taking in advice on sage/demon, based on my playstyle

/Radar/ - Lost City

(first off, this isnt my first character. i have highlvl mains lol)

okay, so i understand i'm only level 21 so far, and that i have a loooooooong way to go. the fact remains tho, that i know my playstyle and am very comfortable in it. with that in mind, i'm looking to obtain advice on the pros/cons of how sage/demon will amplify my style! i have no interest in "choosing so as to balance my character", i want to push deep into the far reach of one side, despite the fact it will severely cripple the opposite side

okay, so as for my style of play.

i'm all about causing mayhem and swaths of destruction, hence my pure focus on the axe/hammer tree. if i ever choose to add a second path, it will be the polearm path, since it is the only other one with a number of aoe skills (linear tho they may be lol). i want to have my sage/demon skills further increase my ability to cause damage to multiple targets, with the main focus being on dps rather than status effects. i'm kinda lost on whether sage or demon is better for this, as extra critrate is nice (cleave), but extra attack rate allows more hits (cleave), i also don't quite understand the sage/demon effects on dragon (ecatomb is kinda unclear on it). sage fissure far outclasses demon fissure, for obvious reason lol.

i prefer to output damage more than having amazing survivability, i'm somewhat of a kamikaze in this regard. i could care less about being picked off easily, so long as when i hit, i hit HARD. this one has me leaning towards sage, for the increase i get from sage masteries

i'm a chi ****, straight up lol. the more chi i can gain, and the faster i can get it, the better. i LOVE spamming the chi/spark skills, and it was so easy on my mage/veno. i find chi is very hard to aquire on this BM, and as such i'm leaning heavily towards sage for the chi boost skill. for clarification, do the 39+ skills generate more chi (like how blazing scarab brings a whopping 1/3 of the chi bar /drool). also, sage bash is 100% better than demon bash for me, i could care less about the extra 1.5sec stun time when i can save a spark (regardless of the fact that it's a chance)

Roar of the Pride gets its own paragraph. I LOVE THIS SKILL. it is amazing. and i'm 100% for demon, since i primarily use it to escape (thus i rarely use it lol). it's my "get out of jail free" card, when i'm smashing on some poor robe, and a BM/barb show up, roar->leapback->180*turn->tigerleap->willofbodhi->sprint. having roar fail = fail to escape, thus why i see no use for sage version

marrows and bell... simply put, i like the sage versions. i like the stable increase sage bell provides. sage marrows give me insane boosts to pdef/mdef, and since i don't really care about death, the high reduction of the opposite def doesn't really matter to me

fan of flames and drake sweep.. i like sage fan, and demon sweep... not much else to say on this as it's pretty simple (less cooldown = more spammable, chance to gain chi = more spark skill spams)

okay, i think that's good for now. now i ask for advice from the highlvl BMs, especially those who have sage/demon experience. i hope i was clear enough about my goals, if not, feel free to ask me for clarification, i'm all ears and open to all advice that directly relates to my situation b:victory

Seablue - Sanctuary

This is all my opinion and analysis without first hand experience of demon/sage skills. I'm basing my thoughts off my experience of what I think bms need. It may be a bit biased though since I'm demon.

Well let's first assume that you got all sage demon skills.

Demon spark offers more dps than sage due to the speed boost, I think that is agreed on by all, but it's only that much more significant if you're using fist. But tbh nobody's going to tank your spark anyway.

bms don't normal attack when you're pking unless you're fist, but your not. So demon version of cleave is less desirable than sage.

I can't say sage/demon fissure is very good at all. Sage may be good when there's a wiz around, but otherwise it's useless. Normally you'll be taking down magic classes, and what's a little 30% fire decrease and 2000 fire damage from sage dragon going to do to them anyway? I like demon better since the major problem of being a bm is that ppl kite you if you miss your stun, so slow is more practical.

More damage output is demon, due to the spark and the demon dragon. That extra 3 sec from dragon can let you use all 4 of your aoes with 2x damage, don't see how sage can beat that even with mastery. If I remember correctly, the sage version of mastery offers about 4% more damage compared to demon. Of course that 4% can be big or small depending on your refines and the base attack of the weapon. Granted that you can't get demon dragon till lvl99 and very lucky, but there's always a chance.

Chi is actually very easy to get with fists but you're not using it so... The chi skill for sage may suit you better.

I disagree with your marrow and bell choice, if your going kamikaze demon is better. Demon bell and marrow allows you to have massive amounts of both p/mdef for a short period of time, this allows you to survive until you can drop a dragon or stun. The reduction matters alot, I had a wiz hit me for 3k+ with sandstorm noncrit when I have lvl5 magic marrow on. Now I have 57% magic reduction self buffed, if I had turned phy marrow that would have been the end of me. The worst thing is that most class can do both phy and mag attack so you need both high p/mdef to survive attacks. hp only help you so much. You need to get close to do damage, and so you'll suffer damage, you need to survive if your going to do anything.

If you get pole, demon meteor rush = extra stun, we bms all love an extra stun chance. But sage farstrike might suit you better due to the damage. Though again I emphasize the fact that bm's don't like kiters, and that extra 3m might be the difference between a skill hitting or not. No matter how good you are weapon switching takes time, one lag spike and you might not get it in time.

Conclusion:
"to hit hard, do fast damage and die" is what I determine your play style to be. Well in this case I recommend demon, Why?
1. demon bell and mag marrow combo = 60% pdef + 90% mdef for 15sec, for getting close
2. demon dragon = 9 sec 2x damage, for killing ppl
3. demon roar = absolute crowd control, for making ppl stay still

The only draw back I can think of is that you need to find alternative sources of chi. As you might or might not have notice, bms are really chi dependent. We lose all our dangerous skills without chi (roar, bash, dragon mainly) other than that I don't think demon is inferior to sage.

Well I know that you have a higher lvl alt but I still suggest more playing around with your bm before seriously considering demon/sage. Your weapon choices might change and that will affect your answer.

Kniraven - Lost City

I can go both ways on this.
Demon for sure is amazing for extra speed and DPS. The crits are nice too. Most would say Sage is a much more defense based approach.
Think about this though. Technically with Sage, and a chi pot, You have a very slim chance of being able to chain all four of your ultis in a row b:victory

THAT is kick ****.
>.> And I can't wait until i am able to do it.

Nevlik - Heavens Tear

if you have all demon/sage skills demon>sage due to

demon heaven's flame (9 sec duration allows complete ****)
demon spark **** barbs and bms (other classes run of course)
demon marrow+bell
demon roar never misses

sage has chi skill and sage cleave, (chi pots are better than the chi skill, sage cleave will generally give less than 3% crit )

sage masteries are worth nothing more than demon, because 15% of weapon dmg will be less than 500 at a +12 weapon. that doesn't mean demon masteries are better, but sage and demon masteries are essentially the same benefit.

/Radar/ - Lost City

you guys have me leaning more towards demon now... 2x dmg for 9sec... granted i'm going to actually have to start cranking out chi pots to counteract the lesser chi gains demon allows... except for the sweep skill's 30chi boost

so a solid +15% boost to damage (90%sage/75%demon) is less than a +1%crit modifier? that's pure chance that the crit will happen, altho i tend to collect alot of crit gear :S

Telarith - Sanctuary

At higher level if you plan on taking your BM far, you will need to be able to deal lots of damage quickly to overcome charms. And for that, I'm liking demon Heaven's, Marrow for chi, Glacial, with Tangling Mire combo. X2 damage with a 50% chance of X4 for 5 secs, with a -90%+ to phys def seems like a very nice way to accomplish that (If the debuffs stack). And it stays with the axe/pole only combo you are currently leaning towards.

And as people have already mentioned demon Meteor Rush is amazing. I have never liked Aeolian, as it is only a 3s stun with an animation that ruins alot of it. Meteor may have less of a chance, but if you use that as an opener, then you just need to wait for it to actually hit and demons can have a chain of 17 secs with only Meteor being demon; 18.5 with demon Drake's. That is very nice, and also frees up your stuns to place the damage where you want it. Because needing to use a Roar to stun during their charm recharge means you have maybe 8 secs of kill time; not good against high health players.

EDIT: Average extra damage from crit is the same number it gives. So 1% extra crit equal out to 1% extra average damage. It will still be less than 4%, but the sage mastery will keep becoming a smaller number when they raise level limits, or if people have lots of strength boosts on their gear.