Venomous aura trait change suggestion
I’ve been a venom sharer in all enviroments for a long time and it has worked great for me. Excellent results indeed.
The radious increase is welcome as there are some instances where you miss by a bit, but VA is fine. If anything they should tweak Ice Drake and Skale Venoms as those 2 are horrible. Spider (5*leeching for everyone!!) and Devourer (let’s root that guy forever!!) are great on a sharer build.
The problem with the 2 I mentioned is that not all venoms can have a 45 seconds cooldown, those 2 need much shorter cooldowns to be of any use.
Also your sugestion would make Basilisk Venom the ultimate horde stunner.
(edited by Lokheit.7943)
The problem is that with the change in duration stacking you need other people to coordinate so as to not burn all their stacks in the same target. This conflicts with tagging in organised play. As for basilisk venom it could be a nice counter to peep bunkering on points in pvp. I dont think its so horribly overpowered either much like mesmer has imbued diversion which also can be traited to deal dmg vulnerability and stack might and another random boon mind you.
Venomous Aura is fine as is, it’s the VENOMS that suck really bad.
Yeah but venoms cant be buffed as long as VA trait exists or it ll become OP.
Yeah but venoms cant be buffed as long as VA trait exists or it ll become OP.
then replace the trait with something else and make 3 utilities and 1 elite worth sloting.
as is, no one uses venoms thus making venomous aura useless as well.
Yeah but venoms cant be buffed as long as VA trait exists or it ll become OP.
Yes they can, and it’s simple.
There is some design decission in the game, that make all skills that cause your next X attacks inflict some effect have the following properties:
- Active effect lasts for 30 seconds if not used.
- Skill cooldown is 45 seconds.
This happens with Venoms, Ranger’s Sharpening Stone and Elementalist’s Arcane Power (that when traited is by far the best “venom” in the game).
There is absolutely no need to follow that design decission. I guess it’s meant for those skills to have active effects shorter than their cooldowns even when traited to have 36 seconds cooldowns.
But Skale Venom and Ice Drake could perfectly see reductions to 20 to 30 seconds cooldown with no problem, adjusting the active duration to last less, and that’s all.
Those 2 need a lot more frequency (even Spider could have 40 seconds instead of 45) to be more effective. It wouldn’t be OP with venomous aura, and you could chose either long cooldown multiple aplications venom like Spider to have spikes of leeching, or venoms with better cooldowns but less charges to distribute your leeching over time and also apply its effect more effectively.
No offence here, but if you reduce CD of Venom to that much people would just spam it brainlessly and it will just become another type of problem. With that low CD it is possible to Up Keep a single type of Venom most of the time.
All is vain.
No offence here, but if you reduce CD of Venom to that much people would just spam it brainlessly and it will just become another type of problem. With that low CD it is possible to Up Keep a single type of Venom most of the time.
Not really, Skale Venom applies 3 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds, let’s say you manage to share with other 3 players on average (that requires some cooperation and being able to move between lines, which could be dangerous if tou don’t pay attention), so added to your own you might get a spike of 12 torment for 5 seconds asuming everyone focus on the same target. Give it a 25 to 30 seconds cooldown and there are still better ways to apply torment in the game without needing allies for that (Mesmers and Warriors can keep 5 torment on you all the time if you don’t clean them, and have very short cooldowns).
Ice Drake Venom applies 3 seconds of Chill, in that scenario with an optimistic average of 3 (there are a huge lot of times where at the end you share with the closer teamate) and asuming everyone focuses on target, you keep it for 12 seconds (the stolen chill stab lasts 10 and is probably our worse stolen skill), but again it requires you to take a lot of risks to effectively move between lines of combat (I’m talking from a lot of months playing the sharer build, it’s not as simple as click and everyone is happy, it’s effective but it needs experience). In this case something like a 30 to 35 seconds cooldown (traited to 24 or 28) would be right.
I think a-net is giving away like crazy effects to make you stronger, but with things like Weakness and Chill that are meant to make others weaker, they’re super conservative. IMO both should be more accesible (when they “buffed” weakness to make it work as it should’ve worked since the beginning they nerfed many weakness aplications to the ground, when Protect is much better for that and is more accesible). Not only our Ice Drake Venom, but also other Chill effects, should have longer durations, enough with the favoritism to powerup mechanics and the nerfing to depower mechanics.
Putting aside the underwleming venoms, am i wrong to say that va needs an expirience skill and coordination from the group as a whole and not just you to work? Is it ok for the effectiveness of a build to to be so depended on other people in the group? Its pretty mucha no go with pugs and even with organised groups i think there are other tactics that require much less work to be just as a efective. And then VA offers nothing in solo situations and using venoms just isnt worth it without it.
Useless trait for useless skills. Even if they make it 5000 it will still be useless.
Thief/Guardian. Desolation [EU]
And compared to support skill buffs other classes are getting….. remove conditions aoe , stability etc.
Putting aside the underwleming venoms, am i wrong to say that va needs an expirience skill and coordination from the group as a whole and not just you to work? Is it ok for the effectiveness of a build to to be so depended on other people in the group? Its pretty mucha no go with pugs and even with organised groups i think there are other tactics that require much less work to be just as a efective. And then VA offers nothing in solo situations and using venoms just isnt worth it without it.
It needs experience? Yes, it needs, but it’s far from bad. As I said I’m having excellent results with it. Once you know how to correctly move, you can time you venoms correctly and use them when allies are moving through choke points to get the max from sharing. It’s one of the most interesting parts of the sharer build, learning how to move in the battlefield to support allies.
I can see why a lot of people won’t like it at first, and feel that it’s really bad, because it needs practice, so the would like some more direct approach or effect like with other professions.
You will rarely share with 5 (except some pre-fight preparation and zergs) but that’s fine, if you share with 1 to 3 others you optimize it (take into account that sharing is making a skill x2, x3, x4… as effective as it is, so the trait is very potent for the venoms that are good).
Also, your sugestion takes away all the “support” part as it no longer takes allies. Thief has enough individualistic skills. My Spider Venom is a brutal tool, once I share it, I and all my allies inflict 2.5K armor ignoring damage + healing. Let’s say I’m fighting in a base, I summon Thieves Guild and have a couple of allies around, and we spike someone. 12.5K armor ignoring damage in adition to the normal damage (plus poison to negate healing and my devourer venom to perma root him) and that’s a dead guy for sure. I have a lot of fun when I’m running with someone and we reach to a base with an opponent trying to capture it, I instantly share my 2 venoms and the other guy explodes.
Putting aside the underwleming venoms, am i wrong to say that va needs an expirience skill and coordination from the group as a whole and not just you to work? Is it ok for the effectiveness of a build to to be so depended on other people in the group? Its pretty mucha no go with pugs and even with organised groups i think there are other tactics that require much less work to be just as a efective. And then VA offers nothing in solo situations and using venoms just isnt worth it without it.
It needs experience? Yes, it needs, but it’s far from bad. As I said I’m having excellent results with it. Once you know how to correctly move, you can time you venoms correctly and use them when allies are moving through choke points to get the max from sharing. It’s one of the most interesting parts of the sharer build, learning how to move in the battlefield to support allies.
I can see why a lot of people won’t like it at first, and feel that it’s really bad, because it needs practice, so the would like some more direct approach or effect like with other professions.
You will rarely share with 5 (except some pre-fight preparation and zergs) but that’s fine, if you share with 1 to 3 others you optimize it (take into account that sharing is making a skill x2, x3, x4… as effective as it is, so the trait is very potent for the venoms that are good).
Also, your sugestion takes away all the “support” part as it no longer takes allies. Thief has enough individualistic skills. My Spider Venom is a brutal tool, once I share it, I and all my allies inflict 2.5K armor ignoring damage + healing. Let’s say I’m fighting in a base, I summon Thieves Guild and have a couple of allies around, and we spike someone. 12.5K armor ignoring damage in adition to the normal damage (plus poison to negate healing and my devourer venom to perma root him) and that’s a dead guy for sure. I have a lot of fun when I’m running with someone and we reach to a base with an opponent trying to capture it, I instantly share my 2 venoms and the other guy explodes.
In wvw yeah its still subpar in tpvp and pve.
Putting aside the underwleming venoms, am i wrong to say that va needs an expirience skill and coordination from the group as a whole and not just you to work? Is it ok for the effectiveness of a build to to be so depended on other people in the group? Its pretty mucha no go with pugs and even with organised groups i think there are other tactics that require much less work to be just as a efective. And then VA offers nothing in solo situations and using venoms just isnt worth it without it.
It needs experience? Yes, it needs, but it’s far from bad. As I said I’m having excellent results with it. Once you know how to correctly move, you can time you venoms correctly and use them when allies are moving through choke points to get the max from sharing. It’s one of the most interesting parts of the sharer build, learning how to move in the battlefield to support allies.
I can see why a lot of people won’t like it at first, and feel that it’s really bad, because it needs practice, so the would like some more direct approach or effect like with other professions.
You will rarely share with 5 (except some pre-fight preparation and zergs) but that’s fine, if you share with 1 to 3 others you optimize it (take into account that sharing is making a skill x2, x3, x4… as effective as it is, so the trait is very potent for the venoms that are good).
Also, your sugestion takes away all the “support” part as it no longer takes allies. Thief has enough individualistic skills. My Spider Venom is a brutal tool, once I share it, I and all my allies inflict 2.5K armor ignoring damage + healing. Let’s say I’m fighting in a base, I summon Thieves Guild and have a couple of allies around, and we spike someone. 12.5K armor ignoring damage in adition to the normal damage (plus poison to negate healing and my devourer venom to perma root him) and that’s a dead guy for sure. I have a lot of fun when I’m running with someone and we reach to a base with an opponent trying to capture it, I instantly share my 2 venoms and the other guy explodes.
In wvw yeah its still subpar in tpvp and pve.
I was talking about PvE and PvP (I play all enviroments, but I play those 2 way more than WvW).
In PvE during events you will always share with 5, so no problem. In dungeons you have the pre-charge parts where you will always share with the max, and then during battles you will have to learn how to move without getting yourself killed and effectively share with your allies. I’ve been doing that for ages and it’s great.
I already said how devastating it can be in PvP, specially on bases that are choke points.
You don’ need zergs to get use of this trait, and your sugestion takes all the support part away as it becomes yet another individualistic playstyle (and the shared leeching is brutal, don’t take that away!!).
It’s one of the playstyles that needs more practice in the game to optimize it, as you have to learn to predict your allies movement and actions, but once you do it’s great. And that part of needing experience is one of the things I love the most about it, instead of bum have these buffs (and sharing can be better than many of those if you use it well).
And again, maybe it could use some buff (the range increase is welcomed) and half of the venoms need reworks and CD reductions, but it’s fine. If you don’t like support builds, you can play all the individual playstyles the thief have, but leave this one alone or sugest on a direction that still favors support.
(edited by Lokheit.7943)
You do realise that after patch you need extra coordination so that stacks over 5 wont go down the drain. I was talking skill in party based on that change leaving too much potential in the hands of others which is not the case with other support skills the other classes are getting. Also in pve and namely dungeons venoms dont do much in boss fights and dungeons are all bout bosses the trash mobs dont even need that much attention.
You do realise that after patch you need extra coordination so that stacks over 5 wont go down the drain. I was talking skill in party based on that change leaving too much potential in the hands of others which is not the case with other support skills the other classes are getting.
Why would you need extra coordination if the range is increased? It works exactly as before, you share with a max of 5 players where:
- Players have priority over NPCs.
- Closer players have priority to get the venom.
So basically the patch simply makes you able to share with that players that you missed because the circle didn’t touch him by a bit.
It only makes it better, I don’t know why it will take more coordination than before the patch, in fact it will take less as you can reach more of them that you couldn’t before.
You need extra coordination because the the duration stacking is being nerfed
You need extra coordination because the the duration stacking is being nerfed
I don’t see anything about it on the patch preview.
You cannot have more than 5 stacks on duration stacking conditions now. So if you perfectly share say, Devourer Venom with your group, and all 5 of you hit the same target twice, he’ll only have 5s or immobilize in total (5 stacks of 1s) and you’d have lost half the potential of the venom.
You cannot have more than 5 stacks on duration stacking conditions now. So if you perfectly share say, Devourer Venom with your group, and all 5 of you hit the same target twice, he’ll only have 5s or immobilize in total (5 stacks of 1s) and you’d have lost half the potential of the venom.
Considering Inmob always stacked up to 1 time (supposedly because of a bug), this would be even a buff… You always got the extra duration because of the time between attacks (and usually I always waited for my shared allies to attack before using mine to keep it up for longer time).
In the case of Spider even if you don’t share you can keep it on target, and if each one woudl target different enemies you could get 30 seconds of poison in multiple opponents (it didn’t add to much on your own target as you could perfectly keep poison up on him, so this change doesn’t affect spider or devourer too much, and it could open the door to an Ice Drake Venom cooldow reduction as I mentioned earlier).
The great part isn’t only sharing the effect, it’s sharing the might and the leeching. A spider leeching venom spike can be brutal.
I could see some buffs like poisons becoming a AoE mark (without needing to trait) and allies standing on the mark get the benefits of each poison on their attacks while it lasts (though it should need rework on multiple venoms or even make it a chance of getting the effect like spirits, and separate basilisk from them) or something similar.
But the OP sugestion takes all the team support from venoms. I love using my Thief in a support role, and this game is supposed to favor any playstyle within any profession.
(edited by Lokheit.7943)
Think basilisk venom aoe is OP? Have you seen Memers imbued diversion trait and the traits that work in conjuction with that? I dont mind if they keep the party share concept but it needs tweaking as theres big variation in effctiveness even with the range buff and the party priority buff.
At the cost of A LOT of utility and damage poisons at best provide the very minimum of bonuses, and only in really specific conditions.
Outside leeching venoms and venom sharing (in a ideal group) only devourer venom has use (even more so with immobile stacking from next patch) and a basilisk venom, which is already an elite.
I would for example be satisfied with something like this for venoms:
cast/cd same, new description:
for 45 seconds you ( /with VA/ and up to 5 allies around you within 360 range) inflict poison/chill/vuln+torment/immobile/stun with all attacks ( /with venomous strength/ and gain 1 stack of might for 10 seconds) but not more often than once every (cooldown/procs) seconds, no two venoms can proc on same attack; leeching venoms remain the same; quick venoms remain the same; residual venom remains the same;
This accesses the number of issues: spreads the leech spike over time, provides more consistent benefit to allies with less requirement, spread condition application to not get hindered by incoming balance patch – and no increase in total amount of applications. The venomous strength is buffed a bit to (at best) 19 stacks of might for 10 seconds spread over 36 seconds to make it at least comparable to might spam from cluster bomb.
edit: I talked with few thieves and one other rather interesting idea was to change VA to remain completely on the thief – instead of applying the venom to 5 allies at cast it might just be worth it to make instead the proc AURA the persist around thief for as long as thief has some venom activated and not run out. This would enable the people that did not stand in VA aoe during cast to still benefit from the VA (without increasing the total count of possible procs across the board of course).
For example – you cast Spider venom with all poison traits including VA. You get 6 stacks of venom on yourself and additional icon with 30 more stacks plus an aura around yourself. Your stack are used as described above. When some ally comes in range of VA, he starts using up the second icon stacks, but not more often than described above. If he leaves aoe, he can no longer procs poisons. If he enters again, he can proc again but with same cds between procs. In addition to what was mentioned above this will also greatly increase the value of the thief in a group.
(edited by Ichishi.9613)
i also like that idea ichikittenleast it elimintaes the problem of party being out of range when casting venoms
(edited by Eodwen.2613)
Considering Inmob always stacked up to 1 time (supposedly because of a bug), this would be even a buff… You always got the extra duration because of the time between attacks (and usually I always waited for my shared allies to attack before using mine to keep it up for longer time).
Well yes, I used Immobilize as an example of how the stacks on boon/conditions that stack in duration work. Since the current cap for Immob is 1, it’s a buff. It’s a nerf for the other conditions though.
Ichisi, I actually like that idea. Though I think they would keep it at a duration of 30 seconds so even when traited you can’t keep it all the time.
At first the VA aura version wasn’t too good as it would need the party to stay on the Thief’s surroundings (and Thieves move all the time) but the other version of a persistent circle that applies it to new allies (still with a cap of 5 though, or zergs would be too powerful) entering it while it is active sounds great.
This way it’s easier to optimize the share, and while I liked the leeching spike of current version, there is potential (the leeching occurs more passively in a larger time frame).
Now with the “only one venom can proc per attack” I don’t think that would be neccesary. Spirits can all proc on the same attack if I recall correctly, and the most problematic part that would be the leeching already is capped to once per attack.
If worked correctly (with correctly I mean don’t make it 5% chance with 25 seconds inner cooldown to proc again) it could be a good revamp.
I could even see it being a guaranteed proc every X seconds to keep the flux of conditions at a stable rate, with the first attack after aplication always applying it so at least you can count on it proccing when used.
Basilisk Venom should be treated carefully though, either make its inner cooldown basically take the whole active time, or giving the skill a real elite skill cooldown (like the elite spirit has the same duration but much longer cooldown than other spirits).
I think Venomous Strength can still be 2 might for 20 seconds, no need to decrease it as it isn’t so strong and a small buff (in that it would be aplicable to 5 allies more often) can be good for it as you sacrifice Mug when taking it.
Residual Venom should have a change as there won’t be charges anymore, something like decreasing the inner cooldown for each proc by 15-20% or something like that could be interesting (and even allow for a second BV aplication).
I think this might be in the right direction for venoms as it opens the door to make Ice Drake and Skale venoms more efficent with charges distributed overtime, and keeps the support orientation of the playstyle.
The Thief would become some sort of super spirit with this. But hey, Rangers stole a “venom” from us with Sharpening Stone that basically acts like a venom.
(edited by Lokheit.7943)
No, charges must stay to provide synergy for the traits. No proc rates, just stable proc and cooldown on it.
Cooldown of a venom remains at 45/36 for the same reason – so that traits affecting venoms will still do exactly what they did before. No buffs, no nerfs. The change for venomous strength is actually the only one I justify to bring it in line with traits of the same rank and all other aoe might availabilities for all classes. The fact that might will proc on a venom application rather than venom skill usage will also move a part of damage further into combat.
The problems are tried to solve with my suggestion:
1) Residual venom for Basilisk Venom – previously, you had to WAIT (alas, stop attacking) for the duration of the first stun to use second one effectively. Now you don’t.
2) Condition stacking – previously, the application of all conditions at same time is too strong against someone without immediate removal, but too weak against someone with lost of removal. Spreading possible procs at least on a stand-alone person balances that out a bit.
3) VA – currently requires a set of conditions to be used to full extent – most noticeably the requirement for 5 people to be within range at the moment of the VENOM SKILL CAST. Considering its obvious that spreading procs (leeching venoms too) its counter-productive – to use venoms effectively, you must not use them at same time, but to use VA effectively you must use them at same time. Making VA persistent on thief would be a more open for team play – rather than having thief say “please stack I’ll share venoms” it will go into “if you want venoms/leech hp stay near me in battle”. So it will be less of a THIEF’S problem.
4) Venomous strength – at best 8 might for 20 seconds at cost of 3 utility and elite skill. 9 initiative alone give 9 for 20 seconds independently from skills as long as someone in party has fire field. 15 might stacks is what is usually doable with zerk thief on a single fire field. Without losing anything.
5) Leeching venoms – alas, using 4 poisons at same time with residual results in potential loss of 10 leeching venoms procs PER PERSON. And my suggestion ensures that IF A PARTY MEMBER/BYSTANDER is WILLING to PUT EFFORT into coordinating with thief for his own benefit, that as long as he puts in that effort, he fully benefits from my role as a support.