The stats behind Sages in Tears of the Kingdom - Croton on YT
Croton breaks down the damage and modifiers of the Sages' attacks and abilities. I typically play with the Sages off unless I need a specific ability, but it was interesting seeing the numbers.
they don't. the sages are so much worse than the abilities in botw. a gust of wind up is more useful than a gust of wind to the side.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps them turned off most (if not all) of the time ^^° it's a cool concept in theory, and I'm glad that Nintendo is still always experimenting around with new ideas, but to me personally, the sage avatars have been a hindrance more than a help. Especially in my current challenge run ... Mineru has accidentally killed me so many times in the dumbest ways possible that she is almost as bad as the enemies she's supposed to fight.
The only one I occasionally use in the other playthrough is Tulin, and only to get a little boost when I'm gliding somewhere. As soon as we touch ground he goes back into his Pokéba- ehrm... back into the void or wherever he's stored while he is "off".
The sages are my one real big negative against this game. Not only were they significantly less useful than in BotW, but the amount of times they didn't quite do what I wanted, got in the way, or made me actively have to run after them in order to activate them just made it an incredibly frustrating experience.