Venture Feedback

General Discussion
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After playing Venture for a while, including in ranked, I’d like to provide feedback to the developers, and hopefully start a healthy discussion. I know developers prefer only feedback on what feels good and bad, but I also want to mention how I would try to improve Venture based on feedback I’ve read from both low and high ranked players that I’ve seen on the forums and other media.

TLDR: There is a disagreement that seems to correlate with players’ overall skill, with many lower rank players saying Venture is too hard to kill or does too much damage, and many higher rank players thinking Venture is decently balanced, and could even use a small buff/QoL changes. I try to explain why this happens and what could be done to reconcile the two groups of players by raising the skill floor and skill ceiling of the hero to make Venture less oppressive in low ranks but more viable in higher ranks.

Positive feedback:

  • Venture is an incredibly unique hero in terms of design, mechanics, and playstyle, this is what we need!
  • Doing animation cancels/combos is satisfying and rewarding.

Negative feedback:

  • There is a big discrepancy between how the lower ranked and higher ranked players react to Venture’s power level. See below:

  • I’ve seen a lot of people say Venture is too hard to kill or does too much burst, whereas at higher ranks people think Venture is easy to punish. I’ve seen this not just on the forums, but also myself as I’ve been playing Venture in ranked.

  • A similar disagreement surrounds Venture’s ultimate, where many say Venture’s ult is too strong, but at higher ranks the enemies run through Venture’s ult and kill Venture before Venture can retaliate.

These downsides will make Venture hard to balance with the current mechanics, since buffs that make Venture more viable at high ranks will make them unkillable in low ranks, and nerfing Venture to accommodate lower ranks will make them even worse against higher ranked players.

While I agree with most higher ranked players on Venture being in a decent spot, I don’t think we shouldn’t do anything about making Venture more manageable in lower ranks.

How I would go about improving Venture:

  • Remove/nerf the Shield passive.

The passive sustain makes a big difference in lower ranks (the same problem occurred when Reaper had his passive buffed to 50% lifesteal back in OW1, and in lower ranked lobbies he was too hard to take out), but it doesn’t help much in high ranks since Venture gets melted by players with great accuracy/reflexes. It should either be removed completely or nerfed.

  • Add immunity-frames to the second half of the Burrow animation or reduce the windup animation length.

Venture’s Burrow is impossible to use reactively/defensively because it’s so slow. This reduces some skill expression since unlike Mei, Reaper, Sombra and Moira who can bait/counter specific abilities by timing their immunity frames to avoid stuns or damage, Venture simply takes too long. It shouldn’t be instant, but making it closer to the delay on Sombra’s Translocate would make mitigating damage a skill-based ability, not a passive shield like we have now. Because this is skill-based, Venture would be less oppressive in low ranks while higher-ranked matchups would be less unfavorable towards Venture. Currently it takes about 3/4 seconds to become immune; I think reducing the delay to 2/5 of a second would be appropriate, especially if the Shield passive gets nerfed/removed. Some people suggested to increase the animation speed, but I think this will make the Burrow damage harder to avoid, which is a complaint I’ve heard in lower ranks.

  • Venture’s ult could deal 120 instead of 130 damage so it can’t two shot squishies, but it should last longer, have a few more charges, and have primary fire available to discourage enemies from pushing Venture during the ult.

I would allow Venture to use the normal weapon shots during the ultimate. For this to happen, Drill Dash could be rebound to ability 2, and the Ultimate attack rebound to secondary fire. This would make the ultimate less deadly up front to help lower ranked players react to the ult, while making the ult less punishable at higher ranks where people have the skills to push and kill Venture even through the ult. It would also reward skillful Ventures since you can still kill enemies fast with the ult as long as you hit your primary fire shots, making it more viable in higher ranks.

  • Add the Ledge Dash Venture tech back. This tech/bug was discovered in the playtest during Season 9, and sadly was removed as a bug this season:

Although this tech shares the name of Genji’s old Ledge Dash tech, it’s more similar to Doomfist’s Super Slam. Just like Super Slam, Venture’s Ledge Dash is risky because it consumes both mobility cooldowns, and the movement is predictable while you’re flying. This means the tech requires both precise inputs and timing/gamesense to use without feeding, much like Doomfist’s Super Slam tech that gives him more speed, but leaves him with just Power Block upon landing. Despite being harder to pull off than Doomfist’s tech, it’s just as consistent to replicate (see description of the Venture Tech YT video for instructions), which rewards high skill, hero mastery, and makes for great POTGs/clips. Adding this tech back in will make the hero more fun to learn and better to play at high ranks without significantly affecting lower ranked play, so Venture won’t likely need a compensatory nerf.

  • Enable camera turning during the Drill Dash animation, similar to Doomfist during his punch.

Landing a follow-up shot after Drill Dash can be hard if the enemy ends up below or behind you, so adding this as a small buff/QoL will make Drill Dash a better when you use it to dodge an an attack or dash upwards.

  • Lastly, I dislike how drill dashing into a tank makes you slow down to a crawl. I’m guessing this is because of the tank passive reducing your knockback dealt, which is tied to how far you push an enemy, and the reduced push distance translates to being locked in place. This makes a character that already has a big hitbox even easier to bodyblock, which I think isn’t fair considering how bad Venture already is against tanks. Maybe Drill Dash (like Roadhog’s hook or Rein’s pin) should displace enemies a set distance, regardless of the tank passive.

Thank you for reading my feedback. Even though Venture likely will not be balanced if these changes are implemented, it will be easier to balance afterwards since Venture will have a higher skill floor and skill ceiling.

2 Likes
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What I’m mostly disappointed about is the ease at which Venture can dump cooldowns for some relatively easy kills against non-mobile heroes. Since the only way to reliably avoid the sheer dmg spam is through mobility.

Burrow (37.5)
Shoot (45)
Dash (60)
Shoot (45)
Melee (70)
^This combo is pretty typical I’d say and already hits 257dmg. These are nearly all of the minimal damage outputs. Not even a direct hit, but a near hit on shooting. Not even doing a charged hit and maximum range burrow. Not hitting with initial dash hitbox. Only hitting the melee full timer.

The burrow → dash (4sec) lets Venture cover 40m before ever needing to emerge and still have dash after the burrow charge to emerge. Its very difficult to kill a 325hp target before getting absolutely murdered through all of that burst damage.

The only reliable way to avoid it is full on mobility.

4 Likes
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Most damage heroes have a way to get burst damage, so I don’t think that is the biggest issue with Venture, especially given the combo you mentioned takes 1.5+ seconds. Moreover, Venture needs to use drill dash for that combo, which means Venture can easily get traded out, since you gave up your only escape option for the damage. The only way Venture lives that is if you were out of position.

I disagree. Low mobility heroes can avoid Venture with good positioning. If you play around corners, Venture can’t easily get a max charge burrow on you, just like with doomfist ult. If you play far back, you force Venture to use both cooldowns just to get within range of you, which means that even if you somehow die, Venture will get traded out. It also means that you get a 4 second warning that Venture is about to get on top of you, giving you and your team a chance to react.

I do agree that 325hp can be hard to burst through without headshots, which is why I suggested to nerf/remove that passive.

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The large issue is the easy at which it can be used. Most burst from players requires aim which is very difficult for players to do consecutively. The combo out of things like this and hog are exceedingly low skill floor.

Trading a DPS for a DPS doesn’t do much, but trading a DPS for a support is nearly always worth the suicide to pull off because Supports > DPS for 1 to 1 value because killing a support means all of your team’s damage accumulates very quickly letting other kills come through.

Its why doomfist DPS was a crappy hero because why the hell do you reward the stupidest players with the ability to nuke every 200 hero in the game by simply charging up punch for 1second even if they suicide? Players playing aggressive and getting easy kills should never be rewarded.

Blizzard learned their lesson with burst damage in OW1 → OW2 by literally removing the flashbang combo cassidy had with flashbang. They removed the shield bash combo Brig had on tracer. They heavily nerfed the combo Hog had through reduced dmg on hook, no 1.5x not 2.0x, and putting a target further away from his body. They gutted the mei freeze → headshot combo.

Blizz even gutted the newest cass combo of 130dmg homing nade + bodyshot. Burst damage exists on DPS, but due to how powerful killing a character is they have kept most burst to kill shots. Even Echo who has arguably the highest burst in the game struggles to get most of her dmg output because it requires aim.

The combo with Venture is very easy to pull off and you don’t need max dmg burrow which was my whole point. THe combo has so much dmg baked into it and all very easy to use hitboxes that its a relatively low skill combo.

6 Likes
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This is very well thought out, I respect that. I think venture doesn’t need a ton of changes. Just a couple of nerfs. It amazes me how blizzard claimed they were removing or reducing one shots but venture has a one shot combo. So hanzo for example who happens to be a precision hero cant one shot. why is it ok for a hero that doesn’t even need to aim, get the one shot? On top of getting shields for using the abilities? On top of the mobility? Venture can melt close range heroes like reaper and genji too, it’s way too much damage for a hyper mobile and tanky hero. The only reliable counter to venture is pharah and she needs a pocket mercy to do so. So my nerfs for venture would be

•Remove shields, hero is already hyper mobile, they don’t need the extra HP.

•nerf the damage accross the board enough to avoid the one shot combo even if venture has a pocket mercy. that speaks for itself, hero has too much mobility to dish out so much damage.

• nerf ultimate range, I don’t know why no one talks about this but venture’s ult goes really far and easily gets team wipes. It needs less range. Im ok with the damage.

Compensation buffs
• more primary weapon range, venture wont be dealing an absurd amount of damage while still being allowed to keep the mobility so extra range wouldn’t be so bad.

1 Like
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I think Venture might do with a readjustment of numbers.

+5m range, less impact dmg on primary fire shot
-2sec on each ability, but reduction in dmg/shields

This helps compensate for more total uptime in doing things, but less total high burst potential.

3 Likes
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By ease I assume you mean mechanical skill, and I agree. Venture is relatively a mechanically easy hero, but the difficulty comes from positioning. Venture needs to be in close proximity to do any damage. If you let Venture get that close without using drill dash, it’s likely you made a mistake. It’s the same thing with Reaper, although he’s even more exaggerated since he has shorter range but has 400+ DPS with headshots and can oneshot squishies. Venture’s combo takes about 1.5 seconds, which is far more generous than a lot of heroes, like Cassidy who can two-shot anyone from farther away in under half that time.

Trading is almost never good except for tank since there is only 1 tank on each team, and Venture sucks against tanks. If you want to win more games on average, you have to be the best player in the lobby, and that means trading with anyone is a net loss for you team, since you can’t have an impact on the game when you’re dead.

I like the idea of Venture having more mobility, but I don’t think primary fire can get nerfed any more. Right now Venture has low primary DPS, so if anything primary should get a little buff. I would gladly trade the shield passive and reduce drill dash damage to 60 if drill dash goes on a 6 second CD and burrow gets faster immunity, and primary damage gets increased to 90. That way 2 primaries + a drill dash does only 240 damage. It reduces the burst damage, and makes Venture more consistent. Increasing range by 5m sounds good, too.

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The one thing I don’t understand when people complain about venture’s combo is that genji was able to do the same thing for years before the S9 changes. not as many people complained even though genji is much faster and much harder to hit than venture is + he gets his dash back on a kill, venture doesn’t.

If I was to nerf venture I would reduce the radius of their aoe when they come out of the ground and change their shield to overhealth either the same values (40 up to max 75) or a reduced value with more base health to compensate (base hp 275 passive overhealth 30 up to max 50) I would also change the reduced das cooldown to always be 4 seconds when underground.

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This is false. No matter how good your positioning they always get 75 damage for free at max charge. Mathematically impossible to avoid without Mobility

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Genji requires skill. Venture requires a few button presses the monitor to be on

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Thanks for the kind words. I don’t have the answers to this, so the more people we get discussing this, the more likely we’ll get an outcome that everyone can enjoy.

Hanzo was 100% done dirty. If there is one hero in the game that should one shot with their primary weapon, it should be him and not Widow.

Shields should definitely get nerfed or removed, as long as burrow can get a buff to immunity frames to make dodging abilities more skillful.

Mercy should not have blue beam. That ability makes so many heroes difficult to balance. Blue beam is what is keeping Hanzo’s oneshot in the game, which is likely why the balance team thinks it’s okay to not buff Hanzo, even though he lost so much with the global health increases. I think without Mercy, all you need to nerf is drill dash damage, probably by 40%. That would remove the 2shot-dash combo, even if you increase primary damage to 90.

I think it’s fair, as the ult has a lot of windup, so if you die to it you are not playing cover. I think it’s more interesting as a zoning tool and not a “more damage button” like a lot of ults already are, so I would like to see it keep the range if possible.

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If it was pre S9 I would agree with you but his shirukens are so much easier to land now it’s not even funny.

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I do agree nowadays it is too easy to do, for genji as well but it’s not as bad because it still requires aim which neither venture primary nor drill dash nor quick melee require. Genji doesn’t get iframes and if he gets slept he dies unlike venture who can just generate shield for doing nothing

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I would disagree. Mechanical skill isn’t everything.

Just because Reinhardt is mechanically very easy doesn’t mean he takes less skill to play than any other tank. As a matter of fact, given how hard he is to play against decent players who counterswap you. Playing Reinhardt takes incredible presence of mind and discipline, so that’s where his skill comes from.

With Venture it’s the same thing, you have to know when it’s safe for you to drill dash aggressively, and when you have to conserve it, otherwise you end up feeding. Sure, the combo isn’t as hard as Genji’s, but you don’t get a dash reset to escape even if you do get the kill. Also, you don’t have Genji’s double jump, deflect, or wall climb to get out in case you mess up. The combo is an all-in move, you risk a lot. The skill of the hero comes from assessing risk vs reward.

Still, I wouldn’t mind nerfing drill dash damage to 60, as long as the cooldown gets reduced to 6 seconds, and primary damage gets increased to 90, along with the other changes I listed on this thread.

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Genji’s combo was quite rare to see because it actually required either lots of luck or good aim to pull off, so was very inconsistent. Venture’s combo requires almost no aim, which is why people are complaining more- it feels cheesier and happens more often.

2 Likes
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There is no reason to have burst damage on low aim abilities. Rein doesn’t have burrow to just pop up below you. If we followed ow1 philosophy venture would be fully damageable during burrow very similar to charge. Or they would do no damage on popping out like reaper wraith.

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Venture only gets burrow shields after going underground. Enemies have .7 seconds to cancel the burrow, put the ability on the full 8 second CD, and you don’t get the shields or reload from burrow. Enemies don’t even have to stun or kill you, and boop like Orisa’s or Lucio’s will launch you into the air, delaying burrow by another second. It’s very risky to do in front of the enemy.

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Genji requires headshots. Where does Venture need to care about headshots at all? I can swing my camera around wildly and still get confirms.

Drill dash and burrow even set-up for easy follow on damage because it forces knockback. If you kind of screwed up your spacing, you can force someone into a fixed path on venture due to the knockback or force them into the air making followable shots.

Venture is still a much healthier state of character than DPSfist ever was since slam + uppercut put you in far worse knockback.

2 Likes
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You do get drill dash shield for absolutely nothing. I don’t think the lock for burrow is relevant as it is either an engage or an escape after a kill. So typical you will always get value for nothing through it

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Believe me if you hit a sleep on venture they die just the same, they don’t get their shields unless they use abilities so no they don’t get them for “nothing”

You do need to aim ventures abilities you can miss dash pretty easily if your target just moves to the side slightly and if you don’t hit close or direct with your follow up primary you won’t kill the enemy. Remember drill dash is a dot you have to keep hitting with it or you won’t do enough damage.

1 Like