Build Guide - Sage

Introduction

After becoming a Sage, you’ll have two new types of spells to worry about compared to when you were just a Mage: Summons and Damage over Time (DoT), both of which become an integral part of your kit. Outside of dealing damage, though, you’ll now have another role you’ll often fill, and that’s being a healer. The healer and damage roles of sage each have different best stats and abilities, so you’ll have to get used to swapping loadouts and gear if you want to be optimal.

Summons

Unlike at T1, in T2 and as a Sage, you actually get powerful summons you’ll want to use in many of your strongest builds. The key thing to know about summons is that their stats are based on your character's stats, but they have their own move pool they use with their own cooldowns and multipliers. Upgrading the level of summons doesn’t improve their multipliers but increases their stat scaling. Most summons will be ignored by enemy aggro; however, if there is no valid target for them to hit, summons will be chosen instead, and AoE attacks will hit your summons (and they are quite squishy). Because of this, in fights with lots of AoE damage, some summons with long recast timers may not be a great choice.

DoT

DoTs are one of the best ways for Sage to deal damage. The main DoT Sage applies is Erosion, which you’ll find on the abilities Dark Bullet and Shadow Erosion. There are two main things to know about DoT. The first is that each unique ability can only apply its DoT effect once unless otherwise stated; subsequent applications will just extend the duration of the DoT, not apply another stack. The second is that DoT deals its damage when an enemy takes its turn, then reduces its total duration counter by 1.

Base Hit Chance

Sage’s DoT and debuff abilities all feature a term called “base hit chance”, which is the chance the ability will successfully apply its effect. If you have a 50% base hit chance, you have a 50% chance to land it, but a 100% base hit chance would be 100%, nice and simple. To improve lower base hit chance abilities, chance to land you’ll likely want to pick up some Effect Hit Rate, which increases the Base Hit chance e.g. 100% Effect Hit Rate will improve a 50% base hit chance ability to 100% hit chance. Be careful, though, as enemies can have Effect RES, which will have the opposite effect on your abilities. Most enemies have 0 - 20% effect Res, meaning you’ll need even more Effect Hit Rate to cancel it out.

Healing

In solo play, healing abilities usually aren’t as strong as just using more damage abilities, but in party-based play, if you’re the assigned healer of the group, you’ll have to dedicate a few or all of your slots to the role. The only thing to know about healing is that it scales off of your total Max HP, so you’ll want a gear set which focuses on ensuring your total HP is as high as possible.

Builds

Generalist DPS

Use this build whenever you need a damage-focused build, and there are enemies present who can quickly kill any Treantlings you summon. If you’re against an enemy who won’t kill summoned Treantlings too fast, the damage it outputs is incredibly high and definitely worth running so long as it can stay alive.

Situational DPS

As stated in the Generalist build, this is the build you use against enemies who cannot kill Treantlings fast.

Healing Build

In dungeons, when you’re responsible for the healing role, you’ll need to run this healing build. You can choose to slot in either more survivability abilities into the flex slots or your choice of damage or debuff abilities.

If you feel like your team doesn’t need much healing, it is possible to cut back further on the amount of healing abilities you can use to run even more damage, survival, or debuffing abilities. Pushing this to the extreme, it’s possible to drop Healing Touch , Resurrection , and Void Blessing . In encounters where only group healing is needed, like the Guild Boss, this can be a viable consideration.

Stats

Secondary Main Stats

Below are the recommended secondary stats to look out for when gearing up. Having the right secondary stats is important for maximizing performance, but significant “Power/Gear score” upgrades or pieces with better additional stats can overwrite this priority.

DPS

Playing Sage as DPS, we mostly want damage stats that boost our damage generically, as a lot of our damage in T2 comes from multiple elements and sources (summons + direct damage + DoT). For this reason, investing heavily in Effect Hit Rate isn’t always recommended. However, this changes at T3.

Healer

Playing Sage as Healer, we prioritize maximizing HP to boost healing output, SPD to boost heal frequency, and you may also want some Effect Hit Rate if you’re using debuffs to ensure they land.

Sub Stats

All item slots will roll a number of additional stats on them, which are chosen randomly from a universal pool. Below is roughly the order of priority to look out for on your gear; however, just because an item has great additional stats doesn’t make it the best choice. Make sure to consider the item's overall power and whether it has the optimal secondary stats as well.

Fantomon

Starting level 50, you will be able to summon pets - aka Fantomons to help you in battle. We won’t go in-depth covering pets since we have a dedicated guide here, so let’s just mention the good ones.

Fantomon Guide

You can equip up to 4 Fantomons on your character's Fantomon loadout. However, only the lead Fantomon can use its ability; the rest only serve as passive stat boosters, so when choosing a Fantomon, you only need to worry mostly about the first one. Here are the ones we recommend.

Best Fantomon

• Nyxarchon: Nyx is by far Sage’s best DPS Fantomon choice, and acquiring them will be a major boost to damage in both single-target and AoE. What makes Nyx so good for Sage is that their damage is Dark, which aligns with a good portion of Sage’s damage in T2, but most importantly aligns perfectly with the fact that Sage goes almost entirely Dark damage in T3. This means Dark damage boosts, such as Dark Affinity, boost Nyx’s damage at the same time as your own. The debuff from this Fantomon is also excellent in group and solo play, giving even healing sages a reason to use it so long as they can trigger it. Nyx is the best choice in the long and short term for Sage.

F2P DPS Fantomons

• Zeioletus: Before you get Nyx, if you want the next best damaging option, Zei is the go-to, even if they are a significant downgrade in most scenarios, mostly due to their lack of a debuff, no mult-hitting on large targets, and smaller AoE. A good F2P stopgap, though.

• Sylvaerie: A buff-based alternative to Zei, which, instead of dealing damage, buffs you permanently, granting a solid amount of SPD and ATK. Depending on your build and your gear, this can beat out Zei on some accounts. If you have both Syl and Zei and can’t choose, we recommend testing in “test” mode to find which is better for you currently.

Healing/Supporting Fantomons

• Mandragora : This Fantomon provides a solid amount of additional healing output, boosting your ability to keep the team alive. Doesn’t provide any other supportive effects or damage, though.

• Terragon : An alternative debuffing Fantomon to Nyx, who, instead of boosting overall damage, lowers the enemy's attack temporarily. You’ll have to run an attacking technique to trigger this debuff, but it can be worth it for supporting the team.

• Sylvaerie : The bonus ATK from Sylvaerie isn’t useful when healing as Sage unless you’re also trying to do damage, but the additional speed will give you more actions to support the team, making it a viable choice.

Relics

Relics listed as “best” are the targets you should be aiming for when completing an area before moving on to the next, if possible. Securing the “best” relics will be beneficial to your class now and or will be crucial to your class in the future in higher tiers. “Good” relics should be your next targets or targets to pick up if you can’t secure the “best” ones, as they’ll also help now and in the future.

Best Sage Verdantglade Relics

• Nyph’s Sword Hilt: This Relic is hard to get, but the Crit Rate it permanently gives you is strong at all points of the game, making it a strong one to chase.

• Phantomfire Chain: Picking up Effect Hit Rate on relics takes some of the pressure off of you needing to find it on your gear pieces, allowing you greater freedom with which pieces you can and can’t use, helping with gearing.

Good Sage Verdantglade Relics

• Horn of Abundance

• Blight Casket

• Exalted Queen

• Obsidian Key

• Imp’s Statuette

• Crystal of Phantasma

• Crown of Tendrils

Best Sage Cinder Ridge Relics

• Pinnacle Radiance: Crit DMG is a very desirable damage stat, so getting a good chunk of it permanently is incredibly desirable. This is the go-to mythic relic of choice for Cinder Ridge for this reason.

• Blue Enigma: Picking up Effect Hit Rate on relics takes some of the pressure off of you needing to find it on your gear pieces, allowing you greater freedom with which pieces you can and can’t use, helping with gearing.

• Starcleaver: Just like Crit DMG, Crit Rate is an equally desirable damage stat we want as much as we can get, which makes snagging this legendary relic a high priority if possible.

• Carapace Flamethrower: Accuracy becomes stronger the later in progression you move. It starts out a little underwhelming, but later becomes necessary, so picking any up permanently on relics is incredibly strong.

Good Sage Verdantglade Relics

• Pandemonium Ingot

• Abyssal Glyph Whip

• Fate’s Grand Banner

• Mirror of Reflections

• Exile’s Shackles

• Arcane Doll

• Megastinger