Can the balance team please modify some useless paragon skills?

You know the biggest thing that annoys me about playing my paragon?

The actions I take are completely unlinked and rather awkward.

If I'm chanting, I'm not chucking spears. If I'm chucking spears, I'm not chanting. When chanting, I'm not building the adrenaline I need to fuel my skills, and when I'm fueling my skills by throwing spears, the party is left in a lurch because my chants have already ended. Shouts come across as intrinsically superior to chants simply because of ease of use. I can use them WHILE chucking spears, rather than switching back and forth.

It doesn't help that Command is mostly shouts, and Motivation is mostly chants.

Personally, I'd like to see SY! Nerfed to about +50 armor and perhaps a bit longer duration.

Paragons have a few good builds and elites. Imbagon obviously.. Song of Purification is pretty good as well. Along with the problem of Paragons being an unpopular class, their skills don't allot for much synergy with secondary professions besides Warrior. Asside from one, maybe two builds, any other build is pretty 'meh' for support in PvE.

I've said it before, but the problem is that since Paragons and Dervishes are the newest of classes, their skills need to be of more general use to them. Dervishes accomplish this very well with the exception of few Wind Prayer skills. Paragons however don't.

Most skills in the Motivation and Command line are extremely situational for their potency. For example, Lyric of Zeal/Purification, "Help Me!", "Make Haste!", "Never Surrender!", ect. A lot of paragon skills are either too high recharge, too situation, or too crappy a reward to warrant putting on a bar.

Paragons don't synergize well with other secondaries though, because most/all of their skills and their primary profession revolve around shouts and chants, which only Warriors have. Paragons, though a good idea, were pretty poorly designed and even more poorly nerfed. It's a shame as I love the class themselves, and their armor :/

Well since its a warrior skill , thats kinda offtopic and dont think nerfing SY is going to solve anything.

Due to lack of skills. P and D have less skills than the rest of classes. Also their concept was made to "fill some gap" in NF story imo.

Ds do and Ps dont ? lol no. I see a lot more of Paragons around than Ds . Call it imbagon fever , call it whatever but Ds are the last melee option and thats its field but are Ps weak compared to others ranged attackers ( ranger ) ? nah , in fact many ppl will choose to have a Paragon in their party than a Ranger.

Sunspears never fight alone. Command line is fine , if you buff it , think about 3+ Spear/Leader/Command Paragons on a team .... yea you noticed it.
Agree on Motivation , very VERY poor line. Long recharges , extremely situational and stupid cast times.

Thats the point , logic says that moti line should be buffed to hell in effect and recharges in PvE ..... maybe someday P get an update like Rits got in terms of skill casting times .... who knows.

I don't understand what you're trying to say. You mean that paragons should have feasible builds that consits mostly out of SM skills?
Well, the majority of good paragon builds I know have 12 or more points in SM and 2 or more spear attack skills; isn't that enough focus on SM?

The main reason why you don't see many non-imbagons is because an imbagon is far more powerful than any other para build. If you bring imbagon more in line with other para builds (i.e. by nerfing "SY!") you will see other builds beside imbagon more often.

I don't want to assume what anyone else may be thinking but I think the issue is that the most effective PvE builds demand skills that affect many foes. e.g. Hundred Blades, Barrage, Death Blossom, Splinter Weapon, Ray of Judgment, Cry of Pain, Searing Flames, Mark of Pain, Spiteful Spirit, Visions of Regret. Single target skills are simply not strong enough (or not as strong as) these multi-target skills, and thus are designed more for PvP. You can see this idea in play if you look at meta for PvP warriors (dev hammer, shock axe, cripslash) whereas those same builds are less effective in PvE, where other things (hundred blades, earthshaker) are preferred.

The paragon spear mastery skills are PvP type skills akin to Eviscerate and Skull Crack. Strange how Anet seems to think that paragons are not meant to do damage when they have given paragons almost exact duplicates of warrior elite skills. And adrenaline to match. :-\

On a more productive note, the more useful paragon elites are the ones that affect multiple targets, so we're talking about skills like Defensive Anthem, Angelic Bond, Anthem of Fury, Song of Purification. Focused Anger is useful because it enables frequent use of a powerful PvE skill (Save Yourselves) that affects multiple targets so it still fits this pattern.
The spear skills are single target so they are not as effective as other options. If only we had multi-target spear skills like Barrage and Volley. :-)
Paragon is the only physical damage dealer without any skills that deal AoE damage. This is not exactly fair from a balance standpoint.

If you are running many physicals then Song of Purification is great. Anthem of Fury is a huge attack booster as well, it is basically Dragon Slash for the whole party. Soldier's Fury was/is the best elite for a damage oriented paragon though I am less fond of it post-nerf. Other than these there aren't too many builds that I would rely on in hardmode areas.

Why do people bring up the multiple-paragon-defense for everything? I mean, I get it, I understand it, but since when do the majority of people have access to a team full of paragons? I thought that was a very rare minority.

Also, you see more Paragons than Dervishes because Paragon = Imbagon and Dervish = outclassed by assassins and warriors at their own weapon.

Command is not nearly as bad as Motivation, because it at least got a good buff to the skills. There are some unsightly skills laying around though :/

As far as I'm concerned, SY! everything but off topic when talking about balancing paragons. It's part of the best, and arguable only paragon build out there.

right, and sadly SY is not even a paragon skill to begin with. :-\
the idea behind this thread was to bring attention to those unsightly/useless/underpowered skills. if anyone can help bring this thread to the attention of people with the power to do something about it i think the game will be better for it.

thanks,
khomet

Hmm. The thing i dont like about paragon IAS is the constant Cracked Armor. that pretty much makes you squishy and its not cool.
People say paragons have the same dps as a war. If that is true have a 1 on 1 and see what the outcome is. the dps ISNT the same and since war's got ALOT of skill buffs. They can do more damage heal themself better and have way more survivability.
(unless its 8 paragons vs 8 wars)
True a blend of paragons and war's in a team can really roll through areas, elite missions and so on.
Its quite possibly the most fun ive ever had in GW (check DVDF for info on Yellow-Way)

Paragons are mostly centerd around SY (but thats because its the only really good build you can use in most teams)
I would like to see a Pious Fury style IAS for para (possible rework of Natural Temper) Some form of spear attack that Explodes on hit that hurts foes close by, maybe even a ricochet attack that hits 2 close foes (almost like Chain Lightning)
Maybe some direct healing from Motivation or atleast a GOOD self heal and better self condi removal! (Healing sig > Leaders Comfort) for a example. (how the hell is Hex Breaker Aria any good to yourself also)

Just a couple idea's whacha think ?

Sadly non-imbagon builds are only really good when a team is full of paragons, and we only have two other paragons to play around with People seem to talk as if we all have access to a magical second player to come make ridiculous team builds with

It knocks you down a peg, but it hardly makes you squishy. You're still backline, using Centurion (unless you're stupid lol) and a shield, which makes you far from squishy.
I think Paragons should have a niche build that allows them to DPS fairly well, and they already have a lot of skills that allow them to do that. Though Paragons are supposed to mix offence with support. Their goal is not DPS. I hardly think that's the case though anymore with melee DPS, with damage stacking orders with SoH
I wish I had access to the ability to do that or I'd actually play GW again lol paragons are certainly awesome when teamed up, but sadly they don't allow us the ability to do that without adding another person... and considering how dead the game is, it's hard to get another person lol. People automatically relate this steamrolling as meaning that paragons are OP, which is hardly true. Try playing any other build but imbagon as the ONLY paragon on your team. It's really hard to get optimum use out of them in such case without going full DPS

Ever hear of a guy named Morgahn?

I did the majority of my vanquishing and dungeons on my ranger with two paras and one r/p spear chucker. I ran BHA for most of it.

unless you're in a 4 man area, that's not a full team :P

Not entirely correct. I can name Strike as One at the very least, an elite Ranger shout, and IMO, a very good one. I get quite a bit of use out of it personally, though others may argue it.

Regardless, just like my beloved Mesmers, I very much like Paragons, it's just a pity, as has been pointed out over and over, that it's Imbagon or piss off.

Do you know what annoys me more than that though? Why the hell would anyone be stupid enough to want SY! nerfed, when at the moment, it's all they bloodywell have? Blind leading the stupid around here sometimes, I swear it's true..

What ? so if there are 8 paragons some skills are good but if there are 7 skills are BS ? cmon dude ..... no , just no. With 2 or 3 paragons Command line is really good and doesnt need buffs.

Not backline , mid line but yes , still is a good amount of armor. Bosses will still hit hard and even harder with -20 armor but is not an issue , not even with SY! up and you being the less armored target.

I dont think you read the shout/chant/echo descript. They buff entire party ( and allies sometimes ) with IRREMOVABLE stuff so no , they shouldnt do more DPS than they do know ( i wont bring the 2+ Paragons in a team if you like but , there it is ).

Cough*Morghan* cough *Hayda* .

So because you cant means nobody cant ... ok. Soz to tell you , thats not the case and just one question , how come an imbagon is an "optimum use" with a human party and is not with a H/H party or with another friend and its heroes ( with no P ) ?

Imbagon is absolutely amazing, human team, H/H, whatever. I steamrolled NF in 1 day using an Imba and 2 necro's(3 after I got Master) and that was the first time I'd ever actually used one.
Perhaps the biggest problem I can see is that ppl load up an Imbagon, but don't actually study the skills it uses and add Henchies or Heroes that actually synergize with it.

My take on Paragon vs. Warrior:

similar armor, except that the warrior gets an inherent +20 vs. physical damage. warrior wins.

similar weapon damage, except that bonus damage on skills is typically 2x higher for warriors (+34 vs. +17). warrior wins. no need to even talk about the added advantage of armor penetration from Strength.

similar adrenaline gain options. tie.

ias options: many viable options for warriors, each with some kind of drawback. most can be mitigated. paragon's native IAS weakens his armor to caster level and the warrior IAS (other than frenzy and flurry) are unusable for non warriors. warrior wins easily.

self healing: warrior has good self healing (lion's comfort) in his primary attribute, and it even boost's the warrior's adrenaline. the paragon's self healing is weak in a one on one situation. warrior wins.

knockdown / anti-knockdown: warrior can do both, paragon can't do either one. warrior wins.

blocking: warrior has blocking stances, paragon does not. warrior wins.

I think it is fairly obvious that a competent warrior should beat a paragon in a one on one fight. To me this says that the paragon does not need any further nerfing; indeed, the IAS nerfs in particular should be reversed. So why would you ever bring a paragon on your team when a warrior is better one on one? Simple, the paragon is better against many... Warriors do not enhance the abilities of their teammates, paragons do.


All of these sound like great ideas to me. Perhaps a spear attack called 'explosive spear' that does some AoE damage, or 'splinter spear' which works like the ranger's Splinter Shot.

I was thinking that Natural Temper could use a boost too, perhaps make it more similar to the dervish's Natural Healing.

I have always been bothered by Hexbreaker Aria as well... IMO it should always have been 'Hexbreaker Ballad' and trigger on next skill use, that way paragons could use it for minor (but party wide) hex removal without having to carry a spell just to trigger it. We are probably getting off topic though, I think it is unlikely that any new skills will be brought into guildwars, I'm just hoping that some of the existing ones can be changed a little.

re: Imbagon

we all know what Imbagon is, how to use it, how great it is, etc. but talking about how a paragon uses another profession's powerful PvE skill is not relevant here. i'm hoping that this thread will bring some underused/underpowered skills to Anet's attention so they can be fixed. SY is many things but it is certainly not underused or underpowered, so it is not helpful to our discussion.

I think the reason why SY always comes up in paragon discussions is because it's among the only viable options for hardmode. if paragons had some AoE skills perhaps they could fill more of a damage role on the team. They still might not do this as well as the hundred blades warrior, the death blossom assassin or the aura of holy might dervishes or the barrage rangers, but at least it would open up some new possibilities. right now the paragon is uber-defense or physical support or nothing. the existing damage options are underpowered in PvE and the healing skills have been nerfed so badly that other professions are (much) more attractive. So once again we come back to skill changes. I'm hoping that some positive changes can be made even if it's only for PvE.

thanks,
khomet

That's two heroes. While they are good, there's still not enough reason to take those skills like Chorus of Restoration that react on shout/chant unless you're in a full/near full paragon team. Same with the signet one/ones. Paragons and warriors are the only ones that use shouts, paragons being the only ones who use them regularly (I really don't count Ranger shouts).

If you're bringing a skill like CoR that reacts on shouts, and you only have three/four people that could possibly benefit from it, I call that a bad move.

That's a big reason to why motivation sucks, is that a lot of the skills are very skill specific that have the same energy cost, cast time, recharge, and roughly the same numbers as their counterparts that are not as skill specific. I call that a balancing faux pas, personally. No reason that a situational skill should have the same stats as non-situational skill.

Command is fine, I agree. It still has some unsightly skills that are crap for PvE but good for PvP, and skills like Anthem of Envy, which is a good idea, but <50% skills aren't too useful in PvE. Still, Command is in much better shape than Motivation.

Shouts being Irremovable isn't too much of a plus in PvE. It -is-, but enchantment removal isn't much a threat in PvE as it is in PvP. It's usually just annoying.

How is it not relevant? while it exists, no other defensive paragon build will be used. Even -If- motivation was buffed to a more usable state, Imbagons reduce damage so much that there's no point to take a healing build instead of it. Prot > Healing, esspecially when said Prot build reduces most damage by >80% Maybe in tandem with an imbagon via hero... but the point is, to make other options more appealing, spiking the better options down a peg sometimes isn't a bad idea.

Paragons are fine offensive as they are, too. Sure it'd be cool if they were a bit more powerful, but they already have very good options to them. They are pretty damn good offensively as it is, even though that is NOT what the point of paragons are. They don't need to be able to do AoE damage and frankly if I ever saw that, I'd throw my hands up in defeat.

But one thing I will agree on is that Motivation needs a dire buff and rework, even.

I really wish someone from Anet (that is a paragon lover) read this thread.

Some good ideas being thrown around and i bet most people want to see updates for paragon for ATLEAST pve.

IMO paragons are support, so they should beable to heal Atleast 3/5th's as good as monks. Offer close to the best party defence out of all other professions, (obviously not all on the same bar) But also offer some aoe damage as ALL other professions have it.
I think this would make paragons see more play and become a more attractive choice to start a new paragon or dig out the old one thats currently your mule!

can't really argue with any of this.

no need to mess with SY in my opinion, and besides, what we are talking about is giving paragons MORE OPTIONS instead of taking away the one popular build that is commonly used. If your party is not doing tank'n'spank and they want to bring an Imbagon for defense, then great. If there is more than one paragon, they can fill some other role. The goal here is to give them another role that they can excel at. I don't think anyone will disagree that Paragons already excel at the party defense / damage reduction role. Ritualist can do party defense very well with Shelter, Displacement, etc. but at least Ritualists have some other popular options to work with, including solo farming.

You should throw up your hands in defeat then.
If paragons were not meant to be offensive characters, why do they carry weapons, why do they use adrenaline, why do they have heavy armor, why are their spear mastery elites clones of warrior elites? Anet could have made them caster-shouters, maybe something resembling the ritualist. Give me 4 energy regen please. But they chose to make paragons into warrior-shouters, with low energy regen, high armor, shields and adrenaline. I'm not complaining about the paragon design at all (i love it), my intent was only to draw attention to some of the weaker skills that need attention.

Back to the AoE issue... every other profession (even monk and mesmer) have some form of AoE damage. ALL OF THEM. Paragon is the only one that does not. This seems like an imbalance to me, and I think it is the primary reason why paragons do not have any significant offensive role in PvE. When fighting many monsters we need skills that affect many opponents or at least more than one. Mesmer suffers from this problem too but at least they have a few mass attack options, e.g. Visions of Regret, Clumsiness/WanderingEye, Cry of Pain, Ether Nightmare. Not too many options but a few is still much better than none.

Agreed. I don't think it would take that much work though, if Anet reverted all of the nerfs to motivation since the release of nightfall that would probably do the trick. (revert only for PVE, since they have already decided that there are some problems in PVP). Fixing the PvP issues basically requires addressing the shout stacking concept and adding additional countermeasures against shouts. Best option there would be to work it into existing skills so that no one has to bring a skill that is solely focused at paragons and warriors. As an example, in pvp you might carry some skill (even an elite) that removes enchantments or hexes. Those skills are useless if the enemy is not using enchantments or hexes, but as it happens those things are fairly common. Shouts are not commonly used by anyone; warriors don't use them after all the nerfs, and paragons are rarely seen thanks to all the nerfs. So no one will carry any shout countermeasures and why should they? But if existing countermeasures had some effect against shouts as well as their normal effect they could help fix this problem.

I hope so too! I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what paragons should and shouldn't be and this has played into the PVP nerfing situation. Here are my thoughts on that, if any of the designers care to comment that would be even better.

In the beginning, we had 6 core classes, each with a different specialty.

With Factions we introduce two new professions... assassin, which IMO is basically a guerilla warrior which uses enchantments for offense and defense... and ritualist, which is a jack-of-all-trades profession that can deliver damage (channeling), healing (restoration), or defense and utility (communing).

With Nightfall we introduce two more professions... dervish, which IMO is another variant on the assassin, it also uses enchantments for offense and defense... and the paragon, which has offense (spear), healing (motivation), and defense and utility (command and leadership).

I feel that the assassin and dervish are very similar, and the ritualist and the paragon are very similar. Ritualist is a caster while Paragon is a physical, but both of them deliver a great amount of utility in that they can fill (or were intended to fill) multiple roles on the team. Contrast with warrior, assassin, dervish, and ranger, which all have the same role... kill the enemy. Ritualist and Paragon can be offensive but they could also be completely defensive or completely healing depending on the need. Perhaps I am the only one that thinks this way but IMO ritualist and paragon are two variants of the same concept.

What does this mean... is paragon a support character? No, because he can be all spear and dish damage and conditions as if he were a warrior or ranger. Is he a healer? Possibly, but this would mean sacrificing damage and utility. Is he a defensive character? Possibly... in this case he's basically filling the ritualist's communing spirit spam role, and doesn't have much room for other roles. But like the ritualist he can perform multiple roles within the party and that's the beauty of the paragon and ritualist professions IMO. They have flexibility that other professions do not. Unfortunately due to the current state of paragon skills they can only perform one of these roles well, and that is defensive. It is very effective but not very flexible. I don't think this is what the designers intended.