Sage or Demon BM

U pretty much covered why Sage is better then Demon urself Roar never misses as sage cuz of the homesteadversion is 100%
Bell and marrows are better, better dmg on weapon passives

and using a glyph for HF is pointless since the 50 chi u get back is plenty u can demon/sagespark and hf after without any pot aslong as u max chi before the boss and HF in pvp/TW is one and done if u'r not max built +12 josd/serenity (or get really lucky with IG) so chi recovery isn't as important

I glyph more CC skills like

• oceans edge(green=100% to freeze for 1 sec
• Flame tsunami(blue for no hp req)
• River ava(green for shorter cast time cuz **** its slow)
• DragonRising(yellow for more dmg gonna swith to white later on when i get a glyph upto lvl8 sec invi is useless to me atm since swordskills ussualy is for building chi not for dealing dmg)
• Army crush and fury leap(blue for chi build while in combat short cd and fast cast on both make them ideal in combat chi builders while using axes)

Wut?

Don't recommend him to use anything but the Argent Glyph on Dragon Rising please. No Chi cost is vastly superior to any of the other factions by a margin that isnt even conceivable.

There are several glyphs you can use depending on the situation. For PvP you even need to pay closer attention to the glyph bonus as well.

For PvE and 1v1 I highly recommend sporting following glyphs:

Army Crusher - Blue Glyph - Chi - keep the chi up for maximum debuffs and damage, AOE range is mostly useless in PvE and 1v1

Ferocious Leap - Blue glyph - Chi - Chi is life.

Dragon Rising - Argent Glyph - Restores the full chi used aka is free to use...most powerful BM glyph in general.

Flame Tsunami - Blue Glyph - Because having a reliable stun is always the best.

River Avalanche - Red Glyph - Versus most classes or in PvE you can have max chi literally the whole time. If you use BM ulti + this skill with the red glyph on when your chi is full (and it will be vs any class cept for venos (chi drain QQ)) then you will just blast them to hell. Land a zerkcrit on this skill and it's game over. Extremely underrated, extremely powerful. Finisher Skill.

Now it will depend on which glyph bonus you want to use. If no bonus is what you need then use:

Drake's Ray - Blue Glyph - Chi FTW

If you can go with Dragon then use (mainly 1v1, Drake's Ray is better for PvE):

Heaven's Flame - Golden Glyph - 30 chi doesn't sound like much..but it really is. Especially if you plan on combining River with the red glyph with HF. IF you start off with full chi into dragon rising and insta HF and then use Star Smit, Army Crusher and Ferocious Leap into River...boy, that makes even tanky ppl pop if you land a zerkcrit on that


Going for other combinations in 1v1 or PvE is imho not worth it. I rather go with no glyph bonus then, especially in Mass PvP. The built in Mass-PvP is basically the same in terms of Glyphs with the exception of using the green Glyph on River for the decrease in cast time. Can't blow your chi in Mass-PvP like that.

As for cultivation: I love demon and I see no reason why you shouldn't be demon. With all those chi glyphs AND demon Star Smite you can outperform every single Sage BM in terms of Chi gain with the sole exception of when you freshly rez up after dying. Then, I admit, Master Li's and the lower chi cost on Roar might save you. That's it tho, in every other aspect..Demon is superior. And no, Sage Roar of the Pride, even after the HS upgrade, is not 100%, it's 99% at best. Demon marrows are not too extreme, so you can use them in Mass-PvP if you have decent gears and still have both defenses capped out. Aura's extra buff can save your teammates and yourself if used correctly. Demon is just more versatile in any regard, cept when drained completely off chi.

Trust me. Try this built, with the red glyph on River and all the chi glyphs on the other skills, in 1v1 and PvE and I promise you that you will love it. Equal gears, any caster and LA class that you fight, with a full stacked BM Ulti + full chi, will 100% die from River with the red glyph.

shopcheese wrote: »

White glyph on dragon rising is a must-have.

Yap, no questions asked. Absolute No-Brainer.

Flame Tsunami seems like a noob-trap to me. I personally didn't want to waste a glyph slot on a skill with 2 minutes cooldown. In a world of Paralyze and Stun+Disarm just having an extra stun doesn't seem all that exciting to me so instead I put my glyphs on skills I can use more freely and oftenly.

Red Glyphs are super nice for damage (and they are almost guaranteed to hit) but if you play BM you're basically in the casino, and the game decides how much damage you do... High range on weapon... Crits... Zerk... Going Red Glyphs on BM is basically going All-In on a gamble, I wasn't a fan. Even though sometimes you can completely blow people out the water with 70k+ hits, usually its extremely lackluster and barely distinguisable from regular hits.

My go-to Glyph setup is:

Green Drake's Ray / Ray + Leap is my go-to combo for assisting on a target. It's high in damage, it's ranged, and it
Blue Ferocious Leap / instantly gives you a good boost in chi. A ranged combo is a must have to assist.
Yellow Heaven's Flame / I like the refunded chi since it basically guarantees I can use Dragon Rising after my HF.
Green Army Crusher / In mass PvP this either hurts a lot of ppl, or procs a lot of def charms, both is nice.
Green River Avalanche / This was so awkward to use because it took forever, but its a nice skill, and now its fast!
White Dragon Rising / Honestly... it's broken and prolly glitched... but BMs are still kinda scuffed so lets roll with it.

I personally prefer sage, I've listed the reasons many times before. ( https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/pwi/#/discussion/1208229/returning-bm-why-do-people-keep-saying-that-sage-is-the-better-choice-now ) Though I will respond to one of your comments in favor of demon.

reddragon961 wrote: »

So the only good thing I can really see about being demon these days as a BM is the 1 sec cd reduction and 100% accuracy of roar

This 1 second cant be discarded as a ''meh'' bonus. But if you look at the BM CC skills than the only ''good'' ones are Roar and Bash, the other ones are either super high cooldown or just shjtty. If you have 14 seconds cooldown on Roar than you can Roar (6s) -> Bash (7.5s) -> Roar (6s) with only 0.5 seconds downtimes after the bash. With how laggy PWI is that 0.5 basically doesn't exist unless your opponents ping is really low. Sage downtime on this combo is 3 times as long, and this combo basically doesn't work which means their ''window to kill'' is not 20 seconds, but only 14 seconds, which is a considerable difference (you can increase this with crappy CC skills or genie shet but this goes for both cultivations and is flawed in many different ways). If you're a 1v1 boy then you'll have more kill pressure as a demon BM. If you're not a 1v1 boy then guess what, It's not 2008 anymore, stunlocking is not how you play mass PvP. Also, this whole story doesn't go if you got Glyphed Dragon Rising as a demon BM, because you just lost another 0.5 seconds so you lose the combo.

Whirlwind always procs purify.

@slystar But this is exactly the thing...HF/DR have been nice for demons but they are not the main selling point at all anymore.

Literally the only advantage Sage BMs have is that, in case they die in Mass-PvP, they can use Master Li's and thus get instant chi and can use RotP. EVERY, SINGLE other skill BMs have are superior in Demon. Sure, Sage Sutra can save you..chances are low tho and a bit additional crit is also not bad for demons.

Demon RotP is 100% chance to work..which is always better than missing it. Sure the reduced chi cost is nice and esp when the chi is low it can be better..however, when it misses you might end up dying. A risk I don't wanna take. Also, as mentioned before, Demon RotP has a lower Cooldown and thus enables perfect CC-Locks which sages simply cannot do without the use of Occult ice. #FeelsBad

Also, Demon marrows are far superior to the sage ones. Back in the day..when only magic damage could really stress BMs, yeah then sage might've been better. However, due to the lower reduce of the opposite def, especially at endgame, demon BMs are able to easily achieve both capped defs or at least do not suffer from a massive def disadvantage other a specific damage type. Sins, DBs, Barbs are way scarier now than puny caster could ever be.

Demon Aura of the golden Bell is also better in every regard, especially in sticky situations. Sage bell cannot support and keep teammates alive, demon can. For the 15 seconds the demon bell is even WAY stronger than sage. Not only because it increases the def some more, no because it's an additional buff, guarding you against debuffs even more. The extra 15% of sage are negligible.

The mastery itself is also absolutely negligible..the difference isn't even noticeable in the slightest and surely does not dictate the outcome of a battle.

Even the argument that Sage has better chi management is false these days. Since Dragon Rising now doesn't consume any chi anymore...going down that much on chi (except when you die, the only situation sage CAN be better) is nearly impossible.

The advantages of Demon go even further tho: They have Star Smite (best chi skill) and spirit Chaser..2 skills that generate massive amounts of chi, both being even slightly ranged. Not using a sword as a BM is like cutting your left arm off. 10000% needed.

So in conclusion: In 1v1 demon smokes sage so hard...it's not even believable. Equal geared, sage has 0 chances to win vs demon. Superior Chi gain, superior CC and thus the Sage BM gets destroyed by the Red Glyph'ed River Avalanche much sooner. Heck, the demon could even spam virulent poison all the way through the CC lock to completely **** the Sage over and still spam his chi skills like nobody's business.

In Mass-PvP I also much rather have a decent Demon BM at my side that knows how to keep his chi up, CC decently and rebuffs when it's needed for the whole squad to survive. I myself made the argument that Sage's only advantage is that they can gain 50 chi instantly after rezzing up. Master Li's isn't that fast tho..and when there are enemies surrounding you..chances are you might die instantly anyways and if there are enemies..you are better off just using star smite, leap, Spirit Chaser and then RotP as a Demon BM. Faster, more efficient. But that's just me I guess. Situational, yes, but that goes for both cultis.

I just don't see a reason to be sage. There is none.

Joe you are a potato.

I have a simple glyph set up on my Bm and I have lv.5 glyphs atm. I am also a demon bm and I still say I like the marrows more since they are less destructive of your def for mag or pdef marrows since they don't lower them as much depending which one you have up. Demon bell for that extra temporary boost is also very nice for tanking damage as well along with the crit boost from sutra for that extra 10% which is nice to get that crit you need. This is my set up I have and it works very nicely making very strong chi gain and i'm still very tanky against hits with my demon marrows + bell. With this glyph set up chi usage is not an issue to have for the cc lock to work and nail a kill since with these glyphs you are only spending a total of 120 chi instead of 3 sparks like before neverfall for dragon rising + Heavens flame and you're gaining back 50 chi from two skills (ferocious leap + army crusher) which are both highly spammable. I'd still say demon is a bit stronger for consistency and yeah it's passives aren't as strong but the trade off is less extreme defense loss for marrows depending which one you're using and that 15% extra def from bell makes you very tanky as well just like sage bm and also higher crit rates from demon passives + sutra boost. Also the demon chi skills for the upgraded primal sword skills are very strong making chi gain super easy to have along with the glyph skills you don't really need much else if you spam the set up I have for glyphs you can have as much chi as you want/need without ever really running out a way to cc lock someone. Overall demon does just as well as sage for slightly better chi management before neverfall which was the only reason to be sage or if you wanting slightly higher base damage and marrows for def, but honestly that's not much to say it's better when demon has crit boosting passives and a crit boosting heal (sutra) and like i've mentioned before the marrows which as less extreme losses in defense. That's my reasoning for picking and staying a demon bm over being sage.

Glyph Set Up:

Ferocious Leap = Blue glyph for 30 chi each use
Heaven's Flame = Golden Glyph for getting 80 chi back
Dragon Rising = White Glyph for chi less Paralyze
Drake Ray = Green Glyph for range amplify on my next ferocious leap and ocean edge skills
River Avalanche = Green Glyph for that fast casting over the damage making it more consistent
Army Crusher = Blue Glyph 20 chi for each use