Demon Or Sage

WnbTank - Archosaur wrote: »

Depends if you feel like investing on your sin and if you intend to PvP a lot. Heavy investments and Sage is better, no question. And even at lesser investments, sage seems to triumph on PvP. I like sage on sin a lot better but I find it too expensive for my uses, which is why my sin went demon.

Untrue, actually.

At lowest levels of investment, Demons triumph due to them being able to spark better. This would be <2.86 APS.

At the next levels, roughly 2.86-5.0 APS, Sage catches up to Demon and possibly even surpasses it in areas.

At the next level, where you start sharding DoTs or Primevals, Sage and Demon are pretty much equal.

At the last level, e.g. when you get to sharding JoSD, Demon surpasses Sage both in damage and survivability by far.

There's obviously a few points to be said about why this is true. Until you can permaspark, the functionality of your spark is kinda useless and so are you. At this point, it's best to get to permaspark as soon as possible, which benefits Demons as they get there easier and quicker. Once you have your permaspark, Sage gets the advantage of needing less armor and ornament refines due to having the 25% reduction on their spark. And once you have your permaspark, soloing tends to come down to your HP more than your DPS. However, since Demons don't need all of that -interval, they can get G15 Nirvana armors and shard JoSD at endgame, which brings their survivability above that of a Sage, plus they have a naturally higher DPS.

However, all of that changes if you count in recast R8. Recast R8 allows both Sages and Demons to get all the -interval while having all of their armors at G13 or higher, meaning both cultivations can shard JoSD. Thus, the Sage again has much higher survivability because their Bloodpaint heals more and their Focused Mind and Tidal Protection block more.

SpazzMcAps - Harshlands wrote: »

i went demon on my sin and regret it very much. when soloing fc i use frenzy and burn tons of my charm so having a 25% damage reduction would be very nice

Get other buffs, switch to TM or don't use frenzy, lol. You can't really blame a charm tick on a cultivation when you use a skill that reduces your defenses something like 95%.

As for culti... depends on your goals. I'm mostly PvE and demon is the winner there. As Olbaze pointed out, I picked culti based on endgame and demon endgame has higher dps, higher dmg reduction, and a majority of skills more sin oriented. For instance Rib Strike: sage or demon you'll still be sort of squishy. Sage reduces max hp 10%, demon further slows down opponents attacks. Well, 10% hp for most bosses goes away quicker than the channeling of Rib Strike anyways, but further reducing opponent attack speed could save me. Same thing with stuns. I wanted to avoid Sage Wolf Emblem. We've had discussion on how Subsea is roughly equal (sage is better for bosses that die in less than 15 seconds, Demon is better for bosses that take 15 or more). And I like sage Power Dash but PD is sort of a rare skill for me since I prefer to save my inner harmony for defensive purposes.

As much as demons get teased for picking the culti only for the aps spark, I think sage pick the culti primarily for the 3% paint. I have a sage sin I don't play. Its there to give my demon sage paint so win/win

In the end it just depends on your playstyle. I went demon and don't regret it one bit.

I'm pretty sure if I went sage I wouldn't have regretted it one bit either.

$hadow$in - Archosaur wrote: »

Just turned 89 and struglling to chooses between the 2

i like the tank but i also love aps help me :O

If you go sage I will personally come to your house and slap you with a wet fish.

Demon all the way.

I went demon on my sin, and instantly loved it. The attack speed bonus from spark at 89 is awesome. And at 99 with TT99 gear I think demon beats sage.

Now when you get to 100 its a bit different, and it depends on how much coin you have to invest, both immediately and in the long term. If you can afford the G13 daggers and Tome as well as the R8 and TT99 to get to 4aps, then I'd say sage all the way. If you can only get to 3.33 base then I'd say sage just edges demon, though its closer. However if you can't immediately then demon is better imo.

I'm speaking from what I've observed on others mostly, my sin is demon 3.33 sparked, but I'm close to my g13 daggers now which will put me at 3.33/5.0. I am tempted to get the tome and reset to sage, but as my sin is mostly a farming toon for my seeker/barb, i'm not sure if it's worth the cost of it.

In short - 4.0 sage beats 5.0 demon, but do what you want!!

SpazzMcAps - Harshlands wrote: »

i know xD but damage reduction is sexy

It is, but as your gear gets better you need to reduce less and less. Basically, the more endgame you get the less sage spark matters, on the other hand, the more endgame your weapon is the more the aps increase helps your dps.

There are also many things in this game that don't experience reduction from sage spark, such as the fires from the vana chicken. And there are times when sage spark reduction really helps, like on Pole, Eyes of crimson, and Fragrance when your defense is reduced so the damage reduction really helps. Then again, getting 25% more bloodpaint heals and being able to spark 25% more often probably makes up for even that.

For me, I compared 3% paint and 25% dmg reduction to 25% more dps. Considering I can easily do 100k a second on [?] bosses where they hit me for about 2k. So I'm looking at either reducing 500 dmg with sage spark, or gaining 25k damage, 500 in paint heals, and sparking for 20% more heals sooner and the boss dieing 25% faster. And that's on [?] bosses. On regular bosses its about 4 times in favor of demon.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

There are also many things in this game that don't experience reduction from sage spark, such as the fires from the vana chicken. And there are times when sage spark reduction really helps, like on Pole, Eyes of crimson, and Fragrance when your defense is reduced so the damage reduction really helps. Then again, getting 25% more bloodpaint heals and being able to spark 25% more often probably makes up for even that.

Just as there are many things in this game that make you not experience the aps increase ... Stuns, seals, sleeps, all those make sage spark more desirable. You can't really put one as better as the other in any situation.

Btw, 2k isn't that really aiming high lol. That would be fcc or something... Not really a goal to base your culti on imo. As your gear get's better, sage spark get's less effective if you stay at the same lvl bosses. That end part makes all the difference.

As sins though we have access to 3 chi gaining skills, 4 if you have cloud eruption, so if you find yourself stun/sealed and thus are short of a spark, can gain chi back easily. Granted you probably wont want to use inner harmony like that, and perhaps wont have cloud eruption, but rising dragon strike and tackling slash along with a base 4 aps ought to be enough to get you back up to 3 sparks in almost no time. True, demon can spark more easily, but I don't think it would be that much of a problem for sage either.

_Belgarion_ - Dreamweaver wrote: »

As sins though we have access to 3 chi gaining skills, 4 if you have cloud eruption, so if you find yourself stun/sealed and thus are short of a spark, can gain chi back easily. Granted you probably wont want to use inner harmony like that, and perhaps wont have cloud eruption, but rising dragon strike and tackling slash along with a base 4 aps ought to be enough to get you back up to 3 sparks in almost no time. True, demon can spark more easily, but I don't think it would be that much of a problem for sage either.

I didn't say that regarding to chi gain actually. On that kind of bosses you rely on on chi skills to permaspark no matter what aps or culti.

What I meant is, when stunned or sealed you won't be attacking, so you won't get heals from bp. In that situation 25% extra attack speed is useless while 25% damage reduction is great.

All that just to point out that you can't so easily compare the survivability impact of both culties just by comparing 25% bp gain with 25% damage reduction.