Desiree’s Detailed Veno PvP Guide

See here for the original nicely-formatted post.

This guide will no longer be updated, but its content is still quite valid that I believe it should still be stickied. See appended notes here

Intro/Disclaimer:
This guide is for serious PvPers on PvP servers. While most of this is veno-specific, much of the guide can be applied to other classes. This guide assumes that you are 90+, on a PvP server, enjoy fair fights of skill (i.e. not ganking all the time), and are decently geared (i.e. can afford at least +4 gear with flawless shards). If you are a blue name on a PvE server or just enjoy running around ganking lowbies, this is not for you.

Also, for the nitty-picky users, I will often use a bunch of abbreviations here (nix, triple spark, purge+amp, apoc, etc.) and may occasionally use PW-MY terms (HH, perdition, dragon, etc.) – deal with it or read the Abbreviations and Terms guide. I will also assume that your PK pet is your a Baby Phoenix Pet (so pet/nix is interchanged often) and I will not acknowledge HA/LA fox form melee venos as a real PK build (because it isn’t). Lastly, I will (incorrectly) refer to any long combo of stun/immobilize/seal as “stunlocking” (even though technically the target isn’t “stunned” per say) in the context of preventing the target from running away.

The only topic that I do not cover in this guide is the eternal question of “demon or sage for PvP?” – in my opinion, both work and depends on your play-style as well as your goals (I myself am a demon, pure-vit tank build arcane veno that will one day restat to pure mag). And yes, this was inspired by Pandora/Ambition/mystic’s original PvP Guide, but more complete/detailed/updated and with a stronger focus on end-game skilled PvP (under the assumption that gear no longer becomes as much a deciding factor as skill does). Last but not least, don’t QQ about its length – less QQ, more PewPew!

PvP is srs bzns and those who have a thorough understanding of things will come up on top. Knowledge is power!

Table of Content:
(click on the title of each subsection to jump to that post)
1.0 Build/Equipment
– 1.1 Vit-Arcane
– 1.2 Mag-Arcane
– 1.3 Heavy
2.0 Genie
– 2.1 Offence
– 2.2 Defence
– 2.3 Support
3.0 Pots and Charm
– 3.1 HP/MP Charms
– 3.2 Attack/Defence Charms
– 3.3 HP/MP Pots/Elixirs
– 3.4 Apothecary Pots
4.0 Pets
– 4.1 Air Pets
– 4.2 Ground Pets
– 4.3 Water Pets
– 4.4 Pet Skills
– 4.5 Manual Control
5.0 Skills
– 5.1 Human Form Attack Skills
– 5.2 Fox Form Curse Skills
– 5.3 Other Skills
6.0 Who and How to Fight
– 6.1 Clerics
– 6.2 Wizards
– 6.3 Archers
– 6.4 Venomancers
– 6.5 Psychics
– 6.6 Assassins
– 6.7 Blademasters
– 6.8 Barbarians
7.0 When to Kite
– 7.1 Too Many Targets
– 7.2 Charm/Pots In Cooldown
– 7.3 How to Kite
8.0 PK Strategies
– 8.1 Distant Nuke
– 8.2 Purge and Nuke
– 8.3 Purge and Support
9.0 PvP/TW Videos
10.0 Resources

Enjoy the detailed guide! Look forward to my shorter, summarized, general/all-class PvP guide that I’m working on!

~Desiree

1.0 Build/Equipment
There are really only three acceptable veno builds in end-game PvP: vit-arcane, mag-arcane or heavy.

1.1 Vit-Arcane
This is the arcane tank build. The purpose of this build is to have high defence and high HP. This is a PvP-oriented build with the philosophy that as long as they can’t kill you, you can purge+amp them and kill them. For venomancers, each point of vit adds 12 HP and a small amount of pdef and mdef. While you may ask why put in so many points into vit when its only 12 HP per vit, don’t forget the purpose behind the build: maximizing your defences. Up to mid 90s, a nix’s bleed damage is strong enough that you only need to purge+amp and throw in a few attacks to kill most players your lvl. At the higher lvls where a nix bleed is laughable, staying pure vit build would mean sacrificing your ability to deal damage efficiently. While you will have troubles killing people in solo PvP situations, you still will have quite a number of tricks up your sleeves to deal enough damage within the 10s charm tick margin.

For this build, stat just enough points into str to wear your gear, add in just enough to wear your weapon, then dump the rest into vit. All shards should be garnets for the pdef and use a pdef belt and neck. Sometimes its better to use gear that gives high pdef instead of the normal HH gear (e.g. HH90 AA pants > HH99 AA pants). You want to maximize your HP through stating vit but you also want to have high pdef as you will usually be targeted by physical attackers in PvP. Ideally, aim for the same amount of pdef in unbuffed fox form as you have mdef (e.g. at least 6k pdef and 6k mdef in fox form).

Example 90 build: http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=2ad7406b36c34958 – 6.0k HP, 3.3k pdef, 6.5k mdef, 4.4-5.0k matk
Example 96 build: http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=2a6519c2cc86c5d0 – 7.6k HP, 5.8k pdef, 7.9k mdef, 5.6-6.3k matk

1.2 Mag-Arcane
This is the nuke build. The purpose of this build is to act as a mini-wizard for DDing. As you approach end, end-game where everyone will have fully pimped out Nirvana gear and thus very high physical defences, the damage done by your pets will become more and more insignificant. As a result, the majority of your damage will resultantly come from your magic attacks with your pet playing the support role (stun, debuff, etc.). Unlike a wizard, venos have few nukes and they are much weaker than wizards in terms of pure spell damage. As well, venos do not rely on spike damage or crits, but instead cumulative damage. On the other hand, venos magic skills are relatively fast casting, spammable, and venos have the all-powerful purge+amp, allowing for the fast cumulative damage. You have still have fox form and bramble hood for defensive purposes but you will still be squishy nevertheless. Keep in mind though that pure mag is also ideal for PvE if at this point you still engage in PvE gameplay.

For this build, stat just enough points into str and dump the rest into mag. All sharding and gear should be exactly the same as the vit-arcane build described above, just with extra points put into mag instead of vit, but try to maintain at least 3k pdef and 4k HP. Note, however, that you will probably be back-benched for group PvP activities such as TW as you can easily be replaced by a similarly-geared wizard, cleric, or archer (pure mag means you can rarely afford to run up to targets and purge them due to your low defences).

Example 90 build: http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=19ccf1eac62140e5 – 3.7k HP, 2.9k pdef, 6.8k mdef, 6.3-8.2k matk
Example 96 build: http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=ef16b2d91c4b28fd – 5.0k HP, 4.7k pdef, 8.2k mdef, 9.1-9.2k matk

1.3 Heavy
This is the end-game tank build. Like the vit-arcane build, the purpose of this build is to have high defence and very high HP. Unlike vit-mag, however, your HP and defences come purely from your gear and its high refines. In other words, this is a specialized build ONLY for those who can afford to refine their end-game gear past +6. The philosophy of the heavy armour build is exactly the same as vit-arcane but even more radical as you may have to sacrifice your ability to kill others in one-on-one situations due to lack of damage and often having to wear a sub-par weapon due to lack of stat points. As a result, going heavy tank build means going pure support with the sole purpose of purge-amping targets so that your team mates can kill them. You may decide to try half-half (part heavy, part arcane) but you’ll be sacrificing the reason you went heavy originally (more HP from refines) and, stats-wise, pure vit arcane with pdef shards will almost always be better and more flexible.

Stating for heavy armour is very difficult and requires wearing ornaments that give lots of stat points in favour of optimal gear. Each stat point has to be allocated very carefully or you will find yourself unable to wear the magic weapon you may want to. First equip your tome, your cape, and all your ornaments. Next, stat in just enough str points to wear your helmet. After that, stat in enough str and dex to wear your armour piece with the lowest-stat-requirement. Proceed from there equipping the rest of your gear and adding in stat points as necessary. Dump what little remaining points you have into magic and see what is the best weapon you can equip. Alternatively, if you have a magic weapon that gives +str or +dex points, equip your weapon after equipping your tome/cape/ornaments before proceeding to your helmet and armour. I would highly recommend you use pwcalc (pwcalc.ru/pwi) to first test things out to make sure you indeed have enough stat points to wear everything you want. Because you will rely on heavily refining your magic ornaments for your mdef and your heavy armour for your pdef, sharding should be strictly HP.

Example 91 build: http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=7344cc9c824c6104 – 6.5k HP, 6.2k pdef, 4.5k mdef
Example 99 build: http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=4c7f9be67ad7e1c7 – 9.9k HP, 7.4k pdef, 5.8k mdef
(note that these builds have higher refines and better gear as it is expected that only rich players can afford to properly choose this path)

2.0 Genies
Your genie is your little helper when it comes to PvP. Because genie skills can be cast alongside your attacks (as well as even when you’re not attacking or stunned), you can think of genies as your second skillbar, but better. Genie’s can serve one of or a combination of three roles: offence, defence, and support.

2.1 Offence
Offensive genie skills are to help you kill your target directly. The following skills either increase the damage your target takes from your attacks or deals direct damage.

Extreme Poison
For X seconds, damage received by the target will be increased by 20% Dexterity. Every 10 Genie Dexterity points increases the duration by 1 second.
This is a damage amplifying skill, stacks with veno’s Amplify Damage. 6 seconds is usually enough to kill most targets when they’re amped and purged – if not, just use the skill a second time after the first wears off.

Tangle Mire
Creates a mire under the target and all enemies within 15 meters, reducing their movement speed by X% and physical defence by X%. Every 5 Genie Strength points reduces physical defence by an additional 1%.
This skill reduces the target’s pdef and stacks with veno’s Ironwood Scarab to help increase the physical damage done by your pet. I would only recommend using this skill if you have a str build genie as Extreme Poison is better in most situations and, at end game, your pet’s damage is not as significant as your own spell damage.

Frenzy
Lowers your Defence and Spell Resistance and increases your Attack Level. The more Defence and Resistance are reduced, the more Attack level will be increased.
This allows you to deal more damage with your spells but you make yourself vulnerable to attacks. Note the increased attack/decreased defence parts are both part of the same buff so triple sparking will remove both positive and negative aspects. Because venos are not a nuking class, I don’t recommend having this skill – use Extreme Poison instead.

Explosion
Consumes all your Energy, dealing X fire damage per point of Energy consumed.
For vit build genies, can hit pretty hard. Not worth draining your entire genie’s energy though in my opinion.

Thunderstorm
Deals X Metal Damage. Causes triple damage to targets on the ground. Causes double damage to very close targets. Every Genie Dexterity point increases the damage by 2%. Causes triple damage to targets on the ground. Causes double damage to very close targets.
A good attack against heavy armour users, but not as good as Bramble Rage.

Bramble Rage
Summons thorny brambles around your target and all enemies within 15 meters. Causes X Earth and Wood damage and interrupts their spell channelling.
Causes triple damage to targets on the ground. Only usable on the ground. Dexterity: Every Genie Dexterity point increases the Wood damage by 14 and Earth damage by 6. Causes triple damage to targets on the ground.
Big AoE spike damage, good to combine with Noxious Gas/Parasitic Nova in TW. The interrupt aspect is also really nice, plus the animation for the skill is very drastic. Combine Parasitic Nova with Bramble Rage (and why not toss in a Tangle Mire too!) and you’ll lag out your opponents (and team mates) in TW!

True Emptiness
Meditate on the nature of the void to attack your foes. Consumes all your energy and causes damage equal to 1395.0 plus twenty times the amount of energy consumed. Has a 100% chance to create a shield around you that can absorb up to 2500 spell damage for 8 seconds. Strength: Every Genie Strength point increases the damage by 0.8%. Strength: Every 24 Genie Strength points increase the shield’s duration by 1 second. Strength: Every Genie Strength point increases absorbed damage by 10. Causes triple damage to targets in the air. BLADEMASTER AND BARBARIAN ONLY
This is a very strong attack skill that, with either a pure str or pure vit genie, can easily 1-shot arcane users. While venos cannot use this skill, it is very important to be aware of it as to not get caught off guard if a barb/BM is able to easily kill you somehow. Because genie crit rates are the same as the owner’s and barbs/BMs often wear zerk (Sacrificial Strike) axes, the damage can easily compound up in the air. Add in a BM’s Heaven’s Flame and you’ll easily get 1-shot.

2.2 Defence
Defensive genie skills are to help you survive an enemy attack. These will either heal you, give you immunity, or remove/prevent a negative status effect. In this case, you are using your genie as your secondary lifeline after your class skills and HP pots and before/in combination with your apothecary pot.

Absolute Domain
Makes yourself and all allies within 5 meters immune to all damage for X seconds and immune to immobilization for X seconds afterwards.
The immunity is VERY useful to avoid a big nuke that you know is coming up (e.g. a wizard’s Blade Tempest or a barb’s Armageddon) or give you a few precious seconds to drop out of the sky or run away. It is also commonly used in combination with an Ironguard Powder to give 12+ seconds of immunity. Because you can still attack while immune to damage/stuns/skills, you can also consider it an offensive support skill of sort.

Tree of Protection
Increases max HP by X% for 5 seconds. Restores X% of your max HP every 3 seconds for 6 seconds. Every 2 Genie Strength points increases the max HP more by 1%. Every 60 STR increases the duration time by 1 second. Every 8 Genie Dexterity points increases the Health recovery effect by 1%.
This is your second charm tick, your healing lifeline, useful for both PvP and PvE. Charm just ticked and you don’t think your pots will heal you fast enough? A min-str genie’s Tree of Protection will heal you just a bit more than half your health, but a full str build genie will fully heal you and more.

Second Wind
Instantly heals you for X hp. Every Genie Strength point increases the healing by 2%.
A secondary healing skill, but this one is instantaneous. Even with a pure str build genie, you will get more heals out of Tree of Protection (Second Wind is only good if you have less than 4k HP, which you shouldn’t). You can use this as a backup panic heal though.

Expel
Expels a ally from the physical world. Silences the target but grants immunity to physical damage for X seconds.
This is the anti-sin skill. Its also the anti-fist-BM or anti-archer skill. For up to 9 seconds, you will be completely immune to physical attacks as well as the potential status effects those physical attacks will do to you, i.e. stun/immobilize. Note, however, that you will be unable to cast any skills during this time (you can use your pet though) so you must either run away by foot or by flying. Note that Expel is considered a “neutral” buff and, if you do not set your protections right (I only have “squad” checked), you may end up casting Expel on your target instead of yourself. You can try to use this on others to stop them from using skills, but if they have the “Buff Filter” item checked, the skill will do nothing.

Blood Clot
Makes you immune to Bleed Effects for X seconds.
The anti-nix bleed. Must be used before the nix flesh reams you though. At end-game, however, you’re better off just using Tree of Protection to out-heal the nix’s bleed damage. The only situation that I can see it being useful in would be in TW in the situation that you see multiple nixes flying at you at once. But then again, you’ll probably die from the multiple magic attacks from those nix’s owners anyway.

Badge of Courage
X% chance to remove a stun effect from yourself. Every 2 Genie Dexterity points increases the success rate by 1%.
An extra nice skill to have on dex genies – its a stun remover and can help you break a BM stunlock. Doesn’t counter Occult Ice though.

Fortify
Become immune to stuns for X seconds. X% chance to reduce your magic resistances. Every 30 Genie Dexterity points increases the duration by 1 second.
Despite the reduction in magical resistance, I still see this skill as being more useful than Badge of Courage since, like Blood Clot, it is a preemptive defensive skill to use when you see an archer ready to Stunning Arrow you or a BM preparing to stunlock you. Its most used for its anti-stun effect in combination with Ironguard Powders though or a veno’s Feral Concentration to allow for unstunned immune time (for which lvl 1 Fortify is suffice). If you are using this against an archer, however, keep in mind that archers still have magic attacks and can easily spike you while you have the magic debuff on you.

2.3 Support
Genie skills can be used to support your own actions directly or indirectly. The following “support” skills are multi-purposed and have their important roles in PvP.

Air Strand
Immobilizes the target for 5 seconds. Has a chance to also silence the target for 3 seconds. X% chance to also immobilize yourself for 4 seconds. Every 4 Genie Strength points increases the silence chance by 1%. Every 100 Genie Strength points increases the silence duration by 1 second.
I personally use this skill all the time for offensive purposes to keep my target still when I am purging and amping, even though I have minimum str and leave it at lvl 1 for less energy cost. The skill can also be used defensively to keep a BM or barb from reaching you, e.g. buying you a few seconds of extra nuking time to hopefully kill your target.

Occult Ice
Has a 30% chance to freeze the target for X seconds. Every 2 Genie Strength points increases the success rate by 1%.
This can be used the same way as Air Strand but requires a str build genie. Rather than just an immobilize, however, it is both an immobilize and silence – the equivalent of a stun. Use it to stop your target from attacking or running away.

Holy Path
Increases the movement speed of yourself to the max for X seconds.
This skill increases your ground movement speed to 15.0m/s, faster than a land mount. Use this to either run away from tight situations (Absolute Domain + Holy Path works wonders) or to chase down an enemy that’s running away (archers use holy path often, so unless you are demon, you may want to holy path to catch up).

Cloud Eruption
Emits a cloud of invigorating energy, granting 1 (spark) to yourself plus an additional 10 Chi. Every 2 Genie Strength points increase the Chi gained by 1.
This is your insta-chi giver. Yes, you can build chi by spamming Pet Heal, but this is faster and instantaneous. I personally have it at lvl 1 since I have lvl 11 Lending Hand, so from one spark I can make two. I also have Demon Crush Vigor, so combined, I can easily build 2 sparks for Bramble Hood or 3 sparks for my triple spark (e.g. Demonic Eruption). Note that this is usually NOT a skill that you want to be using mid-PvP but rather before the PvP starts (make sure your genie’s energy has recovered by the time you start fighting). The only situation in which I can imagine using Cloud Eruption mid-PvP is if your Absolute Domain and/or Tree of Protection is in cooldown, and you already have one spark, just needing a second to cast Bramble Hood.

3.0 Pots and Charm
Pots and charms are a VERY important part of PvP. The concept in Perfect World PvP is that of spike damage or fast damage over time. In other words, the concept is to out-damage their heals before they out-damage your heals. Killing your target involves doing their full HP worth of damage before their charm ticks with each of your attacks doing more damage than their pots are healing. Surviving their attacks means using genie, pots and your charm to stay alive, combined with kiting (i.e. running away) if necessary.

3.1 HP/MP Charms
HP charms are ESSENTIAL in serious PvP. What does an Guardian (HP) charm do for you? It automatically replenishes your HP back to full when your total HP dips below 50%. This auto-replenishing can only be triggered every 10 seconds, so once your charm “ticks”, you have 10 seconds to live (or try to live) before you get a second “tick” lifeline. Without an HP charm, PvP becomes a simple game of “who can deal the most damage first” as HP pots will usually not cut it. These HP charms can be bought from the Cash Boutique using in-game “Gold”, which can be obtained either by charging “zen” using real life money (e.g. USD) or be bought from other players through the Auction House. There are a few quest reward charms obtainable in-game for free, but they are rare and do not last very long; a “Gold Guardian Charm” will replenish up to 600k HP before it gets used up whereas most in-game quest reward charms only hold 100k HP.

MP charms are nice, but not always necessary for PvP. A Spirit (MP) charm does the same thing as an HP charm except it replenishes MP every 5 seconds each time your MP dips below 75%. For those who have a huge mana pool, this may seem unnecessary as either your target or you will die before you run out of MP. With an MP charm equipped, however, you won’t ever have to worry about running out of MP mid-battle and have to pause for a split second to pop an MP pot. As a venomancer, being MP charmed is usually unnecessary due to a high MP pool and all skills not using that much MP. There’s also the veno skill Nature’s Grace which recovers 50% of MP. On the flip side, having an MP charm equip guarantees you that if you must use Soul Transfusion in emergency situations, your HP will swap to 75% or more. For cost reasons, however, I almost never MP charm myself.

3.2 Attack/Defence Charms
There’s another type of “charm” in-game that is often forgotten and strongly underrated; these are attack charms and defence charms. Remember those little quest reward items you got when you finished your cultivation quests? These charms are like additional pots that can be used to boost your attack or your defence. These charms can be made at apothecary NPCs using chi stones (e.g. Yiyuan Stone, Perfect Stones, etc.) that you get from decomposing gear.

Attack charms give extra attack bonuses; equip them (like arrows) and your next attack will have the added bonus (until your stack of attack charms run out). For pure-builds, this can make a big difference. Equipping a stack of 50 magic attack charms that give +100 matk, for example, means the next 50 magic spells you use will be calculated with an additional +100 matk to your weapon (e.g. as if you had a third magic ring equipped). In PvP where every attack matters, this can make a big difference.

Defence charms, on the other hand, act differently. They are single-use pots that affect the next attack that hits you. That means that if you have a stack of physical defence charms, you must click them (like a pot) and the next physical attack done to you will be reduced by whatever percent the defence charm says. Because the charms have to be manually clicked and only lasts one attack, timing is very important such that it is not wasted on a small weak skill your opponent uses on you. Because physical attack classes usually hit multiple times fast without any major spikes (and because making defence charms is expensive), I only use magic defence charms against wizards, i.e. a wizard Undine Strikes me and I know his next attack will be some big nuke so I immediately click my mdef charm.

3.3 HP/MP Pots/Elixirs
These are you important heal-over-time items. Because an HP charm only ticks every 10 seconds, it is often not enough to keep you alive in serious PvP, so you will want to use pots (potions) for that healing. An HP (health) pot will heal you its listed HP over 10 seconds (i.e. every 1 second, you gain the listed HP value divided by 10) with a 10 second cooldown. Always try to have the highest level pot usable to you. Level 90+ pots can be bought at Thousand Streams, Loranthis (“Heaven”), Momagnon (“Hell”), NPCs of TW lands that your faction own, and inside TW instances from the respawn point NPC, or from grinding on 89+ mobs. Alternatively, I would recommend you try to get your hands on large quantities of Multiflavor Jiaozis or Crab Meat Jiaozis, which heal for 2500 HP and 3500 HP respectively (more than most high lvl pots). When you spam use these, you are healing at a constant 250/350 HP per second – not enough to keep you alive alone but usually enough to let you survive until your next charm tick.

MP (mana) pots are necessary in general as skills use MP and without MP, you can’t use skills. Because you don’t often burn through MP pots in PvP, usually you will pick up sufficient MP pots through grinding to last you through big PK fights. As a veno, since your MP pool will be high and you have Nature’s Grace to recover a big chunk of MP, you don’t often have to worry much about obtaining MP pots. If you do want to use them for PvE, however, try to get your hands on Sesame Yuanxiaos and Herb Yuanxiao which recover 3000 MP and 5000 MP respectively.

Elixirs are your third type of potion. These are instantaneous healing item that have an independent cooldown from HP and MP pots. They will instantaneous heal your HP and MP by the listed amount, also with a 10 second cooldown. Its a good idea to carry around a small stack of these with you and have them on your skillbar for panic situations where just a few extra hundred HP instantaneously can save your life. Obtaining elixirs are expensive and hard, however; they do not drop from mobs in grinding and are only obtainable from apothecary NPCs (for ridiculous prices) and as a reward item from GV (Rebirth) runs and a few other small quests. You can also get a nice untradable (i.e. undroppable) set of these from doing the Tideborn chain quest.

3.4 Apothecary Pots
Apothecary pots are the biggest tide-changer in PvP. Even if you don’t use atk/def charms, HP/MP pots, elixirs or even an HP charm, an apoc (apothecary) pot can make you win fights. These pots can be made by combining herbs at apothecary NPCs, assuming you have the sufficiently high enough apothecary mastery level. The special grade herbs needed to make these can only be farmed (with a Pickaxe) in Loranthis (“Heaven”) and Momagnon (“Hell”). High grade herbs can also be farmed in there as well. The pots requiring only special grade herbs can only be manufactured at the “Officer of the ___” NPCs of certain lands, accessible only if your faction owns that territory land. Each recipe produces 5 of that type of pot. Apoc pots have a 60 second cooldown, however, so you have to be wise in choosing when to use your apoc pot and which one to use. The following apoc pots are ones most relevant to PvP.

Dew of Star Protection
Greatly reduces all physical and magical damage suffered for the next 20 seconds.
25 White Berry (special) + 20 Worm Sprouts (high), any apoc NPC
This is your super-defence pot. It will give you buffs that boost your defences drastically. For example, from 5k pdef and 8k mdef to 30k pdef and 35k mdef. Attacks that would normally hit me for 1k damage get reduced all the way down to 200-300 damage. Since the buffs are dependent on your base unbuffed defence values, however, this powder is really only good if you have a high defences and lots of HP. Because I’m a tank build with high base defences and high HP, especially when buffed, I only use these after I am purged by another veno or if I am in tight situations with multiple non-OP attackers. If you’re a glass cannon that dies in a few hits, you’re better off using immunity-granting pots such as Sutra Power Orbs or Ironguard Powders.

Sutra Power Orbs
Makes the player invincible for the next 6 seconds.
25 Longen Herb (special) + 20 Tiery Herb (special), Thousand Streams, Stairway to Heaven
This is your special-case invincibility pot. Gives you 6 seconds of complete invincibility, meaning you do not take any damage or any additional status effects (e.g. no stuns even) during those 6 seconds. Usage of this pot can either allow you to survive long enough to continue nuking and killing your target uninterrupted or give you enough time to holy path and run away.

Ironguard Powder
Makes player immune to all damage for the next 12 seconds. During this period the player is unable to move.
25 Devilwood (special) + 20 Longen Herb (special), Thousand Streams
This is your “God” pot. Instead of only 6 seconds of invincibility, you get 12 seconds – enough time to let your charm tick again even. The downside, however, is that you get stunned during this time. The stun, however, can be avoided by using an anti-stun skill right before popping the Ironguard, e.g. demon summer sprint or the genie skills Fortify or Absolute Domain. 12 seconds is often enough to kill your opponent or run far away. It can also save you from the brink of death and turn around an entire fight. For this reason, Ironguards are probably the most used/sought for/feared PK pot.

White Tea
Instantly gain two sparks.
25 Scented Fungus (special) + 20 Devilwood (special), Thousand Streams, Archosaur
This is your spark pot. Instant 2 sparks. Like the genie skill Cloud Eruption, you want to use this long before you go into a fight so that you’re quickly chi’d up. Two sparks will allow you to Bramble Hood and survive; one spark will allow you to Feral Concentration and survive; three sparks will allow you to triple spark and quickly kill your target. In the rare situation that you have one spark and need two more for triple sparking to kill your target, you can use a white tea while mid-fight. Otherwise, for defensive purposes, you’re better off using any of the above pots.

Vacuity Powder
Makes player immune to all movement debuffs for the next 20 seconds.
25 Tiery Herb (special) + 20 Tulip (special), any apoc NPC
This is your anti-stun pot. 20 seconds of anti-stun is a long, long time and will allow you to avoid being stunlocked by BMs or binding towers in TW. Using a vacuity, however, will mean you are unable to use any other apoc pot for another 60 seconds. In open PvP, with anti-stuns available to almost every class via skills and available via genie skills, vacuity powders will rarely find their use. There have been situations, however, where I find myself being stunlocked by a barb or BM that clearly cannot kill me but, due to being stunlocked, I am unable to kill them. This would probably be the only situation under which you would want to use a vacuity instead of some other apoc pot.

Zooming Thunder Powder
Makes player using skills without channelling for the next 5 seconds.
25 White Berry (special) + 20 Scented Fungus (special), Archosaur, Wellspring Village
This is for the nuker venos. Using this apoc pot will allow you to consecutively cast three or four veno skills (with lag and timing in consideration) without any channelling time in between. This pot is often used to cast Parasitic Nova followed by Noxious Gas, often with the genie skill Bramble Rage thrown in, to deal massive AoE damage fast. Using it to cast normal single target skills isn’t really worth it in my opinion due to those skills’ already short casting time.

Detection Potion
Stealth level = Character level + Stealth skill level
Detection skill level = Character level + detection skill level
You can detect stealth-ed players whose stealth level is no higher than your detection level. Lasts 30 seconds.
10 Longen Herb (special) + 5 Tiger-ear Herb (high) + 10 Red Berry (high) + 5 Elderwood (low), Raging Tide City
This is your anti-sin pot. Using this pot will allow you to see stealth-ed assassins of equal or lower lvl. Because it only lasts 30 seconds, puts your apoc pot in cooldown, and is super expensive/hard to make, only use this pot if you are confident there’s an assassin nearby and you are capable of kitting him/her within 30 seconds without the aid of an apoc pot.

4.0 Pets
Pets are what distinguish venomancers from the other caster classes. Pets act as your partner to deal physical damage to your target or act a supporting role depending on the skills you teach it. As you lvl, you can lvl your pet to your own lvl by killing mobs to give it EXP. The increases in pet stats from each lvl depends on the pet’s growth chart (more toward the edge = faster growth = higher stats at higher lvls). In lower-end PvP, you will often use your pet to deal a sizable chunk of damage. As you approach end-game PvP where everyone is fully geared out, your pet will take on a fully supportive role – adding in some significant damage but more there as a stun/debuffer. Note that in PvP, pure pet damage is really only dependent on the pet’s physical attack number; almost all of a pet’s DPS comes directly from the bleed damage from the Flesh Ream pet skill (see below). Pet normal attacks barely do any damage due to PvP damage reduction (-75% damage compared to PvE damage), so attack rate is irrelevant in PvP – only base attack.

4.1 Air Pets
The majority of PvP occurs in the air. Be it world PvP or TW PvP, venos and their target will usually be flying (note that while venos attacking ground targets will suffer from the air-to-ground 50% damage output reduction, flying pets are not affected by this reduction). Air pets can be easily lvled by killing Staunch Worms at 644 119.

Petite Sawfly
lvl 100 stats: 2529 HP / 3966 patk / 6588 pdef / 6588 mdef
From lvl 8 to 90 or at least until you can afford to buy a Baby Blazing Phoenix (see below), your “sawfly” will be your PK companion. A sawfly has very low HP and defences, but it is the game’s second strongest damage dealing pet after nixes. At end-game, however, any AoE or direct will easily 1-shot the sawfly, but I would always recommend you have one at your lvl in your pet bag for the emergency when your nix dies and you need to kill your target quick. This pet starts at lvl 8 and can be tamed at 382 331 in the air. Note that another newer pet, the Cloud Skatefish, is almost on par with the sawfly as it has the exact same growth chart but just has slightly worse starting stats. A skatefish is light blue in colour, however, so it is less noticeable and harder to see in air PvP compared to the black sawfly. Skatefishes start at lvl 22 and can be tamed at 660 177 in the air.

Baby Blazing Phoenix
lvl 100 stats: 3821 HP / 4922 patk / 9952 pdef / 11942 mdef
This is the veno’s best PvP pet. Not only does it have the highest base patk and an almost perfect growth chart, it comes even at lvl 1 with maxed out rare pet skills Claw, Pounce, and Blessing of the Pack. The pet is obtainable by trading any Pet Manager 9999 Phoenix Feather items that are obtainable from Battle Pet Packs that can be bought from the Cash Boutique. Each Battle Pet Pack contains ~25 Phoenix Feathers/Sources of Force on average (100 SoFs can be exchanged for 100 Feathers) so it will cost roughly 200 gold to buy a “nix”. As a veno, however, you can easily make this amount of money through farming HH (Twilight Temple) by the time you hit 90. Because the nix also has a high base HP and high base pdef and mdef, it is also able to survive a few hits in PvP so it won’t die easily when caught in AoEs like sawflies do. For TW-purposes, I would recommend replacing Pounce and Blessing of the Pack with Strong and Protect for greatly increased survivability. For open PvP, the default skills + Flesh Ream will do just fine.

4.2 Ground Pets
There are some areas of PvP where you are unable to summon air pets. In these rare situations (e.g. Secret Passage, Nightscream Island, and Cave of Sadistic Glee), a strong pet is still needed for the additional damage and support. Ground pets can be easily lvled by killing Ancient Dooms in Room 4 (Mice Bashing) of the Cube of Fate.

Varicose Scorpion
lvl 100 stats: 2799 HP / 4008 patk / 6628 pdef / 7953 mdef
The scorpion is like the ground equivalent of the sawfly. It is the veno’s hardest hitting pet with its extremely hight patk. Its low HP, however, makes it very easy to kill and its starting lvl of 2 means you’ll be stuck in the Cube of Fate for a long time lvling it. It is tamable right outside City of the Lost at 267 688. Teach a scorpion the Claw skill and you will have an outstanding ground DD pet.

Glacial Walker
lvl 100 stats: 3553 HP / 3901 patk / 9772 pdef / 7166 mdef
This is a veno’s best non-herc tanking pet. It also is one of the veno’s hardest hitting pets. With its high HP, pdef and mdef, its not an easy pushover in the case your target tries to attack your pet instead of you. Despite being a tanking pet, it still hits hard and will probably catch your target off-guard with the high amount of damage its Flesh Ream does. Unfortunately, the Glacial Walker moves very slowly, but at least Flesh Ream is a ranged skill. This pet can be tamed at lvl 19 at 667 175. The runner up to the Glacial Walker would be the Crystalline Magmite, tamable at lvl 17 at 486 967. The magmite has only a slight bit more patk than the walker but it has less HP and significantly less mdef; 3259 HP / 3903 patk / 9792 pdef / 6528 mdef. The magmite, however, looks a lot cooler in my opinion…

Baby Hercules
lvl 100 stats: 4585 HP / 3210 patk / 9952 pdef / 7961 mdef
This is a veno’s best tanking pet. This pet can be bought via the Cash Boutique the same way as nixes – by obtaining 9999 Sources of Force. It comes equipped with the three tanking skills Strong, Protect, and Reflect, and one weak aggro skill, Pounce. For PvE purposes, Pounce should be replaced with Bash. The “herc”, however, is not a PvP pet. You should not bother even teaching your herc Flesh Ream in my opinion as it takes away from the PvE purpose of hercs (since Flesh Ream does less damage and is worse at aggro-holding than Bash). Because you don’t want to ditch the PvE tanking skills, you won’t be able to have both Pounce and Flesh Ream. Even in situations where you may think having a long-surviving pet will be to your advantage, you are still better off PKing with any of the other ground pets (plus, hercs look ugly). In the bad case where you haven’t bothered lvling up any other ground pets, might as well pull out the herc – its better than nothing.

Armored Bear
lvl 100 stats: 3524 HP / 2038 patk / 8551 pdef / 8551 mdef
This is your support ground pet for PvP if you are too lazy to lvl anything (since it starts at lvl 80). Its patk sucks but it has good HP and defences so its a decent tank. The distinguishing factor of is that it comes already with the Pounce pet skill. As well, it has the “big bear” factor, which can scare your target and “freeze/stun” them for a few seconds as they watch a humongous bear start running toward them to maul them. If you plan on using this pet for PvP, it should contain all support pet skills such as Pounce, Flesh Ream, Howl, and possibly even Shriek. The armored bear is actually a rare pet that only spawns every 12 hrs and wanders around the Sanctuary area at 652 611 and starts at lvl 80. The alternative of the Armored Bear would be the Shaodu Cub, also a rare pet that comes with the Pounce skill. It starts off at lvl 20, however, and wanders around outside of City of Plume at 199 453 and 287 459. At lvl 100, it has slightly higher patk but worse defences, standing at 3499 HP / 2276 patk / 8460 pdef / 8460 mdef.

4.3 Water Pets
Almost no PvP occurs in water except the weekly Dragon Temple event where it is completely open PvP with no infamy time consequences nor item dropping consequences. The only water pet worth having would be the Celestial Plumpfish at lvl 80. Before 80, you may want to tame a high lvl turtle just as a temporary pet, but don’t waste your money investing in it for PvP.

Celestial Plumpfish
lvl 100 stats: 3289 HP/ 2980 patk / 9162 pdef / 7329 mdef
This strong waterfish hits pretty hard and has relatively high defences and HP (high enough to tank mobs in the actual PvE parts of DT). You can tame this at 627 586. Because you will rarely grind in water, until lvl 80, there is no point lvling up any pet before then (not to mention how hard it is to find efficient water pet grinding spots).

4.4 Pet Skills
A tamed pet will come with a set of pre-learned skills (max of 4 skills per pet), but in most cases, these skills are not optimal for PvP (the exception being the nix, but even the nix needs to be taught Flesh Ream). Like normal character skills, pet skills can be learned/upgraded but requires the associated pet skill scroll for learning the skill, or a Tame Book for upgrading (to a max lvl of 5 for most skills, 2 for Pounce). Tame Books can be bought from the Zoologist NPCs where you go to upgrade skills whereas pet skill scrolls can be bought either from the Zoologist or farmed from chests during the weekly Dragon Temple event. Some rare pet scrolls can only be dug from DT chests (or bought from other players who dug those chests). Skills can also be forgotten using a Forget Scroll, also at the Zoologist. The following are PvP-based pet skills

Flesh Ream
lvl 5: Bite an enemy, inflicting base damage plus 200% of Pet’s base damage over 8 seconds.
This is your main damage skill which inflicts a “bleed” damage-over-time effect on the target in the form of three “ticks” over the next 8 seconds (roughly one tick every 3 seconds). It is also a ranged “magic” skill (roughly 10m) so your pet does not have to run directly up to your target to attack with the skill. Unlike a pet’s normal attacks, Flesh Ream is bugged such that its bleed damage is not affected by PvP damage reduction (at one point, this “bug” was fixed on PW-CN but, due to community outcries, this “bug” was unfixed and turned into a “feature”). As a result, imagine twice the PvE damage done on a mob being done to your target over the course of 8 seconds. As long as the bleed status effect stays on your target, your target may die while running away (or, in the case of demon sins, try to stealth away). Since Flesh Ream has a 15 second cooldown, timing it with your veno’s attacks is important for taking down high HP targets; if you fail with the first flesh ream, I would recommend you wait til the next one to coordinate with your veno skill nukes.

As everyone gets closer and closer to end-game gear, however, the significance of Flesh Ream as a major damage factor diminishes due to higher HP pools and higher physical defences (a pet’s stats, on the other hand, are fixed at each lvl), so do not rely too much on this skill for your main damage output. Also note that the Flesh Ream’s bleed effect can be removed or avoided. Genie skill Bloodclot (icon looks like a green leaf) gives the user protection from being bled for X number of seconds whereas the genie skill Cauterize can remove the bleed status effect completely. Anything that gives damage immunity will also make the Flesh Ream skill miss. Triple Sparking (all classes), Sage Summer Sprint (veno), Sage Shadow Escape (sin), Sage Bubble of Life (psychic) and Purify (cleric) can all remove negative status effects, bleed included. Sins also have Tidal Protection, a one-minute self buff giving them 50% chance of having the bleed status effect miss, and Soul of Retaliation, which will reflect the bleed back to the pet (and effectively cause your pet to kill itself).

Claw
lvl 5: Increase Pet’s base physical damage by 30% for 1 hour.
This is your pet’s patk buff. The increased patk buff factors into all pet skills that calculate damage based on base physical attack, Flesh Ream included. The Claw scroll is a rare pet scroll only farm-able via DT. It comes on nixes by default and should never be removed. In my opinion, the only other pets deserving of being taught the skill are sawflies and scorpions.

Pounce
lvl 2 (max): Have an 80% chance to stun enemy for 3 seconds. If stunned, the pet’s attack rate is increased by 25% for 15 seconds.
The increased attack rate aspect of this skill isn’t as important as the stunning part. 3 seconds of stun time is very useful in stunlocking a skill and allows you to open up attacks with Ironwood Scarab (for the pdef debuff that will help your Flesh Ream later) instead of Lucky Scarab. With Lucky Scarab, Demon Frost Scarab, Air Strand and/or Occult Ice, you can keep targets nicely stunlocked for a decent period of time. Nixes come with this by default and so do hercs, armored bears and shaodu cubs. Its a great support skill, especially in end-game PvP where pet damage is laughable. This is also a rare DT pet scroll under the name of “Boo-boo Scroll”.

Howl
lvl 5: Scare the enemy with a howl, decreasing enemy’s Magic Defence by 36% for 15 seconds.
This is your mdef debuff. Ironwood Scarab induces a pdef debuff that aids in your pet’s Flesh Ream damage, but Howl will help increase you veno’s magical spell damage.

Shriek
lvl 5: Strike at an enemy to have 100% chance at interrupting the enemy’s channelling.
This is an interrupt skill. Its useful for interrupting your target if you notice him/her channelling something big like a wizard’s BIDS (Black Ice Dragon Strike) or BT (Blade Tempest) or a cleric’s Tempest. The only issue is that, to cast the skill, the pet must finish its current auto-attack and channel the skill itself, so timing things is hard. I personally don’t use it at all for PvP – waste of a skill slot in my opinion. It also only interrupts the skill, not cancelling it. Shriek’s skill-book is listed under “Shrill” at the Zoologist.

Slow
lvl 5: Decrease enemy speed by 50% for 6 seconds.
A 50% slow is nice, but not worth wasting your pet’s skill slot in my opinion. As a magical ranged class, you will be able to attack your target quite a few times before s/he is able to run out of range. From my experience, if your target wants to run and Holy Paths, even a 50% movement reduction won’t make the difference.

Sacrifice
lvl 1 (80-only skill): Lose 75% of current HP to inflict 400% of Pet’s base physical damage to an enemy.
This is a rare DT pet skill that can act as your second damage skill after Flesh Ream. Because of the 75% PvP damage reduction, 400% of your pet’s base damage in PvP becomes 100% of your pet’s damage in PvE, reduced of course based on your target’s pdef. Effectively, it becomes another Flesh Ream tick, with the exception of your pet sacrificing 75% of its HP, putting it in a very vulnerable position. For that reason, its good as a finisher, but should only be used if you know you can kill off your target with that skill. At low lvl PvP (80 or under), its good due to the low pdef and HP of everyone, but at high lvl PvP, it becomes a dangerous gamble due to the loss of pet HP.

Bash
lvl 5: Launch a fierce strike at the enemy, dealing 185% of Pet’s base physical damage.
In PvE, this is your best aggro-holding skill and damage skill. In PvP, it sucks just as much as normal auto-attacks suck. But if you’re PvPing with a pet you also use for PvE, might as well click the skill as its better at least than a normal auto-attack. The same goes for all the other elemental damage skills (e.g. Fireball, Icicle, Toxic Mist, Thunderbolt, Sandblow).

Bloodthirst/Bloodhunger/Consume/Devour
These are all rare DT pet skills; however, they all suck in PvP. The healing aspect of the skills are useless really as a single pet heal will recover far more, and pets usually have very low HP pools, so the damage output is very minimal (and also affected by the PvP reduction). Mana drain is also very useless in PvP (except for the Chaotic Spirit combo, but teaching your pet these skills would still be a waste of money and a waste of skill slots).

Reflect, Protect, Strong, Blessing of the Pack
These are also all rare DT pet skills that are good for tanking in PvE. Reflect casts a Bramble Guard buff on your pet for holding aggro; Protect and Strong are like cleric’s pdef (Vanguard) and mdef (Magic Shell) defence buffs. Blessing of the Pack (scroll called Bless Scroll) gives your pet a barb HP buff for better maximum tanking potential. All of these are good for PvE tanking (hercs come with the first three and nixes come with the fourth) but are not PvP oriented. In group PvP/TW, however, survival of your nix is important, so putting Protect and Strong on your nix wouldn’t be a bad idea (note that high defence is better than slightly more HP, so replace Pounce and Bless with Strong and Protect for the ultimate TW nix).

4.5 Manual Control
The AI used by pets is terrible. Pets will do all sorts of unwanted stuff such as get stuck in the terrain, attack the wrong target unwantingly, etc. In many situations, it is important to know how to manually control your pet (to an extent) so you can have it instantaneously beside you and doing what you want it to do.

To start off, you will notice that when you summon your pet, the first of the four pet skill boxes has an additional yellow border around it. That means that your pet will open its attack using that skill first and keep using that skill every time it cools down (in between, it just auto-attacks unless you manually click on those skill icons). By right clicking on a different pet skill icon, you can set that pet skill as the default opening skill. Note that this setting is not saved; you must right click the skill you want defaulted to every time you summon your pet. For PvP, this will usually be Flesh Ream such that you don’t have to remember to manually click the skill every time (some people like to open attacks with Pounce, but that can be done by manually clicking the skill icon).

Pet skill activation can also be done via keyboard instead of clicking the skills. By default, Shift+F1 sends your pet to attack the target using the default skill selected. Shift+F2/F3/F4/F5 will send your pet to attack using the first, second, third or fourth skill respectively on the pet’s skillbar. For convenience sake, I sent my pet attack hotkey to “E” instead of “Shift+F1” – you can do this by pressing “K” and remapping “Pet Attack”.

To the left of the pet skill icons are a bunch of options you probably never have touched. The bear head icon on the right is the equivalent of “Pet Attack” – clicking that with a target selected is the same as pressing Shift+F1. The next two icons control the pet’s movement. The paw icon is Follow and selected by default – with Follow selected, your pet will follow you around wherever you go when it’s not attacking a target. Occasionally your pet will get stuck in the terrain or you want to prevent it from attacking a target. If you click on the Follow button, it will force your pet to run back to you (also very useful for if you want to change your target but not have your pet waste its Flesh Ream on the previous target). The leash icon is Halt and, when selected, forces your pet to stay where it is unmoving until you switch it back to Follow. Note that if you go too far from the pet (40m I believe), your pet will unsummon back into the pet bag (if you had it on Follow instead and somehow your pet got stuck 40m away or is chasing a target that is 40m away, your pet will reset/teleport back to you).

To the left of the Halt icon are three mini icons that represent the pet’s AI mode. The angry-face selection means your pet is on Auto, i.e. aggressive mode. When you attack a target, it will automatically attack with you. If a target attacks the pet directly, it will attack the target next once its current target is dead. The shield selection puts your pet on Defend, during which it will not attack any targets that you first attack. If anything damages you or itself, however, it will attack that target back. The third hand-icon mode is Manual, where your pet will just follow you around and not attack anything unless you explicitly tell it to.

Note that in duels and TW, putting your nix on Defend mode will allow it to attack targets attacking you even if you are stunned and attack them once; this does not work in open PvP however, so don’t try relying on this Defend mode to protect yourself against sins as most sins open up with a stun. Also note that if you are initially stunned and you send your pet to attack the sin (with your pet on any mode), the pet skills will trigger but not actually land (i.e. as long as you are stunned but haven’t actually done any damage-dealing skills to your target, your nix will try to defend you but fail, wasting its skill cooldowns). This is also annoying when you are in safezone with your pet on Auto or Defend and someone outside of safezone decides to ranged attack your pet; they can attack and kill your pet but you can’t attack them (if you have swords, you can’t even heal your pet). The only protection against that would be to unsummon your pet or put it on Manual and move it out of range.

5.0 Skills
Before lvl 90, you may have had some fun sending your nix and running, watching your target die to Flesh Ream (while you yourself will probably be justifiably called a coward). After lvl 90, however, just Flesh Ream won’t cut it – you will have to use additional skills to kill targets. At end game, your pet will be only good for its support skills (e.g. stun, debuff). Almost all your damage will come from your human form magic spells (even if you are heavy armour, your physical damage and accuracy will be too low anyway to deal real damage). Below are useful veno skills pertaining to PvP (all skills listed in sage/demon, i.e. lvl “11”):

5.1 Human Form Attack Skills

Venomous Scarab
Range 27.0meters / Mana 130.0 / Channel 1.5 seconds / Cast 1.0 seconds / Cooldown 1.0 seconds
Throw a virulent parasite at the enemy. Deals Wood damage equal to base magic damage plus 100% of weapon damage plus 2534.0.
Sage version gives a 20% chance to gain 30 Chi if hit.
Demon version reduces target’s Wood resistance by 30% for 6 seconds.
This is your standard spammable skill. This and Ironwood Scarab are probably the only two offensive skills you use in PvE. In PvP, this is the last skill you’ll be using for attacking, after your other stronger skills are in cooldown. If you are demon, however, using this skill right before your strong attacks is nice for the wood debuff, but I personally find opening with it not that effective since it does not stun/immobilize, gives them an extra second to run away. If stacked with Demon Parasitic Nova through a Zooming Powder combo, however, the wood debuff is quite nice.

Ironwood Scarab
Range 27.0meters / Mana 175.0 / Channel 1.5 seconds / Cast 0.8 seconds /Cooldown 8.0 seconds
Throw a splinted bug at the enemy inflicting Wood damage equal to base magic damage plus 300% of weapon damage plus 2770.0. Requires 25 Chi.
Sage version reduces enemy’s physical defence by 40% for 20 seconds.
Demon version only has a 20% chance of success, but will reduce physical defence to zero instead.
This is your second strongest nuke in terms of raw damage. It can also reduce your target’s pdef so that your pet’s Flesh Ream deals more damage. The sage version is nice, but the demon version sucks by changing it from a guaranteed 30% for 10 seconds at lvl 10 to only 20% chance of a full -100% pdef for 10 seconds. Note that -100% pdef doesn’t mean that the target suddenly has 0 pdef – it reduces it by the gear’s base pdef but does not include ornaments, shards, etc. It will effectively make your pet deal double damage if the demon version does proc, but the low 20% chance makes it very unreliable and too chance-based. When it does proc though, it can help you and your pet/team mates kill heavy armour targets much faster (and of course tear apart arcane/light armour targets immediately). Note that the chi requirement means you can’t cast the skill if you just died, but you will build up enough chi but casting a single Venomous Scarab and one Lucky Scarab (or you can just build up chi in safezone via Pet Heal).

Lucky Scarab
Range 27.0meters / Mana 320.0 / Channel 1.5 seconds / Cast 0.8 seconds / Cooldown 12.0 seconds
Throw a toxic scarab at the enemy, inflicting Wood damage equal to base magic damage plus 100% of weapon damage plus 4320.0. Has a 95% chance to stun target for 2.0 seconds.
Sage version increases stun duration by one second.
Demon version reduces cooldown by 2 seconds.
This is your main stun. A lot of venos open with this skill in a confrontational battle (if you are jumping a target though or plan to stun with your pet first, I would recommend you opening with Ironwood Scarab instead). 2 seconds of stun (or 3 for sage) is only enough to cast a second skill before the stun wears off. If you time it well with your pet’s Pounce, you can keep your target stunlocked for at least 3 skills (often, combined with a nix bleed, enough to kill most arcane/light armour targets).

Noxious Gas
Range 27.0meters / Mana 265.0 / Channel 2.5 seconds / Cast 0.8 seconds / Cooldown 5.0 seconds
A large disease ridden toxic parasite attacks the target causing it and all enemies 9.0 meters around it to suffer Wood damage equal to base magic damage plus 200% of weapon damage plus 2296.0. Enemies will also suffer 2296.0 Wood damage over 9 seconds.
Sage version increases immediate damage and damage over time to 3054 each.
Demon version has cooldown reduced by one second.
This is your AoE skill. Because of its long cast time, it’s not that practical to use in 1v1 PvP (two venomous scarabs > one noxious gas) but it’s a nice skill to use when you see a grouped up bunch in TW. Should be combined with Parasitic Nova.

Parasitic Nova
Range 27.0meters / Mana 590.0 / Channel 3.0 seconds / Cast 1.2 seconds / Cooldown 30.0 seconds
Summon a toxic parasite array to attack the target and all enemies in a 12.0 meter radius around the target. Inflicts Wood damage equal to base magic damage plus 300% of weapon damage plus 6606.0. Has a 67% chance to make them chaotic for 8.0 seconds, in which they are unable to move or attack. Requires two Sparks.
Sage version will cost only one Spark 50% of the time.
Demon version makes chaotic enemies take 30% more damage.
This is your biggest nuke and also AoE with a very nice seal effect. It is also a long-casting skill and takes two sparks. This skill is best used in combination with Zooming Powder, especially if you are demon. Zooming Powder a Demon Venomous Scarab + Demon Parasitic Nova + Noxious Gas will do massive AoE damage plus have your target strongly amped for the fourth skill. It has a strong use in TW but in 1v1 PvP, I rarely use it those two sparks could instead be used for Bramble Hood or build up for a Triple Spark. If I ever do get the demon book, however, I will probably upgrade my Parasitic Nova from lvl 1 to 11. Until then, as a tank build with very low magic attack, I’d rather save the two sparks.

Frost Scarab
Range 27.0meters / Mana 215.0 / Channel 1.5 seconds / Cast 0.8 seconds / Cooldown 15.0 seconds
Throw an icy bug at the enemy, inflicting Wood damage equal to base magic damage plus 100% of weapon damage plus 5135.0 Wood Damage. Has a 80% chance to inflict frostbite on the target, causing it to suffer 5135.0 water damage over 9 seconds and decreasing speed by 40%. Requires one Spark.
Sage version always has a 95% chance to inflict frostbite.
The frostbite freezes the enemy for 3 seconds.
In PvE, this is a useless skill and waste of a spark. In PvP, this is also a useless skill and a waste of a spark. UNLESS you are demon. Demon Frost Scarab is a greatly underestimated skill. The 3 seconds of immobilize will allow you to keep your target stunlocked and unable to run away. When I PvP against single targets, I always use it in combination with Air Strand and Lucky Scarab to hold targets I know will be kiting (e.g. archers), trying to drop out of the sky, or running toward me (e.g. BMs and barbs). For sage venos or demon venos without the skill-book ready, however, don’t bother lvling it past 1.

5.2 Fox Form Curse Skills

Fox Form
Mana 150 / Channel Instant / Cooldown 6.0 seconds
Transform into a werefox. Physical defence increases by 120%, accuracy increases by 200%, and maximum MP falls by 20%. Allows fox form skills to be used.
Sage version always grants a 150% physical defence increase and a 250% accuracy increase.
Demon version gives movement speed increase of 60% for 6 seconds after transforming.
Because even a heavy armour veno should be DDing in fox form in PvP, the accuracy bonus is irrelevant. The main purpose of fox form is to let you take less physical damage and allow you to purge and amp the target. Sage fox form gives you a whooping +150% pdef (a huge weighing factor for those going sage for survival). Demon fox form, on the other hand, gives you a 60% speed boost for 6 seconds (the cooldown time of fox form). This speed boost, combined with Summer Sprint (see below) allows you to kite away from melee classes fast, i.e. a constant 10+m/s as long as you keep switching back/forth to/from fox form.

Purge
Range 10 meters / Mana 200 / Channel 1.5 seconds / Cast 1.2 seconds / Cooldown 30 seconds
While in fox form, this skill can remove all positive effects on the target.
Sage version grants a 5 meter area of effect.
Demon version reduces cooldown by 25 seconds.
Apart from pets, purge is what defines a veno. The removal of positive status effects from a target can drastically change a fight, especially if they just triple sparked (and thus are now out of chi) or you are fully buffed. Positive status effects include buffs, triple spark bonuses, anti-stun, etc. – just about everything except invincibility effect from absolute domain, Ironguard/Sutra powders, veno’s feral concentration (see later), archer’s wings of grace, and well timed sparking (those with good timing can spark right before a veno purges to resist the purge). In TW where all players are fully buffed almost all of the time, purging is very crucial and you will often see many venos just fly around the entire time in fox form just to non-stop purge/amp (see later) their squad’s target. At end-game, venos become feared not for their nix but their purge.

Amplify Damage
Range 10 meters / Mana 150 / Channel 1.5 seconds / Cast 1.2 seconds / Cooldown 30 seconds
While in fox form, curse the target and make it take 25% more damage for 20 seconds. At any time an enemy may only be affected by one curse.
Sage version always makes the target take 30% additional damage.
Demon version lasts 6 seconds longer.
This is the standard veno debuff. For the next 20+ seconds, your target will take 25+% more damage. That means a skill that does 1000 damage to them now deals 1250 damage. Because fox form has a 6 second cooldown, I usually purge+”amp” the target before switching back into human form to nuke them. Note that this skill stacks with Extreme Poison, so using Extreme Poison right before you start nuking will strongly increase your attack damage by 45+%.

Soul Degeneration
Range 10 meters / Mana 180 / Channel 1.5 second / Cast 1.2 second / Cooldown 30 second
While in fox form, curse the target to stop HP regeneration and MP regeneration for 30 seconds. At any time an enemy may only be affected by one curse.
Sage version reduces maximum HP by 20%.
Demon version cuts target’s evasion in half for 20 seconds.
Contrary to rumours, this skill only stops natural HP/MP regeneration – this does NOT stop generation from pots, Ironheart Blessing, Tree of Protection, or any other form of healing. That said, unless you are sage, this skill is completely useless and will override Amplify Damage if you casted that already. Even if you are sage, conditions under which reducing the target’s max HP by 20% instead of amplifying damage they take is rare. The demon version is completely useless.

Crush Vigor
Range 10 meters / Mana 12 / Channel 1.5 second / Cast 1.2 second / Cooldown 30 second
While in fox form, curse the target to make it lose 12 Chi whenever it is hit. Lasts 15 seconds. At any time an enemy may only be affected by one curse.
Sage version increases Chi lost to 15 per hit.
Demon version has a 50% chance to gain one Spark.
In TW, this skill is very useful to use against cata barbs after you purge them such that they do not have the chi required to cast “turtle” (Invoke the Spirit). Whether or not to use it against BMs or other classes in open PvP is hard to clearly define (the target will lose a small amount of chi every time your nix pecks at him/her), but in most cases, amping the target will help you much more. Demon Crush Vigor, however, has a 50% chance of giving you a free spark. This is very useful right before a fight to instantaneously chi yourself up (with little mana usage) or even in-fight for the occasional situation where you just need one extra spark to Bramble Hood or triple spark. As a demon veno, I often use fox form to gain some distance from my target and cast demon crush vigor on a nearby mob just for that spark. If I’m expecting to be ganked by a stealthed sin, I will also use that to build chi on mobs instantaneously instead of spamming pet heal and losing concentration.

Stunning Blow
Range Melee / Mana 215.0 / Channel 0.7 seconds / Cast 0.5 seconds / Cooldown 15.0 seconds
Strike the enemy with a stunning blow, inflicting base physical damage plus 3641.0. A successful hit freezes the enemy for 8.0 seconds. Requires one Spark and Fox Form.
Sage version has a 25% chance to cast without consuming Spark.
Demon version has a 50% chance to stun the enemy for 3 seconds.
This is for use against magic users who you think will kite. The 8 second immobilize will allow you plenty of time to kill your target and the demon 3 second stun chance is also really nice. If you are arcane, however, I would not recommend using this skill as not only will you most likely miss the attack, but you just wasted a spark.

5.3 Other Skills

Soul Transfusion
Channel Instant / Cooldown 60.0 seconds
Instantly exchange HP and MP values. Each transfusion consumes up to 100 chi.
This is your panic skill. It instantaneously swaps your HP and your MP percent values. This means if you’re about to die and your charm is in cooldown, but you have full MP, you can quickly use Soul Transfusion and bring your health back to full (your MP will be next to zero, however, but that’s what MP pots are for). This skill can be used in either human form or fox form but switching to fox form first will reduce your maximum MP and thus increase your MP percent so that when you swap, you will swap to a higher HP percentage.

Bramble Hood
Mana 360 / Channel 1.0 seconds / Cast 1.0 seconds / Cooldown 30.0 seconds
Create an array of magical brambles to return 200% of melee damage and reduce damage taken by 75%. Lasts 15 seconds. Requires two Sparks
This is your reduce-damage skill. In open world PvP, melee damage is not reflected, but damage taken is still reduced by 75%. In TW or duels where damage reflection does work, however, using bramble hood while being attacked by a fist BM or nix can easily make them suicide. Because I have high defence and a large HP pool, I almost always conserve my sparks for bramble hood as it gives me a good 15 seconds of super-buffed time.

Summer Sprint
Mana 400 / Channel Instant / Cooldown 60.0 seconds
Accompanied by flowers, character’s movement speed increases by 45% for 10 minutes.
Sage version removes negative effects.
Demon version gives immunity to movement impairing effects.
Before lvl 11, summer sprint is just a simple 5 minute speed boost buff. At lvl 11, however, the demon/sage bonuses become very useful in PvP. Sage Summer Sprint is a self-purify, good for removing a BM’s Heaven’s Flame, archer’s Sharptooth effect, veno’s nix’s Flesh Ream bleed, Extreme Poison, any immobilize effect(not stun though since you can’t use skills when stunned), etc. Demon Summer Sprint gives 6 seconds of anti-stun – useful for kiting away with Demon fox form or as a free replacement for Fortify to allow for Ironguard combos.

Lending Hand
Range 20 meters / Channel 2.0 seconds / Cast 1.0 seconds / Cooldown 15.0 seconds
Transfer one Spark to target. Requires one Spark.
Sage version has a 25% chance to cast without consuming Spark.
Demon version gives a 20% chance to transfer two Spark.
The first version of this skill (learned at lvl 46) is a plain spark-transfer with a 60s cooldown. The demon and sage versions, however, only have a 15s cooldown and can be used for generating a free spark by targeting yourself. The sage version has a chance of transferring a spark to yourself without consuming your original spark whereas the demon version has a chance of transferring two sparks to yourself even though you only consume one spark. In both cases, you have a chance of gaining a free spark, assuming you had one to start off with. Like Demon Crush Vigor, this can be used for chi-generating before you head off to fight.

Myriad Rainbow
Range 25meters / Mana 800 / Channel Instant / Cooldown 20 seconds
Launch a shimmering chromatic scarab at an enemy. Your target has a chance to be affected by various status ailments.
Bleed: 4500 physical damage over time.
Poison: 4500 Wood damage over time.
Armor break: Physical defence reduced by 100%.
Mind break: Magic defence reduced by 100%.
Lasts 9 seconds. Tip: The number of status ailments caused to targets varies randomly. Requires 20 Chi
This is your single-target chance debuff (it is also one of your 79 skills). Because its an insta-cast skill, you’re only draining a bit of chi for a chance of 100% pdef reduction or 100% mdef reduction. These reductions drastically increase your damage up to two-fold, allowing you to massively nuke them if Mind Break procs or lets your pet tear them apart if Armor Break procs (same debuff as demon ironwood). The best situation is when both status effects proc, for which the target will almost instantaneously drop. The skill uses a lot of MP, however, so don’t accidentally mana drain yourself and remember to MP pot.

Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form)
Range 12meters / Mana 800 / Channel Instant / Cooldown 20 seconds
Pepper the air with scarabs. All targets in range of 15 meters have a chance to be affected by various status ailments.
Bleed: 4,500 physical damage over time.
Poison: 4,500 Wood damage over time.
Armor break: Physical defence reduced by 100%.
Mind break: Magic defence reduced by 100%.
Lasts 9 seconds. Tip: The total number of status ailments caused to targets varies randomly. Requires 20 Chi.
This is the same as the human-form skill except that it’s AoE. Both skills can be used one after the other so there’s a good chance that one or both of them will proc armor or mind break. If I have sufficient chi, I will usually use the fox form one right after purge+amping, change back into human, use the human one, then start nuking the target hopefully with one of the two breaks in effect.

Feral Concentration
Mana 500 / Channel 3.0 seconds / Cast 1.0 second / Cooldown 5 minutes
A Venomancer uses this spell for full protection. Immunize the caster of all coming damage at the cost of being unable to move for 10 seconds. Requires one Spark
This is the veno’s third lvl 79 skill and a very situational one. Using the spell gives you 10 seconds of immunity in exchange for one spark. You will be stunned during those 10 seconds, however, unless you use an anti-stun the same way you would anti-stun before using an Ironguard Powder. The only issue, however, is the long channel time. 3 seconds of channelling combined with 1 second of casting means you’re a sitting duck for 4 secods. You may use this right before Leeroying into a crowd, but experienced PKers will just kite around and wait for the immunity to wear off before attacking you. I personally only use this skill in PvE and save the spark for Bramble Hood.

Celestial Eruption/Demonic Eruption
Discharges three Sparks to recover 20% of your maximum MP and add 900/700% magic attack and 500/650% weapon attack for 15 seconds. Grants invincibility for 3 seconds after the discharge. Requires three Sparks
This is your “triple spark” skill, learn-able once you finish your 89 culti. Using a triple spark has many advantages over your old Advanced Spark Eruption. To start off, the magical attack increase is very, very significant and will allow you to easily take down your target with magic spells (assuming you can keep them in place from running away). Second, the 3 seconds of immunity is much easier to use for resisting attacks such as an upcoming BIDS or Tempest that you see your target channelling and about to nuke you with, or a bleed/purge from another veno. Third, the triple spark also PURIFIES you (unlisted in its description) of all negative status effects. That means no more negative debuffs stacked on you – you are clean and super magic powered, ready to take down your target. Because of the 3-second long, flamboyant animation, your target will probably be smart enough to run away or pop an Ironguard, so be careful about when you use it such that its not wasted.

6.0 Who and How to Fight
When it comes to group PvP and TW, there’s always a priority order when it comes to who to kill first or who’s easiest to kill. For veno’s, because nix’s do physical damage and arcane venos have high magical defence, arcane and light-armour classes are easiest to kill. Heavy armours or high HP targets can be ignored/avoided until after.

6.1 Clerics
When it comes to group PvP, clerics become the most wanted class. Having cleric buffs and heals can drastically change PK fights, so taking out the cleric as easly as possible is very important. For venos, this is a super easy task as, with the power of purge, you can instantaneously remove their buffs and Plume Shell and watch as your nix’s Flesh Ream tear them apart. Because clerics usually look at their own stats while self-buffed, many clerics have very poor base pdef and low HP or are unused to being unbuffed.

Note that clerics also can self-purify the bleed (so make sure to stun them immediately after purge + Flesh Ream or they will Purify themselves). They also have Chromatic Seal, which can sleep you for 30+ seconds. During that sleep time, you cannot control your nix but it will continue auto-attacking the cleric if it started that before you got slept. Most clerics, after they have slept you and killed your nix, will then proceed to try to 1-shot you. This sequence involves rebuffing themselves, mdef debuffing you with Elemental Seal (-35% mdef), stacking a few Ironheart Blessings on themselves to heal up/chi up, then Tempesting or spark Wield Thundering you. You will know when they’re about to Tempest/Wield Thunder as you will see the lightning animation – right before they cast that skill, make sure to click Absolute Domain and save yourself. Once that’s over, its the same process though don’t forget that you’re probably without a nix right now, so you may want to summon a second pet or kite a bit and revive your nix.

6.2 Wizards
A wizard’s role in PvP is that of a glass cannon. As well, like clerics, they usually look at their own stats with Earth Barrier on. For that reason, they’re easy targets once purged of earth barrier and bled. Note that their Distance Shrink can still be used when immobilized, so watch for them running away and keep them close with Air Strand + Lucky Scarab + Demon Frost Scarab.

Wizards can quickly change the tide, however, if they’re strong enough. Will of the Phoenix is an AoE push-back skill that will send your pet knocked back 18m (though not you), enough of a distance to hit it with a few shots and kill it. Sage Force of Will will AoE seal you and your nix for 5 seconds, giving them enough time as well to kill your nix. If they decide that you are their target, watch your debuffs. Most wizards, once they’re confident that they can ignore your pet, will Undine Strike you (-60% mdef), Soporific Whisper (4s sleep)/Force of Will (5s seal), then unleash a Frenzied Blade Tempest or Black Ice Dragon Strike. on you, most likely 1-shotting you (or 2-shotting you because you won’t be at full health from an earlier attack). Some wizards will probably try to use Essential Sutra (6 seconds of no channelling time for 2 sparks) or a Zooming Powder and nuke you with numerous hard hitting skills in succession. Lucky for you, Blade Tempest and BIDS have long casting animations and the animation for using Essential Sutra/Zooming Powder is the same and very distinct (blue glowy waves going around the wizard at the time of activation), so you can use your Absolute Domain here if you time things right. If you manage to survive the wizard’s counterattack, they’ll start to run like hell til their skills are cooled down – thats the point of vulnerability and attack.

6.3 Archers
Archers also are often glass cannons, but they have strong physical attacks which will easily kill you if you’re arcane, as well as magical attacks if you’re heavy armour. Archers are light armor but don’t have any self-pdef buffs so not only are they weak to your nix’s bleed but they also take quite a hitting from your magical attacks. Because archers need to attack from a certain range to deal full damage (and they’re physical attack range is longer than other long-range classes including venos), they will usually attack you from far. Most PvP-apt archers are expert kiters, so they key strategy here is getting in close within their comfort zone and keeping them within your spell casting reach via stunning and immobilizing. A good 4-6 seconds of stunlocking will easily allow you and your nix to tear them apart.

Being long ranged targets, however, archers are also apt at stopping you from getting close. An attacking archer usually starts with a Stunning Shot (3s stun) followed by Aim Low (8s immobilize). If they are ganking you, you need to go fox form and tank the damage for a bit, then run up to them to force them to go on the defensive and/or run away. If you are facing off, make sure to use an anti-stun before you start the assault. Note that archer’s also have their own anti-stun – Wings of Grace, which gives them immunity during the 3 second casting time, then 15 seconds of Bless (reduced damage taken) and anti-stun in exchange for one spark. While the archer has the anti-stun, they will probably try to Holy Path away or pop an Ironguard. If you have purge ready, this would be the perfect time to use it (unless they’re Ironguarded). If you can’t purge, kite away yourself and wait for the Bless and anti-stun to wear off (or run up right beside them to make them want to kite away) before resuming the fight. Make sure that you don’t make the silly mistake of wasting your stuns/immobilizes while the archer’s anti-stun is up. Also watch your nix’s health as some archers tend to go after the nix while kiting (nix’s fly at 11.0m/s, faster than you flying/running after the archer) – if you decide to Holy Path after the archer, however, make sure to click Follow on your nix such that it does not get stuck in the terrain (and reset).

6.4 Venomancers
You are a veno fighting against venos. You should know what to be careful of and what your opponent is capable of. Your best defence is fox form against bleed (each tick is calculated directly proportionally to your immediate pdef at the moment of the bleed tick) and anti-stun against their Lucky Scarab. If you see them rushing toward you in fox form, be ready to have Absolute Domain, a well timed triple spark, or some other immune pot to resist their purge (time it right or the battle will be against you). If they’re just sending their nix to you, have some immune mechanism or anti-bleed combo ready (see Blood Clot, Cauterize, Sage Summer Sprint, Triple Spark, Tree of Protection). Most venos are arcane armour, so make sure that your nix’s Flesh Ream pushes in the max damage it can. Watch for their bramble hood and counter with a purge or just wait it out. Luckily for you, you are reading this guide and thus are experienced and knowledgeable about your class. If you’re lucky, your opponent may be one of those fail venos who never purges or even stunlocks but just sends their nix and kites, believing that they have this thing called “skill”. Such nix venos are fun to kill as long as you know how to tank/avoid/survive their nix’s bleed as well as keep them from kiting.

6.5 Psychics
Psychics are the new arcane class around the block. Lucky for you, its a rare PvP class with few experienced PKers playing it. While a skilled psychic can be harder to kill than barbs even, the rarity of players who use the class to its maximum potential makes them easy targets. Like any arcane target, the key is keeping them stunlocked while your nix’s Flesh Ream tears them apart. With current game mechanics, psychic self buffs cannot be purged, so don’t waste your time going fox form unless you find Amplify Damage absolutely necessary. Psychics also have the two skills Black Voodoo and White Voodoo. Black Voodoo increases their attack lvl by 22 in exchange for a decrease in their defence lvl by 11. White Voodoo increases their defence lvl by 66 in exchange for a decrease in their attack lvl by 99. In other words, if they’re on Black Voodoo when fighting you, they will hit pretty hard but also take lots of damage, so make sure to stun them and prevent them from attacking you while you nuke away. If they’re on White Voodoo, however, you won’t get hurt but you won’t be able to do any significant damage to them at all, so don’t waste your nukes/etc. when you see them put this up. Luckily for venos, Flesh Ream’s bleed damage ignores defence lvls, so they’ll get torn apart pretty hard just from the bleed (you’ll still need to throw in a few attacks to add in damage though).

Psychics also have a few tricks up their sleeves. The most important counter skill you should watch for is Soulburn. The animation looks like a bunch of purple skulls being thrown at you (kinda like Parasitic Nova) and lasts 8 seconds. When you have this effect on you, every time you cast any skill, you take damage equal to that psychic’s Soulforce, a psychic-only number that is directly proportional to the refines on that psychic’s gear. This means that if you are fighting a well geared psychic and they cast Soulburn on you, you will be immediately suiciding if you try to use any skills during those 8 seconds. My only suggestion against this would be to drop out of the sky/Holy Path away and wait out the 8 seconds. Psychics also have the one spark skill Psychic Will, which removes negative status effects (amp and bleed included) and makes them immune to physical damage for 8 seconds (e.g. your pet becomes useless during those 8 seconds). I personally haven’t seen many psychics use that skill, so I don’t know the animation for that, but keep it in mind. Psychics also have their own stunlock to counter with – Earth Vector (1 spark) is an AoE attack with a 6s stun while Glacial Shards is an AoE 4s immobilize. Toss in a third AoE skill while you’re stuck and your pet will be gone. I really can’t imagine any counter for this other than use anti-stun and try again while they have Black Voodoo up. Psychics can also cast Empowering Vigor (increases healing potency and reduces charm tick cooldown by 3s) on themselves or Diminished Vigor (opposite effect) on you to strongly balance things in their favour.

Against an end-game geared psychic, however, good luck. Psychics have auto-retaliatory self buffs that, because of the messed up buff system, cannot be purged. The chance of these buff’s retaliatory effect triggering is completely dependent on the psychics Soulforce, which will be ridiculously high once you’re facing psychics with full +10 Nirvana gear. Its safe then to say that under that situation, every counter that can happen, will happen. That may include Soul of Vengeance’s physical damage reflection (slowly kill your pet), Soul of Stunning’s X second stun (prevents you from killing them as well as potting), Soul of Silence’s 3s silence (prevents you from killing them), and Soul of Retaliation’s status effect reflection (makes nix’s bleed themselves and die, you stun yourself when you attack). The only strategy I know around this is to wait out the Soul of Stunning/Retaliation’s 30 second duration and hope to be able to spike through while they forget to renew their soul buffs, vigor and voodoo (while you aren’t Soulburned of course).

6.6 Assasins
Sins are the other new Tideborn class that I know little about. Think about sins as a cross between BMs and archers. They can stunlock you for long periods of time and they have very high crit rates but very, very low defences. The other major change is that sins have stealth (i.e. they can disappear from your screen and reappear at their will) as well as teleporting (i.e. they can immediately jump right next to you). As of the moment, I only see two sin builds: demon interval and sage spike damage. For both builds, because the philosophy of sins is to kill the target before they have a chance to attack back (plus they’re light armour), most sins will have damage-focused gear and thus have very, very crappy defence (interval sins will have incredibly bad magical defences too). For this reason, the best defence is your best offence; the key to killing sins is to survive through their first initial stuns/attacks and pretty much 2-3 shot them before they decide that the gank failed and they try to go back into stealth. And with sins, its always them ganking you as, unless you use the apoc pot Detection Potion, you won’t see them coming.

Sins have quite a few skills that they’ll use to gank you unexpectingly. Note that although many of their skills require chi or spark, with their Inner Harmony skill (gain 2 sparks, 60s cooldown), you can safely assume that they will be attacking you with full chi (double or triple sparked). Most times sins will attack you from stealth (they come out of stealth when they enter combat). Headhunt (2 spark) will stun you for 5s. Deep Sting (50 chi) will put you to sleep for 5s. Throatcut (1 spark) will interrupt you and silence you for 4s. Shadow Teleport (1 spark) will teleport them from wherever they’re standing (up to 35m away) and stun you for 3s. Shadow Jump (20 chi) teleports you to them but is only 30m and does not stun you. Maze Step (1 spark) makes them immune to anti-stun for 10s. Shadow Escape (90s cooldown) will force them back into stealth, out of combat, and give them one extra spark. Deaden Nerves (3min cooldown) will allow them to avoid a “killing blow” and recover 20% HP (35% for sage) upon avoiding death (in other words, you cannot 1-shot sins with that buff on). Many sins also learn Bramble Rage on their genies, which they will combine with Subsea Strike (2 spark), an AoE skill that also amps targets for 30%.

With all these skills, you can expect them to come out of stealth and keep you stunlocked (with their skills or even with Occult Ice) while they skill spam or auto-attack you. If they’re an interval build, expect to be dead before the stun wears off. If they’re a sage skill spammer, unless you’re in fox form and buffed, you’ll probably be dead very soon as well. Because you’re stunned or Occult Ice’d, you can’t use skills, you can’t use pots, and you can’t use apoc pots. You can use, however, your Genie. Absolute Domain will save you for 4 seconds + 2 seconds of anti-stun. This will probably not be suffice though since once it wears off, you will just be restunned with another sin skill. Expel will most often do they job; since sins are physical-attack based, you will be immune to their attacks for 9 seconds – enough time to let your charm tick, their current stun to wear off, and give you a chance to run and make some distance before they try to stun you again (which they can with Shadow Teleport). When a sin sees you use either of these two genie skills, they have two choices: 1) use Shadow Escape and wait until they’re ready to try to gank you again while your genie is recovering, or 2) continue trying to attack/kill you after the genie skill is over. If they choose 1), all you can do is go to fox form and jump around preparing for their next attack (note that if you are stunned in the air while jumping, you are stuck in the air out of their reach, so they can’t continue attacking you till you fall back down).

If they choose 2), here’s your chance to counter and kill the sin. If you survive the initial gank, the first thing you want to do is use an anti-stun. That means Demon Summer Sprint, Fortify (careful of the self-mdef debuff) or a Vacuity Powder. This way, they won’t be able to repeat the stunlock again for a few seconds. Next, you want to stunlock them yourself so that they don’t use Shadow Escape. Only real stuns work here since immobilize can still be stealth’d from, so Lucky Scarab, pet’s Pounce, and Occult Ice are your options. Lucky for you, sins have crappy defence in general, so once they’re out of stealth and unable to stop you from attacking, they die fast. Unless they have Sage Shadow Escape, Flesh Ream’s bleed effect will continue ticking even after they stealth, meaning you may be lucky to see a sin come out of stealth dead due to your nix’s bleed. Note that while you’re stunned during the initial gank, you won’t be able to use your pet skills, i.e. they will trigger and be in cooldown but not actually hit the sin. For that reason, save your pet’s Flesh Ream and Pounce for when you actually carry out your counterattack. If you think the assassin is about to force stealth, start casting Tame Pet on them. Why? Tame Pet has a very long casting time and, if you time it correctly, it will finish casting while the sin is in stealth and force them out of stealth.

6.7 Blademasters
For PvP, there are really only two types of BMs: axe BMs and fist BMs (note that many skilled BMs switch weapons mid-fight to use certain skills, so you can assume that both weapon branches/skillsets are open to them). Axe BMs (TW/group PvP-oriented) are the master of stunlocking – they’re strategy is to keep you stunlocked the entire time and eventually be able to spike through your charm through crits or zerks (now called Sacrificial Strike). If they can’t take you down themselves, they’ll be “crowd control” and keep you in place until they get backup. The most characteristic stun they use is Roar of the Pride (35 chi, looks like a lion head coming out of the ground) which is a 6s AoE stun. After that, there’s Drake Bash (1 spark) with a 6s single target stun, Aeolian Blade with a 50% chance of a 3s stun, Smack with a 2-3s seal, Bolt of Tyreseus (1 spark) with a 5s AoE immobilize, Occult Ice (genie) with 6s seal+immobilize and Whirlwind (genie) with a high % movement slowing effect. Finally, they have the Heaven’s Flame (2 spark) which not only hits hard but induces a 6 second curse status effect on you which causes you to take DOUBLE damage while cursed. Whats the catch? BMs need chi for all these stun skills (except genie ones) and, unlike sins, they can only build chi using skills, their self buffs, and chi pots. Crush Vigor them, making the BM lose 12 chi (15 for sage) ever time your pet physically attacks, and, if you’re demon, don’t forget to make good use of Mo Zun’s Taunt (-50 chi).

Fist BMs are meant for 1v1 fights. Their strategy is to keep a target stunned in place and auto-attack the target with a super fast attack speed, ideally 4.00/5.00 attacks per second. Depending on their gear, they may need to demon triple spark, Cyclone Heel, or use a genie skill to obtain that attack speed. Triple Sparking will give it away and buy you some reaction time and Cyclone Heel takes 2 seconds to channel+cast (unless the BM is skilled at weapon switching and glitch it) but regardless, you will drop fast if you don’t react.. Wearing fists, they only have access to Roar, Bolt of Tyreseus, and Occult Ice/Whirlwind (they probably won’t switch weapons much because that’ll be an entire seconds of damage wasted). For most fist BMs, just Roar and Occult Ice will give them enough time to kill you, but many often mistime their stuns or forget to continue their stunlock (giving you time to react). As well, because they’re interval build, they probably are wearing either pdef ornaments or evasion ornaments (required for the interval bonuses) so all their mdef comes from their armour (and possibly rings).

Against both an axe and fist BM, the key is avoiding being stunned. Just like for sins, for an axe BM, using Demon Summer Sprint, Fortify or a Vacuity Powder will allow you to escape their stunlock and counter attack. Watch VERY carefully for the Heaven’s Flame (also called “dragon”). If they dragon you and you are in attack range, you will probably die within the next 3 seconds, so get ready to Absolute Domain/Expel/Sage Summer Sprint. For fist BMs, because it will only take them a few seconds to kill you, Absolute Domain or Expel (again, the preference going to Expel for its longer duration) and run away/drop out of the sky. Note that a BM’s Roar can still stun you while you’re Expelled (since its not a physical attack) but they would have lost that element of surprise and have to run to catch up to you. Once you’ve gained some distance or are in an anti-stun state, now you have your chance to attack. Even though BMs are heavy armour, they have the self buff Magic Marrow which decreases their physical defence by a certain percent and increases their magical defence by a certain perfect. Combined with their Aura of the Golden Bell pdef buff, you will usually be facing a BM with good HP, high pdef, and a decently high mdef (5k+). You can try long-range spell attacking while keeping them from reaching you with stuns/immobilizes, you may find yourself having troubles killing a magic-marrow’d BM with high HP. In situations like these, you want to anti-stun, run in and purge them, then run back and magic spell nuke them. Although Magic Marrow is instant-cast, some BMs forget to rebuff themselves and, even if they do, Bell still has casting time (use your pet’s Pounce to stun them immediately after you purge them if you notice they’re fast to rebuff). If you react fast enough, you can catch that BM with no Magic Marrow up and no Bell, for which it’ll be an easy kill as long as you can prevent them from getting close and stunlocking you again.

6.8 Barbarians
Barbs are the last on your list because they have the highest HP and thus are often the hardest to kill. Luckily for you, they aren’t good at stunlocking and their damage usually sucks. As long as you stay in fox form, you can pretty much ignore them until the rest of your targets are dead in group PvP. When it comes to 1v1 PvP, however, barbs become tricky opponents. There’s a few barb skills you should be aware of. Might Swing has a 50% chance of a 4s stun and Untamed Wrath is a 1s AoE stun. While these are short stuns, the temporary stop of damage from your attacks can sometimes be enough to let their charm tick so they don’t die. Beast King’s Inspiration (+35% HP), Strength of the Titans (+40/50% patk), Poison Fang (+40/50% patk in wood damage) and Beastial Rage (+6/8 chi per hit taken, 4k magic damage absorbing shell) are all buffs that are worth purging in 1v1 situations. In addition, when barbs are in tiger form, they have 30/40% more HP and can use Invoke the Spirit (2 sparks) which reduces 90% of all damage they take for the next 20 seconds. Finally, they have one major nuke skill: Armageddon. At lvl 11, the skill reads as follows: “Use all of your Chi, half of your HP, and half of your MP to blast all enemies within 12 meters, inflicting 5000 physical damage plus 4.0 additional damage for each HP and MP expended. Requires two Sparks.” In other words, this is a barb’s final self-sacrificing skill. Because PvP damage is reduced by 75% but Armageddon (also referred to as Perdition) deals 4 damage per HP/MP consumed, imagine this as a huge nuke that will deal half their HP worth of damage to you (more if they use Tree of Protection). Chances are, you have less HP than them, so don’t be surprised to get 1-shot by the skill (especially if you aren’t at full HP).

Fights against barbs can go both ways. If they can’t kill you with their weak damage, they’ll probably try to bring you to half health, then perdition. When this happens, make sure you’re in fox form and/or ready to hit Absolute Domain. If you can avoid their perdition, this is the perfect chance to attack – their charm just ticked and their genie is in cooldown (from using Tree of Protection or Tangle Mire, though some smart barbs don’t use either to prevent giving away the attack). Since you only have 10 seconds to kill the barb, you want to stack together as many debuffs as possible. That means timing your pet’s Flesh Ream, Ironwood Scarab, Demon Venomous Scarab/Demon Parasitic Nova, amp+purge, Myriad Rainbow (human and fox), Extreme Poison, etc. In many cases, a Triple Spark can do the job, especially when you time it well such that your Triple Spark is what lets you resist their perdition. Most barbs, seeing as their perdition just failed to kill you, will go back into tiger form and try running away. Since tigers run at a fast 7.8m/s on ground, you will probably have to Holy Path or stunlock him to keep him in range of your attacks. If you notice that the tiger somehow gains chi again and uses turtle (Invoke the Spirit, which has a kinda orange shield/flower blooming animation), you will probably not be able to kill that tiger alone, no matter how hard you try. Just kite around (but keep in spell attack distance) for the next 20s til turtle wears off and then try again.

7.0 When to Kite
To start off, sending your nix and kiting (i.e. running away) is not called PK – its called being a stupid panzy that can’t actually PK anyone but lowbies. In fact, I’ve seen way to many dumb venos who will pro-actively send their nix to Flesh Ream an unsuspecting target, start flying/Holy Pathing away, but run so far (i.e. 40+ meters) that their nix resets back to where the veno is and fail to kill the target. There are actual legit situations, however, in which kiting is actually the right and smart thing to do until you are ready to turn around and resume the fight.

7.1 Too Many Targets
No matter how good you are at PKing, when facing opponents with similar gear, you really cannot tank more than two targets at once and expect to win. In this situation, your main focus will be surviving and separating your chasers so you can pick them off 1v1. Run away in large circles (so that you can rotate your camera and see your chasers the entire time) in fox form with holy path and anti-stun until you see them start branching off. Once the closest chaser is a nice distant away from the next closest one, you can try your luck at stopping and facing them off 1v1. Note that if you have to purge your chasers, purge then continue running or your opponents will all catch up. In some situations where there’s just way too many of them, its a smart thing to just run to safezone and leave or call for backup. If you’re in a squad with buffers, relog to clear your “swords” and get yourself rebuffed before round 2. Yes, they may trash talk you and call you a coward, but only idiots will go out solo and try to Leeroy entire squads. Your charm and stash of pots will thank you later. Remember, its a good fight when the numbers, levels and gear are equal – too many on one side and it just becomes a mindless zerg-fest.

7.2 Charm/Pots In Cooldown
HP charms only tick every 10 seconds and apoc pots have a 60s cooldown. Some genie skills like Tree of Protection consume loads of genie energy and have a 60s cooldown. Bramble Hood lasts for 15s but has a 30s cooldown. After your 89 culti, you can only hold a max of 4 sparks (3 sparks + 99 chi). Sometimes when you fail to kill your target in your assault, its wise to retreat a bit and hold off until everything is ready again. Situations include when you need chi to bramble hood or triple spark, you need Expel to survive a fist BM, you need purge to remove their buffs, etc. Allowing your apoc pot to cooldown can let you pop another Ironguard or Dew of Star Protection. Kitting away a bit towards mobs can allow you the chance to auto-attack them or Demon Crush Vigor them for the chi (using Cloud Eruption or a chi pot works too). You may also want to kite around a bit while you wait for your Lucky Scarab/Demon Venomous Scarab/Purge to cooldown as for some strong opponents, you just need to have all those skills ready to allow you to spike through and kill them. It’s not “running away” – its buying yourself some time so that you can prepare your counterattack.

7.3 How to Kite
How you kite/buy time/gain distance depends entirely on whether or not you’re fighting in the air or on the ground.

Air-PK is very dynamic due to the fact that there are no NPC obstacles and you can be attacked from any direction. Assuming everyone is PKing with max-speed flying mounts, everyone will be moving around at the same speeds (unless they accelerate on their flying mount or use the Discipline genie’s starter skill Wind Force). In ADDITION, there’s the air-to-ground damage reduction. If you are in the air (i.e. on a flying mount)and you attack a ground target (i.e. on foot/ground mount), you deal only half damage (but they do full damage if they can reach you) and vice versa. While you may think this only matters if you’re close to the ground, there’s one very important trick all PKers should know: the moment you drop out of the sky (i.e. dismount your flying mount and start free-falling), you are considered to be “on the ground”. That means that if you are hit while in falling animation (even if you are stunned or immobilized – as long as you started falling), you will only receive half damage. This trick is VERY important in air PvP, especially for squishy long-range arcane/light armour classes, as it will allow them to survive chains of attacks that may quickly kill them or escape from BMs/barbs/sins (even if they stunlock you, as long as you started falling down before the stunlock, you’re taking half damage). In addition, falling speed is a lot faster than flying up speed, so it’ll buy you plenty of time (and distance) before resuming the fight. Also keep in mind that your opponent can drop out of the sky all the same (and most experienced players do the moment they get purged and nix bled), so its important to keep your target stunlocked when you go in for the attack (see the “Purge and Nuke” section in “PK Strategies” above).

In ground PvP, you almost never have to worry about an attack from below or above. Any target attacking you from above will be doing half damage while you’ll be in range to counterattack in full strength. Be wary though archers have a slightly longer auto-attack range than venos magic spells and any air attacker can easily fly up out of your reach. If you want to chase air targets, you will be forced to get on your air mount and slowly fly up, giving them either plenty of running away time or drop down to the ground and start attacking you (an air target) at full strength while you have to drop down again first. Seeing as you’re at the disadvantage (your charm may have ticked and your counterattack will be delayed), it’d be smarter to kite and force your attacker to drop down and engage in ground PvP.

Ground PK is a lot more limited and straightforward. Your target can only run toward you or away from you (running sideways would be dumb and trying to fly away wastes their time and they’ll still be in range of your matks for a while). Running back to gain distance or running forward to chase targets is all about speed buffs. If you are a demon veno with Demon Fox Form and Demon Summer Sprint, you can run at a constant 10+m/s (mount speed) while being able to use Demon Summer Sprint for anti-stun/immobilize (allow you to successfully escape) and switch to fox form (higher pdef). Otherwise, you will have to rely on Holy Path for a good 6s of 15m/s (which will easily bring you out of spell range). Unless you’ve used an anti-stun/immobilize, however, you can still be stopped from running. Holy Path is often treated as the “gtfo of here” panic skill and can easily be predicted by experienced PKers, so keep that in mind. Don’t forget that they can also Holy Path after you as well, but the important thing is that you have gained a few valuable seconds of charm/pot/etc. cooldown. Your genie has also just expended 75 energy, so don’t forget that your genie may not be ready for some skills (pure vit builds, however, may be able to Holy Path + Tree of Protection or Holy Path + Expel). The one thing you NEVER want to do is summon your mount. Summoning your mount takes almost 3 seconds. That’s one/two attacks they can toss in, followed by a stun and a fourth follow up attack (a sequence that can easily kill you as you cannot use pots while summoning your mount). If you do manage to survive, however, you may still be in range for one last attack before you’re able escape. The use of a mount is pretty much a clear “I am going completely run away from this fight” so if you ever do decide to use your mount in a fair fight situation, prepare to be suitably called a pansy.

8.0 PK Strategies
As a long range, magic caster class, there are three generalized PK strategies: 1) distant nuke, 2) purge and nuke, and 3) purge and support. No, sending your nix and running is not considered a valid strategy – when you’re up fighting equal-lvl players with end-game gear, your nix will at best tick their charm and thats all.

8.1 Distant Nuke
This is for the pure mag builds, i.e. the wizard wannabes. This play style is exactly like that of a wizard, cleric, archer or psychic – stand far back out of reach and hit them with your hardest skills to kill them before they reach you. As a pure magic build, your defences are weak, so any time they come close, Bramble Hood, go fox form, and run back. Keeping your target a safe distance away requires a bit of stunlocking and heavy spike damage to kill your target fast. This means a combination of Lucky Scarab (3s stun), Demon Frost Scarab (1 spark, 3s immobilize), Parasitic Nova (2 spark, 67% of 8s seal – not recommended though due to 2 sparks and long casting time), your pet’s Pounce (3s stun), Air Strand (5s immobilize, air only) and Occult Ice (% chance of 6s seal+immobilize). Your only two “nukes” are Ironwood Scarab and Parasitic Nova, so time those well if you want to 2/3-shot your target (don’t even think about trying to 1-shot them unless you triple spark). You may also want to put Extreme Poison and Frenzy on your genie, toss in a Myraid Rainbow at the start, and put Howl on your pet to maximize your magic damage. In my opinion, the only advantage venos have over wizards in terms of offensive power is purge, but because pure magic builds are too squishy to go up close and purge, I still hold the opinion that you’re better off rerolling a wizard (or any of the other ranged classes) if you prefer this play-style.

8.2 Purge and Nuke
This is for the hybrid builds or vit-mag builds. This play style relies on both the veno’s cursing abilities and magic attacks to take down the target. The idea behind this strategy is to put your target at a disadvantaged state such that you can easily kill them off. If you are buffed, this will also put you at a major advantage. The attack starts off with going in up close in fox form to purge and amp the target. To do this, you must be able to tank the target’s attacks long enough to get within purge range. This can be done by using Bramble Hood right before going in up close or using an apoc pot. Don’t forget to use some anti-stun as, if your target knows how to counter venos, they will try to stun/immobilize you before you get within purge range. Watch for the Absolute Domain/Triple Spark/Ironguard/something that will give them a few seconds of immunity and thus let them resist your purge; if you see any of those, press ESC quickly to cancel the skill and wait for your next chance to purge. When you’re casting purge, use Air Strand or Occult Ice to keep your target in range so you can also amp them; otherwise, they’ll start running or drop out of the sky. Be sure to quickly change back to human form so you can start attacking them before amp wears off (but make sure to use Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form) right before changing). Once in human form, nuke and stunlock them before they get a chance to run away, let amp wear off, and rebuff.

For me, my combination is:
Fox Form (to fox) + Demon Summer Sprint -> Purge -> Air Strand + Amplify Damage -> Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form) -> Fox Form (to human) -> Myriad Rainbow -> Lucky Scarab + Extreme Poison -> Demon Frost Scarab -> nix Pounce + Ironwood Scarab -> spam Venomous Scarab.

I start off charging toward the target in fox form with an anti-stun (and just tank the damage), purge the target and using Air Strand mid-animation, amping and rainbowing the target while they are still Air Stranded, quickly switch to human form and again casting the human rainbow quickly. Once in human form, I open with Lucky Scarab them to keep them in place (Air Strand would have worn off by now) followed by Demon Frost Scarab to immobilize them (Lucky Scarab only gives enough time to toss in one attack before the stun wears off). By now, the target has already taken quite some damage from my two skills + nix. If I have my Pounce nix out, I’ll follow the Demon Frost Scarab with a Pounce and Demon Venomous Scarab, then Ironwood during that Pounce stun time. If I don’t have my Pounce nix out, I’ll just Ironwood after that Frost Scarab and then spam Venomous Scarab until my target is dead (being ready to Holy Path closer if needed). If this entire sequence is somehow unsuccessful or they managed to break out of the “stunlock”, I will just have to repeat the process/cycle once my skills are in cooldown and I have the spark for Demon Frost Scarab. If you are sage, you’ll have to skip Frost Scarab and just hope that your target is dead by then. If you have a reliable Occult Ice, it’s best to use right after the amp (so the target cannot use any immune pots, triple spark, etc.) and hold off your Lucky Scarab until just when you think your Occult Ice is about to wear off.

8.3 Purge and Support
This is for the vit builds, heavy armours, and TW/group PvP-oriented venos. In this play style, you are not meant to kill anyone but rather play the full support role through cursing targets. Your job is pretty much to stay fox form the entire time and just fly around and purge+amping targets, assist attacking your squad members with your nix, and helping with keeping their targets stunlocked with Air Strand, Occult Ice, Lucky Scarab, Parasitic Nova, and possibly even Stunning Blow if your accuracy is high enough (though I’d recommend you save the chi for Parasitic Nova or even Bramble Hood to save yourself). Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form), when combined with a BM’s dragon, can be devastating if it procs on a few targets, and Sage Purge can drastically change the tide of the battle. Your pet should have Pounce and Howl for the stun and mdef debuff and you may want to occasionally cast Ironwood Scarab when your team mates are attacking arcane targets. When your amp+purge is in cooldown, you can still Sage Soul Degen targets and Crush Vigor/Mo Zun’s Taunt BMs/barbs. If your opposing group has a cleric, pair up with an archer or BM and take them down first – your purging of their self buffs and plume shell will allow your nix and team mate to quickly take the cleric down, or at least keep them on the run and unable to heal/buff their team mates. While this supportive role will seem very, very boring, it is very, very important in group PvP. A purge can bring down a 10k HP/10k pdef/10k mdef target to 7/7/7 or less. A cleric without Plume Shell and wizard without Earth Barrier will drop, a veno without Bramble Hood is vulnerable, a BM without Magic Marrow is a wizard’s dream, a barb without chi can’t turtle or perdition, and wizard or archer losing their triple spark is suddenly a lot less dangerous.

8.0 PK Strategies
As a long range, magic caster class, there are three generalized PK strategies: 1) distant nuke, 2) purge and nuke, and 3) purge and support. No, sending your nix and running is not considered a valid strategy – when you’re up fighting equal-lvl players with end-game gear, your nix will at best tick their charm and thats all.

8.1 Distant Nuke
This is for the pure mag builds, i.e. the wizard wannabes. This play style is exactly like that of a wizard, cleric, archer or psychic – stand far back out of reach and hit them with your hardest skills to kill them before they reach you. As a pure magic build, your defences are weak, so any time they come close, Bramble Hood, go fox form, and run back. Keeping your target a safe distance away requires a bit of stunlocking and heavy spike damage to kill your target fast. This means a combination of Lucky Scarab (3s stun), Demon Frost Scarab (1 spark, 3s immobilize), Parasitic Nova (2 spark, 67% of 8s seal – not recommended though due to 2 sparks and long casting time), your pet’s Pounce (3s stun), Air Strand (5s immobilize, air only) and Occult Ice (% chance of 6s seal+immobilize). Your only two “nukes” are Ironwood Scarab and Parasitic Nova, so time those well if you want to 2/3-shot your target (don’t even think about trying to 1-shot them unless you triple spark). You may also want to put Extreme Poison and Frenzy on your genie, toss in a Myraid Rainbow at the start, and put Howl on your pet to maximize your magic damage. In my opinion, the only advantage venos have over wizards in terms of offensive power is purge, but because pure magic builds are too squishy to go up close and purge, I still hold the opinion that you’re better off rerolling a wizard (or any of the other ranged classes) if you prefer this play-style.

8.2 Purge and Nuke
This is for the hybrid builds or vit-mag builds. This play style relies on both the veno’s cursing abilities and magic attacks to take down the target. The idea behind this strategy is to put your target at a disadvantaged state such that you can easily kill them off. If you are buffed, this will also put you at a major advantage. The attack starts off with going in up close in fox form to purge and amp the target. To do this, you must be able to tank the target’s attacks long enough to get within purge range. This can be done by using Bramble Hood right before going in up close or using an apoc pot. Don’t forget to use some anti-stun as, if your target knows how to counter venos, they will try to stun/immobilize you before you get within purge range. Watch for the Absolute Domain/Triple Spark/Ironguard/something that will give them a few seconds of immunity and thus let them resist your purge; if you see any of those, press ESC quickly to cancel the skill and wait for your next chance to purge. When you’re casting purge, use Air Strand or Occult Ice to keep your target in range so you can also amp them; otherwise, they’ll start running or drop out of the sky. Be sure to quickly change back to human form so you can start attacking them before amp wears off (but make sure to use Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form) right before changing). Once in human form, nuke and stunlock them before they get a chance to run away, let amp wear off, and rebuff.

For me, my combination is:
Fox Form (to fox) + Demon Summer Sprint -> Purge -> Air Strand + Amplify Damage -> Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form) -> Fox Form (to human) -> Myriad Rainbow -> Lucky Scarab + Extreme Poison -> Demon Frost Scarab -> nix Pounce + Ironwood Scarab -> spam Venomous Scarab.

I start off charging toward the target in fox form with an anti-stun (and just tank the damage), purge the target and using Air Strand mid-animation, amping and rainbowing the target while they are still Air Stranded, quickly switch to human form and again casting the human rainbow quickly. Once in human form, I open with Lucky Scarab them to keep them in place (Air Strand would have worn off by now) followed by Demon Frost Scarab to immobilize them (Lucky Scarab only gives enough time to toss in one attack before the stun wears off). By now, the target has already taken quite some damage from my two skills + nix. If I have my Pounce nix out, I’ll follow the Demon Frost Scarab with a Pounce and Demon Venomous Scarab, then Ironwood during that Pounce stun time. If I don’t have my Pounce nix out, I’ll just Ironwood after that Frost Scarab and then spam Venomous Scarab until my target is dead (being ready to Holy Path closer if needed). If this entire sequence is somehow unsuccessful or they managed to break out of the “stunlock”, I will just have to repeat the process/cycle once my skills are in cooldown and I have the spark for Demon Frost Scarab. If you are sage, you’ll have to skip Frost Scarab and just hope that your target is dead by then. If you have a reliable Occult Ice, it’s best to use right after the amp (so the target cannot use any immune pots, triple spark, etc.) and hold off your Lucky Scarab until just when you think your Occult Ice is about to wear off.

8.3 Purge and Support
This is for the vit builds, heavy armours, and TW/group PvP-oriented venos. In this play style, you are not meant to kill anyone but rather play the full support role through cursing targets. Your job is pretty much to stay fox form the entire time and just fly around and purge+amping targets, assist attacking your squad members with your nix, and helping with keeping their targets stunlocked with Air Strand, Occult Ice, Lucky Scarab, Parasitic Nova, and possibly even Stunning Blow if your accuracy is high enough (though I’d recommend you save the chi for Parasitic Nova or even Bramble Hood to save yourself). Myriad Rainbow (Fox Form), when combined with a BM’s dragon, can be devastating if it procs on a few targets, and Sage Purge can drastically change the tide of the battle. Your pet should have Pounce and Howl for the stun and mdef debuff and you may want to occasionally cast Ironwood Scarab when your team mates are attacking arcane targets. When your amp+purge is in cooldown, you can still Sage Soul Degen targets and Crush Vigor/Mo Zun’s Taunt BMs/barbs. If your opposing group has a cleric, pair up with an archer or BM and take them down first – your purging of their self buffs and plume shell will allow your nix and team mate to quickly take the cleric down, or at least keep them on the run and unable to heal/buff their team mates. While this supportive role will seem very, very boring, it is very, very important in group PvP. A purge can bring down a 10k HP/10k pdef/10k mdef target to 7/7/7 or less. A cleric without Plume Shell and wizard without Earth Barrier will drop, a veno without Bramble Hood is vulnerable, a BM without Magic Marrow is a wizard’s dream, a barb without chi can’t turtle or perdition, and wizard or archer losing their triple spark is suddenly a lot less dangerous.

9.0 PvP/TW Videos
The best way to learn PvP is by example. The following are my recommendations:

RageQuit Faction’s PvP Videos
http://www.rqclan.com/vids/stream/RQTheatre.html (DivX required)
RageQuit was arguably PWI’s most infamous PK faction, known for their notorious grievance of non-PKers of all levels on PWI’s first PvP server, Lost City. Despite their generally overinflated egos and douche-bag behaviour, they undoubtedly set trends in the world of PvP. While you may not appreciate the “skill” shown in some of their videos and I personally do not approve of some of the strategies (i.e. outnumbering, ganking, lowbie griefing etc.) used by many of their members, RQ videos give you a nice taste of real in-game PK action. The leader of RQ, Pandora, was the writer of the original ”RageQuit’s PvP Guide” which inspired this one.

Transcend’s PvP/TW Videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/transcendpw
Transcend is a long-standing PvP archer on the Lost City server who’s been playing archer pretty much since the beginning of PWI. His weapon is only decent and, because he plays the squishy, glass-cannon archer class but without OP gear, you will see a great deal of PvP skill in his various videos. In his YouTube channel you will see a mix of open world group PvP, solo 1v1 PvP, and mass TW PvP. Archers are arguably veno’s worst enemies (most frequent targetters) so understanding the archer play-style and predicting their sequence of actions/reactions is very important to PvP. As a long range class, you can also pick up some nice strategies here and there. Highly recommended are his Fight Club videos.

Desiree’s TW Videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/TehKeripo
Built as a pure PvP venomancer, I’ve delved deeply into the world of PWI PvP. I’ve experimented with pure-vit tank build, pure magic nuke build, and heavy armour build as well as the demon/sage paths – the resulting conclusions and opinions are as you see in this guide. While my build and play-style is most suited for open world solo PvP, I frequently video record and upload TW videos. From these videos you will be able to pick up numerous PvP tricks and strategies as well as understand a veno’s role in TW from a first-person view. I wish to work more on making world PvP videos in the future (its hard remembering to capture the epic fights as I usually don’t have FRAPS running) but these TW videos will still give you a good glimpse of the above guide put into action.

10.0 Resources/References

Ecatomb
http://www.ecatomb.net/home.php
An awesome reference website I use for checking up class/genie/pet skill descriptions, pet stats, and, of course, the latest fashion (available across all other PW versions). Note that some numbers for skill descriptions (especially genie ones) are a bit off (make sure to compare with in-game descriptions) but things are generally accurate.

Perfect World Database
http://www.pwdatabase.com/pwi/
The ultimate item description database using data extracted directly from game servers. Allows you to see the stats for all in-game items as well as quest chains and NPC/farming locations. Keep in mind though that this is a raw database – it is not guide-friendly, but it will accurately give you the information that you seek.

Perfect World: Calculator
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/
A VERY nifty tool for simulating character builds with different gear/stats/sharding/refines/etc. Allows for easy comparison of builds and very accurately predicted numbers. Also allows you to help you plan out your next gear set, etc. Note that the addition of Nirvana gear is still work-in-progress and the HH-Nirvana percent bonuses aren’t calculated in correctly. There are a few minor bugs here and there but it is definitely a very useful tool that you may find yourself spending tons of time playing around with.

Mystical Elixers
http://calcs.ucoz.com/apoth/elixirs.html
A useful Flash-based reference chart for apoc pots and their associated herbs. Because apoc pots are very important and can allow you to win even if you suck.

PWI Wiki
http://pwi-wiki.perfectworld.com/index.php/Main_Page
Perfect World International’s official wiki. Not that well maintained and pretty much contains copy-pasted content from all over the net, but something to fall back to. The have a very nice Damage page which will list you all the user-derived formulae for calculating damage done/received for the number-lovers.

Perfect World Forums
http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com
Perfect World International’s official forums. Here you’ll find the latest user-posted content, including guides, question/ponderings, etc. Also where this guide is posted. For PvP, I’d recommend checking out the “PvP Ponderings” and “Class Discussion > Venomancer” subforums.

Thanks for reading!!!
Thanks for reading this guide. Even though I’ve been PKing as a veno for a few years right now and have experimented with numerous things, there is plenty more still to learn, so this is forever a “work-in-progress”. This will also be the precursor/extended version of my final PvP guide (which will be shorter and more general to all classes). If you have any feedback or added strategies/info to contribute (or would just like to leave a few words), please reply to this thread. Remember, less QQ, more Pew Pew! See you all outside safezone!

Sincerely,

~Desiree

PWI Forums: http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=841222