Sage vs Demon

90-99% of all sins go Demon for two reasons:
1. 5 APS
2. better sleep/stun/seal

The rest (1-10%) go sage for:
1. Bloodpaint
2. Better tankability
3. To be different

A few obvious things:
Demon has more DPS
Sage has better survivability

There really is no way to make a "direct comparison" and reach a fair conclusion. This is because it depends on what you use the sin for. For PvP, the guaranteed sleeps, longer stuns etc are golden for PvP, not to mention the DPS gained from the spark. For PvE, some might prefer the Demon if they can reach high APS for extremely efficient farming, others might prefer the Sage for better tanking and supporting other DDs.

demon is far more powerful. at 90+ you only normal attack to dd, why not capitalize on demons speed? sage is a poor choice, and far more costly to make any kind of comparison in damage. there is a reason BMs and archers do the same.

There is also a reason bms and archers go with slower weaps too. Don't give an example and pass it off as fact when a contrary exists XD that is misleading.

wrong, the most popular BM build nowadays is fists. the way they make the most of its damage? -interval and attack speed % boosts (demon). how do archers maximize their damage to make the best of their slow weapons? - interval and attack % boosts (demon). what do they both do for best dps? normal attack, not skills. there is a reason 99% of archers/assassins are demon, and that 90% of my servers old sage BMs transformed into demons off regret of the speed they lack.

see, there is one thing demons can do that sages cant. attack 5 times per second, which is pretty much the most efficient killing method around nowadays. skills are irrelevant. besides, whats it matter if a tank cant handle you, assassins and BMs do the majority of tanking nowadays anyways.

Allilie - Sanctuary wrote: »

When you try to tank a world boss don't say a word or you might get bitten xD. All i have to say about that.

My guess in his next comment: "No one tanks WBs with a sin" or "WBs are so 2009, nowadays people do Nirvana for profit"

Oh, I'll be out of here before this goes down to another "SAGE IS INFERIOR HOW DARE YOU EVEN CONSIDER IT YOU FOOL!" kinda mess.

Well the truth is demons pretty much superior in every way lol. But from your replies to people you seem to have already decided on going sage anyhow. And yeah sage do have some nice skills at the cost of nurfing their damage, but I don't get where people get this idea that sage skills are superior. Yeah bloodpaints good and they do have a few nice skills but demon have good skills too, e.g. stuns, sleep, rib strike, teles etc are better than sage. I'd say the skills are about equal with maybe a slight advantage to sage skills for pve and a big advantage to demon pvp skills. So yeah if you're a total carebear and never pvp and want to lower your damage output for some reason... you can't go wrong picking sage I would advise any other sin who wants to do worse damage and have far less pvp ability to do the same thing. However if you want good damage and to be good at pvp, kill things fast and actually get far more hp back off bloddpaint due to your faster attack speed pick demon. Sage are also not better at tanking if the demon has decent interval. With decent aps a demon will tank way better as they can get alot more hp back from bloodpaint and kill faster. I'm demon as you may have gathered, and I can tank loadsa ****. e.g. all fc boss's without a cleric, all bh 79 boss's etc. So why worry about stealing agro off the tank when you can tank yourself and the boss dies in half the time???
But that's just my very biased opinion lol. I haven't played a sage sin and can't see why anyone would, so any sage sins out there please enlighten me as to which sage skills make everyone say they have far superior skills to demon sins. And lets hear what their good attributes are and stuff. The defence bonus from the spark is obviously nice but I don't think it comes anywhere close to being as good as demon spark for a sin. dagger mastery is good as it adds I think 15% dmg as appose to demon 2% crit. BP's better, powerdash is a little better, shadow escape is nice with the purify affect, tackle lasts a bit longer, maze step lasts a bit longer, errrm thats all i can think of that might be better for sage. All other skills are roughly the same or demon are superior in my opinion. And none of the sage skills are that much better than demon really... so I can't see any reason at all to go sage unless you are purposefully trying to make yourself do less damage like the op and gain a bit more survivability, and I don't know why you'd be playing a sin if you wanted to do low damage and hae good defence
I don't mean this as post as a flame at sage sins btw, I know it's one sided but I just don't see many good sides to going sage, though I know there must be some so please inform me b:cute

I prefer demon wolf emblem as it gives 40% to crit damage rather than lowering it to 20%. But yeah I can see the appeal of making it a permanent buff. Though your point about it giving more hp back to bloodpaint isn't valid as 40% half the time is the same as 20% all the time. Rib strike I think demon is way better as it slows the attack speed down more. Lowering the tagets max hp really isn't that useful in most situations. Sure it does a lot of damage to some boss's if you don't have an archer in the squad to sharptooth it but the speed reduction is far more useful.
The percentage gain from mastery isn't a lot and won't actually add a considerable amount to damage, or the hp back from bloodpaint. Yeah sage get 50% more from bloodpaint. But sage sins are unlikely to be intervel so probably have 1.25 aps or only a little more. With my sin I'm now at 2.22 aps and will be getting another piece of interval gear as soon as I find someone selling a wing trophy lunar glade for less than 40mil so that will give me 2.44 aps I think? as you can see this is twice the attack speed of an average sage sin. So I will actually be getting more back off bloodpaint than a sage would. Even if a sage had all the same gear as me they would have attack speed 1.82 instead of 2.44 and so they would get a small amount more hp back than me but a pretty negligible amount. The more interval a demon gets the more the difference closes and then increases for the deamon, so at high interval demon sins get more hp back. I get your point about sins already doing good damage and maximising your defencive capabilities instead. If the choice between sage and demon was an equal increase in attack and defence capability i'd pick sage too. But the truth is demon is a massive increase in attack power whilst sage is a small increase in defensive capability. It's like throwing away your jones blessing with 30 attack levels to equip another blessing with 10 defence levels.

Graey_Rain - Lowering the tagets max hp really isn't that useful in most situations.


Lie. Raise your PvP count and you will see :P. You are on a PvP server.b:thanks

Graey_Rain - Harshlands wrote: »

Veritas are you trying to troll or just a bit ignorant :S lol demon dagger mastery = 75% plus 2% crit. sage mastery = 90%. 90-75 =/= 30 it's 15... your mastery does 15% more than demon. And that is only to weapon damage. If you do the numbers it adds a small bit of damage to your patk. That in no way shape or form keeps up with our faster attack speed. And you think sage are more for pvp and demon pve???? lol. How did you come to that conclusion? Demon clearly have superior stuns and sleeps and teleport moves along with considerably higher damage... And sage have better bloodpaint and moves targeted more to pve. Don't get why you think demon is pve. Demon sins are just about the best solo pvp class in the game. And you don't only need good aps to kill heavies. If I fought you right now I'd have higher aps = higher dps = you die before me. Plus Demons have longer stuns and better sleep so demon has the advanage in pk. How do you kill light armour or robe classes? You stunlock them, so demon has advantage. How do you kill heavy classes? You gotta spark to do enough damage to take them down fast so sleep themspark, stun them wack away. Demon are clearly superior at pvp. You maybe don't know this because you play a pve server... and I only kill red names. Hence I don't have a huge pvp count. But i've fought hundreds of duels with my sin and pvpd more than enough with my other characters to know what's usefull in pvp and what isnt. As for sage ribstrike being useful in pvp no... just no. Against a barb with 30k hp you can do 3k dmg... big woop. Or I can sleep him spark tangle mire headhunt and auto attack, tele stun, attack, seal, immobilise, attack, occult ice, attack and eventually kill him lol. The 10% hp reduction is nothing in pvp. And you don't have sage rib anyway as you are too low lvl so don't pretend like you know how useful it is in pvp lol

Actually APS while useful doesn't mean you can take me in a 1v1 fight :P skill>APS
PvE servers have great PK the difference is i can decide when i want to do it.
Also note less HP is obviously useful why do you think people use citrine shards? to gain more HP with lesss they die faster its a no-brainer i dont need to have the skill to know its useful.
10% less HP on a target that also slows there att rate hmmm.
Sage does have a few support oriented skills like you stated (bloodpaint)
Also i hope you can find a way to make quit a bit of $ for that 5 APS :P.
While the Free APS is great its useless in TW you wont last long with no def
in most PK its not 1v1 GL trying to live longer then 10s your APS means nothing.
Sage sins can effectively take 47% less damage

Sage Spark reduces all damage you take by 25%. Sage Focused Mind reduces all damage to 1 33% of the time and can be active 2/3 of the time, so in total Sage Focused Mind reduces ALL damage by 2/3 * 1/3 = 2/9 = 22%. These total add to 47%. That's just about the same as the damage reduction from BB.

Less damage = more time to DD more of a chance to kill someone in PVP and able to survive ganks and take more then one player. As is TW most PvP.
Demon is really only useful 1v1 sage lets you try more options in NORMAL PvP which is ganks from hell ect exactly like TW.
Demon is more PvE as it makes for fast runs through frost ect because of the APS
Sage can PvP just as well if not better then demon sins.
It depends all on playing style skill
and what PvP situation your in.
Demons are the best choice from 89 but sage sins start to show around 99
Demons = instant satisfaction
Sage= Harder to earn but can be very pleasing endgame.

BTW sorry got the D Dev wrong :P its 3am my time b:surrender

Graey_Rain - Harshlands wrote: »

I prefer demon wolf emblem as it gives 40% to crit damage rather than lowering it to 20%. But yeah I can see the appeal of making it a permanent buff. Though your point about it giving more hp back to bloodpaint isn't valid as 40% half the time is the same as 20% all the time.

Yes, 40% half the time is the same as 20% all the time, but you have to also take into account that there's a 50% chance that any mob that you kill will die while Wolf Emblem is in cooldown, in which case your actual damage increase against that mob is less than 20%.

Rib strike I think demon is way better as it slows the attack speed down more. Lowering the tagets max hp really isn't that useful in most situations. Sure it does a lot of damage to some boss's if you don't have an archer in the squad to sharptooth it but the speed reduction is far more useful.

... It's like you're talking that Sage Rib Strike doesn't have the 50% reduction. And the extra 15% isn't really that much, since most mobs have a really low attack speed to begin with.

The percentage gain from mastery isn't a lot and won't actually add a considerable amount to damage, or the hp back from bloodpaint. Yeah sage get 50% more from bloodpaint. But sage sins are unlikely to be intervel so probably have 1.25 aps or only a little more. With my sin I'm now at 2.22 aps and will be getting another piece of interval gear as soon as I find someone selling a wing trophy lunar glade for less than 40mil so that will give me 2.44 aps I think?

Um, what the hell? There's absolutely no reason why a Sage wouldn't have the same amount of -interval as a Demon, therefore giving the Demon only the advantage they gain from the spark.

as you can see this is twice the attack speed of an average sage sin. So I will actually be getting more back off bloodpaint than a sage would. Even if a sage had all the same gear as me they would have attack speed 1.82 instead of 2.44 and so they would get a small amount more hp back than me but a pretty negligible amount.

Um, what the hell? So "average sage sins" somehow have 1.25 APS? No, that's bull****. Any competent sin will have at least 1.33 by 80. Me, I got 1.54 and I'm on my way to 1.82.

The more interval a demon gets the more the difference closes and then increases for the deamon, so at high interval demon sins get more hp back.

Um, no. A sage will have higher heals unless you have 5 APS. And in the case that you have 5 APS, why the hell would you go sage? As for how you get that numbers:

Sage heal = DPH * AR(s) * 0.03
Demon heal : DPH * AR(d) * 0.02

Sage heal / Demon heal = 1.5 * AR(s/d)

That is, the Demon sin needs 50% more attacks than a Sage. If you're actually fair and say that they have the same -interval, then that means that for Demon to heal more than Sage, you need for the Demon Spark to boost your attack rate by 50%. Now, you need 2.86 APS unsparked for permaspark, so let's see that: 4 / 2.86 = 1.3986014. Not quite enough, I see. Let's try 5 APS : 5 / 3.33 = 1.5015015. See, you get 0.15% more life healed now. Also, due to the nature of attack speed, it's true that none of the values below 5 APS can reach the same or a higher ratio. Therefore, you need 5 APS to heal better than a Sage.

And again, I am not saying that Sage > Demon. I am just saying that Sage isn't as horrible as people make it seem. And I'm not saying that, if I had the choice to go 5 APS demon or a 4 APS Sage, that I'd go Sage 100%.

Allilie - Sanctuary wrote: »

I would prefer not to have myself as a Light Armored tank, everything from repair costs, to increased stress on a cleric are factors in that. So once again all the extra aps nuking of a demon is very minute as an attraction. Demon does not fit, and is fairly contrary to how i have successfully played up to this point, and want to continue playing. My decision on sage is based on calculation and talking to people.

Btw i am extremely appreciative of the debate here, i realize that demon is in some ways better, just not in the ways that matter to me. This is a good debate we have for those who might not be suited for demon .

Personally, it's like this: I have a Demon Archer, so I know how DDs work. I've been in factions where people have asked for help and the only thing I have been able to say is "if you get a squad, I can come DD", which isn't that great, in my opinion. Also, the way I see it is that sins already have enough damage, so they make great DDs with either cultivation. From there on, it just comes to comparing the benefits from the skills, and I arrived at wanting Sage. Though, the first reason I ever thought of going Sage for was permanent Wolf Emblem.

Allilie - Sanctuary wrote: »

stuff about moron who cant even differ between masteries.

that 'sage' sin is extremely ignorant. they dont even know the difference between the two masteries.
one is 90% the other is 75% + 2% crit. NOW watch this lovely little math problem using the formula for determining attack!

(1 + 400 / 150 + .90 + 5) / (1 + 400 / 150 +.75 + 5) = 1.016 ~ or a 1.6% difference in damage while sparked. BUT seeing as the demon is attacking 25% faster, the demon is stronger. if you are going to come and spout nonsense, at least have the proof to back it up. 30% my ****... freakin moron sage.

Allilie - Sanctuary wrote: »

First off i never said i didn't know anything. I asked for a comparison so i could make my final decision.

Thank you very much for not learning how to read. Since you want to flame you can gtfo.

look whos talking, everything veritas said was wrong. you already came into the picture wanting to be a sage, why did you even bother making this thread if you knew you wouldn't have been convinced otherwise. since you have no comprehension on how to differentiate what is fact and what is some idiot's assumptions, then you have no place here.

fact: sage does worse damage
fact: the difference between mastery is insignificant as demonstrated in my math
fiction: sages are better in pve.

Typhyse - Sanctuary wrote: »

Citation needed.

1) I believe he's talking about crit% vs. weapon damage.
2) Weapon damage changes, not overall damage. The overall damage difference is not too big.
3) 25% interval decrease vs. 25% less damage taken, also other skills.

These are just guesses, I don't know for sure.

VeritasXXX - Raging Tide wrote: »

1 skill that blows demon sins is sage dagger devotion 30% damage per hit.

Research before talking, it's not like that.

Neddih - Harshlands wrote: »

Both are good in their own respects.

Sage sins should get as much interval as they can, just like demon sins.

the amount of actual math to calculate all of the differences i dont even want to begin.

Well in reality, it'd be two extremely annoying functions, one for survivability and one for damage. The Eye of Observation does something similar, but I'd believe it only takes into account the information shown, e.g damage, resistances, level, class, atk/def levels.

And even then, you'd end up having to choose, unless one happened to come up superior on both. If not, then you'd have to pick based on the same criteria people nowadays do it.