Venomancer

The Venomancer is a pet taming class that specializes in debuffs and control. Also known as a solo class, Venomancers have their own pet that works as their personal tank or damage dealer. Venomancers have the ability to turn themselves into foxes, which increases their physical defense, their accuracy and gives them access to a separate set of skills. They have a fair amount of control skills and a wide variety of debuff skills that include: lowering a target's physical or magical defense, stealing a target's chi, amplifying the damage a target receives, lowering a target's maximum HP, decreasing a target's accuracy, purging the target's positive buffs and many more.

Pros: Cons:
 * Able to solo many bosses
 * Deals both magical and physical damage
 * Many debuff skills
 * Increased physical defense and accuracy in Fox Form
 * Versatile squad role in both PvE and PvP
 * Variety of viable builds
 * Fast movement speed
 * Low HP
 * Expensive class to play if Legendary Pets are pursued
 * Weaker magic attack skills compared to other magic classes
 * Weaker physical attack skills compared to other physical classes
 * Can be time consuming to level Pets
 * Gender restricted

Statistics

 * 1) In human form their skill damage is based on Magic; in fox form their skill damage is based on Strength.

Weapons
Magic Damage Chart: Lower-Low-Medium-High-Higher-Highest

As with most other classes, choosing a weapon is a matter of personal preference unless Rank 9 is a goal. Weapon choices can be brought down to the most effective weapon for the Venomancer's build.

The Magic Sword is a popular choice for its relatively high physical attack, which is useful for Fox Form attacks and Heavy Armor builds. Even without heavy use of Fox Form, Venomancers who opt for a Magic Sword have a good balance between low-end and high-end magic attack which makes it a good weapon for pet healing as well.

Venomancers who heavily rely on their pet to tank for them should choose the Wand as it has the smallest gap between low and high end magic damage, which promotes constant numbers and therefore is an ideal weapon for pet healing.

Patakas and Glaives are recommended to those who rely on spike damage and want to achieve very high damage due to the very high high-end magic attack of the weapons.

Armor
Venomancer is a versatile class that is able to use any type of armor while retaining its capabilities. Venomancers will typically use Arcane Armor and follow a pure magic build for damage or a hybrid build (magic/vitality) if they lack HP and defenses or want to focus on a more support-oriented role. Those who like a more Fox Form or melee oriented play style will choose Heavy Armor and stat heavily into strength. This lends the Venomancer a very support-oriented role due to its high defenses but low attack damage potential. This build is not necessarily recommended for beginners, however, due to the challenge of equipping both gear and a weapon that each requires a different stat. Some Venomancers might choose to use Light Armor, usually when they share the gear with other characters. It is otherwise uncommon to see Light Armor Venomancers as the build requires high dexterity which is not a particularly useful attribute for the class.

Venomancers in PvE
Venomancers can be the cheapest class to play in PvE. This is due to the relatively low mana cost of their skills and their sustain skills to recover their HP and mana. Furthermore, as a Venomancer's pet will usually be taking the damage, armor repair costs will be low. Because of this, and despite their relatively high time investment for training pets, Venomancers are thought of as one of the best farming classes in Perfect World.

Venomancers at Lower Levels
Venomancers at lower levels have one of the easiest times progressing through Perfect World. Due to their personal pet tank they rarely have problems with dying or completing quests. The few challenges as a Venomancer revolve around learning to control their damage output to allow their pet to maintain aggro on threatening mobs, and prioritizing the learning of their huge list of skills at lower levels when Spirit is low.

Solo PvE as a Venomancer
Venomancers can solo a large part of the game's content with their pets. Those who own the Baby Hercules or have invested into Faction Base pet buffs and outfitted regular pets with them, such as the Glacial Walker, can also solo several at-level dungeons. Venomancers are therefore believed to be the perfect "solo" class as they are quite independent, even in situations where other classes would need outside help.

Group PvE as a Venomancer
Venomancers are also in high demand in squads due to their powerful debuffs and their unique purge skill. Since the power of debuff skills isn't affected by gear, dungeon squads will rarely be picky about a Venomancer's gear so long as the Venomancer is capable of staying alive.

Well geared Venomancers or their strong pets are able to tank many dungeon bosses and assist their squad if a true tank like a Barbarian is not available. Similarly, Venomancers can sometimes take on the role of a damage dealer if they have better gear than other players in the squad or if there are other Venomancers present using their debuffs. However, even in these cases every Venomancer is expected to fulfill their primary role of support when the situation demands it.

Venomancer in PvP
Venomancers are a decent solo class in PvP, but they truly shine in group PvP where they can support their team. The basic PvP routine of a Venomancer is to purge enemy buffs, weaken them using debuff skills, use control skills to immobilize them when necessary and lastly assist the team with attack skills. In PvP, pets are used for stuns and other utilities, but aren't meant to be relied upon since enemy players can kill pets easily.

Venomancers as Support
A Venomancer's role is offensive support in all types of group PvP, focusing on using debuffs and control skills to weaken and immobilize enemy players. High vitality builds that sacrifice damage in exchange for higher survival are very popular because of this. Venomancers spend a lot of time in Fox Form purging enemy player buffs and cycling through their arsenal of debuff skills to weaken enemy players while the rest of the team delivers the kills. They will swap to human form to use their ranged control skills when needed and use their human form debuffs when Fox Form skills are on cooldown.

Venomancers as Damage Dealers
Venomancers, due to their valuable debuff skills and generally lower damage potential compared to other arcane classes, are usually not played as damage dealers. Venomancers focus on supporting their team, but those who follow a pure magic build have a decent amount of damage to contribute to the team's killing potential. Despite sacrificing some survival for better damage, these Venomancers will still need to focus on purging enemy player buffs, cycling through their arsenal of Fox Form and human form control and debuff skills to weaken enemy players first before focusing on damage. This play style allows Venomancers to be more independent in PvP as they have better odds of killing players on their own.

Survivability
Venomancers have excellent survivability, especially when compared to other Arcane Armor classes. In Fox Form the Venomancer's physical defense is increased dramatically and they several skills that increases their damage resistances such as Bramble Hood, Blazing Barrier and Feral Concentration. Additionally, Venomancers have self heals and a variety of crowd control skills to aid them.

Positioning
Positioning of a Venomancer largely depends on what form the Venomancer is in. Being in Fox Form will require the Venomancer to position themselves at times to be in the front lines of a battle or even in the middle of the enemy due to the melee range of most Fox Form skills. This is one of the reasons why Venomancers come so well equipped with various skills to help them to tank damage and self heal, along with having high movement speed. When Venomancers switch to human form, they often have relatively low physical defenses are are best positioned in the backline, as far back from melee threats as possible.

Weaknesses
While they may have many survival skills, Venomancers, like other support classes such as Mystics and Clerics depend on their ability to heal themselves and cast defensive skills in order to stay alive. Because of this, Venomancers are extremely weak to being controlled through the use stun or paralyze skills when in human form or without a damage reduction buff active. With enough incoming damage during these effects' duration, the Venomancer will find themselves in a dangerous situation due to being unable to cast any survival skills. For this reason it is recommended to equip a genie with skills like Absolute Domain, Expel or Faith.

Venomancers in Territory Wars and Dragon's Conquest
A Venomancer's role in Territory Wars is similar to regular PvP. They focus on purging enemy player buffs and using their variety of debuffs to weaken targets so their team can deliver kills. These wars are usually large scale PvP and there is an increased need for crowd control, therefore skills like Parasitic Nova and Primal Malefic Crush become essential in helping the team immobilize or interrupt large groups of players. It's important to coordinate with the team so the Venomancer can use their area-of-effect attacks and debuffs in tandem with other classes' skills.

Priority Focus
A Venomancer's priority focus is crowd control and assisting their squad in killing players by utilizing their purge and debuff skills. Priority targets are healer classes such as the Cleric and Mystic, followed by support and control classes like enemy Venomancers, Blademasters, and Stormbringers. Depending on the enemy squad formation, healer classes are likely to be positioned in the back line so other classes will need to be killed or immobilized first.

Targets to Avoid
Venomancers would do well to play extremely cautiously against classes with large amounts of crowd-control abilities and high physical damage.

Assassins can easily stun the Venomancer and deal high amounts of damage while they are helpless to move or act. Additionally, the Assassin's tidal buff often prevents the Venomancer from debuffing the Assassin which is their main means of dealing damage high enough to kill, or alternatively stun long enough to escape. Another class to be very aware of is the Duskblade, who has a high amount of single target crowd control and will easily be able to kill a Venomancer before the Duskblade runs out of locking skills. It is often best to avoid Duskblades entirely if you do not have the support of your team. Other targets to play cautiously against are high physical damage classes like Archers, Seekers, andBarbarianswith offensive builds. Wearing Arcane Armor gives Venomancers a relatively low physical defense which can spell disaster if the Venomancer receives a high amount of physical damage.

Though these classes can sometimes present a challenge to Venomancers, this does not mean that they cannot survive against or even kill these classes, rather that they should gauge the situation carefully and pay close attention to how much support they are receiving from their own team and how much damage they are taking when engaged.

Origins in Legend
Supposedly, the Venomancer is based off the Huli Jing (meaning "fox spirit") in Chinese mythology, where they usually appear as beautiful, young women. In Perfect World they come not just from foxes, but cats, rabbits, antelopes, and bats as well, though all transform into foxes regardless.

Basics

 * Venomancer Guide

Builds

 * Venomancer Builds
 * Heavy Build Venomancer

Quests

 * Spirit Fox Form Quest

Skills

 * Venomancer Skill List
 * Venomancer Guide to Skills
 * Venomancer Glyphs
 * Venomancer Skill Books

Pets

 * List of Pets
 * General Pet Guide
 * Legendary Pets
 * Venomancer Pet Evolution
 * Pet Skills
 * Rare Pets
 * All-Class Pets
 * Category:Pets (for all pet-related pages)

Miscellaneous

 * Venomancer Luring (How to pull a single monster out of a group.)
 * Venomancer Tanking
 * Venomancer Dungeons (What to do or not do in dungeons.)
 * Venomancer Survival Tactics