Very Disappointed with Paragons

Okai, the first time I tried to type this up IE random refreshed the page and deleted everything, so this'll be a brief version.

1. The skills of a paragon are designed with extreme environments in mind, ie. where an entire team is built around them, making alot -most- of them useless in PvE.

2. Only one other class has skills that really synergise with a paragon, warrior (and one useless ritualist skill, woot). This is a problem because we have a very limited number of skills on the base class itself anyway. :/

3. Due to the above two points, there are 2-3 -good- builds to use in PvE, with minor variations. Anthem of Flame, "Go for the Eyes!", Aggressive refrain. You will always see at least 1 of these, if not all 3.

4. All the armour looks the damn same, and terribly girly with the exception of Vabbian, but that's a different matter.


Onto the skills.

COMMAND

"Brace Yourself!"
Might be used in GvG, otherwise, too conditional, knockdown is rare in Nightfall.

"Can't Touch This!"
Okay, made specifically due to the complaints at the time about Touch rangers, lets face it, pointless after the nerf.

"Fall Back!"
Great skill in GvG, useless in PvE without a full human team.

"Find Their Weakness!"
No real complaints here, I wouldn't personally use it.

"Go For the Eyes!"
Very good skill.

"Help Me!"
Uuuh... I can't think of any reason to bring this. Ever.

"Incoming!" {E}
Good elite, no complaints.

"Make Haste!"
Pretty useful in PvP, especially GvG I suppose, pointless in PvE.

"Never Give Up!", "Never Surrender!"
Two good skills, but you ideally never want to be using them anyway, they're also a tad too conditional to consume up a chunk of your skillbar, IMO anyway.

"Stand Your Ground!"
A worthwhile skill.

"We Shall Return!"
Another skill which you don't want to have to use. :/

Anthem of Envy
Not particularly bad, not really good either, not much good with heroes/henchies, I don't personally use it.

Anthem of Guidance {E}
Err... Blocking and evading is no problem in PvE really. Has its uses in PvP.

Bladeturn Refrain
Like most echos, pretty good.

Crippling Anthem {E}
Would be great, if I needed to stop enemies from moving in PvE, which I don't, because they just rock up to you and wail on you till they're dead. The kiting AI is pathetic anyway.

Godspeed.
Might be of some use, its like charge... except useless outside of combat since you won't really have enchantments on everyone. O.o

Song of Concentration
Seems pretty useless even in PvP! Only purpose I see for it is spiking. -_-;;

LEADERSHIP

"Lead the way!"
Good for GvG/HA I suppose, nonsense in PvE.

"Make your time!"
Usable, fast-trigger WY! or GftE!

"They're on Fire!"
Quite good.

Aggressive refrain
Unless you've got 0 in spear mastery, this should be on your skillbar. :P

Angel Bond {E}
Hrm... Its an odd skill... could result in some interesting things with some strange combinations with other party members.

Angelic Protection
Worthless in PvE, and I've never heard of it being used in PvP, yet anyway.

Anthem of Flame
Set enemies on fire every 10 seconds? How can I lose?

Anthem of Fury {E}
Its okai, I suppose, if you build a good part of your team around adrenalin, otherwise, into GvG this goes... maybe.

Awe
I could see this kinda sorta working in RA or TA... No point in PvE

Blazing Finale
Brilliant skill, 'nuff said.

Burning Refrain
Why you would use this over the above skill I'll never know.

Defensive Anthem {E}
Wow! An elite version of Aegis! I can see how the inability to remove it might seem attractive, but in PvE that feature's fairly useless. And to be frank, Ward/Melee. gg.

Enduring Harmony
Yay! Extend shouts and chants! I can see a whole lot of purpose to that. >.>

Focused Anger
Uuuh... Standard fare elite, not much to say, other than "usable"

Glowing Signet
Why would a paragon suddenly need 13+ energy when he's got that high a score in leadership, I'll never know.

Hexbreaker Aria
Takes forever to charge, and is of limited use in PvE where the biggest hex problem is anti-adrenlin and anti-shout hexes against you anyway.

Leader's Comfort
Reasonable for the first couple of hours of the game, until paragons stop taking damage.

Natural Temper
Usable, I don't touch it personally.

Signet of Return
Another ressurection skill, replace res sig with it if you so choose. Or you could use Sunspear rebirth signet.

Soldier's Fury
I approve of this one, lots of fun.

MOTIVATION
"Its Just a Flesh Wound." {E}
Er, conditions aren't such a nightmare in PvE, use Cautery Sig if you must.

"The Power is Yours!" {E}
No. Just... no.

Aria of Restoration
Horray for minor healing! Its quite usable in PvE and PvP, anyway.

Aria of Zeal
This one I like, useful.

Ballad of Restoration
See Aria of Restoration.

Chorus of Restoration
Sweet! If I build my party around this skill it might work!

Energizing Chorus
See above.

Energizing Finale
Very nice skill indeed!

Finale of Restoration
Angry, angry healing power.

Leader's Zeal
Only nearby, and why would you need energy anyway? O.o

Lyric of Zeal/Lyric of Purification
Signets. Another works-if-you-build-your-team-around-it skill.

Mending Refrain
Very popular, for obvious reasons.

Purifying finale
No point to this really, when are you going to be condition spammed enough in PvE to need this?

Signet of Synergy
Eh, used it in RA during the preview, haven't touched it since, but its usable... I guess.

Song of Power
I suppose you COULD use it if you had TS/Vent up and a party of human players... Or you could be playing PvP if you've gone to that trouble. >.>

Song of Purification
In PvP, very nice, in PvE, a bit below average really.

Zealous Anthem
No complaints here.

I don't think Paragons are that bad from what I have played so far and I'm enjoying the class a lot. I'm level 20 with all my heroes at level 20 as well, running FOW with one other Dervish and only heroes was great fun to get our armor. I can see where you are coming from with some of comments but here are my views on a few. Please remember that this is from a support Paragon.

Aria of Restoration
This for me is very nice for the casters in the group. At the moment I have it healing for 96 health for every spell they cast... can't be that bad.

Ballad of Restoration
I like this skill and I will always have it on my bar. At the moment I have this healing for 86 health for each hit. This will not help spike damage but that isn't my job to deal with that.

Signet of Synergy
I only use this skill the help someone that health is droping really fast and I have it healing at the moment for 96 health for no energy. The heal back to me is just a bonus and I should always get the heal because I use not enchantments in my setup.

Song of Power
I think the energy cost on this is a bit too much as I only have 32 energy. I end up using Energizing Finale on myself and the monks in the group.

I also always run into a pull just behind the tank and I found that I stand up fine to any damage that comes my way, of course baring heavy spike damage. With "Incoming!!", "Stand your Ground!!", and "Ballad of Restoration" up as defence I don't have many problem.

I do think that paragons are extremely useful in a all-human team setting, the ability to keep skills on for long periods of time, and the inability for teams to remove them make paragons awesome. In pve I understand that some of the skills are quite pointless, but the game isn't all pve.

The skill bar for a paragon is a difficult thing pve and pvp. This is because you can morph the paragon into different types. One being maybe conditions, and high critical dmg, another maybe feeding the monks energy, etc. etc.

After reading I think you want paragons to be throwing 80 dmg with a spear and thats just not going to happen. You are a behind the scenes team player in pve and pvp with the paragon.

You have to understand, paragon's are generally a support class, but boy can they do it so well. They are extremely mobile. Now that it's a bit harder to manage aggro in PvE, having a mobile support character is very useful.

There's 2 lines of thinking with the Paragon. You can go with the health/energy buffer builds like the above poster. Your Ballads and Arias though the Motivation attribute. Or you can go with a damage reduction/damage increase with the Command attribute. I like both so far, but I've been really leaning toward Command based builds. What I run currently is:

P/W
Spear: 10
Command: 14
Leadership: 12

Lightning Spear
Agressive Refrain/Watch Yourself
Go For the Eyes/Watch Yourself
Anthem of Flame
They're on Fire
Stand Your Ground
Incoming
Sunspear Rebirth Signet

I run a searing flames nuker for one of my heroes, so that coupled with Anthem of flame pretty much has most enemies burning throughout the fight.

When I am in a group with mostly casters, I tend to bring watch yourself and Go for the eyes. I generally focus on keeping Watch Yourself up, so I don't need as much adrenaline. When in a group with more physical damage dealers, I bring aggressive refrain and go for the eyes. Anthem of Flame + Go For the Eyes really, really buffs the damage of your allies in addition to all of the damage reduction you bring to the table. Plus with aggressive refrain, criticals and an occasional spear of lightning, your damage isn't exactly meaningless.

For areas with lots of ranged attackers, I drop spear to 9 and pump all my remaining points into Tactics and bring Shield's Up sometimes.

I know what ya mean but I think it is the same with all new classes, there is no real de-facto standard for what goes with which build.

I think it is not so much a case of synergising the Paragon with an 'ideal' secondary class, more look at how the class is setup:

Low, 2 pips of regen
2nd best armour in the game
Caster mana pool (30 energy by default)
Ranged weaponry
Lots of skills to generate energy

Taking this into account, I think it would be possible to create a type of 'close support' character that uses a fair bit of energy as you have the ability to 'make' energy fairly readily.

Currently I'm experimenting with a P/Me to see if I can provide the team with interrupts and hexs, using Domination/Illusion magic (not Inspiration for energy), high leadership, motivation and the rest put into a mesmer stat.

To save having to spend points in spear mastery, I have subsituted that for a wand/shield combo with the wand obviously linked to the mesmer stat I am investing in.

I feel the shouts and chants (which are mainly untargetted) gives you the time to spend interrupting and hexing opponents that other support character cannot afford to waste. With a Paragon, you have both the time and the armour to achieve this which makes the class unique.

Strange eh?! Don't think it will work but experimenting is all part of the fun I think

Nice analysis of the skills. I disagree on some things, but I won't list every single thing. I'll just give an overview of my thoughts.

Quote: Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk 1. The skills of a paragon are designed with extreme environments in mind, ie. where an entire team is built around them, making alot -most- of them useless in PvE. You have 3 heroes whose skills u can tweak. So you can setup your paragon to synergize with their skills, which works pretty well. If you pug, then you do need to adjust your skillbar to mesh w your group, but with the ability to save various templates this shouldn't be a problem.

Quote: Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk 2. Only one other class has skills that really synergise with a paragon, warrior (and one useless ritualist skill, woot). This is a problem because we have a very limited number of skills on the base class itself anyway. :/ Try laying down Pain and Bloodsong and using Anthem of Flame, Anthem of Envy, or any other anthem.

Put Balthazar's Spirit on urself (maybe mending refrain or finale of restoration too) and then spread out Angelic bond.

Even better, put angelic bond on a spirit like Shelter or Union to double it's life

Put Energizing Finale on urself and use a spammable spell from another prof.

With any skill that inflicts conditions on you (wearying spear, it's just a flesh wound, cautery sig) follow up w plague sending for AoE deep wound/weakness/burning.

The IAS skills are not stances, so you can use stances from other from other profs while not losing your IAS.

Sig of aggression is good only if you want to have adrenaline fully charged before a crucial battle (and if you're w henchies, cuz ppl will get annoyed w the wait). Starting off a battle with bleeding spear and then stunning spear for a quick shutdown of a caster is nice.

Gale/Shock/any KD + Awe can also shut down a caster.

Power is Yours stops degen when you hit 0 energy, so using some negative energy items will go nicely w this. Adrenaline shouts will get your energy back up, as will energizing finale.

Quote: Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk

I think we have just begun to scratch the surface of what paragons are going to be capable of in PvP and PvE. I began playing one (PvE) when NF went live and beat the game with him a couple days ago. One thing I noticed was with an all hero/hench team I seemed a lot more capable of progressing than other character classes might have been. The dmg enhancement or mitigation you can give to your party members is substantial, taking pressure off hero monks by killing things quicker or helping to keep party members alive longer.
When you factor in the fact that paragons have support buffs that cant be removed, have VERY good energy management, AND have the same armor as tanks, I think you have a formidable class on your hands. I think very soon we are going to see lots of builds that have AT LEAST one paragon in them, and I can easily see builds involving more than one (ie one focusing on defensive / dmg reduction and the other on offensive buffs).
While I agree with some of your assessments of the skills, I think its kind of silly to put a definitive label on them yet, especially until we get more comfortable with the skills and, more importantly, non-paragons start to realize the benefits we can bring to ANY group, be it PvE or PvP.

Anyway, there's my $.02

If any paragons want to here about my builds just hit me up in game
Solarii Uth Lyte (R/x) - main char
Myin Hates Myang (P/W)

Quote: Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk

IMO all Paragons do is yell at people..........

paragon is incredibly powerful in both pve and pvp. They do alot of damage as well as alot of pressure. Yet they have the capability of defending an entire team. They can keep a whole team of fighters with ias the entire time, and it cannot be removed. That is pretty godly already.

Quote: Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk
Song of Concentration
Seems pretty useless even in PvP! Only purpose I see for it is spiking. -_-;; Having not played a paragon much, I cant really say if you are right or wrong in most of your post. However, the skill I just quoted has to be one of the most usefull and in my opinion, almost overpowered skill in pvp ever. (Heros Ascent wise). Have you ever thought how impossible it is to stop a Ghost from capping an altar if the team used this skill? Yes, I guess you can knock the Ghost down since is really your only option, but oh wait, there is Brace Yourself and/or Ward of Stability too? GG.

Quote: Originally Posted by PanGammon

Thanks for the insightful comments guys, though some of you are missing my point.

I'm not here saying that paragons are weak, underpowered etc.
I'm saying that in PvE the skills which are effective, the builds you can use, is limited to a tiny list, and no skills from secondary classes appart from warrior work together with a paragon's skills.

That being said, those are some pretty neat ideas, TerminatorUK, I'll be sure to try something like that out...

Yar, I'll keep those thoughts in mind, JoeKnowMo.

Solarii, I'm not arguing that Paragons are underpowered.

Mayuka, I play a male, I have no beef with female paragon armour. :P

supaet, I'm not arguing that Paragons are underpowered.

Firoseth, thanks for reminding me about that. I had actually thought of it a few days back, but forgot. :P
Either way, its not that great in PvE. :/

I love my P/R

Posion + Burn + Bleeding all in one hit is possible with this build

(build up the adrenaline for Barbed spear, cast anthem of flame and apply poison and bam you have a burning poisoined and bleeding foe)

Burning Finale from what I hear is great as well.

I think P/R and P/N (or maybe N/P) will both be very viable in time. There may not be many obvious builds but think of it this way, 55ing wasn't obvious either, but it worked very well. Give it some time and people will find builds that can co-operate well with secondaries, even if you only use 1-2 skills from your secondary. I mean BP rangers don't use a ton of secondary skills, but that doesn't make them less effective.

Even going all primary can be fun and effective, grant it not as varied. I think there will be more PvE builds in time. Defitnaly can see some PvE Team Builds coming with 2-3 Paragons on rotations of shouts.

honestly, paragons are my second favorite prof next to mesmers. They absolutely rock in both PvE and PvP. Really, the Derivsh is worse, almost like a new sin, unless you have all of the form elites. Also, war is not the only one that can go with Paragon. You can use any one you want. I have Mesmer, though you dont really need any other skills from any of the profs(primary paragon skills work great on their own) and they work great in helping your whole team with health, energy, damage, and putting conditoins on foes, i.e. burning/bleeding. They could use some more skills, since they feel kinda limited ( you can only make so many different builds with the selection given for Par and Derv) but that is to be expected of new profs. Overall, Paragons totally dominate, so i COMPLETELY disagree with you.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dean Harper honestly, paragons are my second favorite prof next to mesmers. They absolutely rock in both PvE and PvP. Really, the Derivsh is worse, almost like a new sin, unless you have all of the form elites. Also, war is not the only one that can go with Paragon. You can use any one you want. I have Mesmer, though you dont really need any other skills from any of the profs(primary paragon skills work great on their own) and they work great in helping your whole team with health, energy, damage, and putting conditoins on foes, i.e. burning/bleeding. They could use some more skills, since they feel kinda limited ( you can only make so many different builds with the selection given for Par and Derv) but that is to be expected of new profs. Overall, Paragons totally dominate, so i COMPLETELY disagree with you. Err, did you even read my first post? You're AGREEING with me, my point was that they're a powerful class, but don't have much variety in terms of builds in PvE.

Quote: Originally Posted by Mayuka

Quote: Originally Posted by PanGammon

Quote: Originally Posted by noocoo

Personally, I love the Paragon, It's my favorite ranged class in PvP (I only AB, where I don't have to stress if I die.)

I've tried a spear heavy set up with barbed, burning and merciless. Added "To the Limit" for a fast Adren. Boost and found it nice and effective to kill things with.

Then I wanted to try and be a buffer and liked the Motivation skills.

I throw up Finales of Restoration and Purification, followed by Ballad of Restoration and Zealous Anthem. Therefore, upon immediate contact in battle, the first dmg to my people is mostly negated by the double heal from the Ballad +Finale of Restoration, in addition any initial conditions are also cleared. Once my team use their first attack skill they get some if not all of that energy back for their next attack.

Once that's subsided I've picked a target to chuck spears at and start watching health bars. If someone becomes a target I use Signet of Synergy and Mending Refrain to help heal, both are very effective.

To finish out the skills I have Barbed Spear to add bleeding to a target and activate Zealous Anthem on myself, and Gladiator's defense incase those nasty melees get to close.