Well then, ANET hate paragons now

Quote: Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk Heck, if people DO choose other skills and find a way to make say...


"Can't Touch This!"


...So much as remotely useful in PvE, I'll be happy. Stygian Veil, against the packs of Touchers. Takes all of 5 seconds to notice that.

Practically every class has PvE-worthless skills, I don't see your point with regards to paragons.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Made In Ascalon Maybe you're completely useless, but my paragon certainly isn't. If you limited your ability to play to broken skills, then I doubt you're a very good player. Glad to see that people are capable of rational thought.

there are a few things that need to be outlined here. lets start talking about what paragons were for:
-energy battery
-backup party wide gimp heals
-massive damage reduction
-skill assist with song of conc

now lets take a lok at how the nerf leaves paragons:
-backup, gimped heals
-damage reduction, almost useless now
-song of conc still works
-no more energy batteries

So now we ca see the problem, the main reason paragons were so good was because of the backline and party wide buffs. Lets take a look at the other attribute that paras gain absoluely nothing from: Spear Mastery:
-now what we have here is a plethora of skills that really need a buff moreso than others nerfed. Thereare quite a few skills here, including two elites, that give paragons almost nothing. there are all sorts of conditions in the attribute line along with an easily appliable daze. This would be great if a paragon was any good with spar attcks, unfortunately they arent. I guaruntee that a ranger could easily out dps a paragon any day (packhunter anyone?) along with several other classes. The bane of the attribute line is that its useless because of the incapability of paragons to run anything other than a main spec in motivation and command.

What i think the majority of you that think this was not a bad nerf are overlooking is the paragons use in a party. by gimping the skills that were nered, they intriduced harsh competition from other classes occupying the party slots that paragons used to own. On a partywide aspect, the paragon is better replaced with another utility character.

One other consiquences of this nerf is the insurgence of almost one specific team build (searing flames) in HA. before, monks had no problem dealing with the pressure that an sf group put out, almost exclusively due to the pressure supression of paragons along with the massive loads of energy that paragons gave to monks to counteract the energy needed to upkeep a party against that much damage. so in one update, paragons were almost completely removed from HA and one party build reigns supreme. I think the easiest way to fix this is just to go back to 8 man party halls. Oh if only anet listened.

Actually, the spear line is pretty nice for spikes. I don't think the paraon was ever meant to be a long ranged pressure class though, outside of their easily applied conditions. Many people have been running paragons to buff offense in pressure builds, however; things like Go For The Eyes and Find Their Weakness are amazing in that regard. Go For The Eyes gives melee classes with 16 weapon mastery about a 90% chance to critical every 3 seconds, and Find Their Weakness is an almost guaranteed deep wound. Dervishes under a high specced GFTE is absolutely ridiculous damage without dedicating an attack skill to it.

Defensive buffs are still quite viable: Stand Your Ground, a decently specced Watch Yourself (Paragons CAN put points into Tactics, you know?), Incoming, They're on Fire (in a build with the burning condition) and Angelic Bond are all very good ways to reduce pressure. The Motivation "restoration" skills are still there, untouched, as well. The "battery" aspect of the motivation line has been reduced but still allows for 2 monks to gain a respectable amount of energy over time, provided the build has enough shouts. I don't think the issue is paragons being underpowered at this point, I think the problem is players who lack an understand of game mechanics and only want an easy way to be nearly invunerable.

As for SF, yes it is annoying fighting it on almost every map, but it's ridiculously easy to beat. No decent monk should have an issue with these builds, if they are then you should be looking for better monks, or a whole new party. Tombs is dead now anyway, and I doubt it will ever be worth playing again unless you're trying to grind out your tiger against NPCs so you can feel leet. Time to move over to GvG if you haven't already, imo.

Quote: Originally Posted by Avarre

Quote: Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk

Quote: Originally Posted by holymasamune angelic protection- 2 esurges coming from roaring ethers can do 140 damage What the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO?!?!? What kind of argument is that? Target other, 33% time coverage.
Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune enduring harmony- are u serious, or are u just plain stupid That's what he should be asking you. How many shouts profit from extending duration by 50% on a single target that you would spend a slot and resources in game for it. NONE. Unless you decide you wanna go through the chore and immense energy expense of keeping this up on all team. More power to you then.

Quote: Originally Posted by holymasamune Make haste- for running scenarios, especially if you have 2 paragons with each other.
song of conc- for ms, firestorm, etc
angelic protection- 2 esurges coming from roaring ethers can do 140 damage
awe- enemy monks and casters to make killing easier
enduring harmony- are u serious, or are u just plain stupid
leaders zeal- compare with ether signet. i'd use leaders zeal any day.
purifying finale- perfect condition removal Make haste - So you're saying that this one skill is specifically for the one or two missions where you can CHOOSE to run it? k.
Song of Concentration - Sure, if you have your entire team in PvE on TS, otherwise, timing this one will be a massive pain.
Angelic Protection - You've now saved one of the 5-odd targets which were hit... Point taken, I guess.
Awe - Nothing lives long enough in PvE for daze to make any difference. Just take a hero with interrupts, if you REALLY need to int that badly.
Enduring Harmony - Of course I'm serious. What's the point? Its safe to say that its useless for chants, as they're a trigger thing, and spending time to extend the length of Watch Yourself or Incoming on ONE target seems silly to me, especially considering Incoming is an anti-spike thing, so you don't have time to waste.
Leader's Zeal - Ether Signet doesn't COST energy to start off with, LZ does.
Purifying finale - Err, are you REALLY being hit by THAT many conditions in PvE? Just hit Cautery signet, or get your monk to tap Mend condition.

Quote: Originally Posted by holymasamune i'm not gonna bother to keep going. if you really want, people can give longer lists of more useless skills than these paragon ones from other professions. it's just like how energy drain and the rest of the inspiration line was hugely nerfed, people will have to deal with it and find better alternatives, not dwell in the past and whine like a baby

ok, just to shut your whiny ass, how often do u see these ele skills being used a lot in pve compared to the paragon ones listed:
blinding flash, gale, storm djinns haste, energy boon, ether prism, ether prod, ether renewal, armor of frost, blurred vision, oh wait Charming.
Blinding Flash - Of course somewhat limited in usefulness, but its still great to disable pesky warriors while you eliminate the enemy casters.
Gale - Stop the enemy from moving, stop the enemy from casting, while you beat down and kill it within those couple of seconds, I see no problem here.
Storm Djinn's Haste - Okay, one elem skill that's useless in PvE, noted.
Energy boon, Ether Prism, Ether prod - Last I checked, elem spells cost alot of energy, and these spells give alot of energy, what's the problem?
Armor of frost - Its... 40 extra armour. Why wouldn't you like 40 extra armour?
Blurred Vision - See Blinding Flash

I have to agree with the OP - Paragons are the new Rits - they're useless now for most things after the nerf. I've been playing GW since chests needed no keys to open and everyone got an item from it, and the pattern of nerfs is very noticeable - rangers/monks never get nerfed significantly. Only significant nerf rangers got was the EoE change, which was comparatively minor if you consider how eles have been nerfed into the ground until recently. Necros still get all the action in Tombs, SF, FoW, UW and you name it. Monks never get touched - except for the minor spirit bonder thing. Rits - the whole resto/communing line got nuked due to higher energy costs. 5 energy to cast spirit light? Whats the point if your spirits are gonna cost 25 to bring up?

Paragons occupy that uneasy space between warriors, rangers and monks. It's a very cramped space and the nerfs have obliterated the paragons as far as I can see.

Here's the reasons why I shall be deleting my paragon.

Energizing Finale should return 2 energy instead 1 considering its high energy cost and duration. As it stands, it takes up 1 too many slots on a skillbar.

Incoming is useless in PvE, duration is still too short in PvP. Recharge times suck heavily.

2 bips regen is laugahble on a small energy pool.

The only synergistic second profession was warrior, and the only skill that worth was running (WY) is also totally nerfed. Putting points in tactics is hard because you need to buff up the main lines so hard to get a decent effect in the first place. P/Mo? yeah right.

No hex removal at all - hexbreaker aria works on others.

Party wide buffs are ill-thought out. Song of Resto only heals for 100 odd? weak. Song of Purification removes 1 condition? weak. Song of Power needs 25 energy and terminates prematurely? very weak. Most songs are elite? crap.

The whole spear line is utterly useless, worse than channeling for rits before the buff. ANet may recognise this, but when the buff arrives it will be too late - like for the rits. All the spear skills look like clones of each other - there's no variation, no room to innovate. All deal lousy damage, all seem to have a preoccupation with deep wound or bleeding. Too easy to block spear attacks and the attack rate is too low to deal any decent damage. No AoE at all.

DoA will likely not need paragons at all, as the core classes from Tyria are still more powerful. Look at the DoA builds and you will see no slots for Paragons at all.

In terms of damage, you have to rely on GFTE and your team members - this is absolutely crud. You can't buff them good enough after the nerf, you can't deal any decent damage from the start, Paragons are dead on arrival.

So to sum up, you can't do anything as well as the other core classes and the one thing that might have included you in a user group was party wide buffing which doesn't really work effectively anymore. Shame, as I've spent so much on vabbian armour for my Para.

I'm getting really annoyed at ANet now - most of my chars have been nerfed so hard because they haven't thought out how the new classes will inter play with the core ones. I regret ever making a Rit and Para - both are now useless at support, and non-core and therefore getting impossible to find groups for.

To Gaile - whats the point of a paragon anymore? I can find poorly configured core classes that work better in every PvE mission in all the chapters.

Quote: Originally Posted by oinkers

my pve para is fine, mind i only used 1 of the nerf skills..

Quote: Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk Water hexes are even required for some air skills to function at full effectiveness. Like Gust, which is crap, and Arc Lightning, which is also crap. Your point?

Your notes on the effectiveness of what are obviously PvP skills in PvE is completely ridiculous. Final Thrust is a bad PvE skill, does that make it a BAD skill? Hell no.

For PvE, just bring Aggressive Refrain and some fast-recharging chant like Burning Anthem to keep it alive, give your war hero Watch Yourself, and go kill. I'm not having any problem.

Quote: Originally Posted by Riotgear

[QUOTE=Riotgear

Energizing Finale is not an energy management skill, it's a BUFF, just like Blood Ritual. And in that sense, it was disgustingly overpowered before.[/QUOTE]

Returning 1 energy is not a buff. It may have been overpowered before, but it's totally useless now. Of all the so-called buffs the para should be able to do, energy is now arguably the weakest. EF is not even party wide.

I repeat my assertion that Paragons are not front-line (despite their armor), not core (because they dont heal or do damage well unlike the 6 primary classes), and can't even support properly these days. Which means they are simply a non-character.

Quote: Originally Posted by oinkers Returning 1 energy is not a buff. "Returning"? You missed the point completely. My point is that EF is not there to be used on yourself to recover energy. You don't need an echo for energy management, that's what your primary is for. The whole idea of it is that in a team build with 2 paragons, there are going to be enough shouts and chants flying around to provide a good deal of energy gain from it.

Energy is an extremely valuable resource. Anything to recover it has some sort of cost attached.

Quote: Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk Edit: Incidently, I'm fine with EF being balanced now. However, I don't see the justification for raising its cost to 10. The problem with it was that it gave too much energy, not that it was being spammed everywhere. Even now, you can comfortably put it on 3+ people if you so choose. But I'm not here to whinge about that, this is just my 2c on the matter. Actually, the problem was that it could be maintained on 3-4 casters AND that it gave them unlimited energy. For a paragon to maintain it on 3-4 people now would require too much energy for him to do much else without something like Watch Yourself fueling his energy. Energizing is still a viable skill in a build with a lot of shouts or chants, it's just not so good that it grants the monks infinite energy. QQ


Quote: Energizing Finale should return 2 energy instead 1 considering its high energy cost and duration. The duration hasn't changed, and 2 energy would still grant targets with a nearly unlimited stream on energy.
Quote: Incoming is useless in PvE, duration is still too short in PvP. Recharge times suck heavily. I agree with Incoming sucking in pve, it's just one of those skills thats rightful place is in pvp. I strongly disagree with you in regards to pvp, however. Incoming is a very powerful anti-spike skill; 5 seconds is more then enough to reduce a spike to nothing while preventing the skill from being abused to grant invulnerability. The duration adjustment also makes it harder for paragon secondaries to chain the skill for 18 out of 20 seconds.

Quote: Originally Posted by Avarre Stygian Veil, against the packs of Touchers. Takes all of 5 seconds to notice that. At best you will waste some energy of touchers, at worst you will do nothing because touchers will go for your team. Either way effect is way too small. "Can't touch this" is only good vs shock, and decent against blackout, expunge enchantments etc in pvp, that is till they just pick on some other target. In pve too many monsters for this shout to counter anything, they have energy to spare. Quote:

Originally Posted by Keilious Ahruhk Eremite's Attack - As with all attacks with an activation time, awesome. You are forgetting about 3 sec activation time attacks spear mastery has. Those are mediocre at best.

Quote: Originally Posted by Riotgear Cross it now, please. Every one of my PvE characters has AT LEAST one skill that has practically never left their bar. Very well then. *steps onto precarious rickety river-crossing*
Lets start one by one.
Warriors: They have entirely different trees which are mutually exclusive, so there's no one "needed skill"
Rangers: Although they have a fixed skill "arrangement", ie. take one defensive stand, take two or three bow attacks, you have alot of options in terms of which skills will fill those slots. Even then, the variations of builds pretty much nullify the "required skill" idea. Trappers, Touchers, Thumpers, Int-ers.
Monks: Not unlike warriors, due to their different "trees", they don't have a "required skill" per se. (though some would argue Signet of Devotion is one such skill). Granted though, a prot monk will always take reversal and guardian.
Mesmers: I'm terribly inexperienced with mesmers, so rather than make a fool of myself, I won't comment. EDIT: Oh, I suppose some of the inspiration e-management skills might be must-haves, like energy tap...
Elementalists: Like warriors, different "trees", so while within those trees there may be must-haves (lightning orb, fireball), the rule doesn't apply to these guys.
Necromancers: Much like elementalists and warriors. You typically choose one attribute, put points in it, and soul reaping. Within each attribute there are skills which are close to must-haves, such as Shadow of Fear/Faintheartedness
Assassins: There really is no argument against me for this one, you typically have a lead, off-hand and dual, and there are plenty of each. Some would argue that Shadow refuge is must a must have, I say learn to shadow-step.
Ritualists: Another class I'm not too experienced with, but I'm fairly sure you can at least either go with spirits or with weapon spells.
Dervish: Similar explanation to Assassin or Warrior.

Now you might say, "sure, but like paragons, they have a small number of skills which are 'must haves'". Granted. But the "must-haves" of paragons are all either in one attribute, or in ANOTHER CLASS. Now that's just fruity, don't you think?

Quote: Originally Posted by B Ephekt

As far as i see it, Paragons are meant to be a support class, there not meant to be heavy healers or strong spikers, there designed to do a little of both to assist in the team generally, buff allies a little to help monks/Rits & punish enemys a little to keep the enemys dropping. Ok so the update changed there skills to a lower degree. This is becauses:

A- Shouts and Echos cant be removed and there is only a few ways of stoping them being used therefore there is little u can do to counter them. (ofc there are a few ways but these are rare in PvE and not always effective in PvP)

B- the buffs they were giving were making them more of a heavy protector, even the once mighty Aegis couldnt reduce that much damage generally and monks are designed to be full protectors not buff protectors. It should be the other way around Monks heavy protectors with weak attacks and Paragons with medium protection and medium attack.

C- the skills arnt meant to be keep up 100% of the time, how often have u seen a team that keeps up Aegis 100% of the time and/or spams heal party non stop the entire fight? i would venure a guess and say either none or hardly ever

Everyones entitled to there opion but in my view these changes were needed and im glad to see them in effect.

I have a question for all the people whining about the paragon having 2 pips of energy regen. Do you even have any points in leadership and do you realize that a lot of your skills require adrenaline? If you do have points in leadership do you understand how it works?

Since we're talking about paragons in pve lets see how this change affects us.

Aria of Zeal: Increased casting time to 2 seconds - Seriously though how many paragons actually brought this skill with them. I would say a good 75% of PvE paragons go with command over motivation anyways.

Energizing Finale: Increased the Energy cost to 10 and reduced the amount of energy gained per shout or chant to 1. - Again how many paragons actually brought this with them on their regular bar. Assuming you've got 2 or 3 spammable shouts/chants the energy gain is still up there with things in the inspiration line. Casting this on your self is useless anyways, see Leadership and Adreanline.

Incoming: Increased Energy cost to 10 and decreased duration to 1..5 seconds. - It now takes more timing to use, while still being a good skill.

"Stand Your Ground!": Increased energy cost to 10. - So Stand Your Ground actually costs energy to use now. With decent leadership I don't see why anyone would whine about +24 conditional armor than can't be removed. So you'll be paying about 6 to 4 energy every 45 seconds.....even a warrior can afford that.

Quote: Originally Posted by Spura