Venom guide
Kerneas
Member Posts: 3,874 ★★★★★
Venom is my fave character in this game by far. The purpose of this thread is to serve as a general guide to this champion, mainly for those who pulled him and don't know their way around him yet, or debate whether to rank this champion up or not.
1) Abilities
Venom has quite a useful kit of abilities. I will go step by step through them and provide description and practical use of each.
The Klyntar mutation is the core of Venom's abilities. It is a buff that lasts 9 seconds and refreshes itself instantly. Since it's a buff, it means that it is subject to nullify, buffet or pilfer. It is also nullified when Venom is incinerated. Whenever this buff expires, Venom gains it back instantly AND gets one random unique buff: Fury/Armor/Physical resist/Cruelty/Precision. Venom can have maximum of 7 of these.
However, this Klyntar mutation buff also provides the following benefits while it's up:
Spider-verse heroes cannot evade - that makes Venom very valuable against all kinds of Arachnoid evaders. Just be sure to pay attention to buffet and pilfer. These do not disable Venom completely, but require special attention (such as dexing to activate buffet, so that Klyntar mutation can proc).
+15% bleed AA against #Hero - that's just better bleed capability
Techs can't power drain/burn him - that one is often forgotten, but it is very useful. Vision's special attacks deal 0 damage to you. Literally. Also G2099 SP1 can't bother Venom. Last example I have is Warlock.
Also, this buff gives him small chunk of damage
This is also very important piece lf his kit. His critical hits have high chance of inflicting bleeds, even more against #Hero. Logically, more crits = more bleeds, so you ideally want to have precision buffs up, for more damage. My personal bleed records is between 7-9, but it is rare to have less than 2-3 up while playing "normally" (not overly aggressive, but not too passive either). This is valuable against for ex. Invisible Woman
Also, below 18% enemy hp, Venom gains True Strike and his SPs are unblockable. That is very very useful against IMIW.
Heavies refresh your last random buff and inflict Armor Break debuff. The Armor Break is useful against IMIW and other champs with Armor, since Armor reduces crit chance, and that is very bad for Venom. Also, this makes Venom a viable option for Cav EQ cosmic quest.
Rerolling your last Klyntar buff is often very valuable. Once you roll Armor, you become a Havok counter. If you roll Precision, you crit like crazy. I wanna note tho, that in most cases you won't really care about the buffs you have atm, since he hits hard enough even with bad rolls.
He also has a always active synergy, which increases dmg and hp of all symbiotes by +4% (including himself)
His Signature ability gives him more buffs potency, as well as chance to activate some random buff at the start of a fight. It is nice to have, but not necessary by far.
2) Specials
This is CRUCIAL part of Venom's kit. His SP1 has 3 hits and each has 55% chance to nullify a buff on the opponent. If this happens, Venom regens 4% of his max hp per buff nullified. If the enemy has lot of buffs, you can regen like crazy. I usually take Venom for buff heavy fights, so that I van heal him. You can easily manage healing 20-30% hp in buff heavy fights in late Act 6.
Lot of you may not realize it, but buffs that proc without landing an attack are a fairly common thing. 88/196 champs have buffs Venom can eat! That is almost 45% of champs. If you add nodes to that (resistor, rage etc.), you have actually a awful lot of places to use Venom.
My advise is, use his SP1 as often as you can, as it's in my opinion the best way to play him.
SP2 - it's a big nig chunky damage, with lots of hits. However it comes at a cost: you lose all your permanent buffs, in order to get a short burst of furies. This is particularly useful, when you get terrible rolls of buffs and wanna get a new chance to get the ones you desire. In that case I recommend dexing back and throwing the special, for one extra Fury. However, this also means that you have to wait for your buffs to proc again, so I recommend using this SP as either last burst at the end of fight, or when your buffs are the absolute bottom.
SP3 - it has a lot of hits and very cool animation. Also, it does +5% more damage for each buff on Venom at time of activation. This is useful when you don't wanna lose your buffs, but either get pushed over 2 bars of power, or can't use SP1 (for ex. the node "don't use 2 same sps in a row, whose name I just forgot). Bear in mind that this SP has its damage spread over lot of hits, so it may seem weaker than it is.
3) Usefulness
In this segment I wanna dicuss where Venom shines and where he lacks, and also list his pros and cons
Pros:
Strong bleed damage
High base health
Variants beast (spiderverse, villain and XL)
Strong regen possibilities
Simple playstyle
Bane of all spiderpeople
Not dependant on sig level, or synergy
I always have Venom on my team, he carried me through Act 5 exploration and Act 6 completion. He definitely is a useful addition to any roster in my opinion, and he is good in the endgame content, as well as in the earlygame.
Cons:
No immunity
Buffs are random, which can troll you
Isn't specifically godly at anything, except countering the Spiders. He is a hitter whom you can take into most fights, but if you have another hard hitter, he may become redundant.
Neutral:
Low PI - Venom's PI is extremely low for a 5* champion. I do not wanna be awfully specific, but without suicides, with max deepwounds and 1 pt in willpower, his base PI is under 10k. If only there were some Cav level mission to bring teams of 10k PI or lower
If this ever comes back, he will be once again a very good counter.
Suicides - this is debatable. He has no immunity and needs to throw SP1 often. But he has a solid regen, so against buff heavy opponents, he can heal the recoil back.
4) Position within cosmic class
He isn't by far the most effective champion. He is actually outshined by couple champions (namely CGR right now), but he can fit in the top 10 cosmics vefy comfortably, and arguably top 5 as well. This is matter of personal preference ofc. Cosmic class has a lot of banger champs who kostly have immunities, where Venom lacks. However no cosmic champ has such a potent regen and buff control.
And this is where my guide ends. It isn't perfect, but I believe it provides a good idea about his uses, strengths and weaknesses. There are probably better guides, but if you or any forum member is a fresh Venom owner, I firmly believe this guide has some useful information for you.
At the very end I would like to state, that I think that Venom is not underrated, nor overrated. He is a popular champion who is valued just right and his position doesn't need to be adjusted in any way.
1) Abilities
Venom has quite a useful kit of abilities. I will go step by step through them and provide description and practical use of each.
The Klyntar mutation is the core of Venom's abilities. It is a buff that lasts 9 seconds and refreshes itself instantly. Since it's a buff, it means that it is subject to nullify, buffet or pilfer. It is also nullified when Venom is incinerated. Whenever this buff expires, Venom gains it back instantly AND gets one random unique buff: Fury/Armor/Physical resist/Cruelty/Precision. Venom can have maximum of 7 of these.
However, this Klyntar mutation buff also provides the following benefits while it's up:
Spider-verse heroes cannot evade - that makes Venom very valuable against all kinds of Arachnoid evaders. Just be sure to pay attention to buffet and pilfer. These do not disable Venom completely, but require special attention (such as dexing to activate buffet, so that Klyntar mutation can proc).
+15% bleed AA against #Hero - that's just better bleed capability
Techs can't power drain/burn him - that one is often forgotten, but it is very useful. Vision's special attacks deal 0 damage to you. Literally. Also G2099 SP1 can't bother Venom. Last example I have is Warlock.
Also, this buff gives him small chunk of damage
This is also very important piece lf his kit. His critical hits have high chance of inflicting bleeds, even more against #Hero. Logically, more crits = more bleeds, so you ideally want to have precision buffs up, for more damage. My personal bleed records is between 7-9, but it is rare to have less than 2-3 up while playing "normally" (not overly aggressive, but not too passive either). This is valuable against for ex. Invisible Woman
Also, below 18% enemy hp, Venom gains True Strike and his SPs are unblockable. That is very very useful against IMIW.
Heavies refresh your last random buff and inflict Armor Break debuff. The Armor Break is useful against IMIW and other champs with Armor, since Armor reduces crit chance, and that is very bad for Venom. Also, this makes Venom a viable option for Cav EQ cosmic quest.
Rerolling your last Klyntar buff is often very valuable. Once you roll Armor, you become a Havok counter. If you roll Precision, you crit like crazy. I wanna note tho, that in most cases you won't really care about the buffs you have atm, since he hits hard enough even with bad rolls.
He also has a always active synergy, which increases dmg and hp of all symbiotes by +4% (including himself)
His Signature ability gives him more buffs potency, as well as chance to activate some random buff at the start of a fight. It is nice to have, but not necessary by far.
2) Specials
This is CRUCIAL part of Venom's kit. His SP1 has 3 hits and each has 55% chance to nullify a buff on the opponent. If this happens, Venom regens 4% of his max hp per buff nullified. If the enemy has lot of buffs, you can regen like crazy. I usually take Venom for buff heavy fights, so that I van heal him. You can easily manage healing 20-30% hp in buff heavy fights in late Act 6.
Lot of you may not realize it, but buffs that proc without landing an attack are a fairly common thing. 88/196 champs have buffs Venom can eat! That is almost 45% of champs. If you add nodes to that (resistor, rage etc.), you have actually a awful lot of places to use Venom.
My advise is, use his SP1 as often as you can, as it's in my opinion the best way to play him.
SP2 - it's a big nig chunky damage, with lots of hits. However it comes at a cost: you lose all your permanent buffs, in order to get a short burst of furies. This is particularly useful, when you get terrible rolls of buffs and wanna get a new chance to get the ones you desire. In that case I recommend dexing back and throwing the special, for one extra Fury. However, this also means that you have to wait for your buffs to proc again, so I recommend using this SP as either last burst at the end of fight, or when your buffs are the absolute bottom.
SP3 - it has a lot of hits and very cool animation. Also, it does +5% more damage for each buff on Venom at time of activation. This is useful when you don't wanna lose your buffs, but either get pushed over 2 bars of power, or can't use SP1 (for ex. the node "don't use 2 same sps in a row, whose name I just forgot). Bear in mind that this SP has its damage spread over lot of hits, so it may seem weaker than it is.
3) Usefulness
In this segment I wanna dicuss where Venom shines and where he lacks, and also list his pros and cons
Pros:
Strong bleed damage
High base health
Variants beast (spiderverse, villain and XL)
Strong regen possibilities
Simple playstyle
Bane of all spiderpeople
Not dependant on sig level, or synergy
I always have Venom on my team, he carried me through Act 5 exploration and Act 6 completion. He definitely is a useful addition to any roster in my opinion, and he is good in the endgame content, as well as in the earlygame.
Cons:
No immunity
Buffs are random, which can troll you
Isn't specifically godly at anything, except countering the Spiders. He is a hitter whom you can take into most fights, but if you have another hard hitter, he may become redundant.
Neutral:
Low PI - Venom's PI is extremely low for a 5* champion. I do not wanna be awfully specific, but without suicides, with max deepwounds and 1 pt in willpower, his base PI is under 10k. If only there were some Cav level mission to bring teams of 10k PI or lower
If this ever comes back, he will be once again a very good counter.Suicides - this is debatable. He has no immunity and needs to throw SP1 often. But he has a solid regen, so against buff heavy opponents, he can heal the recoil back.
4) Position within cosmic class
He isn't by far the most effective champion. He is actually outshined by couple champions (namely CGR right now), but he can fit in the top 10 cosmics vefy comfortably, and arguably top 5 as well. This is matter of personal preference ofc. Cosmic class has a lot of banger champs who kostly have immunities, where Venom lacks. However no cosmic champ has such a potent regen and buff control.
And this is where my guide ends. It isn't perfect, but I believe it provides a good idea about his uses, strengths and weaknesses. There are probably better guides, but if you or any forum member is a fresh Venom owner, I firmly believe this guide has some useful information for you.
At the very end I would like to state, that I think that Venom is not underrated, nor overrated. He is a popular champion who is valued just right and his position doesn't need to be adjusted in any way.
Post edited by Kabam Porthos on
20
Comments
Have an Insightful
Been debating to rank 5 venom for a while
Venom's an amazing "all-rounder" type champion. Hits hard and some pretty good utlity now that I think about it. Would love a 5* or above.
Great guide on him.
Personally *without suicides or synergies* he is even better then corvus and cmm, making him a top 3 cosmic.
However with suicides, venom actually becomes worse while champions like corvus become waay better.
But I never take him in 5*, kabam hates me, never get me the cool champs
55+45=100
Coincidence?
Guess that's the champ @Fluffy_paws could use to flex on me
I would say though that beyond the Three Variants you mentioned he honestly works for all Six.
Handles his Useful Fights as usual in all 6 (Spidey-Heroes/IMIW/Havok/So Forth), V1 in the Cosmic Chapter, V3 even with the -50% Attack his Offensive Buffs and Bleeds make up for it, and V4 in 5 of the 6 Quests as he is available as a 2-6 Star Champion.
Also one other thing that can help some Newer Players with a Developing Roster, Venom has Many Synergies with Many Champions! These include Numerous Basic Synergies that boost Base Stats a little and Unique Synergies like with Several Symbiotes or Spider-Gwen which just gives her More Amazing Damage or Darkhawk which gives both More Power Against Villains/More Crit Chance Against Heroes. However Venom himself actually Requires No Synergies, they just either Help Him a Little or Only Benefit the Other