Does a player exist that actually uses the Venom?

Yeah, a buddy of mine likes it. Not as much as 3's, but enough to use it.

I'd probably play around with it if it wasn't stupidly heavy.

I ended up with a siphon variant and have used it several times on gold with good success. Need to try it again with priming being fixed on it. It is a bit awkward, especially compared to ME3, but it does have a much better feel than the original abomination we were given.

I do - although I'm only around 70% done its weapon challenge.

Ronnie's right about how the weapon can do quite a bit of damage if you can get the shot away. Unfortunately, the weapon is much more effective on gold than Plat. The problem is that everything interrupts the charge mechanic. Also, the indication that the venom is charged can be lost (whether rumble/sound cue).

I find the Turian Havoc to be the best platform for the Venom as the hover playstyle mitigates some of the most common interrupts to the charge mechanic. You run less and get staggered less. You can then bombard spawns with venom shots, incinerate and flak cannon. Fortunately jumping does not interrupt the charge mechanic and the only uncomfortable interrupt is when you land. Obviously spending more time on the ground can make things awkward as well - which will happen during some objectives/maps.

The biggest problem with this build is that while it does showcase the Venom's ability to lock down a spawn, the bulk of your damage will be coming from flak cannon anyway. Still takes some time to grind away the points.

I also play ME3MP (two maxed manifests) and love the Venom there although I had to stop bringing it out too often - complaints from teammates over screenshake. There's no question that the Venom is a joke compared to it's ME3 version - but I find this to be true of all of ME:A's weapons. Yes, the Venom is the worst offender - but it's one of the few guns that actually sounds like more than a wet noodle.

After the initial shock of "What did BW do to the Venom from ME3?" I have grown to really like the Venom. Good damage, priming and area of effect / crowd control abilities with charged shots. In Gold, I have used the Venom with most kits, and I like it on the Kineticist (barges shot into initial spawn, pull/throw to detonate and in 5 seconds you are ready for Ascension), Huntress, and stealth characters since you can charge while cloaked.

It was fun to use on the Nimbus map, where you can launch charged Venom shots from across the map to whittle the enemies as they spawn in.

Yes the charging mechanic takes time to get used to, but once you learn to Venom, you might just like it.

Lastly, I pair another weapon with the Venom like a fast firing pistol or hard hitting shotgun.

More thoughts on the Venom here:

bsn.boards.net/thread/11623/venom

Really Blastoff! Why bother with stunning them if it's way better to just kill them as fast as possible?

My personal experience is that it's extremely underwhelming on its own, but an entire team using it (e.g. a salarians with salarian weapons theme game) is devastating, at least on Gold.

It actually does decent AoE damage, but as others have noted it's difficult to maximize its potential when you're getting staggered out of its charge regularly. Multiple users in even loose cooperation can flip the script, using overlapping fire to keep enemies near-constantly staggered over a pretty decent area to allow consistent charged shots.

So venom is good now?

I guess I will try siphon with ammo.

This, as well as, lol stop trying to make me feel silly, I woke up this morning smelling like root beer with turquoise fingernail polish on and a flush miniature minion somehow comfortably lodged between my buttcheeks... I can't look any more foolish!


actually, if you can tell me a method, in platinum, where you can actually even kill 3 berserkers (on your own btw) without the use of a cobra, in short enough time so that those little red crabs from their triple flak cannons are stunning/killing you, long enough for those observer lazers or wraiths don't finish you off....

I'll use it.... Ha .

The fastest I can even imagine taking those 3 demons down (solo) is with a batarian with Dhan X, snap freeze, and flak cannon with munitions. But I could probably solo a destroyer in the same timeframe...

Venom isn't so much to kill them, as it is to instantly prime, as well to protect you and your squad at least for a second from that flak cannon spam... or at least long enough so YOU ALL can kill them.

I flipping swear 3 berzerkers in a pack should be labeled as a boss. I'd rather take on a wave 6 platinum boss behemoth solo....