Switchin it up

PheosNyx - Sanctuary · June 2012

So a year and a half ago I went sage on my baby wizzy because the chi saves on the ults, the lower chi cost for DS, the 5% more damage, and bids' crit buff looked really appealing. Now as a 103 sage wizard with 19 skills and part r9, I find myself regretting my lack of CC skills. Granted the new morai skills help some, but demon has a ton of CC that is more beneficial in pvp and pve. I find it very hard to drop people in TW these days because of the high def lvl/hp/defenses etc that they have vs what was popular pre r8 and my lack of control fails to keep them from running while they regen hp/rebuff. So my question is for you guys, should I stay sage and be happy with the skills I have or go demon? There are pros and cons to whatever I do, of which I'll list some below. I know demon vs sage is always a popular debate, but I wanted some feedback before I made potentially a large investment =o keep in mind my original main was a bm so I was used to stun locking everything o_o

Pros:
-20 channel buff accessible everywhere
Chi-less close range stun that has 50% chance proc (vs db 20% proc + 1 spark cost)
Distance Shrink goes farther
FoW cd's 2 seconds faster
35 meter range on Seize (my favorite move)
20% chance to save 2 sparks on BIDS (vs saving 1 on bt but still not having enough chi after 2 nukes to throw a third one down)
Hailstorm higher proc % on freeze (aoe)
Pitfall higher proc % on freeze (1v1)
20% chance to stun for 5 seconds on stone rain (1v1)
Higher mp regen/pdef/hp regen with barriers
More spells per spark due to -channel
Sandstorm has added damage that is a good 1v1 chiless nuke
Demon D. Pyro and Glacial Snare do not conflict with undine
second tier skills channel faster as demon, more opportunities to use them instead of first tier skills which channel fast naturally
Morning dew has a small heal over time effect (magic attack so high that i've never seen sage proc because I always heal to full anyway)
Higher constant crit rate vs spike with sage
Can wear crit buff from fac base and not have to worry about it keeping bids from procing
Manifest virtue wouldn't have basically the same effect as sage quaff

Cons:
Would have to refarm spirit
Would have a high cost to re-buy and re-learn skills
No chi every 60 seconds (and thusly no insta stone barrier whenever i revive in tw)
Less elemental defense from barriers (mostly used in caster vana and VoS)
Less of a chance to save chi on an ulti
Demon BT's effect is lame
Distance shrink costs more as demon (so no elemental shell -> shrink combo)
Frostblade goes back to lasting 15 minutes (pain in the butt in AEU and 9Trials)
No damage reduction from spark in desperate situations
Lose WotP's cd reduction
Lose 5% damage from masteries
Loss of spike crit from BIDS ( so Bids -> MS/BT) would no longer have the high kill rate in TW
Wouldn't be able to wear channel buff from base due to it getting overwritten by quaff/spark

Sage skills I have:
BIDS, BT, MS, Pyro Shield, Divine Pyrogram, Pyrogram, Gush, Glacial Snare, Stone Barrier, Morning Dew, Frostblade, Hailstorm, Will of the Phoenix, Stone Rain, 3 Masteries, Distance Shrink, Force of Will

Demon Skills I would get:
BIDS, BT, MS, Glacial Embrace, Stone Barrier, Divine Pyrogram, Pyrogram, Gush, Stone Rain, Emberstorm, Morning Dew, Will of the Phoenix, 3 masteries, Distance Shrink, Force of Will, Pitfall, Sandstorm, Glacial Snare (and maybe frostblade for the extra chi)

RebeI - Harshlands · June 2012

I have been contemplating the same thing! I have every sage skill besides hailstorm, and the lack of control skills is the only negative thing about sage.

I LOVE sage BIDS in TW, especially now that I have full r9. Sage BT also seems to save a spark quite frequently so that's a plus.

As far as demon goes, I would love the hailstorm/emberstorm/stone rain %'s to stun/freeze. And the extra pdef would be crazy.. It would save me sharding 4 garnet gems or +11ing my neck for the pdef. With sage barrier I have 9.6k pdef self buffed, with demon that would be 10.8k :O

Just the pdef factor alone is swaying my decision towards going demon

PheosNyx - Sanctuary · June 2012

The pdef is amazing for those who shard with garnets o.o Personally I'm an HP wiz because I like big numbers =X But even as a cit wiz it would give me like an extra k of pdef (and as someone who has kinda squishy pdef, that's really saying something). I've noticed sage BIDS procs the most out of the 3 ulti procs. MS n BT seem to have more of a 33% chance proc rate rather than 50%, but I still stand by my theory that all proc %'s in this game are higher written than they actually are <_<;

Edit: What I really wanna try as demon is Ice Prison -> DS into a crowd -> Emberstorm -> Hailstorm -> MS P:

Adroit - Lost City · June 2012

What kind of genie do you have? And what do you do besides TW?

PheosNyx - Sanctuary · June 2012

Cloud eruption (for when i spawn without a target to leech chi from), Chi Siphon, Tree of Protection, Expel, Holy Path, AD 43 dex, 6 str, 66 vit, 76 magic 73/100 lp o.o

I do TW, duels for giggles, I grind in VoS, lots of caster, some RB delta, bh's, cube, morai, AEU, 9 trials

SpazzMcAps - Harshlands · June 2012

RebeI - Harshlands wrote: »

I have been contemplating the same thing! I have every sage skill besides hailstorm, and the lack of control skills is the only negative thing about sage.

I LOVE sage BIDS in TW, especially now that I have full r9. Sage BT also seems to save a spark quite frequently so that's a plus.

As far as demon goes, I would love the hailstorm/emberstorm/stone rain %'s to stun/freeze. And the extra pdef would be crazy.. It would save me sharding 4 garnet gems or +11ing my neck for the pdef. With sage barrier I have 9.6k pdef self buffed, with demon that would be 10.8k :O

Just the pdef factor alone is swaying my decision towards going demon

gz on yer r9z

Adroit - Lost City · June 2012

PheosNyx - Sanctuary wrote: »

Cloud eruption (for when i spawn without a target to leech chi from), Chi Siphon, Tree of Protection, Expel, Holy Path, AD 43 dex, 6 str, 66 vit, 76 magic 73/100 lp o.o

I do TW, duels for giggles, I grind in VoS, lots of caster, some RB delta, bh's, cube, morai, AEU, 9 trials

Well you aren't using a dex genie, so that isn't an issue :P

Anyway, it sounds like you do mostly pve where imo culti makes almost no difference. I couldn't imagine losing all the skills you already have, but if you think it'd better fit your play style.. it's obviously your prerogative :P I think I should mention that just switching to demon doesn't transform your wiz into a BM.. the control skills are still not very reliable. We are talking about 33% -> 50% hailstorm, 15% -> 33% pitfall, 20% stone rain, and 50% on emberstorm. These bonuses aren't going to give you a night and day difference, but a little edge in control that you don't have as sage.

PheosNyx - Sanctuary · June 2012

Well the thing about the lower chances when it comes to my wizard is at least I won't miss like I do on my bm xD; ijs. Only 100% chance stun on my bm is RotP, everything else has a success rate + has to actually land the hit e.e;

ShamandaIie - Heavens Tear · June 2012

I've played both demon and sage wiz. My own Wiz is my sage wiz and I can safely say that if your AoEs will be a lot less devastating as a demon. You take the crit buff from BIDS for granted and it's mainly your AoEs in TW that will do some serious damage to the opposing faction. However if you PK more than you TW then Demon might be better suited for you.

PheosNyx - Sanctuary · June 2012

kk o.o thanks for the feedback guys, that's some great food for thought xD

HexOmega - Dreamweaver · June 2012

what i really wanna have on demon wizard is sage DB
its so much better than crappy heal demon DB
stun adds survivability for pve and the tw advantage is obvious

other than that the 89 and 92 skills on demon are better
the very little chi gained once in a while by that sage skill is overrated imo
once you hit the heat of battle you are already full chi in TW usually (yes, demon has full chi)
if not, the sage wont be full chi either (it has a cooldown!)
cant complain on distance shrink either, usually one has the chi for it, lets jump a little further? otay!
glacial snare and divine pyro sage versions are so annoying. i hate them when i play my sage wizzie on a certain server

they can keep their sage bids crit chance, i rather stun archers with mountain seize before they can even hit me

Leni - Raging Tide · June 2012

HexOmega - Dreamweaver wrote: »

what i really wanna have on demon wizard is sage DB
its so much better than crappy heal demon DB
stun adds survivability for pve and the tw advantage is obvious

Hmmm... I disagree. PvE-wise DB is mostly used on Delta and stun resets aggro, so a sage DB makes it impossible for the barb to hold aggro from you, which makes that crappy heal from demon DB better for survival or at least it doesn't get you killed. And if you're using DB in TW you're doing it wrong.

HexOmega - Dreamweaver wrote: »

other than that the 89 and 92 skills on demon are better
the very little chi gained once in a while by that sage skill is overrated imo

Disagree again. Demon Stone Rain is obviously better than sage, but sage pyro and gush are better.
As a sage, pyro is very important to me and I spam it, so 20% chance to get extra 30 chi > 0.3 secs of difference in channeling, which becomes less as you add -chan gear. And 600 extra dmg from gush becomes less due to PvP reduction, so the bonus dmg from sage mastery makes sage gush hit harder than demon. Sage Sandstorm ends up hitting harder than demon for the same reason with a good enough weap.

HexOmega - Dreamweaver wrote: »

glacial snare and divine pyro sage versions are so annoying. i hate them when i play my sage wizzie on a certain server

D.pyro and Snare are just a matter of playstyle. If you play by keeping everything undine'd all the time then demon are better, but spamming undine is not alawys the best choice. Maybe since you're used to playing demon, the sage version messes with your undine, but sages use them for their advantage.

HexOmega - Dreamweaver wrote: »

i rather stun archers with mountain seize before they can even hit me

If you're attacking an offguard archer then 30 or 35 mts doesn't matter, but if the archer sees you coming and you start running at each other they can get in range only 0.5 secs after you do and can stun you before you throw MS even at -60% chan. You'd probably end up stunning each other due to lag but you'd have two sparks less and they'd have 10% more crit :P

@OP: I have almost exactly the same case as you do and I've been thinking a lot about the same thing lately. Maybe you should try a demon wizard on a p.server and if you like it a lot more than sage then change cultis on your main.

AshenSkies - Heavens Tear · June 2012

PheosNyx - Sanctuary wrote: »

So a year and a half ago I went sage on my baby wizzy because the chi saves on the ults, the lower chi cost for DS, the 5% more damage, and bids' crit buff looked really appealing. Now as a 103 sage wizard with 19 skills and part r9, I find myself regretting my lack of CC skills. Granted the new morai skills help some, but demon has a ton of CC that is more beneficial in pvp and pve. I find it very hard to drop people in TW these days because of the high def lvl/hp/defenses etc that they have vs what was popular pre r8 and my lack of control fails to keep them from running while they regen hp/rebuff. So my question is for you guys, should I stay sage and be happy with the skills I have or go demon? There are pros and cons to whatever I do, of which I'll list some below. I know demon vs sage is always a popular debate, but I wanted some feedback before I made potentially a large investment =o keep in mind my original main was a bm so I was used to stun locking everything o_o

Pros:
-20 channel buff accessible everywhere
Chi-less close range stun that has 50% chance proc (vs db 20% proc + 1 spark cost)
Distance Shrink goes farther
FoW cd's 2 seconds faster
35 meter range on Seize (my favorite move)
20% chance to save 2 sparks on BIDS (vs saving 1 on bt but still not having enough chi after 2 nukes to throw a third one down)
Hailstorm higher proc % on freeze (aoe)
Pitfall higher proc % on freeze (1v1)
20% chance to stun for 5 seconds on stone rain (1v1)
Higher mp regen/pdef/hp regen with barriers
More spells per spark due to -channel
Sandstorm has added damage that is a good 1v1 chiless nuke
Demon D. Pyro and Glacial Snare do not conflict with undine
second tier skills channel faster as demon, more opportunities to use them instead of first tier skills which channel fast naturally
Morning dew has a small heal over time effect (magic attack so high that i've never seen sage proc because I always heal to full anyway)
Higher constant crit rate vs spike with sage
Can wear crit buff from fac base and not have to worry about it keeping bids from procing
Manifest virtue wouldn't have basically the same effect as sage quaff

Cons:
Would have to refarm spirit
Would have a high cost to re-buy and re-learn skills
No chi every 60 seconds (and thusly no insta stone barrier whenever i revive in tw)
Less elemental defense from barriers (mostly used in caster vana and VoS)
Less of a chance to save chi on an ulti
Demon BT's effect is lame
Distance shrink costs more as demon (so no elemental shell -> shrink combo)
Frostblade goes back to lasting 15 minutes (pain in the butt in AEU and 9Trials)
No damage reduction from spark in desperate situations
Lose WotP's cd reduction
Lose 5% damage from masteries
Loss of spike crit from BIDS ( so Bids -> MS/BT) would no longer have the high kill rate in TW
Wouldn't be able to wear channel buff from base due to it getting overwritten by quaff/spark

Sage skills I have:
BIDS, BT, MS, Pyro Shield, Divine Pyrogram, Pyrogram, Gush, Glacial Snare, Stone Barrier, Morning Dew, Frostblade, Hailstorm, Will of the Phoenix, Stone Rain, 3 Masteries, Distance Shrink, Force of Will

Demon Skills I would get:
BIDS, BT, MS, Glacial Embrace, Stone Barrier, Divine Pyrogram, Pyrogram, Gush, Stone Rain, Emberstorm, Morning Dew, Will of the Phoenix, 3 masteries, Distance Shrink, Force of Will, Pitfall, Sandstorm, Glacial Snare (and maybe frostblade for the extra chi)

This is exactly how I feel, and I haven't even reached level 100 for third cast nirvana wizzy. After playing a demon wizzy on several other servers I have come to appreciate the variety in the playing style available to you. The paralyzes, extra stuns are all on skills I already have as a sage wizzy so I would definitely be able to get them if I ever happened to get to the stage where I was able to switch.

I'm severely regretting the choice I made

Yulk_owns - Lost City · June 2012

Question: Why would you want to change your culti when you have the sage skills learned already? I just do not understand. If you want to use a different culti, just make another wiz.

RebeI - Harshlands · June 2012

Yulk_owns - Lost City wrote: »

Question: Why would you want to change your culti when you have the sage skills learned already? I just do not understand. If you want to use a different culti, just make another wiz.

Yulk why you so smart?

Surely it makes more sense to pay for buying/learning all demon skills, like 300m including gambling for 3 ultis?

Or would you rather buy another full set of r9 + refines for 2k~ gold?

SpazzMcAps - Harshlands · June 2012

RebeI - Harshlands wrote: »

Yulk why you so smart?

Surely it makes more sense to pay for buying/learning all demon skills, like 300m including gambling for 3 ultis?

Or would you rather buy another full set of r9 + refines for 2k~ gold?

cuz its yulk
dur

HexOmega - Dreamweaver · June 2012

Leni - Raging Tide wrote: »

Hmmm... I disagree. PvE-wise DB is mostly used on Delta and stun resets aggro, so a sage DB makes it impossible for the barb to hold aggro from you, which makes that crappy heal from demon DB better for survival or at least it doesn't get you killed. And if you're using DB in TW you're doing it wrong.

who cares if barbs hold aggro or not in delta

i do use db in tw sometimes...
ever heard of suicide missile wizards? b:avoid
when my wizzie buff expires and i have to rebuff i know its time to do a suicide into a group
demon sparking AD IG /something/ bam bam bam dead, distracting a whole bunch of people for a few seconds, maybe killen off their clerics or just look classy on the ground

- just sitting on enemy cata barbs and whatever is there with them on the home crystal
sage effect there is awesome

Leni - Raging Tide wrote: »

Disagree again. Demon Stone Rain is obviously better than sage, but sage pyro and gush are better.
As a sage, pyro is very important to me and I spam it, so 20% chance to get extra 30 chi > 0.3 secs of difference in channeling, which becomes less as you add -chan gear. And 600 extra dmg from gush becomes less due to PvP reduction, so the bonus dmg from sage mastery makes sage gush hit harder than demon. Sage Sandstorm ends up hitting harder than demon for the same reason with a good enough weap.

hit more or crit more is somewhat of a so-so thingie,

as seen on the regualr non-r9 bm/archer (somewhat +10 fail mdef aps gear) dies to normal SS/GS crits
while it wouldnt die to a regular hit with 10% additional damage

not mentioning these weird bms who use phys marrow for some reason
"hey lets see if any mage hits me 100k+ this time!"

Leni - Raging Tide wrote: »

If you're attacking an offguard archer then 30 or 35 mts doesn't matter, but if the archer sees you coming and you start running at each other they can get in range only 0.5 secs after you do and can stun you before you throw MS even at -60% chan. You'd probably end up stunning each other due to lag but you'd have two sparks less and they'd have 10% more crit :P

hm. seen it many times, archer stuck in their stunning arrow channeling at me, since my MS hit them before that ;o

im only at 30% chan base - dunno how much guildbase adds to that, but i dont have that buff for a long time anyways - see point suicide missile above

the final thought would be

wiz culti doesnt really make one side better
neither in tw, pk or pve

we are not like the barbs, where sage is obviously better for tw

ah barbs... ive been in cata-barb-hunting squads for decades
the increased freeze rates come in very handy
can make the path to base towers a half eternity (if they need to use their IG there they are bound to fail in base

)

PheosNyx - Sanctuary · June 2012

Leni - Raging Tide wrote: »

D.pyro and Snare are just a matter of playstyle. If you play by keeping everything undine'd all the time then demon are better, but spamming undine is not alawys the best choice. Maybe since you're used to playing demon, the sage version messes with your undine, but sages use them for their advantage.

@OP: I have almost exactly the same case as you do and I've been thinking a lot about the same thing lately. Maybe you should try a demon wizard on a p.server and if you like it a lot more than sage then change cultis on your main.

I've played sage wiz since 2010 and I always keep everything I'm targeting undined xD i find myself usually afraid of using snare and d pyro for fear that my undine will run out before snare or dpyro hits =.= I have a sage friend who never relies on undine, instead relying on snare n dpyro. o.o

I actually rolled a demon wiz on a private server and after a week I'm like so devastated I've been sage this whole time =.=

And in response to the roll another wiz poster - I would if r9 were stashable :P

JYUUU - Harshlands · June 2012

It's true that a demon wizard have a lot more control skills, but honnestly with Arcane defense, u can do well being sage if you have a good genie and know what you are doing.
I don't think it's worth to buy the whole set of level 11 skills, you could upgrade your gear with that money, and it'd prolly be better.If u are already godly geared then just go for it.

PheosNyx - Sanctuary · June 2012

Im basically waitin for a good ocean sale to +10 everything. Only end game pieces I'm missing are nirv lunar helm and cube necklace xD and I'm at 23 cogs of fate.

AshenSkies - Heavens Tear · June 2012

PheosNyx - Sanctuary wrote: »

Im basically waitin for a good ocean sale to +10 everything. Only end game pieces I'm missing are nirv lunar helm and cube necklace xD and I'm at 23 cogs of fate.

Same, I have 4 pieces to +10(not including weapon, still deciding R9 vs G16 Nirvana).

*Rubs genie lamp and wishes for ocean orb sale*

RebeI - Harshlands · June 2012

AshenSkies - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Same, I have 4 pieces to +10(not including weapon, still deciding R9 vs G16 Nirvana).

*Rubs genie lamp and wishes for ocean orb sale*

Haha *rubs genie lamp too*

I need 12 for full +10

basically, if the 10* sale is good (5 for 100 pleaseee!) then I will +10 full set.. If it's **** like 50 gold each, I will just +11/12 wep.

Hope pwi don't troll us

Spellthis - Harshlands · June 2012

I have played both sage and demon wiz and I prefer demon.

Here are some reasons why I went demon.

In my opinion, choosing sage means that there will be little difference in your play style before you went sage (generally pyro gush to build chi > sutra/ult). On the other hand, demon opens up a lot more options to your play style. Why restrict yourself to a single play style?

As demon, you will get to use control skills which sage wiz will never/hardly use such as hailstorm, pitfall, emberstorm, stone rain. That being said, its not like your pyro gush are gimped when you chose demon, so its still possible to play like a sage wiz just that your ultis are not that great.

Another thing I would like to touch on is demon wellspring quarf (-20% channeling). Of course, I wouldn't say its spectacular in pvp but its pretty great in pve for instances such as caster nirvana. Get yourself a separate set of channeling gears for pve and it works wonders (adds a huge amount of dps). Its almost as if you are in perma sutra if u do it right. In addition, there may be chance that sometime in the future, proper channeling gears may be introduced( high grade p.def orn with channeling etc), and when that time comes (may never come though xD), demon will be more appealing than it already is.

In pvp, sage becomes less appealing with the genie skill spark. With spark, you will less likely to use BIDS (one of sage's best skill), since sutra spark combo, or BT spark combo will do way more damage. However, I will not deny that sage BIDS will still be devastating in TW. Moreover, with spark, divine pyro can be a nice charm bypass skill too when u don't have enough chi for sutra/ult, and in this case, demon has a better add with a whooping 0.5s off channeling.

Chi is being overrated in sage. Its a misconception that sage has an endless pool of chi. Yes, sage obviously has an advantage in chi, but really, its not really THAT big of a difference as people claimed it to be. Sage has Master Li ( 50 chi, 60s cooldown ). Many will think that sage has 50 chi advantage more than demon every minute, but in fact, if you were to take into account that a demon wiz could cast 1-2 frostblade ( lvl 11 frostblade gives 20 chi per cast) while sage wiz is casting master li, the advantage is not that much. Sage has a pretty nice chi gain on pyro and reduced chi on distance shrink too, but still, imo, not that great of a difference like most people claim them to be.

While Master Li is being overrated, Mo zun taunt (takes 50 chi off opponent, 30s cooldown ) is being underrated in my opinion. To be honest, mo zun taunt is a pretty nice skill especially on chi dependent classes like bms. 50 chi off a bm every 30s is pretty devastating in a long fight. Every proc on hailstorm/pitfall/stone rain allows you to pull it off so its not that hard to use them in pvp.

And lastly, demon stone barrier...pretty self explanatory.

Note: All of these are just in my opinion.

Switchin it up

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