Venomancer Dungeons

Taken from the forum thread; being a list of tips for making people like you more whilst in a dungeon squad.

1. Don't cast bramble on everyone. Clerics especially will hate you for it. Bramble may reflect melee damage, but it should only ever be cast on the tanks like the barbarians and blademasters. Reflecting damage will draw aggro from a mob, thus making the tank's job harder if he's running after archers, venos or his own healer who's being attacked.
2. Don't cast a lower level bramble over a higher level bramble. Just don't. >_> Bramble can be maxed at level 59, if they're 60, and you're 30, don't cast bramble.
3. Don't randomly AoE the shiz outta things thinking the tank will come save you. He'll more likely let you die out of your own stupidity. Cleric too.
4. You can't pull mobs with magic. Pull. With. Your. Pet. (See: Venomancer Luring)
5. Run. Being a veno doesn't make you invincible. If a mobs after you, your pet just died, don't stand there reviving it.
6. Kinda sorta gotta add my own interjection to this. It's really a case of "Know Your Mob." For instance. Say it's a Melee mob after me. Being LA hybrid, and having a genie specifically for FBs, it's a simple matter for me to Switch to Fox, Use Blinding Sand on my Genie, and Befuddling Mist in Fox Form, which does, in fact, grant invincibility, as long as you keep it up. The mob will have 0 Accuracy, meaning everything is a miss. Now... Magic? To hell with that. I'm taking off the instant it looks at me. --Isala.
7. If a veno has drawn aggro, run in circles around the tank (haven't figured out how to do this in the air/water when I'm very slow in moving + the 3D aspect of it). Don't run off away from the tank like a headless chicken, forcing the tank to chase you to get the mobs off you, especially if you're heading for the cleric. It can also be done with your pet as the tank. It'll make it that much easier for the tank to pull the mob off you and back onto him. It's a nifty little tactic that has saved my ass a few times when I pull Aggro off my pet. --iceknave.
8. If the tank has a luring skill on his genie, let him pull. He's got more HP and defense than you, and it's much safer. Kick back and relax.
9. When it comes to bosses, or other more tricky/difficult situations; you're the lurer.
10. Venomancer Luring
11. Don't be too far away from your pet or it will return right next to you, and all mobs that aggroed on sight will run towards you. --Flauschkatze.
12. If the above has happened, unsummon your pet and the mobs will de-aggro.
13. If you're herc tanking a boss, and another veno said she needs you to heal it. For frick's sake heal it. Hercs aren't all godly.
14. Boss situation: If the only tank (bm/barb) dies and you have only 1 cleric in your squad, unsummon your pet unless you can use it as a tank. You probably pull aggro with your pet > pet dies and you draw aggro> cleric start healing you > you die even when cleric heals you > cleric draws aggro > cleric dies = party wipe --Kitsuneh.
    1. Gotta disagree with this one. The cleric probably already has aggro from healing the tank. In every case I can think of where I've healed a pet and it died, I got aggro. So unsummoning it will just hasten your party's demise.
       1. Expanding on the point above, with a pet & bramble, venos make the ultimate suicide-to-save-the-cleric class. Hopefully your cleric should be smart enough to have 'Holy Path' on their genie and any experienced cleric knows to run in a 'to-be-squad-wipe' situation, at least until someone else has aggro so they can rez the tank. This is where you should try pull aggro from the cleric. Send your pet in with bash/flesh realm, etc. until it has aggro, put it on follow and run like hell (if you happen to be using a squishy pet that gets one-shotted, don't bother summoning another pet. Just run). If your genie happens to be equipped with 'Holy Path' or 'Tai Chi', USE IT. Even with summer sprint and demon fox form, a little extra speed can't hurt. If your pet is fast, it'll keep up with you. If it's slow, it'll teleport to you (since you get too far from it), so either way, the boss should keep chasing you. If it's a long-ranged boss, delay your death with soul-transfusion and (when you get far enough away from it to use this skill) metabolic boost. Eventually you might die, but not before giving your cleric a chance to survive and rez everyone. If it's a close-ranged boss, you might live. Either way, you should have prevented a full squad-wipe.
15. As a veno you have a combination of advantages no other class has. You can run pretty fast without a genie skill, you can run away from an aggroed boss without taking any damage (your pet tanks it for you), and you can run away while keeping the boss stationary (leave your pet attacking or parked).
16. If the tank dies and the only way to recover from the situation is for your cleric to res the tank, you want your pet to have aggro. You run away as far as you can, and before your pet gets killed, switch it to follow mode. It will start running, and the boss will start chasing. 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 (if you have it on your genie), you can usually keep your pet healed while doing this, especially if it's a herc.
17. A good trick is to switch the pet back to attack mode, hit Holy Path and run as far away as you can. Your pet will warp to you, set it back to follow mode if it tries to go back to the boss (it shouldn't, but if it does). While the boss now tries to close the distance with your pet, heal it up. Then take off running again until the boss catches up.
18. Repeat this or the pet-attacks-while-you-run trick to buy more time. Usually you can give the cleric more than enough time to res and buff the tank. After which (assuming your tank is a barb) he can just use Roar to get the boss' aggro back. If nothing, keeping the pet around will let it occupy the boss for a few extra hits, giving your cleric a precious second or two to res the tank. --Solandri.
19. Debuff. Kills faster, party will love you for it, you'll get invited to more FBs, job satisfaction. If you don't have fox form, purge or amplify damage, get them and max them. I don't care what your build is, max them.
20. Ohh and for the debuffing part.. like Amplify Damage: Just don't, and I really mean don't use it when the boss uses a mass AoE attack. Because of the close distance you probably die or just get hit. When you do this a few times, you're dead cuz the cleric is just don't gonna heal you (you're just being stupid). --EvilDragon.
    1. Just to add on to what EvilDragon suggested, it's also depending on the situation and your build. You'll find with experience that most of these things aren't applicable or work in different ways depending on varying factors. Generally, mage venomancers are considered the most squishy and what EvilDragon said would be applicable. However, if it's a massive phys AoE and you're a light or heavy fox this is where you come in. You should be able to take the damage in fox form easy. If it's a magic AoE, switch to robes. If you don't want a huge repair bill from the AoE, run back.
21. Always have a squishy, high-damage pet for luring (one that runs fast or can take 1-2 shots before hitting the one you want)(e.g. ninetailed firefox, kowlin, tabby plumdrop, etc.)
22. Always be careful of the distances, and the moving targets. i.e. you want to lure, your pet goes to the target, but the target has moved beyond the distance limit... and your pet teleports back to you... and you get all the aggros at you (happens even at high level and after having done tons of luring). Unsummon your pet immediately and you should lose aggro from any your pet didn't hit.
23. At high level take those skills:
    1. Bramble Hood, all venos should have it as soon as possible (even if you don't intend to solo FBs)
    2. Feral concentration = makes you invincible for 10 seconds ( but you cant move nor cast- 3 sec cast) when luring some bosses for the barb.. you won't take a hit and the barb has enough time to take the aggro back
    3. Myriad rainbow = cost lot of mana and chi, but will help you quicken the death of any boss (the rainbow is a random 0 to 4 curses = 4.5k bleed DOT, 4.5k poison DOT, 100% break Phy armor, 100% magic armor break last 9 sec)
    4. Myriad rainbow fox, is the same as above, but with a close range AoE effect, useful if you want to be part of a zhen party and on some other rare occasions. --Reivi.
24. I'd add carrying a couple of res scrolls around. If you die and the one cleric in the squad is furiously healing the tank/rest of squad, no one involved really wants the cleric to stop healing and res you. --Aeode.

General hints, help and tips

Let's see, there's some general tips on good dungeon play:

The cleric, especially, is slow. Wait for the cleric. In fact, act as the cleric's bodyguard. Your squad will love you for that.

If someone asks you to do something you've not done before - make sure that you understand what they want. Don't pull the wrong monster! If you're not sure that you CAN do it, tell the team. They may have a Plan-B available. But do try new things :)

If you need to navigate carefully (hugging the wall, avoiding the clapping hands, jumping over the edge of ledges especially) then put your pet away. If you jump off a ledge and your pet tries to get to you by running all the way around, then bad things will happen.

Always always check your team is OK for you to pull. Nothing worse than pulling the big bad guy moments before the barb says "AFK: Gotta potty". Also, when faced with a mob where there are exploding monsters and non-exploding ones, pull the non-exploding ones first and when pulling the exploding ones, do it one at a time. Your wizards, psychics and other squishies will appreciate it (seeing that many of them get one-shotted by the explosions & they run slowly, sufficient warning is required so they can run back first).

Best order of mobs to be pulled (from experience, feel free to edit):

1. Runners (so they don't suddenly pop up)
2. Close-ranged mobs that can and will run after your pet
3. Exploding mobs (one at a time)
4. Long-ranged mobs (since they run and the barb may find himself in unfriendly territory otherwise - though if you're confident that your barb knows to pull back when the long-ranged monster is about to drag him/her into another mob, lure these before exploding mobs)
5. Stationary mobs - you can't actually lure them like the nasty things in Secret Passage. They just stay in the same place and hit you, so this is just here for you to know that these are the last mobs to be dealt with.

And it helps, especially on fast monsters, if you say WHAT you are pulling.