Guild Wars 2

whatcha gona do if the fullvenomstuffed thief hits u hard? if u run, my venomstuffed mates will give u the final touch!
ok jk, i made this topic to point out the difficulty of venoms and why they wont work.
see, the idea to adjust these damaging or functionatly effects to “the next few attacks” is good in theory. problem about this is “the next few attacks” are unlikely to hit the desired target as most of attacks hit more then 1 enemy. u apply your 40sec cd on clones, illusions, turrets, pets, minions or crates.
but this is no whining thread. ive seen some good ideas about this in the forums and thought at this point its good to point them out now that anet seem to put some attention to this. what are your thoughts?

I think this is awesome. We have a group support utility set now, and with one trait (admittedly in the wrong traitline but whatever) we can give everyone a short term dps boost and some healing along with whatever conditions the venom itself applies. I’m loving this! Goes great with a build I’ve been working on, though I doubt I’ll go into SA for that trait.

I was running a group support venom/stealth roamer for WvW and it worked out pretty well. IMO, this change hurts more than it helps. Having Leeching Venoms where it is in SA now means that you have to choose between faster recharge (32 sec) (and carry a useless taitline as a result) OR have some stealth abilities and 40 sec recharge on venoms. With the reduced share distance, it really hurts my build. As someone who runs the type of build I think this was meant to help, it doesn’t.

That being said, I’m not going to give up running this build for WvW. Instead, I’m going to hope they fix the issue.

DA/SA/DD is a good hybrid build using P/P and D/D. I care very little about sharing venom so the changes to venoms worked very well for me.

I forgot they reduced the radius. That is problematic. I hate radiuses on skills meant to boost your teammates. It promotes clumping up, and while I know that’s a useful tactic in many group events, I feel that’s only because of needing to do so in order to get the best use out of things like this. I don’t know. <shrugs>

Venom Share builds might be hurting but BV spam is real. I was getting “stoned” all over the place last night. Its like everyone is carrying a pipe now and the thieves are dealing the stuff for free.

Straegen.2938:

Venom Share builds might be hurting but BV spam is real. I was getting “stoned” all over the place last night. Its like everyone is carrying a pipe now and the thieves are dealing the stuff for free.

XD XD XD

The radius is plain silly. If the cast was instant it might be ok but as you cast the venom, you have no control over people surrounding. By the time you finish casting, they are out of range.

Aren’t the Venom skills themselves incredibly weak innately though?

Take Devourer for example, a 2 second immobilize on a 40 second cooldown. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to slot something like that? It’s like having one less utility slot and a waste of time just pressing the button to activate it. Warriors get a 4 second ranged immobilize on a 16 second cooldown, that’s double the effect and less than half the cooldown, yet still no warrior slots it.

The other venoms are all incredibly weak as well, the effects add absolutely nothing to a fight, compared to the valuable skills you aren’t taking instead. Even if you can share the effects, the radius is so small you’d have to all heap up every time you want to share a venom. A radius of 360 was already too small to be of much use, and then they went and lowered it further to 240. For the sharing to be of much value it would need a radius of 600 like shouts, and that’s ignoring how weak the effects are.

Zsymon.8457:

Aren’t the Venom skills themselves incredibly weak innately though?

Take Devourer for example, a 2 second single target immobilize on a 40 second cooldown. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to slot something like that? It’s like having one less utility slot and a waste of time just pressing the button to activate it. Warriors get a 4 second ranged immobilize on a 16 second cooldown, and no one slots it.

The other venoms are all incredibly weak as well, the effects add absolutely nothing to a fight, compared to the valuable skills you aren’t taking instead.

For one person sure, but when your whole team is now getting them? That 2 sec immob coming from 5 people. Stacking duration, that 10 sec. better than 4.

yiksing.9432:

The radius is plain silly. If the cast was instant it might be ok but as you cast the venom, you have no control over people surrounding. By the time you finish casting, they are out of range.

If it’s really that difficult, you can turn on the AoE circles to help you position yourself.

For one person sure, but when your whole team is now getting them? That 2 sec immob coming from 5 people. Stacking duration, that 10 sec. better than 4.

And another thing to consider with regards to venomous aura: “venoms shared by this trait will use the thief’s attributes (condition damage, healing power, etc.) instead of the player’s to whom it was applied.”

So if my thief is geared with 2200 condition damage, and shares Spider Venoms and Skale Venoms; they’ll have plenty of bite, especially when they stack so quickly when others are involved.

Natwinter.9234:

For one person sure, but when your whole team is now getting them? That 2 sec immob coming from 5 people. Stacking duration, that 10 sec. better than 4.

And another thing to consider with regards to venomous aura: “venoms shared by this trait will use the thief’s attributes (condition damage, healing power, etc.) instead of the player’s to whom it was applied.”

So if my thief is geared with 2200 condition damage, and shares Spider Venoms and Skale Venoms; they’ll have plenty of bite, especially when they stack so quickly when others are involved.

There’s a caveat that if another Thief (for example a hybrid) with 800 condition damage shared their venom, you would rather have it use your stats.

Natwinter.9234:

And another thing to consider with regards to venomous aura: “venoms shared by this trait will use the thief’s attributes (condition damage, healing power, etc.) instead of the player’s to whom it was applied.”

Where is this quoted from?

bearshaman.3421:

Natwinter.9234:

And another thing to consider with regards to venomous aura: “venoms shared by this trait will use the thief’s attributes (condition damage, healing power, etc.) instead of the player’s to whom it was applied.”

Where is this quoted from?

Wiki, under Notes for Basilisk Venom.
Link: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Venomous_Aura

bearshaman.3421:

Zsymon.8457:

Aren’t the Venom skills themselves incredibly weak innately though?

Take Devourer for example, a 2 second single target immobilize on a 40 second cooldown. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to slot something like that? It’s like having one less utility slot and a waste of time just pressing the button to activate it. Warriors get a 4 second ranged immobilize on a 16 second cooldown, and no one slots it.

The other venoms are all incredibly weak as well, the effects add absolutely nothing to a fight, compared to the valuable skills you aren’t taking instead.

For one person sure, but when your whole team is now getting them? That 2 sec immob coming from 5 people. Stacking duration, that 10 sec. better than 4.

Do keep in mind though that if an immob 2 seconds or 16, one single immob break will cancel it.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

bearshaman.3421:

Natwinter.9234:

And another thing to consider with regards to venomous aura: “venoms shared by this trait will use the thief’s attributes (condition damage, healing power, etc.) instead of the player’s to whom it was applied.”

Where is this quoted from?

Wiki, under Notes for Basilisk Venom.
Link: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Venomous_Aura

Checked out your link, and noticed something else that is amazing for this.

" The thief may trigger secondary effects off of these condition applications, such as weakening an enemy with Deadly Arts Lotus Poison when an ally poisons an enemy with a shared Spider Venom."

0_o

Edit: The only other traits I can see also getting treated like this is maybe Pressure Striking (torment on interrupt is basilisk counts) and Weakening Strikes (you take less damage from weakened foes).

babazhook.6805:

bearshaman.3421:

Zsymon.8457:

Aren’t the Venom skills themselves incredibly weak innately though?

Take Devourer for example, a 2 second single target immobilize on a 40 second cooldown. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to slot something like that? It’s like having one less utility slot and a waste of time just pressing the button to activate it. Warriors get a 4 second ranged immobilize on a 16 second cooldown, and no one slots it.

The other venoms are all incredibly weak as well, the effects add absolutely nothing to a fight, compared to the valuable skills you aren’t taking instead.

For one person sure, but when your whole team is now getting them? That 2 sec immob coming from 5 people. Stacking duration, that 10 sec. better than 4.

Do keep in mind though that if an immob 2 seconds or 16, one single immob break will cancel it.

Better to think of it kitten applications of 2 sec immob. If the target has a stunbreak, they will likely be reimmobilized very quickly, making that a wasted stunbreak.

Edit: apparently you can use “as” and the number “5” with a space between without getting "kitten"ed.

Zsymon.8457:

Take Devourer for example, a 2 second immobilize on a 40 second cooldown. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to slot something like that? It’s like having one less utility slot and a waste of time just pressing the button to activate it. Warriors get a 4 second ranged immobilize on a 16 second cooldown, that’s double the effect and less than half the cooldown, yet still no warrior slots it.

There was a time that some attacks with the venom would apply the venom to every player effected and only count off one stack. Devourer in the right party makeup once upon a time was very powerful in skill groups or well constructed zergs allowing for mass immobilize coupled with mass chills. I do not believe it works that way any longer.

Venoms shine now where you have one or two partners to share with. Ideally, if you pair yourself with a frontline fighter like a Warrior/Zerker the venoms synergize well with a thief jumping in to provide a killing blow.

Overall, venoms are a strong offense enhancement that is now worth taking without specifically taking a trait to enhance them. Of course, people always took Basi Venom, but now the other venoms are quite viable.

I agree venoms now much more worthwhile on the utility bar. That we do not need to train SA and gain this from the venom itself was a very positive change.

They also work nicely when you near a camp or tower and those guards in Wvw and three or more enemy think you an easy mark.