First Impressions- Thief Heal Poll
Hey guys,
Thank you so much for you time and please remember that this is only first impressions. It may take awhile for a build to be formed with it that really shines.
Skelk Venom: http://strawpoll.me/845904
Im guessing you are not a thief player, Skelk Venom is a venom skill, and like other of the same type it only “shine” in one specific built called Venom Share (wich use the infamus trait Venomus Aura). This is something that all thieve already know just before the patch, so the question here really is, Venom Share are now really shining with this new heal skill or not?
From my pov it not change nothing at all, it just make the built better for the thief´s friends/party/group but worst for the thief like individual, So you trade one thing for another. Like most thief really dislike this built i can tell you beforhand than that pull will not change in three monts what will show in the next few days, is an issue with venoms in general, not the heal skill alone.
The heal isn’t as bad as people say. The problem is that on its own it lacks a proper secondary effect that makes heals like withdraw or hide in shadows popular. The closest heal would be signet of malice but signet of malice is always active and doesn’t need to be cast. Without traits skelk venom might as well be an inferior signet of malice with a larger on-cast heal.
Now with traits the heal gains a purpose and thus becomes viable. Venom sharing builds are the thieves’ version of the hard support role. Sharing a skelk venom traited with leeching venoms and residual venoms is like the entire party using their self heal. The only heal that can be similarly traited is hide in shadows and that only helps you through effects while in stealth.
The argument against this is that venom share as a whole is horrible but I disagree. One perk to venom sharing is that venom gained and applied by teammates work as if you gained/applied them. This means an ally gaining venom also gains might if you trait it, an ally using a venom will use your condition damage instead of his allowing power based allies to still do a lot of damage, and conditions applied by the venom itself can trigger your traits (sharing spider venom will trigger your on-poison traits when an ally uses the venom). In a small party a thief can use their superior mobility to easily share venoms despite the small radius of the share and can front-load your parties burst with their venom conditions.
So despite skelk venom needing a hefty amount of trait investment, the heal is far from useless.
heal sux. its not even as good as the F mechanics of guardians. srry forgot the name of the big AOE heal.