Help Support Our Growing Community

DOTAFire is a community that lives to help every Dota 2 player take their game to the next level by having open access to all our tools and resources. Please consider supporting us by whitelisting us in your ad blocker!

Want to support DOTAFire with an ad-free experience? You can support us ad-free for less than $1 a month!

Go Ad-Free
Smitefire logo

Join the leading DOTA 2 community.
Create and share Hero Guides and Builds.

Create an MFN Account






Or

5 Votes

Venomancer | Azwethinkweiz

June 16, 2012 by Vexxed
Comments: 4    |    Views: 58692    |   


Build 1
Build 2

Support - Pusher

DotA2 Hero: Venomancer




Hero Skills

Venomous Gale

1 5 10 12

Poison Sting

2 9 13 14

Plague Ward

3 4 7 8

Noxious Plague

6 11 16

Talents

15

Introducing the guide to Venomancer

Hello and welcome to my guide on venomancer.

There are several key points to consider when playing veno, most importantly you HAVE TO HIT YOUR GALES! My first reccomendation to new players would be to master hitting gales, knowing the exact distance and adjusting direction based on enemy movement is key to playing veno successfully.

My other two points worth considering are:

- Venomancer is a hybrid hero who should fulfil either a Support or Pusher/Counter-Pusher role.

- Regardless of the role you choose to play as Veno it is important to adopt an aggressive playstyle, this doesn't excuse recklessness but playing passively will waste the potential of this hero.

Strengths
- One of the best 'First Blood' potential abilities
- Extremely difficult to gank (due to Plague Wards)
- Fight changing ULT
- Is very versatile to the roles he can fulfil


Weaknesses
- Low strength gain making his 'squishy'
- Has no natural escape-ability
- Lacks any instant damage
- Main ability is very skill dependant

Choosing your role in the team

Playing with a friend? Like to Gank?

GANK SQUAD UNITE! Roaming solo is fun but with a PIC (Partner In Crime) in tow things are much easier. I would suggest one of two heroes to fulfil this partnership:

- Vengeful Spirit
- Ogre Magi

Both these heroes make a good partnership with Veno due to their high damage stuns, which helps secure the kill and make it easy to hit your gales. Choosing this role will require a change in starting items, ensure to buy plenty of Clarity potions as Venomous Gale is very mana intensive.

Skill Sequence (First Blood) :

- Magic Missile/Fireblast
- Venomous Gale
- Auto-attack
- Dead.

Pusher

Have you been relieved of babysit duty?! If you're lucky enough to have a true support stand up and fulfil this role, you will be able to dedicate your time to killing and pushing down towers. The high damage and health of your wards makes this an easy task, especially when partnered with the following heroes:

- Leshrac
- Enchantress
- Death Prophet
- Natures Prophet
- Chen

These aren't the only heroes that work well at pushing with Venomancer, but they're able to push down towers early which is why they synergies well with Veno.

Support

Playing a support Veno isn't a bad option as even without 'carry' items you are still able to pose a threat to the enemy team, due to Venos dots he does more damage the longer he sticks around; therefore justifying the choice of items such as a mekansm and a pipe.

You should take a support role early if your team has neglected to pick a dedicated support hero, ensuring to not take last hits from your carries.

Skillz


Venomous Gale
Key Bind: Q

Launches a ball of venom in a line, poisoning enemy units so that they take both initial damage and damage over time, as well as suffering slowed movement. Venomous Gale deals damage every 3 seconds over its duration.
Range: 800
Radius: 125
Duration: 15.1
Strike Damage: 50 / 70 / 70 / 100
Periodic Damage: 10 / 20 / 40 / 50
Periodic Damage Interval: 3

Mana Cost: 90 / 105 / 120 / 135 Cooldown Time: 22

Without a doubt one of the best and most effective skills at level one, the duration lasting 15 seconds and slowing by 50% regardless of its level! An extremely mana intensive skill which you cannot afford to miss. The range of this ability is surprisingly far, familiarizing yourself with this range is key to securing ganks from afar.


Poison Sting
Key Bind: W

Adds poison damage to Venomancer's normal attacks, slowing movement speed.
Duration: 7
Damage Per Second: 5 / 10 / 15 / 20
Movement Speed Slow: 11% / 12% / 13% / 14%

This is an important passive ability to skill as when used with gale and your ultimate, it applies an important dot that adds further slow and can tip the enemy over their remaining life-points that your ultimate is unable to do.


Plague Ward
Key Bind: E

Summons a plague ward to attack enemy unit and structures. The ward is immune to magic.
Cast Range: 850
Ward Duration: 40
Ward Health: 75 / 200 / 325 / 450
Ward Damage: 11 / 21 / 32 / 42

Mana Cost: 20 Cooldown Time: 5

Plague Wards serve many important roles such as scouting out enemies, pushing towers and damaging opponents. At level one they do minimal damage and have low health but still provide the same vision and can also block neutral creeps from spawning when placed in their camps. These should not be placed in lane unless you're holding back a creep wave or pushing down a tower, otherwise you will cheaply give away free gold to the enemy heroes on your lane.


Poison Nova
Key Bind: R

A spreading ring of poison that does damage over time to enemy units around Venomancer. Poison Nova's effect cannot bring units below 1 HP.
SCEPTER UPGRADABLE: Increases damage and duration, and decreases cooldown.
Radius: 830
Duration: 12 / 14 / 15 (14/15/16*)
Damage Per Second: 36 / 58 / 81 (58/81/108*)

Mana Cost: 200 / 300 / 400 Cooldown Time: 140 / 120 / 100 (60*)

Venomancers ultimate does an incredible amount of damage to everyone it hits, to balance this skill out the dot that applies this damage is unable to kill enemies; which makes your other dots from your gale and passive ability important to securing kills.

Items


Da Chick

The single most important item in the game, nothing angers me more than not having a courier....even if you aren't playing a support role step up and buy one!


Ring of Aquila

It isn't completely neccesary to build your Ring of Basilius into this but the extra damage is handy, and for any role the mana regen and aura is a must!


Power Treads

Extra attack speed = more damage + optional extra Health/Mana or Damage!


Mekansm

Bread and butter for any support hero, very useful on veno as it keep you alive longer which allows you to remain in team-fights and have the time needed to deal some serious damage!


Hood of Defiance

Overall decent item for any role as it adds survivability and can be built into a pipe which can turn team-fights in your favour and also aids your team when pushing. Extremely important when facing heroes with heavy aoe damage such as:

- Leshrac
- Sand King
- Tidehunter
- Shadow Fiend
- Etc.


Aghanim's Scepter

Massively boosts the damage of your ultimate, seen as a core item by many for Venomancer but in my opinion should only be picked up late game to ensure that your ultimate damage scales with the health of the enemy heroes. Also adds some much needed health!


Force Staff

Standard support item, should be picked up by support heroes who're without escape mechanisms. Works especially well against heroes like:

- Ursa
- Faceless Void (Avoiding ULT)
- Engima (Avoiding ULT)

Conclusion

I hope atleast some of you find this guide useful to learning the ways of venomancer. IF you require any further knowledge do leave me a comment and i'll get round to adding it :)

I will eventually add some useful ward spots and paths to take when ganking for those who're interested so keep posted for future updates!

- Vexxed

Quick Comment (4) View Comments

You need to log in before commenting.

Similar Guides
Featured Heroes

Quick Comment (4) View Comments

You need to log in before commenting.

DOTAFire is the place to find the perfect build guide to take your game to the next level. Learn how to play a new hero, or fine tune your favorite DotA hero’s build and strategy.

Copyright © 2019 DOTAFire | All Rights Reserved