Veno skills (im getting confused)

1) Noxious is awesome if you use the AOE - lucky is better if not.
Blazing is personal choice.

2) Yes, you MUST get fox form, and you MUST max out amplify damage. No argument, just do it.
Whilst you're in fox-form you might as well use another skill. Befuddling mist, consume spirit, leech, foxy-wallop... whatever. Fox, skill, amp, defox. Dooooo eeeet.

The rest of fox.... isn't a bad choice. Play with it if you want to. Be aware how much coin and spirit it will eat up to max out both trees though.

3) Wood mastery is a nice boost to all your damage. Well worth having, though very expensive, level it up when you can afford it.

Feral concentration I think is pointless. Combo'd with a couple of genie skills or certain apothecary items it is awesome, but without... nah. Ditto bramble hood. I think I've cast that maybe twice ever.

Myriad rainbow - both versions - is awesome. But stupidly expensive. Turns you into a mana-pot-sucking-maniac.
Neccesary? No. It does, on average, 5k of extra damage per cast.

Sage has 20% HP reduce skill. The end. (Seriously - dunno, I've got to weigh this up myself in seven levels time, so I've got months to think about it.)

1. Tricky question. I personally prefer Lucky Scarab because of it's stun which also makes it useful for PvP. Also, both Blazing and Noxious are damage over time. Noxious can be used as a single target spell at lower levels and is very good at generating chi. Blazing is the second biggest hitter available to venos if the DoT is allowed to run it's full course, and it can be maxed sooner and more cheaply than the others. Ofc this is a matter of personal preference but i would recommend to make priorities 1) Lucky 2) Blazing 3) Noxious. Lucky will be more useful in combos and for regular use. Blazing is good for bosses and generally longer fights. Noxious is best for squad work, although you should be careful with aggro.

2. Yes, you should get Foxform skills. Amplify Damage is a priority and should always be kept maxed. You should be using this skill everytime you fight a boss or specially strong mobs when in a squad. Purge you won't really use for PvE until mid-high levels. It's always good to have at least another Foxform skill at level available because Foxform itself has a cooldown that will make it convenient when using Amplify Damage. Befuddling Mist is a much better choice than Fox Wallop if you only want to work on the bare minimum. Personally however, i would strongly recommend working on Stunning Blow and Leech. Stunning Blow is very useful as a situational skill in Foxform, while Leech will allow you to recover HP.

3. Make Wood Mastery a priority, it's a very important skill for caster Venos as it will greatly improve your damage output. The other skills are all considerations for higher levels. Bramble Hood (lvl 59) is an awesome survival skill, especially if you like to solo. Feral Concentration (lvl 79) requires Demon Summer Sprint or genie skills like Fortify and Absolute Domain to use. It certainly is recomended by many Venos. Both Myriads (lvl 79) seem to be highly regarded as well. You may choose to focus on whichever is more convenient, leaving the other one for later. Arcane Antimony (lvl 100) i really couldn't tell you much about.

Rather than sticking to the usual generic comments on the issue of Sage/Demon, i would recommend you to take a long look at what each skill can do and to figure which effects would you rather have for yourself. You can find them here; http://www.ecatomb.net/skillpwi.php

Edit; just looked at your level. Max Amp asap and Wood Mastery right after. Also get Bramble Hood.

SupaRoyalty - Lost City wrote: »

Consume spirit is pretty much useless since there are few mobs that regenerate hp ... or am I thinking of something else.

One of us is. I mean the one that steals MP.

Akumugetzu - Lost City wrote: »

1) Which skill is best to level between blazing scarab, noxious gas, and lucky scarab?
Because Ive been leveling Blazing scarab (thinking constant damage over time) but, I looked on the forums and some said that it was useless and to level lucky scarab instead (It stuns and I should probably use it instead right?)

They are all good.
Lucky is your highest damage spell for the time spent casting. (Frost is technically higher but costs a spark. Spark + Lucky >> Frost so Frost is a waste of a spark.) But Lucky is just about your worst spell for mana efficiency (damage per mana used). It's a great spell for maximizing your damage output, but sucks up mana. Still, I think it's the best DD spell we get.

Blazing is your second highest damage spell for the time spent casting if the DoT (damage over time) runs its full course. I believe it's also the most mana-efficient spell (most damage per mana used). But the catch is the DoT lasts 30 seconds. Outside of bosses and instances, most everything you'll fight dies in 15 sec. With only 15 sec of DoT damage, it's only so-so damage and meh mana efficiency. Which is why the spell gets badmouthed by a lot of people.

Against single targets, Noxious is meh in terms of damage for time spent casting, and poor at mana efficiency (almost as bad as Lucky). But it's AOE. If you have 2 targets, suddenly it becomes the best spell in damage for time spent casting, and one of the best at mana efficiency. If your group is fighting 3+ targets, you want to be spamming it as much as you can without pulling aggro.

2) Do I have to have fox form/fox form skills?
Yes, I know its optional based on play style but Ive heard that Amplify damage is extremely good and should I just level that skill or can I do without fox form (i accidentally bought some skills and never used them)?

Amp you definitely want to get. With a 6-person group, a maxed Amp used as often as possible is like adding a 7th person's worth of damage.

Leech is the highest damage fox skill which doesn't cost a spark. It's great for AOE bosses which don't kill you outright (I think Cube room 6 is the first you encounter). It'll let you stay alive against them without having to quaff dozens of potions. It's also great for touching up your hp if your hp regen skills are on cooldown and you want to save your pots. Unless you're heavy, you want to be spamming Leech and Befuddling as much as possible to maximize damage in fox form. (Heavy builds after about level 80 do the most damage with straight melee, no skills.)

Stunning Blow is the highest damage fox skill, but costs a spark. What saves it from being useless like Frost Scarab is that it freezes your target. You know those annoying archer mobs which insist on running twice before they stop to fight? Use this on them and they'll stay put. It's also great for stopping mobs when a squishie pulls aggro if you react far enough. (You have to run onto the mob, then use the skill. Simply pressing the skill to auto-run to the mob will not work.) At lower levels, it also does enough damage to consistently interrupt casters.

Befuddling Mist is meh. It's the second highest damage fox skill which doesn't cost a spark, but is not as impressive as Lucky. The lowered accuracy sounds good in theory, but in a group setting it means the mob will miss the tank more frequently. If you're a good veno, you've put Bramble on the tank, so more misses means the mob takes less damage and the tank gets less aggro. Both are bad. Its saving grace is it's AOE. In crowded AOE situations like FF it is a lot of fun to spam. Just be careful about aggro.

Consume Spirit is optional. Personally I prefer just to hit ST and Leech back any lost life. But if you want to save ST for emergencies, then I guess you could use Consume.

Fox Wallop, Malefic Crush are both just meh. Wallop's channeling debuff sounds good in theory, but doesn't work on bosses which is about the time you would want a channeling debuff. Maybe if you PvP it might be useful. The Demon version is simply awesome though - 20% chance to make all your hits critical for 5 sec. Malefic costs 2 sparks which are much better used elsewhere; same problem as Frost Scarab.

3) What about a other skills such as Wood mastery, Feral Concentration, Bramble Hood (Ive heard That I absolutely need this one), Myriad Rainbow, and Arcane Antinomy/Fossilized Curse (hey, I know these are level 100 skills but just curious)
Are they necessary or get them whenever I feel like it later.

Wood Mastery is tricky because it costs so much spirit. In terms of damage increase, you are almost always better off spending your spirit to level up the individual spells. The trick is that Wood mastery increases damage from all your spells. So if you regularly only use 3 spells, then Wood Mastery is generally not worth it. But if you frequently use 5 spells, it becomes worth leveling.

Bramble Guard will be expected in groups. It helps the tank hold aggro and helps kill stuff faster. And you want it maxed so you can get Bramble Hood. I use it all the time for difficult pulls so I don't get one-shot if something goes wrong (reduces all damage to 1/4th). So I'd say max this after your pet heal, damage spells, and Amp.

The Rainbows I use almost all the time against bosses. The DoTs are meh, but if either armor break or mind break lands, your group's damage will go through the roof. I've seen us take 40% of a boss' hp in nearly a minute, then one or both of these land and it loses 20% in the next 10 seconds. Your party members will love it too - fire it immediately after Amp and extreme Poison (and spark) to see some huge damage numbers.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Feral concentration I think is pointless. Combo'd with a couple of genie skills or certain apothecary items it is awesome, but without... nah. Ditto bramble hood. I think I've cast that maybe twice ever.

tbh I find bramble hood very usefull. In pvp it's great But it also saved my **** quite a few times.
I used it at I dunno what lvl anymore when I had to lure a TTboss, it was clear I will had to take about 1-2 hits (magic) before other veno's herc could catch it.
and it also saved mine and a the clerics **** when our barb dc'd in TT. With her BB and my bramble hood I managed to survive just ong enough for our barb to get back and grab agro

believe me.. get that bramble hood...

you'll think about it different once you had a horde of angry physical mobs on ya while you try to ress your pet.
Or as I said. When doing TT with a cleric and barb it also saved our **** when barb dc'd.
It saved my **** when a barb died and our cleric didn't bother looking who had agro and started ress the tank.
what is worthless about 75% damage reduction and 200% reflect?
without that skill I would have died a lot of times. Including quite some clerics.
and bramble hood is only 1 lvl. Why not just get it .__.