Another Sage/Demon thread, sorry...

Sakubatou - Sanctuary · June 2012

I have read the stickies and gone into the depths. My archer is actually lvl 90 already and I still can't pick sage/demon. I asked a couple archers in my faction, told people what I want and got "you should go demon. Or sage. Sage would be good because you can be 5.0 claw, although demon might be better"...

So since forums are dead I may as well bug you guys and get your opinions, then this thread can be burried.

My original goal was to have a pure dex (no claw) nuke machine where dph and defenses where more important than dps. I'm not interested in PvP that much, but thought I'd make my archer designed for it to have a little fun. I have an aps sin, barb, bm, all with decent gear on the same account and the plan was get Regenesis bow for the sin to share as my endgame.

Aps build
Nothing really changes much if going bow, since I'm not crazy about putting so much time into farming R9 or G15 LA except I'd use a magic cube neck. I'm trying to get G15 cube neck right now, and Regenesis bow +10, but without claws I'd have 541 dex.

The issue is I'm naturally a melee player. I prefer to get into the fray and don't even like to kite. I do kite, usually, but it wears on my patience. So while I've been leveling I've been using claws. Not sure if I'd be willing to give them up, now, especially since I'm working on G16s and I'd do a considerable amount more damage with those then Regenesis +10 in a squad.

So, because of that I am considering 5aps sage. I don't really like bringing archers along in farming squads because they don't get bloodpaint and can squish, but a sage aps archer would do a bit better if they pulled aggro, which I'm likely to if I use G16 claws or even my current G15 revenge claws.

As for skills, I'd prefer demon mastery and winged blessing. I always wear the original wings for crit bonus since 2.5 is fast enough fly speed. I think I prefer demon Blazing Arrow since I'm pretty good about spamming buffs for bonuses.

How decent is sage Frost Arrow? The guide says no big woop, but between the slow effect and pure magic dmg it seems decent for pk, not to mention most mobs usually have lower mag resistances than phys resistance.

Winged Blessing speed buff, does it get overwritten everytime you holypath? And do both sage and demon boost apply to squadmates?

Winged Shell... 1250 damage is nothing. Seriously. But I remember reading somewhere it's almost glitched that it reduces damage by xx% for the first few seconds or first few hits? And is that unlisted boost added when its the Wingspans Winged Shield buff?

Stormrage Eagelon- I never use this skill. I can see it's use for nuking HA users, but most of them have decent enough mdef that in pvp and in pve I can always find better uses for 2 sparks. Any time I really should be using this skill?

I've seen people brag about demon STA but it seems like sage STA taking your opponent down 20% hp is much more effective for bypassing charms considering my char is likely at 40%+ crit rate already. Same can be said about demon Quickshot, although I really don't even care about sage Quickshot.

Anyways, It's been weeks of going back and forth on a decision. Thought you guys could push me in one direction or another based on my personal preferences. Thanks for all the help

Aesthor - Heavens Tear · June 2012

I only skimmed your post so my reply might be slightly incomplete, but:

I am of the opinion that when it comes to 5aps stuff, sage is better yes but only slightly. The reduction % sounds nice on paper, but the fact that you only need 3.33 aps as demon allows you to wear better ornaments/gear as demon anyway, so the difference is not as big as you think. Personally I would prefer sage by a small margin because I like being 5.0 base and you can build chi faster that way, but that margin is quite small to be honest. That aside, as an archer, I don't think you should make the decision based on your melee habits.

Sage frost arrow is virtually useless. I've played a sage archer before and the only thing actually useful about it is if you're hitting a phys immune boss of some sort, because it's an extra skill to take up your cooldown cycle and allows you to have no downtime. Demon archers have an EXTRA cooldown on their metal skill and lack frost arrow, so their cycle is more difficult to manage. In PVP, frost arrow is useless. The chi is better spent on something else and the magic damage isn't worth the time casting it.

Wings of Protection is applicable to squad mates, and since the sage bonus is only extra duration, demon is unquestionably better. Yes it does get overwritten by holy path. I might also add that using your evasion 79 skill will overwrite your evade buff too.

Winged shell is glitched in that if it's still on you when a hit lands, it will reduce the damage no matter what you got hit for. Even if it only absorbs about 1K damage on paper, it will protect you for way more than that. If someone hits you for 50K, it will be reduced by xx%, even through the 1K HP the shell supposedly has.

There is no reason to ever use Stormrage Eagleon.

Sage STA is for PVE. Demon STA is for PVP. The crit is way more valuable than a few extra %s of HP. Thing I like about demon STA in PvE though is it is useful even after the first time I use it on a boss. Say the boss is halfway killed. Sage STA is useless then, but demon STA will still give you the 10% crit. Also in TW, if you sage STA someone and kill them, then well they're dead, but the demon crit boost will stay with you to your next target.

Blazing arrow goes to sage, IMO. You're not gonna keep casting demon blazing arrow for that extra buff. It takes too long and is time inefficient. Sage blazing arrow wins by its better % boosts.

Demon quickshot is the crown jewel of the demon culti. If you don't see its uses then....I don't really know what to say. It's like 50% chance for a squishy to die before they even see where you are shooting from...

Lastly, if you're getting mediocre gear like Regenesis, I'd say go demon. Sage's shining points show best with the best gear. If you're not going to max out your archer with gear, you won't see the benefits of sage as decisively as say a r9 archer with +12 bow. If you're gonna share gear with your sin, you're probably hanging around nirvana/TT99 tier gear with lots of -int, and demon culti complements that much better.

laloner · June 2012

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

Winged Shell... 1250 damage is nothing. Seriously. But I remember reading somewhere it's almost glitched that it reduces damage by xx% for the first few seconds or first few hits? And is that unlisted boost added when its the Wingspans Winged Shield buff?

I think what people mean when they say this skill is glitched is that it absorbs 80% of damage even if it only has 1 point left.

So if you get hit by 6245 damage it will leave 1 point left in the shell and the shell will still absorb 80% of the next hit anyway.

FWIW the sage shell just seems to be more than 1/3 useful than the lvl 10 shell even though its description says its only 1/3 stronger.

DarkMarch - Lost City · June 2012

Nearly everybody breaks through a winged shell in one hit. 1250hp is way too easy to break with everybody hitting so hard.. u can't really count on the extra 250 hp from sage winged shell.

Personally, I find demon blazing arrow to be situationally useful. Sometimes, for some reason the opponent chooses to kite me, or sometimes we just end up pretty far apart, I would cast blazing arrow again for the buff before going back into the fray.

70% extra fire damage for 20seconds makes quite a difference, if u get to use it.

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear · June 2012

The main benefit of Demon Winged Shell is that it lasts 30 seconds.

Vindis - Dreamweaver · June 2012

Frost Arrow is mostly useful for its slow. What type of opponents would you like to slow? Melees? BMs and Seekers? extra magic damage is helpful, but no be all end all skill.

Sage LS is pretty nice because it keeps your chi full up.

Mostly sage is about chi gain (for all classes). If you are using claws, chi is probably not an issue.

The more chi for aim low, the better.

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear · June 2012

Based on what you wrote demon would be the better option for you, as others have stated the same reasons I would. Sage only really shines with completely end game gear (For PvP which you said you're not doing anyways.) Demon allows you to have better gear/ornaments since you only need 3.33aps to get 5.0 sparked where as sage you have to be 5.0 (which is very easy to do, though the 25% damage reduction might not make up for the gear/ornament perks.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary · June 2012

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Based on what you wrote demon would be the better option for you, as others have stated the same reasons I would. Sage only really shines with completely end game gear (For PvP which you said you're not doing anyways.) Demon allows you to have better gear/ornaments since you only need 3.33aps to get 5.0 sparked where as sage you have to be 5.0 (which is very easy to do, though the 25% damage reduction might not make up for the gear/ornament perks.

I actually said this character was sort of meant to be my pvp character and I was designing it around that. Hence why I wanted to avoid claws and aim for dph. What I meant is PvP really is the most boring aspect of the game to me and I find about 10 mins of it a week is about my attention span. Every class tends to have their set combo's and it tends to get really repetitive except in TW, and I honestly find more versatility in game play spamming vana's than I see in most people's pk. That's why I usually avoid it, but I would like one character more geared toward it, range chars having a significant advantage in PWI.

So Winged Shell gets an unlisted 80% reduction, making 1250 damage absorption actually 6250 damage and sages 1500 really more like 7500. Well, really it's above that because it does it to the hit before it goes beyond that. Interesting...

From what I'm seeing here I'm leaning demon but appreciate the advice. Keep it coming

Aesthor - Heavens Tear · June 2012

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

So Winged Shell gets an unlisted 80% reduction, making 1250 damage absorption actually 6250 damage and sages 1500 really more like 7500. Well, really it's above that because it does it to the hit before it goes beyond that. Interesting...

What?

Winged shell gives you 80% damage reduction while it's on. The amount of damage is absorbs is pretty much negligible unless some **** sin is hitting you for 3 digit numbers. I don't know where you got 6250 and 7500.

Vindis - Dreamweaver · June 2012

I mostly count on it to block 2 hits and/or save me from a one shot nuke.

If you weren't getting hit for alot at all I suppose it could block more, but I wouldn't rely on more than 2 hits.

Wizard chans an ulti --> Winged Shell saves lives.

I vaguely recall some math saying you would need to be hit for around 5x your max hp to be one shot through Winged Shell.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary · June 2012

Aesthor - Heavens Tear wrote: »

What?

Winged shell gives you 80% damage reduction while it's on. The amount of damage is absorbs is pretty much negligible unless some **** sin is hitting you for 3 digit numbers. I don't know where you got 6250 and 7500.

If Winged Shell gives you 80% reduction as long as its active that meant 10 actual damage will count as 2 delivered damage, 1000 actual damage as 200 damage delivered,... until you get 1 hit over 6250 actual damage or 1250 delivered damage, or if sage 7500 actual damage reduced to 1500 delivered damage. Was kind of looking at it in the original numbers instead of the reduced numbers.

That's not the whole story since it's one hit beyond 1250, so if you start with 11250 hp and they've dealt 1249 dmg to you since you still have 1 point left to keep your winged shell up that would mean they'd still need to do 5 times the 10k hp you have left to one shot you, lol.

I was just kind of looking at the 250 difference as five times that amount of actual damage you can take since it's reduced 1/5.

Kiyoshi - Heavens Tear · June 2012

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

I have read the stickies and gone into the depths. My archer is actually lvl 90 already and I still can't pick sage/demon. I asked a couple archers in my faction, told people what I want and got "you should go demon. Or sage. Sage would be good because you can be 5.0 claw, although demon might be better"...

Level 11 skills aside... there are 2 very important legal exploits from sage and demon. Demon has the white elf starter wing bug... where equipping it gives you an extra crit if you have level 11 passive. Sage has the +5 refine bug... where with a +5 refined tt99 weapon you won't suffer from the 75% pvp damage reduction when hitting other players. With that being said... I know quiet a few demons who carry an extra white wing around for the crit. And there are more then a few sage around who went sage solely for the +5 tt99 exploit.

Decus - Dreamweaver · June 2012

Kiyoshi - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Sage has the +5 refine bug... where with a +5 refined tt99 weapon you won't suffer from the 75% pvp damage reduction when hitting other players.

This literally never gets old. Never. b:chuckle

Subtraction - Harshlands · June 2012

Kiyoshi - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Sage has the +5 refine bug... where with a +5 refined tt99 weapon you won't suffer from the 75% pvp damage reduction when hitting other players.

...wat

truekossy · June 2012

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

If Winged Shell gives you 80% reduction as long as its active that meant 10 actual damage will count as 2 delivered damage, 1000 actual damage as 200 damage delivered,... until you get 1 hit over 6250 actual damage or 1250 delivered damage, or if sage 7500 actual damage reduced to 1500 delivered damage. Was kind of looking at it in the original numbers instead of the reduced numbers.

That's not the whole story since it's one hit beyond 1250, so if you start with 11250 hp and they've dealt 1249 dmg to you since you still have 1 point left to keep your winged shell up that would mean they'd still need to do 5 times the 10k hp you have left to one shot you, lol.

I was just kind of looking at the 250 difference as five times that amount of actual damage you can take since it's reduced 1/5.

You're mistaken. It pops when the damage dealt is the advertised amount. However the reduction applies regardless of the damage. So if a wiz hits a sage and demon who both have winged shell up and uses a skill that would normally do 4k to them, both shells will pop... and both will gave the same amount of reduced damage. The perk demon has over sage is not only does demon shell last longer (can be up indefinitely provided they have the chi and it's not popped prematurely) as well as demons getting a secondary shell via wingspan for in case a melee has you in place or the like.

Kiyoshi - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Sage has the +5 refine bug... where with a +5 refined tt99 weapon you won't suffer from the 75% pvp damage reduction when hitting other players.

.... Well played. Still doesn't get old.

Decus I think this needs to be in your sig too. b:chuckle

Docpetiot - Sanctuary · June 2012

"Demon has the white elf starter wing bug... where equipping it gives you an extra crit if you have level 11 passive."

Kiyoshi, as I already mentionned,

http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1373811&page=2

this is not a bug, but completly legit as it is written in demon bow mastery desciption.

truekossy · June 2012

Docpetiot - Sanctuary wrote: »

this is not a bug, but completly legit as it is written in demon bow mastery desciption.

It was added in as a response to a ticket submitted about it a few weeks/months after it was discovered and openly shared. If it weren't for that ticket, I highly doubt the staff would have even known about it, muchless added in the information to the skill itself.

Evidence needed? Notice how your topic was made June 13th a little bit after the patch information was released. The localization patch that altered the skill description was on June 13th. A week before the patch on June 4th, Jen mentioned having submitted a ticket about it "a few months" ago. Finally, the original topic where this was brought up was... on January 12th, aka a full five MONTHS before that localization change... and considering it had been there for longer and we merely didn't know about it at that time, it shows that it being in the skill description kinda doesn't mean anything.

.... After all, Aim Low's skill description calls it an 8 second stun but that certainly isn't what we actually get now is it? And Winged Shell says it absorbs up to 1.2k damage, but anyone that's used it in PK can tell you tales about it saving them from a nuke that would have landed 5 digit damage on them in which case a 1k absorb wouldn't mean a thing if that were how shell really worked.

Basically, don't rely on skill descriptions as evidence.

DarkMarch - Lost City · June 2012

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

If Winged Shell gives you 80% reduction as long as its active that meant 10 actual damage will count as 2 delivered damage, 1000 actual damage as 200 damage delivered,... until you get 1 hit over 6250 actual damage or 1250 delivered damage, or if sage 7500 actual damage reduced to 1500 delivered damage. Was kind of looking at it in the original numbers instead of the reduced numbers.

That's not the whole story since it's one hit beyond 1250, so if you start with 11250 hp and they've dealt 1249 dmg to you since you still have 1 point left to keep your winged shell up that would mean they'd still need to do 5 times the 10k hp you have left to one shot you, lol.

I was just kind of looking at the 250 difference as five times that amount of actual damage you can take since it's reduced 1/5.

No No No.. that's not how winged shell works.

What people are meaning is, even if u take a damage that's supposed to deal 10k to u, u get a 80% damage reduction no matter whether the winged shell is holy or demonic xD

Both sage winged shell and demon winged shell will reduce the damage to 2k, and they both will break.

Same goes for, if a attack to suppose to deal u 900damage, both winged shells with give it a 80% damage reduction, a sage winged shell archer would have 350hp left on the shell while the demon archer will have 100 hp left on the shell. However, as with above, both winged shell will still give the same damage reduction for the next attacks until it breaks.

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973 · June 2012

Both demon and sage Winged Shell are a waste of 45 chi. Just pop a defense charm instead and save your chi for something good like Wings of Grace.

Really noone ever uses Winged Shell so its not worth arguing about. This is especially true now that we have very good defenses which don't use any chi at all: leaps and stealth.

Aesthor - Heavens Tear · June 2012

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

If Winged Shell gives you 80% reduction as long as its active that meant 10 actual damage will count as 2 delivered damage, 1000 actual damage as 200 damage delivered,... until you get 1 hit over 6250 actual damage or 1250 delivered damage, or if sage 7500 actual damage reduced to 1500 delivered damage. Was kind of looking at it in the original numbers instead of the reduced numbers.

That's not the whole story since it's one hit beyond 1250, so if you start with 11250 hp and they've dealt 1249 dmg to you since you still have 1 point left to keep your winged shell up that would mean they'd still need to do 5 times the 10k hp you have left to one shot you, lol.

I was just kind of looking at the 250 difference as five times that amount of actual damage you can take since it's reduced 1/5.

That's not now it works, but other people have gotten to the explanations before me so I'll just leave it at this: the extra damage absorbed by sage literally means and does nothing.

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

Both demon and sage Winged Shell are a waste of 45 chi. Just pop a defense charm instead and save your chi for something good like Wings of Grace.

Really noone ever uses Winged Shell so its not worth arguing about. This is especially true now that we have very good defenses which don't use any chi at all: leaps and stealth.

I won't argue with you here, but back in the early days of r9, I wore TT80 and TT99 gear and was an easy oneshot. Running around with Winged Shell on saved me quite a number of deaths. I would say it has its uses still if your gear makes you susceptible to oneshotting.

Docpetiot - Sanctuary · June 2012

truekossy wrote: »

It was added in as a response to a ticket submitted about it a few weeks/months after it was discovered and openly shared. If it weren't for that ticket, I highly doubt the staff would have even known about it, muchless added in the information to the skill itself.

Evidence needed? Notice how your topic was made June 13th a little bit after the patch information was released. The localization patch that altered the skill description was on June 13th. A week before the patch on June 4th, Jen mentioned having submitted a ticket about it "a few months" ago. Finally, the original topic where this was brought up was... on January 12th, aka a full five MONTHS before that localization change... and considering it had been there for longer and we merely didn't know about it at that time, it shows that it being in the skill description kinda doesn't mean anything.

.... After all, Aim Low's skill description calls it an 8 second stun but that certainly isn't what we actually get now is it? And Winged Shell says it absorbs up to 1.2k damage, but anyone that's used it in PK can tell you tales about it saving them from a nuke that would have landed 5 digit damage on them in which case a 1k absorb wouldn't mean a thing if that were how shell really worked.

Basically, don't rely on skill descriptions as evidence.

Thank you for this information, I didn't know about it and I have to admit that was the second time for me to read the description since I bought it, more than one year ago.
Anyway, that doesn't change what I am saying. And I doubt it is a bug. But here is not the point. The point is, it's now clearly written in the passive skill description. Which, by definition, make it legit.
I didn't started an archer 2 days ago, and it's been a while that I know that skill's description are far from being 100% accurate. But, even inaccurate, the description is legitimate by definition.
And as English is not my mother tongue, I checked the definition of "legitimate" (hoping to get a more accurate definition that PWI skill's description). And it says:

1. according to law; lawful: the property's legitimate owner.
2. in accordance with established rules, principles, or standards.
3. born in wedlock or of legally married parents: legitimate children.
4. in accordance with the laws of reasoning; logically inferable; logical: a legitimate conclusion.
5. resting on or ruling by the principle of hereditary right: a legitimate sovereign.

What I am saying matches at least definition 1 and 2. And about definition 4, I am not sure many things are legitimate from this definition in this game.
What I meant is, PWI will eventually decide what is legitimate or not anyway.

Kiyoshi - Heavens Tear · June 2012

Docpetiot - Sanctuary wrote: »

And as English is not my mother tongue, I checked the definition of "legitimate" (hoping to get a more accurate definition that PWI skill's description). And it says:

Maybe you also missed these two words "legal exploits" from the very first sentence. And if this is what you are drilling on... you seriously missed the whole point of the post. Anyone who pick cult based on the wing crit or +5 refine glitch is going to make lobotomy patients look smart.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary · June 2012

Decided just to get it over with and went demon this morning. Thanks for all the advice.

Docpetiot - Sanctuary · June 2012

Kiyoshi - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Anyone who pick cult based on the wing crit or +5 refine glitch is going to make lobotomy patients look smart.

Fully agreed with you on that point.

Mr_Punkster - Dreamweaver · July 2012

Demon...and I'll swear by it. Using the term APS and limiting it to only claw/fist/5.0 APS annoys the **** outta me. You gain a substantial amount of APS with your bow with demon spark as well (like a pistol vs machine gun). Archer is all about DD...crits/pure damage...something Demon has more of than Sage.

Another Sage/Demon thread, sorry...

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