Why are Paragons so disliked?

how about my pw build?

spear of lightning
watch yourself
go for the eyes
focused anger
anthem of flame
stand your ground
never surrender
res Another WY/GFTE spammer - I've used this in the past. It gets boring kinda quick and is one of the 2 builds for a Paragon.

To answer the thread title: Misunderstanding.

Paragons as a class are trying to fill in a position that didn't really need filled. A Paragon attempts to bridge the gap between backline and frontline by utilizing the shortbow range of the spear and heavy armor of a warrior. Practically unremovable shouts and chants allow them to become quite formidible on the battlefield in an ideal situation. However, things are not as brilliant as they seem. Far too many of our angelically clad friends are attempting to fill the position of a ranger by loading up on projectile-based DPS and losing their true versitility. However, I am straying too far from my intended point. Paragons can and always will have a hard time because people are unsure of their TRUE role. They have tanks, healers, and DPS. The Paragon doesn't seem to fall into any of those positions, regardless of if they truly can fill each and every one. very well put

I liked my Paragon and leveled him up really quickly because of the Wintersday event but now he just does not seem fun. He looks awsome and came up with teh greatest build but now I don't know what to do with him after I beat Nightfall. Every character I made has a reason for being made, yet my Paragon does not fit anything yet.

1.) my warrior farms and runs and title farms
2.) my necro UW farms and green farms
3.) my Rit VwK farms
4.) haven't found a great build yet for my ranger but she's starting to run
5.) Paragon....hmm...aqny suggestions cause I am seriously disliking my Paragon about now and am about to delete him. helping out friends and guildies, u can farm abit with them, but its not where they shine, or just stick him on the shelf for awhile and use him for storage. i got bored of my first ranger, warrior, monk, rit, assassin etc, so i played another class

Paragons are mobile party buffers, but rits offer perma-prot in a way Paragons can't. Let me put it this way, whenever I play Rit helping out Gates of Madness teams, it becomes so easy it's laughable. The mobility you get with Paragons loses you some flexibility - it's arguable which is better.

I still think most of the arias/ballads/anthems are too conditional compared to the huge range (almost 1 radar) prot offered by rit spirits. Rits out-prot Paragons - the chants/shouts on Paragons (especially GFTE) are more geared torwards helping up the damage.

Also, Rits can spam 2 energy heals for 100+hp like a chain gun. There's nothing equivalent a Paragon can do - all Paragons can hope for is casting a earshot-wide shout/chant and hoping it triggers before the party member dies - kinda lame.

As for defending, you should see a Rit tank using Xinrae or Vwk. Mine makes me tons of money each day. Not every prot/heal spell on a rit needs a spirit...

I've played both Rits and Paras - I naturally like support classes like these and I do appreciate the differences between them. Spear is so-so like Channeling was in the early days - I fully expect it to get buffed like Channeling soon. But Rits out-prot and out-heal Paragons. Lets put it this way: if you want a team with 2 monks and cant find the 2nd monk, most teams would prefer putting in a Rit instead of a Song of Resto Para.

Plus, the number of really significant builds for a Rit outnumbers that of a Paragon by a factor of about 3. Wow the Ritual champion... lol. You should post in their forum. I can see you are right about them being god because I see so many of them around... lmao.

I assume the two spells you are talking about are mend body and soul and soothing memories. Two very good heal spells. I agree these are very effective. Although, you have still failed to actually look at or try the Paragon Motivation healer I have talked about. I f you had read it you would see that Aria of Resotration heals for 88 when maxed (with no rune) which is a little more than Soothing but less than Mend. As I said I was using this with a GFTE/Envy spammer in tandem (necessary to make it work to your advatage, despite your claims that having two paragons is useless). The motivation healer and the GFTE/Envy spammer are casting GFTE constantly which goes off all allies the moment they attack. What does that equal? Oh yeah, its healing everyone in the party for 88 HP (more if someone runes it up to dedicate themselves to this build) practically every other attack at no energy expense to the paragon (who has a limitless supply of energy anyway.

Thought I would explain that to you since you still haven't actually read or tried the build.

Lets throw up some more numbers so we can compare.

Protect type motivation paragon. Let's see... Just thinking on the fly - (no test only theory) Burning Finale or an SF in your group + they're on Fire = 41% damage reduction. Then throw in Angelic Bond and any damage the tank actually takes then is divided between you and him. Then throw on Angelic Protection just in case he gets spiked, and he gets healed instead (BTW, I confess I do not know whether the other half of that damage gets transfered but I think not as it negates the damage completely). Maybe enduring harmony to make these effects last longer as the skills recharge. There are other possiblities here, Purifying Finale, Never Give Up, Bladeturn Refrain, Stand your ground, hmmm... Plenty of damage reducation and negation there. Anyone want to try to make a build and throw up some real numbers?

Oinkers want to actually throw up some numbers on this for the rit prot?

Lets talk about this whole damage thing cause I know some of you are sceptical and still believe it is not as significant as say a SF nuker. Lets talk GFTE and Envy for a sec. (sorry this is a broken record but it bares weight). Like I said the biggest paragon restriction and in some ways their benefit is they have to fit into the party build. A GFTE spammer does nothing for casters but put into a high physical damage group with Warriors or a BP group they can be devastating.

Lets look at a BP group. Perhaps with 4 rangers and one paragon. GFTE when maxed (w/ rune) gives a +75% chance to critical strike (max damage of weapon x square root of 2). For bows this adds about 11 damage. Seemingly little. But combo this with barrage where each arrow is effected (yes this is confirmed). That is a maximum of 6 arrows per ranger (and the paragon if packing a bow but lets leave him out of it) thats 6x4x11= 264 added damage with one GFTE. Envy can be even more devastation adding 20 damage to each arrow (if hitting a enemy above 50% HP so this takes smart timing). That's 6x4x20= 480. Okay so lets be honest. You don;t get 6 arrows every time. Lets say in tombs you get an average of 4 arrows per barrage. These totals turn into 176 and 320. I timed these cast times on my paragon in Gate of Fear. GFTE can be cast at an average of once every 3 seconds and Envy every 6-8 (this is casting both of them at the same time not conserving adrenaline for just one of these skills). Although SF has a recharge time of 2 seconds, Glowing Gaze is 5. SF eles know that this limits how fast you can really cast SF and averages out to about 3 seconds per cast. I dunno about you but with my SF even with full fire, a glyph of ele power and a superior rune I can only get my SF to be 133 damage and only 119 on its own with full runes (Gaze does 59 with Glyph and 53 without).

So, lets do the math folks Over a 10 second period.

Lets say the SF casts a Glyph of ele Power and it effects the three SF casts and both Gaze casts. That SF has done 399 damage to the local area and an extra 118 to their target. The local area damage is relatively inconsistent it could be 2 enemies or 6. Usually about 4 which is about 1596 damage + the 118. Total approx 1700. That's darn good. Keep in mind the elementalist has done pretty much nothing else accept cast these spells during this time. But to be honest, I never cast glyph before I go in because by the time you cast fire attunement and restoration you gotta get into the fight. With out glyph, using the same figures, this turns into about about 1500 damage in ten seconds.

Lets take the Paragon in the BP group. Over a ten second period, he has cast Envy once and GFTE 3 times. I will use the lower figures that use the average of 4 arrows per barrage as the figures here. That would mean added 320 Envy and 528 with GFTE for a total of 848 added damage to multiple targets in one area. This figure climbs to 1272 if all 6 arrows go out. Guess what... were not done. We haven't put in the paragons extra damage or the pets. The Paragon if using a spear adds about 10 damage per cast theres another 30 and the pets get boosted too (hard to calculate but it is similar to the spear lets be modest and say another 100 damage for the pets). Total damage added = approximately 1000-1400. Yes that is less than the SF but it is a significant contribution. ALSO, during this time, the paragon did not have to wait to start fighting as an SF does when casting fire attunement and restoration at the outset of battle, and is hurling spears the entire time this is going on, has cast Never Surrender boosting heals in the party, put Deep Wound on at least one target (more damage not figured into the total as Gaze's was for the ele as it changes depending on the target) and was able to cast Song of Power to boost casters energy across the entire party or perhaps some other party buff available. I'd say that is a pretty friggin notable contribution. I don't really care about you're opinion, the numbers and effects tell the story themselves.

Yeah... So give me REAL DATA.

Lets talk about this whole damage thing cause I know some of you are sceptical and still believe it is not as significant as say a SF nuker. Lets talk GFTE and Envy for a sec. (sorry this is a broken record but it bares weight). Like I said the biggest paragon restriction and in some ways their benefit is they have to fit into the party build. A GFTE spammer does nothing for casters but put into a high physical damage group with Warriors or a BP group they can be devastating. So Paragons outdamage SF nukers (according to your argument) only when built as GFTE spammers in a physical damage heavy group (i.e. all warriors/dervishes, no eles, no necros, no mesmers) ? You're nuts - nobody would ever make a group like that unless under very special situations.

Put a SF nuker and a Paragon side by side in a high-end environment like the Deep with a variety of situations as an example. You don't seriously think a group to the Deep would replace 3 eles with paragons?

And you don't seriously think a Paragon can outdamage a SF nuker? Rodgorts (which is another area spell) + SF is more than 200+ damage to an entire AREA which physical-heavy warriors cannot do. SF nukers can wipeout PvE monsters in like 3 casts.

The rest of your argument doesn't even bear reading - I can see some of the math is already wrong.

Protect type motivation paragon. Let's see... Just thinking on the fly - (no test only theory) Burning Finale or an SF in your group + they're on Fire = 41% damage reduction. Then throw in Angelic Bond and any damage the tank actually takes then is divided between you and him. Then throw on Angelic Protection just in case he gets spiked, and he gets healed instead (BTW, I confess I do not know whether the other half of that damage gets transfered but I think not as it negates the damage completely). Maybe enduring harmony to make these effects last longer as the skills recharge. There are other possiblities here, Purifying Finale, Never Give Up, Bladeturn Refrain, Stand your ground, hmmm... Plenty of damage reducation and negation there. Anyone want to try to make a build and throw up some real numbers? Read my post. Shelter/Union/Displacement is unconditional and huge range (about 1 radar). Displacement alone is 100% aegis (all attacks miss), which is worth more than 40% damage reduction. Shelter is prot spirit (no more than 10% health reduction). Union is -15 damage reach time.

Compared to a Paragon where you have to micro-manage your Angelic Bond on selected players - you can't maintain bonds party wide with 2 pips regen!

Angelic protection? Pffft...prot spirit (and its big brother Shelter) still rule for spike protection. The trigger for Angelic Prot is too high anyway. With something like Prot-spirit/Shelter - the 10% equates to about 40/50 in health (depends on party member) and not the 250-130 damage the angelic needs to work. Plus, with Angelic Bond you're wasting an elite slot.

The rest of your damage reduction spells only work if you have cast them on everyone - a rit lord's protection is practically unconditional. I seriously doubt you can keep up all those chants/shouts on everyone in a party all the time anyway - not on a 35/40 energy base pool.

ToF is nice, but is conditional on enemies being burning. Without an SF nuker making this happen, it's limited. Burning Finale makes 2 or 3 burning at a time unless the enemies are all bunched up beating on your attacking tank, which is unlikely for most balanced groups, since the squishes tend to stay near the back.

There are 2 faces to prot - monks (boon prots) and rit (communers). You can't be serious in saying Paragons out-perform either of them.