Sage vs Demon

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  • zbzkda
    zbzkda Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2011
    Hi:

    I'm talking from the POV of someone who is pro-demon btw :)
    Mauntille - Heavens Tear wrote: »
    ...

    I understand why people don't like Demon Ironwood, but I still love it. You're at a slight disadvantage when solo'ing, but in my experience, spamming Ironwood and both myriads make the effect proc enough that I don't miss the guarantee. In the squad situation, a cleric with level 11 Dimensional Seal or a barb with even level 7 Devour has a p.def reduction either the same or stronger than the Sage Ironwood. If you're running with a mystic who uses their Befuddling Creeper, you've got another chance at the same. albeit weaker, debuff. I love Demon Ironwood for squads. It just takes a little coordination to make sure that any overwriting that's done is done by the veno.

    Well, in practice while I had originally been thinking that myriad would really be a great thing to be using really regularly, it pulls 800 mana, which even though isn't much at first, is quite a bit when you actually use it while fighting, at least imho. For now I'm just sticking to keeping lvl10 Ironwood -_-
    Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »
    5 seconds is too short to be worth it.

    I am in full accord with this statement :)
    Mauntille - Heavens Tear wrote: »
    At -65% channel or better (which is not at all uncommon for endgame), you can easily get 3+ spells in that 5 seconds if you're paying attention.

    Or if you're a fox form veno, you can get a fair amount of regular attacks in 5 seconds.

    I think -chan is a very important point, and I prioritize it very much. My endgame goal has -45%. I'm thinking that with enough -chan, you can make up for the fact that Demon Lucky Scarab's stun is only 2 seconds long.
    ColdSnow - Wherever wrote:
    Sorry...but you are actually saying you can do same dmg with nova as SD with 20% HP debuff?

    Lets say a small mini boss 11mil HP > Sage SD > 2,2mil HP less

    So..you actually can do 2,2mil dmg with demon nova?

    YOUR TONE IS VERY CONDESCENDING AND ANNOYING.
    I seriously wonder: people who don't RPK, if you play the board game "Sorry!" and you roll the dice so that you land on an opponents piece and send it back to the beginning, do you sincerely apologize and ask everyone if you can have a do-over roll so you can give your victim another chance? It's a god damn game..

    --LongKnife
  • Mauntille - Heavens Tear
    Mauntille - Heavens Tear Posts: 694 Arc User
    edited June 2011
    RE: Ironwood/Myriad

    I don't buy in to the thought that Sage Ironwood makes you all powerful. (People haven't actually said it, but it's the attitude I get from some.) For venos, instance play has shifted back to being in a squad since it's the APS toons that do more soloing, generally speaking. Once you start getting to end game and running with others who have sage/demon skills, Sage Ironwood is equal or lesser than the skills of other classes.

    When solo'ing, it's really only good for 1v1, mainly bosses. If you're aoe'ing, you'll be spamming the aoe skills and Ironwood becomes a hard hitting finisher at best. If you're fighting bosses all the time, then you may not want the demon version since it's more chaotic.

    Personally, I don't find the mana cost of spamming the two myriads to be that bad. Especially not after playing a cleric to a comparable level and spamming skills on that character. Venos have it cheap mp-wise.


    RE: Wallop

    It's certainly nothing to choose your culti on. The main reason I initially got it was because I'm OCD and needed every single skill to be at max level and I figured it'd be useful when fighting Mountain's Finger- what else is a primarily mage (at that time) veno going to do?

    The first time I force-crit Nova it was an accident, but it soon turned into a staple combo in my gameplay. After I started using Wallop, I wished that I'd learned it months ago. It doesn't work for everyone, but it works with my build/connection speed/playstyle. It's a bit of a niche, but that was part of the point of bringing it up- culti is something personal, not something that should be decided by others. Dig into the skills, even the ones you think you'll never use and think about if they'll affect your gameplay.
  • Vitenka - Dreamweaver
    Vitenka - Dreamweaver Posts: 4,125 Arc User
    edited June 2011
    Sage ironwood is... ok.
    It's not wonderful, it's just solid and reliable. A reasonable chunk of damage, a decent enough debuff.
    Solid and middle of the road. I'll never particularly celebrate my ironwood landing, but equally, I'll pretty much always use it. (The exception is when a barb uses their debuff, which is almost never, and theirs is short duration and easy enough to wait for. Or when a demon veno actually manages to land theirs, which is even shorter.)

    The longer duration is a subtle improvement - it means that the monsters are pretty much always debuffed, and it's easier to keep it running on a pair of mobs whilst switching your pet between them, and to keep it running through going fox and back.
    Again - it's not wonderful, just a small upgrade from 10.

    Compared to demon which is "Yay! Wow! Whoopee!" one time in 20, and, well, annoying the rest of the time.

    Venomancer sage/demon is very very very well balanced. Each form only has a couple of poor skills, and only a couple of very good skills (and about the same number of each) - and many of our skills are balanced within themselves. Ironwood is one of them in my opinion.

    Edit:
    Foxy wallop is a definite win for demon. I don't even have it on my skill bar. But then, I do have soul degen which is almost useless to demons.
    The path of deliberately getting crits scares me silly, it really does. Good on you for making it work, crits just get me killed.
  • Desdi - Sanctuary
    Desdi - Sanctuary Posts: 8,680 Arc User
    edited June 2011
    I bought Demon Stunning Blow two days ago.

    Like Mauntille mentioned, we should dig all the skills even the ones we think we will not use. I bought Stunning Blow because I found it really cheap and I thought of simply reselling it. A few moments later, however, I decided to learn it instead and see how it is...

    I'm loving it now. A 50% chance to stun the enemy for 3 seconds is not bad at all. It has been rather reliable (I strongly believe Stunning Blow and Crush Vigor have over 50% chance to proc to be honest). I especially love it for when a mob/mini-boss try to get me and I simply stun them and leave them frozen for 8 seconds there. During that time I can go back to human form and use Lucky Scarab and/or Frost Scarab and keep the mob pretty much stun locked.

    Sage version of it is not bad either. It has 25% chance to avoid consuming a spark, which is the only drawback of the skill though I don't find it particularly hard to build chi even as a Demon Venomancer.

    To the Myriads;

    It consumes chi and 800 mp indeed. I honestly don't find it that bad. I remember how one Venomancer on these forums was complaining about how they lose so much mana by transforming into Fox Form to use Amplify Damage >_>
    Venomancers are really cheap mp wise. I have played/play Cleric, Mystic and Psychic... Compared to them the mp cost for Venomancers is nothing.
    [SIGPIC]http://i.imgur.com/MtwcqjL.png[/SIGPIC]
    ★ Venomancer videos - tinyurl.com/k6ppkw4 ★ Desdi - Demon ♪ Wyvelin - Sage ★
  • Vitenka - Dreamweaver
    Vitenka - Dreamweaver Posts: 4,125 Arc User
    edited June 2011
    Problem is, veno's aren't used to running out of mana. Pretty much the ONLY time I use mana pots is when I'm stuck in foxform and leeching to stay alive (so daren't use the various ways we have of turning hp into mana).

    Or when I use myriad. Which doesn't proc anything useful very often. (And is guaranteed to proc mind-break if I've just gone foxform... grrr.)

    But yeah, they're wonderful skills and I ought to use them more often.

    But I'm really REALLY not used to being able to run out of mana. And the more skills I learn, the harder it is to avoid.

    Stunning blow is another 'bottom of my list' skill. Another one demons seem to get a better deal from - a chance to avoid using chi? Woo. Chi is free! I have lots! I have skills to give it away, for crying out loud - and they don't cooldown quickly enough!

    Ahem.

    Anyway - 1600 mana every 30s is a lot by anybodies standards, especially since it's in addition to your normal mana usage.
  • Mowriyah - Sanctuary
    Mowriyah - Sanctuary Posts: 28 Arc User
    edited June 2011
    I have one more question: demon ironwood...
    If the skill succes when hit it is ofc awesome, but if not? I mean.. will the skill still do damage besides of no succes ?
  • Vitenka - Dreamweaver
    Vitenka - Dreamweaver Posts: 4,125 Arc User
    edited June 2011
    Yes, it works perfectly.

    It does the damage, it doesn't even cancel an existing pdef debuff.
    So demons should certainly still be casting it, just for the damage.

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