Any point in Paragons anymore?

ok everybody..lets all delete our paragons...maybe if there are no paragons people will stop whinning about them...

Try the bar I listed.

Your problem sounds like you want you para to be a monk, when it is more of a warrior with some monk on the side.

But the point is that all of these have been nerfed into the ground. They can do all of these, but it's so insignificant you'd be better off taking a core class instead.

Party wide armour buffs? Take a warrior with enough points in tactics and WY. SyG and ToF really doesn't cut it anymore.

Party wide heals? Please. Take a monk, or even a rit with PwK+ FoS. Or (shudder) an E/Mo HP pumper would do a better job.

Party wide energy gain? Double please. A blood necro with BIP or Well of Power does better energy gain spot-wise and party-wide.

Impressive DPS? That's arguable - show me the proof that spears out-damage axes and I might believe it. They are too slow, and too easy to evade, and have no multi-target functionality.

Support classes, in general, are difficult to balance.

It's easy to balance skills like Orison of Healing and Power Attack. It's much harder to balance skills like Zealot's Fire and Incoming. Give them time, they will get it worked out.

I said PvE - read original post.


No. I already said I deleted my Para, so I can't possible want my Para to be anything (other than to stay dead lol) - please, read carefully next time.

I wanted to know if there was even a point to using Paragons anymore in groups in PvE. I think the replies I've gotten clearly show not. A bit of this and that really isn't good enough - it's an ineffective mish mash that is better served by using core classes in almost every area. A bit of warrior and a bit of monk? No thanks.

I dont believe Motivation or Command will ever get sorted out - that would undo the reasoning behind the last 3 repeated nerfs in the first place, which would render the recent skill changes nonsensical.

The question is whether or not Anet will buff Spears - I'm drawing a parallel here with Rit's channeling line. It also come out initially brain-dead on arrival, but it took about 9 months for it to be reworked to actually merit using occasionally (notwithstanding the borked rework of Glaive, which appears to have random AP).

If past experience is anything to go by, the best Paragons can hope for is a buff in a few months time on Spear. I think that will come too late for most players in PvE. That's one point.

If its the same person(s) again doing skill changes, it's clear they're not listening to the PvE playerbase, that's another point.

Both points mean that Paragons are pretty much dead.

That, is quite possibly the most stupid thing posted on Guru this month, and having read some of the other threads, you have achieved something remarkable. Lets take a look at some fairly common place paragon skills and see how useful(or not, they are)

We'll start with an easy one:

Cruel Spear - its had a small nerf, but essentially, its still eviscerate on steroids. Incase you didn't notice, eviscerate has been the most commonly used axe skill for the last 12-18 months.

And another spear one:

Barbed Spear - just like sever artery(favoured by wammos around the world) except it costs less adren, and can be used from range.

How about a shout now:

"Stand Your Ground" - Well, we all know that most pve players don't kite, i'd have thought getting your tanking eles turned into the equivelent of real tanks was really quite useful.

Or another one:

"Go For the Eyes" - Depends on your party formation, but given 2 warriors and a paragon, that is at least 3 players it is giving a good buff to. And how hard or conditional is it to use? Oh, its not, when it lights up, you press it, it buffs damage and feeds you energy.

Then you can look at making skills interact ***Shocked Gasp***

Use GFTE and vicious spear, and you suddenly get a good damage spear throw that is almost guaranteed to deep wound.

Then, should you wish, you can include skills from other classes that work well with a paragon too.

"Watch yourself"
"Shields Up"

Sure your "tank" might have watch yourself, but how often does this cover your entire party? Not that often. Used on a paragon, it does. So now we found 3 good armour buff shouts for use on a paragon. So lets see what the results are.

Monk = 60AL
Monk with "Watch Yourself" = ~80AL
Monk with "Watch Yourself" and "Stand your Ground" = ~104AL
And then lets say we meet a few ranger or paragon monsters(not exactly uncommon in NF) and we can add "Shields up". We now have a backline with 154AL, and a frontline with ~190AL. Not such a shabby result, a prot monk would be pleased to cut down damage to the whole party by that much. BUT, we missed one thing.

The paragon still has been throwing spears and doing decent damage the whole time!

The paragon is a very useful class, particularly when you look at party composition and how it can be used as a pressure build. It's complimentary not supplementary , as lyra stated, and frankly it's not supposed to be a 'pure' warrior or 'pure' healing class.

It's designed to compliment parties in an intelligent way and it succeeds.

a paragon can probably out sustain damage a monk (a core class ).

a smiting monk can spike/frontload a fair bit of damage, but with a nasty cooldown, and horrorific energy cost :/

Sometimes when we've done FoW runs a guildy has brought his Para. Thanks to serious over nerfing Incoming is absolutely shit and the XXX of Restoration skills are now lacking horribly for use alone. Thankfully Burning Refrain and They're on Fire still works nicely.

Rubbish. The Deep wound on Cruel spear is conditional on non-moving targets. It's unconditional in Eviscerate. And, Eviscerate can be combo'd with Ex Strike - Paragons have no suitable following combo.

Barbed spear is 5-13 seconds. Sever Atery is 5-21 seconds. Spears can be evaded easily.

And given the current nerf, how often can you keep up a 15e skill on a 30e base with 2 pips regen?

There are significant downsides to each of the skills you posted which you didn't highlight. Disingenuous. The rest of your post is really dumb.

True, I remember when Incoming was 6 seconds lol. Ah, the days.

ToF is still mildly usable, despite the recent nerf. That, and GFTE are the only 2 skills of note in the entire Paragon line. But 2 skills do not make a solid class...

(Damage reduction? Aegis or a newly nerfed rit lord please - works better IMO).

erm
wearying spear, blazing spear, mighty throw, unblockable throw, spear of lightning (possibly..) want to say hi2u oinkers

If Paragons are so useless then why has Paraway been making it to halls this special weekend?

~Death~

I guess I'm not really seeing what the point of all this is really, since you deleted your paragon. Is this one of those not-so-subtle hints at another class discrimination? Since you weren't quite happy enough with deleting the character you had? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's just how I've been reading it so far.

Autoattack DPS, 16 Weapon Mastery, 60 AL, level 20 target:

Sword: 25.59
Axe: 26.66
Hammer: 29.35
Dagger: 25.83
Spear: 26.15
Scythe: 29.81

(Daggers at 13 Critical Strikes).

Swords, axes and spears have roughly equivilent raw DPS.

Paragons however get Aggressive Refrain, which they can maintain indefinitely at no cost for a +33% DPS boost. Other physicals need to use weaker attack speed boosts to achieve similar effect.

"Go for the Eyes!" is amazing. It's worth roughly 8 damage per physical at 0 spec, plus .8 for each level. Ballpark value with Aggressive Refrain up:

(10+<command>)*<physicals on team>*8/45

Value of "Go for the Eyes!" at 10 Command with 5 physicals on the team: ~18 DPS.

One copy of "Go for the Eyes!" on a physical-heavy team is about 2/3 of an autoattacking Axe Warrior.

Rough DPS of a Paragon with *only* Aggressive Refrain and Go For the Eyes on hit bar: 52

Rough DPS of well built and played Dragon Slash Warrior: 55-60 DPS.


Spears being easy to kite is ridiculous. I've never seen anyone who actively kited spears. If you want to bring kiting into this, hi, we're comparing Paragons to *Warriors*. Melee is weakened by kiting an order of magnitude more than spear dodges.

Peace,
-CxE

I like paragons... my para hero made skill caps a whole lot easier. Defensive Anthem+Aegis= 100% chance to block melee for the duration of the boss fight.

Yes, the paragon has been taken down MANY pegs.

But thats because it was good. It was just SOOOO good. Now its on par with the crappiness of the rest of the classes ^_^

If you played a Paragon from the beginning and didn't expect a nerf, you are clearly delusional.

I liked your way of putting it .

~Death~

Paragons are useless? And yet they're still my second favourite profession.