Guild Wars 2

So, it looks like ANet is trying to buff venoms again. This time, they’re just putting a flat cooldown reduction on all venoms. Considering that they’ve been trying to make venoms viable for so long, I think they just don’t understand why people still don’t use them…

So let’s make a list.

Use this thread to explain why you don’t use venoms.

I’ll start us off:

Venoms require too much talent investment to be strong
– To really make the best of venoms, you need a full investment in both Deadly Arts and Shadow Arts, leaving you with 2 points to put in anything else.

Venoms take up too much of your utility skill slots
– If you actually invest in traiting for venoms, then you either fill up your heal, utilities, and elite with venoms or you take other skills and waste your huge talent investment. This leads to the next point:

There is no condition removal, mobility, blinds, or stun break with venoms
– This is huge for thieves. We’re notoriously squishy, even when running stats that have toughness/vit. The only reason thieves can survive in PvP is because we have ample blinds and escapes. A venom build sacrifices all of this.

And decreasing the cooldown on venoms will not address a single one of these shortcomings.

You pretty much summed up what this thread would be, except the first part. You don’t need to go 6 into DA, 1 extra strike helps but it doesn’t make the build. The cd reduction and venomshare are essential for the “venomshare” build but that’s the problem. It’s a “venomshare” not a “venom” build, they don’t stand alone too well. BV and DV are the only venoms who can put a dent into someone without investing into venoms too deeply, but it’s just not that high of a pay off with so many means to waste the venom strikes.

They don’t need to break stun or grant mobility, a condi xfer would be nice (which I’ve posted for a lot cough karka venom cough), but you should be able to slot 1 or 2 venoms (excluding BV) and not feel obligated to invest deeply into it’s respective traits. Traits should help but they should not define a whole skill set just to function or be viable.

Venoms are not needed
-Thief alone can generate good single and AoE condition pressure
-Thief alone can generate enough CC
-Thief alone can trait for reliable regen(yes we can didn’t say superior )

I could say more but why would I change my working traits for an alien spec? We don’t change what is working . I used to slot Skale Venom switch to Scorpion Wire had a way better experience.

Unless a celestial venom meta is coming(since the venons don’t have a single purpose) …I will not slot a venom again the personal effect is less than mediocre.

Summed up nicely by the OP.

I’ll add:

Weaponsets: The problem with cleave and bounce
Due to the extreme specialisation that is necessary for a venom build, the venom charges are too valuable to waste. Everything pivots around the thief successfully landing his venom charges as it’s their main source of damage and cc. Compounding on problems such as dodge and block skills already countering venoms, venom charges are also wasted on pets, clones, turrets and all sorts of undesirable and unintended targets. Now that dagger has cleave, the ONLY weapon that allows you to pinpoint where your venom charges are spent is the pistol, and even pistol has a traitable bounce effect now. Unfortunately, pistol limits the thief in the areas of damage and mobility. The auto attack is also very slow. Yes, venoms can be discharged quickly via sneak attack, but this is telegraphed due to stealth and quite easily avoided.

WvW Havoc: Being a slow moving venom-vendor isn’t fun. This role can be distilled down to the following:
Share venoms > watch teammates kill stuff > try to keep up > try to concentrate on the nice happy feelings you get for running a support build as that tic in your eye keeps getting worse.

No stunbreaks, condi cleanse, mobility or on-demand stealth. C&D is the only gtfo skill and is undependable.

As mention before, most of the effects u get from venom are available else where and those won’t kitten u.
Poison, vulnerability, and torment? p/d are no strangers to these. Heck just having a short bow and traiting into deadly arts will get you all the poison u will need.

Immobilize one of the more useful venoms (in relation to the others) can be obtain with a sword or pistol when needed

Chill? One thing thieves lack but not really needed with of the gab closers or escape skills they have.

Heal? Lol

I don’t use venoms because they’re terrible on their own and aren’t worth taking over other more useful utilities. Venomshare can be good in a coordinated group, but you sacrifice a lot of utility to use them.

I think it’s meant to be a support-oriented spec. The problem lies in that the support side of VShare is kind of bad. It offers some damage, yea, but doesn’t really fill any support gaps otherwise, and this damage is on a high cooldown that detracts from the thief, making the build counterable without needing any explicit counters.

I’m just going to state that the OP is right except for devourer venom. That one is arguably more elite than basilisk venom since it’s instant cast and that immobilize is the death of people is you interrupt their cleanse.

Back when basilisk couldn’t be broken and we could put out more damage faster, it arguably needed the 1 second cast and warning on the buff bar. Not so much anymore.

The problem with venoms is that they are weaker and have longer cooldowns than the weapon skills other classes have. There’s no real niche they fill.

Edit: Just realized the only change they are making is reducing the CD to 40 seconds from 45…. I’m not sure we’ll even see a difference.

they should add some passive/active effects to venom to give them some survival value
kinda like a signet

Because of Venomous aura.

Go ahead – try to design a utility worth taking on its own that won’t become OP when shared with 5 people. You can’t, and neither can the developers.

evilapprentice.6379:

Because of Venomous aura.

Go ahead – try to design a utility worth taking on its own that won’t become OP when shared with 5 people. You can’t, and neither can the developers.

they really went off in a weird detection with the venom buffs
i think they where trying to give the thief team support .
but thief is the one class that should be with out team support XD

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if they come out with runes focused around a venom based build as yet a further stab in the dark to try and make them more appealing.
And on a side note, I have to say, I hate the idea of runes being able to make or break a build/weapon set. It happens way too often in this game………….

It’s less that Thief should “lack” team support, and more that their support options would work better as more of a “blanket” option. (S. Refuge comes to mind)
On some level, it does seem this may have been what the Devs intended for Venoms.
However, the key difference is as follows:

• At least Shadow Refuge remains useful, regardless of whether or not you’re using it for the group, or for yourself.
• Conversely, as evilapprentice has already stated, Venoms are balanced around VA.
  And this makes it nigh-impossible to make Venoms “good” for a soloer Thief.
  (With the exceptions of Basilisk, and -arguably- Devourer)

Slugonaut.9841:

And on a side note, I have to say, I hate the idea of runes being able to make or break a build/weapon set. It happens way too often in this game………….

Amen, amen to that..

If it comes to venoms basically everything is wrong, as whole the concept is badly done on a conceptual level.

1st the traits you need are in the wrong trait trees meaning you do not get the stats you need to use the venoms, power toughness healing power are useless and you get locked out of the condition damage tree by going into those trait lines.
So the condition aspect of venoms does not work.

2nd basically the same fundamental problem: The utility aspect of venoms does not work because if you trait venoms you get locked out of the utility trait trees (trickery and acrobatics).

3rd Thieves are about active defense without evades and stunbreakers they get blown to bits in seconds, traiting venoms and putting thenm on your utility bar locks you out of all utility stunbreakers and teleports.

4th the weapon sets that support the venoms’ condition nature lack escapes and evades which makes the 3rd problem even worse.

5th to youse venom share effectiffely you have to be rather close to you allies most efficacious would be a venom share thief runing with the melee train this is impossible however since the thieves can not get the armor and hp values and passive defences needed to do that. So you can not be where you should bcause you would die in the aoe spam.

and so on…

When the game came out having one venom on your utility bar was perfectly viable (especially ice drake venom) but then venoms were nerfed one by one the halfhearted buffs to the assorted traits that followed were no compensation whatsoever and just do not cut it.

Also the nerfs to other skills made venoms less desireable, for example the nerf to dancing dagger damage (i think of p/d hybrids here) did not help at all.

So devs stop wasting your time and focus on fixing bugs instead of tring to make a bad concept, that you already made worse since it’s introducion, work.

The main problem with Venoms is and always has been that they are too weak at baseline and too dependent on trait support to be good. This is a problem with game balance in general that the devs seem incapable of addressing properly seeing as how they often use traits to try to bring weak skills into balance (a terrible balance mantra.)

This pigeonholes you into not using them at all or building around them and trying to incorporate all of them into your build, which as the OP points out leaves you lacking in survival utility that is critical for Thieves.

Cooldown duration might help, but it’s not really the issue. The issue is more the mechanics behind venom stacking and application. I would rework venoms to function more as a buff by significantly increasing the number of stacks and reducing the frequency of application to a particular target, personally.

the reason i personally cant stand venoms (specifically basilisk venom) is because you only get a certain amount of hits and they go away but thats not entirely the problem. the problem is if an enemy dodges, blocks, or ANYTHING….. the venom goes away.

i hate that when i use balilisk venom, all an enemy has to do is dodge or just be a guardian or an engi… and it wastes my elite for a whole 45 seconds… the elite should be unblockable at least OR make it so it goes away after a SUCCESSFUL hit. you only get ONE…. one chance and for what? 3 seconds of basically…. a daze? and it only works on ONE target. while rangers get a long kitten immobilize that targets 5 in an AoE radius.

it looks like a SYLVARI skill!!! its soooo irritating. also when you use scorpion wire and basilisk venom, the basilisk venom stops the pull…. i feel it shouldnt stop the pull at all.

i whole heartily agree with a lot of people with the utility slots. i forgot to mention this but keep in mind our only forms of increased movement speed are if you spec into trickery for “thrill of the crime” or if you use the sigil" which takes away even more utility.

i think a decent solution would be a trait that would grant you stealth every time you use a venom. at least then it would lesser the blow from adding venoms to utility. we already have a rune (rune of the trapper) that allows stealth for traps and that was a step in the right direction.

ive actually been experimenting with that and its nice but requires A LOT of planning. viable especially with shadow trap and shadow pursuit.

this solution would make the elite at least a little more viable, you could put two venoms in utility and have one free slot for either shadow refuge (the current staple) or shadow step for the more daring.

Achey.3612:

i whole heartily agree with a lot of people with the utility slots. i forgot to mention this but keep in mind our only forms of increased movement speed are if you spec into trickery for “thrill of the crime” or if you use the sigil" which takes away even more utility.

i think a decent solution would be a trait that would grant you stealth every time you use a venom. at least then it would lesser the blow from adding venoms to utility. we already have a rune (rune of the trapper) that allows stealth for traps and that was a step in the right direction.

ive actually been experimenting with that and its nice but requires A LOT of planning. viable especially with shadow trap and shadow pursuit.

this solution would make the elite at least a little more viable, you could put two venoms in utility and have one free slot for either shadow refuge (the current staple) or shadow step for the more daring.

A few thieves and me do feel like they will introduce a rune that triggers stealth on venom usage but then again it’s very unlikely to be accessible in pvp. Runes making specs viable seems to be a new thing.

i dont really want another rune tailored for thieves. i prefer if they just give variety for thieves. all we have right now is either condi or backstab. everything else is just meh….

Where is the information about reduced CD coming from? I can’t seem to find it, but maybe my Forumfu sucks.

Before I quit gw2 .. right as they were buffing venoms to share your condi damage.

I used venoms. full venom share for the lolz.

not the best class but it was def fun!
2,200 power 1500 condi damage

rune of strength and might on weapon swap to boost up those stats even higher

run around and 1 hit kids— works in spvp too just keeping swapping weapons from p/d to p/d

practice to do it on dodge roll and soon you will do it automatically without thinking.

games dead neways
kk be bye

Hurtappl.6405:

Before I quit gw2 .
something something DOOOOOOM
games dead neways
kk be bye

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Achey.3612:

the reason i personally cant stand venoms (specifically basilisk venom) is because you only get a certain amount of hits and they go away but thats not entirely the problem. the problem is if an enemy dodges, blocks, or ANYTHING….. the venom goes away.

i hate that when i use balilisk venom, all an enemy has to do is dodge or just be a guardian or an engi… and it wastes my elite for a whole 45 seconds… the elite should be unblockable at least OR make it so it goes away after a SUCCESSFUL hit. you only get ONE…. one chance and for what? 3 seconds of basically…. a daze? and it only works on ONE target. while rangers get a long kitten immobilize that targets 5 in an AoE radius.

I don’t know if you were around during the early days, but Basilisk used to be an unbreakable stun. This was back when thieves were WAY more bursty – when mug used to crit and eons before the ferocity nerf. Now that thief burst has been kicked in the balls, Basilisk stands out even more as a mediocre elite skill. Trouble is, for 9 builds out of ten it’s still the best we’ve got. That speaks volumes IMO. I’m all for making Shadow Refuge an elite. It deserves the spot at least.

Achey.3612:

i think a decent solution would be a trait that would grant you stealth every time you use a venom. at least then it would lesser the blow from adding venoms to utility. we already have a rune (rune of the trapper) that allows stealth for traps and that was a step in the right direction.

No thanks. As others have said, balancing weak abilities through runes is the worst kind of approach. We want diversity of builds, right? That won’t exist when a player running this or that build MUST HAVE this or that rune set to make it work. Worse still, niche rune sets act like a bandaid preventing the sorts of proper fixes those abilities really deserve. You think traps are going to get reworked now those trapper runes have been released? I doubt it. Every thief running a trap-focussed build must run those runes unless they’re trying to prove something. Yes, at least traps are a viable option now, but it’s an extremely limited option that’s stopping a REAL FIX.

rogerwilko.6895:

Hurtappl.6405:

Before I quit gw2 .
something something DOOOOOOM
games dead neways
kk be bye

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I lol’d

sometimes i just wish we could just slot traps and venom as F2 F3 and F4 skills

^ I forget who originally said that, but it’d at least free some options up.

idk? but half the problem with venom is they take up to many important utility slots

suggestion for master traper and quick venom

reduce cool down & makes traps/venoms a kit

that would make 2 awesome grand master traits
specially for the acrobatic line where the grand master traits are a lil meh :S

Dahkeus.8243:

So, it looks like ANet is trying to buff venoms again. This time, they’re just putting a flat cooldown reduction on all venoms.

I can’t find anything about this. Is it an unsubstantiated rumor being used as an opportunity to present improvements? I’d like to read the original information very much.

Black Frog.9274:

I can’t find anything about this… I’d like to read the original information very much.

It’s from the Ready Up thing

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2jjk8h/ready_up_pvp_balance_and_class_balance_otes/

Personally, I don’t use Venoms because I’d rather have a stunbreak or condi cleanse in that spot. If skelk venom (heal) removed or transferred condi’s (like per hit), I may be convinced to make a build around venoms. In that case, I feel like we could easily fit 3 venoms on our bar, the heal, 1 util, and the elite. Suddenly venoms aren’t so bad!

Sarrow.2785:

Achey.3612:

the reason i personally cant stand venoms (specifically basilisk venom) is because you only get a certain amount of hits and they go away but thats not entirely the problem. the problem is if an enemy dodges, blocks, or ANYTHING….. the venom goes away.

i hate that when i use balilisk venom, all an enemy has to do is dodge or just be a guardian or an engi… and it wastes my elite for a whole 45 seconds… the elite should be unblockable at least OR make it so it goes away after a SUCCESSFUL hit. you only get ONE…. one chance and for what? 3 seconds of basically…. a daze? and it only works on ONE target. while rangers get a long kitten immobilize that targets 5 in an AoE radius.

I don’t know if you were around during the early days, but Basilisk used to be an unbreakable stun. This was back when thieves were WAY more bursty – when mug used to crit and eons before the ferocity nerf. Now that thief burst has been kicked in the balls, Basilisk stands out even more as a mediocre elite skill. Trouble is, for 9 builds out of ten it’s still the best we’ve got. That speaks volumes IMO. I’m all for making Shadow Refuge an elite. It deserves the spot at least.

Achey.3612:

i think a decent solution would be a trait that would grant you stealth every time you use a venom. at least then it would lesser the blow from adding venoms to utility. we already have a rune (rune of the trapper) that allows stealth for traps and that was a step in the right direction.

No thanks. As others have said, balancing weak abilities through runes is the worst kind of approach. We want diversity of builds, right? That won’t exist when a player running this or that build MUST HAVE this or that rune set to make it work. Worse still, niche rune sets act like a bandaid preventing the sorts of proper fixes those abilities really deserve. You think traps are going to get reworked now those trapper runes have been released? I doubt it. Every thief running a trap-focussed build must run those runes unless they’re trying to prove something. Yes, at least traps are a viable option now, but it’s an extremely limited option that’s stopping a REAL FIX.

rogerwilko.6895:

Hurtappl.6405:

Before I quit gw2 .
something something DOOOOOOM
games dead neways
kk be bye

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I lol’d

im not really saying there should be a rune set. im just trying to say that at least they tried to do something with the traps. I still find it more ideal that they buff venoms via traits. the DA line doesn’t do the venoms any justice as it is, nor do condi thieves usually spec into DA unless they’re specing into mug.

again, I think that the thief trait lines are really inefficient and should be reworked a little.

I always thought venom & traps should clear there active effect, So ice drake venom would clear chill, tripwire would break stun, ect.

I’m with the doom and gloom guy though.

The solution has always been simple. Make all venoms worth a slot on the utility bar without any support from traits (at all). Then rebalance the venom traits. This is how most good utilities work across all classes. Warriors don’t need grandmaster traits to have their banners fit for purpose, or their signets, or their shouts, or their stances.

There isn’t really any point coming to the forums for more solutions as every time a thread about venoms appears on the forums the experienced thieves always give pretty much the same answer. We know the devs don’t want to destroy two years of their work with venemous aura but until they sort out the foundations they will always just be papering over the cracks.

I use elite venom on s/d pvp thief.

People don’t use venoms because thief needs utility slots for survival.

How many meta builds (regardless of profession) actually have purely offensive utilities used heavily? Probably close to zero percent.

Urejt.5648:

I use elite venom on s/d pvp thief.

Yea, basilisk is the one exception to the venom rule. =P

Dahkeus.8243:

Urejt.5648:

I use elite venom on s/d pvp thief.

Yea, basilisk is the one exception to the venom rule. =P

Or devourer venom and slot daggerstorm so you can laugh while you watch rangers pew pew themselves to death.

Maugetarr.6823:

Dahkeus.8243:

Urejt.5648:

I use elite venom on s/d pvp thief.

Yea, basilisk is the one exception to the venom rule. =P

Or devourer venom and slot daggerstorm so you can laugh while you watch rangers pew pew themselves to death.

Or do the same thing without devourer venom and get the exact same result.

Dahkeus.8243:

Maugetarr.6823:

Dahkeus.8243:

Urejt.5648:

I use elite venom on s/d pvp thief.

Yea, basilisk is the one exception to the venom rule. =P

Or devourer venom and slot daggerstorm so you can laugh while you watch rangers pew pew themselves to death.

Or do the same thing without devourer venom and get the exact same result.

But I like combining DV and Sleight of Hand. Defacto -instant cast stun (daze+immob) with a strong immobilize on the end. I just think its crappy that our elite is less elite than a normal utility. Having those 2 together is sort of how BV used to be about 3 nerfs ago.

Maugetarr.6823:

Dahkeus.8243:

Maugetarr.6823:

Dahkeus.8243:

Urejt.5648:

I use elite venom on s/d pvp thief.

Yea, basilisk is the one exception to the venom rule. =P

Or devourer venom and slot daggerstorm so you can laugh while you watch rangers pew pew themselves to death.

Or do the same thing without devourer venom and get the exact same result.

But I like combining DV and Sleight of Hand. Defacto -instant cast stun (daze+immob) with a strong immobilize on the end. I just think its crappy that our elite is less elite than a normal utility. Having those 2 together is sort of how BV used to be about 3 nerfs ago.

I think the only 2 reasons for BV being an elite is for “on-elite” rune effects and to combo our spike damage (backstab or pw set ups). It is an elite being on a thief kit, but give the same “elite” to other profession’s and its laughable in most cases.