My paragon's buddies

For just about every area I've cleared on hardmode including dungeons, 3/4ths of vanquishing, and missions I've brought along the following heroes. The only area I encountered with some difficulty was vanquishing Joko's Domain; I lacked adequate hex removal at the time.

Player Bar:


Mash Save Yourselves! as it fills, mash your attack skills as they recharge, mash There's Nothing To Fear! as it recharges; such a simple bar with such effective results. If you like to maintain the +100 AL cast Ebon Battle Standard of Honor only when Dark Fury is in effect and Save Yourselves! is filled. This will allow you use the shout, drop the ward, and refill the shout before it wears off even with a lower rank in your Kurzick or Luxon title. Cycle Focused Anger and For Great Justice! while the other is not in effect to maintain a constant double rate of adrenaline gain.

Unfortunately to make this build work to its fullest you'll need to grind out a max Agent title and at least rank 3 in Luxon or Kurzick.

Weapon Sets:


The shields are the main focus here. 15 armour level with either 7 in command or motivation allows you to spec your Spear Mastery to 14, Leadership to 12, while still achieving as much defense as possible with the remaining attribute points. If you cannot find a shield like that adjust your attributes as necessary; 13 spear, 12 leadership, 9 command/motivation.

Main set will be the vampiric and +10 vs. fire setup. As a paragon you are not targeted that often. Most of the damage you'll receive is typically AoE commonly found in the fire magic tree. That and because you'll typically find fire in a lot of the endgame areas (Fissure of Woe, Underworld, etc...).

If you're expecting blind you'll want to sit on the reduce blind shield set naturally. As the only one in the party that can really take damage I don't want to be sitting on my vampiric weapon either. In which case you'll want to either use Sundering or Furious on the spear in that slot. Normally elemental would be the better choice as you could swap to it when dealing with warriors but because this setup has Order of Pain on the hero you lose some of your damage against normal foes. I stick with Sundering since I won't be blind all the time and I don't lose all that much damage compared to Vampiric.

In the other two slots you'll want a staff and something to pull with. Alem's Remedy is really easy to find because everyone who maxed their LB title during Requiem of a Brain and A Show of Force will have one. In the event you die you'll want something you can swap to for putting Aggressive Refrain back up quickly. Or if you've built a lot of DP because you're bad and need the extra energy for whatever reason. Any longbow works for pulling I just stole one off my hero (hence why it is customized in that shot).

Healing and Offensive Support:


When playing as an SY paragon this character can be used in place of a monk in the typical two monk backline. It provides strong healing support as well as a great boost to all of your physical's damage, maintaining Order of Pain and Dark Fury as often as it can.

You'll want to equip this hero with a staff with two 20% faster cast mods for blood.

General Morgahn; Main Setup:


Typically I slotted a more defensive setup on this hero's bar but with SY pumping out so much defense it was redundant. Originally I used Anthem of Weariness and Defensive Anthem which are now replaced with Anthem of Flame and Stunning Strike. Stunning Strike is my favored elite choice given the spammable nature of the skill with Dark Fury. Monks were previously an annoyance on hard mode. Hexbreaker Aria benefits quite well from Dark Fury as well, allowing your casters to focus hex removal on the physicals while staying clean themselves.

Anthem of Envy I prefer over Go For The Eyes! for a few reasons. Against higher level enemies and armoured foes, which become more common in hardmode, scoring a critical isn't very noticable. +damage skills become stronger in comparison. With the 4 second recharge now the skill barely benefits from Dark Fury as well, even though Anthem of Envy has a 6 adrenaline cost it can be used more often as it lacks a recharge. Finally it pushes the enemies faster towards achieving a Deep Wound via Merciless Spear slotted on Hayda's bar.

General Morgahn; Hex Heavy Setup:


Hexes are very spammy in hardmode. Slotting one Expel Hexes barely helped in the past. I have learned not to make that same mistake again.

General Morgahn; 4 man setup:


I've been vanquishing the four man zones with no monks, just these heroes. Almost all of the heals are party wide so it makes sense to divide the damage up to prevent those heals from being wasted. Angelic Bond does this nicely, and is especially useful when enemies start to attack me as I lack the +100 AL boost. Spear Swipe replaces Stunning Strike from the main setup. Although there is a lot of offense completely shutting down one monk can make a world of difference, especially against the grawls.

With only one adrenaline chant on this bar it is best to disable Spear Swipe and Angelic Bond. They can become too costly when the energy return on Anthem of Envy is only 4.

Hayda; Main Setup:


Song of Purification does an excellent job of cleaning conditions with Dark Fury. Spear of Redemption is mostly there as a hope that it will remove blind if she hasn't built adrenaline for a Song of Purification. In 4 man zones however I replace Spear of Redemption with Chorus of Restoration for an extra heal on the paragons.

You can probably play this build with less Leadership and more Spear Mastery as the bar is mostly adrenaline skills. Just remember that her Aggressive Refrain is shorter than yours and Morgahn's.

Hayda; Hex Heavy Setup:


Minor tweaks to deal with an area more focused on hexes than conditions. Nothing special to take note of.

Builds at a quick glance (thanks to Natural Sugar for typing it out):

[build name="SY! Player" prof=P/W Leadership=11+1 Command=6+1 Motivation=0+1 SpearMastery=12+1+1][Vicious Attack][Swift Javelin][Focused Anger]["For Great Justice!"]["There's Nothing to Fear!"]["Save Yourselves!" (Kurzick)][Ebon Battle Standard of Honor][Aggressive Refrain][/build]

[build name="Orders" prof=D/N Mysticism=10+1+1 WindPrayers=11+1 BloodMagic=10][Arcane Zeal][Dark Fury][Order of Pain][Mystic Healing][Vow of Piety][Watchful Intervention][Faithful Intervention][Dwayna's Touch][/build]

[build name="Morgahn Main" prof=P/W Leadership=10+2 Command=8+1 Motivation=0+1 SpearMastery=12+1+1][Blazing Spear][Vicious Attack][Stunning Strike][Anthem of Envy][Anthem of Flame][Hexbreaker Aria][Aggressive Refrain][Signet of Return][/build]

[build name="Morgahn Hex" prof=P/Mo Leadership=10+2 Command=8+1 Motivation=0+1 SpearMastery=12+1+1][Blazing Spear][Wild Throw][Swift Javelin][Anthem of Flame][Hexbreaker Aria][Empathic Removal][Aggressive Refrain][Signet of Return][/build]

[build name="Morgahn 4-Man" prof=P/W Leadership=10+2 Command=8+1 Motivation=0+1 SpearMastery=12+1+1][Blazing Spear][Vicious Attack][Spear Swipe][Anthem of Envy][Anthem of Flame][Angelic Bond][Aggressive Refrain][Signet of Return][/build]

[build name="Hayda Main" prof=P/W Leadership=11+1 Command=0+1 Motivation=10+1+1 SpearMastery=10+1][Wild Throw][Spear of Redemption][Merciless Spear][Aria of Zeal][Song of Purification][Mending Refrain][Aggressive Refrain][Signet of Return][/build]

[build name="Hayda Hex" prof=P/Mo Leadership=11+1 Command=0+1 Motivation=10+1+1 SpearMastery=10+1][Wild Throw][Merciless Spear][Hexbreaker Aria][Aria of Zeal][Empathic Removal][Mending Refrain][Aggressive Refrain][Signet of Return][/build]

Alternate builds for the player character (original post here):

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