Are Sages weak or am I using them wrong?

[Drumheller]

Leodegrance and Guinevere feel super weak compared to all the other classes. They have no ranged abilities and do abysmal damage in melee, where they are very vulnerable if focused. Compared to Arcanists that get two free hit immunities but almost never get hit anyways because they're not in melee, and their damage output is insane.

I feel like Sages could either use a double hit like some of the NPC characters have to buff their melee damage or a couple of ranged abilities/spells. The buffs they bring to the table pale in comparison to any other class for me.

I'm seriously considering just dismissing Leodegrance now and Guinevere after any future quests she has/gives.

Having the same issue with Marksmen vs Vanguards. The Marksman damage output just isn't there compared to vanguard, especially once I perfected the sneak in, hit, get out cycle, which almost always one shots it's target.

I feel like Guardian, Champion, Vanguard, Arcanist is really the way to go, which sucks cause I think the Sage and Marksmen classes are cool.

Do these classes get a decent buff/change in tier 3 or should I stop worrying about them and just do the combo that's working for me? I tried looking them up but the wiki isn't updated.

[Butterside down]

Leodegrance and Guinevere are useless. I left Leo in the aspiring hero section with broken bones and lost vitality. Guinevere ended up in the crypt after the fisher king mission, and she can stay there, unless I need her again? Hopefully I won't have to waste a resurrect on her.

[sandman25dcsss]

Sage is a support hero. Combining 2-3 sages is one of the most reliable ways to make game too easy.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1157390/discussions/0/4141690215249150914/

[Butterside down]

Yeah no. Sages have less attack of a vanguard and less the attack of an arcanest with the same AP. There is no way they can be of any value. They are the most useless disappointing regrettable class and have absolutely no purpose in this game unless we are forced to use them.

[Guy]

I don't use them.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by SatreJR:

Yeah no. Sages have less attack of a vanguard and less the attack of an arcanest with the same AP. There is no way they can be of any value. They are the most useless disappointing regrettable class and have absolutely no purpose in this game unless we are forced to use them.

Same AP as sage? Also no buffs allowed, right? :)
Get good at using sages is all I can tell you then. By the way 2 vanguards are weaker than 1 vanguard and 1 sage, sage buffs allow vanguard to snowball.

From the referenced thead: "Lucas increased his own and Leo's melee damage by 60% (paying 1 AP to give 1 AP and +30% melee damage to 2 knights is fun). Leo used his 2 buffs on self and used specialized gear to deal more damage to frozen/chilled targets so he was dealing about 400 damage per attack, he basically cleared the map:"

[amosfantasy]

Sage are useful I use personaly guinevre or morgawse... Guinevre is good as support ...and also enchanting back hit... a goo strategi is teleport,freeze hit and attack and leave....she can enchante champion giving you the chance of doing at max 3 attack for turn...unless you use a specific rune. Morgwase either wai is a sage for full attack, lightingchain and tornado are like what you need for attack from range
you could use this team for a while MORDRED, KAY, MORGWASE, LADY archer. also a good team is Mordred,Kay/Balan, Guinevre, Morgane .

[RIP]

Inspire grants 8ap and 4mp on first turn. For that alone sage is very far from being weak.

[みさかりん]

At 1st my thought was the same when I got Guinevere at I think 7? She contributed a bit but not a lot and was thinking of replacing her. Stuck with her and leveled a few more since I saw some really nice upgrades in her tree. Now she enables Merlin to cast illusion much faster because of the cd reduction from sage, mass bless which is essentially permanent since cd is 1 turn, ice wall, insane ap generation in which you can do some stuff on 1st turn that you other wise couldn't without a sage and etc. There's so much a sage can do that I can't imagine playing a 2nd time without one.

[Abscondrel]

with humility i suggest that style matters. the sage and vanguard styles are not my favorite. injuries and events can make us mix up our teams. i then try to get the most out of whatever i have. if i get the mission done and the map cleaned the team was successful, therefore not useless. buffs and debuffs come in handy when your favorite kill-machine has broken ribs.

a good upgrade for traps would be invisibility. traps for me are like an act of desperation. but if they were not avoided by the enemy so adroitly, they could be more like an act of aggression.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by abscondrel:

with humility i suggest that style matters. the sage and vanguard styles are not my favorite. injuries and events can make us mix up our teams. i then try to get the most out of whatever i have. if i get the mission done and the map cleaned the team was successful, therefore not useless. buffs and debuffs come in handy when your favorite kill-machine has broken ribs.

a good upgrade for traps would be invisibility. traps for me are like an act of desperation. but if they were not avoided by the enemy so adroitly, they could be more like an act of aggression.

Traps can be amazing depending on situation. For instance, there is a duel vs an enemy with huge defences and damage in a big room with obstacle in the centre. Traps allow to kill the enemy without being attacked at all.

[OakenWall]

I had Guinevere on my team allmost every mission in my first(hard) clear.
Teleport freeze and can give ap/damage buffs.
If I would pick one class I felt was weaker its archers, very low damage and utility outside of poison that does not even work on all enemies.

[TormDK]

Guinevere is bae, and is therefore quite useful. Also Sages are super nice, I always run with at least one of them. What's not to like about Bless and teleport with freeze attacks?

[Butterside down]

A fighting/support class might fill a role in a party with 6 people. But this game has a small squad of 4 + npc. The problem is if you waste AP buffing a character who attacks an enemy that dodges, or invulnerable, then that is half your squad that failed to do anything in one turn.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by SatreJR:

A fighting/support class might fill a role in a party with 6 people. But this game has a small squad of 4 + npc. The problem is if you waste AP buffing a character who attacks an enemy that dodges, or invulnerable, then that is half your squad that failed to do anything in one turn.

If you want to look at it this way, then fighter/support is viable in a team of 2 knights. I am not joking, I had a team with amazing vanguard and I decided to try replacing a sage with another good vanguard. I was shocked to see those 2 vanguards dealt less damage than sage and vanguard in previous team. The best vanguard stopped being amazing, it lost +30% damage buff and 3AP which resulted in being unable to one-shot kill things it killed in previous team, it got less kills resulting in less after-kill bonuses and less attacks overall because of less AP. The last attack deals the largest damage and the vanguard lost it completely. Basically sage allows snowballing and it does not depend on team size. Extra AP are more useful in bigger teams obviously, but melee damage buff is mostly single target (though it can give a smaller bonus to other members).

[RIP]

What I can assure you OP, is that the sage you are using, Leodegrance, is definitely one of the weak sages if not the weakest. He has great CC but the skills are short and he lacks movement skills, meaning he can't do much on the first turn which is the most important turn in this game. To be fair most of the heroes that lack both movement skills and ranged skills, based on very hard difficulty experience, tend to be weak, Leodegrance being a perfect example.

Other sages are very good when paired with vanguards or champions, thanks to Favored+Inspire+Bless being the best opener for anything, and sages other than Leodegrance are capable of clearing leftovers other heroes couldn't finish on their own. Morgawse works in a completely different way but she is practically an arcanist.

I see you've hired Guinevere. Give it some time, and you'll see how good a sage can be.