Paragon + N/Rt build setup

Maybe like me you're bored of running the same old-but effective thing as you vanquish the universe, and you'd like to try something new. Here's a paragon build I've been using for a few days now.

I'll list the skills in the build first, but it does require a little explanation, and there is a useful synergy with one of your other heroes you will probably want to exploit.

12+2 Leadership
10+1 Motivation
8+1 Command

**This character does NOT attack, set it to passive. Do not give it a martial weapon, give it a (absolutely useless) caster weapon, otherwise heroes will cast splinter weapon on it.**

Song of Restoration {elite}
Ballad of Restoration
Lyric of Zeal <-- uses adrenaline
Anthem of Disruption
Anthem of Weariness
Blazing Finale
"They're on Fire!"
Signet of Aggression <-- provides adrenaline

The basic idea is burning. I have found Blazing Finale to be insanely good, and heroes are very very good about using it. As you charge in to a group of enemies, Blazing Finale will be cast on you almost immediately, even if nothing is burning yet.

The huge number of shouts/chants is here to ensure that something is ending on everyone almost constantly (plus, you may be using Save Yourselves! as well), triggering 7 full seconds of burning. The hero can and does keep up "They're On Fire" easily, which is a 33% damage reduction. This is a very strong skill, as unlike Save Yourselves!, as far as I know it affects ALL damage including +attack skill damage, damage from skills such as Visions of Regret, Shatter Hex, etc. Unlike SY! it affects you as well, an effect which I can say has been very noticeable. It of course stacks with SY as well.

You can also trigger renewed burning at will, by using an attack skill whenever Anthem of Disruption or Weariness is on you, forcing the shout to end on you. If you are paying attention, you can control the triggering of Anthem of Disruption to use it as an interrupt.

The sort-of-dependency this guy has that I was talking about earlier, was on you having a N/Rt or Rt/* with Signet of Spirits. This is because Anthem of Disruption and Weariness are two of the small number of chants that affect spirits. This means your 3 spirits will be (randomly) interrupting skills and causing weakness. Any physical henchies you brought will also benefit from these, and of course your Signet of Spirits guy will benefit from Lyric of Zeal as well.

Anthem of Disruption and Weariness may not seem like their mostly random functionality is that amazing, but those skills serve three purposes. A bit of energy management in Weariness's case, triggering burning (which happens very shortly after being applied to melee characters), and then their actual effect.

The mutual synergy between Lyric of Zeal and Signet of Aggression ensures this guy has all the energy he needs, as well as providing some to other characters with signets.

This guy provides 2 good partywide heals, and between him and a N/Rt with Life and PwK, dealing with partywide damage has not been a problem.

Note, what I outline below probably won't work for you unless you are a melee, as you can't rely on the awful hero melee AI to be in the optimal place. But after some vanquishes and quick tests in my personal builds testing ground of Grothmar Wardowns, it's working out very well and feels very strong. The longer a battle goes on, the more people the paragon will have cast Blazing Finale on; it's not uncommon to spin the camera around and look in the back lines, and see a 2-3 burning mobs chasing Mhenlo around.

I run the paragon instead of a curses necro, as I felt the curses necro spent way too much time spamming Barbs on everything, and while Barbs is a good skill (especially with minions), as is Enfeebling Blood, I didn't feel satisfied with the curses necro overall.

So right now I am running:

P/ - Leadership/Motivation/Command paragon above.
N/Rt - Sabway N/Rt with Signet of Spirits, Splinter Weapon
N/Mo - Smiter/Minion bomber, with Rip [email protected] I am addicted to Strength of Honor.

Interesting things to note; there are no hexes in the above setup, so you don't need to worry about removal or taking a shatter hex/HEV in the face. There is no aegis, prot spirit, or shield of absorption, which are all things I thought I wouldn't be able to live without in PvE, but which (so far) it turns out I actually can.

Playstyle-wise, you need to be very aggressive with this, running into a cluster of mobs first to start the pretty much permanent burning.

The biggest problem that I see is simply the fact that giving this guy They're on Fire!, Aggressive Refrain, a few spear skills, paired with Blazing Finale and Go For the Eyes, while actually raising his spear and putting him on attack will do a lot of really good things.
I think you are trying too hard and you put too many things onto one guy and ultimately fell flat.
If you really want to use motivation - I'd only use it if you bring more then one paragon. That way the Motivation guy can bring sweet stuff like Finale Of Restoration and the Command guy will trigger it like insane with GftE!

I was not impressed with using spears, which is why this guy doesn't attack, and doesn't need to waste attribute points on spear skills. Spear attacks and auto-attacks by themselves just aren't that great compared with the other utility paragons provide from their shouts, and you actually do have to spend a fair amount of time with sub-par auto-attacks to build adrenaline. If you have multiple adrenaline skills on your bar, it's even worse due to the way adrenaline works. No spear skills means none of this is an issue, nor is blocking, or line of sight, blindness, or miss hexes, and he can take some choice abilities from 3 lines, rather than requiring that you use 2 paragons to do so.

I don't think Go for the Eyes is any good at all and I don't know why people are so attached to that skill. The bonus of critting in hard mode is absolutely pitiful, as the base amount is so small to begin with. Its only real use is as energy management or triggering shout finales, but you can get that functionality from more any other number of more useful shouts or abilities.

I will point out that this isn't a theory post, I have actually been running this build, and am comparing it to the standard builds I H'H all of EoTN with.

If the paragon is attacking the same target as you, surely he would have
the same effect with Splinter Weapon that you would.

Therefore giving him a spear and letting him attack would provide
him with more adrenaline.

However, if Signet of Aggression provides enough adrenaline or you prefer
splinter always on yourself then it's not a big deal but still maybe something worth trying.

I also really dislike Ballad of Restoration... if Finale of Restoration was put in its place and GftE
on a player bar it would mean increased healing albeit single target. Still that's personal preference
but I would definitely make that switch.

When i have to play with my paragon in pve (with is rare ocasions) i usually use something like this:

.3 x Paragons (with second professions acording to the mission/area we are facing)
.Order of Vampire Necro (sometimes i equip Strenght of honor in this necro if i take a dedicated frontliner in the build)
.N/A with Assasin promisse/barbs/Mark of Pain Necro/...
.In this place you can chose a suport character or even a dedicated frontliner (warrior with hundred blades or warrior endurance with scythe; wounding strike dervish or an A/D with woundig strike and critial...)
.Prot Monk
.Heal Monk

The team build is not very precise because i alway like to tweak skills in almos every char for each area/mission, but the main ideia remais there
With the correct tweaking of skills you can play almost every area in gw and mobs die rlly easy

oww, almost forgot... scattering is not a problem with this build!

have fun

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