Venom Storm Combo Colossus

The polar opposite of the voltaic dome colossus, this build offers a medium ranged attack and great Combo damage. One of the easier builds to get into as a new player, as the extra range on Venom Storm helps overcome the lack of mobility that turn many people off when first trying the Colossus. Check out our Advanced Colossus Movement guide for tricks to get the big chonker moving much more fluidly

Weapons

Ralner’s Blaze

• This particular build utilizes the Earthshaker melee so having a ralner’s in the holster will allow the colossus to prime enemies with fire when more combos are needed. As always with ralners having a large mag size, armor or repair drop rate are your best options for the colossus.

Renewed Courage

• This weapon will be paired with the focused freeze component. Allowing for quick ice priming. This opens up the option to juggle combos. Juggling combos is a tactic in which the player primes and detonates a large health pool enemy swapping between fire and ice, as those effects will cancel each other out.

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Melee

Earth Shaker

• The more controversial choice of the build is this right here. however, its purpose cannot be understated. It removes awkward situations. Venom storm for a long time had an issue with awkward moments. Because venom storm has a minimum range that it must be launched from, any enemies closer than that minimum will lock a player in an awkward DAMAGELESS situation. It’s because of this that Earth Shaker is used. So that should a player end up in a situation that is awkward they can switch to priming and detonating with their weapons and melee.

Solvent Green

• This is the piece of gear that brings Colossus damage into a whole new world. Solvent Green adds 200% damage to your combos. The downside is that it basically turns into a stat stick from then on. The slow rate of fire, low damage output and requirement to land three shots in order to prime makes actually using Solvent Green in battle nothing more than a last resort or something to screw around with for fun. Would recommend one with repair drop rate inscriptions.

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Gear

Venom Storm

• The part of this build that everything centers around. Venom storm is an awesome piece of gear. Both priming and detonating itself allows a player to spend more time thinking and less time focused on executing quick primes and detonations. Venom storm provides an incredible range to the colossus that Voltaic Dome and Vassa’s does not. When paired with proper weapon priming venom storm can begin to take the build into breathless damage territory. The recommended inscriptions for the VS are charges, damage, and repair drop rate.

• (There is a console only technique used for venom storm called “support canceling", it does not work on pc. Refer to the advanced colossus mechanics guide to explore this crucial technique)

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Support Gear

Beserker’s Cry

• Increases melee damage by 200%, reduces melee cooldown so that you smash again sooner, and increases all damage taken on affected enemies by 33%. Would recommend one with multiple charges and combo blast inscriptions to optimize your build

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Components

Shock Treatment

• The strongest Colossus component of all. Every build you have should include this piece. It provides an 80% increase to all damage including ultimate and combos. Since the way it is triggered is by taking armor damage that is no issue for the Colossus who is constantly taking damage. Would recommend repair drop rate inscriptions.

‍Catalytic Overdrive

• There is not much to say about this piece other than if you want an easy 50% increase to your combos. The 40% gear damage increase can be nice as well, but the combo damage increase is much more important.

Symbiotic Surge

• This piece is why most of the recommended inscriptions are repair drop rate. The more you can have this up the more damage you will do. Symbiotic’s perk increases all damage by 50% including combos and ultimate. Having a high repair drop rate will almost always ensure that it is active. Also being a universal the recommended inscription is combo blast damage followed by ultimate inscriptions.

Focused Freeze

• As stated earlier in the build having this component allows the player to juggle between fire and ice priming. Being a universal it’s recommended inscription is combo blast.

Thermal cooling

• Being more of a ranged class having extra hover time ensures the colossus has sufficient up time when destroying things from a safe distance. Recommended inscriptions are combo blast

Emergency Power

• Increases your ultimate damage as well as allowing for more aggressive play with a free ultimate should your health get too low. Recommended inscriptions for this are combo Blast Damage and Ultimate inscriptions

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Overview

This build though simple and effective at base has its strategies and quirks. Understanding the venom storm’s function and behavior is key to utilizing its full potential. As far as weaknesses go it has lots of instances where control of your damage can slip out of your hands and a stagnant state can ensue. This is where proper planning, understanding, and of course practice comes into play. Compared to voltaic dome and vassas, venom storm can feel a little more slow and less chaotic, but to methodical and more strategic pilot it may just be their home.

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