Sage vs. Demon

if your a cata cleric sage could possibly be better. basically lets u stay alive while being a punching bag.

Sage

I'm a demon cleric and I do tw, and am usually in cata squad. I'd consider myself a support cleric, I don't really care about attacking or dmg. Overall I know that my dmg is pretty pathetic when compared to real DD classes.

most ppl say that demon clerics=attack sage=support. overall I kinda disagree there. Sage clerics are seen as the support clerics because there IH gives 10% more healing. imo thats kind of a pointless argument seeing as demon clerics are given the "better" (imo) higher lvl heals being chromatic beam and stream of rejuvenation. And then ofc demon res, which... well can't be beat imo by any skill in usefulness.

I'm fullsupport Cleric and went Demon. The quick revive is just useful in any situations. It saves time and trouble. For example, in FCC, Barb was lagging during magic pull and died. I quickly revived him and immediately set up BB. BM came to stun mobs, Barb revived and no squad wipe. Yay! Or, Wizard started to AoE too early at Dragoons in FCC and died. I quickly revived him and he was happy because he still got the exp for Dragoons (thanks to the quick revive). Demon Revive is one of the best reasons to go Demon. If you're fullsupport like me, you probably like to make your squad happy... just like me.

Also, melees (especially Barbs) LOOOOOOOOVVVEEEE my Demon IH. Not effective on magic classes, because it only heals 300 mana, but I can keep melee classes' mana on max all the time. People love it, seriously. They really love these 2 skills, but my favorite is Demon Chromatic, it heals ALOT. Stream gives a nice buff too so I can DD a bit, less healing. xD Demon Chromatic and Stream are way better than the Sage ones. I also got Wellspring for the lulz, but it's not as good as the Sage one, that's the only good Sage healing skill... I didn't bother getting attack skills, because I spend 99% of my life in squads. xD Purehearted is lvl1, not many Clerics use that skill... But yeah, I love being Demon and people love me for being Demon. b:laugh

Mrvate - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I don't truly understand your argument here. Sage is reliable and demon is risky. Sage has 3 skills that get a chance to proc tempest, wield thunder, and sirens kiss. Demon has 4 tempest, vanguard, magic shell, and blessing of the pure hearted. And for all of these skills both sage and demon you don't really cast them for the proc. you cast them for the skill, and if it procs its just a little bonus. Both paths are just as reliable.

+1 to the above

Also, not that it matters much, but I went Demon and have never had any regrets. Both are perfectly versatile choices and you will go far with either if you play your class well.

I went Demon. People love Demon IH (although i'm too poor to buy it anyway), the rez is awesome and the skills hit harder too. That were the main reasons to go Demon (and the little fairy you get with it).

I would go Demon if i were you. You like to heal, melees will love you for Demon IH and your -chan on rez. When you don't have to heal you attack. Demon attacks have overall a higher attack; makes the mob die faster.

IMo demon is better but it really your choice

and ill tell you why:

Heals:

blessing of the pureheart: why would would bother wasting coin bringing this to sage or demon idk.
winner, irrelevant

Wellspring
extra chi vs lower channeling
Personally i would say sage for this one

Cromatic: sage again

Stream of rejuv.
Demon. this is a 15 sec 100% def increase on the target,
its got a 1 sec cooldown.
while sage is completely useless

Iron heart
Demon gives target mana. for tanks pretty much unlimited. on self cast it reduces mana cost by 75%

where as sage get 45% heal over a 35% one. is there really ANYTHING that extra 10% is going to save the tank from when ih is properly stacked what demon wouldn't?
and demon can give stream of rejuv. 100% extra def is better than 10% extra heal
and im pretty sure demon sprits gift is ganna add more than and extra 10%

Purify: Demon
not having to pay chi is way better than .5 faster cast. and 1 sec cooldown vs 3 seconds? how bloody often do u need to cast this anyways

Revive: Wow do i even need to go over this one? Demon...

Attacks: Demon
Plume shot. while extra damage is nice, faster cast win

great cyclone: um thier boht about equal, sage is probably better PvP...

Thunderball: um.. if u even have this skill at lvl 10 u have issues

Siren's Kiss: This i cant comment on. i dont really use it enough to make a definitive decison. 1 spark is alot and tempest and razor feathers seem to do the job for me.

Weild thunder: Demon dont get mr wrong 50% chance for 30 extra chi is awesome.. but... your ganna take that over 30% lower metal resist debuff? nty

Tempest can me entirely situational: but im ganna got with 25% chance of 12 meter 8 second AOE freeze. thats just scary...

Razor feathers Demon 10 meters vs 8 meter and being able to cast it twice during tripple spark? id honestly rather cast it twice

sage wins on the 2 debuffing seals
but demon totally wins on the the freeze and sleep one

Now for the buffs

hp mana buff Demon
another heal vs gainng more mana than it takes to cast? as well as being as to very quickly pass mana to another char

Sprits gift:
ok now sage gets there mana gain skill. but it only gives mana to the caster. where as demon gets +150% magic attack? demon plz

Sage vaguard is similar to demon stream anouthg it only last 10 sec instead of 15 and doesnt come with a heal. while this does win vs the demon effect demon can spam themselves spark and can even give others chi

magic shell, ok sage wins... this one hands down if there was ANY reason why you would choose sage. this would be it.

Sage spark: For PVE this has nothing on demon spark, then again sage magic shell along with sage spark eruption is a nice combo. this would also be nice in PVP

Demon spark: 25% faster channeling is just win on PVE and PVP. PVE is better than sage spark. PVP is say thier about equal

So lets recap:
Sage wins cromatic heal and wellspring
demon wins IH, stream of rejuv, revive, purify

Demon wins plume shot, razor feather, tempest, weaild thunder, cromatic and silent seal

Sage wins on debuffs, although really a 25 sec debuff with a 3 sec cooldown isnt buyt beteer than a 25 sec debuff with a 3 sec cooldown. u can still keep it up indefintatly...

plume shell 85% vs 80%? vs half chi? i honestly don't know

Buffs
vanguard vs stream? well vanguard is 10 lvl earlier but stream is better once u get it as you dont need to trhow in an extra skill and it last 5 seconds longer

Hp/mp goes to demon

Sage magic shell vs demon spirits gift?
id say there about equal, except sage shell stacks with sage spark

so that gives sage a total of... 2 clear wins.. and 3 debatable win

Demon has... 11 clear wins and 3 debatable

personally i think demon wins

@OP

What exactly are you looking to focus your support cleric on?
cause depending on what situation support youll be using it on, alot of the pro's that pple are listing for sage/demon might not even be worth mentioning or it may downright be useless in the situation

I would choose Demon, just because almost all of the Demon supporters on this thread seem to have some valid points. As for Sage supporters, although there was an overwhelming majority in the beginning, most of them seem to have no facts behind their reasoning (or at least aren't bothering to prove their statements). b:bye

I always love how people tend to use Demon IH as a OMG DEMON...fact is I personally would rather heal 10% more and give a kittah (for TW) mp pots. That is just me though.

In terms of the skills side by side, many of them do the same thing but on different skills. Demon SoR gives the 100% pdef but Sage Vanguard does too. The difference is in the channel/casting time and heal proc. I will not go into a huge debate on the usefulness of either, but i prefer the Sage Van for the 100% for more then a few reasons (just a fast example and no reason to go into the 100% pdef buff debate...hehe).

Really when it comes to choosing your path it is all about play style. Look at the comparision of skills here. Both path's have their ups and downs and funny because over a year ago many choose based on the 3 starter skills because was really all we could get.

Overall though I tend to see Sage as more support since like Decept said we tend to be punching bags on cata teams and Demon more of the Pk Metal Mages. (This is my opinion keep in mind and how I tend to compare the two path's...call me old school if you will ).

I can say that I went Sage for the purpose of Sage IH at the time and because I wanted to be a cata cleric...that was almost 2 years ago and having been cata cleric since 6x. In fact I love it so much I have a 2nd 102 Sage Cleric...call me crazy if you will b:chuckle

Just weigh all of your options and look at your play style and the skills and you will be able to figure out the best path for you b:victory

RedsRose - Lost City wrote: »

I always love how people tend to use Demon IH as a OMG DEMON...
I can say that I went Sage for the purpose of Sage IH at the time

i thought that part was ironic...
but on a more realistic note;

lvl 10 IH gives 30% heal
demon ih gives 35% heal and gives the target 300 mana
sage ih give target 10% heal.

first of which im not entirely sure whither that +10 percent is + 10% off of the lvl 10 30% bringing it to 40%, or if its taking the base lvl 11 35% and adding to 45%

even giving sage the benefit of the doubt. like i said before there is NO situation i can think of where that 45% (or possibly 40%) would make any difference.

no matter where you are. healing a tanking doing a bh/ delta/ warsong/ or healing a cata barb. if you properly stack IH ther 5 or 10% gain will NEVER make a difference.

the clerics weapon, its shards and refinement make more of a difference than sage does over demon ih.

and people say oh its just 300 mana... well as any every cleric knows.. yoou supposed to stack ih. with 5 ih stacks im gaining 300 mana every 3 seconds or 100 mana per second.

us kitties cant go through mana that fast.

i have also heard the comment from demon clerics that they wont get demon ih becuase it doesnt benifit them any. That is totally absurd. demon ih gives the target mana. that means if u cast it on yourself. it gives YOU mana

demon ih costs 400 mana it gives 300. so a self casted demon ih cost 1/4th the amount a sage ih does,

demon ih IS a clear win over sage. its not going to save anyone where a lvl 10 or demon ih wouldn't.

on thatnote i will sage that sage clerics do have some PVP and TW benifits over demon
first of which as i started earlier demon magic shell gives 20% faster cast rate. thius may not be the 25% of demon spark, but unlike demon spark this cant be help up indefinitely.
THIS is the biggest thing sage clerics have for them and should be the first skill they should obtain if they do choose sage path.

another benift is sage spark. becuase of sage magic shell sage clerics are able to recieve the 25% damage reduction form sage spark along with the 20% channeling of magic shell

where as demon get demon sprits gift. which gives 150% magic damage, while we can also cast this indefinitely. we cannot stack this with demon spark.

i have a lvl 70 cleric and i love to duel with it. truth be told if i spam ih i can pretty much keep myself alive vs any foe near my lvl. that is until they spark. while my sparked heals may heal more than they deal heals dont help if you get 1 shot.

sage spark imo would be better prepared to face this issue becuase of the 25% extra defence. as well as being able to keep the 20% channeling from magic shell

of course in a 1v1.. this can normally be overcome by simply using silent or chromatic seal. but those dont' have a set duration and could fall short. or worse yet the person could use a skill that makes them immune to movement debuffs.

PVE demon has a cleric advatanage. however sage cleric does have the advantage when tripple sparked PVP becuase of magic shell and the -25% reduction.

wether or not you want to base your whole build around that 1 combo is up to you.

demon have much more versatility.

but then again having 90% of you sage benifts coming from one skill does make it a lot cheaper to be a sage cleric.

My cleric is going demon. as demon wins in about 95% of the situations i face on a PVE server. still on a PVP server extra def seem like it would be more useful. and i can totally see people going sage there.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

...hitting my casters with Spirits Gift is often more useful than attacking myself...

The proc for SG is a self-buff only. Unless I have missed your point entirely.

If you have a decent weapon, Demon IH can be just as 'strong' as Sage IH. I only have a crappy Mirage and I have no problem healing squishy Sin tanks as a Demon. Why should I need more if I can keep everyone alive with Demon IH easily? : /

[QUOTE=/
gellus - Heavens Tear;12177352]I went sage for this reason:
Master Li's Technique
Charge and gain 50 Chi instantly.
- More chi for more BB if necessary.

Ironheart Blessing
Sage version recovers an additional 10% more HP.
-Stronger heals give me a chance to stop spamming it and use my debuffs, and DD a little bit.

Elemental Seal
Sage version always lasts 25 seconds.
Dimensional Seal
Sage version increases physical defense reduction duration on the enemy to 25 seconds.
-Longer debuffs, more damage done.

Metal Mastery
Sage version always increases Metal magic damage by 25%.
-

But that's just me. I like all the skills, but really the heals were a defining factor in my choice.[/QUOTE]
Master Li's Technique while nice is completely neglisble when you consider that demon plume shell cost half the chi, pruify now costs no chi/ wellspring vanguard and magic shell both give you chi absurdly fast. and any cleric past lvl 85 who doesn't have cloud eruption either doesn't know about it or is crazy.

next point
assuming you are unsparked.. demon sprits gift will add more heals than the 10% from sage ih. if your sparked. ur heals are so absurdly strong you can spend time attacking anyways

the seals: um yes they last 5 seconds longer... but either way your cooldown is 3 seconds. so during 100 seconds you will spend 8 seconds debuffing the boss instead of 10.
so ur saving 2 second every 100 seconds, or 2%. sheesh ur ping is probably going to make a bigger difference that

Metal mastery: ok so u do 5% more damage cool unsparked demon have demon spirits give giveing us 150% more damage: sparked you have 725% more damage instead of 720%. giving your weapon +1 is going to make a bigger change than that.

the only argument that sage cleric can even touch me on is sage magic shell. That skill is win. And if you choose sage that skill is the only reason i will accept as a valid reason.

Honestly Furries with every post you're making less and less sense, play cleric a bit more and then post since you're wrong in almost everything you say.
No, demon spirit's gift wont make your IH stronger than sage IH.
No, demon spirit's gift wont make you do 150% more damage.
No, sage magic shell isnt most useful skill.
No, wellspring doesnt give you chi fast enough (its only 12 chi instead of 10....actually sage will make chi faster with it than demon)
No, magic shell doesnt give you chi fast enough...especially considering mana cost.
Reaserch a bit and then post or at least lvl your cleric.