Venomancer Dungeons

Any good veno, indeed any good player learns through their own experiences and the experiences of others. Here's a bit of wisdom passed down from seasoned venos (originally taken from this forum thread.)

Skills

First thing's first. 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

This is one of the most misunderstood skills in the game.

The 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 AoE's that the game considers melee (2nd form Holeen in FF, Lord of Percussion in TT 1-X, and Soul Banisher in TT 1-X are a few examples.)
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 the hula-hoop is not the same as casting Alpha Male every step you take. 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 (per hit).

The Tips

1. Ask your squadmates before Brambling them. Some Clerics especially will hate you for it, but some love it. Reflecting damage will add aggro to a mob melee attacking you.
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 level 60 and you're level 30, don't cast Bramble Guard. This goes for the Sage/Demon versions as well.
3. Watch out for things that overwrite Bramble. A few of them are Alpha Male (genie skill), Demon Roar (Barb's skill) and some weapon procs (such as a level 30-ish Dagger). This is especially important in places such as RB, FF and PV where your pullers will be using the first of these skills to keep aggro on themselves. Try to tag them with Bramble Guard when their reflect wears off.

Debuffing

1. Debuff. It kills faster and the squad will love you for it. 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 and max them. I don't care what your build is, max them.
2. Watch the range on the debuffs. The Fox Form ones in particular are short range, which can bring you into harms 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. If you're a squishy veno (PDef-wise), switch into Fox Form before you run into a phys AoE. The PDef boost is a Godsend.

General Skills

Here are some important skills that sometimes get overlooked. You should definitely get them:

1. Bramble Hood: All venos should have it as soon as possible, even if you don't do much soloing.
2. Feral Concentration: This makes you invincible for 10 seconds at the cost of stunning you for 3. If you get aggro from something you really can't take a beating from, you can pop this to give your squad/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. At higher levels, you can even use a few tricks to make yourself immune to stun before casting for 10 seconds of blissful invincibility.
3. Myriad Rainbow (human form version): This bad boy costs a fair chunk of mana and chi, but can quicken the death of any boss. The rainbow randomly curses the boss with 0 to 4 curses (the proc on each calculated separately). 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 is long ranged and single target.
4. Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form version): This is the same as the above except that it is short range and AoE. This is very useful in large pulls.

Squad Support

Venos are one of the few classes, if not the only, that are very self-reliant even from level 1. This makes you ideal for squad support roles such as bodyguard and escort.

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

Luring

Luring is more of an art than a skill. A full guide can be found here. Here are a few extra tips and tricks:

General Luring Tips

1. Besides Tame and Earthflame, you can't pull mobs with magic. Pull. With. Your. Pet.
2. If the tank has Earthflame on his genie and wants to pull, let him pull.
3. When it comes to bosses or difficult pulls, you're the lurer.
4. Don't be too far away from your pet. If it goes out of range, it will teleport to your side and all the mobs that aggroed on the pet will still be aggroed on it and come running your way. Unsummoning will cause the mobs to reset as long as they haven't been hit or gotten too close to the group and aggro on your squadmates.
5. If someone asks you to do something you haven't 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 might have a Plan-B available. That said, do try new things. :)
6. Always, always check if your team is ready for you to pull. Nothing is worse than pulling the big bad guy moments before the tank says "AFK: Gotta potty".
7. It helps, especially on fast monsters, if you say WHAT you are pulling.
8. Always check to make sure that Reflect is not active on the pet that is pulling.

Luring pets:

1. Speedy pets. These get the job done by running so fast, few mobs along the way have the chance to hit them. Although it's generally a good idea to make sure they can at least take a couple hits along the way. (Examples: Ninetailed Firefox, Kowlin, Tabby Plumdrop, etc.)
2. Ranged pets. These pets stay safe by simply staying farther away. Also, a majority of bosses have weaker magic attacks than physical attacks, so a ranged pet won't be getting beat as much as others would. To use a ranged skill, deselect the active skill (highlighted) by right clicking on it and then have your pet go in and attack. The higher the tame level, the greater the pet's range. (Examples: Eldergoths, Cactopods)
3. Strong pets. Sometimes, you need a pet that can take a beating on the way to the boss. A pet with high defenses makes a good puller in these cases. However, if you're planning on tanking and catching the mob yourself, it isn't advised that you pull with your tank pet!

Order to pull:
(Caution: This is a general guideline. Always assess the situation first as there may be a better order to pull things.)

1. Runners and walkers: You don't want them to suddenly pop up!
2. Melee mobs that can and will run after your pet: Easy to control, since they stick on your pet like glue.
3. Exploding mobs: Easy to control, but you need room to get away.
4. Mobs that stay ranged: If it likes to run, it's harder to position.
5. Stationary mobs: You can't actually pull these nasty little buggers, so it's best to clear around them first.

Aggro Management

So now that you've got whatever it is you want dead close to you, you need to know how to manage aggro (hate level).

1. Don't randomly AoE the heck out of things. If you take more than the squad thinks you should, the tank and cleric will most likely let you die out of your own stupidity.
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 like a headless chicken, forcing them to chase you to get the mobs off you. Especially don't drag the mobs to squishy members of the squad, the cleric in particular. (This applies if your pet is the tank too.)
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 and 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 it's 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, then bad things will happen.

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, and your build.
2. If you're fighting melee, use Blinding Sand (genie skill) and Befuddling Mist to drop the mob's accuracy to 0, meaning everything is a miss. Magic, on the other hand, never misses.
3. If another veno is pet-tanking a boss and she needs you to help heal it too, then please heal it! Even hercs aren't all godly.

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 and it looks like a pretty fail squad, 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 res if they have a scroll. 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, venos make the ultimate back-up-tank class. If things are really bad, venos are the ultimate suicide-to-save-the-cleric class. Hopefully your cleric should know whether to flee to safety or start reviving people.
   • 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 suicide. 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. Being a veno doesn't make you invincible. If something is after you, keep moving. Summer Sprint, Demon Fox Form, speed pots, and Holy Path are your friends.
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 herc.
5. Combine points 3 and 4 if needed, to buy more time.
6. If your squad is ready for you to rejoin them, park your pet in a corner or the side of a room. Let the boss keep going after the pet until you've gotten around behind it safely. Then use points 3 and 4 again to bring the boss back.
7. 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 are good to keep with you:

1. Pet food: Water or Perfect Cookies does the job for most things. It's a necessity if you don't have a tome (any tome prevents pets and ground mounts from getting hungrier).
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.