Paragons: An Analysis on why Shouts Will Always Be Overpowered

This was actually the first idea I had about these shouts. Trust me, I thought about these things a lot, as a primary paragon player

An idea like yours is better than the current situation. However, it is a bit clunky. If it only applies to "Within Earshot" shouts, I can see it working pretty well. This was my favorite solution for a while, but right now I think I prefer my original idea.

Also once more, can a mod move this to Sardelec by any chance? I will send out some PMs soon in case none read this...

lol I have been waiting for the past 15 mins waiting to repost to this...

Series- I reread your idea, and I really like it. I think our 2 ideas could somehow become meshed!

Yes probably. Maybe something like... once YOU are under the effect of a "Within earshot" shout, that shout is disabled on your bar if it is equipped and begins recharging... that is probably the simplest and easiest to implement method, however, like all "easy" solutions, has some work arounds... then if deemed fit, have leadership affect the recharge of shouts. Leadership is, IIRC, the ONLY primary attribute that only has an effect for every 2 ranks. Perhaps making every increase in leadership slightly reduce the recharge, then upping the recharge of shouts, would be an interesting idea. I think, however, that if a change is made to leadership, it should be made AFTER the within earshot shout mechanics are changed, to see if it is truly necessary or not.

Anyway, for the work arounds... for example, take an 8 paragon team, 3 with incoming. They split into groups, 6 (5+an incoming guy), shoot off incoming, then the incoming guy runs out of earshot and a new incoming guy replaces him. However, spiking the incoming guys when they leave earshot and aren't under the effect of incoming shouldn't be very difficult, so possibly it could be a good solution.

I understand what the OP was trying to do here, but he worded his new version of the shout incorrectly. He should have posted this:

"Incoming!"
Shout. For 1...4 seconds, party members receive only 50% damage from all sources. For the next 19...16 seconds after this shout has ended, party members cannot receive the benefits of "Incoming!".

First of all, "Incoming!" for instance, isn't used anymore.
Second, its balancing agent can not be removed: It requires valuable resources of your team in order to "remove it" which I qualify as being a balancing agent in itself [a team can only have 8 elites].
Third of all, there are no good non-elite shouts, that are that overpowered which do not completely gimp your entire build.
Fourth of all, Well of Silence, Vocal Minority, and tactics can completely destroy a team that chains "Incoming!", or any other "overpowered' shout.

Until I see the day where a relatively good guild, running a moderate build loses to 5+ paragons ALL RUNNING the same elite shout which nullifies enough damage to ensure victory, I honestly do not think shouts are overpowered.

But in order to further my point, I concede the point that Defensive Anthem is an example of a skill which is VERY powerful for its abilities, which you may conceder to be overpowered under your definition. But, this one "overpowered" shout is interruptible! It is now a two second long cast therefore I can't honestly see it being unbeatable.

Heh, and he's me all this time thinking shouts were UNDER powered.
When I use to play as my Paragon, I always found the effectiveness of the shouts were halved, since all the Warriors, and Assassins, and Dervs would have to go into close combat to do anything.
Especially in PvE, you had one group which as all close combat, then you had another group which was range/support now being capable to effectively aid both groups is hard.
Also I always thought the range was too small.
You could either cast your shouts before their needed, so you can effect everyone, but by the time they actually needed to be used, they normally run out or barely have enough to be effective.

Though I have never really PvP'ed or TA'ed

That's kinda the point.

If you remove the ability for shouts and chants to be abusive under the "more is better" ideology, then they are in a much better position to be buffed. Even right now, a team full of Paragons using Choruses, Echoes, "GFTE!", Anthems and all that is exceptionally potent, and they used to be a whole lot stronger with stacking armor shouts and chainable "Incoming!".

By using the suggested changes, the previous nerfs would be repealed. The skills would be better balanced and generally become more useful, and the class itself would become more desirable for team play.

"Incoming!" is in a unique position. It was created for one obvious purpose, to directly counter pure spikes and it did a great job. The downside was that it could be chained, so it required two more nerfs after that, dropping the maximum duration to 3 seconds. We lost a powerful anti-spike skill with that. An easy to use skill to beat an easy to use build type. We want it back, but definitely not in an abusive form. This is a solution to that.

Maybe the problem is there shouldnt be stuff like "Incoming" or stacking armor in PvP at all.

Anet knows they made some mistakes, and mixing PvE skills and PvP skills in the same bag, was one of them, and thats why they are moving to Guildwars 2.

I find a skill that can prevent a coordinated spike from the opposing team, by just clicking on a button, only makes games last longer.

God, previously matches between top teams could be finished in a few minutes, when someone was able to spike or take out one of the members of the enemy team.

Then came the Paragons (and I love them), with their infinite energy, and capability to stack defensive bonus, give the monk infinite energy as well and they could still do some decent damage if they wished too, and all games finished with VoD.

This solution seems amazing, go there make shouts disable other ppl skills, or make them not able to stack and what not. Ive a much better solution, give Incoming 10 secs duration and 5 minutes recharge. Theres no RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing ability to keep it up all the time and if u had 8 paragons u could get 80 complete seconds out of it. Insert ur desired duration and recharge that make any of u achieve your desired effect.

Incoming is only really useful if u can keep it up all the time, cause ur response time might screw it and still not prevent the spike, the same way monks not be able to throw PS in time or not seeing the target or being slow on infuse health.

Stuff like Aegis and Blur are already a pain in the ass.

In PvE you have "Theres nothing to Fear" and "Save yourselves" that will achieve the desired effect and are clearly tailored for a paragon, although a warrior with lots of adrenal mechanisms can keep "Save yourselves" decently too.

Exactly, that sums it up nicely.

Bad idea, people will think they are under the effects of a shout when they are not and overall will be a major nerf if applied to all shouts.

Target ally if you read it, you can put on any of your ally, even melee. If you put on a melee who attacks a Paragon and being hit by a melee for example, trust me that both (Paragon and Melee foe) lose adrenaline AND energy. If the melee is a warrior and goes to Frenzy... its not my problem if he/she helps us to shutdown themselve.

for Soothing Image, recurring security as cover can be a good choice + more degen/slow hexes.

"For 4...9 seconds, whenever target ally is hit by a melee attack, all adjacent foes lose all adrenaline and 3 Energy."

Paragons are ranged so the visages will not do anything to them. If for some reason a paragon gets affected by visages then that team is bad since they have a warrior by their paragon.

There is also something called target switching, and any warrior/sin/derv with half a brain cell will switch targets after the first hit. The visages suck in PvP unless you are in RA where you face idiots 99.99999999% of the time.

Demoralize
10E, 15R
Skill. Target foe loses one shout, chant, or echo.

how does this sound to you guys?

Maybe having the effectiveness of shouts halfed everytime a new shout is applied after it? that is, not the skills themselves just for the rest of the duration.

They still lost all the adrenaline after the first hit anyway, Even in RA, GvG or AvA (Where I do most the time in PvP) I can tell player's reflexes are different each time I play (seen very low to extreme fast(power of the cafeine FTW)).