Venomancer Dungeons

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Any good Venomancer learns through their own experiences and the experiences of others. Here's a bit of wisdom passed down from seasoned Venomancers (originally taken from the PWI forums, but the link is broken).

Skills

In order to be of any use, you need to know what you can do. At the heart of that is your skillset. There's a great guide that goes over most of the skills located here, but here are some specifics that you definitely need to know about.

Bramble Guard

Facts

1. Bramble Guard does not reduce damage that you suffer. That skill is Bramble Hood, which is unlocked after you learn level 10 Bramble Guard.
2. Bramble Guard is a buff that you can cast on yourself and others. Bramble Hood is a short term self-buff only.
3. Bramble Guard only reflects attacks that are considered melee (physical). No magic. No artillery. There are some bosses that have AoEs that the game considers melee, but those are exceptions.
4. Bramble Guard in and of itself will not draw aggro. It will add to the aggro that someone has if they have already drawn aggro and it reflects an attack. Having Bramble is not the same as casting Alpha Male. Additionally, the amount of aggro that Bramble Guard generates is relatively low. It's greater than heal aggro, but less than any attack or skill.

Tips

1. Ask your squadmates before Brambling them. Some Clerics hate it, but some love it. Some Mystics will not want Bramble because it triggers their Lucky Break's effect.
2. Don't cast a lower level Bramble over a higher level Bramble. Bramble can be maxed at level 59. If they're level 60 and you're level 30, don't cast Bramble Guard. This goes for the Sage/Demon versions as well.

Debuffing

1. Debuff. It makes things die faster. You'll get invited to more squads when your squads are satisfied and sometimes even impressed. If you don't have Fox Form, Purge or Amplify Damage, get them as soon as possible.
2. Watch the range on the debuffs. The Fox Form ones in particular are short range, which can bring you into harm's way. If a boss is AoE-ing and you can't take the damage, wait until the AoE finishes before running in and debuffing. The Cleric is generally going to be focused on the tank, so you're not high on the priority list for getting heals.

General Skills

1. Bramble Hood: All venomancers should have it as soon as it's available. It gives you a 75% damage reduction for 15 seconds.
2. Feral Concentration: This makes you invincible for 10 seconds at the cost of stunning you. If you get aggro from something you really can't take a beating from, you can pop this to give your squad or pet a few extra seconds to try to get the aggro off of you, or for your own apothecary items and Genie skills to finish cooling down.
3. Myriad Rainbow: This costs a fair amount of mana and chi, but can quicken the death of any boss. The rainbow randomly curses the boss with 0 to 4 curses. The possible curses are: 4.5k bleed over 9 seconds (physical damage), 4.5k poison over 9 seconds (wood damage), Armor Break (100% physical defense reduction), Mind Break (100% magic defense reduction). The human form one is long ranged and single target.
4. Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form): This is the same as the above except that it is short range and AoE. This is very useful in large pulls.
5. Fossilized Curse: This decreases attack rate by 100% and accuracy by 300% for 15 seconds. Using this one a boss will make it miss all melee attacks. It can save your your tank some time to get back on their feet without having the boss wipe the squad. Keep in mind magic attacks are not affected by accuracy.

Squad Support

Venomancers are one of the few classes that are very self-reliant from level 1. This makes them ideal for squad support roles such as bodyguard and escort for healers or weaker players in general.

If something happens to the tank on a boss, a strong Venomancer and her pet (if it has aggro skills) can take and hold the boss long enough for the Cleric to revive the barb, saving the squad from a total wipe.

Venomancers can also take up the job of killing adds or performing miscellaneous tasks required in dungeons.

Luring

Luring is more of an art than a skill. A full guide can be found here.

Aggro Management

1. Don't randomly AoE mobs. If you take more than the squad thinks you should, the tank and Cleric will most likely let you die than risk a squad wipe.
2. If you draw unwanted aggro, run in circles around the tank. You're fast. At most points in the game, faster than anyone else. Don't run off away from the tank, forcing them to chase you to get the mobs off you. Don't drag the mobs to squishy members of the squad.
3. If you're AoE grinding with a pet that has reflect, make sure that the mobs actually get a few hits in while you're rounding them up. A single attack/bash/reflect isn't going to keep aggro indefinitely against a slew of heals. This is particularly an issue when gathering slow moving mobs such as Cleavehands and Convulsing Demons.
4. If you're trying to avoid aggro entirely and bypass a few mobs, you may need to hug walls. When doing so, either stow your pet or make sure that it catches up to you before you turn. The size of the pet doesn't change its aggro radius, so if you're in a safe spot, your pet can be in a safe spot if it stays close. But even if you bypass a group of mobs successfully and don't wait for your pet to catch up to you, your pet will cut the corner and potentially run straight through the group you were trying to avoid.
5. If you're jumping over the edge of ledges and bridges, put your pet away. If you jump off a ledge and your pet tries to get to you by running all the way around, it may aggro mobs.

Tanking

If you and/or your pet can tank the hits, there's no need to nerf your combined damage output.

1. Know your mob. Some things your pet can tank. Some things you can tank yourself. What exactly you can tank is highly dependent on your pet, your level, your gear and your build.
2. If another veno is pet-tanking a boss and she needs you to help heal it too, then help with healing! To heal another Venomance's pet, target it like any other mob or player.
3. One trick to boost your healing effectiveness on difficult bosses is to put your heal pet on a hotkey and hold that hotkey down, this will cast the skill as soon as it's ready any time, and faster then anyone can by clicking on it repeatedly.

If you haven't been playing the role of the tank and the tank goes down, there's a couple different things you can do:

1. If you don't have any intention of even trying to tank, you may want to unsummon your pet and high-tail it. If the squad is going to wipe for sure and you can save yourself, do so. At least that way you can make it safe for the Cleric to come back or revive others. Be careful with this though, sometimes just unsummoning can hasten the party's demise.
2. If the squad just needs a little bit of time and can recover, Venomancers make for a pretty good back-up tank by cycling through Genie skills, apothecary, Bramble Hood, Feral Concentration and Soul Transfusion.
   • Send in your pet with a high aggro skill such as Bash or Flesh Ream. Roar works as well if you need to snatch aggro quickly, but doesn't help if your pet already has aggro.
   • If the Cleric is running away, keep the boss preoccupied until they can get out of range. When they are in a safe spot, go ahead and die. Just make sure you're not where the boss is planning on standing when he resets.
   • If the Cleric is reviving and the boss is being a hindrance (AoEs, random aggro, etc.), run. More tips on this in the next section. Bring the boss back when the rest of the squad is ready, if you can manage to live that long.

Evasive Action

It happens to even the best of us; sometimes things do go south. When that happens, you'd best know how to take full advantage of your defensive qualities and kiting skills.

1. Run. If something is after you, keep moving. Summer Sprint, Demon Fox Form, speed pots, and Holy Path.
2. If you need to run and your pet is dead, run. Don't stand there reviving it.
3. If your pet is alive and has aggro and you want to gain some distance from the boss, have your pet attack the boss or put it on Halt. If the pet lives long enough, it will teleport to you when you get too far away and only then will the boss start chasing the pet. If you had the pet on Halt, it'll stop there and wait to take another beating until you get far enough away for another teleport. Otherwise, it should start following you (hit follow if for some reason it doesn't).
4. With the advantage of speed, sometimes you don't need too much extra distance. Make sure the pet has aggro then put it on follow. The boss will come running after your pet. Run away quickly and the pet will try to keep up with you. In most cases this means your pet stops taking damage entirely, or only takes one hit every few seconds. Between your fast running speed and Holy Path, you can usually keep your pet healed while doing this, especially if it's a tank pet.
5. Once you've gained some distance, take a moment to heal up a bit with Soul Transfusion, Metabolic Boost, and Nature's Grace if you need to.

Items on Hand

Some things that are good to keep with you:

1. Pet food: Water or Perfect Cookies does the job for most things to restore a pet's loyalty after death.
2. Resurrection Scrolls: If you die and the Cleric in the squad is furiously healing the tank/rest of squad, no one involved really wants the Cleric to stop healing and revive you.
3. Guardian Scrolls: If you're going to use Resurrection Scrolls and care about the EXP loss, grab a couple of these to prevent any EXP loss.
4. Apothecary Potions: Immunity potions (Sutra Power Orb, Ironguard Powder, Pan Gu's Essense), speed potions (Charger Orb, Shadow Binder Powder), chi potions (White Tea, God's Tea) are all essential.