* Venom (Dark Avengers) *

azmadu

Venom (Dark Avengers) - 1*
Damage, Health and Other Statistics

Devour
Power Cost - 12
Venom grabs his target and eats them.

Power Level 1 - Deals 31 damage or downs the target and destroys all (if there are 6 or more on the board).
Power Level 2 - 47 damage.
Power Level 3 - 62 damage.
Power Level 4 - 78 damage.
Power Level 5 - 93 damage.
Character Level 40:

Power Level 5 - Deals 759 damage or downs the target and destroys all (if there are 6 or more on the board).

Symbiote Snare
Power Cost - 7
Venom sends out his tendrils like a rope, wrapping up an enemy. The tendrils leave their mark on the battlefield as Venom stalks his prey.

Power Level 1 - Stuns the target for 1 turn and changes 1 random basic to a .
Power Level 2 - Costs 1 less.
Power Level 3 - Costs 1 less.
Power Level 4 - Costs 1 less.
Power Level 5 - Stuns all enemies. Costs 3 more.

Last Major Update: 2013-12 / Earlier Discussion

***
Original Post:

GEFPenst wrote:

That's why people paired up Spider and Venom in team - you have two sources of stuns and two sources of web tiles, makes devour so much easier.

Yeah I thought as much, and I have tried it out only on a few PVE missions, but my current Spidey is a lvl 42 with 2,1,4 and Venom is lvl 30 with 5,4 skills (not training to lvl 5 as I had done before).

Unknown

I don't understand something. What is eating? Does he insta-kill when he does that?

Unknown

KevinMark wrote:

I don't understand something. What is eating? Does he insta-kill when he does that?

Yep. Once he activates devour with the required Web tiles on board, he instantly kills his target. Used to also devour the entire team, but that was pre change.

Unknown

Hmm, that many web tiles. AI is never gonna get that but when you are controlling Venom in a team with Bag Man or Spider Man, I think it's possible. I think you can't put them all three in the same team. From what I remember once you choose Spider Man or Bag Man the other gets locked.

Still after the nerf it sounds good.

Unknown

Yeah, I've never seen the AI pull off an insta-kill devour, and actually I've never done it either.

I'd prefer if each green web tile increased the damage done by devour -- e.g. with one green tile you get a 5% damage bonus, with two 10%, etc...

Unknown

KevinMark wrote:

Hmm, that many web tiles. AI is never gonna get that but when you are controlling Venom in a team with Bag Man or Spider Man, I think it's possible. I think you can't put them all three in the same team. From what I remember once you choose Spider Man or Bag Man the other gets locked.

Still after the nerf it sounds good.

Yeah, Spider-Man and Bag-Man are both Peter Parker, so it's the same as not being able to use 2 Widows or 2 Wolverines. Bag-Man and Venom makes no sense because they both use purple for webs, and Venom's cheaper. If you really want to eat people, your best bet is Spider-Man as good as you like and Venom capped at lv35 by leaving his purple at 4/5. That's the lowest cost you'll get to spew out the required number of webs. Do Venom's first, as he converts tiles to green, so his mess up the board more and are prone to matching themselves away. Quick, though: once Spider-Man takes his turn under the bat it won't be so easy any more.

There are better things to do with your ISO, tbh, especially since the team kill at 8 (?) tiles was taken out. That used to be worth considering for ridiculous 240 PvE stuff you had no other hope against, but now you're probably better off leaning on Punisher's red for those situations. At least you'll use him for anything else, ever.

over_clocked

Yeah Venom helped me devour lvl 115 Ragnarok twice or more back when I was struggling through Prologue with only 1 star heroes. I hardly used him for anything else, some PvP when my major players got knocked out, sure, but he does combo well with Spider-Man. I'm considering deleting my maxed Venom (lvl 5 Purple... turned out to be ouchier than I thought) to get a roster slot and some ISO. Has anyone kept their Venom? 4 lvl Purple perhaps and just combo with Spidey?

Unknown

I still have one at 40 and another I half-heartedly recruited in case I ever want a 4/5, but haven't leveled and will probably delete next time space runs low. I just like collecting them, though. Buying roster space gives me an excuse to pay for the game, since it's the only thing they sell I'm entirely happy buying with money.

He's one of the not so awful Dark Avengers, so you might want him around if they ever rerun the Dark Avengers tournament but, like Juggernaut, he's horribly limited for playable purposes by the 1* 2-skill level cap. If you can field, I dunno, Rags/Ares/Moonstone, you'll probably never need him. M.Storm's the only 1* with any real long-term value. It is generally better to delete characters you haven't leveled first, though, possibly even a bottom of the barrel 2* like Bullseye, because they're not that hard to replace later if you want to, and you're not losing a large chunk of spent ISO.

over_clocked

Thanks, I did delete my Venom and used the iso to level cap c. Storm. I do have other 2** and 3*** Dark Avengers, so hopefully when the time comes for a tourney they are ready. Bullseye and Yelena get deleted straight away. Those poor schmucks need a buff.

Unknown

As it currently stands, putting five covers into Venom's Symbiote Snare (purple) ability is not worth it compared to the four cover version.

The big purpose to the ability is to create a web tile to feed (pun intended) into devour. At four covers the web tile to AP cost ratio is 1 web to 4 AP. At 5 covers it goes to 1 web to 7 AP. Sure you get to stun the entire team, which is nice, but not worth sacrificing web tile efficiency.

Instead I propose the following change to Symbiote Snare at 5 covers:
-Stuns the entire team for 1 turn and generates two green web tiles; AP cost goes up by 4.

That would make the total cost of the ability 8 Purple AP and keep the 1 web tile to 4 AP ratio from the four cover version.

I currently have my Venom sitting at 5/4 with no plans to put in the fifth purple cover.

Unknown

Venom has rocked for me in the Simulator Hard bracket. Rather than trying to whittle down the health of boosted level 230s while stunlocking them, I can insta-kill them one by one. Much quicker. Classic Spiderman, Magneto Marvel Now, Venom. Heck, they aren't even that high level! (Spidey is somewhere in the 40s, although with 5 blue covers, Magneto in the 50s, Venom is maxed at level 40). I'm generally boosting with a blue/purple for the tough matches and both a blue/purple and a +3 all for the 230s, purely due to the lack of HP on my Mags and Spidey at the moment to survive hits while building to the first use of Mags' purple. It's been kind of hilarious pulling all these Devours and instakilling guys with up to 14k hp. Makes up for the tedium of running the Spidey stunlock...

over_clocked

Zhirrzh wrote:

Venom has rocked for me in the Simulator Hard bracket. Rather than trying to whittle down the health of boosted level 230s while stunlocking them, I can insta-kill them one by one. Much quicker. Classic Spiderman, Magneto Marvel Now, Venom. Heck, they aren't even that high level! (Spidey is somewhere in the 40s, although with 5 blue covers, Magneto in the 50s, Venom is maxed at level 40). I'm generally boosting with a blue/purple for the tough matches and both a blue/purple and a +3 all for the 230s, purely due to the lack of HP on my Mags and Spidey at the moment to survive hits while building to the first use of Mags' purple. It's been kind of hilarious pulling all these Devours and instakilling guys with up to 14k hp. Makes up for the tedium of running the Spidey stunlock...

That's an awesome strategy, I now kinda wish I hadn't deleted my Venom a while ago. But then again you need webs to heal once in a while. Since you have a usable Magneto MN, the Venom combo might work much better than I can imagine. If I keep my own newly dropped Venom though I'll probably never max his purple. You rarely need a team wide stun unless all of your heroes are on the brink of dying.

Unknown

Even better would be if they'd just give him a third power. Then we could take him to 4 in purple and 4 in (whatever his third power is). Make him a viable and interesting 1 star.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Zhirrzh wrote:

Venom has rocked for me in the Simulator Hard bracket. Rather than trying to whittle down the health of boosted level 230s while stunlocking them, I can insta-kill them one by one. Much quicker. Classic Spiderman, Magneto Marvel Now, Venom. Heck, they aren't even that high level! (Spidey is somewhere in the 40s, although with 5 blue covers, Magneto in the 50s, Venom is maxed at level 40). I'm generally boosting with a blue/purple for the tough matches and both a blue/purple and a +3 all for the 230s, purely due to the lack of HP on my Mags and Spidey at the moment to survive hits while building to the first use of Mags' purple. It's been kind of hilarious pulling all these Devours and instakilling guys with up to 14k hp. Makes up for the tedium of running the Spidey stunlock...

That's an awesome strategy, I now kinda wish I hadn't deleted my Venom a while ago. But then again you need webs to heal once in a while. Since you have a usable Magneto MN, the Venom combo might work much better than I can imagine. If I keep my own newly dropped Venom though I'll probably never max his purple. You rarely need a team wide stun unless all of your heroes are on the brink of dying.

I do tend to do a web heal at some point to top up. With a good board I take surprisingly little damage before using Mag's purple and starting the engine, but occasionally you have to hang in for a bit until you can find some purple and/or blue. Usually by the time I'm doing the 3rd guy I have all the blue I could ever want, so I can use Spidey's stun a bunch of times, web heal, then use it 6 more times and Devour.

Unknown

Yepp, I keep selling the 5th P cover for these very reasons -- al the least he should have the OPTION to use the cheaper ability. The next level in P makes him way worse what should never be the case. (We have some other characters with similar properties, bagman, **mag blue... I see it as outright bad design.)

Unknown

Yea, this has been requested for a while. They've made a couple changes to him since those requests, so if they were going to change him, they probably would have at that time. It's unfortunate. He really needs to to be sometimes useful. Maybe he'll get a change after Spiderman gets nerfed. If spiderman can't unload webs like he used to, Venom increasing his web production might keep webs from being too exploitable.

Unknown

Is it better to keep Venom's purple at 4? For 4 purple AP you generate 1 web tile and stun an enemy for 1 turn as opposed to for 7 purple AP 1 web and stun the whole enemy team for 1 turn.

Unknown

KevinMark wrote:

Is it better to keep Venom's purple at 4? For 4 purple AP you generate 1 web tile and stun an enemy for 1 turn as opposed to for 7 purple AP 1 web and stun the whole enemy team for 1 turn.

Answering my own question, yes.

Btw, did Venom's black skill ever involved Devouring the whole team instead of just one guy in the past?

edit: Yes, according to Ben Grimm in another thread.

simonsez

After using Venom and hating it in Combined Arms, I realized the reason he's so annoying in PvE is that he usually has goons feeding him non-stop purple. Without that, he really doesn't do much at all.

Unknown

For Devour to down a target, it requires 6 web tiles to be on the board. I remember it being Devour all enemies, so I wanted to give it a try in latest Balance of Power tournament. I was excited, so I decided to record it. You can imagine my surprise and disappointment when it only ate Doctor Octopus instead of the whole enemy team

I believe the change to its lesser version was because of the old Spidey who could stun-lock everyone and made creating and maintaining 6 web tiles on the board quite easy. When I played with a team of Venom, Spider-man and Doom in BoP, I could see it was not the case anymore. Since there is no stun-lock anymore, you need to painstakingly prepare your AP to Devour a single target which is ridiculous. What I did was collect 16 for 4 webs from , 10 for 2 webs from , also 9 for Technopathic Strike from to accelerate generation for Devour (12 ), making it a total of 47 whopping AP. 47! Now onto the alpha strike although it's not really an alpha strike anymore. It just downs a target.

Video demonstration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwDtvDuBWRw

TL;DR
- Change Devour to devour all targets when there is 6 or more web tiles on the board.

Support
- It's almost impossible for Venom himself to create and maintain 6 web tiles by himself.
- Spider-man no longer leads to easy Devour due to him being nerfed (blue power in particular).
- Venom is a 1 character but in order to make Devour work, you either need to team him up with Spider-man or Bagman who aren't the best guys out there and even then, you will probably need a battery like Marvel Now Magneto or Doom since the combo requires so much AP.
- The difficulty of pulling this off and the resources, both AP and in-game time, required justifies the change back to its former form.

GothicKratos

I want to say I agree, because that would be amusing to do, but I'm going to say no, simply because that could make for some nightmarish PvE nodes.