So the Paragon...

Alot of the weirder builds like using BiP and Expel Hexes are kinda specific to one thing-they are not really designed for every day use.

The key to being a paragon is realizing that while they have a great support potential, they can also have a great damage potential. Utilizing a full support build is using only half of the paragon's potential.

Depending on your shouts, you yourself will not really notice much in the away of effects-you have to rely on your teammates for that one. For example, with Save Yourselves! (yes it is a warrior shout :P), you only really notice if it's working if your teammates let you know that they're only taking like a couple points of damage. I would say about half the paragon shouts work that way. Others like Ballad of Restoration or Song of Restoration you'll notice an effect.

And yes the amount of information available was overwhelming to me too at first. I would just lurk in the Paragon basics thread-my first Para build was a SoR build from there and it did great until I could play Imbagon. It also has several great builds utilizing things like Cruel Spear as well.

For PvE, the imbagon that Gift3d posted is, more or less, the best build to run.

I usually run the imbagon for general party buffs but one of the great things I love about a Paragon is their versatility. For example, if I'm rolling with a group that is ele heavy using burning skills than "They're on Fire!" is an amazing skill to bring along. Also, you can bring Anthem of Flame + "They're on Fire!" to help suppress some of the damage that is being taken.

I played without imbagon for the longest time until I found the build on PvX and pretty much as long as you bring a cohesive build than the party will love you.

There are some area specific builds, but for the most part the imbagon can be used anywhere as long as there isn't a lot of anti-physical enchants, stances, or conditions flying around. The onl downside is you need to grind a r3 kurzick or luxon title.

I'm a r3 Luxon already, and I have a bunch of friends who have offered to hfff me to survivor r3 if I just provide someone to give them company whilst they do it xD so I could easily get Kurzick r3 instead if needed (I think my luxon rank is actually 4...o_O).

I like the look of Imbagon...seems fairly win.

I usually run with SF eles, but I'm determined to get Hayda on my Para, and give the paraway a try.

Richardt...I think I forgot to mention, or mention clearly, that I've been running damage-para up too now, and I love it. The attack speed and the damage, especially with the +33% attack speed buff, is insanely awesome. But I want to be able to run support too :P

I love the para damage

Being able to hit for 150 damage on a warrior with a non-elite attack skill is awesome. It's rare, but it happens.

EDIT: I feel that it has to be said-Para support isn't just negating damage. The Command and Motivation line have some good support skills where you can increase damage, give some healing and energy, move faster, gives armor etc, and the Leadership line has a couple skills to cause some condition pressure (i.e. Burning).

You can't say precisely how effective you are being to the party from the shouts and chants and whatnot, tho i have to say that if you do it right they are pretty effective.

The only time i could know for sure was on a Tombs run (not the general B/P team build). We had only one monk and me as full support. Anyway, about halfway through the end the monk said (frustrated):"Motigons are so broken".

Really, anyone would notice that he wasn't needed there. Though, i have to say that this was about 2 months ago, before the recent nerfs to SoR.

I for one don't like much the Imbagon build because it's too limited, you'll use about 6 skills there that can't be swapped... and i like to test stuff, and I often get bored pretty quick if i use the same build over and over and over.

Helping making up a paragon build is kinda complicated because just like the mesmer, it all goes according to the situation presented to the party, although, a good start looks something like this:

[Signet of Return][aggressive refrain]["go for the eyes!"]

You can't be wrong if you go with these 3 even without ranks in Command. Then next thing should be an easily spammable Chant to keep up AR, such as:

[anthem of weariness][anthem of flame]
Alternatively, if you're running a Motigon build you'll need 2 Chants since it's hard to find one that do the job in there, and most people usually bring [song of restoration] and [ballad of restoration] alternating between both to keep Aggressive Refrain up all the time. I'm not sure if it's still possible due to the 30 seconds recharge imposed on both skills on the last update.

What follows next is up to personal preferences. If you're going for damage pressure + decent support you'll bring at least one Spear Attack of your choice, if not, you can add up more support. Check your party builds to see what they're running and how you could help them. For example, if you have a team composed of lots of physical damage dealers, a skill such as [anthem of envy] could be useful, if you're mostly going with spellcasters then [aria of zeal] would be a better option.

Anyway, it's hard to help because most people that uses paragons (ok, i don't know that, but at least i do) often changes the build according to the situation, which makes it very hard to set up one single build to use and run all around (even though the presented Imbagon is an excellent exception).

The hardest part when making up a paragon build is taking the Elite. Sometimes no paragon elite will achieve what you want for the build. And that's the sad reality of paragons, lack of decent Elites. Most often you'll see yourself using one of these: [song of restoration] [song of purification] [cruel spear](<-your own personal ranged and broken Eviscerate) [defensive anthem] [focused anger] (<-for the Imbagon, mostly) [soldier's fury] (<-i personally like this one in AB). Some others even though they look cool, are overshadowed by one in this list (that if i didn't miss any). And on some other occasions you'll be using another's Elites, like you said yourself [Expel Hexes] , or ["Coward!"] (<-this one is particularly pretty fun) and many others.

Finally, you don't NEED to get your Kurzick title to rank 4 and get the skill "Save Yourselves!" , there is the Luxon skill with exact same name and functionality. And since you said you already got Luxon r3 or 4 ... it's already good enough.

Crap, sorry for the long post.
Anyway, what I posted here is basicly from my experience, and others could very well not agree with it. Hope you find it useful.

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