Introduction

Greetings, I’m Rageers_TcTk but most people know me as Totem or Connor. I started playing PDN last year and Vena Plaga has over time become the main class I play and the class I feel I have the most knowledge about. Shoutout to Nano for helping noobs like myself pick up the class when I first started playing VP.

Overview

Vena Plaga is a close to mid range DPS class with lots of iframes and flexibility of playstyle. Your DPS mainly comes from [Grudge] > [Infection], [Flow Down] > [Manic] and resetting the cooldown of your [Thorn skills] with [Sacrifice].

Bubble System

[Thorns] are your bubbles for Vena Plaga. You build [Thorns] by using skills with the [Corrupt] tag and over time from being in your [Vena Plaga Transformation]. You also gain a large chunk of [Thorns] from successfully parrying with [Hornet’s Touch]. You spend with your dark skills like [Grudge] and [Infection]. Each dark skill has a certain amount of [Thorns] needed to empower them so make sure you have enough [Thorns] before you use these skills.

Skills

Lencea

[Hornet’s Touch] Your basic parry skill. Builds [Thorns] on successfully blocking

[Harmonize] Standard Class Buff. If people spam rebuff press this skill.

Plaga

[Projection] This is your burst buff. It drastically increases the amount of [Thorns] you generate from [Corrupt skills] while active and increases your dark element. You should almost always be using this as soon as it comes up unless a buff wipe or long bar mech is about to happen.

[Fatalism] Primary debuff skill and will typically be the first ability you use after [Projection] in every fight to start your [Class Mastery 3]. Generally you don’t want to hold down the left click unless all other skills are down. Damage taken debuff

[Thorn of Reproof] Iframe while in the air. Useful for dodging attacks but has a smallish hitbox. Most of the damage comes out on the final hit so try to make sure you at least land that part on bosses.

[Blood Shot] Your highest spread [Corrupt] skill. If you don’t need to dodge something with [Thorn of Reproof] you should always prioritize this skill to build [Thorns]. Using [Flow Down] to cancel into this skill drastically speeds up the cast.

[Subconscious] Secondary debuff skill. Reduces elemental resistance. Pretty long ranged stationary channel to build [Thorns]. This is your highest bubble generating skill. If you have no [Thorns] and [Projection] just came off cooldown use this to quickly get your bubbles back otherwise it's a low priority skill. If you play more around [Manic] use this skill after manic finishes to quickly regenerate your [Thorns]. You can also use it to debuff bosses if no one else has an elemental debuff.

[Sacrifice] Iframe during animation before damage comes out. Very useful for dodging attacks. Also resets the cooldown on your skills that use [Thorns]. This is another skill you will probably end up using on cooldown to reset the cooldown on [Grudge], [Infection], and [Manic].

[Dissembler] Solid damage and low bubble cost skill. Lower priority than [Grudge] but higher priority than any of your [Corrupt skills]. It’s also very useful as a small dash to get back in range while still doing damage if a boss dashes away. 20 [Thorns]

[Grudge] Fast skill with lots of hits but smallish hitbox. You’ll probably have to play around with this for a while before you hit it consistently. 30 [Thorns]

[Infection] This should be your second highest skill in your spread behind your +1. Stationary skill that has a pretty big hitbox to it so you can use it from decently far away and still hit bosses. You can cancel this skill slightly early before the third hit happens and it will still cast. 40 [Thorns]

[Flow Down] Iframe that cleanses and heals that can be used to cancel out of any skill or while cc’d. For DPS, I tend to use this to speed up the cast time on [Manic]. You can use this to speed up [Blood Shot] if you used [Flow Down] to i-frame something. It’s not technically a DPS loss to do [Flow Down] > [Blood Shot] but typically you will perform better having the extra iframe to greed/dodge than you will with spamming.

[Injury] Smallish movement skill and last resort filler skill I hardly ever use except for movement.

Vena Plaga

[Vena Plaga Transformation] 999 duration self buff use it to transform then forget about it. This is what makes your class work.

[Manic] High damage channeled skill. Can be used with 30 or 60 [Thorns] but can also be used if you don’t have any [Thorns] to Super Armor through certain mechanics.

[Lonely Cloud] This is your lowest damage bubble builder. You can let the animation play or cancel with [Flow Down] or [Hornet’s Touch]. Most of the damage from this skill comes out in the last hit but it takes so long that it’s usually worth canceling it early if you have any other skills to press. Very nice bubble generation though.

[Class mastery 1-3]

[Flow Down] has a 5 second cooldown during [Projection]. Using [Corrupt skills] increases the damage of [Thorn skills] for 10 seconds and using [Thorn skills] increases the damage of [Corrupt skills] for 10 seconds.

Gameplay Tips

VP is a pretty easy class to play mechanically. If you want to improve to be a good VP instead of a bad one, work on proper positioning to maintain uptime and abuse your iframes to dodge mechs.

Look to parry with [Hornet’s Touch] when possible as the extra bubbles it generates help keep you spamming more [Thorn skills]. Avoid using [Manic] if you can’t cast [Flow Down] before it unless you have nothing else to do. [Grudge] has a tendency to fizzle and break if you use it too close to certain bosses ( Manticore and Watcher Adallah in DDN for example). If you notice this happening, try to find a spot where it doesn’t break and only use it from that position.

Skills

Unified Skills

Max HP Boost and FD Boost

Skill Crests

+1 Grudge or Manic Comes down to playstyle pick whichever skill you plan to prioritize in your rotation.

Damage:

Blood Shot
Grudge
Dissembler or Manic
Infection

CDR:

Sacrifice
Thorn of Reproof
Projection

Dragon Gems

Gems: 2 Destructive 2 Elemental

I-frames

[Flow Down] Cancels out of any skill. Performs a short dash in the direction you are facing. Cleanses and heals a small amount as well.

[Thorn of Reproof] Invulnerable while in the air. Useful for dodging stomps and extending iframe for raid wide damage.

[Hornet’s Touch] Parry skill

[Sacrifice] Invulnerable during the pole swing but once you start shooting out damage you are vulnerable.

Rotation

There isn’t really a strict rotation to speak of with this class. There are multiple VP players that seem to all do different things and put up similar numbers. Therefore I’ll walk through what a typical opener should be and what my skill priority is. The main thing to keep in mind is making sure you have enough bubbles to spend on your next [Thorns] skill. You should also keep your [Class Mastery 3] going by using some variation of [Corrupt] and [Thorn skills].

[Thorn of Reproof] and [Flow Down] should be used to dodge attacks or after Subconscious in priority. This a priority list so if you don’t have enough [Thorns] use a [Corrupt] skill first to build some.

Opener

If you have 100 [Thorns]

[Projection] > [Fatalism](1 hit) > [Grudge] > [Infection] > [Sacrifice] > [Grudge] > [Infection] > [Blood Shot] > [Subconscious] > [Dissembler]/[Manic] > [Lonely Cloud]

If you don’t have [Thorns]

[Projection] > [Subconscious] > [Grudge] > [Infection] > [Sacrifice] > [Grudge] > [Infection] > [Blood Shot] > [Dissembler]/[Manic] > [Lonely Cloud]