Venomancer Guide 2013

Desdi - Sanctuary

To be honest, I barely remember my magic attack at any given level range and I think it's safe to go with your guts. As long as you give advice on possible good weapon choices for each level and provided the person didn't completely mess up with their attributes it should be about right.

A few other genie skills I can think of:

Wind Shield: reduces damage received by 15% (as far as I know it has a very low energy cost which makes it pretty neat)
Expel: causes the target to be silenced but also grants immunity to physical damage for 9.0 seconds (if you accidentally just aggro'd a bunch of physical monsters and you know you'll die)
Badge of Courage: has a chance to remove stun. (mostly PvP related though but guess has uses in PvE)
Fortify: makes you immune to movement debuffs. (can work with Feral Concentration or Ironguard Powder or just block stuns if you're quick)

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Thanks. Added the genie stuff; and some limited amount of lore.

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

The morai skills we have are almost solely PVP.

Natural Synergy and Blazing Barrier are perfectly useable in PVE, as are Bewitch and its variants (which act like a seal in PVE; no turning mobs into puffbirds, tigers or squirrels.) Soul Link/Soul Shatter are the only PVP only skills.

Desdi - Sanctuary

Mayfly - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Natural Synergy and Blazing Barrier are perfectly useable in PVE, as are Bewitch and its variants (which act like a seal in PVE; no turning mobs into puffbirds, tigers or squirrels.) Soul Link/Soul Shatter are the only PVP only skills.

^ true. I sort of missed that.
Bewitch can be used in situations when you want to make the monster run (won't work on bosses of course, some mini bosses yes) by using the seal. Even I often forget that Bewitch is, in fact, just a seal that happens to look fancy.

PotatoHeadQR - Dreamweaver

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

[
If you want to know more; read the quest text. It's a long sad story of slavery, warfare, love and revenge. Then wraiths attack, and it's all the fishmen's fault. Then you go back in time, and it's all your fault, but you fix it before it happens. Kinda.

o: I'm making a veno just to do the quest. lvl9 right?

+1 for advising against tt70. it's sad to see newbies paying millions for that ****.

Desdi - Sanctuary

PotatoHeadQR - Dreamweaver wrote: »

o: I'm making a veno just to do the quest. lvl9 right?

+1 for advising against tt70. it's sad to see newbies paying millions for that ****.

I admit using TT70 gear on my Psychic but I farmed it myself since then I had the means to. I mostly did it so I can upgrade to TT80 after which ended up as being a waste too. I got TT80 gold pants just to spoil my alt (again all farmed) only to realise that it will rot in my bank forever (no other alts on that account) after lvl90.

In other words, yeah not very good. Level 77 mold gear is much better and has a better re-sell value. If lucky you can get the mold as drop or very cheap and just farm the rest of the materials easily.

Perhaps another thing to add to gear advice; avoid bound gear unless you're at endgame (and by then you know what you want or plan to do) and/or have alts on the same account (account stash ftw) that can use the gear in the future. I've done it many times in fears of dropping or accidentally NPCing but bound gear should be avoided. Cannot resell and, if lack of alts, cannot re-use.

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

I think that lore summary is a mix of the low level human/untamed/elf quests (mostly untamed and elf, I don't remember that much dealing with the other races from the human quests), the Goshiki quest line, and the Venomancer level 100 new foxform quest. (I don't have a barb anywhere close to 100, so can't comment on the lore from the panda form quest.)

Marengo - Lost City

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

Perhaps another thing to add to gear advice; avoid bound gear ...

Agree, and I believe only rank gear should be autobound, it's really annoying to reconsider your gear plans because of that b:chuckle

Desdi - Sanctuary

Marengo - Lost City wrote: »

Agree, and I believe only rank gear should be autobound, it's really annoying to reconsider your gear plans because of that b:chuckle

<off topic>

Grats on 105!
Now you need 1k posts so you can get a purpled coloured custom title to match your font colour like me and Azura b:avoid

</off topic>

Marengo - Lost City

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

<off topic>

Grats on 105!
Now you need 1k posts so you can get a purpled coloured custom title to match your font colour like me and Azura b:avoid

</off topic>

<off topic>Thank you! b:thanks Will be working on that )</off topic>

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Mayfly - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I think that lore summary is a mix of the low level human/untamed/elf quests (mostly untamed and elf, I don't remember that much dealing with the other races from the human quests), the Goshiki quest line, and the Venomancer level 100 new foxform quest. (I don't have a barb anywhere close to 100, so can't comment on the lore from the panda form quest.)

And OHT and Morai. The devs *really* like time travel loops in quest chains.

And yes, I was mainly referring to the questline of the winged tiger in the first bit. It's pretty schlocky fantasy writing, but also quite a decent little story and it's a shame so many people blindly click through it.

So ok, TODO: adding a comment about bewitch-seal (and it's just seal, right? Not full on chaotic?)

And also a small section on pet skills. This guide is gonna be far too long.

Desdi - Sanctuary

Yeah, in PvE it's just a seal that makes monsters run (or mini bosses, elite monsters etc.).

PotatoHeadQR - Dreamweaver

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

Perhaps another thing to add to gear advice; avoid bound gear

even at endgame it's not the best of ideas cause we don't really have an endgame xD

I'm spoiling my baby cleric with tt80 gold pants/chest; they are aalmost as good as tt90, especially since you can socket them for cheap (and I think you can refine to +5 with the dreamchaser orbs). also, it's like 3m :b

Desdi - Sanctuary

PotatoHeadQR - Dreamweaver wrote: »

even at endgame it's not the best of ideas cause we don't really have an endgame xD

I'm spoiling my baby cleric with tt80 gold pants/chest; they are aalmost as good as tt90, especially since you can socket them for cheap (and I think you can refine to +5 with the dreamchaser orbs). also, it's like 3m :b

By the time they reach lvl100 they should at least know, more or less, what they are planning to do so they can choose accordingly.

Nothing wrong with the bound gear itself honestly but it's a bad idea for someone new because they might not be able to farm it so they have to buy it or the materials and once they are out of the level range they can't re-use it if they don't have an alt on the same account nor can they sell it.

Heh this make me think, boy did I spoil my Psychic. She had such an easy life compared to my Venomancer/Cleric b:chuckle

Edit~
Anyhow I used to have TT99 sleeves/wrists and when Nirvana 3rd cast came around I had to re-make them because I had no tailor and I couldn't upgrade those sleeves/wrists to G16. I still made my Nirvana from TT because it was cheaper and I have a Cleric on the same account. I said I'll never get R9 anyway.

Well, I actually did get R9 because sales and NW made it cheaper and possible (I admit having some help from game husband with farming) but if I didn't have an alt on the same account my Nirvana gear would just sit there in bank being unused >.>; so people who choose to go with bound gear need to choose carefully.

As for my Psychic, I had actually retired it and stopped playing it especially after my Psychic's game husband and overall game partner quit so I lost interest in playing that toon and focused on my main account. Now she has Nirvana 3rd cast from the lunar path. I've made some bad choices myself, but hey..that's how you learn, right? :P

freakiie1

Have just a few questions after reading through this...

As a non-cash shopper, are the free pets mentioned in this thread viable for NW and soloing TT, or am I better off choosing a different class perhaps mystic?

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

For soloing single-mode TT, any tanky pet will do. For squad mode, you need a herc, or a tanky pet with herc buffs, or restrict yourself to much lower TTs than your level, and even with a herc there's some bosses you can't do, and it's much slower than what APS sins and BMs and barbs soloing.

In NW/TW, smart players kill the veno and ignore the pet.

Desdi - Sanctuary

freakiie1 wrote: »

Have just a few questions after reading through this...

As a non-cash shopper, are the free pets mentioned in this thread viable for NW and soloing TT, or am I better off choosing a different class perhaps mystic?

They are decent in both NW and solo-ing but not as strong as the legendary ones. I don't know up to what extent you can solo with a regular Glacial Walker but I can tell you the free pets have some neat things to offer (eg. Piggy has a knock-back that works in PvP once you evolve it).

In case of the Mystics, they can probably solo better than a non-legendary pet owner Venomancer but the Mystic would have to focus on getting decent/good gear for that first whereas Venomancers have their pets tank for them.

It kinda depends on what we're talking about though...low levels, mid game or endgame? Because Venomancers and Mystics can do different things.

Haila - Sanctuary

Hello, I'm thinking about rerolling a veno from scratch with a harpy, i've read somewhere they can go in dungeons, water and sky from lvl1 right ? And how tanky are harpy's compared to hercules, I remember i could solo most of the bosses with hercules but i'm not getting another herc XD. For example can I solo the culti bosses at level with a harpy ?

Desdi - Sanctuary

Haila - Sanctuary wrote: »

Hello, I'm thinking about rerolling a veno from scratch with a harpy, i've read somewhere they can go in dungeons, water and sky from lvl1 right ? And how tanky are harpy's compared to hercules, I remember i could solo most of the bosses with hercules but i'm not getting another herc XD. For example can I solo the culti bosses at level with a harpy ?

Pre-evolution Harpy is a little squishy and can only do ranged tanking. Post-evolution Harpy is tankier (from inherit stats, plus her unique skill gives HP buff) but she's still mostly a DD pet. She does well at range tanking but if you want a real tank you're still better off with the Hercules for the at-level boss tanking. You can't really compare the two pets. Hercules is still the best tanking pet.

I wouldn't recommend starting with the Harpy. That pet is more of a luxury that opens up new playstyles and new possibilities to you with her skills and abilities. I wouldn't recommend the Monkey as an alternative either because that's a specialised PvP pet and it won't do much in PvE for you. It wouldn't match Hercules' tanking abilities unless you get pet skills like Strong/Protect and the AOE stun only works for players.

Although I think Mayfly can tell you more about the Harpy pre-endgame as I've only really used mine after I evolved it.

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

Harpy's good for range DD and AOE grind. Its skills give no aggro beyond damage done.

Haila - Sanctuary

Sounds like harpy is not able to tank bosses like gouf, the ones outside fb51, not sure if they can be tanked ranged tho.
It would be nice if harpy was a herc + nix + aoe's in one XD
Ok i think i wait for a sale then, seems not worth it for lowbies.

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

Fugma's ranged physical, not recommended for harpy to try to tank until high level. (Harpy has weak phys def but strong mag def.) Omnipotent Drake and Kashu are ranged magic, harpy can do those.

Gouf's pure melee. Harpy's good for bosses like Suzerix, though.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Edit: I seem to be able to edit the first post again now; dunno what went wrong - so ignore this post unless you want history.

Trying to add shards and petskills to guide. Testing my ability to post.


At the end of the gear section:

Note that you can, somewhat, use shards to shore up your weak spots. You'll almost always want to add magical attack to your weapon; but your armour can be partially citrines for hitpoints, and partially garnets for physical defence if you're using arcane armour or maybe sapphires for magical defence for the heavy armour users. Rich people get more options, with attack and defence levels to consider instead. If you can afford those, they're almost always better.


As a new section just above genies:

Pet Skills.

Pets being a somewhat central part of being a Venomancer, it's worth giving a quick rundown of pet skills here.

The majority of pet skills can be obtained from the Zoologist NPCs in Achosaur. That's also how you put the skills onto a pet, and level up skills. Skills cost around 100k, and levelling up costs 200k. Some rare skills are only available through events (Lyceum and dragon temple primarily - but they're tradable) or come pre-equipped on rare pets. If you have a high level faction base, some pet-skill scrolls may be on sale there, too. Those are very expensive (36m), but are the best available.

So what skills should you put on your pets? There are really three types of skill - damage, debuffs and utility.
Damage skills are the simplest. Bash is the most well known as the best for generating aggro - but there are equivalent skills in each element. There's also flesh ream (which inflicts a bleed) Pounce is an attack, an attack speed increase and a stun. Sadly, it's also rare.
The useful debuffs are mainly howl and pierce. And you can mostly duplicate pierce with ironwood; so get howl. There are other debuffs too.
For utility - the healing skills aren't really powerful enough; but tough is a pretty nice way to stay alive; as is threaten. The rare utility skills (strong, claw, protect, blessings of the pack and reflect) are all awesome if you can get them.

At level 100 many pets can evolve - and then it gains some additional skills as well as a bunch of stats. This is a good thing, don't miss it! Check with the zoologist for details.



Ok, strange; I can post but not edit the front post.
I can edit this one; but I get "No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator" - even though it works. Very very strange.

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

The rare utility skills (tough, strong, claw, protect, blessings of the pack and reflect) are all awesome if you can get them.

Tough isn't a rare skill, it shouldn't be listed with strong etc.

Perhaps mention Threaten along with Tough in the utility section; paired with Tough, Threaten will allow a non-legendary pet to survive much better than a pet with neither (15 seconds out of 30 of reduced physical attack debuff, alternated with 15 seconds out of 60 of reduced damage taken buff)

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

What is a Venomancer?

A hybrid healer+tank+Direct damage (DD). The full holy trinity; with a smatterring of control skills too.

If I wasn't in the veno section and didn't know it was a veno guide I would think you speak about a cleric or mystic, but not a veno.

In my opinion a class that have healer as role is a class that can heal other people and not only pets, to me venomancers have nothing of a healer.

Tank is really situational, for solo stuff usually it's the pet that will be the tank and not directly the veno, in squad a veno will have trouble to tank for the fact that yes a veno have a great survivability in fox form, but unfortunately 0 aggro skill (speaking of the veno not his pets), so the veno can't hold aggro against other class.

DD = Damage dealer, yes veno can DD, but all class can DD, that doesn't make them a DD class. A veno is never take in a squad for his DD abilities unless it's a R9 with a great refine, all other class will be take before a veno as DD. I'm not saying here that people don't take venos in squad, but not as DD unless they didn't got any other pm and really need one more person.

A veno is a solo class and support class, not a healer, tank and DD class.

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

And yet, on occasion depending on squad, it is the veno that tanks. I've held aggro in foxform from 9x BMs on Pole and Nob, and an admittedly poorly geared assassin in FB51, and I'm not R9 or even Nirvana geared.

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

Mayfly - Dreamweaver wrote: »

And yet, on occasion depending on squad, it is the veno that tanks. I've held aggro in foxform from 9x BMs on Pole and Nob, and an admittedly poorly geared assassin in FB51, and I'm not R9 or even Nirvana geared.

...

DUH!!!

A veno lvl100 that can hold aggro on a lvl50??

Are you kidding me?

I'm speaking about veno that squad with people of his lvl, not a veno lvl100 that will go help in a bh29.

All class lvl100+ can tank and hold aggro on lower lvl...

If someone can't, nvm the class than go npc your wood stick and get a real weapon.

Mayfly - Dreamweaver

An admittedly poorly geared level 100 assassin, I forgot to mention that part. Level 5x assassins I tell to stay the hell out of AOE on Rankar and Wyvern.

Kiszmet - Heavens Tear

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands wrote: »

...

DUH!!!

A veno lvl100 that can hold aggro on a lvl50??

Are you kidding me?

I'm speaking about veno that squad with people of his lvl, not a veno lvl100 that will go help in a bh29.

All class lvl100+ can tank and hold aggro on lower lvl...

If someone can't, nvm the class than go npc your wood stick and get a real weapon.

Ive tanked for several squads, WS, BH, TT, only thing I haven't tanked is Lunar.

No I can't hold agro against a 5aps BM or sin or R9 archer or wizzy, but then no non rank or non APS can, not even barbs.

Fox venos are usually the off-tank, the squad saver, the "OMFG sin just got itself killed squad going to wipe now!" preventer. It can be possible to make one a main tank, the damage is high enough, but the veno would have to focus on APS, crit, and get genie skills such as Alpha Male, Wind Sheild, and Abs Domain, not to mention be a pro shifter so they can use Bramble Hood and Blazing Barrier when the situation called for it. There are a few foxes that have tried but being a full tank veno requires a guide all its own and I don't blame the OP for mentioning its possible without trying to include the strategies behind it.

Jasms - Lost City

Provoking lv6+ make a veno tanking at each instance.I tanked Ws,Tt,Lunar,Fb99 and even World boss.Aps sins not steal agro ( only way is for herc to not use for a while the random provoking skill or if a sin rib the boss witch is making me mad when i warning them to not do when herc is tank )and if they do,they lose it back to herc a few secs later.Best mood for have all in one if want to be a tank veno is Confident,it have Howl and Provoking as skills.