Best Path for PvE Veno (Sage/Demon)

Kittennice - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Without the use of foxform then I would say Demon perhaps.

i love your sig lol

i love what it says actually, did you come up with it?

If you want pvp, go demon. You will need the extra crit to overcome charms, the demon ironwood will make most battles with heavies a breeze when you lower their p.def to 0 and the 30% wood weakness on target can be devastating, especially on classes that have low m.def to begin with.

The demon nova is also quite amazing, if you have good channel gear and your target is stunned by your nix, you can pull it off doing huge damage, stunning them further and making them recieve 30% more damage from your already OP nix.

Sage is generally for pve and foxform tanking, but it all depends on your playstyle.

Akasera - Sanctuary wrote: »

I have never understood this line of thinking, to be honest. The crit bonus actually is more meaningful to a robe that has no statted dex, where it can mean a 100% increase in crit rate. For an LA build that already has 10% or more crit, the actual impact of 2% crit is less given diminishing returns.

I believe the reasoning comes from PvP, where getting two crits within 10 sec (before the charm ticks) is much much more than twice as valuable as getting one crit.

Byno - Sanctuary wrote: »

-Sage Wood Mastery gives 5% more damage than demon, but demon Venomous Scarab gives a 6 second debuff to increase wood damage by 30%. Tossing this out garentees the next attack or two will do 30% more, which for me makes up for sage's bonus. The debuff also allows any other venos to do more damage as well.

30% reduction to defense is not 30% increase in damage. While it depends on level and initial defense score, the 30% pdef reduction from the genie skill tangling mire only resulted in about a 20% increase in damage when i tested it against mobs.

-Sage amp boosts the damage from 20% to 50%, while demon increases the debuff's duration to 26 seconds. 50% damage is nice, but if it goes it's entire duration, demon gives more damage overall. Since this doesn't make much sense, I'll give you an example: If a party does an average of 5000 damage per second, sage would give a bonus 2500 damage per second, while demon gives 1000. This means that, under sage, the party would be doing 7500 per second, while demon does 6000. However, while at the end of 20 seconds sage has dealt 150,000 damage, at the end of 26 seconds demon has given 156,000. Obviously, two sage venos keeping a boss amped would do more damage, but when a veno is solo amping, such as when they're soloing a TT run, demon amp has the better outcome.

No. First, if ecatomb is right, sage is only 30%, not 50%. Second, you compared 20 seconds of the sage party's damage to 26 seconds of the demon party's damage. You have to compare for the same amount of time, including all the time that the mob is not amped.

Sage amp for 20 of 31.5 sec (don't forget casting time) would do (20*1.3 + 11.5) / 31.5 = 1.19
= 19% more damage overall.

Demon amp for 26 of 31.5 sec would do (26*1.2 + 5.5) / 31.5 = 1.165
= 16.5% more damage overall.

Sage's Soul Degeneration reduces maximum HP by 20%, while demon's cuts down the target's evasion. For bosses, especially when soloing a TT, that 20% HP reduction means cutting the boss time down by 1/5.

There's a genie skill (admittedly high-end) which will reduce max hp by 10% at level 99. So the advantage of sage soul degen isn't quite as big. And the genie skill is a lot easier to get access to, though it only starts at 6.5% at level 70. (Yes I know it's listed as a level 60 skill, but your genie needs to be level 70 to have enough attribute points to get the skill.)

-Sage's Summer Sprint acts as an instant self purify, which is very useful for grinding any mobs that have any sort of debuff to throw at you. Demon's immunity to movement buffs is more useful for a pvp setting.

From what I understand, the immunity to movement debuffs only works for 6 seconds against new debuffs. Any debuffs already on you stay on you. The sage version sounds like it would remove any movement debuffs on you, making it a reactive skill rather than one where you have to predict when someone is going to cast a debuff on you.

One of the biggest 'perference' skills is Fox Form. In pve terms, demon's speed increase helps with luring bosses and getting through dungeons quickly, as well as getting close enough to bosses you need to amp and then getting out of the way in between aoes.

This advantage is somewhat diminished with the genie skills which buff your movement speed.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

There's a genie skill (admittedly high-end) which will reduce max hp by 10% at level 99. So the advantage of sage soul degen isn't quite as big. And the genie skill is a lot easier to get access to, though it only starts at 6.5% at level 70. (Yes I know it's listed as a level 60 skill, but your genie needs to be level 70 to have enough attribute points to get the skill.)

There are a lot of skills that have some sort of genie counterpart that could act as a substitute if you choose the opposing culti, and so I more or less ignored them.

Dioica - Sanctuary wrote: »

I think, in PvE, reduced evasion can help your tank hold aggro.

And, in PvP, I think reduced evasion can help deal with archers and dexterity-based blademasters.

Yes, it can mean your tank will hit more, but Soul Degeneration is a curse, and can't be used at the same time as Amplified Damage, and I personally wouldn't sacrifice amp for it.

As for pvp, the evasion would really only be useful for your pet, not you. It's not a bad thing to get close to an archer to cut down their damage, but getting near a bm can get you stunlocked and get you killed. Of course, once again, I'd rather amp them if I was going to bother.

Akasera - Sanctuary wrote: »

Actually, I'm talking PvP too. My point is, as LA, relative increase in crit rate with demon wood mastery is far less than that of a robe. Give that, with a few crit adds on equip, I can already crit once every eight casts, I find the increased spike potential with the 5% damage (and 200% extra on sage spark) add more attractive than critting once every seven casts. On the flipside, a robe with say a 5% crit rate would crit every 20 casts; demon boosts this to once every 14 casts roughly, a 6 cast difference in odds.

Except in the case of TW or PvP, where it is often the lucky shots that make the real difference, or against bosses, where high crit rate means higher damage over time. A 15% crit rate* is nothing to laugh at. The goal with this one is not for higher damage while grinding, where a crit every now and then only means one less spell, but instead the instances where that 1 out of every 8 casts dealing more damage either does the finishing hit on a player, or over time adds up. This works for the same reason that archers tend to do better damage than BMs, and Wizards. The more often you crit, the more damage you're doing. Although the odds increase more for the arcane build, it isn't nearly as often as it is for the LA build. My veno, with 9% often ends up getting 2-4 crits in a row already. Something like that, more consistently, just has more impact than some extra damage over time.

Akasera - Sanctuary wrote: »

Beat me to it; this is something too many people confuse. I'd still rather have this add than my 20% chance of chi gain for sage, but it doesn't mean 30% increase in damage.

No, but it is a damage increase which is applied from the main spell you use when casting, which works with your only real type of damage. As this helps alot with those pesky wood mobs/bosses, is much more useful in the long run than extra chi. Unless you're sparking constantly, you tend to either sit with 2-3 sparks already built up anyway, and often end up burning one when using soul transfusion when you need more mana. As sage barbs get a skill which invalidates their dependency on veno sparks, most of your chi just ends up sitting there, or being burned in a slightly more powerful attack. Again, means more for an arcane or heavy build (since your base damage is higher) than it means for a LA build (which tends to be weaker on base damage).

Akasera - Sanctuary wrote: »

It's still a redundant skill when you could otherwise have something new and useful on your pet. Instead of tossing pierce on a pet when I could have been able to def debuff myself, I'd rather be able to howl for mdef debuff, threaten for attack debuff, pounce for stun, shriek to interrupt, or bleed/bash for extra damage. Besides, if you're using a legendary pet, which to be honest most 9x venos have at least one of, you have no place for pierce. And anyway, if you don't upgrade, you lose the over 1.4k added damage on sage/demon ironwood from lv10, which kinda defeats the point of going demon if you aren't upgrading one of your primary skills.

Really personal preference here. I always see my pets as an extension of my skills, not as just another source of damage. Likewise, I tend to carry more than just a tank and air pet, with all my pets being designed for a specific role. Herc might be great for tanking, but is a bit lackluster when you have a barb in group, fighting a boss that the herc can't live through. Most of herc's damage comes from the reflect and the bash. Without those, its quite a bit less effective at just damage than say, a scorpion or kowlin. The later, coming with both debuffs. Pounce doesn't work on bosses, shreik doesn't work on bosses, attack debuff only works for 15 seconds every minute. Meaning that your effective skills are really just; low bash, high ripping bite, pierce, and howl. All of these coming standard on the kowlin, and easy to put on a scorpion. If you're only using 1 or 2 pets for attacking, you're kinda limiting yourself. Even without the lack of a phys debuff, although there is overlap, it is often useful to be able to apply a phys debuff on something without having to cast a spell...

As for the not-upgrading part. Yeah, you lose out on 1.4k damage, but the cost of the spell is lower, and often ironwood is used just for the phys debuff. Again, this is personal preference. Is it better to have 1.4k damage outright, with a 40% phys reduction from sage, or is it better to have the 30% wood reduction and the 30% phys reduction from demon. The answer would depend entirely on the situation, and although it sounds contrary, doesn't necessarily mean that it is wrong. Past level 90, most of your damage from this spell is coming from your weapon anyway. With highly upgraded gear, even more so.

*Correction, with demon, and a light armor build, you can get around 20% with the right rings and equipment at level 105, without having to pour too much into dex. 1 crit out of 5 casts is quite a bit different than 1 out of 14.

Actually, the debuff is the last reason I use Ironwood. Ironwood does the best damage per mana. So, I use it first on mobs to get their hp down and finish them off with Venomous. Don't get me wrong, the debuff is nice, but not essential. 30% physical defense reduction really only adds up to 200-300 more damage per hit for your pet. When you're grinding, that little bit of damage doesn't matter one way or another when you're nuking for 7k-8k per hit. Plus, aggro is not really an issue since most of your pet's aggro comes from it's attack skills not it's raw damage. If you're stealing aggro, that little bit of damage won't help one way or the other.

If you're in a squad, the Ironwood debuff becomes even more redundant. Clerics have Dimensional Seal which lowers physical resistance by 30%. Barbs have Devour. That skill lowers physical resistance by 50% and they can keep the debuff up indefintely with no breaks as long as they have enough chi. So, if my Ironwood doesn't debuff, big deal. However, when it does debuff prepare for some damage.

Not upgrading Ironwood seems kind of illogical. You're giving up 1.4k damage so your pet can do 200 more damage? But if you really like having that constant 30% debuff, then more power to you.

On a side note, it's nice to see that there are people who can discuss this topic rationally and logically without flaming/name-calling. Usually, sage/demon topics devolve into "Demon Ironwood sucks. Sage FTW."

vagrant0 wrote: »

Except in the case of TW or PvP, where it is often the lucky shots that make the real difference, or against bosses, where high crit rate means higher damage over time. A 15% crit rate* is nothing to laugh at. The goal with this one is not for higher damage while grinding, where a crit every now and then only means one less spell, but instead the instances where that 1 out of every 8 casts dealing more damage either does the finishing hit on a player, or over time adds up. This works for the same reason that archers tend to do better damage than BMs, and Wizards. The more often you crit, the more damage you're doing. Although the odds increase more for the arcane build, it isn't nearly as often as it is for the LA build. My veno, with 9% often ends up getting 2-4 crits in a row already. Something like that, more consistently, just has more impact than some extra damage over time.

Again, you're missing my point. You will receive no arguments from me that spike damage is what matters in PvP, it's part of why I went LA and why I wear crit gear. My point is, the relative rate of crit increase for an LA is less than for a robe; there is less relative gain from 2% if your base rate is already double-digit per the law of diminishing returns. The base damage additions that sage gets means my spike damage potential is even greater; I already crit often, they enable me to crit even harder and ensure I break through enemy defenses and charms. It's not damage over time I'm concerned with, it's enhancing my spike damage potential for those deathblows. But this strays from the PvE origins of the thread, and as someone else noted, extra crit also makes aggro control more unreliable and will still lose over time to base damage increase in general DD on PvE.

vagrant0 wrote: »

No, but it is a damage increase which is applied from the main spell you use when casting, which works with your only real type of damage. As this helps alot with those pesky wood mobs/bosses, is much more useful in the long run than extra chi. Unless you're sparking constantly, you tend to either sit with 2-3 sparks already built up anyway, and often end up burning one when using soul transfusion when you need more mana. As sage barbs get a skill which invalidates their dependency on veno sparks, most of your chi just ends up sitting there, or being burned in a slightly more powerful attack. Again, means more for an arcane or heavy build (since your base damage is higher) than it means for a LA build (which tends to be weaker on base damage).

Wasn't arguing this, just noting the difference in common perception and actuality. As said , I still would rather have the demon add on venomous by a long-shot, and can't imagine any veno wouldn't. It's probably the single-most open and shut case on which path "wins" on a skill.

vagrant0 wrote: »

Really personal preference here. I always see my pets as an extension of my skills, not as just another source of damage. Likewise, I tend to carry more than just a tank and air pet, with all my pets being designed for a specific role. Herc might be great for tanking, but is a bit lackluster when you have a barb in group, fighting a boss that the herc can't live through. Most of herc's damage comes from the reflect and the bash. Without those, its quite a bit less effective at just damage than say, a scorpion or kowlin. The later, coming with both debuffs. Pounce doesn't work on bosses, shreik doesn't work on bosses, attack debuff only works for 15 seconds every minute. Meaning that your effective skills are really just; low bash, high ripping bite, pierce, and howl. All of these coming standard on the kowlin, and easy to put on a scorpion. If you're only using 1 or 2 pets for attacking, you're kinda limiting yourself. Even without the lack of a phys debuff, although there is overlap, it is often useful to be able to apply a phys debuff on something without having to cast a spell...

Hmm, pretty sure shriek does work on boss channels, but not something I've really delved into admittedly, and there is lightning chaser for that anyway if you wanted. However, if herc can't live through something, then normally you are talking about a ? level boss. In these cases, given damage reduction penalty on players that pets don't receive, what you don't want is your own pet messing up aggro control, especially on bosses with directional aoe, so pure DD isn't always that great. Besides, I myself also use a debuffing pet for instances and non-aerial enabled PvP; I still don't find pierce that worthy a use of a slot. I'd rather debuff magic defense with howl for my own DD to start, then either attack debuff or pounce depending on circumstance and PvE/PvP. Ironwood is going to be cast within 5-10 seconds of me starting an enemy anyway; if nothing else bleed has more utility to me than an extra second or two of def debuff which doesn't even help my own DD ability.

vagrant0 wrote: »

*Correction, with demon, and a light armor build, you can get around 20% with the right rings and equipment at level 105, without having to pour too much into dex. 1 crit out of 5 casts is quite a bit different than 1 out of 14.

The 1 in 14 number was for robes, for one thing. Assume equal stat and equip LA venos, one sage and one demon, in your scenario, you get 18% crit for the sage and 20% crit for the demon. 18% crit translates into a crit 1 in every 5.6 casts versus 1 in every 5.0 for the demon; sorry, but I'll trade that 0.6 difference for a guaranteed 5% damage boost, especially when it's tacked onto my crits.

Tearvalerin - Sanctuary wrote: »

also one major point to consider, for the not so hard core, casual player.
unless you actually have the money, time, and connections to get to goto FB99, cube for 99 skills, or do RB delta, you wont see more than demon/sage ironwood venomous and fox form :P.

for you casual players, you may wanna build around these three skills to make a decision.

a very major point indeed

I often hear people suggest Demon for PvP, but I'm looking at a few of the skills and rethinking it through...

- Venomous scarab gives a 30% wood resist decrease in Demon. Useful for PvE, but not so much PvP (I don't plan on lvling past lvl 92 anyway). Usually in PvP with my phoenix, my combo is Lucky Scarab -> Ironwood Scarab -> (Venomous if they're still alive). Opening with a venomous doesn't seem as effective as opening with a Lucky Scarab. The chi part I could see as being useful for getting the chi for Ironwood or a spark, but I don't imagine either being all that powerful in PvP when your main damage source is the phoenix
- Ironwood scarab increases duration to 20 seconds for Sage and a 20% chance of full armour break in Demon. In my opinion, 20% seems a bit low and would ruin a skill I use often in PvP. Any experiences on this?
- Lucky scarab increases an entire 1s in Sage. With lucky scarab being my opener, this seems strongly attractive. A 2s demon cooldown reduction doesn't seem much or as powerful as a 1s stun increase.
- Summer sprint is an insta-purify in Sage while a movement debuff in Demon. Even though I'm arcane, I have high vit (3.8k HP unbuffed at the moment) and high pdef (2.5k in human form) so, except for archers, I usually don't bother trying to run away if a BM or barb gets close. Stun immunity is nice but an instant purify seems a lot more versatile (e.g. against other phoenixes). On the other hand, I can see the stun immunity as a combo with the Air Strand skill or with the lvl 79 Feral Concentration skill. Again, any experiences with this?
- Amplify damage I only use against barb or BMs with too much HP. Being an arcane build, I find being able to deal more damage still in human form better than wasting the few seconds transforming into a fox, then casting amplify, waiting half a second for the foxform cooldown, then turn back into human to continue DDing. As a result, I only use purge + amplify when killing takes too long (in TW, I often use purge + soul degeneration instead vs catapult barbs). The Demon AoE bonus is pretty useless to me in PvP, but Sage amplify says an _additional_ 30%. If that mean a _total_ of 50% damage increase, that would be strongly attractive.

Pretty much my favourings are as followed:
- Venomous scarab - meh, both don't seem that powerful in solo PvP
- Ironwood scarab - 20s Sage duration looks nice but how good/frequent is the 100% Demon armour break?
- Lucky scarab - Sage +1s stun = good
- Summer sprint - Sage purify > Demon anti-stun
- Amplify - Sage = +50% damage?

Keep in mind that I'm not taking Demon/Sage triple-spark here into account as saving up 3 sparks seems to be something not-easily done in spontaneous/mass PvP. At the moment I'm leaning towards Sage purely due to Lucky scarab and Summer sprint, but the thing that could change my thought is Demon Ironwood's 100% armour break and the possible Demon Summer sprint + air-strand/feral concentration combo, both of which I'd like to hear experiences with.

~Desiree

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Wait, it ruins the skill? Demon Ironwood no longer does the regular 20% pdef debuff? I thought it kept the 20% debuff, and on top of that there was a 20% chance to reduce pdef to zero?

Even at a 20% chance, I'd consider setting pdef to zero to be pretty major for PvP considering you can cast it every 10 sec or so (provided you have the chi). A lot of barbs and bms (and heavy foxes) have pdef up the wazoo. At 70 in heavy fox form, mine is 11k (and I still haven't gotten any of the TT70 armor), which corresponds to 80% damage reduction against level 70 opponents. Drop my pdef to zero and I'm taking 5x as much physical damage.

At 90, zero pdef + phoenix = 4096*.25 = 1024 damage per second just from the regular attacks. The bleed from flesh ream everyone complains about works out to 546 damage/sec (? not sure if duration is 15 sec or 9 sec - either way it's less than 1024 per sec). If Pounce just fired and the 3 sec stun lands, the target is gonna take 3072 damage while stunned, and an additional 1024 damage 0.2 sec after stun wears off. You'll be dealing >10k damage in 10 sec worst case, meaning even with a hp charm anyone with less than 6.7k is dead just from your pet unless they have supplemental healing.


I see where the earlier respondent got the 50% damage increase figure from. It would be good to have that clarified by a sage veno as 30% or 50%.

Sage Ironwood is a 100% chance for 40% armor break over 20 seconds (lv10 being 30% over 10 seconds). Demon Ironwood is a 20% chance for 100% armor break over 10 seconds, 80% no armor break, so yes, it's all or nothing regarding the debuff effect. Also, I really need to get a demon veno to confirm this for me, been too lazy, but I don't think demon iron is a complete armor break in PvP. I know the 0 def debuff on the lv79 rainbow skills definitely does NOT translate as 0 def in PvP, and likewise the lv10 and sage iron debuffs are halved in PvP (15%/20% debuffs for lv10/sage).

I can't confirm for myself (stupid non-dropping fb99 bosses), but am 99% sure sage amp is "just" 30% damage increase overall. If you're going by ecatomb, it has some misleading descriptions, such as failing to mention the 6s duration of the demon summer sprint effect.

Ladydeadlock - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Wait, let me see if I got this straight.. If I hit with demon Ironwood and dont get armor break to 0 defence.. I wont even break it down by 30% that I get from level 10 Ironwood?

Correct. You will either get the 0 def or no debuff at all. 80% of the time, demon iron will just do damage, with no other effect.