User:Waterbeat
From SpiralKnights
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This is my guide on how to use the Dread Venom Striker effectively. It is still under construction and I will possibly rewrite or add more information to all sections.
Contents
Dread Venom Striker
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The Dread Venom Striker (DVS) has fast swings that deal normal damage, allowing it to be effective against every monster type. I do not recommend using the charge attack since its doesn't offer a lot of utility. The damage increase on the charge attacks hits is not enough to compensate for the drawbacks: for the duration of the charge attack you are unable to dodge or block attacks and you cannot adjust your aim.
Dread Venom Striker benefits a lot from damage bonuses and the effects of poison. This is great, because it can inflict poison! When using DVS, you are forced to match your gear to it. Like Echo, you will need armor that provides damage bonus for swords (or a universal damage bonus). DVS is unique in this way: many weapons do just fine without damage bonus. DVS on the other hand really needs all the damage bonus it can get to show its true potential.
Dread Venom Striker benefits more from damage bonuses than for example Final Flourish for 2 reasons.
- It has normal damage which means that monsters actually resist it quite well and,
- It has each of its 5 swings split up in a regular hit and a ghost hit, which means monsters can put their defence to use twice, whereas they can only defend once against a Flourish.
Building a good loadout
In this section I will try to discuss all the aspects of building a loadout around the Dread Venom Striker.
Armor
When using Dread Venom Striker, there are a few things you should consider when picking your armor. First of all, you want to get as much damage bonus for swords as you can get, preferably maximum, but ultra is acceptable. Next is status resist: some status will drastically lower your damage output as well as make you die faster. Then you can weigh in damage type, because it lets you preserve your Health more easily, which allows you to play more aggressively. Lowest priority is additional ASI, which is always nice to have, but does not outweigh the advantage that damage bonus, status resistance and defence provide.
As we know, Dread Venom Striker benefits more than other weapons from damage increase buffs. This goes both ways though, which means it's also more vulnerable to damage penalties. This makes Poison a very dangerous status when using DVS. Getting your damage reduced makes monsters live longer and harder to disrupt, while at the same time you are also taking more damage from their hits and unable to heal. Shock is a known strong status that you do not want to suffer from for too long. It stops you from using your Vortex Bomb and makes it dangerous to get close to monsters in general, because you are defenseless when you spasm.
Next in line are Fire and Freeze. Both are very strong statuses, but Fire doesn't stop you from killing monsters. Too much fire will drain you of Health and force you to play less aggressively though. Freeze is again a very dangerous status that can hamper your killing and survival. It breaks after a hit though, so your strong shield will let you take that hit after which you can dash out of harm's way. Teammates can also free you, so thats why its lower in priority.
The lowest priority is Stun and then Curse. Stun is a status you will not get inflicted by often and even if you do, it doesn't have a very long duration. Curse is even less common and won't hurt you too much if you don't have a penalty to it and 3 weapon slots.Snarbolax set: This armor set provides 2x damage bonus medium, for a total of damage bonus very high. It also gives you Poison and Freeze resistances, both useful.
Poison, Shock, Fire, Freeze, Shadow, Normal are all great UVs to get on your snarbolax set.
Black Kat set: The main selling point for this armor is its unique universal damage bonus of high on each piece, the full set can give you maximum damage bonus for all weapons. It also has a MSI low on each piece which is useful for dodging. The set has penalties to all status except Stun and Freeze though, getting poisoned at -4 resistance will be frustrating. Same goes for shock and fire. It does have good Freeze resistance.
Skolver set: Same as the Snarbolax set but with Piercing defence instead of Shadow. Also loses all of Snarbolax' poison resistance, but gets some extra freeze resistance.
Chaos set: The status penalties usually make it a bad choice for a DVS loadout. Nevertheless, it could have its place in a level that doesn't have a lot of status, to help speed up your Vortex charge time.
You can equip combinations of these sets depending on the situation and what your personal loadout lacks. For example running with a BKC and a Snarbolax Coat will still get you ultra damage bonus, which is enough.
There are other armor sets that give medium damage bonus against certain monster families (chroma lines, valkyrie set, radiant silvermail), but most area's have more than 1 monster family, so these armors will usually not do the job.
Shield
When using the Dread Venom Striker, you will often find yourself very close to your enemies. Because its attacks are so fast, you can often attack until right before their attack will hit you, at which point you will quickly raise your shield and block. After you block their attack, you can immediately start attacking them again. You do not have to waste time dodging and kiting enemies. Playing like this requires a strong shield. Pick a shield that defends against the theme status of the level and at least 1 of the main damage types.
For example: In Heart of Ice, you may use Dread Skelly shield because it defends against freeze+shadow+normal. You should not use Crest of Almire since it lacks freeze resistance.
If you are new, I recommend getting Grey Owlite Shield and Dread Skelly Shield first. Those 2 will give you a nice coverage to tackle a lot of missions. Later on also look into (no particular order): Gorgomega, Savage Tortoise, Omegaward, Heater Shield, Dragon Scale Shield.
Barbarous Thorn Shield is a possibility for piercing levels, but I do not recommend using it everywhere. Getting your shield broken and statuses like shock or poison inflicted on you will slow down your killing. Get your damage bonus elsewhere.
Weapons
Electron Vortex
Gran Faust/Divine Avenger
Battle Sprite
Maskeraith
Maskeraith is my favourite pet to use with Dread Venom Striker. Its skills are great ways to increase your damage output and often it gives you that little extra you need to finish off a monster without having to block or dodge its attack.
Key skills: Vengeful Quills, Deadly Shadow Cloak
Quills: I recommend the Vengeful upgrade. There's not a huge difference compared to Virulent Quills, but I prefer Vengeful. Overall this is a great skill to increase your damage. The quills do a lot of damage when hit and they also help spread poison around faster. Combined with a fast recharge this makes the skill perfect for smaller groups or single enemies that are otherwise hard to take down, like a Giant Lichen Colony. Make sure to have the appropriate damage type equipped as your sprite's harness.
Shadow Cloak: Deadly Shadow Cloak greatly outperforms Vengeful Shadow Cloak. Do not get the latter under any circumstance. This skill works great with any weapon, but as we know, Dread Venom Striker benefits even more from damage bonuses than other weapons. Initially Deadly Shadow Cloak turns you invisible, after 15 seconds it ends and gives you a huge damage buff for 2 seconds; this may seem short, but its sufficient to decimate a large group of monsters that got caught in your vortex. The cloak ends prematurely if you start attacking or charging, so you can decide when to activate the buff. A super-combination is when you activate the 2 seconds of damage buff from Deadly Shadow Cloak, followed by picking up a damage buff pickup. Both buffs will stack and make your damage go through the roof.
Drakon
While I do prefer the Maskeraith, Knights who have other Sprites as their companion needn't worry! Drakon has some useful skills that allow for interesting combinations.
Key skills: Scorching Barrier, Firestorm
Flame Barrier: Pick Scorching Barrier. The extra orb and the size increase both help to increase the amount of hits you can get in with the barrier. The Scorching Barrier's damage is often very helpful to take down stronger monsters before they can launch their attacks. For example Almirian Crusaders will take so much damage from your DVS and the barrier when using an elemental harness, that you can usually kill them before they can pose any real threat.
Firestorm: Both ultimates are viable in my opinion. Frenzied Firestorm is nice with the party wide Damage Boost while Explosive Firestorm has a lot of extra damage through explosionticks that can deal ~50 damage per tick. I love Explosive Firestorm with elemental harness for taking care of large groups of Zombies, but against other monsters Frenzied Firestorm might be more useful.
Seraphynx
Seraphynx has 3 useful abilities. This pet works well when you solo with DVS, because monsters have less HP and you can do without the extra damage Maskeraith or Drakon provide. It obviously also works well in a party, where heart attack can heal your teammates and angelic aura can protect them while attacking.
Ray of Light: Pick Disintegration Ray: Lowering defense synergizes well with Dread Venom Striker. Use it on a group of enemies that you caught in your vortex to hit multiple targets, then proceed to hit all of them with strong DVS hits.
Heart Attack: I recommend Iron Heart Attack, because unlike Violent Heart Attack, it doesn't have the animation that can blur your vision a little bit. Use this on vortexed enemies to help out your teammates.
Angelic Aura: Pick Valkyrian Aura. When under a lot of pressure, this aura lets you safely charge up your Vortex bomb at maximum CTR to change the tide of battle. The aura is also useful during offense: it will take a few hits for you so you can focus completely on killing your enemies. For instance, this works well when killing a group of vortexed fiends: with the aura, you don't need to worry about the chairs being thrown at you.
Trinkets and Perk
Heart Pendants
Damage Bonus
The Monsters
Coming soon
