Paragon: Worst class?? or the Most misunderstood?

Nobody seems to play their paragon as much as myself, but as much as I play my para... I cannot escape the paragon hate that dominates the pve mindset out there.

Players have completely dropped the paragon due to feelings of "ZOMG they Nerfed PARAS again!" I myself had similar feelings before I inspected/played this class further to find the gold nuggets.

The Paragon seems to be the most unliked profession of the 10, (apparent from threads like this: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10124212 ) and when I explore why, it seems people just underestimate the strong points of the paragon, and even worse ...the playstyles of the Spear, and Motivation lines are completely misuderstood.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Spear mastery~~~~~~~~~~

Paragons are not just for buffing the spear line is something to be reckoned with. Why do people hate the spear mastery line so much when it's damage output is on par with a sword warrior?

Lets look at DPS:

These numbers were determined (auto attacking) with:
~16 mastery
~20% criticals
~+35% perfect damage mods
~33% IAS (since the time of attack speeds are .17 percent difference the spear is calculated at 30.17 ias in the guru calculator under sword...)


spear === DPS = 40.24

swords === DPS = 36.58

axe === DPS = 37.44



what about the skills? Most people would still rather have a warrior on their team...perhapse because of the skills.

lets compare the ever popular dragon slash build:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Build:W/any_Dragon_Sword

[card]sever artery[/card][card]gash[/card][card]sun and moon slash[/card][card]dragon slash[/card][card]rush[/card][card]flail[/card][card]healing signet[/card][card]resurrection signet[/card]

with a focused anger paragon:

[card]focused anger[/card][card]wild throw[/card][card]blazing spear[/card][card]merciless spear[/card][card]"go for the eyes!"[/card][card]aggressive refrain[/card][card]leader's comfort[/card][card]signet of return[/card]

what are the differences? While the warrior has the obvious advantage of higher AL (vs phys) the paragon actually has some redeeming factors:

~ the paragon can switch targets quicker than the warrior being a ranged attacker.
~ The paragon can keep Ias up constantly without a downside (not even a stance)
~ The paragon augments the 'entire' teams damage with GFTE. This hidden damage is greatly underestimated.
~ The paragon has utility skills available such as the hard rez without the use of a secondary.

I am not trying to convince everyone that a paragon is 'better than a warrior' ...of course the situation determines that. I am just trying to show how underestimated the paragon is.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Motivation~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seems people look at the motivation line all wrong. Players are expecting the motivation line to have potent protection/healing skills on par with the Monk's skills... (while that would be fun on a 80 AL high DPS class..) That would make the class greatly overpowered. The motivation line, however, DOES have its uses when you know how to play the paragon...

...as a 'support' character.

Paragons have the skills availabe to assist the team's healer in condition removal with skills such as:

[card]cautery signet[/card]
(easy 'use and forget' skill...hardly takes your focus away from other duties)

and:
[card]"it's just a flesh wound."[/card]
(you can spam this to keep conditions off the team at a more focused rate/level)

and provide useful healing support with 'echo' skills such as
[card]finale of restoration[/card] and [card]mending refrain[/card]


...when you look at these skills (and others in the motivation line, they dont seem too impressive when you have just one paragon support character on your team...

~~~but!~~~

..when the paragon's numbers are increased... that's where the fun begins, and the skills that seemed so pitiful, can allow you to dominate the battlefeild in both pvp (observe mode) and pve (such as the all warrior Deep runs : http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10139802 notice the skills... this can easily be done with all paragons)


so a team that brings one paragon may have a good high dps..some support character...

2 paragons... can accomplish + 40 armour all the time, while effectively keeping hexes and conditions off the team, and adding a good deal of damage as well.( http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10144180 )

3 or more paragons... can carry the team with heals/protection/condition/damage removal...if they need to..

a team of all paragons... in pvp... you can see how effective it is in observe mode...

in pve...(sigh) I am still waiting for more paragons to try it out in FOW

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10142949


so what is it... worst class... or most misunderstood?

Most misunderstood. Ive been laughing at all the pve'ers who say paragon nerfs made them useless for a long time.

I love the paragon class find them to be very usefull. And don't understand why people dont use them.

Pre-Soul Reaping nerf, Rits were the most misunderstood. NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY would pick them up in a PUG, and even then, only as a healer. Now, more and more former-Necros are moving to other classes, and discovering Rits for themselves.

Bargamer - Pre-NF, Rits were definitely the most misunderstood profession. Post-SR nerf, Necros still will not just look into Rits. Many Necros looked at rits and thus a MM bomber was created. Are more necros leaving the necro clan? I don't think so, but I do believe they are more vocal about their displeasure. Possibly even more so than the Verata's Sac nerf and the limit to minion controls.

I don't think Paragons are the worst, but they are under powered. Before, I don't think of them as super powered by themselves, but I guess if you get enough of them...

Anyway, I say they could be made better than they currently are.

^ I agree, but rits dont get the hate that paragons seem so have maintained for a while now.

Misunderstood (I'm still pretty clueless), but always add the P hench to party when I'm on my own. 1 W (me), 2 Eles (searing hero and hench), MM (olias), Jin (Barrage R), 2 healing monks and the Para hench and PvE is pretty easy (at least through much of Vabbi). Looking forward to adding P Hero in a few missions for this team build:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10081126
Nerf sux, but not a complete shut-down. Also wondering what a P set to all the fire skills would do to a party with 2 searing flames eles, and a warrior with beloved Fiery Dragon sword. . .

80 AL and high ranged DPS do not a useless class make.

As for rits, no, they don't get a lot of hate, but everyone is still stuck on "rits spam spirits, amirite?"

Worst implemented.

Personally, I think Paragons are strongest in a group of all paragons. Unfortunately, outside of very organized GvG, this never happens. With one single paragon, the effectiveness is strongly diminished for many builds. However, they still have a very strong direct damage dps. The way I see it, bow rangers excel at laying degen conditions and interupting, while paragons excel at laying down straight raw damage.

I think we're seeing teams with 8 P/Mo's in Heroes Ascent all the time because they suck yeah.
Not. But I don't really think they're misunderstood either. In fact, I've never encountered any of that supposed paragon hate.

One of the problems with Paragons is the appearance of bad elites selections. There is little that sticks out, as must haves unlike other class options.

Lets show the paragon bad elites for discussion purposes….

"Incoming!"
Elite Shout. For 1...3 seconds, all party members within earshot take 50% less damage.

Angelic Bond
Elite Skill. For 10...30 seconds, all damage suffered by target other ally is divided equally with you.

I list Angelic Bond because of its comparison to Life Bond a non-Elite skill that reduces damage divided equally but can reduce the amount of damage taken by the caster by 32 at rank 16.

Defensive Anthem
Elite Chant. For 4...9 seconds, each party member within earshot has a 50% chance to block incoming attacks. This Chant ends if that party member hits with an attack skill.

Compared with Ageis a non-Elite Defensive Anthem is also inferior. Ageis can block attacks for 10 seconds and you can continue to hit with an attack skill. Furthermore as an enchantment Ageis can have its duration increased by 20% and 37% with Blessed Aura.

"It's just a flesh wound."
Elite Shout. You suffer from a Deep Wound for 10...6 seconds, and target other ally loses all Conditions.

Hmm…. Compared to Restore Condition another elite condition removing skill IJAFW is ridiculous. Lets say as a paragon I have 600 hit points. At 20% DW I have lowered my maximum health to 480 hit points that’s 120 damage for using a skill where I could be removing all conditions with Restore conditions and suffer no DW at 0 points in protection. Why would anyone ever use it?

"The Power Is Yours!"
Elite Shout. All party members within earshot gain 1...7 Energy. For 10 seconds, you have -10 Energy degeneration.

Lets not bother comparing this skill to other class energy regeneration skills such as BIP or Well of Power. Lets just compare it to other paragon energy skill options. The following paragon conditional skills, Aria of Zeal, Energizing Chorus, Never Give up, Song of Power, and Zealous Power also provide energy but without the –10 energy dissipation. So why bother using it? Plus 1 to 7 energy usually comes back in just a few seconds. For an elite spot TPIY can wait.

Stunning Strike
Elite Spear Attack. If this attack hits, you deal +5...25 damage. If it hits a foe suffering from a Condition, that foe is also Dazed for 4...9 seconds.

For an adrenal conditional daze Id rather go with something from another class altogether and save this slot for something more useful. Broad Tip Arrow is a better daze skill in the game and by the time I get up to 10 adrenalin that spell caster will be dead anyways.

All other Elites from the Paragon list are ok in my mind. This means 6 out of 15 Elites are fairly useless. All other Elites used by the Paragon are ok at best but there are few that stick out as must haves. This includes Cruel Spear one of the few decent spear skills. However even the “Cruel Spear” skill can be replaced by “Go For the Eyes” + “Find their Weakness” skill combo and the combo will affect the entire party.

Quote: Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

Quote: Originally Posted by GloryFox One of the problems with Paragons is the appearance of bad elites selections. There is little that sticks out, as must haves unlike other class options.

Lets show the paragon bad elites for discussion purposes….

"Incoming!"
Elite Shout. For 1...3 seconds, all party members within earshot take 50% less damage.

Angelic Bond
Elite Skill. For 10...30 seconds, all damage suffered by target other ally is divided equally with you. In fairness both skills were Ether Renewal-ed out of usefulness. They were both very good elites before they got hit.

Quote: "It's just a flesh wound."
Elite Shout. You suffer from a Deep Wound for 10...6 seconds, and target other ally loses all Conditions.

Hmm…. Compared to Restore Condition another elite condition removing skill IJAFW is ridiculous. Lets say as a paragon I have 600 hit points. At 20% DW I have lowered my maximum health to 480 hit points that’s 120 damage for using a skill where I could be removing all conditions with Restore conditions and suffer no DW at 0 points in protection. Why would anyone ever use it? Instant use so you never break stride, recharges in a second, and deep wound is hardly something to worry about if you're not under fire. Also deep wound is capped at reducing your health by 100 (unless that was changed recently).

I'd say they're useless. The Spear line has great DPS... sure... but its nothing more than a C-space char, even the Warrior needs more skill to use than that. It gets a bit boring after a while.

As you said in your OP, the motivation line is misunderstood. Its also almost totally useless to a single Paragon. Nobody gives a damn if 3+ para's can keep an entire team alive through an intricate mass of shouts, chants and echos... this is PvE for christ sake, your average pug won't take 1 Paragon, let alone 3, not to mention the rest of the team would be hard to work.

The para has been nerfed just too many times... At least other professions have some variation. There are only about 3 elites in the entire profession worth using. Cruel Spear, which can be replaced with Focused Anger + Merciless Spear.

They just need too much micromanagement... i've had them with me in guild FoW trips. As useful as Stand your Ground and Burning Refrain + They're of Fire were... the management of the refrains, the constant spamming of Anthem of Flame needed to keep them up, general things like that, gets extremely boring in the end.

Go for the Eyes is about as Mesmer as you can get. Nobody ever knows what it does, hell, chances are you don't even see it on your conditions bar. Theres no doubt it helps if you have maybe 2 or 3 other attack based characters with you, but until you see an enemy screaming "Ow my eye!" everytime GftEs causes a critical for someone in PvE it won't be noticable.

Quote: Stunning Strike
Elite Spear Attack. If this attack hits, you deal +5...25 damage. If it hits a foe suffering from a Condition, that foe is also Dazed for 4...9 seconds Better than Broadhead Arrow? Sure it has half the duration of BHA... and atually needs a condition first..... and 10 adrenaline of course... What use is it? You could just Concussion Shot something as a Ranger, if your target was still needing to be dazed after 10 adren, either BHA missed or dazing it was never really that vital to begin with. But yeah... i think this elite is a bit dodgy tbh.

All in all... Archon said it really. Paragons work best with other Paragons and Warriors. An organised PvE team can utilize it however they like, unless we're talking DoA (and maybe Deep/Urgoz) there's not really any reason to shun out a Para, even if they're use is severely compromised. They've just been made too weak alone.
Ranged DPS is better than a ranger... people bring Rangers for Barrage and interrupts more than anything else. Barrage can easily out DPS the Para, the Interrupts are ALOT better. Without hastle, condition application is alot more noticable too.
Energy gain... BiP/Br are here for a reason.
Healing/Protection. Its not bad, but weres a pug team without 3 monks, 1 a Bonder? You'd struggle to persuade a pug that your para would be more beneficial to the team than a Bonder.

Quote: Originally Posted by XvArchonvX

IMO second worst implemented after the Assassin.

Whoever thinks they suck needs a reality check imo.

Paragons own, hands down. They are pretty versatile, from what ive seen people do with them. Pretty nice, aggressive support class. In PvP they rock imo. Ive seen them being used as blindbots, dazers and interrupters and their shouts/chants are also pretty neat. Anthem of guidance->attacks cannot be blocked, I mean, how can that possibly suck? Hex breaker aria is just haxx against hex stacks and so on. Gotta love the paragon. I'm gonna roll one myself for sure.

For PvE theyre not bad either. Minion master+gfte is pretty good. Anthem of flame for extra damage, hexbreaker aria to keep all people clean. Of course there are beter alternatives, but theyre mostly on characters that don't do damage, such as monks for aegis, or necros for BiP. Imagine a paragon as puller in Tomb of Primeval Kings, I would take one along anytime.

Quote: Originally Posted by LightningHell

Quote: Originally Posted by Shuuda