Guild Wars 2

In other words let’s say the poison venom atm has 5 charges but i don’t want all these charges used on consecutive attacks, but rather choose when i do.

So how about balancing out the amount of charges, durations and give us a second skill option upon activating a venom, kinda like sword 2 & 3. (which also shows the amount of charges left)

So upon activation you use a charge and then the next one when you activate them yourself, this would make venoms a lot more appealing would give us better options in terms of keeping condi diversity up aswell.

Which would solve 2 problems Anet listed before giving more condi options to thieves and make venoms more appealing as a utility skill.

There is only 1 issue i forsee with this though and that is for those that venom share, as you’d need a mechanic to allow them to use these charges in the same way.

You could go the Mantra route, maybe. Use the skill to ‘prepare’ them, which flips the skill to a ‘Use X Venom’ and gives a buff on your bar with a number of charges and a total duration (30 seconds is the default, I think?). Then you activate the ‘flipped’ skill every time you want to use a venom. The venom would be shared on the second activation: your allies would use the venom on their next attack, the same way you would.

The recharge timers could be kept the same, in that they start counting down after the initial channel finishes. The major problem I forsee is, sometimes you want to use all 5 of those spider venom charges immediately (Sneak attack?) for really quick / high stacking. Maybe you could apply them in advance as well?

venoms are terrible. With this now instead of doing crappy damage or effects all at once I can choose when to do crappy damage? What does this solve?

Zepidel.5349:

What does this solve?

Among other things, it would let you split devourer venom into two/three distinct immobilizations instead of running it all together into one long immobilize. The same also applies to basilisk venom with Residual Venom.

Zepidel.5349:

venoms are terrible. With this now instead of doing crappy damage or effects all at once I can choose when to do crappy damage? What does this solve?

Why are you associating Venoms with damage? They’re not meant to do damage.

Like Soft said, you would be able to maintain the Venom effects on a target much more easily, particularly a target with lots of cleanses, and you can co-ordinate Devourer a lot better. Same with Basilisk.

Because there are MUCH better utilities to slot up, shadowsteps,cleanses,projectile reflections,invises, blinds etc….

LionZero.3479:

Which would solve 2 problems …

…and introduced several new problems;

1) The activation time on most venoms are instant cast, so in order to balance this, they will have to give each of them casting time like Basilisk Venom — and I will hate it.

2) The venoms needs fixing first. Making them more programmatically complicated is a waste of resources. Why use DV if Sword #2 is easily accessible? What situation will you ever use Ice Drake Venom? Why use Spider Venom if you can get poison free from DA traits and Shortbow? The only Venom I find useful, besides BV is Skale Venom (certain situations), which will become more valuable in the up coming patch — which is prefered to be triggered consecutively, thus it will not benefit from your proposition. They all need improvements first and foremost.

3) They’re still garbage even if they implement your changes. (see #2 for reasons).

4) Manually triggering each charge is cumbersome, that’s another action in addition to our current rotation. I hated Mantras for that very reason.

I rather have it function like Engineers kit where when activate, it stays active the whole time until we deactivate it. Then the trigger effect will function like Guardian’s Virtue of Justice where it procs every 3-5 attacks.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

…and introduced several new problems;

1) The activation time on most venoms are instant cast, so in order to balance this, they will have to give each of them casting time like Basilisk Venom — and I will hate it.

2) The venoms needs fixing first. Making them more programmatically complicated is a waste of resources. Why use DV if Sword #2 is easily accessible? What situation will you ever use Ice Drake Venom? Why use Spider Venom if you can get poison free from DA traits and Shortbow? The only Venom I find useful, besides BV is Skale Venom (certain situations), which will become more valuable in the up coming patch — which is prefered to be triggered consecutively, thus it will not benefit from your proposition. They all need improvements first and foremost.

3) They’re still garbage even if they implement your changes. (see #2 for reasons).

4) Manually triggering each charge is cumbersome, that’s another action in addition to our current rotation. I hated Mantras for that very reason.

I rather have it function like Engineers kit where when activate, it stays active the whole time until we deactivate it. Then the trigger effect will function like Guardian’s Virtue of Justice where it procs every 3-5 attacks.

1) I really don’t see why they would need to add a casting time to any of these. It’s very possible to telegraph to an opponent that the venoms are available and that they’re being used just as clearly as it is conveyed already.
Basilisk Venom would probably have to keep its casting time on application, but I think the extra 1s cast (with residual venoms) would be a worthy cost for getting to throw the second basilisk at a time completely separated from the first.

2 and 3 are the same thing and I don’t agree with either of them. You take devourer venom when you’re not running sword and still want an immobilize. Or even if you don’t want to bother with the initiative cost of IS&SR.

4) This is true, and a serious concern for something like spider venom, which would then become a 6-7 button press skill. Maybe holding down the button could apply / queue up all the charges immediately…?

Turning them into % chance or every Xth hit procs would be an interesting alteration, but I can’t see it applying well to things like basilisk venom or devourer venom.