Fox Venos=Fail

First of all, all venos should use both human and fox, if only to take advantage of the awesome debuffs both forms offer (ironwood in human, amp in fox, etc.).

Now, I'm guessing what you mean by "fox build," is a veno that wears either LA or HA, and spends most of his/her time fighting in fox form. The answer to your question, in short, is "no." Fox venos don't "fail," tho some debate the effectiveness of LA build. One thing that can be agreed upon though, is that at least LA makes an easier transition to HA, since you will already be used to the lower mana pool, and you will have several points in str and dex, and so will have less stats to move when you switch to HA.

EDIT: One thing I forgot to point out is that HA build is usually considered best to put off until higher levels (90s or so), when you can get +stat gear to make up for any deficiencies in your stats, and help you have the str and dex to wear HA, and enough mag to wear the current level weapon.

EDIT 2: I'm scatter-brained today. Missed some things in your earlier post. Scorpion is generally considered the better of the two starter pets, since it's one of the best damage dealing pets in the game. Since you're going vit/hybrid build, I'm not sure what you mean by fox build? I'm not entirely sure how fox works with arcanes (I'm LA myself), but from what I've read, you mainly drop into fox when you need to amp/purge, leech, etc. I imagine you'd be a bit squishy to duke it out as a tank like HA venos can, and I'm not sure how your damage would compare... My initial thought is that you'd do a fair bit more damage with human form spells than you would in foxy form.

Arcane is the way to go for your first veno, it's easier to play overall. Try a LA or HA/AA build later when you have some experience, and a coin buffer.

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary wrote: »

Heh. If you can afford a Herc and/or a nix, it's very easy to roll a mage only Veno, and 'have your pet do all of your work.'

There are mobs that will oneshot you in human form, as a pure mage, and TT bosses will AOE oneshot you too, even through BB.

Pure mage is, IMO, the stupidest build you can possibly do for veno.

I rolled pure mage. By level 65, I was regretting it, and spent mucho gold on reset notes. I tried a vit/mage build, and was still getting wasted very fast by multi-aggro.

I then re-rolled to a Light Armor/Arcane Armor build. If I want to kill a mob without using my pet to tank it, I can. Physical AOE no longer oneshots me in TT. If I'm in a squad with a BM, and I need to tank physical damage, I really can because of the PDef bonus that Fox Form gives.

I can go on TT2-3, or TT3-x, and be useful, just because of... OH NOES! Fox form skills. You'll be needing to use fox skills on Ape in 2-2 and 2-3. You SHOULD be Amping every boss. Amp and Purge need to be maxed out as fast as you can, regardless of if you're a Mage, Mage/Vit, LA, or HA build.

Everyone who says LA or HA are fail builds... Has no clue what they are talking about, or has a game play style suited for another build or class entirely. b:shutup Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to survive most squad wipes in FCC/TT/BH79/BH69. In fact, last FCC, I ended up using my bow to kill the stupid hands because our sin was total fail, and we had no archer. b:surrender

If your lost the aggro all the time, then you your Battle-tactic just failed.
I had a Veno, which was nearly lvl80, with an arcane Build and the only way to steal
the aggro from my Pet was, to Crit with the first 2 attacks. I had a lvl77 LA-Veno also,
and beside the MP and less Damage, but it wasn't so much, there was no Difference,
beside I was the only MU in the GV Partys who survived the aoe from the last Boss b:victory

And no, I never had a Herc or nix.

beside the frost one b:avoid