Revisiting Sage Archer Skills

Elviron - Dreamweaver

Ok we all know that the Demon skills are superior to their sage counterparts when it comes to increasing atk rate and crit and hence the dps.

However with the introduction of the two new classes, would the sage skills have an increased application against them?

Assassins being able to teleport from a far distance to melee range wouldnt really help ranged dps forcing archers to use skills instead of just normals.

So which would be more effective against an assassin? Sage or Demon skills.

Currently I am having an opinion that a sage archer would be a better assassin killer as compared to a demon archer for the following reasons:-
1.) Long stun (not much but that extra 1 second is good)
2.) Aim low's 25% sealing chance could help more
3.) Winged Pledge cooldown is just 1 second giving faster access
4.) Deadly Shot dealing 100% damage at close range
5.) Barrage giving moe damage reduction
6.) Winged shell giving more damage absorption so giving a little more time when an assassin is hitting you
7.) Faster Thunderous Blast
8.) Metal Reduction lasts longer
9.) Frost Arrow's water damage conversion
10.) Mana burn from poison arrow? Does the mana burn reduce in pvp or is it at 100? If its an 100 then the opponent would have 500 mana less.

So that do the pros think about this?

Also please refrain from stating why demon is superior as the main purpose of this thread is to gauge the effect of sage/demon skills against a class that can cover the distance in an instant and can go invisible.

Moranine - Lost City

1) An extra second for stun is worthless.
2) Aim Low's 25% chance to seal is also worthless. 8 Second Frost Nova is plently of a disable. Archers have long range so most people won't even have enough range to hit you with skills.
3) 2 Seconds is already enough of a cooldown.
4) Deadly Shot for both Demon and Sage are worthless imo. Take Aim is better.
5) I will admit this is good but not enough of a reason to go Sage. Just use a PK pot before throwing this bad baby up.
6) 1250 damage isn't much of a reduction. 1 hit from most classes will take this shell off easily (unless they are a lower lvl then you)
7) .5 Seconds isn't a lot of a cast time difference. Neither is the Cooldown.
8) Yea it lasts longer, but if you can't kill a Heavy class before i wears off its no use.
9) You already have Elemental Nukes. 4 of them, no need for a 5th.
10) If you leveled this skill beyond lvl 1 Uninstall right now.

Olba - Sanctuary

Moranine - Lost City wrote: »

10) If you leveled this skill beyond lvl 1 Uninstall right now.

Asterelle has all skills lvl 11.

Quilue - Sanctuary

Regarding barrage...recall this:

This skill is much better than heaven because the only time you will be using it is in tw. When you open zhen you have bunch of blue **** which eerily look like arrows pointing at you saying: "STUN THIS FGT" You need to deal damage fast. Most people stun the zhenner so the 33% damage reduction can pz. Only time heaven is better is if you are facing bloodlust and they are continuously spamming their paralyze skills on your open zhen. DONT WORRY BLOODLUST ILL BE SURE NOT TO RUN WITH MY ZHEN OPEN.

anyways, in the context of fighting assassins only, i don't think Barrage is a factor anyway.

Illyana - Dreamweaver

Moranine - Lost City wrote: »

1) An extra second for stun is worthless.
2) Aim Low's 25% chance to seal is also worthless. 8 Second Frost Nova is plently of a disable. Archers have long range so most people won't even have enough range to hit you with skills.
3) 2 Seconds is already enough of a cooldown.
4) Deadly Shot for both Demon and Sage are worthless imo. Take Aim is better.
5) I will admit this is good but not enough of a reason to go Sage. Just use a PK pot before throwing this bad baby up.
6) 1250 damage isn't much of a reduction. 1 hit from most classes will take this shell off easily (unless they are a lower lvl then you)
7) .5 Seconds isn't a lot of a cast time difference. Neither is the Cooldown.
8) Yea it lasts longer, but if you can't kill a Heavy class before i wears off its no use.
9) You already have Elemental Nukes. 4 of them, no need for a 5th.
10) If you leveled this skill beyond lvl 1 Uninstall right now.

1) An extra second of stun is far from worthless. True story b:thanks Even if I were to make a hybrid between increased stun duration and increased crit for 10 seconds, I'd go with stun duration. It has helped me drop loads of demon archers.
2) The seal is worthwhile, as it works when the 90% chance of aimlow doesn't. Worthless in a battle against an assasin.
3) Metal attacks for close range is an archer's bread and butter, especially for close range. Very useful.
4) Sage deadly shot is very, very effective at classes that crowd archers. Did you read the skill description?
5) The dmg reduction from a barrage is nice, but the apoc a smart archer throws up before this is antistun/movement/seal debuff, making this very very useful.
6) As a comparison to demon, this is a better skill but it boils down to timing. Since the skill is cast very quickly when a sin approaches, I'd take the increased dmg reduction over increased time duration.
7) See point 3. You're attacking at fast speeds close range. Take a look at full dmg close range spells of a sage archer (cast, cooldown, channel) and you'll see how well a 1 second cooldown fits in.
8) With 25 seconds debuff you should have no issue taking down BMs and 50% of the barbs your level.
9) You've a good point here. It would be silly to cast frost arrow on sin at close range because of the 50% dmg penalty incurred.
10) I have level 11 sage version and it is only really good at pissing off BMs in duels, nothing more.

Case in point, a sage archer will fair better than a demon archer at close range.

Quilue - Sanctuary

but you cast thunder shock at your target when it's cooled down anyway because it's one of your metal nukes. im not convinced 10 more seconds of debuff is going to somehow make it easier to drop heavies when the cooldown on thunder shock is 6s.

4) Sage deadly shot is very, very effective at classes that crowd archers. Did you read the skill description?

what? have you used this? seen this being used? what do you think about doing when a wiz distance shrinks into your minimum range? i think it's too slow to be any good, especially against sins

and i don't think you even need to be using Thunderous at melee range against a sin. it's cast is so slow and doesn't do much more damage compared to your other metal spells.

since sins are light armor it might just be better to use wing spells in place of thunderous while your other two metal spells cooldown

with regards to your melee spell cycle...any archer can pretty much cycle pledge, span, strike and pledge would be ready again. if its still not dead by then i'd just kite away or something cuz i wouldn't want to be so near to a melee for so long. i don't think a Sage would fare much better with the reduced cooldown just because there are other spells you use in your melee cycle.

Illyana - Dreamweaver

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

but you cast thunder shock at your target when it's cooled down anyway because it's one of your metal nukes. im not convinced 10 more seconds of debuff is going to somehow make it easier to drop heavies when the cooldown on thunder shock is 6s.



what? have you used this? seen this being used? what do you think about doing when a wiz distance shrinks into your minimum range? i think it's too slow to be any good, especially against sins

You bring up a good point-- the metal nukes are very good. It would depend on the distance between myself and the target. I think I'd only recast the the thunder shock under two conditions: 1) the skill wore off after 25 seconds or 2) I ran out of other metal skills AND the target was at close range. For the second condition its generally smarter to use sage frost arrow while it has maximum effectiveness. This is important when it comes to longer fights because the metal debuff itself does not refresh.

I'm not 99 yet so I don't have sage deadly shot. I did not even level it until very recently as generally speaking archers always have the distance initiative. I have seen Deadly Shot work against distance shrinking wizards very effectively. The long cast time is an issue, but for spike damage it really is top notch.

StormHydra - Sanctuary

...Demon Wingspan? Casts a level 6 winged shell on you upon every succesful hit. Even though itll probably wear off in a single hit, you can cast demon/normal winged shell AGAIN.

Legerity - Sanctuary

StormHydra - Sanctuary wrote: »

...Demon Wingspan? Casts a level 6 winged shell on you upon every succesful hit. Even though itll probably wear off in a single hit, you can cast demon/normal winged shell AGAIN.

This. Also it has a 6s cooldown so that gives you enough breathing space for charm ticks, pots etc.

Though I agree a sage Archer caters (on the offensive side) for melee opponents better than a demon Archer. Personally, I would still prefer a demon Archer just because of wingspan in the case of "the sin is in my face".

Brigid - Harshlands

One other thing nobody's brought up yet: Demon Lightning Strike never misses. Considering Assassins are like Archers in that they have high Dex and therefore evasion, it could be rather useful.

Chezedude - Dreamweaver

sage deadlyshot is just about worthless. wingspan hits for a tiny bit less damage without the 3 second channeling. Even though I thought sage deadlyshot would be useful for it's full damage in melee range, after I got it, I found it completely useless.

here is what I do when people get in my face: *pulls out lunar claws*

Devoted - Lost City

*remembers 140+ str req for lunar claws*

*slowly backs out of thread*

KedgeSniper - Lost City

Reason Why Demon Better:

1 Aim Low dont Seal but STUN. I dont want my aimlow effect to miss n have an assasin runing into my face.

2 Assasins wear "Light Armor". Why we focusing in metal atacks if ya can still dps from far using quickshots n stun n dps before they can move. Once he on yar face sure.. go use metals or winspan/pledge.

3 Wingspan is a constant SHIELD. which is probably one of the best skills for non heavy in close range. Making them do a little bit less damage while u still do huge while your charm cooling off or you got stun etc.

4 Thundershock has a change to SEAL. This is a 10% but hey.. we start game wit 10% cri n we see it work. I had many times seen the seal proced n do amazing for me. The increase on debuff wont matter if yar skills are on cooldown.

5 Lighting strike Never miss.. probably my last shot skill most of the time unless i have to use "quick take aim". This never miss is amazing n most assasin will be full dex. that means.. u be missin just like u miss archers.

6 Barrage has INTERVAL. why u have to worry of enemy atacking ya if ya killing them enough quick.

7 Wings of protection. More evasion.. even thoug evasion is a joke. Sum times U know ya lucky when that little STUN, Perdition, sharptooth.. "Missed"

8 Sharp n Stun give you a gud enough CRI ratio. Which MOST of the TIME. Cri over the charm is wat makes archers be gud... we most likely DONT 1 SHOT people..(No talking of +1 or non shard people) but we spike damage with cri that can over pass charms. N mostly CRI has a BIG importance on Archer succes on 1v1.

9 If ya Aimlow/Stun assasin from far.. go ahead n throw HELL Quickshots.
It wont be to different from a regular archer.(We start in distance adv. first 2 post said)

10 Chi Issues.. Carry Sum chi pots, Punch an npc, carry someone, punch someone, spam winged blessing.. tons of ways to gather chi.


Take AIM > Deadly Shot.

Take aim gives you the advantage of quickest shot in game.. fast chaneling gud increase of atack.

Take aim stronger as your refines.. the % damage is from how much you refine.

Deadly shot is base additional damage.. Damage is just added.

Deadly shot > Take Aim Lunar +1 Take Aim > Deadly Shot Lunar +7

Transcend - Lost City

Why is there a thread about fighting a melee at short range? You will die 90% of the time trying to tank a melee.

Figure out how long assassin stuns last (I honestly don't know) or what their massive damage skill is, and time your absolute domain/wings of grace/elven alacrity/vacuity powder/misc antistun/massive def pot to counter, speed pot/holy path away, and proceed to kill.

Doesn't matter if you're Sage or Demon, it's not as complex as you guys are making it to be.

Elviron - Dreamweaver

Here are some of the assassin's speed and movement skills:-

Winpush - Increases speed by 100% and lasts for 10 seconds, cooldown 60 secs
Shadowjump - Instantly move to target's location, range 30m, chi 20, cooldown 15 seconds
Maze Steps - Increases movement speed by 82% at lvl1 (at lvl10 i guess it would be 100%), Immune to stun and immobilize, lasts 10 secs, 1 spark, cooldown 90 secs
Shadow Teleport - Instantly move to target's location and stun target for 3 secs, 1 spark, cooldown 180 secs
Tidal Protection - 50% chance to avoid negative status effects
Focused Mind - 25% chane to evade enemy skills

Perhaps this can help the discussion