Before I make my final choice...

with the plethora of threads about this you had to start another thread
anyway, good luck learning all those skills mentioned except venomous, irowood and fox form

kenlee wrote: »

with the plethora of threads about this you had to start another thread
anyway, good luck learning all those skills mentioned except venomous, irowood and fox form

Heh heh. Post in the old threads and get flamed for necroing. Start a new thread and get flamed for not posting in the old threads. b:chuckle

If you can afford it (costs as much as about a herc or phoenix), you can get most of the level 92 skills as a 12-pack. Trade 5400 tokens for 360 advanced mystical pages.
http://www.pwdatabase.com/pwi/quest/12198

But yeah, if you haven't been able to afford a herc/phoenix by the time you reach 89, Venomous, Ironwood, and Fox Form are probably the only skills you're going to get.

Ms_HopToIt - Sanctuary wrote: »

1)What path did you choose and why?
2)What is your playing style? (Don't say pve/pvp. Give a description how you would react in certain pve and pvp circumstances.)
3)What type of build are you? (How did this affect your playing style and the path you chose?)

Might be more helpful for you to tell us what your build and playstyle are, then those of us with a similar build and playstyle can give you our thoughts.

yea 360 advanced mystical pages but thats like 100mil on our server. might get all of them from AH for less than 100mil, not to mention that some of them are useless or not used much. i only have 4 books but im not in hurry to get them atm

Ms_HopToIt - Sanctuary wrote: »

My playing style is hybrid, constantly switching from human form to fox form to DD. I also like having very high physical def, while being able to achieve high magic def by switching armors, hence why im choosing HA/AA hyrbid build at 90.

That's pretty close to how I play. I went Sage, but that was mostly because I usually play grouped and there's no archer in my close circle of friends. So Sage Soul Degen (-20% max hp) was really, really important. The extra pdef from Sage Fox Form would be good too since we're often without a barb and it would help me tank. And there's usually at least one other veno in the group so Demon Amp's longer duration would be mostly useless. And finally a consistent Leech is important for when we don't have a cleric.

In terms of fox damage, I think Demon is better because of one skill - Fox Wallop. The Demon version has a 20% chance to make all your hits crit for the next 5 sec. The skill is spammable (3.7 sec cycle time), so on average it's about a 25% increase in damage vs. Sage. Melee Mastery is often cited as making Sage better for foxes, but the difference in Sage/Demon Melee Mastery (200% vs. 150%) with 227 str only works out to a 12.5% damage advantage for Sage. So the benefit from Demon Fox Wallop easily outweighs the benefit from Sage Melee Mastery.

The triple sparks (which aren't really great at increasing DPS compared to single sparks, but are fun to play with) favor Sage for magic (900% vs 700%), and Demon for melee (650% vs. 500%).

So aside from Soul Degen, better pdef, and damage consistency, I think Demon actually holds more advantage for heavy fox venos.

In terms of the caster skills, it's a mixed bag. Having Sage Ironwood's pdef debuff last 20 sec makes my life a *lot* easier when I'm the only one applying both Amp and a pdef debuff. Demon Venomous' wood debuff is not as useful for foxes since not all your damage is wood based.

Nature's Grace/Metabolic Boost, I don't consider Demon's shorter cooldown really important. As a fox, I frequently just hit ST and leech the life back.

Those are the big things I've noticed so far (only 90).

Ms_HopToIt - Sanctuary wrote: »

lol, the other posts seem to have died. xD

Anyways to all venos 89+ heres some more questions

1)What path did you choose and why?

2)What is your playing style? (Don't say pve/pvp. Give a description how you would react in certain pve and pvp circumstances.)

3)What type of build are you? (How did this affect your playing style and the path you chose?)

Maybe these questions can help more.

Ok, Im only 85 but my choice is set.

1) Gonna choose Sage, because of: The chi skill, I love to spark the tank, so I can never have enough chi. I couldnt live with demon ironwood not always hitting. And my cleric is demon already so oh well
I know, pretty 'lame' reasons huh, but demon ironwood is big no no for me, so no way.


2) PVE :P Nah.
As for mobs.. I love to round 3 or 4 up and aoe them Have yet to get my herc, so only a few at once.
Caves... Wanna help as much as I can, but I also love to grab mobs and just kill one while the tank kills another. Means I need a strong magic attack and good dodge skills if I should pull agro lol Also keep saving other arcane classes from mobs :P
I rarely use fox form, only for amplify and purge, and if I got multiple mobs after me to take less damage til pet or someone else picked them off.
Uh and what I should mention: Im not using the standard pets. I got a magmite, but only for tanking bosses. My grinding partner is a Lyncean Hunter, Kowlin for pulling things. Happy with that


3) I have been light armor when I started. But I got really tired of my crappy pet heal and so I restated, am Arcane now. But I kept my dex and got some evasion ornaments. This gives a nice advantage if some mob is after you, mostly they just miss me :P And 6% crit is lovely too~


Hope that helped a little ^__^

SashaGray - Heavens Tear wrote: »

everytime a sage/demon thread debate comes up each side advocates for the side they picked. I've gone sage and have no regrets. but i never played demon veno, so i dont know what im missing. is spammable speed boots better than the increased damage reduction? maybe, is demon fox wallop better that sage soul degen? maybe. is 100% armor break lotto better that guaranteed 40% phys def reduction? if you win the lotto, yes. is making more chi with venomous better that making other casting venos hit harder?

Both answers are good, and all the advise you get probably wont lead you to a better answer than you would get from flipping a coin.

Wasnt advocating for demon just saying what is there and even you agree the damage dif isnt big. SO... we agree b:cute

I'm going demon. Mostly cuz of the spark eruption. Its all cool and stuff. Yeah stuff.

axt57 wrote: »

Lucky scarab turns into a near-spam skill for demon. On targets that can't be stunned (bosses) this is a superior skill to sage lucky. I can't really say 1 second more stun would make a huge difference in PvP either; if anything I would prefer one of my hardest hitting skills to have a lower cd.

Also it was worked out that if you're the only veno in the squad, demon amp is better for damage then sage amp.

please, for the love of god dont bring up the 'amp' argument.

solandri has proved time and time again, the difference between the two's damage output is under 1%

I love grinding, maybe try pvp from lvl 90+.
I'll choose demon for crit, lower cd on lucky and noxious, and...for nova *_*
Then, demon for speed too.
A demon veno doesnt need to use holy path in running quests in rb. 10.0 m/s (or more I dont remember) switching to fox form.

Marista - Lost City wrote: »

Sage veno. As stated, both are pretty good, but I prefer that ironwood actually works consistantly when I already have myriad for a chance at armor break.

Though Myriad consumes a lot of MP, I'd have to agree. I don't know why anyone would give up a reliable -30% for to pay more for a 20% chance at -100%. There are so many opportunities in a squad for it to be overwritten as well.

I've also found that the 20% chance to gain 30 chi from venomous is a lot more useful than I expected. I had sort of thought that it wasn't even worth consideration before I got it, but I build chi pretty damn fast, especially when DDing on bosses.

Most skills help build chi. I'm not one of those venos that only spams venomous so I don't notice any benefit there. Venemous to me is a filler between other skills (during cool their down).

If you've already admitted you play a good amount of hybrid HA/AA veno and use phys attack/ff, then you should easily go sage. If you're gonna play up close you'll want the bonus phys def+accuracy from fox form and the bonus from melee mastery that cannot be overstated. You'll hit very hard in fox and find yourself stealing aggro quite a bit, but you may want to save up for higher refines on your highest grade armor because while you may hit like a truck, you're certainly not a tank until you get the HP to supplement the dmg (i.e. mag attacks from bosses like Brigand) you'll wind up taking. It's a high risk game for yourself and the squad.

I'm a HA/AA sage veno and focus on TW and PvE. My playstyle in tw is kind of direct and agressive while switching a lot between human and fox form depending on the situation. as for PvE, my main damage comes in human form, but i do DD in fox form quite a bit.

Anyways, my experience with the 15 sage skills i've learned so far have been great. I like to have chi and chi comes pretty quick. Sometimes i'm completely filled without even trying.

As for the skills...

Fox form:
Gives more pdef and accuracy. I'm not sure if this is actually that helpful. But every percentage is nice and it lets me focus more on mdef on my future 99 build.

Leech:
I use leech when i need the hp. And it's great knowing that i really get it when i'm using it because i hated it everytime it failed.

Purge:
Use it mainly in TW and the aoe is awesome! I love to see multiple purple clouds on my screen within a group.

Amplify Damage:
According to calculations, the demon version is better then the sage one on targets that take a longer time to kill then 30 seconds. But since i prefer TW over PvE, i personally think that the sage version is better for me. If you don't TW or PvP, then demon amp is better i think.

Soul degen:
It's just awesome for high hp mobs. b:victory

Summer Sprint:
Incredibly useful for me in TW and PvE. I get status debuffs a lot in both and thus i end up using this skill a lot. It works on anything, except on seal/sleep/stun obviously.

Wood and Melee Mastery:
It gives more damage. Which i don't mind.

Caster skills:
My damage in general is lower then arcane, my wep makes up for it a bit though. What i like about the sage skills is that it gives me a bit more consistant damage. Can't really say what the difference is between sage and demon since i haven't used demon skills. But from the looks of it, demon gives you a little less cooldown and a chance on giving your target a huge pdef debuff.

Master Li's Technique:
Gives me chi!

Celestial Spark:
I do the most DD'ing in human form, and luckily the celestial spark gives me a better magic attack then the demon one.

tweakz wrote: »

Most skills help build chi. I'm not one of those venos that only spams venomous so I don't notice any benefit there. Venemous to me is a filler between other skills (during cool their down).

Normally I'm not either, but since I have Lv 11 venomous and Lv 10 lucky/noxious, the damage isn't much lower and the higher chi appeals to me, especially since lucky's stun is useless on bosses. Once I have a full array of Lv 11 sage skills, I'll likely return to using a larger variety more often.

_makina_ - Sanctuary wrote:

your only going to have around 2-4% less crit then a LA build with a HA/AA build.

Not quite. Light armor compared to arcane armor is a bit more than 4%. Arcane armor requires no dexterity to equip, but with light armor you're going to need 103 dex for TT99 gear. Right there that's 5%. Then throw in any additional dexterity bonuses you'll receive - they should add up to at least 1% (might need to throw a couple extra points in to cap it off). Heavy armor on the other hand actually needs about 50 dexterity - enough for a 2% bonus from that.

In my tests, I was seeing arcane armor as the lowest crit at around 3%. Heavy in the middle with around 6%. And light armor with 9%. As you raise it the crit bonuses from demon become less useful and the steady damage from sage becomes more useful. To me it seems demon is more ideal for arcane users and sage for those favoring fox form.

Gasoline - Lost City wrote:

Amp is far better for sage, you do like 55% more dmg lol
Soul degen gives -20% hp on target you dont even need archer for TT anymore

Problem with amplify and soul degeneration, is that they cancel each other out. I started noticing this problem when I was showing a friend some tricks and noticed it happening. It pretty much kills soul degeneration for me. In the long run, unless amplify is on cooldown, soul degeneration just isn't as useful and I won't even bother shooting for it.

wrote:

1)What path did you choose and why?

2)What is your playing style? (Don't say pve/pvp. Give a description how you would react in certain pve and pvp circumstances.)

3)What type of build are you? (How did this affect your playing style and the path you chose?)

1) I choose sage for the extra chi building, bonuses to fox form, and more steady damage dealing.

2) My play style varies. But mostly I'm helping people with instances. I switch to fox form when I need to take damage or when I feel lazy and don't want to use magic skills to hurt a boss. Mostly I stick to magic though. At this point I believe my regular physical attacks are probably about equal to the venomous scarab. Certainly with sage melee mastery it'll be the same as non-sage venomous scarab.

3) I'm a light armor build with a Yaksa and TT90 armor. Demon would have given me more critical rate, but honestly the extra 2% in human and 3% in fox really aren't that big when you're already at 10%.

My playing style is hybrid, constantly switching from human form to fox form to DD.

I would advise sage and light armor. Heavy armor is fine if your goal is fox form. But if you want to do human you'll lose a good chunk of your magic attack by going heavy. In fact, I ran up tests and the best chance of gear was going to be legendary 70s and a requiem blade. Compare that to the best light armor and almost, if not the best, magic weapon by around level 100.

You can still use the best heavy and the best magic weapon, but it would require you to level well past 100. I think my last test showed level 126. Not happening anytime soon.

Ryiah - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Not quite. Light armor compared to arcane armor is a bit more than 4%. Arcane armor requires no dexterity to equip, but with light armor you're going to need 103 dex for TT99 gear. Right there that's 5%. Then throw in any additional dexterity bonuses you'll receive - they should add up to at least 1% (might need to throw a couple extra points in to cap it off). Heavy armor on the other hand actually needs about 50 dexterity - enough for a 2% bonus from that.

Uh...you know I was replying to opening post since they were doing heavy armor arcane hybrid so I am right....