Guild Wars 2

I was wondering even though it is outside of what I would normally play, would you think it would be a good idea to buff Venoms i.e. Reduce the CDs on all the utility venoms as well as shaving the cast time to make them more competitive for build diversity throughout game modes as well as allowing for more options for utility usage?

I know venoms have been highly unused for most of Gw2’s life and finds use in some raids comps, what would you guys suggest?

What if we just changed where the venom is applied? Right now we apply the venom to our weapons and it is a buff because your attacks can do this extra thing. Instead, what if the venom is applied directly to your target so it is a debuff that causes secondary effects when your target is attacked.

For instance, if I’m sneaking around and attack someone with ice drake venom it wouldn’t break stealth because I’ve done no damage and I don’t have to attack the person at all because the next person that attacks my target will also inflict chill.

The venom would last a number of seconds/charges then go away. The Venomous Aura trait would increase the charges/time the venom would remain on the target.

Increasing the damage rather than decreasing cooldowns is my preference. A 32 second cooldown (with venomous aura) is pretty good for utility skills imo.

As for builds that use venoms there are tons of viable builds that run this. It’s just that plenty of people use power builds with D/P and don’t explore their other options.

Venom should not require Venom Aura to be effective. The cooldown should be at 30s base and 24s with VA trait. This way it’s still usable without relying on VA.

The venoms also need some added effects.

Spider Venom could have Slow.
Ice Drake could have Bleeding.
Devourer could have Confusion.
Basilisk should have an internal damage effect like Pulmonary Impact after the stone effect breaks.

Bottom line, all venom should be able to deal damage somehow. Right now, having only 2 venoms that actually deals damage is pathetic.

I’m curious about your perspective, is it that you feel that venoms don’t do enough damage to justify taking them, or is it that you feel the venoms don’t cover sufficient diversity of condition types?

For me I can use venoms as currently implemented quite effectively. That said, I could always use a lower cooldown because the reapplication of venoms only occurs in a very long fight, usually involving multiple enemies, so it can feel a little slow.

I’m also not sure about the damage on Basi venom. It is such a powerful utility that adding damage may require reducing it’s effectiveness in other areas. I would much rather see a buff to other elite skills that haven’t seen much love, or use, such as Thieve’s Guild and Dagger Storm.

Random concept, so just throwing it out there.

Venoms become like Elementalist attunements or Engineer kits.
Instead of applying a venom for a limited number of attacks, selecting a venom would affect (some or all of) that weapon’s normal skills until deselected, giving slight enhancements depending on the selected venom.

The effects would have to be very small/short due to being applied with each hit (or with cooldowns), but they could gain intensity based on the amount of initiative the skill uses.

For example…

Ice Drake: 1 second of Chill applied for every 3 initiative spent on an attack that hits.

Auto-attack = No effect
Heartseeker = 1 second Chill
Shadow Shot = 1 second Chill
Headshot = 1 second Chill
Black Powder = 2 seconds Chill

Basilisk: 1 second stun when an attack hits that costs at least 5 initiative (5 second cooldown).

Numbers would need to be tweaked and traits would need to be changed, but again, just a concept :-P

So far we have,

Sir Vincent: reduce baseline CD add diversity to Venom Condie applications. Add direct damage to Basi.

Nopoet: make venoms affect a single target so teammates Proc the charges instead of being venom charges on self essentially making Venomous Aura redundant

Kageseigi: make Venoms act as attune meets/kits providing dynamic venom application.

saerni.2584:

I’m curious about your perspective, is it that you feel that venoms don’t do enough damage to justify taking them, or is it that you feel the venoms don’t cover sufficient diversity of condition types?

Taking a Venom to fill a utility slot is always a gamble. I could use the slot to take a more reliable skill like cleanse (Shadowstep) for example. So in order for the Venom have an appeal and be justified in replacing a cleanse, for example, it needs to deserve the slot.

It’s never worth it to take Ice Drake, a 4sec Chill on a 40sec CD is really bad. Relying on a shared Venom (using VA) in order for the Venom to be decent is just horrible. If Ice Drake applies bleed, the chill will be a good secondary effect rather than its only effect.

I wrote a long post and forum failed me…sigh.

TLNR of it was: venoms should be like signets for conditions. The active should remain as is, with addition of bleed to Drake Venom and confusion to Devourer. The passive should be a 33% chance on hit to apply the major damage condition of each particular venom. I had a suggested arbitrary length of 2 seconds for the condition duration. Unlike signets, however, the passive should remain active and not go inactive for the duration of the cooldown.

I would also remove the Dagger Training trait as redundant with these changes. The cooldown adjustment discussed above would also be a reasonable way to improve the “pace” of fighting while using venoms.

There have been some decent suggestions already so I’ll suggest a small change that might help. Change Leeching Venoms to proc more than once per attack. The only way to get the full effect of it now is to stagger your venom application which is not ideal. Having a way to front load the damage of life leech gives up a reason to use venoms instead of saving it for a bigger fight.

Ice Drake and Devourer is outclassed by Spider and Skale. They’re no reason to use them even on a full venom build simply because they’re so weak. Stacking life leech may make them more desirable since they will do damage and add some defensive heals. I would like to see bleed/confusion added to this but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

saerni.2584:

I wrote a long post and forum failed me…sigh.

TLNR of it was: venoms should be like signets for conditions. The active should remain as is, with addition of bleed to Drake Venom and confusion to Devourer. The passive should be a 33% chance on hit to apply the major damage condition of each particular venom. I had a suggested arbitrary length of 2 seconds for the condition duration. Unlike signets, however, the passive should remain active and not go inactive for the duration of the cooldown.

To be honest, any improvements to venoms are welcome compared to what it is now.

I would also remove the Dagger Training trait as redundant with these changes. The cooldown adjustment discussed above would also be a reasonable way to improve the “pace” of fighting while using venoms.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of traits for a specific weapon. The trait should be generic enough that any kind of weapon will do. My idea for Dagger Training is to be replaced by Thief Training.

Thief Training – Attacks has 33% chance to apply the effect of a venom you have equipped (multiple equipped venom will be chosen randomly).

The proc chance can be tweaked for balance.

saerni.2584:

I wrote a long post and forum failed me…sigh.

TLNR of it was: venoms should be like signets for conditions. The active should remain as is, with addition of bleed to Drake Venom and confusion to Devourer. The passive should be a 33% chance on hit to apply the major damage condition of each particular venom. I had a suggested arbitrary length of 2 seconds for the condition duration. Unlike signets, however, the passive should remain active and not go inactive for the duration of the cooldown.

I would also remove the Dagger Training trait as redundant with these changes. The cooldown adjustment discussed above would also be a reasonable way to improve the “pace” of fighting while using venoms.

This is the most reasonable venom buff I’ve yet heard. It wouldn’t scale up their power with VS to absurd levels, and it would give a compelling reason to take venoms without running a full venom build.

As an addition I forgot to retype. Basilisk’s Venom could either not give a signet type buff OR it could be a smaller chance to interrupt on hit. 10% or 5%, not sure, but it would be a 0.1 second daze that rewards hitting a greater number of times in a short period.

Step 1: Move the Venom traits to the Deadly Arts tree. I have no idea why we need to go down the stealth tree to unlock condi/venom traits.

Step 2: For the love of all that’s holy, buff Ice Drake venom. I don’t care how.

Step 3: Make venoms viable without the sharing trait (venomous aura). As Sir Vincent states, it is ridiculous that we need the sharing trait to make venoms decent. Since when is Thief a support class that always needs to be surrounded by allies? Add more strikes to each venom instead of making a “shared” thing. Or make each venom more powerful. Or add a secondary utility feature to each venom, like condi transfer on hit or something.

Basi is fine how it is, though.