Maybe you’re playing Venomancer the wrong way in Dota 2

Today, we will talk about the next victim that players fall into by sticking ‘too closely’ to the gameplay of professional players: Venomancer. This hero was initially popular in Southeast Asia, and then gradually adopted by other regions, specifically in offlaner. The recent nerfs haven’t been enough to hold Veno back, but there are still some habits that need to be analyzed, as well as relearned.

PLAN A

Venomancer doesn’t play like most other offlane heroes. Instead of focusing on mobility, initiating and handling, Venomancer’s plan in the game was to control and dominate the lane, constantly forcing the opponent to resist Veno’s push ability.

This is suitable for a squad that knows how to exploit this advantage. If the team can go together earlier than the opponent, constantly applying pressure is what you and the Venomancer need to do. That’s why in the pro arena, we often see heroes maxing out Plague Wards as soon as possible. By repeatedly damaging lane creeps and turrets, Venomancer forces opponents to react or lose control of the map.

It sounds pretty good in theory: instead of running around in ganks with a lucky chance of success, you force your opponent to come on their own or lose the turret. But that way of playing only works if the team knows how to coordinate well. In addition, Venomancer must also start well, so that when the opponent starts to react, Venom will stay in the fight for as long as possible and cause maximum impact. This is when people should be different from pro players in most pub games.

PLAN A+

Looking at the dotabuff Venomancer analysis page, we can easily see that the most popular skill build is only adding 1 point for Venomous Gale and Poison Sting, with Plague Wards being maxed out at level 7. There’s nothing wrong with quitting. through the hero’s ultimate, but the article really wants to talk about the different skill distribution in the early levels.

Plague Wards allowed Plan A to come to fruition as soon as possible, except that Venomancer initially needed to push the opposing hero out of the lane in order to put pressure on the turret. Otherwise, the ward will be easily ineffective, especially when you encounter a ranged core.

This is why raising a point for Poison Sting and Venomous Gale is often not enough. If you look at the skill table, you will notice the amount of damage jumping from level 1 to level 2 both skills are very strong. Gale increased from 100 to 275 total damage, and Sting from 36 to 126 total damage. In both cases, it increases about 200% in damage output.

If you don’t believe the article, you can check out the hero’s professional games, like 9Pasha’s from the series that won Evil Geniuses.

The article believes that this skill build is better in pub in most cases. The only reason not to play it is if the enemy lane has dispels like Orale and Omniknight or cores with instant-resolving skills like Lifestealer, Juggernaut or heroes with shading skills like PL, Naga.

ITEM HELP SUCCESS

One point the article wants to add is that due to Venomancer’s sacrificial play as well as low survivability, you need to prioritize more ability to withstand. As mentioned above, you need to force your opponent to react to the Venomancer and ideally survive the opponent’s initiation if it happens.

One item that is being overlooked a lot in the current meta is Veil of Discord. It is overwhelmed by the Drum of Endurance because its Movement Speed ​​is an extremely important stat.

However, with Venomancer, the basic movement speed is slow, but you also have a slow skill set, maximizing damage with Veil of Discord is a more reasonable item. You are highly likely to have a hard time running out of combat, so dealing as much damage as possible is the right way to play Venom.

Spirit Vessel is also a very good choice because the previous Venomancer lost the healing debuff for Poison Sting, so in certain games you still need this effect. Otherwise, default hero builds include Pipe of Insight, Guardian Greaves and sometimes Force Staff or Eul’s.

Active late game items include Octarine Core and Aghanim’s Scepter, while Lotus Orb or Shiva’s Guard can be used very well defensively.

EPILOGUE

Venomancer gradually stopped being considered a “cancer” hero as people started to play more in a macro direction. Maybe it’s time for you to remember what this hero was originally designed for and start optimizing Venomancer’s skill set.

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