the other builds?

In regards to using the toon as something for an event only, I don't see how you'd want a veno for this build. (Unless it's an old main that's otherwise retiring.)

If all you're going to do is autoattack with fists/claws, why not roll a BM so you can benefit from Fist Mastery?

And lets leave glitching claws into foxform out of this, as it's bannable.

While I'd agree that the build has some niche uses (particularly Nirvana), I still don't see how it's worth the investment if you aren't sharing the gear with a sin/archer.

SmurfJegeren - Dreamweaver

Ive been "aps" Veno for some time now, and it works great. Im not the fist build, but 2 aps magical weapon. Why use magical weapon? Cause the aspect of PvP makes magic a necessity. Using magical weapons lets you be a target thats hard to kill for phy atk users, yet still can deal alot of punishment back to them. As for AA targets, clerics might not think youre HA, and start off with the plume shot. But if youre not the first to attack you can be in serious trouble. If you do get close however... Killing a lvl 100 cleric in melee human form, using a magical weapon is pure happiness.(Tho fox form is recommended =P )

My build looks like this: http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=4be0f6f27afd22ce

At lvl 103 I hope to have my Nrivana weapon ready. Wich will add up quite nicely with damage. At how I am now, Im able to keep up with 4 aps archers, wich isnt bad considering they are able to spark nearly twice as fast as myself. Im sage, so my spark dont add as much damage as it could, but my sage amp and degen simply makes worth not restating to Demon. Besides, the Sage sparks help me cover up my lacking magic attack when its direly needed in PvP.

I have met other Venomancers with LA fox builds. It works, however the usual problem is the lower HP that LA often suffers with. the defence wasnt low, but HA surpasses it pretty much. With that said, its far easier to do the LA build compare to the HA one. That due to no need of stat balancing.

CTHugger - Sanctuary

My veno was a meelee "aps" fox, I went for -int, phy damage with garnets in a gold OHT sword / -req and max str. Eventually I restat to go for claws for farming purposes because I didnt wanna on my barb. My veno was HA already, so I went full str, 3mag, 3vit, dex for claws, and I stayed sage.

My reasoning was that for farming TT and nirvana it comes down to DPS, which I maxed by going full str and claws. Purge, amp, sage soul degen and sage summer sprint do not benefit from mag anyway and those are the skills I use. When pretending to aoe, lets say in delta, the effects e.g. on nova still work too.
I could have switched to demon for even higher spark DPS, but going fox for amp and so forth makes it hard to be main DD anyway. On the other hand SSD might make you just that.

I miss being meelee fox tho, it was my favourite build and it could dish out impressive damage even at 2 or 3 aps. It still might be fun for trolling arcanes and LAs, since its superior DPS wise I guess. But sadly there is no -req on Nirvana weapons afaik, maybe the build would be still feasable with that. Honestly nowadays it doesnt rip it anymore. Its BM, Sin or bust. And PvPwise I reckon you have to go r9, which is arcane, sadly.

Im mostly on the BM now, nobody wants me on my veno or the barb. >=( So much for variety in this game.

Kokki - Harshlands

Just to throw an idea into this post, instead of creating a new one

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=0ef4676eb7452a54

i have the veno on the same account as my BM and wizard, and since my BM is aps and my wizard ofcourse had the TT99 gear when he wasn't rank 9 yet, i thought i would have a fun build for my veno.
any thought about this? the verstalitity in instances like TT or nirvana would be better then BM but i don't know exactly how i sohuld compare those two over time. and last i hear the demon spark DOES give attack speed, because veno's had it all in their sparks. but i'm not 100% sure about this. i have to confirm with a demon veno on this one

the build is just something i threw together to make the stats happen, i'm sure there are bette roptions for certain things but that's not what i'm looking at atm

Solandri - Heavens Tear

xxxdsmer wrote: »

APS veno of any kind is a horrible idea.

what really makes APS bm/assn work so well is the demon spark which increases attack rate.

No. What makes it work is the increased attack rate combined with 5 chi per attack allows them to stay perma-sparked.

Veno DPS can actually come really close to BM/assassin DPS when triple sparked. As demon those two get 500%(spark) +75% (mastery) = 575% bonus. If you figure they have ~300 str/dex, that works out to a 1 + 300/150 + 5.75 = 8.75 multiplier for their weapon damage. The attack speed bonus increases their damage output by 25% (4 APS to 5 APS), for an effective weapon damage multiplier of 10.9.

Sage venos get 500% + 200% = 700% bonus. Demon venos get 650% + 150% = 800% bonus. With 252 str (heavy) they're at a 9.7 multiplier for Sage, 10.7 for Demon.

Magic weapons have less patk/sec than fists/daggers, but it's not that big a difference (mostly due to the +patk bonus on the melee weapons). It mostly goes away when refined (in fact the magic weapons are on a different refine table from melee weapons, and I think at +11 or +12 they come really close to an equivalent melee weapon despite the slower attack speed).

So the 10.7 weapon multiplier for demon venos is really, really close to the 10.9 effective weapon multiplier for BM/assassins. So assuming highly refined weapons, their triple sparked DPS is nearly the same.

The crucial difference is how long they can stay sparked. BMs and assassins can perma-spark, so their time-averaged multiplier is 7.3 (15 sec triple sparked, 3 sec doing nothing), which goes up to 9.1 if you factor in going from 4 APS to 5 APS. At 2.22 APS, the best a veno can manage is triple sparking every 37 seconds. When not triple sparked, the demon veno has a measly 3.2 weapon multiplier, for a time-averaged multiplier of just 6.0.

That's why the fist glitch is so popular for an APS veno. The extra APS lets you build up enough chi to stay triple sparked a greater fraction of the time. I ran some numbers for a fist-glitched fox demon veno a while back, and came up with DPS numbers only a little below that of a 5 APS fist BM. APS BM-like DPS, a pet, Ironwood, and an Amp not based on chi makes it worth it for some people to risk being banned for doing it.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

glitch equipped fists will make ironwood and amp impossible.
but demon gets 650% which is better than BM spark+mastery, and you can switch to a magic weapon to debuff, magic attack power is irrelevant for debuffs anyway.