Guild Wars 2

Note: After some feedback from the boards, I’ve posted an updated version of this later on in the thread. I’m just leaving this here for the sake of continuity.

Similar to what I proposed for venom’s a while back

Venoms in general – 15s CD (excluding Basilisk Venom), Both passive and active effect. No internal CD on passive effect. Passive effect is base 20%(Might need adjusting?) chance to trigger

Spider venom –
Passive: Poisons for 2s.
Active: Poisons 3 times for 2s a piece, bleeds 3 times for 6s a piece.

Devourers Venom –
Passive: Cripples for 2s, vulnerability for 4s.
Active: Immobilizes 1 time for 3s

Ice Drake Venom –
Passive: Torment for 2s.
Active: Chill 3 times for 1.5s, torments 3 times for 4s a piece

Skale Venom –
Passive: Burning for 1s
Active: Burning 3 times for 2s,

Basilisk Venom (CD unchanged)
Passive: weakness for 1s
Active: Stun 1 times for 1s

Traits:
Potent Poison: Unchanged
Venomous Strength: Gain 1 stack of might for 4 to 5s every time a venom triggers (included passive and active triggers)
Quick Venoms: No longer lose the passive effect of venom’s when they’re on CD, 20% faster venom CD
Residual Venom: 15% greater passive trigger chance.
Leeching venoms: Effect reduced by a great degree – the venoms I’ve designed above trigger much, much more often, so the additional damage/heal would need to be reduced alot
Venomous Aura: Bigger radius, includes passive trigger chance while in radius as well, otherwise unchanged.

Spider venom is a good all around venom (poison is useful), and the active is good for Condi specs.
Devourer venom is tailored for Direct damage specs, but condi specs might find use in cripple and immob
Ice Drake Venom and Skale venom are tailored for condi specs, and basilisk venom is tailored for Direct Damage.

Maybe some of the specific numbers up there need to be adjusted a bit via playtesting, but there we go – Venoms that work well by themselves, Are worth spec’ing into, and work well with both Power/Crit setups And Condition setups. Best of all, they work well with our high hit volume attacks (PW, Unload), opening up new avenues for Condition based P/P or S/P. Heck, you could turn Shbow into a team fight condition weapon with the above venoms and the right spec.

Edit: Don’t let the actual numbers bother you – I’m sure there would be some playtesting required to expose any imbalances/poorly thought out hard numbers. This post is more about the idea behind it all – turning venoms into a consistent trickle of effects rather than frontloaded garbage that gets immediately cleansed and is then useless for 30-40s

I wouldn’t be opposed to venoms having a passive effect, but it would have to be much less than what you’ve listed. Something like every 10th attack, or 20% chance with a 5 second cooldown would be fair.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

I wouldn’t be opposed to venoms having a passive effect, but it would have to be much less than what you’ve listed. Something like every 10th attack, or 20% chance with a 5 second cooldown would be fair.

How would that be fair, and not completely useless? The passive effects last between 1s and 2s because they’re designed to trigger alot. If venoms triggered once every 10 attacks, or had a 5 second CD, they’d be exactly the same as they are now – not worth slotting. The point is to turn venoms into something useful – consistent condition pressure. Spacing out the applications leaves us where we are now, frontloading a bunch of effects which expire quickly/are instantly cleansed, leaving you with a useless skill on long CD.

While I do agree venoms need a major overhaul, I do agree with what EnemyCrusher said, almost perma-poison. perma-chill on with a thief roaming group IE venom share builds would create a world of QQ on these forums… They are already super deadly in sPvP.. 4 P/P thieves with Venom Share DESTROY any group and easily 1 shot people.

Spammable condi-passives on a class with already spammable attacks, not good.

Venomous Strength: Gain 1 stack of might for 4 to 5s every time a venom triggers (included passive and active triggers) – you are looking at 3 venoms on a venom build, all 3 would trigger with each attack, unload is 8 attacks in like 2 seconds so you are talking about perma-20+ stacks of might just from 1 trait… not OP at all..

How I would fix it – Reduce cooldowns (20-25s), widen area for Venom Aura. Ice drake 3s chill. Skale 5 stacks of Vuln for 5s.

LilMcGinley.3890:

While I do agree venoms need a major overhaul, I do agree with what EnemyCrusher said, almost perma-poison. perma-chill on with a thief roaming group IE venom share builds would create a world of QQ on these forums… They are already super deadly in sPvP.. 4 P/P thieves with Venom Share DESTROY any group and easily 1 shot people.

Spammable condi-passives on a class with already spammable attacks, not good.

Venomous Strength: Gain 1 stack of might for 4 to 5s every time a venom triggers (included passive and active triggers) – you are looking at 3 venoms on a venom build, all 3 would trigger with each attack, unload is 8 attacks in like 2 seconds so you are talking about perma-20+ stacks of might just from 1 trait… not OP at all..

How I would fix it – Reduce cooldowns (20-25s), widen area for Venom Aura. Ice drake 3s chill. Skale 5 stacks of Vuln for 5s.

Like I said, perhaps the numbers need to be adjusted – it’s more the thought process behind it than the actual numbers.

Also, 4 P/P thieves running Venom share in a 5 man team would be an instant loss. You’re talking about grouping 4 squishy players together in a way AoE could only dream of, and not taking any strategy other than “Zerg the point”, which doesn’t work. No team in the game runs 4 copies of the same spec, no matter how effective it is, for a reason.

And I’m sorry, are you saying Venom share is already “Super deadly” in PvP, or P/P? Because while that’s not true in either case, it’s ridiculously untrue in the case of P/P, a thief’s most useless weaponset.

Your analysis is “20 stacks of might from1 trait” isn’t accurate – its 1 trait, on each player, for 4 players, and only for as long as they can keep spamming unload AND connecting with it (And again, in a situation that would never happen – 4 thieves running the exact same spec sticking close to eachother). HGH engi’s can pull that off on themselves solo.

Your suggestion doesn’t fix venoms – it just makes them marginally less kittenty. You’re still talking about a utility that frontloads 1 easily cleansed condition in 2-3 attacks and is then useless for the rest of the CD.

Edit: Also, I Don’t see Venom share stacking in that manner – just make it so that each player can be affected by a max of 1 type of each shared venom (IE, 4 thieves running Spider Venom counts as 1 “spider venom effect” being shared, which means 1 chance per hit to trigger spider venom, not 4 separate chances)

Are you a thief, because you want to make them godly.

Poison stacks duration and a thief can attack once per second, reducing the effectiveness of heals and making the thief able to easily take out any class, easier than the other class could take them out. Cripple and vulnerability would make the thief hit much harder and in pvp or WvW there would be no chance of running, making thief god tier. Burning on every attack would be ridiculous. and finally applying a perma weakness so that no class could ever fight back against these changes. This would propel the thief to stand miles above the rest of the classes.

No class inflicts conditions like that on basic attacks, they either needs to spec into it, or the engi can use his kits at the cost of giving up one of his other skills; and even then the elixir gun is the only one that can cause conditions anywhere close to that without being speced for it. Combine these passives with the already high dps of the thief and initiative over CD of their skills and no one would ever be able to beat a thief.

evilapprentice.6379:

Like I said, perhaps the numbers need to be adjusted – it’s more the thought process behind it than the actual numbers.

Also, 4 P/P thieves running Venom share in a 5 man team would be an instant loss. You’re talking about grouping 4 squishy players together in a way AoE could only dream of, and not taking any strategy other than “Zerg the point”, which doesn’t work.

- I agree although I did say sPvP, not tPvP. I’ve seen these groups farm rank points and it’s pretty stupid to watch. Even small roaming teams in WvW come out to the same effect.

And I’m sorry, are you saying Venom share is already “Super deadly” in PvP, or P/P? Because while that’s not true in either case, it’s ridiculously untrue in the case of P/P, a thief’s most useless weaponset.

- Both but separately. I brought up P/P in this because of the “gain might” trait, and unload, which is a thieves best attack/second, since you don’t have any internal CDs, this would proc an insane amount of times. Not to mention you can trait for might on Dodge, might on activation. Venom share is nice in WvW in roaming groups because of the Immob/Stun effects, if you can share the passives, it’d be pretty insane.

Your analysis is “20 stacks of might from1 trait” isn’t accurate – its 1 trait, on each player, for 4 players. HGH engi’s can pull that off on themselves solo.

- This takes skill no? (I haven’t played my engi in months, sorry) It’s not traited in. If I can get 1 stack of might for a proc of a passive, on 3 skills with NO internal cooldown, 8 attacks, 1.75s. Even at a 33% chance to proc that’s 3 proc PER venom per unload, 9 stacks of might in under 2 seconds. I only brought this up as a “worst-case” because people will abuse it, which is something to think about when introducing class altering ideas.

Added my responses in.. like I said. I do like adding some kind of passive, but no other class has 2 sets of passives, reserved for Signets in all cases.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

Are you a thief, because you want to make them godly.

Poison stacks duration and a thief can attack once per second, reducing the effectiveness of heals and making the thief able to easily take out any class, easier than the other class could take them out. Cripple and vulnerability would make the thief hit much harder and in pvp or WvW there would be no chance of running, making thief god tier. Burning on every attack would be ridiculous. and finally applying a perma weakness so that no class could ever fight back against these changes. This would propel the thief to stand miles above the rest of the classes.

No class inflicts conditions like that on basic attacks, they either needs to spec into it, or the engi can use his kits at the cost of giving up one of his other skills; and even then the elixir gun is the only one that can cause conditions anywhere close to that without being speced for it. Combine these passives with the already high dps of the thief and initiative over CD of their skills and no one would ever be able to beat a thief.

Necro or condi Engi would be close, but slightly less condi. The condi on passives would need a decent proc CD (5s) for this to work…

I do agree – thieves can’t get highest burst damage, stealth, highest mobility AND biggest condition pressure.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

Are you a thief, because you want to make them godly.

Poison stacks duration and a thief can attack once per second, reducing the effectiveness of heals and making the thief able to easily take out any class, easier than the other class could take them out. Cripple and vulnerability would make the thief hit much harder and in pvp or WvW there would be no chance of running, making thief god tier. Burning on every attack would be ridiculous. and finally applying a perma weakness so that no class could ever fight back against these changes. This would propel the thief to stand miles above the rest of the classes.

No class inflicts conditions like that on basic attacks, they either needs to spec into it, or the engi can use his kits at the cost of giving up one of his other skills; and even then the elixir gun is the only one that can cause conditions anywhere close to that without being speced for it. Combine these passives with the already high dps of the thief and initiative over CD of their skills and no one would ever be able to beat a thief.

Perhaps the weakness on Basilisk and the Vuln on Devourers was over the top. As I’ve said before, the actual durations/% chance to trigger/Venom CD’s are all up debate – they’d have to be playtested of course. I’m all for making changes to specifics, but I’m still firmly in the realm of thought that if venoms remain “activate to dogpile condition X on your target”, they’ll remain useless – they’ll be useless in a condition spec (unless you cut the CD to something crazy like 8s), and they’ll still be considered a wasted slot for Power/crit builds. kitten CD is fine, if you make the passive triggers longer/more stacks per trigger, but it would be nice to have something that meshed well with our high hit volume weapons.

That being said, thieves have high DPS in Power/crit builds – incompatible with condition damage – you won’t find a thief hitting insane backstabs who’s burning ticks for anything useful. Thieves current condition options (based entirely on bleeds), is a joke – they can use a shot in the arm.

I don’t follow how any of these effects are “permanent” – all the passive trigger durations are at 1 or 2s (except vuln, which I admitted would probably be scrapped).

Perhaps instead of a base of 20%, it could be a base of 10%, and Residual venoms could be changed to say “Each point of initiative spent on an attack increases the trigger chance by 5% for that attack” – this way expensive attacks gain a bonus based on a limited resource, and AA still has a chance (albeit small) to trigger a venom.

The passive will need a CD, just because the thief has a high dps, so these short CD and chances to inflict wont matter. Like a 10 second CD, and you can trait into it to cut the CD in half, so that the thief cant inflict permanent conditions, and he has to trait into it so he cant have high power AND ridiculous condition damage.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

The passive will need a CD, just because the thief has a high dps, so these short CD and chances to inflict wont matter. Like a 10 second CD, and you can trait into it to cut the CD in half, so that the thief cant inflict permanent conditions, and he has to trait into it so he cant have high power AND ridiculous condition damage.

All the venom traits are already in DA and SA – there are none in Trickery, the thieves condition damage trait line. To take Venomous Might/Quick Venoms/Residual venoms would be a 30 point investment into the power traitline. Venom share is 30 points into toughness, leeching is 20 points in.

A 10s CD feels excessive on something that already only has a chance to trigger – plus then you’d have to increase the durations or else the whole venture is pointless.

Maybe a 5 second CD (per venom), passives trigger for 2s – that way there is no possible way to perma-condition something with venoms.

Well the trait system needs to be reworked then. And that was the point, a 10 sec CD initially and then you can get a grandmaster trait in a different trait line to cut the CD in half.

Unless they’re majorly nerfed thief dps with d/d since I last played thief, no CD could easily keep a perma condition on a player.

Nobody runs D/D anymore.
For Power/crit, D/P dwarfs it in every conceivable way, and as a condi build, it’s basically just an evasion/trolling build that doesn’t contribute much to a fight.

I do agree than No CD would probably be a little broken for DB (Which I forgot about entirely), and potentially broken with P/P.

I still like the idea of a 5 second CD (Making it 10s base and 5s with trait makes venoms too trait reliant) and 2s duration passive triggers, with say a 15% base chance to trigger – residual venoms adds 4% per initiative point spent to the trigger chance for the attack it was used with.

Updated Version

Venoms in general – 25s CD (excluding Basilisk Venom), Both passive and active effect. 5 CD on passive effect per venom. Passive effect is base 15%(Might need adjusting?) chance to trigger

Spider venom –
Passive: Poisons for 2s.
Active: Poisons 3 times for 2s a piece, bleeds 3 times for 6s a piece.

Devourers Venom –
Passive: Cripples for 2s
Active: Immobilizes 1 time for 3s

Ice Drake Venom –
Passive: Torment for 2s.
Active: Chill 3 times for 1.5s, torments 3 times for 4s a piece

Skale Venom –
Passive: Burning for 2s
Active: Burning 3 times for 2s,

Basilisk Venom (CD unchanged)
Passive: Bleed for 2s
Active: Stun 1 times for 1s

Traits:
Potent Poison: Unchanged
Venomous Strength: Gain 1 stack of might for 8s (debatable length) every time a venom triggers (included passive and active triggers)
Quick Venoms: No longer lose the passive effect of venom’s when they’re on CD, 20% faster venom CD
Residual Venom: Increase passive trigger chance by 4% per initiative point spent on the attack.
Leeching venoms: Effect reduced by a great degree – the venoms I’ve designed above trigger much, much more often, so the additional damage/heal would need to be reduced alot
Venomous Aura: Slightly bigger radius, includes passive trigger chance while in radius as well, otherwise unchanged. Passive trigger chances do not stack – 2 venom share thieves running spider venom still only have 1 chance to trigger per attack.

Spider venom is a good all around venom (poison is useful), and the active is good for Condi specs.
Devourer venom is tailored for Direct damage specs, but condi specs might find use in cripple and immob
Ice Drake Venom and Skale venom are tailored for condi specs, and basilisk venom is tailored for Direct Damage.

Edit: Don’t let the actual numbers bother you – I’m sure there would be some playtesting required to expose any imbalances/poorly thought out hard numbers. This post is more about the idea behind it all – turning venoms into a consistent trickle of effects rather than frontloaded garbage that gets immediately cleansed and is then useless for 30-40s

it honestly sounds like more balancing and nerfing to me as an end result, plus, it makes venom share way to OP regardless of proc rate. The do however need to hash out the thief class not in terms of balance, but fluidity and versification as far as all skills, with exception of d/p. Plus, shortbow, with its range nerf needs an overhaul to make it truly a viable weapon style.

You have to trait into traps on a ranger to make them worth anything. It’s the same with spirit weapons on guardian and certain kits on engi. Why are we excluding thief from having to trait? They already are very powerful if played correctly and you want to say they get this buff without having to sacrifice anything?

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

You have to trait into traps on a ranger to make them worth anything. It’s the same with spirit weapons on guardian and certain kits on engi. Why are we excluding thief from having to trait? They already are very powerful if played correctly and you want to say they get this buff without having to sacrifice anything?

Venoms are currently useless. They’re no where near trap ranger or spirits when traited into. Not even remotely close.

They should be a valid option for some specs when untraited, and as good as trap ranger when traited, which is what I’m aiming for.

Id rather them not get passives. Make them more of a toggle on and have them spike like every 3 attack or so. Limit it to 2 venoms togled at a time. And when u un togle one( yake it off as a active bonus) let it have ur next x amount attacks cause something

evilapprentice.6379:

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

You have to trait into traps on a ranger to make them worth anything. It’s the same with spirit weapons on guardian and certain kits on engi. Why are we excluding thief from having to trait? They already are very powerful if played correctly and you want to say they get this buff without having to sacrifice anything?

Venoms are currently useless. They’re no where near trap ranger or spirits when traited into. Not even remotely close.

They should be a valid option for some specs when untraited, and as good as trap ranger when traited, which is what I’m aiming for.

You misunderstood me, I didn’t say they’re already that good. I said we make rangers, guardians, and engineers trait into their stuff to make them not suck. Why are we not going to make the thief? You’re saying that with thiefs already being a powerful class in the right hands, you’re going to buff them without them having to give up any of their current build. You dont need to activate them if they were designed like this because the passive is way better.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

evilapprentice.6379:

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

You have to trait into traps on a ranger to make them worth anything. It’s the same with spirit weapons on guardian and certain kits on engi. Why are we excluding thief from having to trait? They already are very powerful if played correctly and you want to say they get this buff without having to sacrifice anything?

Venoms are currently useless. They’re no where near trap ranger or spirits when traited into. Not even remotely close.

They should be a valid option for some specs when untraited, and as good as trap ranger when traited, which is what I’m aiming for.

You misunderstood me, I didn’t say they’re already that good. I said we make rangers, guardians, and engineers trait into their stuff to make them not suck. Why are we not going to make the thief? You’re saying that with thiefs already being a powerful class in the right hands, you’re going to buff them without them having to give up any of their current build. You dont need to activate them if they were designed like this because the passive is way better.

No skill should be useless unless you spec into it – that’s just poor design. Hopefully they’ll fix those skills sometime soon. ATM, I’m arguing how and why they should fix venoms (you’ll note, thief traps are also useless, regardless whether or not you “spec into them”, except for shadow trap)

That being said, the changes I made to untraited venoms do not make them “good”. I’ve moved them up from “No, I’d never take that” to “Maybe I’ll take that in a specific scenario” – they’re up from D list to B list – they might help some specs out, but they’re still not top tier choices, and will often be overlooked for more solid, proven utilities.

Concerning activating over passive, you will 100% want to activate them , traited or untraited.

Spider venom’s passive is good for mitigating an opponents passive heals, and screwing with any passive condition removal they might have. Active, it’s good to mitigate a heal if you can’t interrupt it, and for condi specs you might activate it to get some bleeds back on your target right after a cleanse or to counter heavy HoT’s.

Devourers passive is good for keeping an enemy from opening a gap on you (or closing yours if you’re ranged), and the active is good for going for the kill/stopping them from getting somewhere they want to be (On a cap point, to a portal, to a res, etc).

Ice drake’s passive is good for diversifying a condi specs damage options, the active is good for using right after they use a big CD, keeping them from getting somewhere they want to go, or to keep pressure up after a condition cleanse.

Skale’s passive is good for diversifying a condi specs damage options, and the active is good for keeping up pressure after a condition cleanse, or ramping up the damage when your target is low (I admit, this ones passive/active could be a bit more varied)

The passive and active for Basilisks isn’t even worth talking about – they clearly serve 2 different purposes, and no one’s holding off using the active in favor of the passive when the time is right.