Guild Wars 2

I’ve discussed in another thread that the venom buffs, while appreciated, are at its core heading in the wrong direction. Venoms on their own need to be redesigned at their untraited core, and then the traits can be looked into. Here are some ideas I came up with, on a somewhat high level (I won’t waste a dev’s potential reading time with calculations that would require field testing).

The objective of these changes: to promote more active/reactive use of venoms, give them use even when untraited and more alternatives to traiting for venoms without using venom share.

• For the venoms themselves, maybe do what you did to signet of might on warrior, and make it so you can apply that condition on hit for X seconds instead of X hits. The biggest issue would be the immobilize and stun venoms, or venomous aura paired with this time mechanic. To avoid such problems, each venom would have its own duration, with the hard CC ones having a short duration. This would in turn potentially require a reduced cast time on basilisk venom. The biggest threat would be how this affects AoE attacks, as it would be a serious buff in AoE condi/CC application. Alternatively, just give venoms more charges, though i’m not particularly fond of that choice.

TL;DR: Make venoms unlimited but only for X seconds. Might become too powerful on AoEs, especially the hard CC venoms. Low hanging fruit (and kinda lame) solution is just “give venoms more charges”.

• Residual venom could also be reworked. This trait as it is isn’t particularly strong. Instead of “venoms have an extra charge”, what about venoms have twice as many charges (or, last twice as long, in line with the previous suggestion)? The CC venoms already have very little charges, so they’d stay basically the same, whereas the other venoms would see a significant improvement. With the suggested rework, it would have to have diminishing returns with venomous aura. Or even better, just put both Residual venom and Venomous aura on the deadly arts, so you have to choose between “lots of venoms for myself” or “few venoms for everyone”. This would also help keep venoms and venomshare from becoming too powerful with the suggested buffs, while adding meaningful choices to thieves speccing into it. just don’t forget to move leeching venoms somewhere else. It’s not exactly a strong trait to be on master tier, and being the only venom trait on an entire line would be odd.

TL;DR: Make residual venom give considerably more venom uptime, consider bringing venomous aura to deadly arts so players have to choose between applying lots of stacks themselves, or by spreading the venoms through a group. Just don’t forget to shuffle leeching venoms somewhere else as well.

• Venomous strength could also be changed to “venoms apply one stack of might per successful hit” (with an added “per second/half-second” in the case of timed venoms), giving venoms an interesting play not only in condi builds, but power builds as well. A thief with both residual venom and venomous strength could use, for example, spider venom to quickly gain a bunch of might stacks, but only if he managed to actually land the hits.

TL;DR: Might per hit, rather than might on activation, rewards actively fighting for those might stacks, rather than precasting all venoms for a few stacks.

On venom visibility for other players: consider making venom icons pop over the thief’s head (if the thief isn’t stealthed, of course) when they’re used, like with signets. This gives the opponent a fair understanding of what the thief is trying to do, instead of “oh, i’m suddenly immobilized, what the heck?”

I’ve talked about venoms in the past, I’ve seen a random thread here and there talking about venoms (not necessarily buffing them), it never goes anywhere. It’s like the elephant in the room.

I will say that the venoms have a nice touch to them it just doesn’t work as people would like. It comes down to the venom “build” as well as the venoms themselves. Wish they would dedicate more than a 5 minute segment to these but I suppose its asking for too much when we got a bugged steal, last refuge kitten, and constant Q.Q from beginners. Tough life tis the tief way

NinjaEd.3946:

I’ve talked about venoms in the past, I’ve seen a random thread here and there talking about venoms (not necessarily buffing them), it never goes anywhere. It’s like the elephant in the room.

I will say that the venoms have a nice touch to them it just doesn’t work as people would like. It comes down to the venom “build” as well as the venoms themselves. Wish they would dedicate more than a 5 minute segment to these but I suppose its asking for too much when we got a bugged steal, last refuge kitten, and constant Q.Q from beginners. Tough life tis the tief way

then let’s be more vocal about it.

i personally really like venoms (venomshare was my first and only build during BWE1), but i like them for their potential and their concept, not for their execution. some of these venom ideas i mentioned i’ve had for months, some i came up with today as i wrote my other thread. the point is, something must be done to venoms, as a utility and as a traited build. honestly it kinda baffles me that “venoms” without the “share” can’t possibly be a build because it would be unviable. venoms rely far too much on a single trait on a defensive line to work, and that trait only works well in small, tight groups. the only small tight groups in this game are in PvE dungeons (and lolcondis on dungeons) and WvW roaming parties, with the odd PvP team fight (but if you’re a thief in the middle a team fight, you’re doing it wrong).

i believe that if some of my suggestions were added (not just one, but not necessarily all of them), venoms would be far more viable, and maybe, just maybe, even worth putting shadow refuge aside to make room for another venom.

I think venom builds, particularly venomshare, are going to be very very solid next build, and I really think it’s a good idea to wait and see how this set of balances pan out before making any changes.

There is one exception, though, and that’s Ice Drake Venom- It’s just kinda crap. It might need something to bring it up to par.

Sarrs.4831:

I think venom builds, particularly venomshare, are going to be very very solid next build, and I really think it’s a good idea to wait and see how this set of balances pan out before making any changes.

There is one exception, though, and that’s Ice Drake Venom- It’s just kinda crap. It might need something to bring it up to par.

condition damage on venom builds is really kinda crappy. i mean, the only venom that deals considerate condi damage is skale. poison damage ticks is pitiful and stacks on duration, so whether it’s ticking 100 or 250 is hardly important.

with skale venom, you get up to 3 stacks of torment per player. that’s on average the equivalent of ~5 bleed stacks. ok, cool, if your team is really good at staying tight, focusing a target and not cleaving anyone, they can put up to 15 torment stacks. that’s if you have 5 people within 360 range of you, and they all hit a single target. that would deal a significant amount of condi damage… but that’s 5v1. and on a kitten CD. with extreme coordination required. and no cleansing. and the target is moving (otherwise torment hits for a lot less). and you specced 6 points into freaking shadow arts, which practically guarantees you won’t be dealing any direct damage, forcing you into condi.

that means you’re hitting like a wet noodle on PvE, so that’s out of meta already, and on PvP the situations that it would work well are situations where you’re already going to win through DPS.

venom aura is good for the CC venoms in team fights. the damage venoms have never really been good at dealing damage, and another 30-50 damage per stack per tick won’t change things.

I think you’re understating how powerful Leeching Venoms is, especially if it’s drawing healing power from the thief.

I’m actually not sure whether Leeching Venoms runs off the thief’s Healing Power or the target’s Healing Power; the wiki and the skill bar (at least, dulfy’s writeup) have conflicting information.

Sarrs.4831:

I think you’re understating how powerful Leeching Venoms is, especially if it’s drawing healing power from the thief.

I’m actually not sure whether Leeching Venoms runs off the thief’s Healing Power or the target’s Healing Power; the wiki and the skill bar (at least, dulfy’s writeup) have conflicting information.

leeching venoms will draw from the thief’s healing power with the upcoming changes. which will be exactly 300 HP (you won’t run HP gear as a thief and you know it). better than nothing, which is what most people will run, yeah, but leeching venoms already drains very little health (385 with 300HP, you’ll get 6 ticks on best case scenario, worse than using mug with no HP and on a higher CD).

skelk venom (705 health per hit with 300HP) has the same HP scaling as leeching venoms, and when the two are paired, then yeah, you get an interesting level of support. but you also get a healing skill on a 45 (36 traited) seconds cooldown, which thieves can hardly afford.

with leeching venoms and residual venom AND 300 HP AND landing all kittens, skelk venom heals allies for 5450 health. impressive on paper, extremely hard to execute in practice. easier to get one of said allies to drop a water field and blast it 2-3 times. no room for error, you get to choose a better healing skill (with a lower CD), and the healing is instant, not to mention you don’t need to dump 12 points into venoms to make it happen.

Interesting idea for venoms, but know what their going to do right?
Add a 1 sec internal cd, kinda like the nerco’s Signet of Vampirism :/

BobbyT.7192:

Interesting idea for venoms, but know what their going to do right?
Add a 1 sec internal cd, kinda like the nerco’s Signet of Vampirism :/

honestly, that might actually not be that bad of a thing. i’d far prefer “here, you have 2-5 seconds (4-10 traited) to apply this venom as much as you want, but there’s an ICD” (i think 1/2 sec would be preferrable to 1sec). it would be bad for people like me who currently like packing skale venom (untraited) on P/D to use with sneak attack, but it would open up other avenues for venom application (and would synergize better with my suggestion for venomous strength).

an ICD would also reduce the AoE OPness that comes with applying CC freely with any attack for X seconds, which on one hand doesn’t do any favors for thieves looking for some AoE play, but on the other keeps venoms good at what they are: focusing down and bringing the pain to a single guy.

I don’t know it seem to me it wouldn’t make much difference between what we have now and your suggestion with the internal cd, (I just know anet wouldn’t do it without)
Spider venom, 6 strikes of poison, or 6 seconds with 1s seconds icd ( and I have a feeling they wouldn’t do a 1/2 icd either). Seem pretty much the same IMO.
On one hand we wouldn’t loose stacks because of blind, blocks and etc. On the other, we loose stacks if we can’t attack/being CC’d.

BobbyT.7192:

I don’t know it seem to me it wouldn’t make much difference between what we have now and your suggestion with the internal cd, (I just know anet wouldn’t do it without)
Spider venom, 6 strikes of poison, or 6 seconds with 1s seconds icd ( and I have a feeling they wouldn’t do a 1/2 icd either). Seem pretty much the same IMO.
On one hand we wouldn’t loose stacks because of blind, blocks and etc. On the other, we loose stacks if we can’t attack/being CC’d.

well for one, it makes venoms more active/reactive. you activate the venoms the second you want to use them, rather than preemptively, and the enemy reaction requires stopping the thief altogether, not just dodging/blinding once and calling it a day. that alone, to me, already gives venoms a bit more interesting play. you’d also stop losing venom stacks to unintentional cleave, allowing you to use venoms on any weapon set. assuming the venom prioritizes your target when you cleave, you’ll only trigger the ICD if your target avoids the hit but a secondary target gets hit.

for two, the idea is to have more than just a single one of these suggestions implemented to give venoms a serious impact. give residual venom a serious buff AND move venomous aura to DA so that you can pick between having your venoms last a really long time, or have venoms shared between the party. this gives thieves not one, but two strong venom options. venom share, which is already strong-ish on a coordinated team, or a “selfish” venom build, which can even be power specced if venomous strength is changed as suggested. you’d basically be rotating through your venoms one at a time to have a decent might upkeep while reaping the benefits of leeching venoms (healing ticks and extra damage from the life leech power scaling).

honestly, the ICD keeping things “relatively the same” is a boon. it keeps the idea from being too OP while also not having to have the venom active times be too fast to be useful. there would still be some reliance on traits to make them truly shine, but i think they’d be in a better place, especially with multipe of these suggestions implemented.

BrunoBRS.5178:

(you won’t run HP gear as a thief and you know it)

i do what i want mang
yolo queue for lyf

More seriously, Shaman’s is a functional alternative to Dire gear. I don’t think people will go full HP but they might consider it for a condi-oriented build (is condi/vit/healpower a spread?), because yeah it’s basically Dire except you give up the toughness for the healing power. It seems to be decent in WvW so it might have a place in sPvP; a very awkward, weird place which doesn’t fit any of the standing thief metas, but a place.

Sarrs.4831:

BrunoBRS.5178:

(you won’t run HP gear as a thief and you know it)

i do what i want mang
yolo queue for lyf

More seriously, Shaman’s is a functional alternative to Dire gear. I don’t think people will go full HP but they might consider it for a condi-oriented build (is condi/vit/healpower a spread?), because yeah it’s basically Dire except you give up the toughness for the healing power. It seems to be decent in WvW so it might have a place in sPvP; a very awkward, weird place which doesn’t fit any of the standing thief metas, but a place.

in PvE: a few dungeon sets and one named set have shaman’s gear. no straight up “shaman” lv80 exotics (i know, i tried making a shaman thief with signet of malice and assassin’s reward way back in the day).

in PvP: shaman isn’t even an option. there’s settler, which is the same as shaman but with toughness instead of vitality.

shaman is also primary vitality and secondary condi, so you’re sacrificing damage for a gimmicky AoE heal that’s still harder to pull than getting any generic water field blasted a few times with your shortbow. and if you want to use it alone, well, mug is a single, adept tier and it heals far more, hits far more reliably, and scales with healing far better too. and is on a lower cooldown.

point is, leeching venoms is pretty crappy. as are all life leech skills in this game.

I won’t post my exact build but I do have over 1,100 healing power on it being power orientated. Basically I turn leeching venoms into my damage and sustain for the group plus the fact that DV X3 applications X5 people is insane group control.

I’d say no to the first part because it would basically have to rework all the venoms to be balanced around an infinite application.

I’d say no to the 2nd part only because we don’t want to share the same issue LB ranger has with too many solid trait options in 1 trait line. Even though it makes zero sense to be tied to “shadow arts” it needs a place. Leeching venoms ties nicely to the healing power from its trait line and venomous aura requires you being near your allies which likely means frontline so the extra toughness from the trait line helps there too. I do wish leeching venoms applied off each unique venom application so that multiple venoms don’t share 1 charge but maybe its just a skill thing I don’t agree with.

I’d be all in favor of might on hit. Atm I feel like the might doesn’t make an impression unless I blow every single cd which leaves me completely vulnerable. It would be a nice buff to spider venom for sure.

NinjaEd.3946:

I won’t post my exact build but I do have over 1,100 healing power on it being power orientated. Basically I turn leeching venoms into my damage and sustain for the group plus the fact that DV X3 applications X5 people is insane group control.

I’d say no to the first part because it would basically have to rework all the venoms to be balanced around an infinite application.

I’d say no to the 2nd part only because we don’t want to share the same issue LB ranger has with too many solid trait options in 1 trait line. Even though it makes zero sense to be tied to “shadow arts” it needs a place. Leeching venoms ties nicely to the healing power from its trait line and venomous aura requires you being near your allies which likely means frontline so the extra toughness from the trait line helps there too. I do wish leeching venoms applied off each unique venom application so that multiple venoms don’t share 1 charge but maybe its just a skill thing I don’t agree with.

I’d be all in favor of might on hit. Atm I feel like the might doesn’t make an impression unless I blow every single cd which leaves me completely vulnerable.

there’s a reason i didn’t really touch on venomous aura itself. it’s because as a build, venom share is decent provided you have the group to validate it. and considering the infimal condition damage you apply with venoms (5 hours of poison and a few torment stacks are the most you can deal), i don’t think the condi damamge being calculated through the thief is that big of a deal, unless the damage venoms are getting reworked. keeping that high HP for leeching venoms also means you have to sacrifice quite a bit of power, which means the damage itself is probably nothing to write home about. it only proccing once per hit is something i actually think is right, because it’s kinda silly to just pop all your utilities at once and go from zero to full in 3 hits.

on timed venoms, someone pointed out ANet would probably give it an ICD, which means it would be about the same, except the usage of venoms is more active, and the counter to them is more than “dodge once and it’s all gone”. there would be little rework in the end, and untraited venoms would be slightly more effective. venoms do need to be reworked, because it’s clear they’re not working really well right now. the only way to make them decent is venom aura, otherwise they’re just crap. this suggestion tries to bring them up a bit without making venom aura too strong, but point is, something has to be done to how venoms work. they shouldn’t be balanced around the fact that venom aura will be brought, or else they’ll never be viable for anything else.

on venom aura being moved to DA, i think it’s good to promote choice (in fact, i think marksmanship is a great trait line, it has a lot of excellent choices that are good for different things, and all that without having every single LB trait stuck inside it). my suggestion is that you can either have a ton of venoms just for yourself through a buffed residual venom, or you can share your few venoms with everyone with venom aura, but not both. this would put venom aura in a trait line that makes sense, and promote choice in buildmaking, instead of “just go 6 DA and 6 SA if you want venoms. you get two points to choose what else to bring”. it opens up build diversity without making venom share suddenly OP with a team of people stacking dozens of immobilize everywhere.

leeching venoms staying on SA is probably better, yeah.

venomous strength being on hit would also benefit from the timed venoms instead of the current charge system, as the timed system itself benefits triggering one venom at a time, instead of trying to “burst” all your venoms at once, which i always thought was just bad play, as missing one hit becomes more punishing and you don’t get the benefits from leeching venoms.

Venoms aren’t meant for a condition build though. Just look at the conditions that venoms can apply. Immobilize, vulnerability, poison (hinder their healing). Venoms are quite literally a utility as they are. Its the build however that is lacking from any significant role. It does help no doubt, but its not very thought out aside from smashing button ands using your attacks to throw them onto enemies.

Things like you said, might on hit as opposed to might on activation would greatly improve the build. Relocating the traits into 1 trait line wouldn’t help that much because of how some of the traits work. You don’t have to go 6 into DA to make use of a venom build, in fact I’ve suggested they actually drop residual venom to master slot so if they want quicker recharge venoms or more of them (I also suggested a change to residual venoms, forgot the details though). Gives them more options without such a heavy investment.

From what I can recall on my long ago posts on the subject,

[Venoms]

-Spider venom- lowered poison duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased number of strikes from 5 to 8. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds. (Meant to aid in leeching venoms and help out with AoE attacks in case they are evaded).

-Ice drake venom- Changed to [Karka Venom]; your next 3 attacks transfer a condition to your foe. Cooldown remains at 45 seconds. (give more support to the build, which could also be utilized for non-venom share builds if they want to fight dirty).

-Devourer Venom- Venom duration reduced to 20 seconds.

-Skale venom- Increase number of strikes from 3 to 5. Reduced vulnerability duration from 10 to 8 seconds. Cooldown lowered to 40 seconds.

-Skelk Venom- Increased number of strikes from 4 to 6. Healing power scaling on strike heal increased from 0.2 to 0.5. Changed functionality, “you can only spend 1 strike per attack”( In other words, a cleave will only consume 1 charge). Cooldown remains at 45 seconds. Venom duration reduced to 10 seconds. The hps of this skill is quite awful because of the heavy risk it has if you miss. It has a cast time, and it has a very distinct icon when active so it should have a little more safety measures incorporated.

-Devourer venom- add functionality “your next attack is unblockable”. This skill has a cast time, a distinct icon, and doesn’t have the “elite” feel to it. Granted 1.5 seconds is a lot of time for a glass cannon to do something overall it doesn’t have a strong impact as an elite skill. A duration increase would be unfair at this point so removing 1 of the many counters towards it should help out.

[Venom traits]

-Venomous strength: (I did not make this, but my suggestion is kitten compared to this). Gain might for each unique venom strike you successfully execute. Might duration 10 seconds(?). Rewards successfully venom hits as opposed to pre casting venoms. Also buffs the venom support build by pumping out some high might stacks for allies.

-Quick venoms: additional functionality, “each successful venom strike lowers the cooldown of that venom by 1 second.” (For example, spider venom will not lower the cooldown of any other venom but itself). Another example to reward successful applications of the venoms. Small strike venoms won’t see much of a difference but its a dual function trait, it can’t be all mighty.

-Residual venoms: Lowered to Master triats of Deadly arts in replace of improvisation. New functionality, " venoms have lesser effects while on cooldown".
[Spider] 2 seconds of poison every 3rd consecutive attack.
[Skale] +10% condition duration.
[Skelk] 3 seconds of regeneration every 5th consecutive attack.
[Karka] -10% incoming condition duration when above 50% health.
[Devouer] Regenerate initiative at double the rate while disabled.
[Basilisk] +10% damage towards disabled enemies.

no longer grants 1 additional strike

-Improvisation: Moved to GM trait slot. Now on a successful steal, recharge 1 skill type of an equipped utility skill that is on cooldown. Added an ICD of 35 seconds. Ofcourse if no utility skill is on cooldown no effect. Reason this is being moved to GM is because a full deception set up or full venom set up basically gets a free ride with this trait. The bundle damage had no place in this trait because thief doesn’t have bundles, but the potential strength of blowing every utility skill and recharging them fully is very strong. To help balance things out a little, this skill has the ICD to limit abuse from 21 second recharges.

-Leeching venoms: Increased healing power scaling from 0.2 to 0.4 and increased the siphon damage scaling from 0.033 to 0.1. This trait is primarily for venom share but I feel like it could use some buff for those who wish to experiment with it for an alternate source of sustain that is less common and therefore more of a surprise to the enemy. *This effect will proc from the 3rd strike with spider venom on cooldown and the 5th strike from skelk venom on cooldown if you have residual venom’s trait equipped. *

-Venomous aura: Added functionality, “for each ally you grant a venom to, gain condition duration”. +5% condition duration per ally, max cap at 25%. Duration of condition duration bonus 6 seconds. Effect will not refresh on new venom application until the previous effect expired. This effect does not apply to the venom you applied to gain this effect.

This is meant to reward the thief for maximizing the venom benefits but the short window means it comes down to a quick execution. Since the upcoming changes to venomous aura will work off the thief’s own stats, you get 6 seconds to spend those venom charges if you want to maximize this benefit. This also rewards the thief for using the venoms at the best possible moment as opposed to pre casting them and letting the venom duration tick down for your venoms to be almost off cooldown by the time it wears off.

-Slowed pulse- Removed for being easily out done by shadow protector for stealth based builds. For venom based builds a new trait is introduced [Inspiring Venoms] Gain healing power for each equipped venom. Healing power per venom 40. Like deep strike except for a venom support build. Self using venom builds wouldn’t look into this for the low pay out but a heavy invested venom build would get a nice bonus from this (up to 200 extra healing power). Being a adept major trait it gets a nice set up towards the end of the trait line without being overpowering towards lesser investments.

NinjaEd.3946:

Venoms aren’t meant for a condition build though. Just look at the conditions that venoms can apply. Immobilize, vulnerability, poison (hinder their healing). Venoms are quite literally a utility as they are. Its the build however that is lacking from any significant role. It does help no doubt, but its not very thought out aside from smashing button ands using your attacks to throw them onto enemies.

Things like you said, might on hit as opposed to might on activation would greatly improve the build. Relocating the traits into 1 trait line wouldn’t help that much because of how some of the traits work. You don’t have to go 6 into DA to make use of a venom build, in fact I’ve suggested they actually drop residual venom to master slot so if they want quicker recharge venoms or more of them (I also suggested a change to residual venoms, forgot the details though). Gives them more options without such a heavy investment.

venoms aren’t for condi builds, yes, but people acted like venoms proccing out of your own condi damage would be a big deal. and i think you’re looking at it wrong. there should be more than one type of venom build, and venoms should be able to stand on their own with minimal or no trait investment (like 90% of utilities in this game), and get stronger through traits.

case in point, i think residual venom giving thieves far more charges (or time) would finally give solo thieves a good venom build, especially with the might per hit. if you couple that with the addition of a single new venom that deals condi damage (bleeding, burning, confusion, whatever), and venoms would be able to be taken on a condi build as well.

what’s important is giving builds other than venom share a shot, and venom share being on SA is what holds back buffs to residual venom, which is a trash trait, and giving untraited venoms the ability to stand on their own.

i don’t think having a trait that turns venoms into passive, signet-esque utilities is a good idea, at all. what this game needs is more active use of skills being rewarded, not staying strong even when stuff is on cooldown, because otherwise, why would you ever have your venoms sitting there instead of being constantly on CD?

Some venoms do stand on their own, but you never slot a utility skill without it contributing to your build in more than 1 way. No class has a complete set of utility skills that pull their weight without some investment, venoms are the thieves build of choice. Karka venom like I said would be for non-venom builds because of the condi clear that they more than often need, DV already stands on its own as does BV. Spider skale and skelk however do not, but traited could work as such.

It would be nice to see more skills for once, so a new venom could be useful but I doesn’t change the fact that venoms are a majority of the time used as utility. Skale is the only outlier and it doesn’t even fulfill that well, a lower cooldown though with more charges could certainly help and that is without an investment.

I agree that residual venom is a trash trait, which is why I suggested the addition of charges to certain venoms while giving the venoms themselves a lasting effect. The numbers and the effects are open to changes but my thought on residual venom is you put out this quick little burst which may or may not help, but now you’re stuck with this long cooldown.

Slotting a few venoms you have very few choices for the other slots such as a stun breaker or teleport or stealth. Prior such an investment would make you rather glassy (6 trait points) so I decided with such a huge buff to improvisation and trying to make venoms less of a drastic build you get the choice, quicker venoms or a form of defense built into it. With leeching venoms (4 trait points) and residual venoms (4 trait points) you could make a self venom build relying on life siphon and some utility or even just slot in skelk venom to maintain the regeneration proc.

The only reason I suggested that change for residual venom is because it was a lousy trait but also some venoms really don’t have an impact on a fight. They do their thing real quick and its over. Having multiple counters (cleaving evaded, blind, etc) you could basically deny an entire utility/elite/healing skill and in some cases it was a harsh punishment. Atleast this way you could maintain some lasting benefit and you wouldn’t need to invest heavy into venoms such as 6/x/6/x/x.

I’ll rework the trait’s description a little.

-Residual venom: Venoms have a lesser effect after they are spent. Duration 10 seconds.

(effects posted above).

More of a window now as opposed to a permanent bonus that you would keep over the venom. Still, a full venom build loses out on stun breaking and valuable teleports and/or stealth. I feel like if you spec’ed hard enough into it there should be some benefit in the event that you are completely countered since there are so many ways to spend a venom charge without it proc’ing.

basilisk venom is really the only venom that stands on its own, and that’s because dagger storm is kinda crappy and thieves guild has diminishing returns the more people are involved in the fight. all the other venoms, even the immobilize venom, deal too little on too long of a cooldown to be chosen over literally any of the tricks and deceptions and half the signets. to me, a venom doesn’t count as standing on its own unless it’s a viable, useful choice of utility without any trait, and with only one of its kind slotted. caltrops? it’s good soft CC/area denial. smoke bomb? projectile block and smoke field on a good cooldown. infiltrator’s signet? good passive and active effects that are a favorite of any thief. shadow refuge? the thing is practically glued to any thief’s utility slot and almost no one traits for faster deceptions. and so on.

like i said, i don’t like your alternative to residual venoms, because it’s basically a reverse signet, one that benefits you for being on cooldown, which in turn removes any play or choice. why would i not pop a venom as soon as i can? i mean, the charges last a good amount of time, and i get a passive, weaker effect while the cooldown is charging. that’s bad design.

and improvisation only really rewards slotting only one type of utility. it’s a pretty meh trait, which only sees play in PvE dungeons when paired with conjure weapons.

if you say some venoms have no impact on a fight without traits, then you’re basically agreeing with me that venoms can’t stand on their own.

venom builds already have the benefit of having a venom elite. you should be able to spec into venoms and still leave a slot for a stunbreaker, for example, or not feeling forced into skelk venom. the problem is that the only thing you can do with venoms is use venomous aura, a trait only useful on WvW, and thieves on WvW are mostly solo roamers, since a party would slow them down, and a zerg fight would be bad for them (GWEN meta and all that).

Venoms just need to be redesigned completelys togehter with the Thief cas as a class design change.

ANet should remove Stealth from F1 and make Steal instead an Automatism, that can happen up to 3x (if traited to get more Steal Slots for Stolen Skills), happening automatically at a certain chance that gets influenced by that thief trait line, that currently reduces the steal cool down time. after the change it increases the chance for a Steal to automatically happen as long you have a free Steal Slot that isn’t filled with a Stolen Skill.

Basilisk Venoms gets completely exchanged with a new Elite Skill.
The Healing Venom gets also replaced by a new more offensive Healing Skill that plays like a little weaker version of Thieves Guild/ A.E.D, like summoning Shadow Doppelgangers, which heal if they get killed and healy you strong, if you would receive a deadly hit, before they die.

The current Utility Skill Venoms get then exchanged by 4 new Chakra Utility Skills and the Venoms then get put under F1 to F2 as gameplay changing venoms, whose effects have a direct influence on the weapon skill sets of the thief based on which weapon they use.

F1 = Rat Venom = Life Leeching Effects + Blindness Skill Improvements
F2 = Snake Venom = Chill + Immobilize Skill Improvements
F3 = Spider Venom = Cripple + Poison Skill Improvements
F4 = Scorpion Venom = Vulnerability + Confusion Skill Improvements

Example: D/D Thief activates Scorpion Venom.

The Skill Bar of said thief will change then for the duration of the venom from

1) Dual Strike > Wild Strike > Lotus Strike
2) Heart Seeker
3) Death Blossom
4) Dancing Dagger
5) Cloak and Dagger

to this:

1) Malicious Strike > Attack a foe and deal extra damage per every Condition and Stack of Condition that the foe is suffering on. Deals a Stack of short durationed Confusion that can reach with AA Spam up to 4 Stacks
2) Heart Stabber > Perform a very quick frontal stab to the heart, thats unblockable and lets your Foe suffer from Vulnerability. 1 Stack per every 10% of Max Health that the victim has left over. Exampl 50% health left = 5 Stacks of Vulnerability dealt to that foe.
3) Augury of Death > get into a defensive Stance, that lets you parry the next incoming attack and counter attack with a deadly strike that lets your foe suffer on Vulnerability and Confusiion. A successful counterattack grants you also Fury and puts you after the counter attack into Stealth for 3 seconds
4) Blades of Steel >Throws some shurikens after your target in a fan shape hitting with them all foes in a line of sight as they pierce through and cause targets to suffer on Vulnerability, if their health was above 50%
5) Iron Palm > Shadow Step to your target and punch them them with the full force of your first out of your movement. Knocks back foes, if they suffer on a condition and deals increased damage, if the foe was either weakened, dazed or confused.

Venoms wouldn’t have hit scalings then anymore, but would work under duration times.
Each Venom would have for each Weapon a different skill that becomes useable, when the venoms get used.
Only 1 Venom useable at any given time then. If you exchange the venoms while in combat, the last used venom will go into cooldown time.

That way would become thieves alot more fun and interestign to play, because the<’d be alot more unpreditable then and would have more strategetically options in comat to change their combat styles with the help of their venoms with shpould be a much bigger inetral part of the whole thief gameplay, than thay currently are as way to weak utility skills.

Orpheal.8263:

snip

come on man, you know they won’t scrap the entire profession and rebuild it from scratch, so let’s try and keep suggestions on the realm of possibility.

Thats absolutely a thing of possibility in the realm of an expansion or a next bigger feature pack.

Maybe not all Venoms reworked at once, but perhaps 1 after another over the course of 4 patches would be also an option.
See I used also mostly only old Assassin Skills in that example from GW1.
So it isn’t also that hard to come up with new skillls for the Venoms.

But the way I want to see Venoms gettign used for the thief, that way they would be at least a real integral part of the thief gameplay and not just only a silly mostly weak utility.

Anet also has to rebuild basically the Ranger from scratch due to their crappy pet system and as long ANet doesn’t do that, Rangers won’t be ever accepted really in this game.
So when they do that for Rangers, why not also improve gameplay mechanisms of the other classes too to make them playing more fun and comfortable as with my system, you wouldn’t have to constantly switch out venoms anymore to change your builds..

You would have just all of your venoms under the F-Buttons ready for use at just only the cost, that you could from that moment on use only maximum 1 Venom at any time and not anymore multiple venoms together, what makes litterally condi thieves a little bit OP, especially with traits like Venomous Aura sharign all of them to nearby allies.

@ Bruno

The residual effect would only take effect if there is no active venom, so if you pre casted the venom you wouldn’t get any residual effect until you spent all the charges. Even so, I decided a full reverse signet is a little poor for a class all about quick decisions so I lowered the residual effect to 10 seconds.

Improvisation most certainly would not only reward single type skills. It would recharge any utility skill type on cooldown. Say you have skelk venom, blinding powder, shadow refuge and skale venom (some sort of life siphon build) and you pop skale venom. Knowing you plan to steal, you also put on skelk venom and steal, it isn’t applying to deception skills. The potential strength of double utility is really high, I’m not sure you feel its potential.

I’m saying some venoms do not stand on their own, that doesn’t mean all venoms are kitten without an investment. Could they all use a little help w/o traits? Yes but viable doesn’t always mean best in slot. For stealth purposes I wouldn’t say smoke screen is weak just because I could use blinding powder. Blinding powder is just easier to use and has stealth on demand vs needing a combo (and initiative) but it still works in its own way.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Orpheal.8263:

snip

come on man, you know they won’t scrap the entire profession and rebuild it from scratch, so let’s try and keep suggestions on the realm of possibility.

Well, but a total rework is needed for the Thief.
If it isn’t a possibility for ANet right now, then they have to shift ressources or hire new staff in order to make it a possibility.

Sometimes stuff just doesn’t work out as you think, and Thief is something like that right now. I cannot name a single class in any multiplayer game who has no cooldowns. And the reason is quite simple:
You will always use just the strongest skill you have.

How often have I seen complains about Dancing Dagger.
Dancing Dagger is and was always a fine skill, which does exactly what it is meant to do. Allowing you to chase targets. And then you have skills like Infiltrators Strike, which just teleports you directly ontop of the target, does more damage, immobilizes and gives you a retreat option.

And using Dancing Dagger once, removes Initiative which I could have spent on Infiltrators Strike instead.

Basically all weapon choices except maybe Bow have their one or two defining skills, and the others just get ignored as if they aren’t on your weapon bar.
And that just shows that the current system doesn’t work for Thief.

i just came up with an interesting idea
if venoms should get some aoe effect why not leave it as it is and add
the two enemies closest to the target (within range of 160 or some mellee range) will also get the condition (life leach)
it would encourage players to spread even more
in wvw it would be knda strong but each venom stack can only trigger on three targets max so not tooo strong i think

and yeah..

Varonth.5830:

snip

you… don’t sound like you play thief much. and you see plenty of complains about dancing daggers, from thieves themselves. we want our sets to be complete, to have 5 useful skills like everyone else in the game. initiative isn’t something designed around spamming the same skill (something you’ll notice thieves complain about in sets like P/P), it’s about keeping thief flexible and with access to all tools, so long as he plays his cards right. like you pointed out, spending initiative on one skill hinders the thief’s ability to use it on another. so if i place a crappy black powder, i now can’t pistol whip. a skill that has not been used is put on a (short) cooldown even if you don’t use it.

thieves are not getting deleted and completely reworked from scratch, and the sooner you accept this, the sooner we can go back to discussing how to make the current thief work. from where i’m standing, thief is in a good place, save for two weapon sets that need fixing, and a few utility subtypes that are just crap. this thread is about one of those utilities.

if you want to ask for thief to be redesigned from the ground up, then please make a different thread.

NinjaEd.3946:

@ Bruno

The residual effect would only take effect if there is no active venom, so if you pre casted the venom you wouldn’t get any residual effect until you spent all the charges. Even so, I decided a full reverse signet is a little poor for a class all about quick decisions so I lowered the residual effect to 10 seconds.

Improvisation most certainly would not only reward single type skills. It would recharge any utility skill type on cooldown. Say you have skelk venom, blinding powder, shadow refuge and skale venom (some sort of life siphon build) and you pop skale venom. Knowing you plan to steal, you also put on skelk venom and steal, it isn’t applying to deception skills. The potential strength of double utility is really high, I’m not sure you feel its potential.

I’m saying some venoms do not stand on their own, that doesn’t mean all venoms are kitten without an investment. Could they all use a little help w/o traits? Yes but viable doesn’t always mean best in slot. For stealth purposes I wouldn’t say smoke screen is weak just because I could use blinding powder. Blinding powder is just easier to use and has stealth on demand vs needing a combo (and initiative) but it still works in its own way.

the problem is when shadow refuge is already on cooldown, then it’s a gamble: will the venoms i want recharge? or will shadow refuge recharge? what if smokescreen recharges? i really don’t need smokescreen right now, but there are 10 seconds until the CD recharges. improvisation is too much of a gamble.

i still think adding a secondary passive play instead of improving the active effects is pretty meh. residual venom’s idea is good, it’s just too weak because you can take it alongside venomous aura, and you just can’t have people proccing 50 poisons or 20 immobilizes everywhere. that’s why i think they should force venom players to choose. the moment you can’t take venomous aura and residual venom, the latter is allowed to be buffed to viability, AND venom builds get to choose a playstyle, AND venom builds get to spend less than freaking 90% of our trait points on venoms alone.

and i’m saying the venoms are crap without traits. on ToL yesterday, a thief was using smokescreen for some really interesting plays. it’s not a bad skill, it’s just overshadowed. venoms, however, are just bad. there’s no way around it, an untraited venom is a bad venom, and completely worthless in a utility bar. at best, a condi thief can bring skale venom to cover his conditions, since it applies two condis instead of one. and that’s the best untraited venoms can hope to be, hiding bleeds once every 45 seconds.

@ Bruno

I was thinking about that, and a simple (thought) on it would be it prioritizes either the skill type with the most of its kind on cooldown or it would prioritize the most recent skill type used. It would still focus only on utility skills, but the effect would cross over to SoM or skelk venom if their respective skill types were used in the utility slot. It lets the thieves know what skills they can expect to use last in an effort to make the most out of Improvisation combo instead of the rng element we face with it now.

Reason I’m against the idea of double venoms is it would be impossible to balance DV without destroying it non-traited. BV really goes nowhere with this trait, ice drake sucks still. The whole point is venoms can be easily tossed out if the enemy knows what they’re doing so in a smaller scale setting (self venom build) you could still end up throwing a 45 second cooldown at them with 0 benefit and 0 alternative uses. I believe if the route the thief wants to take is venoms for themselves then it should be strong internally and not just throwing more chances for them to waste.

For example, pop skale venom to get some stacks on them, now enter stealth for a sneak attack with a bonus condition duration. BV on a power build can become even more deadly with say s/p with only 4 trait points for such a bonus. Skelk can work towards a life siphon build mixed with spider and pump out a heavy regeneration duration with constant healing (would be atleast 8 trait points for such a set up).

You won’t be going as heavy into venoms but you will see a great bonus for doing so and if you wish go 4 points further to turn that into a support build. The most likely reason why venoms overall don’t get the stand alone flashy feel is because they’re an offensive utility. I mean look at ranger traps, they are pretty bad without a few traits into them, engineer offensive turrets are the same, necromancer minions are the same, etc.

People flock to the more defensive utilities because they use their traits/runes/sigils/weapons to do the damage for the most part, thief is almost dependent on skills like SS and either another stun breaker or stealth just to stay on top of things so requiring an investment would be horrible for those kinds of things. Offensive though you’re adding more to a list of things you can already do, and while venoms do need some help they shouldn’t be at an A+ without an investment or it would get Q.Q really quick.

the idea of improvisation allowing you to quickly recharge whatever last skill type you just used could probably be exploited and become too strong. people already complain thieves “have no CD on weapon skills”, if we can suddenly recharge whatever we feel like every 20 seconds, there would be an outrage. improvisation is crap because of its randomness, but give us control and it becomes the other problem.

i think you have the wrong mentality. if the thief screwed up the venom applications, he shouldn’t have a trait going “it’s ok, you can keep on trying passively”. the idea of double charges in itself doesn’t do much, yeah, but if you can get might on hit with venoms, then it becomes really strong. yes, it would still be a case of a trait that’s only as good as the other traits you bring with it, but it would mean far more interesting plays that rewards effectiveness.

plus, your system just overcomplicates things too much. you’re basically turning venoms into entirely different things while on cooldown. can you imagine the size of that tooltip? it would make arcane ele tooltips pale in comparison. no, the idea is that the change is meaningful, but clear cut and simple. something like +300 power while a venom is active or whatever, but i still think the idea of merely strengthening the current iteration of residual venom would be the best.

ice drake venom will remain crap until they change the skill to do something else. they added torment to skale venom on top of the previous vulnerability, so who knows? the venoms themselves need improvement anyway. i suggested the time frame thing, which means that now venoms wouldn’t be entirely wasted on a miss, but you have only a few seconds to make the most of it. changing the cooldowns so they don’t all share the same (high) cooldown of 45 seconds would be another improvement. if the venoms themselves are better, having twice as many charges would be, like i suggested, the “selfish” alternative to just sharing the venoms with everyone. you get more control over how venoms get applied and more effectiveness when solo, but in a group scenario it might be better to share venoms instead. it creates a meaningful choice when building your character.

and yes, venoms would still require some traits to add them the support/defense that thieves usually associate with their utilities, but even if you reserve a slot to shadow refuge and one to a stun breaker, you could still bring basilisk venom and another one, and maybe even a buffed skelk venom, with you without feeling like a waste. the idea is that venoms become useful alone, powerful when traited. like ranger survival skills. you don’t mind bringing entangle or quickening zephyr or lightning reflexes or whatever without traiting into them, but when you do trait into them, they truly shine. and ideally, all utilities would be like that, for all professions.

It would have an ICD to a 0 cd reduced steal, but if need be could go further so a combo like that cannot be over used (90 seconds?) I acknowledge the potential exploit in it which is why I suggested a ICD on it.

I don’t see how adding double charges is any different from a 10 second window (again, could be reduced further but the effects would need an improvement for such a short window). If they screw up a hit or 2, double charges just lets them keep going at it. Sure the might on venom strike helps it seem more like an active effect but its in the same boat of giving them more chances. Also these aren’t literal lesser effects of those venoms, these are small stat bonuses for a short time to use them for something. It would have zero effect on allies effected by your venoms, it would be only for the thief themselves.

Tooltips don’t always display trait effects, VoJ on guardian doesn’t display vulnerability if you trait blind exposure for example (I bet I could find more but that’s not the point). Steal already turns from a 1 line description to a full page with a trickery spec, so tool tips are hardly the issue.

See karka venom. In any case, ice drake cannot be buffed because of how it behaves. You start adding 5, 6 w/e charges or increase the duration next thing its going to be a chill spam build somehow with 10+ second chill applications. Ice drake venom also conflicts with devourer venom in the control department, we don’t need redudent utility skills especially in the same category. We already have a poison and torment venom, burn makes no sense thematically on a thief, a confusion venom just sounds odd and bleed would just seem redudent on a thief kit because we have so much of it already (and it is easy to accidently override since almost everyone has a ton of it). Best option is to turn it into a utility rather than more DoT or some other condition we already have a ton of. Remember you want something to add to a build that isn’t just a copy of you other skills, it has to be unique. Karka venom is just a suggestion, but really the main idea is a utility.

Skelk venom just seems like it can’t be utilized without a build. It has potential as it is and traits would only allow it to function better. The fact that it is on hit on a long cooldown putting out more hits just makes you live a few seconds longer, it really doesn’t help the venoms role as a healing skill slot. It needs something to pull its weight even if it means a small investment.

I like idea of residual venom and venoumous aura sharing trait line, and making them bit stronger ,choice – help my self or a team is a good 1.
Not sure if giving venoms effets as necros well’s would be too much in this case but it would sure make it more interseting…
And to differentiate i would give traps some combo fields and larger area of effect.

A friend of mine has proven celestial venomshare as a very effective aggressive support build. I suspect Carrion + Apothecary will prove to be a very effective build after the patch. When paired with a group of five, a venomshare thief can execute 105 procs of leeching venoms. This yields absolutely astronomical burst potential for your party from LV with well-timed casts, and can easily sustain your party’s health over a battle, as each player will be healing for above 10k per person, meanwhile applying a substantial number of torment stacks and poison for heal cutting, chills, interrupts/hard CC from BV, etc. Meanwhile, the VS thief also gets 10 stacks of might over this duration for a period of time, and can use TotC for party-wide might, fury, and swiftness on engage.

I think the main issue with venoms is the lack of potential it has for individual play, and how deadlocked a VS thief is in traits in order to make them effective. With some streamlined traits to allow more diversity, the utilities could probably take off and have much more of an effect/presence in the game.

That’s how my GF’s brother plays a venomshare build, too. Offence-support, being extremely aggressive about it, sometimes helping overload a target on conditions, sometimes providing a steady stream. In 5v5 encounters or smaller it tends to shut down most cleansing abilities because there’s just too much coming in too regularly.

It also helps that nearly all of the debuffs are really powerful in the combination they’re provided. The mix of our power-based burst and his conditions (soon with better raw damage!) is pretty nasty.

Also, our team of 3 makes an amazing highway patrol. They can’t escape us, they can’t fight us, and alone facing both power burst and condi spam they don’t stand a chance. They can fight back versus one of the incoming effects, but not all.

It’s ofc pure support. Solo, it’s rubbish. And I think that’s the problem with venoms, their solo use is too weak.

I’d prefer it if each application of each venom was stronger, but in turn had less charges, and then venom aura only shared a single shot (of the stronger venom!). Same group-given power, but far better individual potential.

Also, too many traits. But that’s an issue half the skills in the game have, the huge disparity between base and traited power.

DeceiverX.8361:

Meanwhile, the VS thief also gets 10 stacks of might over this duration for a period of time, and can use TotC for party-wide might, fury, and swiftness on engage.

If you’re sharing those venoms, I’m fairly sure your buddies get those might stacks as well?

Probably already been said, but Vemons can never be really nicely balanced for solo use as long as Vemon Share is in the game in it’s current form, because if you take a set of perfetly good skills they will clearly be OP as kitten when you (litterally) make them 5x better with a single trait.

So either they have to remain pretty poor for solo use, or Vemon Share needs to be reworked (something like shared vemons only have one use, or maybe just a tiny share radius to make it hard to use) to allow them to be properly buffed.

Cufufalating.8479:

Probably already been said, but Vemons can never be really nicely balanced for solo use as long as Vemon Share is in the game in it’s current form, because if you take a set of perfetly good skills they will clearly be OP as kitten when you (litterally) make them 5x better with a single trait.

So either they have to remain pretty poor for solo use, or Vemon Share needs to be reworked (something like shared vemons only have one use, or maybe just a tiny share radius to make it hard to use) to allow them to be properly buffed.

It depends on what the venom does. For example, increase the number of hits on spider venom to help leeching venoms. The venom itself wouldn’t be exciting but for self sustain (which could be translated to group sustain) and it helps both without actually putting out some nasty DoT. Same with skelk venom, it should be smaller heals but a lot of them so being evaded or blocked or blinded doesn’t cut out a significant portion of a could be heal especially considering how long of a cooldown it is and requiring a cast time. I’d much prefer a longer sustaining venom than the quick burst that all of them share. DV, BV are the only 2 that I think should remain a burst because they are CC realated, ice drake needs to be changed because it just can’t work without being incredibly OP or incredibly weak (as it is now).

Cufufalating.8479:

Probably already been said, but Vemons can never be really nicely balanced for solo use as long as Vemon Share is in the game in it’s current form, because if you take a set of perfetly good skills they will clearly be OP as kitten when you (litterally) make them 5x better with a single trait.

So either they have to remain pretty poor for solo use, or Vemon Share needs to be reworked (something like shared vemons only have one use, or maybe just a tiny share radius to make it hard to use) to allow them to be properly buffed.

i mentioned it on another discussion on the subject on the thief forums, but i think that if you could add side effects to venoms when you trait venomous aura, the issue would be greatly reduced.

example:

untraited venoms have now a 30s base cooldown and an extra charge each.

traiting venomous aura increases the CD back to 45 base and reduces the amount of base charges by one, essentially giving it the current version of venoms, which have been balanced around venom share builds.

couple that with venomous aura on deadly arts (essentially freeing residual venom to be buffed, as well as not holding so many trait points hostage, on top of being on the trait line that boosts condi duration), and i think venoms would finally be allowed to take off.

i’d still love 1 stack of might per successful hit on venomous strength, that trait is pretty crappy right now unless you burst all your venoms at once, which is a waste of leeching venoms, and i don’t think encouraging thieves to blow all their CDs at once is right anyway.