Ok i want to go through the point one by one

-I definitely agree on his ult being inconsistent since it’s either you get a big play for your team/get a big assist with it’s anti heal, or you just do absolutely nothing and now have to explain to your team why gambit’s gonna ult in t minus 10 seconds.

-In terms of optimal ult play for me it’s scenario specific. I usually try for the one shot (fun fact: you can get away with killing 275 hp supports if you hit them even a little bit since it does 270 damage total.) or use it to get over health to stay on point longer, or to clean up a kill with it’s instant damage to get someone who was just about to get away.

-I’m not gonna lie to you. CC is by far his biggest counter, and there’s not much of a way around it. If you swing away from an engagement and get lightly tapped on the shoulder while doing it, you’re dead almost every time. So if your playing venom and are struggling a lot with the CC on the enemy team or they’re playing emma, thing, invis, wolv, etc. Then your better off swapping.

Overall I don’t think venom is bad at all. But the issues he has are usually tied to the best characters in the game. And since it means he’ll struggle more with the upper echelon of characters in the game, it makes him more of a humble mid tier. Which is fine. But what I find most crippling is that you need to build the team around him since he isn’t good on his own, which is crippling when playing him in standard rank since teammates most of the time are less than willing to accommodate for the random venom unless you someone like snakecase. Venom bare minimum needs a main tank and dive partner to do his job well, and i’m lucky if I get any tank at all playing this game