Guild Wars 2

I feel the fact that venoms are so bad, is what eventually makes each thief just say screw it and just go for the typical burst build you see today.

We have a whole trait tree that you can dedicate to venoms, but really why should we use them? I am not sure about the rest of you but I feel when I use venoms, they are VERY hit and miss. Plus with how easily they can be cleansed there is no reason to really take them with the other options available to us.

Most teams run a class, or have a skill for condition removal which makes sense. But the fact a thief can simply just go for more damage and crit chance out shines “Condition Builds” by far. A few auto attacks = spider venom x 2.

Not to mention that the thief is pretty easily countered with a simple chill, and more than likely we will end up over using our skills and wasting initiative due to their not really being a delay queue.

TL;DR Conditions and the options that thieves have for them are such a joke against normal skilled players that they force us to go straight damage to be viable.

MY SOLUTION: BRING BACK THE DEEP WOUND CONDITION and give thieves more options for conditions. The fact I can spec full condition damage and spider venom gets around 1,700 is pitiful.

Think venoms are a joke? Take a look at our traps. The fact that they only effect the first person to cross it is ridiculous.

Wait, wait… we got traps? Never heard of it.

I use a venom build, and I pretty much outshines the glass cannon thieves. Use P/D for a sustained and easy to apply bleed. Do 30 points in the first trait line and you deal good damage too. Go for a venom share build if you’re mostly in a group and your venoms become quite deadly.

I find the venoms quite useful, you just need to apply them at the right time. I have venoms for 3 attacks, which means I can either immobilize 3 enemies or use one shot to immobilize one target, wait for him to waste his stun break or condition removal and apply it again ^^

IMO venoms are useful and they are the foundation of my build

My problem with Venoms is that you either have to dedicate yourself to them or you ignore them completely. Either you invest in them heavily in Dealdy Arts, use a lot of traits to improve them….and then use them in 2-3 of your utility slots or you ignore them completely.

For most people it’s not a very hard choice considering how easily Venoms can be cleansed and how subtle their effects can be.

I mean for every Venom you are using you giving up a potential utility skill like Shadow Refuge, Shadowstep etc. That’s a big trade-off.

Burst builds don’t really need to make that trade-off and have far more flexible choices.

As for traps…..I’ve found them to be highly situational and more useful in PvE with predictable mob-movement than PvP with a lot of improvisation.

Then again, if you have a build focused on Condition Damage Venoms have a place. My Pistol/Dagger build also uses Spider Venom.

I’m running a P/D condition build too, but most of my damage comes from my bleeds not my venom. In WvW, which is 99% of what I do, I feel that I can only allow 1 or 2 utility slots for poisons. Currently, I only run Spider Venom, which unlike bleeds, cannot be so easily reapplied if cleansed. I’m also questioning my traits since having only 1 poison utility is inefficient for Leeching Venoms.

So focussing on bleeds. Got rid of Devourers for Caltrops, which gives P/D some much needed AoE. I think it’s telling when, even in a full condition build, poisons are passed over.

Sarrow.2785:

I think it’s telling when, even in a full condition build, poisons are passed over.

Sad, but true. As people have always said, the problem is Venomous Aura. If we didn’t have VA as a trait choice, then the devs could make our personal Venom powers much stronger. Yet they seem to be partially balancing the Venom meta-game around people making devoted VA builds, which really throws things off for a casual Venom user.

My own S/P PvE Thief is based on a Venomous Aura build. I really enjoy the character and how it allows me to buff those around me. The character brings me joy. However at the same time, I don’t think that I could ever rationalize using Venoms without such a build.

It’s a real catch 22 kind of thing. They can’t buff venoms as that would make VA builds too strong in PvP. But at the same time, Venoms on their own are kinda weak traited and even weaker untraited. I run a venom share PvE build as I love the utility, health leech and the cherry on top Might.

But on my own solo, I find using other utilities that can help me burst/control PvE mobs are so much better. Easier to reset a fight with stealth or do more DPS with Caltrops/Ambush Trap compared to short lived utility and poor poison damage Venoms give. Especially since VA builds have 30 in Shadow Arts, stealth utils are so much stronger and easier to utilize solo compared to venoms.

Back to the main point, yes venoms solo are poor for PvE, below average for PvP. Gets alright for Venom Share PvE (although kinda lacking compared to what guardians can bring) and strong for organized tPvP.

Tldr:
Venoms solo suck, not gonna change unless it rains pigs cos PvP Venom Share gonna become too strong. And we all know ANet listens to PvP whiners, so PvE Thieves gotta live with average Venoms.

I love venom on stuff like Mug but taking a utility for it isn’t happening unless it’s the root in a burst build or in one of those situations where you want to use root/scorpion-wire to screw people trying to run in/out of safety.

Devourer Venom (causes immoblize) is extremely strong for PvP even if you have no traits at all enhancing venoms. Its one of the core skills in the Sword+Pistol build and is a reasonable substitute for Basilisk Venom in the Backstab build.

All of the venoms become incredibly potent in Venomous Aura builds as well, obviously. When properly traited each venom activated will grant your entire party 2 stacks of Might and cause their next few strikes to Drain Life, in addition to whatever else the venom provides. In PvE situations a Venomous Aura Skale Venom will quickly stack 20+ Vulnerability on a target and is one of the best ways to cause damage spikes against a boss. In PvP sharing Ice Drake Venom will let your team dominate an enemy team pretty quickly. Chilled is an extremely powerful debuff.

So I guess the only legit complaint about these skills is that they are not very good in solo PvE, and they require traits to take maximum advantage of. I don’t see why that makes them “a joke”, as the OP has said. There are multiple good use cases for Venoms and several builds that take full advantage of Venoms in both PvP and PvE. This looks like a big success in my opinion.

metaphorm.6904:

Devourer Venom (causes immoblize) is extremely strong for PvP even if you have no traits at all enhancing venoms. Its one of the core skills in the Sword+Pistol build and is a reasonable substitute for Basilisk Venom in the Backstab build.

All of the venoms become incredibly potent in Venomous Aura builds as well, obviously. When properly traited each venom activated will grant your entire party 2 stacks of Might and cause their next few strikes to Drain Life, in addition to whatever else the venom provides. In PvE situations a Venomous Aura Skale Venom will quickly stack 20+ Vulnerability on a target and is one of the best ways to cause damage spikes against a boss. In PvP sharing Ice Drake Venom will let your team dominate an enemy team pretty quickly. Chilled is an extremely powerful debuff.

So I guess the only legit complaint about these skills is that they are not very good in solo PvE, and they require traits to take maximum advantage of. I don’t see why that makes them “a joke”, as the OP has said. There are multiple good use cases for Venoms and several builds that take full advantage of Venoms in both PvP and PvE. This looks like a big success in my opinion.

Yup I agree with Devourer’s and I even wrote a thread on Basilisk vs Devourer’s. It’s the only solo venom untraited that is worth its salt in PvP. In PvE…. even traited its subpar unless shared.

I would beg to differ on the incredibly potent part in terms of PvE. 6-8 Stacks of might are pretty nice I agree. Life drain without any healing sets is about 350’ish per successful application, giving about 600 to 2000’ish healing unless you stagger your venoms which is very tricky considering party members are rarely all together at one spot. (and they don’t waste attacks, range or obstructed).

Vulnerability and weakness are only good for 2.5’s (duration on Skale is 5s) due to Unshakable on bosses and even when I have placed Skale on all 5 members it drops off so fast many times I see the stack get up to 20’ish and then just disappear within 2 seconds. That’s 1-2 skills or auto’s totaling 10, at most?

Its the best support a thief can bring to PvE BUT it’s not as rosy as you make it out to be. Positioning, short range of VA, Unshakable all make it in practice no where near as powerful as on paper, for a skill set that is fully traited in not one, but two lines to fully make use of.

Don’t get me wrong, its darn good and in my opinion the best a thief can bring to the table in PvE and I love it.

However due to Venom Share PvP limitations, it will always be restricted and will never improve. Therefore remaining subpar with or without traits for both the solo PvE’er and solo non VA PvP’er (except for Devourer’s which is 1 out of 5 venoms).

The chill venom and debuff venom are worthless because the durations are far too short.

the immobolize venom and elite venom are very useful, when used with mug you can always land your backstab, they also keep a target from getting away from you.

The cheap poison venom is actually very good
you have to look past the weak poison damage tho, your 5 attacks make the target poisoned for 25 seconds non traited. This mean his heals and health regeneration will be much less effective, speccing 15 in deadly art ALSO mean your target will be weakened, meaning they will basically do 25% less damage to you and not have endurance to do very many dodges. while this might not be kitten useful for a burst backstab build, this poison is a must for going toe to toe with melee enemies, especially guardians

Also im traited to do 10% more damage to a target with a condition, poison helps to keep this always active.

Add a trait that if the Venom is cured, it immediately refreshes the cooldown on said venom.

Call the Trait “Nice Try.”

Glad to see this post getting attention and I agree with a lot of what all of you are saying. It is not that they need to be buffed to make them OP. Just buff them to make them viable. Make thieves feel that investing in them is worth it. I would love nothing more than to run a bunch of venoms, but the fact is they get out shined by a lot of other utilities. I tried using traps yesterday and yea they are also garbage. 1on1 they are okay. I just wish Anet would look into this so that the One Trick Glass Cannon builds don’t seem so much better than condition. I really think thieves need a deep wound skill or venom. Something that takes away health.

“Coagulating Venom”
-The longer this venom is applied, your target gets increasing deep wound max:25% health.

Something like that.

Venoms are a Joke.
Traps are a Joke.
….

The problem with venoms are Signet of Shadows, Shadow Refuge, Shadow step, Assassin’s Signet and even stuff like Signet of Agility, Infiltrator’s Signet or Caltrops are all very good. For a venom build you have to give way too many not just useful but key Thief abilities. I really don’t ever see me unequipping Signet of Shadows and Shadow Refuge ever, and both Thieves guild and Dagger Storm are far superior choices to the elite venom.

Venoms are useful to some but are forgotten by everyone else. Sad really. Upon hearing about venom builds I was really excited, then I found out how they work and I haven’t even given it another look. Wish they lasted longer/were more useful, rather than just situational. They may rock in some people’s opinions but they’re not worth the points IMO….

The one problem I have with venoms is how the procs fall off from any kind of missed attack.

Out of range, obstructed, missed, blocked, evaded… — If you don’t land a successful hit, a venom charge is still wasted. It really stinks if for things like Basilisk and Devourer that only have 1-2 charges to begin with. (2-3 with the trait)

And as far as I know, other abilities which trigger off attacks don’t get wasted in this way. I know the Guardian’s “apply burning on the next attack” ability doesn’t get used until you actually land a hit. Would be nice if Venoms were treated this way as well, and I think would make them a lot more viable.

Honestly that would make me use venoms more a simple counter so we dont end up wasting them. A slight buff to their damage as well. But really that is why I hate them. Oh i missed and now its gone. It honestly doesnt make since.