Venom is a character who you can trick yourself in to believing is invincible. “It’s fine:” you tell yourself, “I can just So Many Snacks and attack with We Are Vemon and heal it all back!” But how likely is that?

So first, we are going to assume that you have the 5 Power (or 4 in Avengers) to be able to use So Many Snacks and We Are Venom and that it is in range.

A 7 dice attack feels really good, but it is physical. A lot of characters have physical as their best defence – 4 is the most common physical defense across the characters we have to date (11 out of 23 have 4, 9 have 3 and 3 have 2). A lot of defensive tech doesn’t work against Venom – rerolls and cover both count as modify abilities, so Venom’s Symbiotic Instincts prevents those from applying. There are some defensive abilities that still work: adding blanks like Black Panther; reducing damage like Iron Man; and ignoring Wilds like Modok – all abilities that do not require power and can’t be avoided by correct positioning. For comparison purposes those three characters are included below:

I’ve included both mode damage (the most common result) and expected damage (if you rolled it a million times the average damage done). I find the mode a more useful comparator, as it gives you idea of how hot or cold the dice rolled for you, but I know a lot of people like expected damage.

What does it all mean?

If you are a venom player going up against those sorts of non-modify defenses, you will heal a lot less than you might otherwise expect. It’s particularly worth thinking about with range specific defenses like Martial Artist on Okoye and Black Widow – where have they been positioned? Is that the best use of you power, or will Venom survive until the next round, when he can Web Snare in someone easier to damage and therefore heal off? Paying five power to, on average, deal 1 damage and heal one seems like a bad deal – so it may often be the right decision to not use So Many Snacks, instead saving that power for throwing stuff or pulling in tastier morsels.

For those going against Venom, try to use exactly those sorts of characters to fight against Venom (if you haven’t managed to get some range 4+ energy attacks on him), as he will deal less damage to you and have a lower effective health total. Make sure your Black Widow or Okoye is within range 2 (or outside range 3 in Okoye’s case) to get that extra defense buff.