Making Motivation Useful

I think many of us would agree that the motivation line is pretty useless. It is supposed to provide party support through battery, healing, and condition removal support, and the only one of these it does fairly well is condition removal support. What I want to see in the motivation line is for the Paragon to be able to function as a healer, similar to monks or rits. Therefore, here are my suggestions for how the motivation line should be changed:

First, I think Ballad of Restoration, Aria of Restoration, and Chorus of Restoration should be targeted heals.

Ballad of Restoration - 5en, 1sec casting time, 4sec recharge
Target Ally is healed for 20...96...115 health

Chorus of Restoration - 5en, 1sec casting time, 5sec recharge
Target Ally is healed for 15...51...60 health. That ally is healed for 15...51...65 more health if under the effects of an echo.

Aria of Restoration - 5en, 1sec casting time, 4sec recharge
Target Ally is healed for 15...75...90 health and all allies adjacent the target are healed for 8...32...40 health.

Because Paragons have only 2 energy regen and are spending 4 energy to cast their spells (-1 en from leadership), some skills need to be changed in order for Paragons to be able to manage their energy.

Song of Restoration - 10en, 2sec casting time, 10sec recharge (self targeting chant)
For 5...28...34 seconds, all motivation chants that target an ally cost 1 less energy and heal for +50% health.

Song of Purification - 10en, 2sec casting time, 15sec recharge (self targeting chant)
For 5...23...28 seconds, all motivation chants that target an ally cost 1 less energy and remove a condition.

Energizing Finale - 10en, 1sec casting time, 10sec recharge (self targeting echo)
For 5...28...34 seconds, all motivation chants that target an ally cost 1 less energy. If you are under the effects of Song of Restoration or Song of Purification, this echo ends

And finally, some other changes to the motivation line to make it more adept at filling the role of a party healer:

Signet of Synergy - same functionality, reduce recharge to 5 and half the health gain of the using paragon.

Finale of Restoration - 5en, 1sec casting time, 30sec recharge
For 8...19...23 seconds, motivation chants that target an ally heal for 25% more health.

Mending Refrain - 5en, 1sec casting time, 5sec recharge
For 10 seconds, target ally gains 3...8...10 health regeration.

Purifying Finale - 10en, 1sec casting time, 30sec recharge
For 8...19...23 seconds, motivation chants that target an ally remove 1 condition.

So that Paragons can do some party healing as well:

Lyric of Purification - 10en, 1sec casting time, 8sec recharge
All allies in earshot gain 30...75...82 health.

Lastly, so that Paragons have some protting options as well:

Angelic Bond - 5en, 1sec casting time, 5sec recharge
For 5...15...20 seconds, target ally gains +40 armor and half of the remaining damage is redirected to you.

Angelic Protection - 5en, 1sec casting time, 6sec recharge
For 8 seconds, whenever target ally takes more than 60 damage, they are healed for 40...88...100 health. This skill ends after 5 attacks.

Also, for another e-management option when it comes to using targeted echos/skills:

Leader's Zeal - 5en, 1sec casting time, 35sec recharge
For 10...28...32 seconds, whenever you use a non-chant skill on an ally, you gain 2 energy.


So what do you guys think?

EDIT: These numbers for amounts of health healed are just numbers I threw out there, inspired by the numbers from the healing spells of the rit's restoration line. If you consider them to be too powerful, they can be adjusted downward.

You want a decent healer with base AL of 80?

looks like you wanna make Paragons half monks ?..
/notsigned

/notsigned, only thing they should do is something along the lines of

'whenever you use an energybased motivation chant you gain 1 adrenaline', to make up for the loss of attack time.

and if that's not good enough then they should reduce the casting of the chants to 1 sec, but that's more than enough.

maybe i should have specified that these are PvE oriented changes. I dont PvP enough anymore to know how this would affect PvP.

yea... why not?

What im trying to do is make paragons good at support. Think about ritualists. They can be very effective healers due to their restoration line. The motivation line is a lot like the restoration line (its geared towards providing healing support) but its a whole lot worse. Im trying to make a paragon's healing capabilities on par with a rit healing capabilities. If you would consider a rit a "half monk" because they can function as healers, than i guess you could consider these changes as making a paragon a "half monk". After all, the motivation line in its current state is more of a 1/10th monk because it contains a bunch of healing and removal skills that are too weak to be of any real use.

Then, whats the point of bringing any of the motivation chants in the first place? The problem is that the concept of support healing just isnt useful when a standard 2 healer backline is sufficient to keep the party alive.

Wrong way of going about it. The strength of a paragon coems from PARTY wide buffs that also serve as energy management. Focusing on one target is energy consuming and nowhere near as effective.

Granted motivation needs help,but all it needs is buffs (more healing,some lower energy costs,lower recharges etc.)

The problem is that you cant be a primary healer with just conditional and partywide heals. I mean a monk with just skills like LoD, Heal Party, and the two divine favor party heals just isnt going to cut it as a primary healer. Support healing just isnt useful when all you need is a couple of primary healer/protters to keep the party alive.

I numbered your post so I can answer more easily.

1. With the added sum of minuses of energy, it's a 2e heal, 1s cast, 4 sec rech, and super powerful, unconditional heal. Overpowered, don't you think?

2. Immensely inferior to #1. Why? 1 more added recharge second, only ~15 heal points added, AND it's conditional. *Note- It's still an overpowered skill, just inferior to #1*

3. Heal Area + WoH with mid level healing prayers... Forget it. 90 Health AND AoE minor heal for 2e 1s 4s/rech? Yet again, overpowered.

4.a.This addresses ALL sub-sections of answer #4. Too easy on energy. Yet again, overpowered.
4.b.Imagine this + #1 together. As mentioned before even MORE overpowered. (~165 heal spike with practically no recharge or energy cost)
4.c.Yet again, when added up to #4.b there are way too many energy management skills thus making energy not a problem at all, having huge heal spikes cost 2-3 energy, which is just insane. (Plus in addition this is condition removal)

ALL IN ALL:
Yes, the motivation line DOES need buffing. But your suggestion is ridiculously overpowered and totally ignorant of the PvPvE balance. GG.

The problem with motivation skills and more or less any paragon skill is that they don't require thoughtful use; the more you spam them all the better the become.
"Never Surrender!" is good examples how paragons skills should look like: Powerful, but due to its conditional effect it is far weaker if you spam it on recharge than using it in the right moment.

Angelic Protection is so NOT like sb. It doesn't have a number of hits that after them it ends. Don't make them even more overpowered... Party wide major heal? Rofl.

More buffs is NOT what is needed. PvE is incredibly easy as it is with whatever class you prefer to play. What is needed is more nerfs to the overpowered skills. That being said, I really dont see paragons as being "weak" in PvE. Maybe they can't kill as fast, give energy, damage increases, or heal as other professions... but so what? Paragons are not intended to be a flexible class. Paragons are meant to SY. If you would prefer play the role of a monk, than choose another profession. Paragons do not need buffs to their healing skills because their SY spamming skills are plenty powerful enough.

The paragon motivation is focused on party defense, not individual healing, which is why they are in their current state very useful. If it's changed to target ally, they're just a bad monk.

The numbers can be changed. I only threw some out there similar to the ones found on ritualist resto skills, but they can be changed. You do have to remember, however, that with 2 pips of energy regeneration, paragons would have to have some way of making their skills cheaper without making it abusable by other professions. In fact, if you notice, the numbers from #1 and #2 were taken strait from MB&S and Wielder's boon, and i figured the fact that they were cheap would be counterbalanced by the fact that other skills would be required to manage the energy and that paragons have only 2 pips of regeneration. But like i said, the numbers can be adjusted.

So we should keep the paragon class as one that doesnt require any skill? At least target heals require more skill than party heals, and I would think that it is a good thing to try to add a little more skill to a profession that currently requires close to zero.

Angelic protection: I meant to add in the number of hits before ending clause, ill edit it in right now.

As for the party wide heal, like i said, the numbers could be adjusted downward.

Hmm, isnt that exactly what I said to you when you were suggesting mesmer buffs? Anyway, I figured that buffs would be okay so long as skills were not buffed too high. If these numbers seem too high, then they can be adjusted downward. The only time a buff becomes a bad thing is when it makes a skill more powerful than the balanced level, so I looked primarily at the ritualist's heals when trying to figure out how to balance these suggested skills. If they would make a parahealer more powerful than a rit healer, than the numbers can be adjusted downward.

I agree completely that more nerfs are needed. SY is one of those that needs a nerf. Just because all paragons can currently do is spam SY doesnt mean that is all they are intended to do. Anet added a whole line full of healing skills. Im suggesting they make those healing skills useable (and if they are overpowered, their numbers can be adjusted).

Motivation is very useful? Says who? Monks can do ANYTHING a healing-oriented motivationgon can do better. What I am trying to do is give them a viable option at being a primary healer, and in the process, making a currently useless attribute line useful. By your logic, resto rits are just "bad monks" yet they can function just fine as a primary healer. That is what I am trying to make the motivation line do.

Better targeting would help more.

One of the big problems with paras is that they are completely dependent on the party makeup. If you have physicals, you need one set of skills, if you have casters, another, and if you have a balanced team, the paragon gets WEAKER, not stronger, because your chants will trigger less.

So improve targeting.

Take every chant, and divide it between "triggered on a skill" and a bonus "if that skill was a _____".

So Lyric of Zeal, currently near useless, becomes "the next time each ally within earshot uses a Skill, that ally gains 1...2 Energy. If that skill was a Signet, they instead gain 1....7....8 Energy." Likewise, minor healing on skill use + major healing if that skill was a spell, etc. This would allow the paragon to use skills liberally, without having to worry about them shrugging off half the party without having an effect.

Having one profession do many things well while others are restricted to a strict focus (or build) isn't right. There are dagger paragons, spear paragons, and motigons in addition to SY. Only one of those works well, but with your logic that's fine. What made you change your mind?

Why have paragons useful in human groups when your friends, guildies, or puggies can do the work for you? Why cast or use skills when you can stand there with synergized H/H and then stand there some more because your bar doesn't really do much?

I would agree that having one profession do many things well is not right, but currently, the only thing Paragons can do well is spam SY. Their offense is ok but it isnt that great if you compare it to the casters or to sins or warriors. However, you have to remember that Paragons are like the nightfall version of ritualists. They are hybrid classes, and should therefore not do any one thing incredibly well but should be a "jack of all trades, master of none" class (once again, kind of like ritualists). At this point in time, however, paragons are more of a "jack of 1 or 2 trades, master of none". What im trying to do is give paragons another viable build to run. Currently, there really is no reason to run over half of the motivation skills.

The reason why I changed my mind about buffing skills is because the reason i was against them in the first place is because PvE is so easy as a result of powercreep. However, I came to the realization that power creep has only increased when skills have become overpowered. If all you do is buff the underpowered skills to the level of the balanced skills and not buffing them any more than that, than you are creating more viable builds while at the same time, not making PvE any easier. This is only so long as the newly viable builds arnt any more powerful than the currently balanced skills. This is why some of the healing numbers on the skills may need to be adjusted downward.

I dont quite understand what you are saying here. Sure PvE is easy enough so that you can effectively win with a synergized H/H team, but thats not any reason not to make more builds/attributes viable so long as the attributes arnt buffed to the level of the overpowered skills.

Giving paragons the option to heal wouldnt make them any more powerful offensively.

Thats it. Shame is that most of the times , most skills need those 3 buffs but bleh .... maybe just 1 of them comes in , who knows.

You never used a Motigon did ya ?. Soz to break your "i hate physicals" bubble but a Motivation Paragon is about 70% using skills , not attacking and buffing motivation is by no means at all , buff physical style. Just happens to be an att line in a physical class.

No, I didn't said paragons should require no skill to play, I said the problem with this class is that it don't require any skill to play well. Due to that paragons are either useless or overpowered.
I agree with you that paragons need changes that make them harder to use well, however, I questioning if your suggestions would really change the fact that paragons are eigher useless or overpowered; if motivation is still subpar to monks or rits noone would use them, if motigons have a healing/protection power comparable to monks/rits they would be overpowered because it would be a healer with an armor lever of 96+ and the DPS of a warrior on range.

In order to make paragons balanced they need a complete overhaul, which includes:
- Reducement of base armor level to 60-70
- Reducement of base spear damage
- Reducement of the range of (most) shouts/chants range, e.g. to nearby range (targetable) or in the area (PBAoE)
- No longer allow echos to be maintained forever
- Adding a conditional effect on most skills (like "affects all party members with less than 75% health" or "affects all party members currently attacking")

Then we can think about buffing them again.

This is like saying Mesmers are meant to be assassin spammers. Maybe not quite so bad, as a SY paragon is at least in the same general ballpark of the role they were intended to fulfill, but a profession shouldn't have to rely on PvE skills (especially belonging to another profession) to be effective.

However, I don't think this is the way to improve Motivation - the Paragon is, on the whole, supposed to be a profession that is based around buffing the whole party, and this suggestion is basically just an attempt to make them a Monk-clone (as well as completely destroying the naming system of Paragon chants). If I was in charge of improving Motivation, I think I'd probably focus on improving the battery aspects of the profession so that a Motivation Paragon could effectively serve as a party battery while providing additional support through party heals (which could probably stand being reverted to their 2007 power in PvE), conditions, and/or the capabilities provided by Leadership and Spear Mastery.

Not sure about the numbers, but motivation does need a buff. Or at least in pve, cause buffing for pvp will just end up with the multi para mega defense hold teams again. You could go a long way just reducing recharges. Most heals take forever to recharge to the point that no pve para should carry them. Leading to paras just taking SY, TNTF and ToF and leaving redbarring to monks, emos and N/Rts. Still, don't see anet buffing para's any time soon considering nearly every skill change usually nerfs paras someway...

We have Monk and Rit able to run as PRIMARY healers. We do not need another healing class, especially one with 80AL armor. Support healing is not bad from Paragon, although it could use a little help. But turning Paragon into another healer is just a bad idea.

I can't even imagine how hard it would be for vanquishers in NF if you were in charge of this game. I think that the motivation line is awful, but what you are proposing is way too good to actually see the light of day. Also, I believe that Dervs/Mesmers are next in line and then ranger spirits.
/notsigned.

now i see that you're insane and have no idea about the game, even though your general intentions are good.

With low energy-fast casting-fast recharging heals as strong as rit heals, and with a base 80 AL why would anyone want a healer rit? Just, no.

Well, after further contemplation about the paragon I came to the conclusion that even a reducement to the range of paragon shouts/chants wouldn't help.
You either make them powerful enough to be useful in a normal team they would be overpowered in healing ball-like builds with multiple paragons, make them balanced for healing ball-like builds, but then they would still be useless in normal team builds, or make them even to weak for healing ball-like builds, but then noone would use them and we're at once again at the starting point. None of the possibilities are desirable.

Paragons are very effective in PvE already, and has quite a few powerful builds. The reason why you don't see rarely a non-imbagon paragon is because it's far more powerful than any other build. Nerfing SY will increase the number of builds a paragon can use because all those builds are no longer overshadowed by the imbagon.

wow... i wasnt quite expecting this much negative feedback but w/e, its no big deal. I still dont think reducing the recharge of the party healing spells would help, so maybe just turn motivation into a primarily condition removal/battery attribute, like someone else further up in this thread suggested. I am curious though, do you guys think the suggestion is overpowered because of over-the-top energy management or because of the size of the numbers?

I wouldnt think a group with a motivation paragon would be any more powerful than a group with a healing monk. A monks healing power would still be more powerful than that of a motivationgon, expecially considering that most motivationgons in PvE only contain around one of the three direct heals i suggested.

Really now... if you are going to insult me, at least tell me why. You could at least tell me why you think my suggestions are overpowered rather than just stating that i am "insane and have no idea about the game".

Im not so sure about that. I would think that nerfing SY will only make other builds more viable for paragons, but will not make the motivation attribute any more powerful. I could be wrong of course, and I for one would really like to see SY nerfed.

So I guess my question now is how would you guys buff the motivation line? I dont see reducing the recharges of the current healing skills as making them any more appealing considering the conditionality of the chants and they fact that they have to be activated by the other party members rather than taking place immediatly. So how would you guys go about making the motivation line useful?

And giving monks the option to damage wouldn't make them any more powerful defensively, so that's okay, right?

Whoops.

what? thats completely irrelevant.

A. Smiter's boon didnt increase a monk's damage output at all. It only made their damaging skills better by giving them more of a health gain.

B. I was (previously, before all of the negative feedback) not suggesting making paragon's heals do damage as well. The strength of smiter's boon was that it made it so that all of the damaging skills healed as well. I was certainly not advocating for the paragon's damaging skills to be able to heal.

once again, any ideas on who you guys would buff the motivation line? Is it a viable idea to give paragons an increased (beyond signet of synergy) capability to target heal rather than just provide party healing support?

I've never specified nerfing SY would make motigons more powerful; but on the other hand it is possible that due to a nerf to SY "The Power Is Yours!" and Song of Purification motigons see more play again.

Hot fix: Revert the PvE versions of nerfed skills.
More thought-out fix: Give motivation skills a controlable, but not obsolete conditional, e.g. affects all party members currently attacking, affects all party members currently casting a spell, affects all party members with less than 75% health.

I guess what Shayne Hawke is trying to say: A Smiter's Boon monk wasn't able to heal/prot better than a normal monk, and it wasn't able to deal as much damage as a normal midline character, but 4-5 Smiter's Boon monks were able to heal/prot better and deal more damage than most other profession combinations.
If your suggestions getting implemented, what will prevent paragons from creating a leadership/spear/motivation-build with 1-2 spike skills, 1-2 leadership skills and the rest motivation heal skills and becoming the new Smiter's Boon monk?

just read the topic, others said it clearly. didn't want to repeat myself.
tl;dr: you want to make an overpowered healer+protector+damager from para. don't think they were designed this way (same as mesmers weren't designed for damage - see?). paragons should be neither healers or protectors to that extent - those roles are taken already. they should be inspirators, party buffers, pumping damage, improving speed (both movement and attack), making others to gain adrenaline easier; just think about a charismatic leader of a group.
nice changes would be to improve their role of a party leader. an echo "Don't worry!" that halves the duration of hexes cast on ally being under the echo would be cool, or a party-wide elite shout doing the same. it's just a quick idea - there are endless possibilities to buff/rework paragons within their role and lore.
still, healers are already there. paras have motivation, not 'healingation'.

There is some truth in this - there is some good stuff that doesn't see the light of day because it doesn't synergise well with the imbagon (and because it was buffed post-imbagon). Not much of that is in Motivation, though.

Uh, most of the motivation line is healing skills. You are saying that Anet didnt design paragons to be able to heal when they gave them a line full of healing skills? Regardless, I didnt originally think my idea was overpowered as the healing wasnt any more powerful than the rit's healing and the energy management wouldnt be overpowered because of the para's poor energy regen (and, like i said, the numbers could always be adjusted downward). I would say that making a paragon's healing capabilities useable is definitely staying within their role.

I kind of like the idea of that shout that would reduce the duration of hexes on allies though. I think it would be a good change to hexbreaker's aria, making that chant useable in any type of group rather than only being useable in a caster heavy group.

I would like to see the motivation chants that heal have a more general use, have a smaller AoE range (Nearby?In-The-Area?), and be a -bit- more potent and a lower recharge.

The trouble with the motivation line in PvE is the specifications of certain skills.

Not all Heroes, Henchies, players, ect, have Signets (Lyric of Resto/Zeal) . some classes don't cast spells (Aria of Resto/Zeal), making it a very unreliable party-wide heal. Ballad of Restoration is good, although effectively a party wide RoF and isn't really worth the recharge tagged onto it. Song of Restoration is pretty much a slightly better LoD with 3.5x the recharge.

Purifying and Energizing Finale are too weird in function, because it takes too long to cast it, then some shout/chant to put it into effect. Maybe if it Removed a condition/gave energy on cast, then had the effect they do now it'd be more universally useful...

"It's Just a Flesh Wound.", and "The Power Is Yours!" just suck too.

So, yeah, motivation is pretty useless, and needs a buff... but making paragons a monk with 80 AL isn't the way to do it.

@L
the fact that most mesmer skills deal damage doesn't mean that they are a damaging class. chaos storm, various interrupts, energy denial skills, energy burning skills, shame... conditions induced by skills cause damage or degen... and there's a lot of degen which - although indirect - is damage. so, mesmer = damager? even if playing a mes as a damager is one's best option to use, it should be changed as mes wasn't designed to nuke.
i don't know all motivation skills by heart, but if it's true that most of them heal allies rather than give them various buffs and indirect defence, then something's wrong. the fact that devs gave paras some weak heals doesn't mean that fixing the class can be done by overbuffing them - rather by changing them completely into motivation, as we have enough healers.

Wrong. IJAFW is a bloody impressive cond removal , you can use it with almost no points in motiv and use prots elite for something else useful , as long as any other cond removal skill in your prot hero by adding foul feast to your N .

If TPIY added 1..2..3 energy regen to all party members in earshot range it would be a "free" battery , overpowered.

They dont suck , but they are not the omfgwtfpwn either . You ppl gotta stop thinking that not bad = suck , seriously.

Just remove some god damn casting times and shorten almost all recharges by 30% ( at least in pve ) and moti will be "ok" .

Well that's the problem. They don't suck, but they're not good either. Barely scraping in at average in fact. Massive recharge times, high energy costs (Leadership helps somewhat, but the 3 way split of skills as below.) don't help matters.

Most of the nerfs to motivation were due to PvP teams(?). However those nerfs were carried over to PvE making Motivation basically worthless. On top of that, Paragons tend to get stuck in a 3 way skill split. With Leadership needed to counter the high cost of the chants/shouts, spears to be able to do anything during the long recharges (skills probably only get used once per fight?) and then at least 9 in motivation.

When talking about Paragons all I see is people talking about PvE skills, as if using them makes up for the entire Motivation line being pretty useless. What if there were no PvE skills? Paragons would be like Mesmers (The situation for mesmers isn't as bad now, but that was mostly due to cry of pain..) and finding a PUG would be a real pain and an organised group wouldn't find any use for a Paragon with the current state of their skills that couldn't be fulfilled better by another profession.

I'd like to see the entire motivation line split into pvp/pve skills. The exact changes to skills? Well that's a somewhat pointless thing to discuss, since I'm doubtful anything will change. However it's clear that something should be done.

I was referring to PvE, so with that in mind, RC says hi. Hell, a Paragon could slap on RC and be more impressive than IJAFW with NO points in Prot, because 10(+) healing is more useful than IMS in PvE

TPIY is pretty poor, but if it was buffed any more it'd be OP. The only real change I can see to it being something along the lines of HYAHHHHH!. Lasts 3 seconds, effect stacks up to three times(scaling with motivation). 3 seconds certainly doesn't leave much of a window to cover, so it's still fragile.

Even so, I'd much rather TPIY be changed in functionality to something more useful in general.

I still say reducing the range of chants and upping their potential overall (recharge, functionality, effect) is a pretty interesting way to go, and it makes sense, both logically and playability. Chanting is generally quieter then shouting, and it's more effective when your team is more bunched up, having the downside of being vulnerable to AoE, or else you'll have to move around to effect the frontline, and actually have to THINK about what you're doing.

I think I see what you are saying now. The thing is that, like you said, mesmers may not be good damagers but they do have viable or useable damage dealing builds. I want to see the same for paragons. I dont want them to be another monk but I do want them to have a viable or useable healing build.

Oh, and I do know all the motivation skills by heart since paragon was my first character and one of my most played chars. Although there are a few battery and contidion removal chants, most are healing related. Indirect defense and buffs are primarily centered in the leadership and command attribute lines.