Why are Paragons so disliked?

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I think it would be neat to have a P/Rt or Rt/P maybe that will be my next project. That way everyone can be happy. Already tried that (before I deleted my Para). Vocal was Sogolon is the prime example of a synergistic skill covering both professions, but you lose a lot holding ashes. Plus, I really dont want shouts/chants to last longer, I want them to heal for more, or give back more energy, or trigger multiple times instead of just once, or re-apply themselves with a certain percentage-chance occurence. There's a reason why I stick a few points in tactics to make Watch Yourself minimally useful - it's a way of triggering stuff (along with GFTE). There's no need to lengthen WY/GFTE when I can spew it out every 2 seconds with Focused Anger. Beyond that, there's not a lot to be had being P/Rt or Rt/P - beyond Song of Power (hint). Govtmorgue Academy Page Join Date: Oct 2006 Dirty Angels go to Hell [HELL] P/E 15 Jan 2007 at 21:44 - 84 Quote: 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.

Quote: I did read your previous post (and again after you posted this) and you did not include the entire skill set that you included here. Now that you posted it but didn't explain how it works, I went to wiki and tried to figure that out.

Displacement: Create a level 1...8 Spirit. Attacks made by all non-Spirit foes within its range are "evaded." Every time an attack is evaded in this way, this Spirit takes 60 damage. This Spirit dies after 30...54 seconds.

So, this does what you said 100% evade for all non-spirit attackers. So, just to actually truthfully explain this, understand that this does NOT give you 100% damage reduction vs spells, hexes, and the like. This is still very good. Now, someone with Factions help me out. How much Hp does this guy have. Cause with 60 damage for every evade, I gotta believe this thing is not lasting long. It takes 45 seconds to recharge. So, how much damage is really "evaded"? I truly would like an answer. I could not find HP values on wiki only AR.

Union: Create a level 1...7 Spirit. Whenever a non-Spirit ally in its range takes damage, that damage is reduced by 15 and the Spirit takes 15 damage. This Spirit dies after 30...54 seconds.

So, this takes away some of the hex or spell damage incurred beyond all the evades. This one probably lasts until recast as it only takes 15 damage per thing, but again, someone with this char type please confirm actual practice (oinkers? wanna put some factual hard evidence up for once?)

Shelter: Create a Level 1...7 Spirit. Non-Spirit allies within its range cannot lose more than 10% maximum Health from a single attack. When this Spirit prevents damage, it loses 75...51 Health. This spirit lasts 30...54 seconds.

This is good, too. It does take a lot of damage when preventing damage, though, so it might die before recast, too. Recharge os 45 seconds.

I might also point out that to actually get all of these cast it takes 13 seconds. Not necessarily significant for groups who are patient but very significant to those who are not.

So the way this works is that Displacement allows you to evade all physical attacks for a period of time, then Union reduces any other damage by 15. If what is left goes above 10% of your HP, then anything above 10% damage is negated. So, in the end, you are protected for a short time of physical attacks but are vulnerable to hexes and heavy elemental strikes for the most part and will can still take up to 10% of your HP as damage.

You could also add in Soothing to prevent adrenaline building in your enemies and Dulled Weapon to prevent critical strikes for small amount of foes.

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I will conceed to this point, a rit protector is better. I just tried a protector paragon and the echos are just to friggin complicated. You have to be attacking to recharge adrenaline and then target a specific ally to cat an echo and some of the other target specific chants. My only vindication is that I admitted that I had never tried one of these before. Just tried one, and it SUCKED. The paragon echos are absolutely useless. ANet should've made these castable on the entire party and then it would be fine. The energy conservation was all off and I could not keep track of the differnt casts (which are echos and which are chants, which are target specific, which are not, which ally to cast them on,, BLAH!) This gets the crap stamp by me. Stick with the other builds I posted.

You are better of going SF paragon with ToF and settling for a mere 41% damage reduction... oh and all that SF damage they do... Well, if you are a "motivation paragon" then a good chance you are. Mine does, 16 for most builds and 15 for a few. I can not say how many do this as I do not know, but looking at motivation builds submitted to GuildWiki appears quite a few run at 15 or 16.

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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. oinkers Your information is wrong. With a Leadership based para, with a Superior rune, it's damage over 90...and with *I think* a 9 or 12 in Leadership, it's damage over 130. (Just a statement for correct information...nothing for or against what you actually pointed out) bartwart Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Nov 2006 15 Jan 2007 at 22:31 - 85 I love my para but I don't much love the idea that I'm supposed to be some crap ass "support" char, like the above poster mentions. My primary character was an echo ss necro for the longest time, and now that I'm a ToF tank we are annihilating Kourna mobs and missions much quicker. Granted, my SS necro didn't have much trouble with the Kournas to begin with, but the results speak for themself. I'll have to see how we do against the Margonites, but I suspect the results will be the same. I just capped SF yesterday for Zhed, but I'll have to try the SF para for myself. I noticed Guild Wiki had an unfavored SF para build listed, and frankly the negatives against it were crap, as are most negatives against para builds. "Para is for support," to paraphrase the common sentiment towards paragons. "This would be much better as two builds," is another bunk argument because pick-up missions or AB don't afford such luxuries as being able to custom pick every class and skill you can take into battle. Or "such and such will counter this build therefor it sucks," which you can say about any other build. I also fundamentally disagree that you should compare a build from one type of char with a build from another. I mean, now that SF is out there how many good builds are now obsolete using this logic? I think a double standard is being applied to the paragon. For example, a promiment guild wiki poster voted against a clever virulence para build because "untainted disease hurts your party." Well no kidding! Using that logic the Me/N virulence build would have never seen the light of day. [sarcasm] For that matter, mesmer just plain owns all so guild wiki should remove all those non-mesmer builds. [/sarcasm] I do, however, think the spear line needs at least one AoE attack and one attack that can travel farther than normal range. oinkers Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Dec 2006 15 Jan 2007 at 22:57 - 86 Quote: Originally Posted by Govtmorgue Oinkers ... we won't replace 3 ele's in the Deep, but I can *almost* guarantee that at least one Para (Using my SF ToF build) will help boost the mobility and killing speed of the team, while keeping them protected. I've toyed around with an SF Para, but came to the conclusion most mixed PUGs would have a nuker ele in there somewhere, and didn't need me to waste my secondary on it. The only time a SF Para is useful is when there are no nukers to set things on fire around - and that's kinda rare. Use the SF Para build if it suits you - it just wont be around for too much longer as SF is being nerfed in the coming weeks. We'll be back to WY/GFTE spamming. Angelic Bond is still unbelievably crap for an elite - prot spirit or shelter owns it every which way. Larger range, unconditional, party-wide without having to cast on individual members, and non-elite to boot. Angelic Prot has a ridiculous threshold of 130+ (who is going to put 16 in leadership honestly), and is predicated on total damage per second instead of a single attack like prot spirit. Heck, even Life Barrier or Life Bond is better. Most of the Paragon elites are really crap - Song of Resto is probably the best elite but only heals like a 10-point Heal Party and is elite and also limited by earshot - an E/Mo HP pumper will out perform Song of Resto anyday. oinkers Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Dec 2006 15 Jan 2007 at 23:10 - 87 Quote: Originally Posted by bartwart My primary character was an echo ss necro for the longest time, and now that I'm a ToF tank we are annihilating Kourna mobs and missions much quicker. I dont want to downplay the significant of a ToF tank, but almost any half-baked Para build will work on the early stages of the game. I had mistakenly left out Stand Your Ground/ToF for most of game until around Kodash for some reason, but still steamrollered through the missions in no time. Granted, I was using Incoming before the nerf. You could even get by Realm of Torment missions on a messed up build. That's the nice thing about PvE - its still fun and rewarding even if your builds aren't optimal. The real test is if you can make a Paragon that is worth including in a DoA team over a traditional monk or nuker or warrior. Post a build here if you do, I'd love to see one. I do wish ANet would buff Song of Power and un-nerf Incoming for PvE. bartwart Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Nov 2006 16 Jan 2007 at 00:16 - 88 I haven't made it that far with either my para or necro, so I can't gauge how valuable a para is during those missions. With my necro I made it to that undead whats-his-name guy's palace (Palawi?) before I got bored and started the para. I guess I'm not surprised to see that paras are looked over for DoA. I noticed a similar phenomena during the Tyrian fire island missions where people were very picky about who they wanted to go on missions with (kick the mesmer!), being kicked for not running a particular build (can you go MM?) or were very intollerant of mistakes to the point of being nasty. The level of snobbery seems to increase the farther you get into any campaign. And when I get to DoA and find a great build I'll make sure to post it Mad5cout Academy Page Join Date: Oct 2006 16 Jan 2007 at 00:52 - 89 Quote: Originally Posted by oinkers 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. I am saying that a SF ele still out damages a paragon even in a physical heavy group but that it does not add any other benefits to the party such as support healing, energy boosts, adding deep wound, etc. Also, lets analyze your Rodgort Invocation tiwst you put it. Sorry you're just grasping at straws now man. Rodgort takes 3 seconds to cast, you just eliminated one of your SF casts in the 10 second period to cast a spell that does about the same amount of damage (unruned max for Rodgort 98, unruned max for SF 91). That's why experienced SFs don;t even bother with Rodgort. It is slow and doesn't do any more damage. All you do is lower your damage per second yield. Not surprised you missed that though... You don't read any of the other skills sets either. Tell which part of my math is wrong... Actually show it. Because the math is right. If any of it is "off" at all, it is because I had to make guesses or apporximations on some values (IE: how many arrows per barrage, or how many enemies would be hit by an SF cast.) In all of these cases, I tried to use equal values in both builds (4 arrows per barrage - hitting area enemies against 4 area enemies hit by SF - equal values) Don't worry about that whole not reading the rest of my arguement. We all know that you just say crap that doesn't have any factual backing in actually reading skill descriptions or doing in game tests or anything like that... we know you don't read any of it. Mad5cout Academy Page Join Date: Oct 2006 16 Jan 2007 at 01:50 - 90 Quote: Originally Posted by oinkers 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.

And I can't see how reducing the healing (ANet's words, not mine) is a buff. Are you sure you want to run with this after reading the above posts comparing numbers? You may wish to step back for a moment and think about how such statements make you look. oinkers Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Dec 2006 20 Jan 2007 at 01:55 - 109 Quote: Originally Posted by strcpy Well, if you are a "motivation paragon" then a good chance you are (running with 16)