Venom

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This page is about the weapon brand. For the removed card, see Venom card.

It poisons the flesh of those it strikes.

The venom brand allows your weapon to poison your target, causing it to take further damage over time. All strikes have a flat 75% chance of poisoning monsters without poison resistance, and a 25% chance of poisoning resistant monsters, regardless of damage done. If the enemy would be poisoned, Venom will add poison damage equal to 6-13 plus a random amount from 0 to 1.5x the damage done (before being reduced by poison resistance). Poison immune creatures, like the undead and the nonliving, are completely unaffected by this brand.

Venom does not appear on ranged weapons except for the occasional randart, but can be given via a scroll of brand weapon.

Tips & Tricks

• Venom is generally an early- to mid- game brand. By the time you reach the Vaults and Depths, many enemies will be will be resistant or even immune to poison.
• The other main downside is that poison damage isn't done immediately. To compensate, Venom has the potential to deal a lot more damage than most other brands.
  • If you have a way to disengage from fights, like Swiftness or Blink, you can use them to run away, and let poison do its work. This works best when dealing with melee threats that aren't faster than you, of course. Ranged units will likely shoot you a few times before dying.
  • Alternatively, the spell Ignite Poison allows you to convert poison to instant damage. This spell further multiplies poison damage by 250%. As a level 3 spell, it often isn't worth to train on a heavy melee brute. But if you're using Poison Magic, anyways, Ignite Poison can provide valuable synergy.
• Venom's ability to poison an enemy is largely independent of the amount of damage dealt, so it is best used on a fast weapon, like daggers. Poisoning a target multiple times will strengthen the poison, causing it to deal more damage and take longer to run its course. Daggers of venom can take out most enemies in the early Dungeon.

History

Prior to 0.18, poison resistant monsters were completely immune to the venom brand.