Venom mages

[Strongpoint]

I recently started to play a lot of random VM and seek for a good strategy. Early games is usually very-very easy, but later you need to choose how to develop them.

Currently I use 3 strategies

1) turn off poison magic from the start, train conjuration, worship vehumet, switch to pure conjurer

2) Pick up weapon, train mostly it, use magic only against dangerous targets.

3) Train unarmed, Sif muna, wait for the book with spider form, use it a lot, train transmutions, use fire conjurations against poison immune enemies, wait for ignite poison

Anyone use another interesting strategy with them?

[Jenx]

Well with 1) and 3) couldn't you then just make a Conjurer and a Transmuter instead of going at it at this roundabout way?

[Strongpoint]

Yep, but sting makes early game easy, and #3 requries high poison skill to have fun with ignite poison

[dpeg]

I like VM because it makes for a relaxed early game, and you're so flexible: I'll decide on what (other) school to focus on when I've found some spellbook(s). (I almost never follow Sif. Or Vehumet.) For example, I believe that DrVM makes a great combination: you can train casting all the time, while being flexible until you reveal the colour.

[colma]

Well with 1) and 3) couldn't you then just make a Conjurer and a Transmuter instead of going at it at this roundabout way?

lol, no kidding.

For #2, just make a Crusader or Reaver. Crusader starts with better brands than the lame poison one or you get nice defense spells for an Ice Reaver. Picking a casting background and not going a heavy casting route is just kind of gimping your character when other backgrounds do exactly what you want from the get go.

I like VM because it makes for a relaxed early game, and you're so flexible: I'll decide on what (other) school to focus on when I've found some spellbook(s). (I almost never follow Sif. Or Vehumet.) For example, I believe that DrVM makes a great combination: you can train casting all the time, while being flexible until you reveal the colour.

That's usually what I do as well. Ice magic is, IMO, the worst choice to combine with poison on any character. Yeah, there are some synergies there but most enemies that resist poison also resist ice, making for some icky situations.

I have around 10 wins or more now with VM of different flavors. My favorite up to now is definitely my SPVm who specialized in poison, conjurations (Iskenderun's Mystic Blast), and necromancy (mostly for dispel undead and regeneration). With conjurations and necromancy you can deal with anything that poison can't.

[tormodpwns]

Yep, poison isn't useful in the late game because almost everything resists it, and poison damage is negligible, except for Venom Bolt, Poison Arrow, and possibly Poisonous Cloud. I would recommend turning off Poison Magic either immediately or after a few levels because you won't be missing it later. Better to train up Spellcasting and Conjurations.

[MrMisterMonkey]

Poisonous Cloud is great.
Venom Bolt not so much.

[lucy_ferre]

I won a SpVM with Poison Cloud and IOOD. Poison Cloud kills orb guardians and draconians very quickly. For everything else, I used the orb.