**** Venom (Agent Venom) ****

himatako

BoyWonder1914 said:

Just champed him this morning. Was hoping to get some good teams here but it seems to mostly just be people hating him, or liking him but being kinda vague on how they can reliably use him. Mordo and Gwen Poole have come up as decent teammates, but I don't have them champed yet unfortunately. 

I like IM40 as him teammate, since you have more control over your AP pool that way. Firing IM40's yellow and you'll be able to activate Agent Venom's black passive and red high damage very quickly. 

GuntherBlobel

BoyWonder1914 said:

Just champed him this morning. Was hoping to get some good teams here but it seems to mostly just be people hating him, or liking him but being kinda vague on how they can reliably use him. Mordo and Gwen Poole have come up as decent teammates, but I don't have them champed yet unfortunately. 

I also champed him and enjoy playing him, but I think it's hard to give specific recommendations on teams because AV can be played different ways. To be honest, I don't think there is team that synergizes with him in a very obvious and easy way.

Some teams I use are all about triggering Alien Weakness, so I'll respec that power to Lvl3. I'll use AV with War Machine to pump out attack tiles with MW's red, for example. If Prof X is boosted, all those cascades can quickly improve special tiles to insane levels.

Other times, I respec his black to Lvl 5 and use Military Might to have an easy to earn active, to use with characters like Prof X or KK. I'll try to carefully construct a rainbow team, including a second black user, so that I never get locked out of Military Might.

In the future, I want to explore teams that reliably burst heal more, because it seems like Take Cover would be better if AV could heal up afterward.

darkwatcherDEZ

Tried a different approach with Agent V since we are still in transition... Teamed him with 3* Wolvie and 3* Doc Doom for a full rainbow (AV is currently covered 4 5 2).

Got Wolvie going full "Berzerker Fury" with Docs purple traps as usual (mitigating enemy purple strike creation). Docs BLUE feeds AV's BLACK, and RED can go to whoever will do the most damage at the time (how many Wolvie face tiles compared to AV's colored AP goal). AV's YELLOW is bonus AOE with added strike tile damage while Wolvie passivley heals. Doc's PURPLE nuke wrecks if available as the norm. The true fun comes in deciding to let AV go "Alien Weakness" against the strike tiles or going consecutive "Military Might" with bonus strike tile damage. Suppose you could throw out some Doc Demons and still have enough to throw in AV's cheap "Mil Might" as well. 

Going to test out another transition team with AV sure to be frustratingly annoying. The full rainbow consists of 3* KKhan and 3* Vision with AV of course. This may be better suited to PVE, but has potential. Vision's density changes and AV's "Mil Might" will cause cheap passive KK YELLOW heals. KK feeds herself for GREEN AOE. Visions RED is situational with AV being the primary RED nuke. There is some potential with Vision's heavy density coupled with AV's "Alien Weakness."

Vhailorx

So now that i have him champed and have gone through a boosted week, i have some new thoughts.

He is definitely not top tier.  But he is also much better with max covers.  His design is old school in that his ap thresholds are very low with just a few covers, but are much more manageable when 13/13.  He is an especially bad character to use for essential nodes with just a few covers.

His pve utility is limited even when boosted, since he doesnt play too well with others.  But if you have no better options than building a team of AV + black battery isnt a disaster.

He is legimitaly useful in pvp when boosted, entirely because of his black.  2-match direct damage powers are relatively rare, and they are great for fast paced pvp play. 

So in the end he is part of the big pile of 4* characters that deserve no use at all unboosted, but are respectable choices if they fill some color gaps when boostedn

Straycat

Had him champed but this is the first time I get to try him boosted. I've been going 3/5/5 normally. His red when boosted is still unimpressive at 5 covers, so I think its best to ignore his red, maybe even let it go to Alien Weakness if you collect it.
After thinking he was trash, I am starting to like him a little. I think he could be improved if Military Might generated 2 ap for the largest color pool. Makes more sense for powers to accelerate the conditional power change. Red should be cheaper too if its that weak. It is basically a 12 ap power for 7.5k damage. Lower it so the 12 ap in any pool won't always just be extra red ap.

Rick_OShay

Straycat said:

Had him champed but this is the first time I get to try him boosted. I've been going 3/5/5 normally. His red when boosted is still unimpressive at 5 covers, so I think its best to ignore his red, maybe even let it go to Alien Weakness if you collect it.
After thinking he was trash, I am starting to like him a little. I think he could be improved if Military Might generated 2 ap for the largest color pool. Makes more sense for powers to accelerate the conditional power change. Red should be cheaper too if its that weak. It is basically a 12 ap power for 7.5k damage. Lower it so the 12 ap in any pool won't always just be extra red ap.

Once boosted, his red will finally be decent, but I think you may want to spec him around depending on the enemy team, and who you bring as allies.
I'm finding him to be better than the collective has given him credit for. And yes, he's good to use with Thanos since black hits hard to KO an enemy for so cheap. 
You won't really need invisibility vs goon nodes in PvE, so his red may be much more powerful to down 1 opponent. 
However, currently boosted characters for the week are Peggy, G4mora, and Sam Wilson, all red users. If pairing with Peggy, I'm using her red and spec'ing AV to 3/5/5. 

iron-n-wine

I've enjoyed using my 5/4/2 lvl250 AV in the current event but havent landed on a rock solid team to partner him with. Mostly used Peggy and KK to cover all colours, with AV's cheap black firing KK's passive regularly for 1000 Health each time

Generally used Peggys red over AV's, unless theres an enemy with high health remaining and then I try to meet the 12 AP condition for about 12k damage

zodiac339

iron-n-wine said:

I've enjoyed using my 5/4/2 lvl250 AV in the current event but havent landed on a rock solid team to partner him with. Mostly used Peggy and KK to cover all colours, with AV's cheap black firing KK's passive regularly for 1000 Health each time

Generally used Peggys red over AV's, unless theres an enemy with high health remaining and then I try to meet the 12 AP condition for about 12k damage

This is sad to compare: AV boosted to 379 deals 9985//15,980 for 10 red (rank 5).
Peggy boosted to 371 deals 14,018 for 9 red without having to juggle AP.
Sure, AV could do more damage per AP, but it's 1598 per AP vs 1557 per AP. Red should really be better than this with the micromanagement mini game built into AV.

Jaedenkaal

Yeah that's the big problem with Red. When you meet the condition, it's only... fine. And it's pretty lame when you don't. It still does damage, so it's never a total fail, but it doesn't compare very well to even a power like Luke's Red (which is also not amazing); good damage, or amazing damage when the condition is met.

jgomes32

Red does 13k or up to 20k for me boosted. Black does 12k for 5ap. Yelllow can be pretty annoying for pvp. That's far from "unimpressive". 12 AP is a bit much, but the damage is solid. Very underrated character imo.

Jarvind

Jaedenkaal said:

Yeah that's the big problem with Red. When you meet the condition, it's only... fine. And it's pretty lame when you don't. It still does damage, so it's never a total fail, but it doesn't compare very well to even a power like Luke's Red (which is also not amazing); good damage, or amazing damage when the condition is met.

Cage's red is actually exactly what I've been comparing it to this week. AV's condition-fulfilled damage is about the same as Cage's baseline. Granted, Cage's is more expensive, but at least it's nearly a guaranteed one-shot when he's boosted and you've cleared all enemy tiles. AV's isn't nearly that good and of course there's also the AP juggling to contend with. 

I'm not against having to micromanage AP in theory, but he should be way more of a game-changer than he is to have to deal with it.

Pants1000

Red is his worst skill IMO, so I run him 3/5/5 and use another character's red.  

I just recently champed him so this event is the first time I've really used him.  Peggy/AV boosted is pretty awesome.  He's much better than what most people say about him.  In PVE he often wins the battle with his cheap powers before I get enough blue for Peggy.

Nick441234

I despise this guy. Its highlighted most in this current PVE just how annoying he is. Obviously, most of us will be using Peggy and getting her blue countdowns out just to have, your own team mate, Venom, smashing them off the board before they can go off is about as annoying as one character can get. 

Bowgentle

zodiac339 said:

iron-n-wine said:

I've enjoyed using my 5/4/2 lvl250 AV in the current event but havent landed on a rock solid team to partner him with. Mostly used Peggy and KK to cover all colours, with AV's cheap black firing KK's passive regularly for 1000 Health each time

Generally used Peggys red over AV's, unless theres an enemy with high health remaining and then I try to meet the 12 AP condition for about 12k damage

This is sad to compare: AV boosted to 379 deals 9985//15,980 for 10 red (rank 5).
Peggy boosted to 371 deals 14,018 for 9 red without having to juggle AP.
Sure, AV could do more damage per AP, but it's 1598 per AP vs 1557 per AP. Red should really be better than this with the micromanagement mini game built into AV.

Get some more levels, then.
Venom @445 does 26K on red, Peggy at 438 does 23.5K

DesertTortoise

It was mentioned earlier in the thread, but I don't think it makes sense that Agent Venom's red with the qualifier costs 1 more AP than Peggy's red and still has a lower AP:Damage ratio. Without the qualifier sure, that makes a lot of sense, but with it being slower it's still less efficient than Peggy's second best power? 

Jaedenkaal

He and Peggy make a pretty good team; I run AV at 3/5/5. his Yellow is pretty good at keeping Peggy above the threshold for Legendary Presence, and his Black at 5 is a monster. Alien Weakness is just not that much of a drawback, if it even goes off. The worst part about it, as others have mentioned, is not being able to use Military Might. The self damage and chance to destroy friendly tiles is really very minor.

Painmonger

I've just been running him with Doom & 3Fist, SCL8 5&6 clears with 1 health pack in about 25 minutes. Active powers in every color to keep you below the flip threshold, prioritize black & spam it as much as you can. As much as I was an early detractor, I appreciate him far more now. Only used Peggy once or twice out of habit, but otherwise I was completely happy to let AV do the heavy lifting this week!

Vhailorx

nick_chicane said:

I despise this guy. Its highlighted most in this current PVE just how annoying he is. Obviously, most of us will be using Peggy and getting her blue countdowns out just to have, your own team mate, Venom, smashing them off the board before they can go off is about as annoying as one character can get. 

A Venom is not bad.  You just need to monitor ap with him.  And it helps to have at least 1 power in each color to bleed of excess ap.  He's not the best, but he is not nearly as bad as his reputation.

iron-n-wine

Painmonger said:

I've just been running him with Doom & 3Fist, SCL8 5&6 clears with 1 health pack in about 25 minutes. Active powers in every color to keep you below the flip threshold, prioritize black & spam it as much as you can. As much as I was an early detractor, I appreciate him far more now. Only used Peggy once or twice out of habit, but otherwise I was completely happy to let AV do the heavy lifting this week!

I have to remember this when AV is boosted next week!

zodiac339

mexus said:

I champed this guy yesterday and I can't agree to everyone that think he's a poop.
He's good! Not super-good, but more than OK-good. 

His black is cheap and does nice damage, 
his red is... well, super-weak considering I have adjusted it to 3 covers ATM and his yellow is nice since it's one of very few AoE attacks that aren't green.
His best selling-points, though, has to be his awesome graphical design and his pretty hefty health-pool.

Yeah, I think the biggest agreement is that anyone else should use red, not AV. The AP management is annoying, and his taking AP away from allies is a nuisance, but yeah, he's not unplayable. Just be sure to give him allies that cover AP usage in all colors, and don't use him against Dr Strange, Luke Cage, or Starlord.