After the least favourite class thread, (and other interesting discussions) I have been reading up on the opinions of other players on the Paragon Class as a whole. The class, unlike the other classes, suffers from hatred from both aspects of the game (pve vs. pvp), and due to opposite reasons. This is due, in great part, to the implimentation of the class. Will the new skills (if there are any) and armour (if there is any) in GWEN fix the problem?
The Paragon's precarious perdicament: (alliteration FTW)
~The PVE'er hates the 'nerfs' continually effecting the paragon's effectiveness as a 'healing support character' (while most neglect the other great attributes of the paragon) and the general opinion of the class is that it has beed nerfed to uselessness. At the beginning we were enticed by the class as a buffer type class, but after continual nerfing, it is mostly now considered just a ranged attacker(even when blokes like me try to convince otherwise). Any continual nerfing would create a total loss of interest in the pve realm.
~The PvP'er complains that the Paragon is too overpowered, And rightly so, anyone can witness the power of an all paragon team in observe mode and come to the same conclusion. The synergy of multiple paragons shouting together is clearly overpowered, and the high armour and Dps is rough to get past.
~(and no one seems to like the feminine male armour
...)So what to do? Is the class out of balance? does anything need to be done? The implimentation of the class may have been poorly done, but removing the class altogether is obviously not an option. And most of the options that we have will do further damage to the class. Here are some of the suggesttions I have gleaned from different forums and sites:
~Lowering the armour or spear level (or both): The spear has excellent Dps, even higher than a sword or axe. The pvp'er hates dealing with multiple ranged warriors, however the pve group is constantly complaining that the spear line is lacking good skills (unconditional deep wounds?? ..hmm) The opposite reaction from the pve world would obliterate the class out of pve use.
~Buffing the shouts/chants or protection power. The paragon would certainly see more use and affection in the pve domain with more powerful buffs, But without nerfing other aspects of the class would create an uproar in PvP. All paragon groups are already too close to (if not already) overpowered.
~Anti shout/chant mechanic. The class really isn't a bad idea... but the mechanics of the class clearly don't work, and the 'leadership' role of the paragon is defeated by it's exploits. The mechanics of shouts/chants/echos must be dealt with, perhapse like this:If a paragon uses a shout/chant/echo all other paragons on the team that share that same skill would have the skill disabled for XX amount of time.. (or some other way to cancel out shouts from multiple paras) I don't think pvp'ers would complain at only having to deal with one paragon (armour and all) and usually in pve only one paragon will be on the team anyway.
~the addition of a condition 'deafness': to curb the powerful effect of multiple shouts/chants a new condition could be intoduced...for instance: If XX number of shouts are effecting a player then that player suffers from 'deafness' and cannot be effected by any shouts/chants.... the addition of a condition 'deafness' would also create the ability to create more interesting skills...for instance:
"Kill them!" all party members suffer from deafness for XX seconds and all foes within earshot lose XX energy and take xx damage
~Echos need to be like weapon spells- this was an interesting suggestion. Why not have echos cancel out when more than one is applied to an ally? this would work in a similar way to weapon spells. They could buff the echos slightly and create more interesting builds involving the echo you have chosen.
~The new skills can fix everything: The paragon only has a handful of usefull skills compared to the other classes. The current skills have a huge list of hyper situational skills, and maybe all can be fixed with some new skills.
~ or.. leave the paragon like it is currently (just give us a helmet like the kournans for goodness sakes... the female kournans look more manly and armoured than my male paragon!!) - Is it fine the way it is? ...
~etc...
I certainly hope that the paragon can see better days, and maybe our suggestions will be considered.
what do you think? should the class, skills, equipment or mechanics be adjusted? Or... should it be left as is?
