Sage/Demon BM

i did....eh....i like sage for axe warrior due to the magic marrow being so high, and pdef bell increasing pretty good. also sage roar costs less chi to use which is nice to have a little extra chi. the chi skill is also very useful =P

Ya he just wants know what you like and why basically a vote.

GO SAGE!!! =P

Good demon skills: Roar, marrows, spark, Drake's Bash, HF, Myriad, Glacial, Drake's Ray
Good sage skills: Bell, masteries (difference is not much), Sutra, Shadowless kick, Farstike

I think that says it all. Sage BM is only good if you are a spear BM.

Sage BM was only a good choice pre-annipacks when you weren't likely to find most of your lvl 11 skills.

Demon Roar never misses and faster cooldown. 9 second dragons. Demon magic marrow wins. Drake Bash 7.5 seconds.

Especially wtih the Jones Blessing... the little damage increase you would get with Sage Masteries is negligible... while the Demon Masteries gives you an extra crit which would take you an extra 20 stat points to get.

Endgame is fist/axes. TW BM = Stuns and Dragons. PvP/PvE BM= Fist. In both, demon wins.

Kupuntu - Sanctuary wrote: »

Two questions:

1) I know that lvl 11 skills were hard to find, but what exactly is the reason people went sage?
2) Would you (or anyone for that matter) suggest going sage if you can't afford the best demon skills (marrows, HF and roar)?

Since you weren't likely to get most of your lvl 11 skills, mostly the lvl 92 ones, the chi skill and buff were considered more important... and fists with stacked -int wasn't really a factor back then so the attack speed increase wasn't as desirable as the damage reduction buff.

Kupuntu - Sanctuary wrote: »

Good demon skills: Roar, marrows, spark, Drake's Bash, HF, Myriad, Glacial, Drake's Ray
Good sage skills: Bell, masteries (difference is not much), Sutra, Shadowless kick, Farstike

I think that says it all. Sage BM is only good if you are a spear BM.

I don't get why everyone likes sage bell so much, when I was a Sage BM, the difference between sage and demon bell was like 800 phys def. As far as I'm concerned, 800 phys don't doesn't determine life and death in group PvP. Demon bell when you're getting ganked, which can spike your phys def up by about 5K+, can.

I've been a Sage BM for nearly 2 years and I've been Demon 1 week, and I've gotta say hands donwn I don't regret going Demon one bit. I've learned so many new tricks as a Demon BM already. How many Demon BMs have converted to Sage? And how many Sage BMs have converted to Demon? There's a noticeable difference for end game BMs with 20 Sage skills learned to switch over to Demon.

Demon Drake Ray = 12 Meters, Tiger Leap = 16 meters = I can leap and Roar of pride immediately without moving because that means I'm only 4 meters away.

Sage Drake Ray = 10 Meters, Tiger Leap = 16 meters = walk 2 steps to close in from 6 meters which gives your enemies more time to react and just walk out of range.

Useful for a Cat BM that rushes stuns and stuff..

First off, it is enirely possible to reach 5 atk/sec with sage. It just requires genie or cyclone heel.

Hell spark gives you the speed without any additional skills wasting your time and/or without having to blow your genie's energy using Relentless Courage (so you can use it for other things like occult ice/tangling mire)

Heavns Flame's curse lasts longer with Hell, Drakes Bash has a longer stun, Glacial Spike makes all your hits Crits for a short time, Hell Magic Marrow doesn't sacrafice as much of your p.def, and Hell Roar never fails + it has a shorter cooldown.

Those are what you become a Hell BM for.

Sage Spark reduces the damage you take by 25% during it's duration. Combined with Sage Masteries, you dealing 15% more dmg than a Hell BM (on average) per hit, it can really make up for the speed loss. You also have another 15% more p.def aside from the first 15 seconds than a Hell BM does if you both know your Golden Aura Skills.

You can gain another 50 chi every 60 seconds. Drakes Bash has a 25% chance to cast without consuming a spark. Glacial Spike and Myriad Sword Stance have a chance to cast for only 1 spark.

Sage BM's generally have Chi.

Sage Sutra has a chance to heal an additional 50% your HP, which could save your **** if you aren't going to charm tick in time.

Sage Highland Cleave has a 25% chance to raise your crit rate 20% for a full 10 seconds, It has no debuff like dragons bane and obviously a much shorter cooldown.

Sage Farstrike hits incredibly hard

Sage Aelion Blade also hits much harder than Hell Aelion Blade

Those are what you become a Sage BM for.

Michael_dark - Lost City wrote: »

You're not dealing 15% more damage, your mastery is giving 15% more base weapon damage, which ends up being 2-4% extra calculated/final damage.

Sage fist can't out-dps a demon fist. Looks like glitched foxform veno might be able to..... (waiting for Ray to +10 his claws)

*fixed it for you

That number is multiplied by 5 when you triple spark.

Lets average that 2-4% you quoted me to 3 and multiply it by 5.

And yeah, 5atk/sec Barb out DPS's BM as well.

I did not state anywhere that Sage BMs could out DPS Hell BMs, however there are in fact 5 atk/sec Sage BMs and being as 5 atk/sec is the highest speed and their base dmg is higher, you get it.

However, it is much easier to reach high speeds being a Hell/Claw BM

I'm not arguing Sage or Hell to be better. I was trying to show the skills and reasons why people choose each.

EDIT: On another note :< I clicked your profile and saw that you have no friends. So I sent you an add request ;3

This is meant to be objective but...a lot of people will refute that Sage is better as a 5.0 because it's more damage, even myself in the past. A lot of people don't consider crit, casting and channel time. Not all BMs use fists, so don't take this as the only viable example.

I've compared my damage output when I was a 5.0 Sage and when I was 5.0 Demon. But don't get me wrong, not all people choose a certain cultivation for damage, there's always room for other causation.

As a 5.0 Demon, there is no need for cyclone heel. If you're calculating % weapon damage, let's put it like this, assuming both know how to glitch cyclone heel and drake breath Bash.

Sage 5.0 = 500% Sage Spark + 90% Mastery + LV 11 DBB 100% = 690% damage, now calculating casting/channel time ~ 53-54 hits per spark ~ 36915% Overall weapon damage in 1 duration of a sage spark.

Assuming Crit % = 23, Actual Damage may be ~45405%

Demon 5.0 = 500% Demon Spark + 75% Mastery + LV11 DBB 135% = 710%, now calculating casting/channel time ~ 57 Hits per spark = 40470% Overall weapon damage in 1 duration of a Demon Spark.

Assuming Crit % = 26, Actual Damage may be ~ 50992%

Because sage is gimped with LA, and also wasting .2 channeling cyclone heel, 2.0 seconds casting time if glitch fails, if it doesn't fail, ~.5 second weapon switching lag, depending on your connection. Demon always has the speed advantage because it does not require cyclone heel, Demons get more hits in, 3-14 more hits depending if cyclone heel fails or not. Demons that can wear full HA with HeavenRage boots will also have the 3-4% more Crit advantage with masteries.

But the main reason I converted to Demon was not because of Damage, I could care less about damage as a support BM in group PvP... To me, Demons have a nice spike buff, and when used correctly would keep me alive. Sage Marrows do have the advantage in more Magic Defense but this is only useful against pure magic users. Demons have the advantage to have balanced defenses in group PvP. Demon Skills have more potent adds to them, and Sage mostly has Chi conservation and maybe more damage on certain skills. Because Sages have the chi advantage, they may stun more often, not necessarily more potent, but more is more, just depends what you want.

And that's my take on Sage VS Demon... using my own realistic examples from my own experience playing both. Not much to say... other than whatever your game play style is, then go with it.

Kniraven - Lost City wrote: »

That number is multiplied by 5 when you triple spark.

Lets average that 2-4% you quoted me to 3 and multiply it by 5.

And yeah, 5atk/sec Barb out DPS's BM as well.

I did not state anywhere that Sage BMs could out DPS Hell BMs, however there are in fact 5 atk/sec Sage BMs and being as 5 atk/sec is the highest speed and their base dmg is higher, you get it.

However, it is much easier to reach high speeds being a Hell/Claw BM

I'm not arguing Sage or Hell to be better. I was trying to show the skills and reasons why people choose each.

EDIT: On another note :< I clicked your profile and saw that you have no friends. So I sent you an add request ;3

masteries only affect base phys attack

sparks only affect base weapon damage

sage mastery is actually even less of a % boost over demon at 3 spark goes down to about .05%

Joshcja - Sanctuary wrote: »

masteries only affect base phys attack

sparks only affect base weapon damage

sage mastery is actually even less of a % boost over demon at 3 spark goes down to about .05%

they affect weapon damage. click r in game and read o.o

Kniraven - Lost City wrote: »

they affect weapon damage. click r in game and read o.o

ment to say base weapon dmaage

and the point remains despite my chatfailing lol spark and mastery stack but its additive they dont multiply off each other

First of all, endgame bm is Sword/Spear/Fist/Axe...anything not all weapon is just...ick

OH and also theres a summary at the bottom of all this junk I wrote for those of you that dont wanna read all this trash.

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Really if your going to compare dps with sage vs demon...demon does more damage only because of the fact you have to use cyclone heel if your sage to maintain 5 attacks per second. Demon is also easier to get 5 aps with. At this point i find that sages +25% damage reduction is far more useful than demons +25% attack speed. Considering demon is only going to give you like 5% more damage at the most cus of this 2 second cast for cyclone eating up like 8 attacks worth of damage..

So for example lets take out a 30 second slice of dpsing time, during that 30 seconds assuming the sage bm cyclones before every spark, and we start the timer at the initial beginning of the first spark erupt after invuln wears off. We get 5 * 15 attacks for the first spark eruption = 75 attacks. Then sage takes 2 seconds to cyclone, while demon sparks again, sage sparks 2 seconds into demons invuln, losing 2 seconds from the remaining time of the spark. We could cyclone heel damage as 2 fist normal attacks. Thus demon gets another 75 attacks. Sage gets 67 attacks. Thus for this 30 second slice of time sage deals 142 attacks worth of damage, and demon 150 attacks. Thus demon attacks with ~5% more damage than sage, masteries aside. That compared to a 25% increase in damage resistance from sage spark. Thus if your the one taking the hits sage spark > demon spark...and if your just dpsing, demon > sage.

(note: I am aware of cancel casting for just the speed buff from cyclone...i consider this an exploit and dont use it....considering there is no way it was intended to work like that)

Anyway, as for a few other things.

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Sage vs demon stuns:

Demon stuns are more effective than sage stuns. HOWEVER...sage stuns are more efficient than demon stuns. For example, sage roar takes 25 chi to cast vs 35 chi, and drake bash has a 25% chance to cost no chi...basically 25% less chi cost over time to use said skill.

Now in my opinion the sage abilities are more useful for TW, considering im sitting there spamming roar just about every time it cools down, and to supply that kind of chi, unless I wanna sit ther drinking down chi pots all day, isent exactly an easy proposition, in addition to the **** load of other chi consuming skills that need to be used. Also the ability to actually make more use of drake bash is helpful, your not always gonna have full chi to work with, and in said situations, saving chi is very useful.

Now you might argue with 5 aps that chi is a non factor, but stuff like tw isent just running around triple sparking the whole time, expecting things to stand there and let you punch them to death for chi...no, thats just not how things work, in a real environment saving chi is actually quite important.

Demon is more effective as I said, this is undeniable, but saying sage pales in comparison is stupid, considering the adds on the skills are still very useful. So i call them actually a tie, depending on what you personally prefer.

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Now to compare a few other things....

AOEs:

Basically if you look at the axe tree, highland cleave sage is better than demon, since while spamming aoes, you should be spamming cyclone heel, you will always be under that speed buff, making demons highland speed buff pointless. The huge crit boost sage can get is very very nice. Fissure could be argued either way, considering depending upon who your with, the fire debuff could be very devastating, but the +10% slow may be useful in other situations. Heavens flame is demon of course...i mean whoever made sage must of been smokeing some seriously messed up ****...Anyway aside from the ultimate I am inclined that axe aoes favor sage.

Sage spark also favors aoe, since attack speed boosts in aoe are pointless, and the damge reduction vs multiple mobs is extremely helpful.

Demon shadowless does have aoe effect, thus becomes and aoe, making it useful to add to an aoe chain, sage has its own awesome abilities tho. Demon meteor rush also has a chance to stun the enemy...which another aoe stun is always helpful of course. I like sage meteor rush for the aux cancel/possible aoe cancel...though id argue demons ability is better, since a chance for 5 second stunnage in aoe is pretty BA.

Now as for drake sweep and fan of flames, the fan of flames skills basically have equally good mods. The drake sweeps is demon, considering every hit target has a chance to proc the chi gain chance...which in something like delta can be quite insane.

As for the other aoe ultimates, glacial is more in favor of demon (5 seconds 100% crit...its crazy, thers no denying); not to say the chi saving is not useful for sage. And myriad is really a toss up, considering I usually use this as a nuke/in pve, i prefer the spark saving personally.

Moral of aoes is that demon and sage both have strong points, and therefore i would call it once again fairly even, demons ultimates are better if you favor skill abilities, however sage once again save you chi, which can also be of importance.

Other Skills:

Shadowless kick sage can cancel like 80% of the aoe of most in game enemies permanently by just holding down your cancel hotkey....which is amazing, I use this all the time....demon becomes and aoe attack however, which is also quite useful, id rate both of these about equally.

Diamond Sutra: Sage has more effective healing, demon has a better pk type of crit booster buff, really this one is personal preference, so either is good imo.

Cyclone heel: Sage works well since you need 20 seconds to actually work in spark eruptions with it effectivly...demon is somewhat redundant because of their spark eruption if you are dpsing a target, however given you have no chi demon is a more effective version. Once again an effect vs efficiency deal.

Spirit Chaser: The faster speed for this attack makes it alot more useful with sage, rather than demons ability. Considering your only going to use this to fill in gaps in your long range pokeing arsonal, you wont use it often for the sake of gaining chi, hence the sped up channel cast is very nice with it. So sage is good here.

Aeolin Blade/Farstrike: With sage these skills hit insanely hard....demons effects on them pale in comparison, hence sage wins for both of these skills.

Tiger maul: Sage

Draw Blood: Either, personal preference.

Aura of the Golden Bell: Demon can be situationally more effective, and sage is more effective overall. Thus I consider either to be good. From a squad standpoint people prefer sage....but like i said, given the situation demon can be better.

Marrows: Sage = more effective fighting an enemy of purely one attack type, demon = better at fighting in group situations, where enemies may attack with different types of attacks. Either is good for their respective reasons.

Masteries: Both give good effects. Sage is more effective the less modifications you have to your damage AKA...not spark erupted...demon becomes better the more modified your attack stats are, such as while you are sparked, since +15% weapon damage counts for less with +500% weapon damage added on.

Oceans Edge: Demon adds damage...sage adds a freeze chance, I personally like the freeze chance, though I usually dont use this skill over something like aeolin. I prefer sage tho.

Drakes Ray: Depending on situation reduced either can be better than the other. If it runs outside of 10 meters farstrike is far more effective than this anyway. So i generally lean towards sage.

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In Summary:

Sage: More efficient skills which consume less chi, as well as some harder hitting skills, more effective for taking hits than demon. Skills which are better over long periods of time. Better tanking. More damage while not under huge attack modifications/unbuffed by other class buffs. Many Skills are more PVE oriented.

Demon: More effective skills, and easier to acquire attack speed. Slightly higher dps given endgame type conditions. Some more interesting effects on some skills. Many skills are more PVP oriented.

In other words both are effective for their various purposes...and shine in different areas, as well as suck in others. So whatever YOU like more is the best choice.

O.O my pdef is more than 10.8k fully buffed with magic marrow...but i use pdef ornaments...and i have 9.8k mdef with magic marrow w/o def charms..with only +4 pdef ornaments xD. and chi pots? i mean chi pots are good to use but not all the time....dont you hate when your in a cluster **** in tw mid B lane and you just get purged getting ganked by 8 different people and you wanna use a dew of star and its on cooldown? lol i do admit though demon dragons are better, demon has the edge on that. yet usually if its a cata barb and you have dd's attacking it all you need is 6 seconds if they dont turtle. also again, the sage bell is more of a community buff than a self buffing, keeping your squad alive with the extra pdef opposed to 30 second demon bell.b:chuckle