Venom Share WvW Playstyle
May I see the build your planning to run?
I wont pretend I’m amazing, I know there are allot here who are far better than me, but here is how I use mine.
Ive been using Venom share for about 2 years, and the build is pretty simple.
Im running Skelk Venom(HiS before that), Spider Venom, Skale Venom, and Devourer Venom.
The last is your best friend, being able to stack imob with any attack is a huge boon to the build. Use it wisely, learning when you should pop it.(Enemy starting to run? Pop it. Everyone can target someone different and you can down a nice pack of enemy.)
When I go in to a fight, I want to stack Conditions fast but I dont want them removed too quick. So I pop Thieves guild, share everything with everyone around me, possibly keeping Devourerer Venom in reserves, then wait them out, let my TG and allies place some venoms for me. Let the enemy use their removals.
Once they do, Steal to port to them, CaD in to a Sneak Attack to dump everything, and Shadow strike away and back off, letting your venom’s do the work.
If you want to, you can dodge back in to them and Shadow strike them one more time for some more Torment, but you leave your self with no init if you do that. I perfer to have it there incase I need to use my bow for a bit.
As for who you target, I like to stick with my fellow thieves if they are in the fight. Just something about seeing one of my own drop like a rock, But if I’m being smart, I’ll try to flank anyone who’s trying to range us down, Rangers, Ele’s, anything with a Bow or a Staff, they tend to use their range to compensate for being squishy, and a few Devourer venom strikes leaves plenty of time for my team to run them down if your conditions dont kill them first.
One simple tip I can give you is to not be so obvious about when you pop your venoms. If you do it right out in the open, the enemy will see and they can prep a block or whatnot to completely counter it. It’s often a good idea to activate them from stealth, or use them to follow up your enemy’s dodge, or where you snag them with some other CC (i.e. land basilisk venom first, then pop the others while you’re hitting them afterwards).
Mind you this is maybe more applicable to small scale fights or roaming. In big zerg battles you probably won’t have to worry about that as much. For zerg-style stuff, you generally want to pop them when your zerg is engaging the enemy in melee (to help CC people in the train), or you can pop them on your backline people for some additional pew pew power. It will depend on what party you get put into. In my experience, most commanders tell thieves to switch to something “more useful” (not in such a polite fashion, mind you), so don’t expect too much if you’re just pugging along.
You will also probably not need to use the ice drake venom. The devourer venom is much more effective and serves the same sort of purpose.
Honestly, do not bother. Your stun venoms are getting massively nerfed on June 23rd. This entire playstyle has been neutered because a bunch of kitten GWEN vets complained nonstop for the past two months.
I run DP with withraw, basi , devourer, shadowstep and ice drake or shadow refuge. Once venoms are used transition to a normal thief role, picking casters/thieves.
Try to be in party with necros and use venoms on well bomb. Wells are unblockable so your venoms will hit. Venoms use your condi duration so use food, a givers short bow etc. I use full zerk apart from givers sb, with condi duration food and stones.