My 1st impressions of The Paragon

Hi, I'm always interested in whatever games I play, of getting the most out of what seems to be the "worst" professions or characters, and so of course I decided to try a Paragon, and after about a week of thinking I came up with a build I'm going to try ( will post it when I'm level 10 / 15 / 20 ).

However the first thing I noticed with a Paragon, is their energy regen, which I feel is a little slow for a support character. ( +2 regen. ) I was thinking how much the class would be improved if this was a +3 energy regen, then I also thought about the Paragons Primary Skill Leadership, and how that gives a fixed energy bonus whenever a shout / chant effects an ally. So if we were to not have an extra "pip" of energy regeneration ( my personal preference would be this. ) then perhaps leadership should be returning 1 energy with a maximum of two returned for every three ranks in the skill, meaning with 12 in the skill you would gain a maximum of 8 energy, as it stands the maximum at 12 is currently 6, and I find that the extra two energy can make all the difference in some builds, especially with multiple shouts.

Anyway feel free to leave comments in here, I will be posting back whenever I have more comments / findings and ideas to share around.

The energy regen on the paragon is low because with enough in Leadership you can regain a lot of energy off your shouts and chants.

Leadership gives you build in Energy Management and spamming adrenal shouts like "Go For The Eyes!" really helps with that.

Paragon, by far, isn't the worst in PvE and I really enjoy playing it.

The thing to remember with Paragon's are they have a lot of skills which go well with skills of other atributes. Eg. [wiki]Shock[/wiki] + [wiki]Awe[/wiki]

Paragons are best as Team players who use there skills to enchants allies, which is why most people dont play them because they dont like teams (this includes heros & henchies) the prefer to play solo builds that help only themselves whether there in a team or not.

I think Paragons have decent energy regen, i dont think my Paragon has ever run out of energy but thats just me. They have soem great skills to and can work in great sync with other team members.

Grab some leadership, and adrenaline based shouts, and you shouldn't have any energy problems at all. "GFTE!" is great energy managment.

It is really pretty sketchy eairly on, when you're forced to use very low leadership. Personaly I stuck to leadership chants and shouts as I was starting out (using a 0 command GFTE) untill I could get 10-12 leadership and high spear mastery.

I think the high spear mastery is important because paragons really are ranged warriors. It isn't really a huge sacrifice to lower command a tiny bit in favor of spear master, and I wouldn't ever go below 14 spear master, much like I'd never go lower than 14 sword/axe/hammer mastery on a warrior.

Paragons are a team character, they work best with lots of physical guys on your team but remember that you are a physical character too.

I'm guessing you're still limited to four party members? Unless you've unlocked skills through other means you're really limited to the motivation line and thus energy starved. It gets much, much better over time.

I recommend picking up warrior as a secondary profession and using [skill=card]"Watch Yourself!"[/skill] for energy management until you have other options like [skill=card]"Go for the Eyes!"[/skill]. The most efficient paragon energy management is adrenaline based shouts that effect your party or allies. Once you get those going the paragon has excellent energy regeneration. I run 10 leadership, maximum 5 energy gain, and have no energy problems unless the only opponent I can attack has a high block percentage going. I've also run 8 leadership and made it work, I just couldn't spam my skills as soon as they recharged.

Well I've reached level 10 and I'm using the current skill set:

[skill]Spear of Lightning[/skill][skill]Barbed Spear[/skill][skill]Mighty Throw[/skill][skill]Merciless Spear[/skill][skill]Signet of Aggression[/skill][skill]Anthem of Flame[/skill][skill]Mending Refrain[/skill][skill]Leader's Comfort[/skill]

Since the start of the game stunts the available skills for some time, this was the most efficient damage dealing skills I could put together.

As for a secondary, while I liked the thought of a warrior, it just didn't seem appealing to take it just for shouts, I can leave a lot of that to my Heroes, who I'm considering making All/Mainly Paragons ( as secondary anyway. ) In the end I settled with Ele, and have a final build in mind, however until I reach those levels and places where the skills are available I won't be posting them I'm enjoying playing my character at the moment, and she definately has more potential than I originally envisioned.

Leadership + Shout/Chant energy gaining:

I've found that with a team of four this isn't so great, however at the moment with low cost skills and adrenal skills filling my bar this hasn't really bothered me. Current energy is at 40, and I very rarely run out of energy before the end of a fight. At level 15, hopefully with some new skills, I'll repost the current build with my opinions on how it is holding up.

Please keep posting your opinions on Paragons, and if you want to comment on the build then feel free.

Katari gives excellent advise although GftE isn't available in Istan unless you unlock it. The individual paragon is a superior ranged damage dealer with good support skills. I ran my survivor paragon through Istan putting spear mastery as high as possible up to 12, then leadership up to 8, then motivation with the remainder. Very early on it is indeed easier to be mostly a ranged damage dealer and killing things fast improves your survival. I don't like motivation with a low attribute but it has to take third place until these conditions are met in my opinion.

Having examined the calculations in great detail, the effective paragon guide on wiki is flat out wrong. Leaving spear mastery at 9 severely cripples your performance. Its also one of the reasons I prefer command over motivation. Motivation sees more improvement from a high attribute than command and thus almost demands a lower spear mastery (Not lower than 12 please!) to be a superior choice. And you don't need to do math to prove this to yourself. Go to the Isle of the Nameless and throw spears at an Armor 60 dummy. Your criticals will be 53 damage at 16 SM, 46 at 12 SM and a measly 35 at 9 SM.

Quote: Originally Posted by Akimb0

Quote: Originally Posted by lorinton Katari gives excellent advise although GftE isn't available in Istan unless you unlock it. The individual paragon is a superior ranged damage dealer with good support skills. I ran my survivor paragon through Istan putting spear mastery as high as possible up to 12, then leadership up to 8, then motivation with the remainder. Very early on it is indeed easier to be mostly a ranged damage dealer and killing things fast improves your survival. I don't like motivation with a low attribute but it has to take third place until these conditions are met in my opinion.

Having examined the calculations in great detail, the effective paragon guide on wiki is flat out wrong. Leaving spear mastery at 9 severely cripples your performance. Its also one of the reasons I prefer command over motivation. Motivation sees more improvement from a high attribute than command and thus almost demands a lower spear mastery (Not lower than 12 please!) to be a superior choice. And you don't need to do math to prove this to yourself. Go to the Isle of the Nameless and throw spears at an Armor 60 dummy. Your criticals will be 53 damage at 16 SM, 46 at 12 SM and a measly 35 at 9 SM. Yeah currently I can't get GftE, though when I can of course I will be using it

I don't think I will be using a large amount of motivation skills, perhaps delegating those to a Hero.

While I'll be focusing on leadership and spear mastery I also want to try and get my Elemental ( fire ) skills up to at least 9, and I have a feeling my ability points are going to be spread quite thinly until I can fine tune them to my needs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorinton Given the limitation of using base Istan skills you've made a generally good choice in my opinion. Dealing damage that is. I never found Leader's Comfort useful in PvE although that may have been influenced by having max armor and very good monk skills unlocked when I got Dunkoro. By level 10 I think your healer should be fully capable of keeping you alive if you are smart about your positioning and aggro. I'd replace it with [skill=card]Signet of Synergy[/skill] to help your casters when they get in trouble and help yourself while you're at it if you aren't enchanted. At this point in the game, I'd drop mending refrain. Its essentially free healing but it doesn't provide enough benefit to occupy one of your skill slots anymore in my opinion. I'd take either [skill=card]Aria of Restoration[/skill] or [skill=card]Aria of Zeal[/skill] depending on whether your team is regularly low on health or energy. I don't like Signet of Aggression. Since you have Anthem of Flame, consider using [skill=card]"They're on Fire!"[/skill] in its place. Of course, once you do that you're going to wish you had an adrenaline shout to provide energy for those party support skills. Probably dropping a spear skill to make room. I'm thinking about changing leaders comfort out since it also has a 2 second activation time which isn't too good, however signet of synergy is a motivation based ability and with the way things are it's at 0 :P maybe I'll put in "they're on fire" instead. I keep mending refrain in because I have armour from the Consolate Docks, which makes it's small yet constant healing enough to keep me alive allowing Dunkoro to heal the others. I might replace it soon though, I'll have to see which skills I have available.

I like my para-commander, one of my favourite classes . Under high-pressure moments, like in tombs etc it's hard to run out of energy when you have something to attack. I dont even have high leadership though, only at 7 with some weak insignia.

I've done ToPK runs with heroes/henches in reasonable time (record is about 2hrs), very doable and very fun. I just spam "Go for the Eyes" , some energy management for monks, hex breaking (prolly useless but it's only 8 adrenaline), "Stand your ground!", "Never Surrender!" for emergencies/spikes and so on. I can keep at it for a quite long time. The boss group with terrorwebs cause problems only, since it's kinda tricky to pull due to Meteor Shower(s). This is usually where i need to do kamikaze attacks, so someone will get DP.

Picture as a proof: http://personal.inet.fi/peli/pps/coldsteel.jpg
- The elite skill in that picture is gone, replaced it with "Incoming!" - works better in there as conditions don't play big deal in ToPK. Hero builds have changed a bit too, except Koss. But Necro & Elementalist (ie. killing terrorwebs on 2nd lvl) are needed and their Wards save lifes sometimes. Sorry for the offtopic but hey try this out, it's really fun .

I've never had an issue with the energy needs of the paragon...also one of my favourite characters..

No energy problems in PvE but I have energy problems in AB. I haven't found a useable skill to keep Aggressive Refrain up there. Anthem of Flame just means I'll be left behind and reclaiming 1 energy for the chant instead of 4. ToF means I'll be out of energy when we fight. The NPCs die before energy is reclaimed through GftE so its only the infrequent mob battles that allow energy management to work. Without AR energy is OK though.

yeah...I usually dont take AR in alliance battles.... and to the OP I have found that the non core classes (paragons, assasins,...etc...) dont really blossom into the fun class you thought they would be until you reach level 20... I experienced similar feelings with my paragon/assasin....

i only run 8 leadership on mine, he doesnt even have insignia's XD, did noodle bay mission and got thru really well.

really looking forward to unlocking paragon stuff on my euro account, when i get to realm of torment..

I missed out my level 15 build! oops!

Instead I'll post my level 18 build, which is nearly complete

[skill]Spear Of Lightning[/skill] [skill]Disrupting Throw[/skill] [skill]Mighty Throw[/skill] [skill]Mark Of Rodgort[/skill] [skill]"They're On Fire!"[/skill] [skill]"Go For The Eyes!"[/skill] [skill]Aggressive Refrain[/skill] [skill]Conjure Flame[/skill]

Keeping a single target ( at least ) on fire for 20+ seconds is proving to be a good tactic, with a high ( I think ) dps from this character plus permanant burning, nothing so far has cause me any trouble, add in "ToF!" and it works very nicely.

Disrupting throw always disrupts an opponent with the Mark of Rodgort on them ( due to me doing fire damage they're always under the burning condition. ) and it works very well against casters, who also can't run away due to the spears ranged attack

My heroes and Hench are set up with fire attacks/skills or weapons, so that everyone hit by the Mark Of Rodgort is burning almost constantly ( unless I focus fire on one target who dies very quickly ^_^ )

The only dissapointment so far is that the majority of paragon skills I dislike, some are pretty good ( and have been hit by the nerf bat good and proper ) but on general they're not up to much....Mighty throw is great but takes 3 seconds to charge/throw, plus a weird hidden delay ( may be lag... ) which happens before it triggers making it more like 4 or 5 seconds. Also the spear elites are awful. I wanted something along the lines of:

[skill]Barrage[/skill]


or perhaps,


[skill]Melandru's Shot[/skill]


as well as,


[skill]Prepared Shot[/skill]


and


[skill]Decapitate[/skill] ( this one especially puts all Paragon Skills to shame, combining at least two of the best paragon abilities ( critcals / deep wounds ) in one.



[skill]Triple Chop[/skill]



[skill]Dragon Slash[/skill]


I won't mention more but had to get that dissapointment off my chest, since I'm really dissapointed in the spear skills

Any ideas on an elite skill to use? I doubt I'll use any of the Paragon elites since they're really not to my liking. So that leaves Flame Elemental Elites.... xD

Anyway, only a little while until I reach max attribute points, so I can post a final finished build, with some damage output numbers ( hopefully ) ^_^

Angelic Bond is a good elite in almost any situation since many of the Paragon builds require some attribute points in Leadership to be any good.

Akimb0, where is the love for Cruel Spear?

Among other things, the problem with conjure on a para is that you already want a three attribute spread. You cannot afford 4 attributes. You're better off just using anthem of flame, or perhaps casting blazing finale on the warrior, it would allow you to get higher spear mastery.

Quote: Originally Posted by Feed Me Faction Angelic Bond is a good elite in almost any situation since many of the Paragon builds require some attribute points in Leadership to be any good.

Akimb0, where is the love for Cruel Spear? Cruel spear is just so overshadowed by elites from other professions that it really makes me weep, if it didn't have "target has to be stood still" I wouldn't mind it so much, but the damage is still low and it takes a lot of adren to use it which I'd rather spend on shouts to help my party, myself and my energy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katari Among other things, the problem with conjure on a para is that you already want a three attribute spread. You cannot afford 4 attributes. You're better off just using anthem of flame, or perhaps casting blazing finale on the warrior, it would allow you to get higher spear mastery. I've just set up two different builds, one which has Fire skills at a base of 12 ( possibly 13 with the offhand I'm using ) this build has no spear skills, and uses Mark of Rodgort , lava arrows, and conjure flame to cause damage. ( Among other skills like the Elite Double Dragon incase I'm swarmed at any time. ) Conjure flame with that setup ( Including glyph of elemental power. ) adds 20 ( and possibly 21 ) damage to all my attacks for 60 seconds, and I have to say I prefer it to spear skills, which as mentioned earlier I'm really not impressed with. For DoT it really racks up. I am affording 4 attributes with that build, and it works fine I hit level 20 today in fact, and I will post my two builds ( One spear based, the other Flame based. ) a little later.

at first i was also disappointed in the paragon skillset, their low energy recharge, and so on. now that i've played him through to Vabbi though, my thoughts on this have totally changed. My P/Me is one of my favorite characters to play now.

Mighty Throw is the most worthless skill after you reach the mid levels... its charge time of 3 totally negates the benefits of the damage bonus. in the time you make 1 mighty throw, you could have thrown 2 spears normally that would do the same amount of damage, and those are much more difficult to interrupt. (by 15th level you should ahve a spear that causes more damage, and i hated that skill charging up and then slowing me down... i need my spears to be a constant motion to be 100% effective)

never overlook barbed spear. i love attacks that cause bleeding, especially when they are almost spammable as an adrenaline attack. (takes 2-4 attacks to get it charged up, less if you are taking damage)

Cruel spear initially was useless to me, but now that i know how to use it, its my favorite attack in the game (next to sin combos, but thats completely different) it takes a long time to charge up, and the key is to find a target who is stationary in melee and then tagging them with it. i finish off alot of creatures by using it wisely, and allow tanks to find someone else, or get melee attackers off the casters.

wild throw is great for use against sins, rangers and warriors. small damage bonus but unblockable with ending stance is awesome.

for all the conditional DW problems, just know the builds of your teammates to use them effectively. needing multiple conditions to achive DW and other effects just makes it more satisfying when they do work.

all in all, my paragon is the character i have with the most survivability. (only have lv 20 in warrior and sin... my monk is 16th) i took him to 13th level before he died the first time, and he hasn't died often since (unless i get to 30 DP.) The key is to hit like a front line warrior, yet take advantage of your unique position on the battlefield. paragons are the ultimate in caster protection, because they don't ahve to get close to their opponent to deal damage, have good armor, dish out damage at a good rate, and are very maneuverable.

the only real gripe i have about playing a paragon is the lack of customized insignias for them... only one while warriors, necros, and sins have a host of insigs to choose from seems quite unfair.

with mighty throw and unblockable throw you most definantly need aggresive refrain which use.
i like to run wearying spear,mighty throw,unblockable throw,aggresive refrain,anthem of flame(to keep AR up),glowing sig(to get my energy back from AR)and focused anger.the 8th slot you could run a self heal or a res,doesnt matter which.and actually if you cast AR when you get out into the explorable area you dont really need glowing sig,so you could actually dump that for either the res or heal depending on which you took or another attack

Spear mastery-15
Leadership-12
Motivation,Command,Strength,Tactics-10(depends on what sheild you are using)

the only counter ive had to this in PVE is faintheartedness