My veno's defense...

birdconure00

So this is the first time that I have played this type of game. Right now I am a magic using veno at lvl 34. So far I have about 19 points in strength (for arcane armour), 80 points in magic, and 34 in vit. What can I do to stop from dying like a snapped twig with my low defense? I'm starting to get tired of dying when a monster attacks me instead of my pet (glacial walker), or when 2 or more monsters attack me. I've been using the magic side of the skill tree (venomous scarab, ironwood scarab, etc) but I was wondering if I could go the magic path, AND go with the fox form (don't have that skill yet because I wasn't sure if I should). If I shouldn't be going with the fox form with my build so far, what else can I do?

Zvyn - Heavens Tear

If you're L34 and only have 80 magic what the heck are you doing with your points? The str is reasonable and so is the vit, I can understand them. According to the character calculators you should have 47 stat points hanging out somewhere.

Yes, you can go fox form and caster. That's up to you. In my opinion, while you are a noob you should pick one skill tree and work on it more intensely than the other. You can't ignore the other skill tree because squads like amp and purge comes in useful later on. As far as fighting in fox form goes, it's a little over-rated unless you have a decent stat for str. So, if you like your magic skills - and I did simply because they were stronger - then dump your hanging point into magic.

I don't see how you can be drawing agro from your pet with such a weak stat in magic, much less at L34. My veno didn't start running into that problem until L60+, but she was also using a Snow Hare as her primary pet for a long time.

Fox form, itself, is just a skill that shifts you to a fox. It has no other use than that. Get better gears. That's the best I can tell you. You will need to figure out if you want to go magic and thus AA or try to go HA/AA so that you can use the Fox combat skills as well as your caster skills. Blah blah. I'm more flustered that your stats are so low for your level.

birdconure00

Ah, sorry....I have about 34 ish points that I have not yet assigned to a stat yet (wanted to double check on my build). So looks like I should put the majority of them into my magic stat then. Hm, so I guess I'll figure out the fox form later when I'm higher lvl and less of a noob. As for the aggro, I'll attack from a distance (and my pet is on auto attack) and sometimes what happens is the fight between my pet and the monster somehow draw the attention of the other monsters nearby and since I'm casting they turn on me @_@...I was ultimately thinking about going HA/AA, though I'm not sure on the build/stats for it.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

In order:
1. A venomancer should never be hit unless they want to be. Obviously such perfection is hard to attain, but it's generally true. Your pet gets the aggro, so that you don't have to.
Make sure that your pet hits everything active at least once, and learn to lure.

2. 34 vit means you've been putting in 1 per level. Thats' fine and should be more than enough to ensure your continued survival.

3. 80 magic means you haven't been putting in the 3 per level *minimum* to be able to use equipment of your level. Get to at least that much magic and see if you can't upgrade some of your equipment. That will help somewhat too.

4. And your numbers don't add up. You must have about 30 points in dex. This is a ludicrous amount of dex for a veno. Stop putting points into dex.

5. Luring: http://pwi-wiki.perfectworld.com/index.php/Venomancer_Luring

6. http://pwi-wiki.perfectworld.com/index.php/Aggro

7. In case those two links weren't enough: Most mobs will attack your pet on sight. Healing your pet draws aggro onto you. If you pet has not hit the monster, then it will now hate you more than your pet and will go for you.
Don't DO that. Either lure the one monster you want to hit, or have your pet hit every active monster.

8. Fox form ROCKS. Don't abandon it! Especially since you haven't got all that much magic to make being in human form all that enviable. One word of caution that may also be tripping you up however - the fox mist attack has an area of effect and will draw nearby monsters to you.

xxxdsmer

also, since you're arcane armor, wear pdef ornaments. pdef pdef pdef (and arcanes with all 5 elements). Arcane armor itself gives enough magic resistances, but has very low physical defense. I'll bet 90% or more of the mobs that kill you are either melee or archer (physical attack). for sharding (later on) its either citrines or garnetts (or a mix), but for now wear pdef belt and neck as high of lvl as you can, and if you happen to come across arcane armors with all five elements and "+phys res __" bonus(es) for free or cheap, even if its just a 1* armor, get it. (higher levels.. like 50's 60's 70's its more common to find 3* arcanes with 5 elements and phys res bonuses than it is to find 1*'s)

and you should at least have foxform itself: you probably wont be able to melee hit things in fox, but its got quite a nice phys def boost that can help you survive a mob long enough to get your pet to get it off you, or help survive phys dmg aoe's like ferren sereneti (?.. fb39 boss w/ aoe), and bosses in fb51 area. leech is also nice to help refill HP while in foxform (when you can do it.. a time its not good to do would be the 2nd boss in fb51 area). Amplify damage is one of our debuffs, but like leech its not a uber important must level now skill.

i pretty much ran around till at least 70 with maxed (or maxed for level) venomous, ironwood, pet heal, foxform, amp lvl'd some, purge lvl 1 (needs to be 10 for hh in higher levels), lucky scarab was still fairly low level, leech was maxed for level, noxious probably had some levels (helps when there's 4 mice standing together in room 4), nature's grace and metabolic boost were always maxed for level - thats the two skills that let us mostly or totally operate without pots (along with soul trans). kept bramble guard fairly leveled, maxed it somewhere in the 60's to get hood, had lending hand when it came available, wood mastery was leveled fairly high priority to make venomous and ironwood hit harder, tame pet doesn't have to be leveled (you can just get a mob to low HP and pretty reliably tame it with lv1 tame pet) and i leveled summer sprint.

things like blazing scarab, frost scarab, fox wallop, befudding mist, crush vigor, maelific crush, consume spirit, melee mastery (you wont ever need if you stay arcane), soul degeneration (until sage/demon version) - pretty much aren't that great.

parasitic nova and noxious gas are handy to have leveled up at lv80+ for frost, along with amplify damage (probably earlier than 80 on amp), bramble guard (for barbs/bm's/seekers), lucky scarab (good for stopping a mob for 2 seconds so the pet can catch up with it and bash it with lv5 bash to take the agro), you'll probably want to have purge to 10 by lv80 or not awful long after (unless you dont HH at all, but it has uses even outside of HH)



and something most people dont know (i didnt at first either): its worth leveling at least bash on a pet. higher lvl bash makes more agro which helps keep the mob on your pet instead of coming after you (if the pet and you are hitting the same mob). i've always used the physical bash, but elemental bashes may work as well as the physical bash for agro making (like icicle that comes on the glacial walker). and when you dont want to tank a boss turn bash off (flesh ream is good for extra damage when just DDing while someone else tanks)

Sevas - Heavens Tear

birdconure00 wrote: »

Ah, sorry....I have about 34 ish points that I have not yet assigned to a stat yet (wanted to double check on my build). So looks like I should put the majority of them into my magic stat then. Hm, so I guess I'll figure out the fox form later when I'm higher lvl and less of a noob. As for the aggro, I'll attack from a distance (and my pet is on auto attack) and sometimes what happens is the fight between my pet and the monster somehow draw the attention of the other monsters nearby and since I'm casting they turn on me @_@...I was ultimately thinking about going HA/AA, though I'm not sure on the build/stats for it.

Something you might want to consider is setting your pet to Defend (the shield icon on the pet control panel) and manually telling your pet to attack. If your pet is on auto-attack that means as soon as you start channeling a skill it starts moving, which means your skill will likely get off before your pet has agro.

There are plenty of HA/AA veno guides around here, most venos level up as an Arcane user then restat later in the game. You can start out that way, but it's difficult. It leaves you little room to stat for vit (if at all).

limeball

Unless you're planning to use your arcane build for PvP you really shouldn't be getting hit, due to your pet as others have already mentioned. It takes a bit of practice but eventually you'll become pretty adept at avoiding receiving damage. Your low level is forgivable but I highly suggest working on that before you go into dungeons with parties.

The thing is HA builds with the high defense were originally intended for PvP since during PvP, every smart player attacks the veno instead of the pet which she can just resurrect and heal given a chance. Those builds aren't soley restricted to pvp as they do come in handy for some PvE aspects but it might be a huge waste of time and effort for you if the only real issue is you're struggling to coordinate with your pet. Learn to do that first then see how you go in PvE. If you still dislike the playing style and low defense, you might want to look into an LA or HA build.

Just an fyi though, as a HA build I grinded in PvE just like Arcane builds do. Fox form only over a period of time can rack up some serious repair bills, as opposed to letting my pet tank all the damage. Even if you're going pure arcane build, fox form itself grants a physical defense bonus which is useful for hit and runs from dangerous mobs or situations gone wrong. Also you'd be seriously missing out if you didn't level skills like amplify damage. It's one of the skills that make venomancers a wanted class for instances.

dhynna

i guess u r doing something wrong. venos stats really has not a lot to do with dying. its the flaw in playstyle.

when surrounded by many enemies jst dont rambo in ur pet. try lureing. send ur pet, let it hit the target , unsummon it and re summon again and send to attack the target running towards u.

im a lvl 57 lvl veno and i have died 2 times only till now. once was my fault coz i left her in middle of aggro mob area and went on phone call b:cry and another was when i overdid it trying to solo multiple ranged fb 51 mobs.

if u knw to play ur veno , u should hardly get hit , let alone die. im full arcane as well. and yeah as all said i wear pdef ornaments. at ur lvl i could tackle 3 mobs simultaneously without much problem. all u need to do is make sure the mobs get hit by walker. use icicle on 1 , use roar on another and hit the third and heal the pet. if its hp is getting low use tough. keep circulating the spells like that. personally i replaced roar with flesh ream.

on archer mobs jst focus on one mob at a time. jst let ur walker rambo in and chase the mob. dont heal the walker. jst try hit the target with ur spells to make it die fast. other mobs ll already have got aggro on ur walker by then. then time it and unsummon ur walker as soon as the target dies. resummon , heal and repeat.

lastly, never ever try to save ur pet at the cost of ur life. if u see that sacrificing ur pet ll save u , do so. dont hesitate or think twice. let ur pet tackle the mob and run far away. fly away whatever.

hope i helped. have nice time with ur veno.