Paragons...Is this what was originally intended?

Why do we need another ranged attacker? why do we need another healer?





after the skill balance weekend i have been noticing that the paragon seems to be moving away from what was originally intended for the class... (and what attracted many of us to desire to play them)

The paragon was intended to be a leader/commander who, by primarily using shouts and chants, would increase the teams effectiveness and provide support in damage, protection, and healing.

There seems to be a loss of the spirit of the class lately..... and a lot of focus is being placed on the damage from the spear line... and healing power from the motivation line... while these are in place for a good reason and the paragon will/should benefit from these abilities..... thats not what the class was created for... there is only one or two skills that I can see in the paragons line of skills that truly accomplishes what a true 'commander' would in a real battle... the best one being

[card]"go for the eyes!"[/card]

this increases the effectiveness of martial weapon users but truly has no effect on casters.... this skill is works perfectly with the theme/plot of the commander type class...paragon.

but instead of getting many skills like this that increase the effectiveness of other party members (and THEIR already perfectly defined niches.. healer, melee, inturrupter, protector, hexer, etc....) the paragon tries hopelessly to compete with many of these niches ON HIS OWN! and while the spear is essential (as mention above) and the heals a benefit, it should be secondary...much like the monks smiting line...

do we need another ranged physical attacker? do we need another healer?

why then do we only have a few skills (and fewer skills worth their salt) that do what the paragon was made to do?


~~~~~~Suggestions~~~~~~~~
I have made these before in the weekends threads... but I want to know if there are other paragons out there who feel the same way


1. change the utterly useless skill [card]"help me!"[/card] to " help us" and let it effect the entire team... increased speed and potency of teams healers would actually be agood skill...


2. give the paragon more "bip/battery" skills.... please, please, change the skill [card]"the power is yours!"[/card] increase the energy decrease the negative effect

3. Implement new skills that do what the paragon is supposed to do... If I were a-net (dreams, dreams ) i would make something like these... and please excuse me if they sound corny...

-"show them our true power!" decrease the casting/recharge times of elemental skills

-"have no mercy!" when allies cast a hex on a foe... that foe takes adittional damage and the hex lasts xx % longer

-"archer's ready!" the next ranged attack used by effected allies moves twice as fast and interupts targets action"

-"Medic!" when effected allies are healed they are also cleansed of 2 conditions

-"spoil the dead!" when a foe dies near an undead minion that minion is healed for xx


while I am no game developer, and these skills may be greatly over/under powered (or a bit corny)... i hope you see my point.

I for one would like to see the paragon move back to its intended place.

Lol!

When I first read your "Help Me!" change, I laughed.

I keep thinking of the many movies I've seen where the leader (a general, a captain, etc.) would sacrifice others to save himself. I think that is how it should stay. If you keep the leader alive, the leader can always get more peons (or raise the ones you have), but if the leader goes down, there goes your motovation (shouts).

I agree that Power Is Yours should be changed. I like to see a Power Is Yours look more like Blood Ritual. Give everyone in ear shot, +1 ... +3 energy regen, and you take -10 energy regen. Instead of energy gain, it should be energy regen.

Show Them Our True Power is brutal. Your elementalists will scream at you for bringing it. Increase their casting time? Increase their Recharge time? Oh my, Maelstrom, Meteor Shower, all of the spells already too long to cast, having it increased further?

Have No Mercy with Soul Barbs, Recuring Insecurity, etc. Too nasty!

We don't need any more back seat drivers who's armor is equal to a Warrior but sitting in the back lines shouting commands. We have Warriors yelling, HEAL ME! in the front lines, poor monks yelling "I have 0/50 energy" in the back lines.

Think of Paragons as short ranged rangers with the abilities to shout healing skills (thus no scurge healing harm), and protection shouts. I don't like to have good armor, nice weapons and not use them because I'm telling people what to do. Like shouting go for the eyes! or Stand your ground. Especially when I see a Wa/Mo run away from agro screaming, heal me, and running around like a chicken with it's head chopped off.

Besides, I like to attack others, with or without spear attack skills. Don't take away the spear attack tree and have it replaced with nothing or another shout tree.

btw [skill=text]Song of Power[/skill] needs to be changed, either the energy cost or the negative part.

EDIT: ofcourse, the energy cost is a negative part itself

fixed...should be decreased casting time


and like I said... im not saying these skills are perfecty balanced.... I'm just saying that the Main purpose of the paragon is to motivate/command using its shouts.... which should increase the effectiveness of the entire team... if you want to be a med. ranged attacker..pick up a shortbow and go with ranger.... if you want to heal the party...go monk.... why do we need a class that is jack of both trades, but master of neither?

the paragon should have more skills like gfte...skills that help what the other classes do.... increasing the teams effectiveness...


and by the way.... if you think help me is fine the way it is....you need some help.... that skill is utter crap the way it is

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I'll admit I don't mind the "jack of all trades" part too much. The problem is now the paragon is a "jack of all trades" who got beat a few too many times in the alley with the nerf bat. Jack of all trades is not a bad thing to play but first ANET must let us play it. Considering this however, I would be salivating over skills like the ones you mentioned. Granted they are overpowered the idea is a great one and skills like this would work wonders and people would actually not laugh at the suggestion of a paragon on their team. Those are what the commanders do. They dont use "Song of Restoration" but they might say "Archer's Ready!" and "Have No Mercy!".

I dono, I think paras do a great job if used correctly. I think they can be vital in back support. Stand your ground and Angelic Bond can be great if used on a monk. Monks often take lots of DMG and the extra armor plus the reduced DMG could greatly increase their life spans. I disagree with the use of Angelic bond on W/Mo I think they have all the abilities they need to stay alive not to mention if the monk stays up they usually will. Try bonding the monk and keeping stand your ground up, since the clothies are the ones that could REALLY use that extra armor and they don't move as much it could help. Leaving you to give relief should a warrior break through to attack your monk. You can then use the spears and such as relief. You rarely see leaders out on the battle fields attacking on the front lines, thats ludicrous. But as support and relief for the important people, thats where they stand. And having such a high armor value, thats an excellent place for them. They're the high armor thats often needed on the back lines where often the crucial things take place such as monks falling to Sins or Warriors.
well at any rate thats just my two cents on the subject.

un-nerfed paragons = hoh holding

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Yes Drop the paragon's spear. I mean, Melee paragons? What do they do? lol. Thank god i already deleted mine. Since Dmg maker paragons sucked, i didnt want to be a support/healing type of paragon. So screw that ^^

I wasnt complaining about the nerf...after some gvg observing...you will understand why these proposed nerfs took place.... what I am saying is that the paragon has lost (to me) what attracted me to it in the first place...

they should not be more effective at doing the normal core tasks...wheither it be damage...heal....prot...or whatever.... but rather increasing the effectiveness of their team's core type skills...

I am proposing that the paragon is lacking skills that make him the "leader" that he is supposed to be...


And I am not saying that monks should only heal, eles should only nuke...etc.... classes though, DO have different roles...thats what makes having different classes interesting....

the paragon imho... did not receive the class-defining skills that it needed out of the gate...


and yes... i like chucking spears.... if you doubt the useful ness of doing so... observe GVG, HA for a couple days....

teamwide buffs that are benifitial to all. and GOOD leaders lead by example.


change help me to " help us" and let it effect the entire team... increased speed and potency of teams healers would actually be agood skill... id say change it to any skill cast on ally(s)

go for the eyes works if the casters wand

-"show them our true power!" decrease the casting/recharge times of elemental skills. have it boost the next skills attirubute by 1-2 for everyone in the party

id also like a small attack speed increase for the party/allies (10-15%)

realistly you will only have 2-3 of any proffesion type in a party, so having stuff for a certain profession is mostly pointless imo

for spear, maybe something like,
"mark my target"- if this spear hits, the next 5 - 15 attacks against target cant be blocked/evaded, maybe some heal/enchantment reduction or something...

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true... I was just hoping for more/better skills to fill the paras lists... the amount of builds available for the paragon should attest to the fact that the paragon needs some work yet....

sure they are great in high end pvp (gvg, ha) but , from reading in these forums it seems the paragon is not well liked...

The paragon is probably not well liked because most of us have no idea what he is doing. If everyone is staying healthly, people are quick to credit the monk because the help is obvious. But I honestly don't know if a paragon ever helped me or not. I wouldn't play one unless I was going to solo because I've seen how parties tend to avoid them.

The only paragon I remember playing with is one who was refusing to drop his low level heroes from the group. He was the leader so we couldn't kick him. I wound up leaving the group so I don't know how it ever worked out.

Maybe I'll have to try out the character some day to get a better clue as to what it's all about.

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