A Venomancer returning to the scene of the crime

Post-evolution Herc is a much better tanker than pre-evolution, and will steal aggro from the APS-nics. Mine even tanked 2-3 Ancient Evil (a faction mate took care of the adds) though being HA made it much easier for me to survive the AOE.

Post-evolution Harpy is downright handy in Rebirth Delta, and lets you do more than just amp the phys and wood immune tower in the new SoT.

I don't have a Monkey, and don't find myself using the Nix that much.

Pet evolution... definitely worth it if you can find the time (takes about 15 minutes per run, once per day, instance available for 15.5 hours per day so you can probably find a convenient time, at least on weekends.) Instance should be open during your evenings, though. Downside is that you need to be in PK mode to get a good score, and it's tricky even starting it without being in PK mode. Upside is that you don't get many more feral stars if you get a good score than if you just AFK after activating the guards.

Gearwise, 95 Morai being quest gear is cheapest, but not really all that good. 100 Morai I don't know much about, other than you have to run EU to get it. 101 Morai takes a long time to get (have to run lots of order dailies to get the necessary prestige and influence) and is a bit pricy (13 million for weapon, 4-6 million each armor piece if I remember right.) TT or Lunar Nirvana is able to be gotten much quicker (maybe not cheaper) though if you don't have the crafting skills you'll have to trust someone to craft TT99 and Nirvana first and second cast pieces for you. Third cast you can make with no crafting skills at all, but you'll need to do enough Lunar and Warsong runs to get the necessary molds and basic badges, which are bound, and Essence of Offense/Defense (which are not bound), or trust someone who has the molds and enough badges with your unbound Nirvana second cast piece to upgrade it for you.

R9 third cast is both the most powerful and most expensive gear set (though third cast itself isn't expensive, as it uses the same badges and essences as Nirvana third cast, and the molds are obtained the same way.) Here you don't have the option of someone else upgrading your second cast gear, as your R9 gear is bound, as are the badges and molds necessary to upgrade it.

Sage got heavily favored by the foxform update a while back. I think demon's going to be favored a little bit in the upcoming skill update, but there are a lot of demon venos unhappy with the upcoming ironwood/blazing fused skill.

Phoenix_Eye - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Hello people and fellow venomancers of PWI. Yep i'm semi-back to this addicting , twisted game.

Welcome back f:cute

1) About Legendary Pets , i'm a strict PVE Venomancer , that aims to go into dungeons with people that certainly won't let me tank due to the APS fandom , or AoEs from bosses will deny me access to pets (I guess ???). Money making with veno is a possibility for me , I am used to doing TT Solo so why not Squad , though i'm certain i can do it faster with sin .. However since the cost for a legendary is maybe easier to cope with compared to the cost of sin's gear ...

- Is Herc (and his all-terrain evolution) worth it for farming TT as a veno anymore ?
- Is Phoenix (and his all-terrain evolution) worth it for dungeon running/maximizing dmg
- Is Harpy (AoE nuker ???) of any worth in dungeon cituations or too frail to survive
- Is Monkey King useful outside of PVP enviroment for a venomancer that aims to do team stuff and not PVP (or Nation Wars , or maybe do NW , i dont know).

I plan to cash-shop for this legendary , but only once , so which will promote my role as a veno in general aspects of daily gameplay

If you're only going to get a single legendary pet I'll strongly suggest the Hercules. The evolved Hercules is tankier and stronger, has a powerful aggro skill and it becomes an all-terrain pet. You can tank a lot of things with it and its damage is quite decent to be used as an all around DD pet too. It is dependent on your gear so the better gear, the better results but it's over-all really nice.

The Phoenix has lost its value for me. It is a great pet for PvP and still a great pet to DD for PvE but after getting both the Harpy and the Monkey I have stopped using the Phoenix unfortunately...For me it has been reduced to a cheap PvP pet option (Monkey is pricey). The evolved Derjan's Hatchling can be a decent DD pet replacement for PvE. I might be biased and to all the Phoenix lovers, don't get me wrong, it is a good pet but it's just overshadowed by the newer ones for me.

The Harpy is an amazing pet for PvE, AOE skills, ranged damage, great DPS, high attack, great for grinding, pulling, DDing, can range tank (not melee tank though) but it's a pure definition of a luxury pet. You don't need it but it's freaking nice to have one. Not recommending it if you're on a tight budget.

The Monkey is okay for PvE but there's no particular reason to get one if you're not going to PvP with it.

I know you said you don't feel like reading threads but if you want more information on the new legendaries you can take a look at my review. I have two testing videos of the Harpy and a testing video of the Monkey.

Pokemon Evolution = is it worth the effort and time (i live in Europe on US Server) to digi-evolve the rest of my evolvable pets (Dark Wanderer, Bears, Piggy, Kowlin).

Absolutely worth it. There is literally no reason not to evolve them (unless you hate the look of the evolved ones I suppose). They gain more defences, HP and attack because they get effected by your gear. If you get a bad inherit roll you may not see the difference but you can always reroll and eventually get good stats. You will see a difference.

In addition to this your pets will gain access to three more skills. One of them is exclusive to the pet. The other two are called mood skills. You can reroll the mood until you get one you like. There are ~70 different moods but each pet has access to 30 of them. That's still a lot to choose from. There are various types of moods (skill sets). Some increase the pets attack, others increase the defence, others come with self heals etc.
Take a look at my stickied guide when you have time.

2) Gear ... I assume simple plain Rank 8 is just ok for the typical BH 100 but any of these new Morai Stuff or Warsong or Lunar or w/e + the typical Elitist community will require something more from me ... What is the most cost effective type of gear ... TT / Rank 9 and their recast versions or whatever has been added to the game that i have lost track of.

Rank 8 should be fine for the start but you can work towards getting a set of 3rd cast Nirvana which is currently the best gear available (besides R9) that is completely farm-able and it's pretty good. In fact, it's pretty strong for any PvE activity. Lunar path is more expensive but trade-able. TT path is bound but cheaper.

You can follow this route:
TT90 -> TT99 -> Nirvana 1st cast -> Nirvana 2nd cast -> Nirvana 3rd cast.

Uncannies (and Raptures) are a lot cheaper due to Nation Wars. TT materials are pretty cheap overall save for a few particular ones. Other materials are farmable. Some you can get alone, others you might have to ask friends/faction.

For weapon you can follow this route:
TT99 Divine Aegis (requires no souledge, cheapest TT99 gold to make, it's a pataka but it can be crafted into ANY type of Nirvana magic weapon) -> Nirvana 1st cast -> Nirvana 2nd cast -> Nirvana 3rd.

Once you have Nirvana 2nd cast you will need badges and the corresponding mold of each piece. Badges/Molds can be farmed through Warsong or Lunar. Otherwise you can buy "manufacturing service" from other people. Badge price is about 150k-200k each on my server these days. In some cases some people sell ready-made pieces.

We can help you more with this if you decide to start farming it but I'll refrain from posting a wall-of-text for now :P

3) With the new / upgraded Skills that come along the upcoming updates , is there a strong imbalance between Demon and Sage ... i still plan to go Sage , pure Arcane ... any things to seriously reconsider ?

A while back there was a content update that introduced a questline that rewards you a book to upgrade your fox form (also a new fox form look but that's cosmetic). The new fox form will no longer reduce you MP.

The Sage versions gains 35chi every time you change form. This gave Sages the ability to generate a lot of chi. Demons got...a useless buff; 5% chance to not get a hit by a crit or something. It's so crappy I don't even remember what it is lol.

That event shifted the power slightly towards Sages because their greatly improved chi making ability greatly improved their gameplay for both PvE and PvP. Demons, obviously, were not very happy because they got nothing.

The upcoming update apparently gives Demons a new way to make chi while not breaking the balance. Sages make chi out of nowhere, Demons require a target.

This update also introduces a skill fusion: Ironwood and Blazing.
Sage becomes 50% debuff instead of 40%. Demon gets a 40% physical debuff (what Sages had) and 25% chance to proc a 180% debuff. Some Sages were not happy for giving Demons something that was unique to Sages but a lot of Demons are not happy either; 180% debuff is nowhere near as powerful as reducing your opponents physical defence to 0 regardless of gear. Luckily the fusion is optional.
The skill also gains a fire DoT from the old Blazing Scarab.

Other notable things are; fox form attacks will hit regardless. This favors magic builds.

Sage is still the slightly better option for overall PvE. Pure magic is still a viable build especially if you go for Nirvana 3rd cast where your defences will be boosted greatly.

Phoenix_Eye - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Desdi it was your threads that gave me some spotlights on what happened to venos lately , very good job there.

Thanks b:chuckle

One last question , what about ornaments and robe , are lunar -chan robe and cube/warsong necklace/belt still the best choice around ?

For the start, try to find some OHT rings (lvl94). Those are really cheap and you might find some with really nice adds such as lots of +HP, +Mag etc.
Later on you can move on to the Lunar rings. The rings dropped in price but I'm not familiar with their current market value. They are, however, a pretty good option for cheap "endgame" rings because of the physical defence they offer along with -chan and +crit.

Warsong belt is still the best belt you can get besides R9r3. If you get to farm Warsong (must include last boss) you can accumulate the items (forgot name >.>) and make one for 20mil. You'll need about 40 of those items. The belt will be bound to the account. Trade-able ones are available. Their price dropped too but they are still kinda pricey depending on refine level.

Cheap alternative to Warsong is the chrono belt from completeing your chrono quests.

Cube necklace remains the best endgame necklace option. Most people nowadays go for the Nation War version of it so the G14 one has dropped in price on my server. You might find one for 50mil-ish but I'd probably suggest you to try farming one. If you do Cube x2 on a single toon you can make one in 15 days. It will be faster if you use multiple toons. You can get 5000 prestige in Luminance for free COF letters.

Cheap (temporary) alternative is TT90 gold necklace (pretty cheap) or Sky Demon's Pearl (super cheap).

A channeling lunar cape is okay but if you go for G16 Nirvana (aka Nirvana 3rd cast) you'll probably want to get the Nirvana cape for the set bonus.
2 pieces -> +500HP
5 pieces -> +15Defence levels
6 pieces -> +20Attack levels

I do have a channeling cape I use at times. If you have one use it but otherwise leave it for later if you really want one.

Cheap (temporary) alternative is the Cape of Elite Leather that gives +physical defence.

1) My one and only pet is an evolved nixxy. She is great in PVE, I can solo FF within 30 minutes with her by my side, and I am not R9. Personally, Hidden Dragon's Den and some select bosses in Warsong are the only times I need to stash her. She can solo FF bosses, even the Bishop Boss just fine, tanking as well. I chose her for the fact I am a PVP and PVE Veno, she is great for me. I love the damage, and with her damage I can run FFs faster than I could with a Herc. BHs are no problem either. As time goes on you learn to stash her at certain bosses.

2)R9 is the best gear out there at the moment. R9s3 that is. If you can really afford it, go for it. I do not put any money in game whatsoever, so my gear consisted of starting with simple TT90, upgrading to TT99, going to NW and getting it s2, Then by the time you have s2 you can go into Warsongs and upgrade it overtime to s3. It is a long proccess if you don't have a lot of money, however Nirvana s3 can withstand pve very well. PVP is a different story and by then you need higher refines, however if you stay PVE you wont have any problem with s3. It is a lot cheaper than r9.

3) I went pure magic sage veno. The Amplify damage and purge is VERY much worth it. Also get sage summer sprint. Demon bramble is better. Sage and Demon are very close in my opinion, though having sage a little better for what I needed.

My personal reccomendation is choose your pet wisely, depending on what you want to do. Tank=Herc DD(though you need to heal now and then)=Nixxy. Also choose your gear before you get a pet. If your going to go r9 or full s3 you wont really need a herc tank as long as you have good refines. Also beware, Nixxy takes aggro pretty easy. Keep in mind you can reshape these pets (changing their stats) to make them less or more tanky, and more and less damage output.

Sage has worked out perfectly for me, no regrets at all.
s3 gear is exactly what I want. r9 would be amazing but I dont cash shop so i cant do that. Nirvy is good enough for pvp, as a matter of fact my gear is very strong in pve, even in warsong. I have it +6 with a +8 weapon. It all depends on how much you are willing to put in game, moneywise. f:cute

Don't bother with battle pet pack sales the Perfect Chests have a chance at hurc and or nix and are usually much cheaper to get a hurc or nix during that time frame then trying to buy battle pet packs for hurc or nix. Also if you want some nice oht ring's that give nice hp I have a few left that I no longer use on my veno on HT. If you want that lemme know send I_Love_Pets ingame mail and I will send you 2 rings with nice hp bonuses which are lovely for getting hp.

The stupid thing is this is my alt account I am on while Iwas going through forums and the forums don't count till you get on the site itself your actual join date. I never did get on pwi site till nov but I have had this account for years. I just had to recently change e-mail hence it lists me as joined nov 3rd.

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

Thanks b:chuckle



For the start, try to find some OHT rings (lvl94). Those are really cheap and you might find some with really nice adds such as lots of +HP, +Mag etc.

There is a person in the commission shop selling these off and on and I got one (w/o extra stats) for 1.2mil.

I wanted to ask (I left for a bit also) - how do I add the extra stats to these? I actually forgot.

Also, Desdi's articles was also what not only got me to return to PWI, but why I farmed for the Nix and Herc (they were on sale btw).

Hoping this sale comes back, I'm helping a friend farm her hercules now.


Veno was my first character when I joined Perfect World so very long ago. I'm very glad that PW has boosted them and made them (once again) a powerful class.

I cannot wait to evolve my pets. I was so happy to be able to get the small white bear and Kowlin for such low prices, but I accidently NPC'ed my bee.. so got to get someone to tame me one (yes I have a nix but LOVE the look of the evolved bee).

Also pleaseeee PWI - more pet cages? Really... hard to decide which pets to hatch and mount or no mount for that one slot.