Sage or Demon?

MageMERC - Harshlands
MageMERC - Harshlands Posts: 1,600 Arc User
edited November 2011 in Psychic
There is an old thread on this. Now with psychics seemingly becoming a little more popular, I'm asking what the current opinion is:

Whats best - Sage or Demon?
Post edited by MageMERC - Harshlands on

Comments

  • negativereaction
    negativereaction Posts: 238 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    sage.
  • T_i_m - Dreamweaver
    T_i_m - Dreamweaver Posts: 200 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    I'll summarize the important differences as I see them. SoS - demon gets you 20% increased proc, sage gets 40% increase in seal time. Fairly balanced depending on your sf. Tide spirit - demon gets increased crits, sage gets 50% increase in reduced channeling time. Also balanced. Earth vector - demon gets increased aoe, sage 50% chance to cost no spark. Advantage to demon for reliability. Somewhat mitigated by sage sandburst. Psy will - demon 20% chance for no spark, sage gets 2 additional sec of phys immunity. Sage wins. Bubble - demon gets reduced cd, sage gets aoe purify. Amazing sage skill, especially comboed with expel (19 sec of phys immunity when timed right).

    The other skills are mostly irrelevant to compare imo with the advantage slightly to sage based on the above.
  • Ezehc - Lost City
    Ezehc - Lost City Posts: 238 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    moo

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  • negativereaction
    negativereaction Posts: 238 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    T_i_m - Dreamweaver wrote: »
    Earth vector - demon gets increased aoe, sage 50% chance to cost no spark. Advantage to demon for reliability.

    definitely not advantage demon here. with the spammability of skills like soulburn (which is probably balanced sage vs demon, though i prefer longer duration), earth vector, psy will, red tide, and occasionally tide spirit, psychics need to be chi factories. earth vector only costing half a spark on average is excellent.

    it's largely for chi that sage is better, though with endgame refines, it's also good to note that sage soul of stunning will stun long enough to kill just about anything.
  • Kerona - Sanctuary
    Kerona - Sanctuary Posts: 1,771 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Sage.

    The OP demon skills are far from reliable enough at a pretty high cost to spam them for crit rate procs (Tide Spirit being a 2 spark skill and Landslide requiring you to be in close range).
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • Uzuril - Raging Tide
    Uzuril - Raging Tide Posts: 20 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Interesting thing to note, by being sage you arent necessarily sacrificing your attack power. In fact, I went sage for the better skill books, however after awhile I wondered if Id regret it cause I like hitting hard. However, as I started running caster nirvana's and even running with several demon psychics(many similarly or even better geared) Ive still managed to out damage them O.o I dont know if this is because of the skills books earthen and water spirit, giving 25% more damage to both elements. But regardless, Im now glad I went sage xD awesome sage skills + I can still out damage a demon psychic.
  • Euzebe - Sanctuary
    Euzebe - Sanctuary Posts: 230 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Kerona - Sanctuary wrote: »
    Sage.

    The OP demon skills are far from reliable enough at a pretty high cost to spam them for crit rate procs (Tide Spirit being a 2 spark skill and Landslide requiring you to be in close range).

    I think you underestimate how often both Tide Spirit and Landslide can be used in PVP/TW.

    Demon Tide Spirit after ticking a high HP's charm is one of the best offensive uses of 2 Sparks in our arsenal. It's also particularly useful if several catas are grouped and you can get an HF combined with Tide Spirit.

    Landslide is close range true, but I mean, there are some classes that exclusively attack you from close range. Plus it's always fun to see Landslide's crit proc, and then fire an aoe into a large group with 70% crit rate. Additionally, I thought it was obvious but Landslide also has an interrupt effect so it's useful against DBs, BoAs, BBs and Vortexes when your EV is in cooldown/you don't have the spark/enemy has anti stun up.

    Those two skills aside, I much prefer Demon Silence over Sage and whilst they may not all be better than their sage counterparts, I'd rather have the Earth Vector Sandburst Blast and Glacial Shards as Demon instead of Sage.

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