Guild Wars 2

I have just finished leveling my thief and have been playing with builds and skills, but venoms and traps seem awkward to use. Are these used often and what would their use be? The venoms are interesting, but it seems odd to have a skill that gives conditions and then a 30 second cd. The traps I really cannot figure out so any help on that is appreciated.

Thanks!

The venoms are generally considered a waste outside Basilisk Venom which is usually used in PvP.

Traps have changed a bit as you can now trait Deadly Trapper to drop the recharge and add vulnerability and might. Combined with Improvisation for example you could slot Ambush, get a low recharge and a trigger which leads to having a few buddies out to grab aggro, do a little damage and grant might. Shadow Trap is also a popular choice in PvP for the mobility, initiation and disengage it can provide.

Traps are used in WvW for condition builds because of Trapper Runes venom share(+wells) is sometimes used in WvW zergs/GvG. YOLO builds with venoms also exist but are only for pick and gank style some gimmicky builds also used them. You don’t have to use a full set but those are at the bottom of effective skill category for thief but the devs…sigh.

Traps are a bit mediocre but can be situationally useful.

Venoms are really quite bad. They recently increased the stacks on them, which helps a little, but not enough. They really are just poorly designed. Some people like to do a Venom Share support build for group content, which is alright, but otherwise they are pretty useless. Basilisk Venom is decent in PvP but wretched in PvE.

Venomshare is great for sharing cc as you can chain petrify, immob and chill. It’s fun for a condi build as well, though a bit underpowered even if sharing with a whole group.

Traps are in a similar situation, great for certain utility purposes (10000 range teleport, stealth and 10 stacks might on shadow trap, knockdown and immob to trap inside of caltrops or other aoe), but underpowered if trying to do meaningful condi damage with them directly. Trapper runes are fun, but I usually feel like I’m better off with other utilities.

What are you using them for OP? PvE roaming, WvW, PvP, Dungeons?

I have been doing pvp and map completion. Just kind of playing around with things.

Zodryn.4216:

Venomshare is great for sharing cc as you can chain petrify, immob and chill.

I use them for this in PvP except without the chill since chill got nerfed to 5 stacks which makes it lose some appeal in a team fight. Not when there are skills out there that give far longer durations of chill. 1 second of immobilize isn’t particularly OP in and of itself however when being added to your teammates attacks that don’t generally come with CC on their own it can be a nice boost to support in those fights.

besides basi venom? no

If you go Condition build with leeching venoms spider venom works very well. 6 strikes will get you over 1k in ticking poison damage and pull in over 2k in healing even as over 2k in extra damage output by the same on that leech.

If this doubles up with a fortunate Improv steal you can really make hay.

You can melt defenders on castle walls using this in conjunction with your choking gas AOE off SB moreso if it shared with others in your crew.

I used Devourer Venom before the patch. They nerfed the duration so now I just take panic strike instead since it procs on hit so charges won’t be wasted. Basilisk is still used since the other elites are pretty mediocre.

I was playing against a group with a venom share thief and hybrid medi-gaurd. They were brutal together.

Yes with venom share focused on poison I was getting over 5k poison ticks when shared. Thems hurts.

I defended a few camps on my own against larger numbers. They got quite the shock when the guards laid all them poison stacks on them.

Venom share is one of two zerg roles for thief (combat medic being the other). Traps can be used for certain roaming style builds with trapper runes.

There’s uses for everything, people just need to find them.