Support Venomancer

What does maxing out plague ward bring to your lane? As a support Veno, wouldn't you be better off with poison sting or gale?

No.

So he's a support venomancer who is pushing the **** out of the lane, only to be ganked by their mid. Okay. And if he doesn't even use his wards for anything except for vision early game, then all of those levels he placed into it are effectively doing nothing and bringing absolutely nothing to the lane whatsoever, except when it comes time to push, which I can't see happening for the first stages of the game since in order to push you need to win your lane, which you can't do if you max out wards.

I agree that there is little reason to max out wards so early. One or two points in it is more than enough early game. Maxing gale and sting gives you more damage, more utility (slow) and a much stronger lane.

Also, I don't know how I feel about the Arcane Boots choice, his mana is just not that bad, (unless you're spamming his wards in your lane, which is just dumb to begin with.)

A level 4 ward has 450 hit points and does ~39 damage. Not only are wards a great harassing tool, they also do piercing damage and have great pushing, counterpushing, and scouting potential.

eh I think that's up to your play style. Wards CAN be a great push tool, but like the guide says if you use them too liberally you're going to feed the enemy. I don't think it's a good idea to max wards out first unless you know what you're doing with them and you know how to use them well.

That being said you can't leave them for last either, or else they will also become enemy food. Also, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten enemies that think they've gotten away but then my wards haunt them down to the graveyard - and usually this is just in the nick of time before they get in tower range. Definitely couldn't really depend on that if they weren't max. This isn't really necessary tho if you partner up with another range to get the kills, but with a melee it's almost a necessity.

All in all I find that in general it's best to focus on Venom's poison sting first (1 pt in everything first, every possible point in ulti, then max poison, then alt between ward and stats...ability 2 i find doesn't really make that much of a difference besides the first level i find since venom tends to get outleveled as a support anyway), because it has such a short cool down and venom's at his most powerful as an attacker in the early/mid area. When the game changes to mid/late i find naturally he becomes more suited to support role, so then naturally his points go to his wards.

Couple of issues with this guide that i do have

if you're playing support venom, you will be under leveled, so you can't just plan as if you're going to have 25 points to throw anywhere you want. They need to go where they're needed at the time. Other thing, I never agree with aghraim's sceptor for him. I looked up the hard numbers for just how much it upgrades his ultimate and I just think there are better items out there, especially for a support (urn comes to mind, that one has turned me into a life saver so many times...Bloodstone is a great item to work towards...)

also i personally find venom always benefits from a good bottle, couple these with travel boots and you can always get back to your base to refill so mana/health is never an issue. Also if there's a haste ruin, bottling that to pop when trying to escape is invaluable. Travel boots are expensive so sometimes i have to opp for the tranquil boots, i've hauled *** and made some beautiful escapes by chugging all 3 charges on the bottle while hitting the tranquil's ability to speed boost. drives pursuers ****ing insane. Those are some cheap ways to get some more survivability.

The main challange i find with venom is that early mid game you are cash starved. If you use wards you can farm out a ton of gold mid/late game, but then you're underleveled. It's a tricky act to balance everything, and I still haven't figured out how to balance upping his stats with his abilities - i definitely agree that if you go support you need to throw some stat boosts around somewhere.

good and classic build.

I agree maxing words is pretty worthless, the only thing it offers is great jungling proficiency, max gale is the way to go. No point in picking veno unless you're gonna be aggressive imo


But I guess this is for a push strat team

+1

if I get a random I don't like and we have no mid hero I like going veno with full wards asap and rocking the gold. Since after my first couple games of maxing wards to start I have never had any hero push to my tower in mid. I will ALWAYS get theirs first.