Om Nom Nom. Nom. OM NOM.

Fluffy_pawsFluffy_paws Member Posts: 2,678 ★★★★★
edited August 2021 in Strategy and Tips
Hello! I'm fluffy_paws and apparently I'm suffering from essay withdrawal (honestly, I've not gone this long without writing an essay in YEARS, send help)

So I'm gonna bore all of you instead. I've already done an Archangel write-up, and while I may update that at some point, I don't think I have enough to add at the moment to make it worth it. So I turn to the big lumbering beast that everyone loves on energize nodes, who hides in the corner with an sp1, doesn't throw it, corners you in three massive, heart-stopping lunges and KO's you - maybe it's just me. Venom.

I don't know as much about Venom as I do about AA, I don't use him quite as much but perhaps it might come in use sometime. It's useful to me right now, because I feel like I'm writing an essay - I feel at home at last..
tl;dr at the end

Buffs
Buffs are simultaneously Venom's biggest strength and his biggest weakness.

At the start of the fight, he starts with his Klyntar mutation buff. He basically needs this buff to be useful. He has no way to protect this buff that is CRITICAL to his kit, however all is not lost, it will return after 9 seconds. If a spiderling is evading Venom, he's lost this buff. If a tech champion is power draining/burning Venom, he's lost this buff. If you loose blee- never mind, no-one notices that anyway and no matter how many times this is said there will be threads so I'll move on. He can lose this buff through nullify and by receiving incinerate damage.
This Klyntar buff generates more buffs, every 9 seconds from either Armour, Physical Resist, Creulty, Precision, Fury until he reaches his max of 7, with Carnage he gains another extra phys- I mean buff.
An unduped Venom will start with 1 buff and gain 1 buff every 9 seconds. A duped Venom starts with 2 buffs and a chance to gain another depending on sig level.
Here is when he gets sometimes annoying to play..the physical resist is sorta useless. His heavy attack re-rolls the latest buff and applies an armour break debuff. I might be wrong here but I think you need the Klyntar buff to still be active when this happens. However, you might re-roll the phys resist buff twice and get... all together now.. phys resist again. All hope is still not lost though, I shall return to this later. Venom is a forgiving symbiote.
The armour up is occasionally useful. Actually, I lie. If you chose to take Venom against Havok, that armour is your life. Do not let it slip through your fingers. Venom applies bleeds, Havok does Havok things when he bleeds and applies a lot of plasma. That plasma detonates without your armour, bye bye Venom. It also allows him to super cheese paths in v6.
I try to stack as many cruelty and precision as possible because crits apply bleeds and more bleeds = more damage. There will be some armour, phys res kicking about but if you've got a few of the good buffs, you're golden.

He doesn't just like his own buffs, he also likes his enemy's buffs. He eyes them hungrily, meanacingly from the other side of the screen just watching, waiting, salivating.... wanting.
Well he is in luck because his sp1 allows him a 55% chance per hit (3hits) to savagely rip away and eat one of his enemy's buffs. When he eats, he regenerates around 3/5% I believe. Nothing is safe, not even Luke Cage's indestructible buff. He can om nom crit resist buffs, phys res, all those nodes that give resist buffs when you strike them, free food. Feed Venom, he's hungryyyy. If you can't tell, I really like the om nom phrase. Send help.
All that armour that old Red Skully gets? Eat it alllll then hammer into his block as much as you want. Don't do it if he has armour, while Venom is immune to the power drain, he isn't to the direct damage. I need to test how well he can keep up with Civil Warrior's armour buffs actually and see if he can still bleed CW. Hulkbuster's shocks with armour? Heavy attack. You could eat it but much safer. Anywhere with buffs? Free healing. If you're brave enough, even Hype's power gains are food. Silver Centurion is only immune to bleed with that armour. Eat it. He can remove Annihilus' Cosmic Control Rod by sp1 or heavy attack.
He may not be ideal for Aarkhus despite the buffs to eat. I don't know if you can keep him free of power gain buffs and keep yourself from coldsnap.
This om nom acts as a nullify, and has a 95% chance to fail against mystic ward. Doesn't matter that he's a cosmic.

Problem is, while Venom likes his buffs and his enemies buffs, he has enemies eyeing up his precious buffs too. While he stands salivating at Silver Surfer's many buffs, in the shadows lurk the entire mystic class, itching to rip away Venom's own buffs which he leaves foolishly unguarded.
I don't make a habit of taking him against many mystics (you'd be fine with like Iron Fist because Iron Fist has 3 lines of abilities and probably can't remember how to nullify) but definitely avoid Sym Supreme, BWCV (bleeds = power gain, even if not for the nullify) and Mephisto is a bad time, once his aura of incineration kicks in bye Klyntar Buff. Man-Thing is a bad time, I'm sure he applies his weird pustule buffs and nullifies on Contact. I think this counts when venom parries/hits him. So he gets poisoned. Dormammu degens with juuuust the dexerity buff, don't do it. SW is an rng fiesta and may poison but that applies to all champs but he isn't poison immune, watch out. Morningstar will bleed him and additional RIP if you get hit by that sp2.
Nodes like buffed up may be where he can prance around wearing a shiny crown, buffet/pilfer and spite nodes are not gonna be a fun time for him.

Alright, we bored of talking about buffs? Well kinda tough luck, because he's not got much without his buffs. Remember how I said Venom is a forgiving champion? He is. If you can't keep up with the rate he spurns out phys res and armour buffs, you can rest every single buff with his sp2. Remember no Havok. Keep the stack of Phys res if you get that sweet armour buff, it's worth it.
He converts all buffs into fury buffs and the Klyntar Mutation Buff grumbles and starts churning out phy-buffs, dammit I mean BUFFS, again. If you get yourself a nice amount of cruelty, precision and fury, use the sp2 to end the fight or you have to rebuild the buffs. The sp3 gains 5% damage per buff he has but honestly its soooooooooo long. I stick to sp1 if they have buffs or just regular attacks.

Okay, okay, I'll take a break from the buffs (honestly is anyone still here? I'm surprised). He also applies bleed. Sadly if the opponent is bleed immune he does not apply a degen instead, which is shame because a fair % of the tech class is bleed immune, but it's ok, Hype has your back Venom. He can still do the fight, just longer and I use more sp2s to get the fury because no point trying to bleed them when they don't have blood. I also don't use him for the shrug off champions like XBones and Mole-Man and whatever else mechanics there are now because he's a simple soul with no anti-tenacity, but he still doesn't 100% rely on those bleeds.
As with any bleed champ, I bring this warning: watch out for certain champs that punish you for applying bleeds. He's not a mutant. Elsa degens him. He's not tech. Cable degens him. Abomination poisons him. Omega gains death field and he dies. Bishop does Bishop-y things and gives direct damage while bleeding (honestly I've no idea how to fight buffed Bishop). Mr Sinister will give you back all your bleed stacks with his sp1. Venom bleeds. He dies.
He also applies armour break and some champs punish for that, however the one I recall is mystic, bleed immune and bad Venom match-up regardless, but if you do take Venom vs Dragon-Man no heavy. Heavy good for other champs though, like Ghost - no phase. Break the fishbowl!

Quick note before I talk a bit about Variants and then shut up, he has access to true strike and unblockable specials at 18% opponent health. It isn't the best true strike around but it is amazing for IMIW who does annoying stuff at low health but comes in handy sometimes - bane transfer is one instance, if they run away and hold block, run after them with your unblockable sp. Unless it's Sinister. Or Mordo. Don't reccomend Venom against Sinister though.

Venom good for Variants. I haven't done any of V1 so I won't talk of it. Only chapter 1 of v2 but it is the XL Variant and Venom is XL, by that logic, Venom good.
V6 is the Villians variant and he is basically god, there's many paths he can just heavy spam if you have armour break or armour up. V5 has his name in it. I've not explored it but he's once again great in it (also allowed in it since it has specific restrictions).
He's also good for v4, providing you have the required rarity. I used my 4*/3* a lot but didn't have the 5* or 2* back then. There's a spider evade-y path in the 3* chapter if I remember right.

He sucks for v7. Unsurprisingly, since it's the hero variant.

lt;dr: Venom GOOD. If buff punishing, Venom BAD. If bleed punishing, Venom BAD.
Post edited by Kabam Porthos on

Comments

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  • TheBair123TheBair123 Member Posts: 5,344 ★★★★★
    what's your usual venom playstyle in long fights? would it be different with an unawakened rather than awakened venom? i usually do sp3s instead of sp2s so i don't lose my buffs
  • Fluffy_pawsFluffy_paws Member Posts: 2,678 ★★★★★

    Awesome write up!! Venom is an awesome champ. I’m glad I r5ed mine, and I just pulled the 6* last week. I’m continuing to find places to use him, and he just keeps surprising me.

    I chased the 5* for ageeeeees haha I'm super jealous of your 6*

    what's your usual venom playstyle in long fights? would it be different with an unawakened rather than awakened venom? i usually do sp3s instead of sp2s so i don't lose my buffs

    Are there buffs? I don't run suicides so I'll still spam sp1 to keep myself at 100% and get back any chip damage i take from re-rolling buffs/armour break. Otherwise I'll probably throw the sp3, then take a nap, wake up, build back to sp3.
    I use the sp2 if I get bad buffs I'm unable to re-roll for whatever reason and to finish the fight, otherwise I don't touch it. Sometimes I don't use any specials at all because I find him super fun to hit people with😅
    I don't think it would change really, his dupe gives him extra buffs at the start, unless i get 2x phys res and then fury or so and i can't reset the first two and i have uncooperative AI that turtles up and you just keep getting the phys res, then I might start with sp2.
  • TheBair123TheBair123 Member Posts: 5,344 ★★★★★

    what's your usual venom playstyle in long fights? would it be different with an unawakened rather than awakened venom? i usually do sp3s instead of sp2s so i don't lose my buffs

    Are there buffs? I don't run suicides so I'll still spam sp1 to keep myself at 100% and get back any chip damage i take from re-rolling buffs/armour break. Otherwise I'll probably throw the sp3, then take a nap, wake up, build back to sp3.
    I use the sp2 if I get bad buffs I'm unable to re-roll for whatever reason and to finish the fight, otherwise I don't touch it. Sometimes I don't use any specials at all because I find him super fun to hit people with😅
    I don't think it would change really, his dupe gives him extra buffs at the start, unless i get 2x phys res and then fury or so and i can't reset the first two and i have uncooperative AI that turtles up and you just keep getting the phys res, then I might start with sp2.

    that makes total sense. i'm trying to explore v6 with him and i'm finding his playstyle very go with the flow
  • ccrider474ccrider474 Member Posts: 671 ★★★
    New syn with spider 2099 is awesome for him too. Heavy gives venom a 50% aptitude buff.


  • Fluffy_pawsFluffy_paws Member Posts: 2,678 ★★★★★

    New syn with spider 2099 is awesome for him too. Heavy gives venom a 50% aptitude buff.


    Oo damn i need me a spidey 2099 to test this now
  • ccrider474ccrider474 Member Posts: 671 ★★★

    New syn with spider 2099 is awesome for him too. Heavy gives venom a 50% aptitude buff.


    Oo damn i need me a spidey 2099 to test this now
    I got super lucky for him. Gave 1 crystal a crack and nabbed him
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