Guild Wars 2

Venoms
This is to improve venoms and make them more of an active choice for combat.

Basilisk Venom
Your next attack turns your foe to stone.
Cast time: 0.5 seconds.
Recharge: 30 Seconds.
Stone duration: 1.5 s
Venom duration: 30 s

Devourer Venom
Your next two attacks Immobilize.
Cast time: 0.5 seconds.
Recharge: 15 Seconds.
Immobilized: 2 s
Duration: 30 s

Ice Drake Venom
Chill foes with the next three attacks.
Cast time: 0.5 seconds.
Recharge: 15 Seconds.
Chilled: 1 s
Duration: 30 s

Skale Venom
Make foes weak and vulnerable with your next five attacks.
Cast time: 0.5 seconds.
Recharge: 15 Seconds.
Vulnerability: 5 s
Weakness: 5 s
Duration: 30 s

Spider Venom
Poison foes with your next five attacks.
Cast time: 0.5 seconds.
Recharge: 15 Seconds.
Poison: 6 s (504 damage)
Duration: 30 s

Traits

Deadly Arts
Improvisation – Stealing recharges all Venoms.

Quick Venoms – Venom skills recharge 20% faster, Venoms are now Instant Cast.

Residual Venom – Applied venoms last one extra strike.

Venomous Strength – When applied (skill is used.), Venoms grant fury and swiftness for 8 seconds.

Shadow Arts
Leeching Venoms – Steal health when triggering a venom. This can only occur once per strike.

Venomous Aura- When you use a venom skill, you apply the effects to all nearby allies as well. (Range is now 900 meters from 150.)

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Venoms are now very good utility if the thief chooses to sacrifice DPS and traits for it, this will allow Venoms to either buff the thief up, or his group a lot depending on what kind of Venom thief he is, even with all these things together he is still not overpowered because of all he has to sacrifice to get the traits.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mck9oohxMmohxMmG0x9MmR0sb (Is what I would personally do.)

The Elite skill does have a very fast cool-down for an elite skill, but since the “When use Elite Skills.” have an internal cool-down, it does not overpower it for having its CD.

But that would make Thief overpowered!
- No! No it would not, take a look at what other classes have in there healing and buff department and condition removal and spot healing, the healing leeching venoms does is low, the buffs would be helpful, however with boon hate coming soon it might be a lot worse then it actually is. Swiftness is something venom thieves need, they NEED to be mobile since they don’t have vigor.

One thing to make Venoms better is to allow Devourer Venom and Basalisk Venom to stack duration if multiple are used in succession (I.E. Residual Venom/Venomous Aura)

As it currently is, their effects are very minor due to the multiple application factor yet multiple applications do little to nothing.

So if I took Quick Venoms and Residual Venoms, every 12 seconds I could, on a single target (pick 3 of 4):

Immobilise for a possible total of 6s
Weaken for up to 30s
Poison for up to 36s (with additional 18s of Weakness from Lotus Poison)
Chill for 4s

So, with just the user being given the venoms (not including venom share), a target can potentially be either immobilised for 1/2 of the time, chilled for 1/3 of the time, weakened forever or poisoned forever. If you have one other ally and share it, the target could potentially never be able to move, will be chilled for 2/3 of the time and have permanent severe damage reduction and crippled evasion or healing reduction. This isn’t even counting Basilisk Venom. All that, with no cast time, and any ally in 900 range will have access to that. God forbid if more than 1 ally got a hold of them.

That is obscene. Venoms need buffing, but what you’re suggesting is completely and utterly insane. Not even a Necro can match that. Not even close.

Why you keep expecting for thief do be buffed if they dont even fix the existing issues that have been discussed multipple times ? *cough*lastrefuge*cough*

Basilisk venom sharing is quite useful in dungeons, you can stun boss for +3sec, which is can dish out more survivability for your party, i will probably sacrifice my dps trait for venom share + leeching venom trait , for being a semi-support thief in dungeons. Because, anyway, thief’s dps is quite unreliable in dungeons IMO , because we have to use S/x ‘s hard cleave or backstab/HS spamming, which is melee, which is Thieves’ are too squishy to fight boss head on lol

Auesis.7301:

So if I took Quick Venoms and Residual Venoms, every 12 seconds I could, on a single target (pick 3 of 4):

Immobilise for 6s

Immobilize does not stack in duration. You cannot immobilize someone for more than 2s + slightly more depending on the short time it takes you to do your next two attacks

stof.9341:

Auesis.7301:

So if I took Quick Venoms and Residual Venoms, every 12 seconds I could, on a single target (pick 3 of 4):

Immobilise for 6s

Immobilize does not stack in duration. You cannot immobilize someone for more than 2s + slightly more depending on the short time it takes you to do your next two attacks

Edited to clarify what I meant. I know that.

Auesis.7301:

Weaken for up to 30s
Poison for up to 36s (with additional 18s of Weakness from Lotus Poison)

With Lotus Poison Dagger auto-attack can keep perma-Weakness and Perma-Poison (Provided other skills are not used).

Sword auto-attack has high uptime of Weakness and can get high uptime of Poison through Spider Venom (30 seconds not accounting for any + duration. With Quick Venoms (20% duration + 20% cooldown reduction) it can be perma)

Chill for 4s
Not even a Necro can match that. Not even close.

Necro can perma-chill with high uptime of AoE chills (10 second AoE chill on a 12 second cooldown if built to chill, base it’s 5 second AoE chill on a 15 second cooldown)

That’s just one ability Necro’s have to chill, with Focus they get another 5 second chill with a 20 second cooldown (16 traited) and a utility for 4 seconds (8 Traited) on a 30 second (24 Traited) cooldown

You’ve taken what I’m saying out of context. Lotus Strike by itself can only maintain Poison + Weakness if that is the only thing you use on a target, in other words a non-stop auto-attack chain on a single target. Same with Sword and its applied Weakness/Cripple on targets that it manages to cleave. Be realistic. If all you do is auto-attack, you’ve lost before the fight has even begun.

You’ve also applied Chill and Necro quotes together as if they are the only things that I’m comparing with each other. I’m talking about overall potential. Permanent Weakness and Poison and consistent Immobilising strikes and Chilling strikes with high potential uptimes, attainable with any form of attack. You can completely and utterly lock down a target with constant successive applications to the point of excess with no limitation on what weapon or attack to use. This isn’t even considering Basilisk Venom, which can be instant-cast for 3s of Stone every 24s in this imaginary scenario. In the small gaps that you leave between these condition uptimes, should you be completely braindead and unable to land attacks – not a problem! No amount of condition removal or stunbreakers could ever hope to combat this setup. Ever. Especially when these conditions are applied in consistent waves and do not operate via longer single applications, making it more potent than ever. Perhaps if venom sharing didn’t exist, you could possibly attempt to justify it. However, it does exist, so you cannot. Not on a 15-second default cooldown. At bare MINIMUM, they all need to be 30.

Auesis.7301:

You’ve taken what I’m saying out of context. Lotus Strike by itself can only maintain Poison + Weakness if that is the only thing you use on a target, in other words a non-stop auto-attack chain on a single target.

I’m pretty sure I did mention that it’d require constant auto-attacking (Technically it can still be maintained as a D/P using Shadow Shot, especially if going deeper into Deadly Arts and thus getting additional duration) which can still be a viable way of locking someone down and dealing good damage.

Same with Sword and its applied Weakness/Cripple on targets that it manages to cleave. Be realistic. If all you do is auto-attack, you’ve lost before the fight has even begun.

Since there’s very little else to use for damage with Sword, it’s not unreasonable to assume someone will have high uptime on Weakness, especially if they go in for Venoms that are currently implemented.

You’ve also applied Chill and Necro quotes together as if they are the only things that I’m comparing with each other. Permanent Weakness and Poison, consistent Immobilising strikes and Chilling strikes, attainable with any form of attack. You can completely and utterly lock down a target with constant successive applications to the point of excess with no limitation on what weapon to use.

Except with stuff like Dagger or Sword, you’ll attack fast enough to only get the 2 seconds (Maybe 2.5 worth with sword) of immobilise, not 6 seconds (Due to the inability to stack it) thus making it not too much stronger than other classes immobilise skills (Which since other classes use cooldowns instead of initiative doesn’t decrease their DPS as much to use their utility skills)

Perma-Poison/Weakness isn’t that hard to do with some setups, heck just using Deadly Arts traits and 2 venoms you can attain it (With Quick Venoms + Residual Venoms and the pre-requisite Lotus Poison – Spider Venom provides 46.8 seconds of Poison and 23.4 seconds of Weakness on a 36 second cooldown. Add in Skale Venom for an additional 26 seconds of Weakness on a 36 second cooldown and you get perma-poison and Weakness for any weapon set)

Now, while I agree that some of these suggestions are pretty powerful (It’s Daecollo, he normally posts ideas that are obviously OP and knows they are, but they’re sometimes useful platforms for ideas) some of the ideas are pretty solid – Lowering base cooldown of Venoms, giving equalized cast times across all of them and giving traits to make them more user friendly and buffing the trait that gives a boost on activation (2 might for 20 seconds is pretty bad when they’re all 45 second base cooldowns…)

Granted I’d have maybe done something less drastic (30 second cooldown base, Venomous Strength giving some more utility stuff (Think Elementalists and their auras which can provide Protection, Swiftness and Fury to everyone they’re applied to via their grand master trait) and adjusting some of the charges/effects to make them more friendly to the high attack speed of Thieves (Such as Devourer being 1 charge of a 3-4 second immobilise or something)) it’s at least getting ideas out there.

I agree that many of the Venoms need a different cooldown (I don’t know who decided that every single venom should have the same recharge… other skill families have different cooldown timers), but some of the proposed on the opening post are completly ridiculous.

For example, your Spider Venom would get 30 seconds of Poison on a 15 (12 if traited) seconds recharge, and with Lotus it would also perma-weaken with easy change of target as the cooldown is so short.

Right now there are 2 venoms with the correct cooldowns: Devourer and Spider. Spider might reduce it’s cooldown to 40 but that’s it. It’s our best venom when traited (it leechs HP 5 times, which means around 2K extra damage per affected party member for a potential 10K damage plus large poison plus large weakness).

Now Skale needs a serious reduction as its effect (and more) can be achieved with Spider Venom and a trait that you’re probably auto-getting if you play venoms. Something like 25 or 20 seconds considering the effects of the skill seems right.

Ice Drake could also fall to 25-30 seconds. But some of you numbers are completly ridiculous (your new Skale Venom weakness duration nearly doubles the cooldown which means in a prolonged fight the opponent will have 1 minute of weakness even after it ends and Devourer with 15/12 seconds recharge makes you a rooting machine… no, just no, sorry that’s too much).

About Basilisk, I think one of the reasons it was constantly nerfed was the short cooldown (again because someone decided all venoms should have the same cooldown). If it was made something like 90 seconds, auto-cast (like every other venom skill) and tune the stun duration to adjust to the new cooldown it would be a good change.

And there is absolutely no way we get a 30 seconds (24 if traited) recharge elite with a trait that makes it auto-cast. Absolutely no way. A 24 seconds recharge in this game doesn’t deserve the title of elite skill.

It’s obvious that the cooldowns of some venoms must change as right now only Spider and Devourer are good and the Basilisk is only useful in some specific bursty builds (in fact for venom sharing Thieves Guild is more recommended than BV), but you should take in consideration the effects of the new numbers you’re proposing before posting them, those ones are ridiculous and you won’t be taken seriously if you make such statements and think it’s balanced and fine.

I’ve been playing a Venom Share builds in all enviroments for months now with a lot of success, and I can tell you Spider and Devourer are perfect as they’re right now. A slight (5 seconds as max) decrease on cooldowns might be nice and fine, but more would be broken.

The others need changes but not so drastic as the ones you proposed.

Venoms are ok when traited and poor when they’re not traited. This means that the base skills need improvements and new trait benefits to give different bonuses for using venoms. The big culprit here is venemous aura since designers have to balance a 1x venom with a 5x venom (or x10 with residual venom) and that is always going to be problematical.

A second problem with venoms is that they do not scale up when facing armies of opponents, such as dredge. Most boons will scale up and be effective against the whole army for their duration.

Auesis.7301:

So if I took Quick Venoms and Residual Venoms, every 12 seconds I could, on a single target (pick 3 of 4):

Immobilise for a possible total of 6s
Weaken for up to 30s
Poison for up to 36s (with additional 18s of Weakness from Lotus Poison)
Chill for 4s

So, with just the user being given the venoms (not including venom share), a target can potentially be either immobilised for 1/2 of the time, chilled for 1/3 of the time, weakened forever or poisoned forever. If you have one other ally and share it, the target could potentially never be able to move, will be chilled for 2/3 of the time and have permanent severe damage reduction and crippled evasion or healing reduction. This isn’t even counting Basilisk Venom. All that, with no cast time, and any ally in 900 range will have access to that. God forbid if more than 1 ally got a hold of them.

That is obscene. Venoms need buffing, but what you’re suggesting is completely and utterly insane. Not even a Necro can match that. Not even close.

Condition Removal is insane, some classes can remove 3-4 conditions every 10 seconds, and then turn them all into boons.

Yeah, I make everything OP when I post ideas, the Ideas are OP as crap and would break meta. However I always make it OP so it has a nice base for you to tone down yourselves.

However with above posters, yes, Immobilize has caps of the 2s, and you can’t get any higher then that, so you won’t be able to perma immobilize players. It just makes it so you can’t condition removal it as easy.

With the changes they did to venoms, you can no longer get 5 off on an aoe, so there effectiveness went off greatly, atm nobody uses them because they are just not practical.

Yes, if the enemy does not take condition removal in pvp, they will have perma weakness/poison, however that scenario is very-very-very-very unlikely. However I play a warrior as well, which has the worst condition removal in the game, a venom thief with the above would absolutely wreck me. However, since you need to give up so many traits to get the above, they probably couldn’t kill me very fast alone, however they would be a little tanky because they are constantly healing from venoms.

tbh I always expected venoms to be more of a continual buff style thing like other games use the skill you get a buff for x amount of time and during that time your attacks apply/have a chance to apply the effects.

I mean that sort of venom still technically exists in this game as consumable.

I mean look at skale venom for thieves: for 3 hits you apply weakness and vulnerability for 5 seconds

Compared to the consumable: For 10 minutes your attacks have a chance of applying weakness and vulnerability

The way we get it at the moment just doesn’t fit, you don’t give someone that attacks rapidly something that only lasts a few attacks and in some cases doesn’t even stack.

Granted 10 minutes would be silly (as it would have to lock the utility for that long to prevent abuse) but still, a 45 second skill that when used gives you a chance to apply those conditions on every hit for 30 seconds would, in my eyes, be much superior.

Dasorine.1964:

tbh I always expected venoms to be more of a continual buff style thing like other games use the skill you get a buff for x amount of time and during that time your attacks apply/have a chance to apply the effects.

I mean that sort of venom still technically exists in this game as consumable.

I mean look at skale venom for thieves: for 3 hits you apply weakness and vulnerability for 5 seconds

Compared to the consumable: For 10 minutes your attacks have a chance of applying weakness and vulnerability

The way we get it at the moment just doesn’t fit, you don’t give someone that attacks rapidly something that only lasts a few attacks and in some cases doesn’t even stack.

Granted 10 minutes would be silly (as it would have to lock the utility for that long to prevent abuse) but still, a 45 second skill that when used gives you a chance to apply those conditions on every hit for 30 seconds would, in my eyes, be much superior.

Yeah, but then that dillutes active gameplay. I want to be able to apply venoms at the right time when I need them, not randomly just get them. Imagine immobilizing an opponent (Since its Immobilize, it will probably only happen every 10 seconds since its so powerful as a proc.) at the wrong time when you didn’t want it.

Or Poisoning the mob or player randomly when he wasn’t healing.

Its good to save it for when you need it.

vennoms are garbage at present even WITH aura sharing
the dev team doesn’t agree…
why only 300 range for aura sharing i fail to udnerstand.

Daecollo.9578:

Dasorine.1964:

tbh I always expected venoms to be more of a continual buff style thing like other games use the skill you get a buff for x amount of time and during that time your attacks apply/have a chance to apply the effects.

I mean that sort of venom still technically exists in this game as consumable.

I mean look at skale venom for thieves: for 3 hits you apply weakness and vulnerability for 5 seconds

Compared to the consumable: For 10 minutes your attacks have a chance of applying weakness and vulnerability

The way we get it at the moment just doesn’t fit, you don’t give someone that attacks rapidly something that only lasts a few attacks and in some cases doesn’t even stack.

Granted 10 minutes would be silly (as it would have to lock the utility for that long to prevent abuse) but still, a 45 second skill that when used gives you a chance to apply those conditions on every hit for 30 seconds would, in my eyes, be much superior.

Yeah, but then that dillutes active gameplay. I want to be able to apply venoms at the right time when I need them, not randomly just get them. Imagine immobilizing an opponent (Since its Immobilize, it will probably only happen every 10 seconds since its so powerful as a proc.) at the wrong time when you didn’t want it.

Or Poisoning the mob or player randomly when he wasn’t healing.

Its good to save it for when you need it.

Not saying the consumable way is best but its a lot better in general than currently.

Heck you could even make em flip utilities, on use applies the passive effect for the duration, this allows all thieves to utilize them in a much less neutered way (as in not burning all the charges in a single auto attack chain) then for that time frame if you hit the skill again it instantly puts up the current charges and throws the skill into its cooldown or such, granted exacts would be tweaked and such as to timings and when cooldown starts etc etc, but could also change traits to allow for more active use with the passive ones as well (residual allowing you to click twice rather than once for the instant charge etc)

Dasorine.1964:

Daecollo.9578:

Dasorine.1964:

tbh I always expected venoms to be more of a continual buff style thing like other games use the skill you get a buff for x amount of time and during that time your attacks apply/have a chance to apply the effects.

I mean that sort of venom still technically exists in this game as consumable.

I mean look at skale venom for thieves: for 3 hits you apply weakness and vulnerability for 5 seconds

Compared to the consumable: For 10 minutes your attacks have a chance of applying weakness and vulnerability

The way we get it at the moment just doesn’t fit, you don’t give someone that attacks rapidly something that only lasts a few attacks and in some cases doesn’t even stack.

Granted 10 minutes would be silly (as it would have to lock the utility for that long to prevent abuse) but still, a 45 second skill that when used gives you a chance to apply those conditions on every hit for 30 seconds would, in my eyes, be much superior.

Yeah, but then that dillutes active gameplay. I want to be able to apply venoms at the right time when I need them, not randomly just get them. Imagine immobilizing an opponent (Since its Immobilize, it will probably only happen every 10 seconds since its so powerful as a proc.) at the wrong time when you didn’t want it.

Or Poisoning the mob or player randomly when he wasn’t healing.

Its good to save it for when you need it.

Not saying the consumable way is best but its a lot better in general than currently.

Heck you could even make em flip utilities, on use applies the passive effect for the duration, this allows all thieves to utilize them in a much less neutered way (as in not burning all the charges in a single auto attack chain) then for that time frame if you hit the skill again it instantly puts up the current charges and throws the skill into its cooldown or such, granted exacts would be tweaked and such as to timings and when cooldown starts etc etc, but could also change traits to allow for more active use with the passive ones as well (residual allowing you to click twice rather than once for the instant charge etc)

Then they would have to lower the effectiveness of both abilities, and how would that work with Venomous Aura?

well thats the thing they’d probably have to rework venoms completely (tbh they sort of need to anyway).

All the traits would most likely need reworking though venom sharing just the passive I daresay would be easy enough and effective, 4 more chances of the condition plus a longer duration on the share meaning stuff like healing from venom application becomes overall higher etc.

In the end with both venoms and traps they sort of need a rethink, one or two from either can currently be used to great effect, others can get OK usage out of all of them if they specifically build for them but for average utilities they are all kind of in dire need of being reworked almost entirely.

Daecollo.9578:

Dasorine.1964:

tbh I always expected venoms to be more of a continual buff style thing like other games use the skill you get a buff for x amount of time and during that time your attacks apply/have a chance to apply the effects.

I mean that sort of venom still technically exists in this game as consumable.

I mean look at skale venom for thieves: for 3 hits you apply weakness and vulnerability for 5 seconds

Compared to the consumable: For 10 minutes your attacks have a chance of applying weakness and vulnerability

The way we get it at the moment just doesn’t fit, you don’t give someone that attacks rapidly something that only lasts a few attacks and in some cases doesn’t even stack.

Granted 10 minutes would be silly (as it would have to lock the utility for that long to prevent abuse) but still, a 45 second skill that when used gives you a chance to apply those conditions on every hit for 30 seconds would, in my eyes, be much superior.

Yeah, but then that dillutes active gameplay. I want to be able to apply venoms at the right time when I need them, not randomly just get them. Imagine immobilizing an opponent (Since its Immobilize, it will probably only happen every 10 seconds since its so powerful as a proc.) at the wrong time when you didn’t want it.

Or Poisoning the mob or player randomly when he wasn’t healing.

Its good to save it for when you need it.

Set up venoms like signets – X% Passive chance (lets say 20%) to apply some nuetered version of the effect (4s of poison for Spider, 1s Immob for Dev, 3s weak/vuln for skale, 1s for ice drake) while the skill is not on cooldown on a five second internal CD (per venom) – keep the active skill as is.

Change residiual venoms to “Passive effect persists even when skill is on CD” and up the chance to trigger by some amount (Say, +15% for a total of 35%).

Edit: kitten This kitten language filter has gone insane. you cant say a, then 5, then s – seriously.

evilapprentice.6379:

Daecollo.9578:

Dasorine.1964:

tbh I always expected venoms to be more of a continual buff style thing like other games use the skill you get a buff for x amount of time and during that time your attacks apply/have a chance to apply the effects.

I mean that sort of venom still technically exists in this game as consumable.

I mean look at skale venom for thieves: for 3 hits you apply weakness and vulnerability for 5 seconds

Compared to the consumable: For 10 minutes your attacks have a chance of applying weakness and vulnerability

The way we get it at the moment just doesn’t fit, you don’t give someone that attacks rapidly something that only lasts a few attacks and in some cases doesn’t even stack.

Granted 10 minutes would be silly (as it would have to lock the utility for that long to prevent abuse) but still, a 45 second skill that when used gives you a chance to apply those conditions on every hit for 30 seconds would, in my eyes, be much superior.

Yeah, but then that dillutes active gameplay. I want to be able to apply venoms at the right time when I need them, not randomly just get them. Imagine immobilizing an opponent (Since its Immobilize, it will probably only happen every 10 seconds since its so powerful as a proc.) at the wrong time when you didn’t want it.

Or Poisoning the mob or player randomly when he wasn’t healing.

Its good to save it for when you need it.

Set up venoms like signets – X% Passive chance (lets say 20%) to apply some nuetered version of the effect (4s of poison for Spider, 1s Immob for Dev, 3s weak/vuln for skale, 1s for ice drake) while the skill is not on cooldown on a five second internal CD (per venom) – keep the active skill as is.

Change residiual venoms to “Passive effect persists even when skill is on CD” and up the chance to trigger by some amount (Say, +15% for a total of 35%).

Edit: kitten This kitten language filter has gone insane. you cant say a, then 5, then s – seriously.

How would that work with the traits and how would that work with Venomous Aura? The traits only work when you “use” them for the most part. Why would anyone use them when they can just have the passive effect up all the time?

same reason people use signets and same reason you didn’t want them entirely passive

Daecollo.9578:

How would that work with the traits

Change where it says “On application” to “On use”

how would that work with Venomous Aura?

It’d just spread the activated effect on activation, I.E. Exactly what it does now (Except that it’s more likely that a Thief has gone venomshare)

The traits only work when you “use” them for the most part. Why would anyone use them when they can just have the passive effect up all the time?

Oh a number of reasons…

• To share effects to allies
• To activate traits
• To get guaranteed procs
• Because they have the suggested trait removing downsides from activating them

Taril.8619:

Daecollo.9578:

How would that work with the traits

Change where it says “On application” to “On use”

how would that work with Venomous Aura?

It’d just spread the activated effect on activation, I.E. Exactly what it does now (Except that it’s more likely that a Thief has gone venomshare)

The traits only work when you “use” them for the most part. Why would anyone use them when they can just have the passive effect up all the time?

Oh a number of reasons…

• To share effects to allies
• To activate traits
• To get guaranteed procs
• Because they have the suggested trait removing downsides from activating them

Problem is, since they are both procs on hit and activate, they would both suffer balance effects and be much weaker because of it.

All venoms would have to be nerfed in both passive and active effects.

The Internal Cool-downs would have to be added to some to make up for it too. Can you imagine getting lucky and landing immobilize over/over. That would be rediculous.

And then after that, you might as well just have active effects with low cooldowns. (15 seconds.) because that is just much better over all, you need to keep up your abilities.

I suggest making them either one thing or the other, completely passive, or completely active and base them on skills.

Daecollo.9578:

evilapprentice.6379:

Daecollo.9578:

Dasorine.1964:

tbh I always expected venoms to be more of a continual buff style thing like other games use the skill you get a buff for x amount of time and during that time your attacks apply/have a chance to apply the effects.

I mean that sort of venom still technically exists in this game as consumable.

I mean look at skale venom for thieves: for 3 hits you apply weakness and vulnerability for 5 seconds

Compared to the consumable: For 10 minutes your attacks have a chance of applying weakness and vulnerability

The way we get it at the moment just doesn’t fit, you don’t give someone that attacks rapidly something that only lasts a few attacks and in some cases doesn’t even stack.

Granted 10 minutes would be silly (as it would have to lock the utility for that long to prevent abuse) but still, a 45 second skill that when used gives you a chance to apply those conditions on every hit for 30 seconds would, in my eyes, be much superior.

Yeah, but then that dillutes active gameplay. I want to be able to apply venoms at the right time when I need them, not randomly just get them. Imagine immobilizing an opponent (Since its Immobilize, it will probably only happen every 10 seconds since its so powerful as a proc.) at the wrong time when you didn’t want it.

Or Poisoning the mob or player randomly when he wasn’t healing.

Its good to save it for when you need it.

Set up venoms like signets – X% Passive chance (lets say 20%) to apply some nuetered version of the effect (4s of poison for Spider, 1s Immob for Dev, 3s weak/vuln for skale, 1s for ice drake) while the skill is not on cooldown on a five second internal CD (per venom) – keep the active skill as is.

Change residiual venoms to “Passive effect persists even when skill is on CD” and up the chance to trigger by some amount (Say, +15% for a total of 35%).

Edit: kitten This kitten language filter has gone insane. you cant say a, then 5, then s – seriously.

How would that work with the traits and how would that work with Venomous Aura? The traits only work when you “use” them for the most part. Why would anyone use them when they can just have the passive effect up all the time?

The same way it works now – everything triggers On use.

You use them to guarantee the effect goes off – passive poison is nice, but if I see my target is using their heal and I can’t interrupt it, I still have the option to activate spider venom and have my next 5 swings apply poison guaranteed. The passive is there to give venoms that little “umph” they need to be worth slotting – otherwise they work exactly the same.

Edit: I think there might be some confusion here – the passive effect is from slotting the venom in the first place, it does not persist through CD or once you’ve activated the Venom (Unless you take my proposed Residual Venoms)

Daecollo.9578:

Taril.8619:

Daecollo.9578:

How would that work with the traits

Change where it says “On application” to “On use”

how would that work with Venomous Aura?

It’d just spread the activated effect on activation, I.E. Exactly what it does now (Except that it’s more likely that a Thief has gone venomshare)

The traits only work when you “use” them for the most part. Why would anyone use them when they can just have the passive effect up all the time?

Oh a number of reasons…

• To share effects to allies
• To activate traits
• To get guaranteed procs
• Because they have the suggested trait removing downsides from activating them

Problem is, since they are both procs on hit and activate, they would both suffer balance effects and be much weaker because of it.

All venoms would have to be nerfed in both passive and active effects.

The Internal Cool-downs would have to be added to some to make up for it too. Can you imagine getting lucky and landing immobilize over/over. That would be rediculous.

And then after that, you might as well just have active effects with low cooldowns. (15 seconds.) because that is just much better over all, you need to keep up your abilities.

I suggest making them either one thing or the other, completely passive, or completely active and base them on skills.

Why would the active effect need to be nerfed at all? Nothing has changed as far as the active effect is concerned.

Also, I suggested that the passive effect be a neutered version of the activated effect (which feels roughly fair, some playtesting required of course). Aaaaaaaaand I suggested an internal CD to passive venom triggers.

Completely passive would be garbage – if you take the ability to choose exactly when my venoms go off, they instantly become crap IMO. Completely active also has its weaknesses in the current meta (Condition cleansing). I think the mixed approach is best.

Edit: Forgot to mention basilisk venom – passive effect would have to be minimal (.25 second daze or something) to keep it from being OP, but non-trivial.

evilapprentice.6379:

Daecollo.9578:

Taril.8619:

Daecollo.9578:

How would that work with the traits

Change where it says “On application” to “On use”

how would that work with Venomous Aura?

It’d just spread the activated effect on activation, I.E. Exactly what it does now (Except that it’s more likely that a Thief has gone venomshare)

The traits only work when you “use” them for the most part. Why would anyone use them when they can just have the passive effect up all the time?

Oh a number of reasons…

• To share effects to allies
• To activate traits
• To get guaranteed procs
• Because they have the suggested trait removing downsides from activating them

Problem is, since they are both procs on hit and activate, they would both suffer balance effects and be much weaker because of it.

All venoms would have to be nerfed in both passive and active effects.

The Internal Cool-downs would have to be added to some to make up for it too. Can you imagine getting lucky and landing immobilize over/over. That would be rediculous.

And then after that, you might as well just have active effects with low cooldowns. (15 seconds.) because that is just much better over all, you need to keep up your abilities.

I suggest making them either one thing or the other, completely passive, or completely active and base them on skills.

Why would the active effect need to be nerfed at all? Nothing has changed as far as the active effect is concerned.

Also, I suggested that the passive effect be a neutered version of the activated effect (which feels roughly fair, some playtesting required of course). Aaaaaaaaand I suggested an internal CD to passive venom triggers.

Completely passive would be garbage – if you take the ability to choose exactly when my venoms go off, they instantly become crap IMO. Completely active also has its weaknesses in the current meta (Condition cleansing). I think the mixed approach is best.

If its mixed, then every trait would need to be nerfed to compensate for over-all “good” damage, and if you cept the long CD’s it would just be trash after you activated it and waited awile.

Low CDs however makes it passively active, its still active, you just have to keep up the rotation and still use it when you need it. It would just be a lot harder to play since you actually need to work on it. (basicly, bringing in a faster and more skillful play-style to the game.)

Signets are already in the game to be signets. I think our signets need improved a bit though, however we can’t have venoms to be almost exactly the same, the developers want more active playstyles, not more passive ones.

HOWEVER… Activating the ability to grant a passive overall effect like Minions and Turrets are would add a different and more lazy style. You just can’t have one or the other because you would have to adjust to the power play.

You could have a passive/activating effect like minions/turrets do, activate to use a venom immediately, without messing with the activatable effect.

Like Summon Bone Fiend Bone Fiend Summon a bone fiend that attacks foes at range. Delivers a crippling attack once every ten seconds.

Rigor Mortis Immobilize your bone fiend, and it will immobilize foes.

I’d also be happy if they just looked into what each venom applies, applying poison for using up a utility slot is a bit naff considering theres a few effective ways of applying it for a thief that does a bit more or uses up something less valuable.

Likewise immobilize/stun on a poison with potential multiple applications (that can be used instantly just with 1 link of an auto attack chain) that doesn’t then stack (meaning if you instantly apply both stacks you may as well only have had 1 stack on it to begin with)

Heck Skale is 5s of weakness and 3 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds (unless traited) on a 45 second cooldown, the conditions mostly just weren’t thought out for what the utility is for the most part.

Poison simply stacks duration and can be removed all at once, so would it really be that bad for PvP if they gave [Spider Venom] more applications or a shorter cooldown? We can already EASILY apply continuous ranged AoE poison and weakness through Choking Gas, so would it really change anything in PvP?

In PvE, something definitely needs to be done to make the leeching venoms trait more worthwhile now that several PvE stealth/utility builds took such a big hit. We shouldn’t be required to take an “all or nothing” approach to venoms. More applications or a shorter cooldown on Spider Venom could solve that issue for PvE venom builds.

I wouldn’t complain about a range increase to Venomous Aura but I don’t think that is strictly necessary to make LV+VA builds worthwhile.

Outside of that, I think the other venoms function pretty well as-is.

If its mixed, then every trait would need to be nerfed to compensate for over-all “good” damage, and if you cept the long CD’s it would just be trash after you activated it and waited awile.

Why? Why would every trait need to be nerfed? The traits are almost completely unaffected – I haven’t suggested making any change that effects the activation or CD of Venoms. Leeching venom (the only trait that would be effected) would actually be worth using outside a venom share focused build, which is a good thing.

Low CDs however makes it passively active, its still active, you just have to keep up the rotation and still use it when you need it. It would just be a lot harder to play since you actually need to work on it. (basicly, bringing in a faster and more skillful play-style to the game.)

I’m fine with lower CD and lower number of activations per use (thereby reducing the effectiveness of Condition cleansing), though I still don’t think that makes venoms good enough.

Signets are already in the game to be signets. I think our signets need improved a bit though, however we can’t have venoms to be almost exactly the same, the developers want more active playstyles, not more passive ones.

Though similar, they are not the same. With the exception of assassins signet, the passive and active effects of signets have nothing to do with each other. My suggestion “are like signets” in that they have a passive effect, but will play very differently.

You could have a passive/activating effect like minions/turrets do, activate to use a venom immediately, without messing with the activatable effect.

Like Summon Bone Fiend Bone Fiend Summon a bone fiend that attacks foes at range. Delivers a crippling attack once every ten seconds.

Rigor Mortis – Immobilize your bone fiend, and it will immobilize foes.

This is almost exactly what I’ve suggested – you’ve just combined my idea for passive effects (Sort of – a guaranteed effect with a long CD as opposed to a %chance with low cd on trigger) with your idea for quicker CD’s.

phor.7952:

Poison simply stacks duration and can be removed all at once, so would it really be that bad for PvP if they gave [Spider Venom] more applications or a shorter cooldown? We can already EASILY apply continuous ranged AoE poison and weakness through Choking Gas, so would it really change anything in PvP?

Spider venom heals 300 health and does 300 damage per hit with Leeching venoms.
In other words an extra 1500+ dmg (+ is based on scaling with Power) as a result of being 5 hits. It’s not simply about poison.

ensoriki.5789:

phor.7952:

Poison simply stacks duration and can be removed all at once, so would it really be that bad for PvP if they gave [Spider Venom] more applications or a shorter cooldown? We can already EASILY apply continuous ranged AoE poison and weakness through Choking Gas, so would it really change anything in PvP?

Spider venom heals 300 health and does 300 damage per hit with Leeching venoms.
In other words an extra 1500+ dmg (+ is based on scaling with Power) as a result of being 5 hits. It’s not simply about poison.

Of course that damage isn’t effected by anything either except power, it does not critical.

So one utility does less damage then my autoattack, seems fine to me.

Is that supposed to be an argument?
It is added to your damage. Just like Power is.
Don’t be simple minded Daecollo it hurts my head.

ensoriki.5789:

Is that supposed to be an argument?
It is added to your damage. Just like Power is.
Don’t be simple minded Daecollo it hurts my head.

I am saying that it does insignificant damage as is, pretty much.

1 proc of 1 confusion almost outdamages it.

If it was allowed to critical like other damage effects it would be much better.

A utility shouldn’t rely on traits to make it useful either so yes it IS just about poison unless you decide to build your character around using them.

Would you be happy with scorpion wire if you had to trait specifically to add on the pull function?

I agree, that is why I made my abilities good above without the use of traits, the traits are just enhancements to the abilities.

The problem I have with x amounts of use per activation is that as a thief I can use up multiple charges rapidly, if those charges happen to apply something that doesn’t stack then any beyond the first application is pointless or if it does stack but applies a condition or limited amounts of condition that don’t make any real difference/easier/better ways to apply them then why would I take that utility?

The first issue can be resolved numerous ways from putting internal cooldowns in (which I doubt anyone would actually want) to giving them a more passive effect (either making em sigil like passive until used or my idea of making first use put the “passive chance on hit” for 30 seconds then second use cancels the passive and gives you instant charges etc)

Second one just simply comes down to deciding whats actually worth putting on a utility skill, just stacking poisons not very good (unless heavily traited into venoms and thus whats good is the traits and amount of charges not the actual skill) nor is 3 stacks of vuln or 2s of immobilize not for a limited utility with a hefty cooldown.

For the most part your idea’s are basically just cooldown reductions with no real effect on any of the other issues plaguing venoms.

Dasorine.1964:

The problem I have with x amounts of use per activation is that as a thief I can use up multiple charges rapidly, if those charges happen to apply something that doesn’t stack then any beyond the first application is pointless or if it does stack but applies a condition or limited amounts of condition that don’t make any real difference/easier/better ways to apply them then why would I take that utility?

The first issue can be resolved numerous ways from putting internal cooldowns in (which I doubt anyone would actually want) to giving them a more passive effect (either making em sigil like passive until used or my idea of making first use put the “passive chance on hit” for 30 seconds then second use cancels the passive and gives you instant charges etc)

Second one just simply comes down to deciding whats actually worth putting on a utility skill, just stacking poisons not very good (unless heavily traited into venoms and thus whats good is the traits and amount of charges not the actual skill) nor is 3 stacks of vuln or 2s of immobilize not for a limited utility with a hefty cooldown.

For the most part your idea’s are basically just cooldown reductions with no real effect on any of the other issues plaguing venoms.

Cool-down reductions wouldn’t qualm the issues, but it would make them a lot more “usable.” and fun to play and a lot more practical.

The issues are always going to be there, regardless of what we do unless the skills are completely revamped.

A possible change for venoms would be doing away with the charge thing and instead making them into a temporary buff with a cooldown between procs. Say, the poison venom would give you 10s where all attacks you do apply venoms with 1s cooldown.

Basilisk Venom would keep it’s current behavior and venom share would apply only a half duration buff on allies.

Daecollo.9578:

Cool-down reductions wouldn’t qualm the issues, but it would make them a lot more “usable.” and fun to play and a lot more practical.

The issues are always going to be there, regardless of what we do unless the skills are completely revamped.

I’m still convinced a passive/active mix would fix the issues without a complete revamp. Sans any traits, your reducing Venoms current major weakness (being very easily cleansable in Spider venoms case, stacking issues with devourers) with the passive triggers. Your leaving the power level of most traits in place (on activation and CD related traits are 100% unaffected), and making Leeching venoms an actual choice for some builds, rather than just being run by Venom Share specs. Same goes for my residual venoms trait change suggestion.

Ice Drake and Skale venoms will likely still need some tweaking, but that’s an issue with their effect being subpar – some useful effects would fix their issues (in combination with the Passive/Active mix).

evilapprentice.6379:

Daecollo.9578:

Cool-down reductions wouldn’t qualm the issues, but it would make them a lot more “usable.” and fun to play and a lot more practical.

The issues are always going to be there, regardless of what we do unless the skills are completely revamped.

I’m still convinced a passive/active mix would fix the issues without a complete revamp. Sans any traits, your reducing Venoms current major weakness (being very easily cleansable in Spider venoms case, stacking issues with devourers) with the passive triggers. Your leaving the power level of most traits in place (on activation and CD related traits are 100% unaffected), and making Leeching venoms an actual choice for some builds, rather than just being run by Venom Share specs. Same goes for my residual venoms trait change suggestion.

Ice Drake and Skale venoms will likely still need some tweaking, but that’s an issue with their effect being subpar – some useful effects would fix their issues (in combination with the Passive/Active mix).

Actually the effects having both active/passive effects like Turrets/Minions would be fun as well. You can use the active effects and still have the passive effects, however the active effects would be as much as just triggering one of the procs immediately.

For example, using a venom applies the venom on yourself for 5 minutes, and then when applied, a second effect is placed on the hotbar that just lets you activate that venom immediately, however depending on which venom it is, it has a shorter or longer cool-down. It has no effect on the active effect at all, the active effect still has a chance to proc.

Daecollo.9578:

evilapprentice.6379:

Daecollo.9578:

Cool-down reductions wouldn’t qualm the issues, but it would make them a lot more “usable.” and fun to play and a lot more practical.

The issues are always going to be there, regardless of what we do unless the skills are completely revamped.

I’m still convinced a passive/active mix would fix the issues without a complete revamp. Sans any traits, your reducing Venoms current major weakness (being very easily cleansable in Spider venoms case, stacking issues with devourers) with the passive triggers. Your leaving the power level of most traits in place (on activation and CD related traits are 100% unaffected), and making Leeching venoms an actual choice for some builds, rather than just being run by Venom Share specs. Same goes for my residual venoms trait change suggestion.

Ice Drake and Skale venoms will likely still need some tweaking, but that’s an issue with their effect being subpar – some useful effects would fix their issues (in combination with the Passive/Active mix).

Actually the effects having both active/passive effects like Turrets/Minions would be fun as well. You can use the active effects and still have the passive effects, however the active effects would be as much as just triggering one of the procs immediately.

For example, using a venom applies the venom on yourself for 5 minutes, and then when applied, a second effect is placed on the hotbar that just lets you activate that venom immediately, however depending on which venom it is, it has a shorter or longer cool-down. It has no effect on the active effect at all, the active effect still has a chance to proc.

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but that just seems like an overcomplicated version of what I’ve suggested, which would require a change in the way Venoms were implemented entirely for almost no tangible difference from what I’ve been suggesting.

Dasorine.1964:

A utility shouldn’t rely on traits to make it useful either so yes it IS just about poison unless you decide to build your character around using them.

Would you be happy with scorpion wire if you had to trait specifically to add on the pull function?

I do agree with this, that at a bare level they’re very underwhelming. Save Devourer which is an alright slot.