Editing Angelyz's Guide to Venomancers

'''''Introduction'''''

This guide is for anyone and everyone who loves the Venomancer class or is starting a new one. It is written from my point of view and should NOT be taken as if it is the ONLY way to play this wonderful class. However, this IS the way that I have found through personal experience to be the most profiting and accurate way to play a Veno. This guide is intended to explain a Veno as an Arcane and almost pure Magic but somewhat hybrid build.

This guide is written in my own words. My name is Angelyz and I play on Dreamweaver server. I hope you enjoy this as I have put much time and money into giving the best knowledge that I can in order to teach you about this class.

'''''Venomancer Startup'''''

The Venomancer starts out as an arcane class with a skill known as "Venomous Scarab" which is the Veno's fastest channeling nuke throughout the game from beginning to end. At level 2 the Veno is given the opportunity to do a quest that allows the player to choose between two different starting pets as well as one free pet bag slot to hatch the pet into.

Of these two pets, you will have to choose between a Varicose Scorpion and a Sharptooth Wolf. It is my strong recommendation that you choose the Varicose Scorpion for reasons that I will describe in my "Best Venomancer Pets" guide.

So now that you have chosen your scorpion, it is time to begin using it and leveling up. Try to stay focused on doing quests in order to gain your levels, as this will level you very fast as opposed to just killing stuff without a quest reward, known as "Grinding".

When using your pet for the first time, you will notice that it's picture (when summoned) will change to green and so on. This means that you need to feed your pet, and it is something that you do not want to neglect. Neglecting to feed your pet will result in loss of the pets stats such as his physical attack stat and so on, which causes your pet to do less damage and take more damage in battle.

Pet food is sold at any "Pet Skill Trainer" under the "Goods" or "Pet Items" option. I recommend buying water and sesame oil. Water is low cost and is good for a quick feeding when your pet gets hungry. Sesame oil is good for gaining back the loyalty he loses when he dies, as well as filling his loyalty to full when you first get a pet.

You may be wondering what the loyalty is for now that I have mentioned it. Loyalty is what decreases your pets stats as he gets more and more hungry. The more hungry he is, the less loyal he is to you. So try to keep his loyalty bar full at all times.

I would strongly recommend spending a little bit of cash to buy yourself 4 Mystical Tome Pages from the cash shop, followed by 3 Mystical Tome fragments from a player or the auctioneer (Auction House). These 7 items will allow you to manufacture a Mystical Tome at the Tome forge in the City of a Thousand Streams. By equipping a Mystical Tome in your inventory (no matter what the stats on it are), it prevents your pet from ever getting hungry, thus, saving you loads of coin on pet food throughout the entire game. Assuming you took this advice and have a Tome equipped, the only time your pet will ever lose loyalty will be when he dies. So in this case, you will not need water, only sesame oil. When a pet dies it loses 100 loyalty, sesame oil adds 100 loyalty. As long as you keep it's loyalty bar full, you will only consume 1 oil per death. Neat huh? Moving on....

'''''Venomancer Points Distribution'''''

As an Arcane Veno, I highly recommend putting the biggest portion of points into Magic as this is not only what gives you more Mana and Magic Attack, but also increases the healing power of your pet healing skill.

Personally, I do not like being killed in one or two hits in battle for those times when I take agro from my pet. Therefore it is a very wise decision to spend some points in Vitality to gain more Hit Points. But depending on how much damage you want to do, you must be careful on how much you spend in Vit. I recommend at least 50 Vit and the rest into Mag. DO NOT waste points on Dex as an Arcane Veno, leave it at 5. Arcane Veno's have no use for Dex at all. Also be sure to spend only enough points into Strength as you need in order to equip new gear, but nothing more than what is needed.

With this particular point build, you will do a great deal of damage from your nukes, and combined with the damage that your pet deals out, you are virtually unstoppable as long as you don't overdo it by trying to take on outrageously higher level things. That is until you've got the hang of being a Veno. I personally have been able to take out mobs anywhere from 10 up to 20 or 25 levels higher than me, depending on the mob. I wouldn't recommend trying that on bosses unless you just recently dinged and have no exp to lose. But even then, it's quite risky lol.

'''''Venomancer Gear'''''

This is an Arcane Veno guide so obviously I want you to choose Arcane Gear :P Arcane gear builds up your magic resistances, magic attack, mana, and pet healing power. This is the heart and soul of an Arcane Veno. Although you will be weak against physical attacks, this will not matter if you play your Veno correctly as you will not be hit very much.

All of your main pieces should be Arcane. Your other pieces such as necklace, belt, cape, and rings will vary depending on what you want. Be sure to get rings that add magic attack no matter what, and try to focus on gear that adds HP, Vit, and negative channeling if possible.

Some veno's tend to use Protection necklaces and belts to bump up their physical defense a bit, which isn't a bad thing except no matter how much physical defense it adds, your still gonna be what we like to call "squishy". And your still gonna die fast when you get hit by physical attacks. So I personally go with Elemental necklaces and belts to make me that much more resistant to magic attacks.

I go for the ones that have the HP and Vit over the ones with Phys Def. It balances out itself. Another thing that is a must for Arcane and Mag Veno's is the type of shards that you add to sockets on your gear. I personally go with nothing but HP shards on all my gear, and Magic Attack shards on my weapons. I'll leave the shard combining up to you to learn Smile

'''''Venomancer Strategy'''''

Now that you have a basic knowledge of starting, points, pets, and gear it is time to learn how to kick some monster butt!

First things first, your pet is your life once you reach about level 15 and up. This is where it gets fun... Send in your pet to kill something the same level as you or up to 5 levels higher to see how fast you're gonna have to heal him to keep him alive. By doing this simple test you will be able to judge whether or not you will have time to nuke in between heals or not. Keep in mind though, the higher level the mob is above you, the less time you have to nuke in between pet heals. So be careful what you do and try not to overdo it.

One very important strategy is being able to pull a single mob out of a group. This is easy for the Venomancer. Basically what you do is send your pet after the mob of your choice and let it get 1 hit in on the mob, the second it gets that hit in I want you to stow the pet and then immediately re-summon it as fast as you can. By doing this, the mob that your pet hit will come after you and the rest of the mobs near it will reset. If you did this fast enough and from a safe distance from the mobs, you will have your pet back out before the mob gets to you. This allows you to click on your pets attack button to get the mobs attention back on the pet and off of you. It's called "Tagging"...

Be very careful though, if you are standing too far away from the mobs when trying to single pull, your pet will magically appear back beside you and you will suddenly see all of those mobs running towards you. If this happens, stow your pet immediately before the mobs get to you and they will reset and run back except for the one that your pet hit. If your pet did not get a hit in before it appeared back to you, they will all reset and you can start over.

Now... There will be times when you mess up and get 2 mobs instead of the 1 you wanted to pull. Sometimes this is unavoidable but you CAN handle it. Simply let your pet hit 1 of the mobs and then send him after the other one, as long as your pet is the only one who damaged both mobs, they will both agro him and turn away from you. In this case, you will have to spam that pet heal nonstop to keep your pet alive.

Only nuke the mob that your pet is hitting if you have time to do so when you have more than 1 mob. Because if you do more damage than your pet did to the one that your pet is NOT on, guess what, you just took that mobs agro back again.

If you send your pet in to fight 2 mobs and you heal your pet before the pet has done any damage to the 2nd mob, you will take agro from healing your pet. So always make sure your pet gets at least a hit or 2 in on each mob before you heal. You will have to be fast in doing so, I won't lie. But it will save your life, trust me. Once you have mastered the art of Veno pulling, at times you can pull 2 or more mobs on purpose. It will all depend on how well you know what you're doing and what level the mobs are that you multi pull. I personally like to pull 2 and 3 at a time when I solo.

Always make sure to keep plenty of HP and MP pots on you because you will go through them alot. Also a good idea... Actually a GREAT idea is to build up your apothecary skill so that you can make your own MP/HP foods that are better (and cheaper) than pots. There are also some other things you can make with the apothecary skill that will sometimes save you or your pets life. One of these things is called "Windrage Incense" which doubles your channeling speed for 5 seconds. It doesn't sound like much, but it comes in handy when you need that extra fast heal or extra fast finishing nuke on a mob if it kills your pet right before it dies.

As you keep leveling higher you will notice that you can do more and more as far as killing regular mobs goes, and eventually you will start to wonder if you can solo certain bosses. There really isn't much of a strategy when killing bosses by yourself other than spamming your pet heal, because that's all you have time to do until you out level the boss by a ways.

'''''Venomancer Arcane Skills & Strategy'''''

For the next strategy, I will tell you how to efficiently use your skills in order to preserve chi. This is because you as a Veno are sometimes responsible for giving chi to a fellow group member. As an Arcane Veno you have the following skills that use chi to cast them.

Ironwood Scarab - Requires a small amount of chi to cast
Frost Scarab - Requires 1 spark to cast
Parasitic Nova - Requires 2 sparks to cast
Spark Eruption - Requires 1 spark to cast
Advanced Spark Eruption - Requires 2 sparks to cast
Soul Transfusion - Requires 100 chi (why they didn't just say 1 spark, I don't know) to cast
Bramble Hood - Requires 2 sparks to cast
Demon/Sage Eruption - Requires 3 sparks to cast

Now... Frost scarab is the one nuke that I personally never use because your other nukes are much better and it's virtually a waste of a good spark and a waste of spirit to buy. Especially since spirit is hard to come by at lower levels.

You can fill up your chi bar and sparks by spam healing your pet or by using nukes on mobs. When your chi is full, here is the order to cast nukes in so that your chi bar pretty much stays full incase you need to use a spark eruption, soul transfusion, or parasitic nova (nova is an area effect nuke).

Start with Ironwood Scarab to use the small amount of chi, followed by Blazing Scarab to do damage over time to the mob and regain half of the chi that Ironwood used, followed by Lucky Scarab to nuke and regain more chi from using Ironwood, followed by Venomous Scarab to nuke and regain the remaining chi used by Ironwood. By doing this in that order you will never run low on chi, this way you can lend a spark to a group member or save your sparks for other skills if they are needed.

Keep in mind that if you use your sparks and need to rebuild chi fast, take Ironwood Scarab out of the equation until your chi is full again. Then you may repeat whatever as necessary. I cannot tell you how many Veno's I see that cast in the wrong order and wonder why their chi comes back slowly. Pay close attention to what your skills are and what they do, the strategies then become common sense.

Now that you have that knowledge it's time to make sure you don't waste any spirit on unnecessary skills. Basically as an Arcance Veno you will want to get all the skills except for the fox form only skills and the 1 nuke I mentioned above that I never use. I recommend upgrading your nukes before using spirit to upgrade anything else. And also try to upgrade your "Wood Mastery" as quick as spirit allows too. There ARE 3 fox form skills that I do use. The 1st one is pretty obvious, it's the "Fox Form" skill itself which is needed in order to use the other 2 that I'm about to mention.

The 2nd one is called "Purge" which can only be cast while in fox form. This skill comes in handy during groups when you are killing a boss that keeps buffing himself. Purge will remove those buffs from him.

The 3rd and last fox form skill to spend spirit on is called "Amplify Damage" which does exactly what it is called. It amplifies the damage that the entire group does to the mob for a short time.

As an Arcane Veno, these are the only 3 useful fox form skills. They are useful mostly just in groups when killing big bosses. Purge is also useful in PvP (Player vs Player) if you are fast enough to cast it and switch back to normal form and kill them before they kill you. Now you may wonder why I say not to waste points on all of the other fox form skills right? I thought so, here's why...

As an Arcane & Mag built Veno, you are designed to do damage through the use of nuking and mostly through the use of your pet, remember your pet does most of the work while you're solo. You are NOT designed to take physical hits as an Arcane Veno. Therefore, since all of the fox form skills are designed for a Heavy Armor and Physical Damage Veno, you as an Arcane Veno have no use for them.

Now for some people this may raise the question... "Which build is better to go with?" Here is your answer...

I've seen Heavy Armor (HA) Veno's and I play an Arcane Veno, the difference is all in what your preference is and how you like to play. The HA Veno cannot solo things like an Arcane Veno can, which ultimately means you will level up slower and will not be near as useful in a group because you will lack strongly in the Magic points it takes to use aoe's and other needed nukes during groups. As an HA Veno you will basically be just another melee fighter in a group with a pet who you will have a harder time keeping alive due to your lack of Mag.

HA Veno's do have their strong points but when compared to an Arcane Mag build with some Vit, the Arcane is gonna win that fight easily. Pay close attention on your server and notice that more Veno's are Arcane than HA. Now you know why Smile

'''''Venomancer Pet Skills & Strategy'''''

Veno pets get a number of different skills that you may choose from at a Zoologist in Archosaur. But there are only a few that I find to be of importance if you seek to be a master of holding agro and keeping your pet alive in the process. Below is a list of skills that I think every Veno pet should have to start out. Also keep in mind that Veno pets may have up to 4 skills in total, so choose wisely because they are expensive.

'''Bash''' ~ This skill is basically like a nuke for your pet, it inflicts the highest amount of damage of any other pet damage skill I've seen, and I have tried them all. The Veno's starting scorpion comes with Bash as it's only skill.

'''Flesh Ream''' ~ This skill inflicts a base damage about equal or higher than what the pet hits for in normal melee, followed by some damage over time which lasts for 9 seconds. This skill also increases the level of agro on the mob that it hits, making it difficult to steal agro from the pet.

'''Icicle''' ~ This skill is another nuke about like Bash. It is not quite as potent but it is still a worthy skill to keep if a pet comes with it such as the Glacial Walker. It inflicts a base damage higher than that of your pets normal attacks. Like all nukes it helps toward increasing agro.

'''Roar''' ~ This skill is soley for increasing agro to your pet. It does not do any damage. It is great for those times when you or a group member are being attacked and you need to save one or both of your lives. Do not use this skill if your pet is not having problems keeping agro because this skill only raises agro to a certain level, whereas holding agro by using sheer damage has no limit. This skill should only be used as a life saving measure.

'''Tough''' ~ This skill allows your pet to take less damage for 15 seconds. It is best used for times when you may be fighting something that uses a spell followed by a melee hit. The cooldown time is 1 minute so make sure the use of this skill counts because 1 minute can be a long time when fighting a hard hitting mob. But it can make all the difference in various situations.

'''Shriek''' ~ This skill interrupts a mobs channeling (casting). It is best used in boss situations to prevent a boss from a nuke, debuff, AOE, or whatever it may be. Most normal mobs can be solo'd without using this skill but it is a very worthy skill to have for them bosses.

So these are the skills that I recommend for any Veno pet that can be purchased from a Zoologist. However, there are a few skills that cannot be purchased. These are known as the Temple of the Dragon skills, or DT Skills for short. DT is a place that only opens up once a week and is heavily guarded by some of the meanest mobs in PWI. And on my particular server it is also guarded by the servers top guild. Because of this, it is very hard for anyone who is not a member of that guild to obtain these skills. And it is also why buying these skills from a player is so expensive at anywhere from 10 up to 20 million coin per skill. Yes it is very unfair but tell that to them :P They don't care about nobody but themselves, moving on...

The following skills are the only ones worth spending that kind of coin on if you have it to spend.

'''Reflec'''t ~ This is just like Bramble Guard Veno skill except it is for your pet! This puts Bramble on your pet for 1 hour. It also makes soloing multiple mobs a whole lot easier than I described above since you will not have to worry about sending your pet at each mob to get a hit in to avoid heal agro. Simply let the mobs deflect off the pet 1 time and you can start healing. However, I do recommend switching targets anyways because once in a while a mob may miss and heal up without getting deflected and agro you while you heal. Also, when pulling a single mob, remove Reflect by stowing and re-summoning the pet before you pull. This will ensure that the other mobs don't deflect during the pull. If you forget, and they deflect, you will agro them.

'''Protect''' ~ This skill increases your pets Physical Defense for 1 hour.

'''Claw''' ~ This skill increases your pets Physical Attack for 1 hour.

'''Blessing of the Pack''' ~ This skill increases your pets Hit Points for 1 hour.

'''Bloodthirs'''t ~ This skill is a better version of Flesh Ream. It draws from the targets HP and uses it to heal the pet.

'''Bloodhunger''' ~ This skill is an upgrade to Bloodthirst. In order to use this skill you must have Bloodthirst first.

These are the only DT skills that I recommend that are actually worth the prices. Keep in mind that even if you do manage to get by the guilds and the mobs, the skills themselves are very rare and you will not get them everytime. That is also where some of the price comes from.

Now for some more strategy for the pet skills... You will notice that when your pet attacks, it uses it's 1st skill on it's own and any others it has you have to click them yourself. But you ask, how do I get it to use one of the other skills on it own? And I answer by saying, right click on the skill that you want the pet to use automatically.

You will notice a box around the skill when you right click on one. Whatever skill you highlight with that box is the skill your pet will use first. So if you want to do extra damge back to back when pulling a mob, send the pet in by clicking a skill that is NOT auto used and he will use that first, followed by the one he has highlighted on his own. This works very well with Bleed(Flesh Ream) and Bash. By the time the mob gets to you it will have a nice chunk of HP gone just from pulling it using Bleed first and letting the pet auto Bash it.

'''''Venomancer Pet Leveling'''''

Veno pets are rather easy to keep at your level from the start up until about level 30 or so. But beyond that you will notice that your pet is falling way behind. So in order to keep your pet at your level you will have to go out and grind on mobs that are your level in order for the pet to catch up. But be careful not to out level your pet again by doing this, feed that EXP to your genie if you get close to leveling before your pets have caught up.

At level 40 you will be able to enter into the Cube of Fate. This is where pet leveling gets much easier but also alot more boring and expensive as you will need to buy plenty of Dice Tickets. I personally never go in with less than 30 Tickets and 16 "Do All Cards". Upon entering the Cube and talking to the guy inside, you will be given a "Thrown Die" to allow you access to a new room.

From room 1 which is called "Fate's Beginning" you will want to be given "Thrown Die 3" in order to get to room 4 which is called "Mice Bashing". This is also known as the Veno room because in this room are nothing but 1 hit kills. These kills award the full 15 experience points to your pet, which is the max amount your pet will ever get per kill throughout the game. But keep in mind that it is alot considering that it takes alot less EXP for your pet to level than it does for you.

The easiest way to get to this room if you do not get the correct Thrown Die in room 1 is to keep dying or failing each room so that you get sent back to room 1. Repeat this until you get Die 3. Do not worry, there is no experience loss when you die in the Cube. Once you have made it to room 4, you may stay as long as you like until your pets are leveled. Your can even log out there and come back later if you're not done leveling and wish to continue later. It will not boot you out by logging out.

There are however a few general rules of etiquette while in the Veno room. For instance, if there are 4 Veno's in the room, try not to kill steal (KS) from the others. Stay in your own corner that's not occupied. As long as the other Veno's in the room are actively clearing their corners, the spawns will pretty much stay even in all corners. If there are less than 4 of you, you may venture around and use what I like to call the "Tab+Nuke" method. Some Veno's will send their pets to do the killing, however I find it to be much faster to just hit Tab and Nuke, plus you can AOE at times when the mobs bunch up.

There will be times when you enter the room and there are more than 4 Veno's there. In this case you have two choices... KS fest or wait it out, because you surely don't want to waste the dice tickets you used to get there. I personally usually just wait because I'm not one to KS other people. They got there before me and they are there for the same reason as me, I can wait my turn.

One other important thing while you're in there is your mana supply when you use the Tab+Nuke method. Rather than waste money on MP pots I suggest this neat little trick. Wait until you are down to a low amount of mana and use Nature's Grace to recover back to slightly over half full at minimum (you may have to guage how low you can run out in order for grace to get you back to slightly over half). After using Nature's Grace, hit your Soul Transfusion to exchange your MP and HP, then use your Metabolic Boost skill to refill your HP back. Now you have full MP and HP again and you didn't tick your charm if you had one. Just don't forget to guage your MP so you know when to cast grace to get you to slightly over half, because if you're not slightly over, you will tick your charm when you transfuse.

'''''Closing'''''

This concludes my Venomancer Guide and it is my hope that you have enjoyed learning about this powerful class. It is not a hard class to play and it is alot of fun. Not to mention the best looking class in Perfect World hehe. Thank you for taking the time to read through and get an understanding of the Veno and how to play it. Be sure to check out my new guide coming soon entitled "Best Venomancer Pets" where I will explain which pets are the best to get and why. Happy Hunting!

This guide is written and owned by Angelyz of Dreamweaver. This is version 1.0 and may be added to, changed, or refined in the future by me. Any questions you may have or know of something I should add, please contact me by personal chatbox in game.