Endgame:Demon or Sage?

tbagninja

In today's game whats better for a endgame or nearly endgame bm? Demon or Sage?

I ask because sage has better masteries, better dmg on skills, insane chi gain.

At the moment im demon with almost all skills, thinking about switching to sage full str build with 100 dex for rank8 poles.

Would losing the accuracy,crit %,better CC, DDG be worth the gains in damage and strength?

I don't know many sage bms on game to ask. Forums help me decide

Also wep shards 2 Drakeflame's or mix some ambers in?

tbagninja

Anyone with any opinions at all? b:surrender

sinithsky

Well from i've heard, Sage Bell is better as a buff, but most squads will want a demon BM because of their Heaven's Flame. But in all honesty when it comes to making a toon sage or demon, i suggest researching the skills as you have done and make the decision based on which ones you want more. Don't make your choice because of what others want.

Evryn - Morai

I'd say sage:
- Sage bell has more defense then demon
- Sage marrows have a higher spike on the defenses then demon - the drawback is they will reduce the other defense (phys/mag). Typically, BMs will need to use marrow magical to defend against casters - for this the sage version is better suited.
- Sage BM has several abilities that generate chi fast, and overall their abilities cost less chi, allowing you to spam chi costing abilities more easily.
- Li's Technique can be used to build that starting chi after respawning. Li's plus flashing the marrows twice plus bell and you're back at a spark without needing pots. Handy if you want to Reckless Rush/Roar to get back into stunning stuff rightaway.
- At full chi, a sage BM can throw HF and immediately chain Glacial Spike and then still have chi to spare - this allows for an effective x3 damage multiplier for a short while (sage glacial is one of the most severe phys def reducers in the game). Glacial incidentally will amplify some debuff-type effects that bypass defense levels, which HF doesn't amplify. Most notably Sword Cyclone and (lvl 10) Absorb Soul.

Drawbacks:
- Demon BM has a more reliable stun
- Demon BM HF lasts longer, allowing you to chain a longer combo into it ('tho generally a player will immunize or gtfo once HF'd)


In mass PvP or against classes that do both phys and mag dmg, the sage marrows can become a liability. You can't turn em off. Demon BMs make better APS farmers due to the demon spark giving an APS bonus. Demon BMs are one of the easiest classes to get to 5 APS. But I don't consider an APS toon endgame anymore.

tbagninja

That's what is drawing me to sage. Higher damage, chi management, better marrows.

When my bm is done with +12 ornaments the loss of physical defense on magic marrow wont be that big of deal. As demon I feel I'm ALWAYS low on chi even with the primal skill star smite. Especially in tw after a death and im useless for 5min trying to gain enough chi to get back in the fight again.

Don't care at all for the aps gain I'm 5 aps base with right gears on. I only use it on old ws/tt bosses anyway. Sage spark will give me some defense, I may actually be able to spark in mass pvp/nation war environment without feeling I wasted 3 chi bars.

My main concern is the loss of accuracy thanks to lower dex. Should i shard lvl 12 ambers to compensate or stay with drakeflames?

3 extra seconds of HF wont make a huge difference in todays squads of nuking everything in less than a minute anyhow. Tho the 100% stun chance on roar and extra 1.5sec paralyze will be missed. Still back n forth on this issue b:chuckle

Evryn - Morai

What do you mean, lower dex? Are you planning to go full STR, much like barbs? Personally I'd always go multipath for a BM - get at least a half decent weapon of all sorts, with ofc R9.3 axes as primary. But for farming and general PVE, fists wouldn't be half bad to have... even in some PvP situations it can be handy to have an aps weapon on standby, if only because APSsing is a good way to rapidly refill your chi. That should put your dex at around 200... leaving some 400 to 600 points to divide between vit and str. You can go for a bit more tankiness (remember, R9 armor and cube neck give 5% max hp each, so base HP increases get amplified) or direct damage.

If you plan to go pure axe, full STR, then yea, socket accuracy gems. But that's a very offensive build and imho, not the role the BM will shine in. A BM that wants to be a sin will lack the staying power, the resilience and balance that makes the class good at staying on the front lines for a long time.

eirghan

have you read this? http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1320761

Not saying its the correct answer but one opinion that you may find useful considering this is a BM that has spent time both sage and demon.

tbagninja

Thanks for the link yeah I've read through it but the info is from 2 years ago and alot has changed with primal skills/passives and most ppl i fight with are r9rr+10-12. Yeah I was thinking of going full str , but 100 dex for rank8 defense/purge weps. APS idc all that much about since there are ways of chi gain for demon and sage sides now with primal skills. The skills are much more balanced now and I'm fully vit sharded so no need to put stat points into vit. May go jades one day if they drop in price. I'll still be able to wear all weapons if I get lower grade ones just to use the skills for that paticular path, and fist skills can be done weapon-less.

The top bms in my server are sage and I feel like i barely scratch them even with a +12 wep. I know avatars,meridian,nuema,spirit all play a role but still, it's quite disheartening.

DarkSkiesx - Dreamweaver

tbagninja wrote: »

Thanks for the link yeah I've read through it but the info is from 2 years ago and alot has changed with primal skills/passives and most ppl i fight with are r9rr+10-12. Yeah I was thinking of going full str , but 100 dex for rank8 defense/purge weps. APS idc all that much about since there are ways of chi gain for demon and sage sides now with primal skills. The skills are much more balanced now and I'm fully vit sharded so no need to put stat points into vit. May go jades one day if they drop in price. I'll still be able to wear all weapons if I get lower grade ones just to use the skills for that paticular path, and fist skills can be done weapon-less.

The top bms in my server are sage and I feel like i barely scratch them even with a +12 wep. I know avatars,meridian,nuema,spirit all play a role but still, it's quite disheartening.

Hmm although not an expert if the conclusion was that demon was better before Primals, if we look at what difference primals/passives made;

Passives; demon BM's had better pdef/mdef before with demon bell and magic marrow always up, and passives only make this even better?

Primal skills; Demon BMs that had chi issues or needed CE on genie or to occasionally aps spam to get chi now can just use the primal chi gain skills to negate this so almost on par with sage BMs anyway

Demon Dragon Rising: Paralyses for 7.5 seconds with axes - means you can execute a much tighter cc lock, combined with demons slightly better cc anyway like demon roar never missing etc.

Demon Star smite: Prior to Primals Demon Bm's barely used Atmos strike as it was only a 50% chance to reduce evasion, with the demon primal version it's guaranteed? to reduce evasion by 50% which is really useful on dex classes and as you're likely to spam this skill anyway for the chi gain.

Primal Farstrike: Although the primal version can't proc purge from a wep now due to the added cc, the demon primal version never misses so it can be a useful gap closer for dex based targets 10m+ away.

Hillborn; Sage Primal proc on this is pretty nice, the extra 20% crit is pretty significant for BMs.

BM's I find the hardest to fight are the ones that have a really tight cc lock, spams mo zuns taunt, throwing in DD skills in between CC skills and it's only a matter of time before zerk crits drop you.

So I guess demon still has the edge in mass PvP. 1v1s I think Sage might be slightly better. Just my thoughts as an archer.

I'd also say stick to around 200 dex and max all titles esp the accuracy ones, going full str most BM's I've spoken to say they miss on LA far too often. Most of your spike damage is coming from zerk crits anyway. With extra stats from reawakening you still won't be low on str.

TheDan - Sanctuary

Ok, so here's the deal. My guide is outdated yes, I've been lazy and only log in for PvP if I'm not working out of town nowadays...

First thing I'm going to say is; I'm basing everything off of self buffed stats / purged stats because that's the only time an end game BM should die unless you're just suiciding which is a waste for your team.

Primals haven't really made sage more favorable than demon by any means. In fact it's kind of the other way around. The primals gave both demons and sages gains, but in my opinion, demons got the bigger gain. Demons suffered greatly from chi problems before, and Sages suffered from marrow imbalance before. I think Demons got the better end of the deal because chi maintenance > damage reduction.

Both Demons and Sages can gain 1 spark on demand in less than 5 seconds every 8 seconds in combat. Master Li's is 50 chi in 60 seconds. Sage also gains back some of the lost physical defense from passives when they marrow, this is good when purged, but when full buffed, unnoticeable. Over the course of 60 seconds I can be at max chi without having to use cloud eruption so I really don't think Master Li's technique makes much of a difference over time. Upfront after respawn yes, but after engaged in combat, no. As far as the chance of chi conservation from HF and Bash goes it's nice but not guaranteed and doesn't last as long to allow for support to assist.

Chi gains are almost irrelevant in Mass PvP if your opponents are decent. Veno chi burn + 4-5 players using mo zun taunt leaves me with no chi permanently all TW. It's easy to get a full spark back on demand using star smite + spirit chaser and marrows, so it doesn't change much.

The masteries don't do anything honestly. You're trading a ~4% loss in crit for a ~4% gain in base physical damage. It makes you hit harder on average, but your zerk crits happen less often; which doesn't make any sense to me. It's easier if you linked a PWcalc or something to compare the difference, but you're really not gaining anything going sage TBH, you're just trading for a different playstyle.

The passive defenses. OK this does help sages with their physical defense when they magic marrow, but honestly, when we talk about self buffed numbers, the gains of sage magic marrow in comparison to demon magic marrow end game is really only 1-2k extra magic defense which would be like a 2% reduction. Plus when BMs get debuffed (i.e penetrate armor/tangling mire) sages are still vulnerable to physical damage whereas demon bell proc negates them. This doesn't really play a huge factor in Mass PvP honestly. Not to mention with the passive defenses, this also negates the damage impact sage gets from having higher base physical damage for loss in crit...

To be honest, the bell for BMs is usually better for what is best suited for the squad, not the BM itself since we already have high phys def. The demon bell proc does however make a difference for squishier squad members that are purged and being ganked though. The passive gains in sage bell for squad members really don't make a huge difference when full buffed, it's when they're self buffed or purged is when it matters.

One good example of where demon bash shines over sage in TW is when enemy catapults are reeled into the air then bashed afterwards, they can't be purified out of it, and sometimes the sage bash isn't long enough to disconnect the catapult when they have clerics constantly purifying.

Also picking out priority targets like tanky AA classes that will purify proc itself out of any lock except bash is when demon comes in handy.

Overall evaluation of the post primal skills for demon and sage... I still can't think of anything major Sage can do that Demons can't do other than having better chi conservation, which primals actually catch Demons up to Sage in.

To recap:

1. The chi conservation gap sage had over demon is less noticeable now
2. The increase base damage gap is negated by increased passive defenses everyone has, so therefore crit is more useful than base damage now for zerk crits. (Hillborn might be the only refutable skill because of the crit, but it's not guaranteed)
3. Higher defenses for Magic Marrow; still a trade off because when self buffed, sages are still vulnerable to debuffs (i.e. penetrate armor and tangling mire) whereas demon buff proc negates debuffs

Evryn - Morai

Given the crit chance reduction from Inkdragons Blood and the un-purgable crit damage reduction buff from the Dusk (I think), I kinda wonder if the reliance on zerks makes the demon passives much better then the sage ones. I agree that the demon BM has it easier to sustain a lock in 1 vs 1's, provided you can keep the chi flowing. Sage BMs can build chi just as fast (primal sword Starsmite, Spirit Chaser, Ferocious Leap and flash a marrow - 100 chi) and don't burn it off as quickly, so you can focus more on direct damage dealing and hell, even add in a Heavens Flame in your stun routine periodically for extra pain.

But at the core, in team PvP (which is what a BM is best in) the BM's role is CC stun and debuff (and surviving long enough to do these). Demon has stronger but more costly effects in these roles, sage has cheaper effects that are more easily spammable. Demons are more susceptible to combo breaking skills due to the higher chi cost of their skills.

tbagninja

Thanks everyone! Especially TheDan was kinda hoping you or sabu would post.

Was mainly wondering how the dmg would go up but seems it will still be hitting hoping for zerk crits xD

I'll stay demon and endgame my bm completely. Ty for all the advice