General DiscussionWhen to draft Venomancer?

He's still one of the most annoying anti-blink heroes.

When the enemy heroes have low innate mobility and their team doesnt have much sustain

i wouldn't pick him vs anything right now since jungle got nerfed and the character itself got hit really hard but i guess you could dual-offlane with him or mid with him (still good vs TA AFAIK)

Veno is great vs low sustain/low hp heros (similar too zues) and heros that 'require' a blink dagger in order to be useful. Eg. Earth shaker/magnus/ursa

Hes a hero that can deal with the other 'cancer mids' (OD, razor, viper) while being able to realistically lane in a 1v1 against almost any hero.

Also, if you want to play for memes play him vs a meepo and get your lvl 20 with gale reduction +spawn 2 wards. if you reliably can hit 2-3heros a gale that build becomes god tier, but i'm sure the aghs nova build is better than wards, but think of the memes

Realistically there is a few major ways to play veno

God tier - Max Gale, Max sting mid and go around killing everything, you should aim for a veil and oct/blink. With this build your aim is to get the -8 second gale cooldown. i think Travels is almost a must for this build as you'll require alot of mana to sustain gale farming (try to gale atleast 2 camps or the entire creepwave each gale (while farming) You need to net atleast 90 extra gold per min with your gale cooldown to warrent getting the reduction. The reduction however opens you up at lvl 20 to go one of two ways, You can go the Ward focus'd build (pushing/depushing) or the Nova build (killing the entire team with 1 spell).

The pushing style/i will be ganked style - 2-2-4 max wards build, where you'll focus on items like Solar crest/aquila. This build is good vs heros like 'night stalker' where you can usually predict where they'll be and will net you towers/defend towers alot easier than the former.
With this build your aim is too get lvl 10 As fast as possible and get the gpm talent, You can stack multiple camps with veno so use that to your advantage. It's also super good on DIRE if you're planning on farming the Bermuda triangle 3 camps.

Carry Right clicks? - I think this build is negliagable and should only be considered vs specific cases (AM/Huskar etc) Silver edge/pike etc.
Support (2-1-4)- Get 2 points in gale, kill stuff.. pull camps and push the safelane/offlane with the wagon timings. you have the ability to scout before you ward, do this, do this alot.

If you play a good 'core' veno. Realisitcally you should just systematically take control of the map, Take a tower, farm thier jungle, take a tower, farm thier jungle. rince repeat.. He's a great hero at getting map control so use the power spikes to do so.

Thanks this really helps my understanding of the hero. Appreciate it!

Hi Leave me in peace.
I've played a decent amt of veno games and have a good winrate (60% in 250 games) . I played him alot more before he got his super buffs and became total cancer. Then everyone was playing him and as Hyperstone stated the jungle nerfs hurt him.

Former veno was great in any role. Insane damage rivaled only by Tinker/Zues/ Spec (globals).
I played him almost always as a pos 4-5 but sometimes offlane him or mid vs those TA's. Then I was solo offlaning. It sucks now cause of the nerf to jungle creeps early

I just wanted to add a few points:

Item builds, Personally I am a fan of the trans, followed by veil. From that point I will vary my path. Enemy got a clock work, get a force, otherwise get that blink. Once you got blink I tend to want Force if I already don't have it. I also like to get Euls or Lotus Orb.
Then go max magic damage with Aghs, Kaya. I will sometimes get a meme hammer for the lulz with pushing.

Hyper has provided a great synopsis of how to play him, with taking objective and using wards to steal the enemys jungle farm.

My build if supporting is 1 in gale, alternate between touch and wards. it allows you to go greedy and play as a semi core by taking jungle farm when not much is happening on the map.

Offlane is a different story, Max touch, 1 ward, and then max gale. Esp if its a weak lane or very kiteable heros (ursa) I will start with orb of venom too for additional slow.
Talents, if im a sup veno, I go gold talent. I usually don't have the mana to sustain the gale cd unless i get an early euls
followed by cast range. unless they are all melee with little gap closing
nearly never the ward spawn talent and opt for that nova damage . With aghs, veil and kaya its insane.
and 3x hp damage on ward is no brainer

I would say the biggest thing with playing veno is setting up wards to cancel blinks, ( the number of wiffed RPs due to a ward is very high) and your positioning. Your squishy and slow as fuck. set up wards, blink in ult, viel gale, then I would euls, lotus myself and try and force staff out. then just keep spamming wards. You probably won the fight. The damage is so fucking high its crazy. and if you die cause they droped that luna ult, or jug ult on you after you droped the ult gale veil. who cares. Just someone please Kill that fucking Jug healing ward lol!!!

Thats about it. Veno is tough right now, hes a lack luster support and a terrible offlaner unless your doing a duo offlane of lich veno agaist spec, rubick or something.

with all the luna, jugg bullshit right now, he jsut can't cut it.

Cheers