Is my demon vit barb screwed with the latest updates?

CaitlinDan - Heavens Tear

Haven't been playing for two years, that I admit, but when I came back I found out that sage had gotten quite a lot of skill revamps that I felt that my demon barb might be losing out.

I went demon because in kitty mode, I wanted not to have a damage nerf in tiger which was offered with OTiger Form. Then the latest updates allowed sage to have 100% damage output in tiger form too.....

Just that skill update was painful enough because I took a long time to decide before choosing demon (seeing as how I really want to be a tanking kitty, not APS).

Soo I don't know. I know there's the culti conversion thing but that's at freaking 100. Any opinions?

HrunsPanda - Archosaur

Both the damage reason you chose demon and the new changes are just details in the whole sage vs demon balance imo. Rather insignificant. For me demon vs sage is most importantly:

Demon:
-APS option
-onslaught for good crit change on subsequent armageddon
-100% crit sunder

Sage:
-Very significantly lower chi cost for ream(-25%) and devour.(-50%)

The attack, hitpoint and defence differences arent so big they get me worried.

Beleni - Dreamweaver

HrunsPanda - Archosaur wrote: »

Demon:
-APS option
-onslaught for good crit change on subsequent armageddon
-100% crit sunder

Regarding the 100% crit rate from sunder.
it is a 95% crit rate, since game caps out at this.
Sure not a biggie, but you can notice it in PV when you pull the instance. always a handful of mobs left that i didn't crit on

Baalbak - Dreamweaver

I still enjoy my demon vit barb - didn't realize sages received full dmg in true form now though. This is the first I've heard of that. That isn't really enough to make me change my mind on the whole demon/sage path though. I'm nearly full demon now any rate. I love to chain demon sunder and armageddon in my aoe pulls for a critical arma hit. (as opposed to bestial -> arma)

sage mighty true form now gets 20 chi per cast
demon mighty true form now gets a few (is it 5 seconds?) of reduced chance of being hit by critical damage at each cast. Works nice for PvP form swapping attack combos.

IBaMBii - Heavens Tear

I am demon for the damage. The demon spark over the sage spark, I'd rather get 300% extra damage over 25% damage reduction cause lets be real, being a DD barb over a cats barb is fun

HrunsPanda - Archosaur

Baalbak - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I still enjoy my demon vit barb - didn't realize sages received full dmg in true form now though. This is the first I've heard of that. That isn't really enough to make me change my mind on the whole demon/sage path though. I'm nearly full demon now any rate. I love to chain demon sunder and armageddon in my aoe pulls for a critical arma hit. (as opposed to bestial -> arma)

sage mighty true form now gets 20 chi per cast
demon mighty true form now gets a few (is it 5 seconds?) of reduced chance of being hit by critical damage at each cast. Works nice for PvP form swapping attack combos.

I also hoped to have armageddons with sunder crit when i decided to go demon. I dont have the demon skills yet to test myself but i have been told that it is impossible. The fact that the one who told me is by most considered to be the best PvP barb on my server and he explained me that he even tried it with some fast cast equipment, i kind of believe him.

He is however also from europe like me and thus will have that ~400ms transatlantic lag. So could it maybe be possible without that lag?

Lolgasmic - Raging Tide

The only thing that annoys me about demon barbs is when they overwrite my sage buffs.

Also I prefer sage barb buffs on my archer (which is demon by chance) b:bye

Aps barbs are just pitiful, role a DD class if you want aps so badly

Magnanimous_ - Heavens Tear

HrunsPanda - Archosaur wrote: »

I also hoped to have armageddons with sunder crit when i decided to go demon. I dont have the demon skills yet to test myself but i have been told that it is impossible. The fact that the one who told me is by most considered to be the best PvP barb on my server and he explained me that he even tried it with some fast cast equipment, i kind of believe him.

He is however also from europe like me and thus will have that ~400ms transatlantic lag. So could it maybe be possible without that lag?

Demon sunder-arma is the bread & butter combo to deal massive aoe damage in any instance. You should be able to clean up PV pulls with just that combo and a low-refined nirvana stage 3 axe (to be used along with mire to glitch your accuracy to 100% so that there is no remnant mobs). It works just fine as long as you have bestial rage up and have mobs attacking you. Trans-pacific latency doesn't seem to affect me.

Magnanimous_ - Heavens Tear

IBaMBii - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I am demon for the damage. The demon spark over the sage spark, I'd rather get 300% extra damage over 25% damage reduction cause lets be real, being a DD barb over a cats barb is fun

Sage Spark (Celestial Eruption):

Detonates all three Sparks to recover 20% of your maximum HP.
Grants bonus damage equal to 500% of weapon damage and
reduces all damage taken by 25% for 15 seconds.
You also become immune to all damage for 3 seconds.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

I'm not sure if PWI will ever fix the glitch that sage now get full damage for no reason. It seems they did the same programming for demon and sage adv trueform, rather than make each one unique, how they're supposed to be. Didn't write the damage nerf into the code and, well, pwi is horrible about programming and fixing glitches. So it'll probably always be there.

Magnanimous_ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Sage Spark (Celestial Eruption):

They're both 500% extra damage. Not sure what Bambi was saying. Could have meant the old mistranslation that Demon Bloodbath "increases crit rate by 300%" or they could have meant that aps barbs do roughly 3-5x more damage (so 300-500%). So compare an r9t3 barb with a G16 claw barb and it'll be closer to 350%. If we're comparing something like a 1.11 aps sage axe barb to a 1.25 aps demon barb after the 25% demon boost that's only about 12.6% damage difference + whatever they gain from the extra chi.

Demon still has a few additional advanatages not already meantioned like our Arma is stronger, our FR is more spammable, and our Devour doesn't need to be spammed as often and fits nicely with a demon spark.

HrunsPanda - Archosaur

Magnanimous_ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Demon sunder-arma is the bread & butter combo to deal massive aoe damage in any instance. You should be able to clean up PV pulls with just that combo and a low-refined nirvana stage 3 axe (to be used along with mire to glitch your accuracy to 100% so that there is no remnant mobs). It works just fine as long as you have bestial rage up and have mobs attacking you. Trans-pacific latency doesn't seem to affect me.

of course they are because they are both great skills, but are you sure your armageddon crits because of the sunder ?
Chi is not an issue, the issue is that it takes a 2.5s to cast sunder and 2.2 seconds to cast armageddon for a total of 4.7 seconds leaving 0.3 second to swich form and weapon. Asuming the effect starts when casting sunder starts. But i am not sure when the effect starts.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

I believe the crit effect starts post channeling but during casting. This is why Sunder itself is also always a crit (well, 95% of the time). This was another reason cancel casting legitimately worked but I won't go into that rant. Anyways, getting the arma in the 100% crit time isn't too hard.

Haila - Sanctuary

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

I'm not sure if PWI will ever fix the glitch that sage now get full damage for no reason. It seems they did the same programming for demon and sage adv trueform, rather than make each one unique, how they're supposed to be. Didn't write the damage nerf into the code and, well, pwi is horrible about programming and fixing glitches. So it'll probably always be there.

Aren't sage barbs with new forms running faster now or is it a wrong description....

Edit: just checked they run faster.....

donte2012

sage new form

HP + 40 % in tiger form
Speed + 90% in tiger form
Gain 20 chi per use, switching to human or tiger for gain 20 chi (2 seconds / 20 chi)
No explain about damage reduction in new form, if it glitchs pwch should have fixed this for long but not, so it was intended. use encyclopedia option in game and type key word on it will see how it explains. (see the one is True Form Mighty not normal one)

Magnanimous_ - Heavens Tear

HrunsPanda - Archosaur wrote: »

of course they are because they are both great skills, but are you sure your armageddon crits because of the sunder ?
Chi is not an issue, the issue is that it takes a 2.5s to cast sunder and 2.2 seconds to cast armageddon for a total of 4.7 seconds leaving 0.3 second to swich form and weapon. Asuming the effect starts when casting sunder starts. But i am not sure when the effect starts.

Like saku said, crit buff appears post-channeling of sunder (during casting). And why switch weapon? just equip your best axe to maximise the damage from both crit-sunder and crit-arma. 100% sure that even my grandpa can pull off that combo. Only 3 buttons to press b:surrender

Haila - Sanctuary

Magnanimous_ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Like saku said, crit buff appears post-channeling of sunder (during casting). And why switch weapon? just equip your best axe to maximise the damage from both crit-sunder and crit-arma. 100% sure that even my grandpa can pull off that combo. Only 3 buttons to press b:surrender

Nah its not 100%, we ppl from europe has worse ping, its like 50% chance for me.
Maybe its 100% now with server upgrades

CaitlinDan - Heavens Tear

Oh so my opinions.

But what about the increase in HP that sage barbs get? Won't that help them be more effective in terms of using skills like sunder and arma? More HP, more damage then? No?

Apologies if I get some concepts wrong, been a while since I touched my barb. (referencing from ecatomb).

Walpurga - Dreamweaver

Sage barb HP bonus comes from sage true form, and arma can only be cast standing up

overcomem

Demon arma damage better than sage one. arma use HP/MP in human form, demon and sage got same HP in human form so demon win as damage dealing(more10%damage) but sage just more safe about use less HP and MP. sage has more HP in tiger form 10% than demon (+ HP 30% in tiger)
Demon sunder cri do more damage than sage one bz it always cri. if u ask about 2 of these skills demon still win

if u go to demon bz of damage u come to the right way and flexible to be a tank also.
for sage with new form with 20 chi per use it help a lot with survivality and get 3 sparks anyday. ( plus master Li chi skill 50 chi)

about damage sage compare to demon. on general sage have more damage on par compare to demon but that doesn't matter the unique of demon barb is cri skills as u see in ecatomb and cri it's important for u in pvp/pve if u want to take someone down or good taking agro

in pvp/pve for demon my experience always do Demon Bestial onsluaght to boost your cri up 35% cri for 6 seconds and chain to another skill if i want to kill someone. or Demon BO + arma 1 shot ppls. that means u always have to go in human form to boost your cri up with Demon BO.

in pvp/pve for sage my experience with new form update it's great to be a better cata and puller what about killing ppl in pvp. it depends on your gears if u pay to win or farm to win at end game gears. sage can be good as killing ppl too. in my server many sage R9rr pk out there and they did good too but demon did better (if u worry about cri for sage then go at end game gears sage can reach cri 35% base with gears as i know form faction mate's gear it's good enough cri to proc but demon still better bz of skill)

on personal prefer which i like the most sage or demon? it's hard choice for me. before new panda update i love my demon barb bz of cri but now after update i love my sage more becuase of chi skill (switching form) and against many ppl in TW/NW. survivality it's really important first for me. u will against many ppl with end game gears in pvp event or group pk. It doens't matter of demon or sage it's hard time to kill range class end game gears now a day (archer seeker caster R9rr) but u can have a team or back up to help.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

Haila - Sanctuary wrote: »

Aren't sage barbs with new forms running faster now or is it a wrong description....

Edit: just checked they run faster.....

Pretty sure that was always the case. That was one of the lesser publicized (everyone focuses on hp) benefits of going sage even in the old days. It's nice for out pacing mobs and even slowed you can normally create enough distance on your pulls not to get hit. Its also an annoying advantage in NW that even with the slow effect of flag carrying i can barely catch sage barbs using my genie and my sprint and alot of times they'll run into stun range and out of stun range before I can channel it so BMs are sort of forced to use Drake's Bash (1 spark) to stun them.

donte2012 wrote: »

No explain about damage reduction in new form, if it glitchs pwch should have fixed this for long but not, so it was intended. use encyclopedia option in game and type key word on it will see how it explains. (see the one is True Form Mighty not normal one)

Sage trueform intentional had damage reduction and instead got 10% more hp. Demon trueform didn't get an hp increase but had the -50% weapon damage reduction removed. When they added the new advanced trueform sage got 20 chi per transformation and demon received -5% crit to enemy skills. As a side effect of probably cheap pwi copy-paste programming the damage reduction of lvl 1-10 and sage trueform was removed and they got the same version of demon lvl 11, plus their own lvl 11, plus advanced trueform.

CaitlinDan - Heavens Tear

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

As a side effect of probably cheap pwi copy-paste programming the damage reduction of lvl 1-10 and sage trueform was removed and they got the same version of demon lvl 11, plus their own lvl 11, plus advanced trueform.

THIS.

I think this was a major concern for me. Thank you Sakubatou for pointing this out.

With this in effect, doesn't that mean all sage kitties running around are giving out higher damage output with the same gear and refines?