Dear Arenanet: Please expedite paragon fixes

I personally have no problem with skills like Cruel Spear and Vicious Attack. Vicious attack is actually better than dismember if you have GFTE since it has +dmg and Dismember does not. Meanwhile, Cruel Spear is 7 adrenaline and Eviscerate is 8, and enemies rarely move in PvE anyways.

I think Spear Mastery needs to be buffed in other ways. For example: I'd love to see Spear of Lightning have its recharge reduced to 3 in PvE to give Paragons their own "Power Attack", and seeing cast time removed on Mighty Throw.

Spear of lightning is already really powerful... it does a ton of damage and can be used every 6 seconds. I would agree that mighty and unblockable throw need buffs as Their high casting times kill the skills.

IMO, paragon shouts are good, but many have terrible recharges, so i think it would be good to tweak leadership a bit, tone down the effects so shit won't break when they're used more frequently, and make them more spammable.might have a better effect on gameplay, and give them more viable options than imbagon.

I would suggest taking out activation time on some shouts, especially the 1 and 2 sec activation ones.

Paragons rely on attacking to get adren to fuel shouts, if i have to spend 1-2 sec on a mediocre shout that will trigger on some weird conditional statement, is it not worth it, I rather keep chucking that spear and throw up SY! instead.

After reading this thread a bit I'm convinced that Paragons should

-Have at least one good AOE skill in Spear Mastery
-Have their shouts made less conditional, with better energy costs and recharges where needed
-Have a few spear mastery skills here and there buffed lightly
-Have incoming reverted
-Have imba toned down (40-60 armor would be a decent nerf along with tying it to strength)

Then they'd be the bee's knees to me.

Why though? Why do paragons NEED an AoE skill?

No one needs anything...but it would put them on par with pretty much everyone else in the game. Can you name one class besides paragons that don't have some sort of AoE if not AoE in droves?

Ele's-Have it in droves
Rit's-Have it in droves
Necro's-Have it in droves
Mesmer's- (now) have a good amount of it
Monk's-Don't have a ton of AoE but in smiting have more than enough AoE skills
Derv's-Have it in droves
Warriors-Have a few really good Aoe skills
Assasin's-Have Death Blossom and a few other that chain together quite nicely
Ranger's-Have barrage and a few others...but the most notable is barrage

Did I miss anyone...oh that's right paragons. What do they have? Holy spear...wow how unimpressive! They also have a few burning skills that are sorta aoe...wow how equally unimpressive!


Let me ask you this. Why SHOULDN'T they be allowed a decent AoE skill like everyone else?

And if they aren't allowed AoE...for whatever reason, at least give their single target skills more umph. If they could deal NEAR assasinlike damage to one person at a time from a distance they might have more of a role as an offensive character.

And I don't care what you say...the other 4 physical classes can out damage them. Yes even rangers. Hell even the support classes out damage them. ESPECIALLY rit's.

But then maybe I'm crazy. Maybe they're just fine and might actually need a nerf so they can stop being so damn good.

Paragons already have an AoE. Blazing finale. Granted it's conditional, and burning instead of outright damage.

And Holy Spear. It's AoE. But once again, it's conditional, and not used often due to that fact.

At a very minimum, Cruel Spear should = deep wound 100% (no conditions). They can be dodged by simply strafing, they can be blinded, blocked, slowed down, etc...

One suggestion I mentioned was for the elite Anthem of Fury: make it an IAS party buff. To balance this concept, simply add a 2+ cast time and recharge of 20+. It'd be far better than simply giving adrenaline. It'd be versatile, supplimenting all physical types. If you think this suggestion is OPd, play with the numbers a bit; simply make it 3 seconds cast time and 30 recharge. Idc, as long as it's this and not stupid adrenaline only, I'd be content with this functionality.

Oh yea, and add quick-activation spear attacks to some of the adrenaline-based spear attacks. That'd be awesome to see for once!

Eh as I said before the whole party wide IAS thing seems pretty underpowered and useless to me.

I'm afraid about ideas like all people have AoE, Paragon should have too. I'm more in the opposite side : Paragon has no AoE, so it's possible to deny AoE to more classes. We then could have classes dealing many damages to one target and classes dealing lower damages to multiple targets.
But if all classes can deal many damages to multiple targets, well, it's a lack of difference from class to class.

For only having one campaign under thier belt and a couple eotn skills, Paragons have a limited number of skills to work with when compared to other professions. Luckily about 75% are underused and could go through major changes w/o even effecting the ones that do work. Here are some ideas of how I think that could work. Most of these are PvE oriented, as any PvP changes would make people cry. Keep in mind its the idea behind the skill change not the numbers.

Command- Honestly, its the least broken of the Paragon attributes and could use only a little tweaking. But, its also the only place to really allow the Paragon to add an offensive bonus.

Anthem of Envy-5adr 1sec-Chant. (10 seconds.) Allies in earshot do +5...12...25 damage with their next skill that targets a foe. If foes has over 50% health they are Weakened for 1...2...5 seconds.
This change would allow the effects to be used by casters and the damge has been scaled to prevent exploits from other professions. And, would allow the Paragon to deal damage indirectly.

"Brace Yourself!"-5e 12sr-Shout. (1...3...6 seconds.) Allies in earshot gain 1...5...10 less damage and cannot be knocked down.
This skill sees little use, the damage mitigation could be replaced with armor or mitigate critical hits.

"Fall Back!"- Remove ends with next attack for PvE

"Find Their Weakness!"- 10e 30sr- Shout. (5...17...20 seconds.) Allies in earshot next skill that targets a foe deals +5...41...40 damage and inflicts Deep Wound condition (5...17...20 seconds).
The idea here would be to provide Paragons with an indirect way to have an AoE/spike. For example, if you have an Ele that used Meteor, all foes effected would recieve bonus damage and deep wound.

"Never Give Up!"-5e 15sr-Shout. Allies in earshot gain 1...8...10 Energy and deals +5...12...25 damage with their next skill that targets a foe. Only affects allies below 75% Health.
This skill could be useful after a party wide spike.

"Never Surrender!"-10e 20sr- Shout. (10 seconds.) Party members in earshot gain +1...2...3 Health regeneration. This is a good skill but the <75% is often difficult for a human player to use.
Think of it as a party wide mending.

Leadership- Here again alot of good skills already, but most of the elites are useless.

Angelic Bond-5e 1sec 20sr-Elite Skill. (15 seconds.) The next time an ally within earshot would take damage, that damage is negated and that ally recieves 10...30...40 armor and +1...2...3 health regeneration for 5 seconds then angelic bond ends. .

Defensive Anthem-10e 1sec 20sr- Elite Chant. (4...9...10 seconds.) Party members in earshot have 50% chance to block.
An Elite form of Aegis.
or
Defensive Anthem-10e 1sec 20sr- Elite Chant. (9...14...15 seconds.) Party members in earshot have +24 armor and recieve -3 damage reduction.

Anthem of Fury-5e 1sec 10sr-Elite Chant. (10 seconds.) Allies within earshot gain 1...3...4 adrenaline and +5...10..20 damage with their next skill. Here again we could add another way for a Pargon to do indirect AoE/Spike Damage.

Hexbreaker Aria- 4adr 2sec- Chant. (10 seconds.) Allies in earshot lose one hex with their next skill.
With the mesmer buffs, hexes are deadlier than ever. Lowering adrenaline cost and making the hex removal trigger from the next skill instead of spell would make this skill much more likely to see action. I also notice that this skill could be used by other professions, but I dont see that as a bad thing.

Motivation- Motivation is highly debated as to how to change its skills. With just a little tweaking it could heal as well as a Monk. Nowadays alot of monks prefer to go smiting or let thier heros heal for them. If you allow the Motivation line to be on par but not exceed the monks ability to heal/prot, then you allow for more options in pug groups and general team build variation. I dont see that as a bad thing.

Aria of Restoration-10e 1sec 10sr-Chant. (10 seconds.) Party members in earshot gain 30...78...90 Health with their next spell.

Ballad of Restoration-10e 1sec 10sr-Chant. (10 seconds.) Party members in earshot gain 15...63...75 Health the next time they take damage.

Song of Restoration-10e 1sec 10sr-Elite Chant. (10 seconds.) Party members in earshot gain 45...97...110 Health with their next skill.

Signet of Synergy-1sec 6sr-Signet. Heal target ally for 40...88...100. You are also healed for 40...88...100 if you are not enchanted. Cannot self-target

All I did for these skills is drastically reduce thier skill recharge. IMO that would be enough to make a Paragon want to actually spec into Motivation.

Song of Power-10e 1s 30sr-Chant. (3...5...10 seconds.) Allies in earshot gain +4 Energy regeneration.

Spear Mastery- I dont think spear mastery can be helped. Any buffs would only lead to other professions exploiting it. Unless you linked spear skills to Leadership and that would be awkward.

The point is to make Paragons appealing to use more than just for Imbagon. Not to make them OP.

I really agree with the poster who suggested buffs to elite spear skills.
Also motivation could be buffed nicely by making the skills like SY in that they only affect others (for balance).
Paras are like rangers were when there was only prophecies, do many things but not excellent at any of them.
A buff to The Power is Yours would be very nice (+2 pips of energy would make it worth it). I would like to see them tweak their attack speed or add a new IMS that doesn't remove armor or isn't more conditional than frequent flyer miles.
That's about it, unlike most here I am pleased with my para and I only wish you could have more than one on a team without gimping the team.

As I have stated before, I really do not think giving the paragon's an AoE skill is necessary at all. Spear Mastery in my opinion is a well balanced attribute and beyond slight buffs to mighty spear, unblockable spear, or wearying spear, should not be touched. Cruel Spear is already plenty powerful enough as it is and its condition is so easy to meet, I usually just consider it to be unconditional. Same goes for Merciless spear, since at some point in time the enemy will always have their health below 50%.

Angelic Bond just needs to be reverted to its original behavior and given a 5 energy cost as opposed to its original 10 energy cost. Its original behavior was pretty good and I enjoyed playing Bonding builds with stoneflesh to cancel out the redirected damage and blazing spear + burning signet or gfte to manage energy. I miss those days...

As for the motivation line, i am sure that some here remember the thread I put up once about giving paras targeted heals. Another option I suppose would be to reduce the recharges a little and make the conditions less... conditional. For example, even if you give Aria of Restoration a 10 second recharge, it will still only affect the casters in your party. In the same way, Chorus of Restoration will still only affect the paragons and possibly warriors. Even then, it will only affect them when they activate it. What I am suggesting is to keep these skills activating on some condition (otherwise they would be too overpowered) but make it so that the condition can be activated on any party member and the paragon can in some way influence the activation of the skill. I haven't really thought of many examples yet but I guess the health restoration for chorus of restoration could be activated when an echo is used on an ally affected by the chant. Its just an idea to illustrate what I'm trying to say. SoR could be the more powerful chant by making it unconditional all together. Maybe make it like LoD except it heals for more, costs 10 energy, and has a longer recharge.

Because of how the game handles encounters. 99% of them are big mobs, not 1 v your party.

for what it's worth i like a lot of the changes suggested here, seems like a lot of people are thinking along similar lines.

re: spear attacks, I don't think the elites are underpowered, though I agree that they are too conditional. You could think of Cruel Spear as a ranged Eviscerate, except that Cruel Spear may not deliver deep wound even if it hits, and Stunning Strike is a paragon version of Broadhead Arrow except that it requires a condition in order to deliver Daze. IMO these ought to be unconditional, there is plenty of block/miss/blind spam in the game already, no reason to make the paragon's skills less useful than equivalent skills from other professions.

however, the main problem is not these skills, it is the nature of PvE as compared with PvP. Eviscerate, Crippling Slash, and Devastating Hammer are great elite skills for Warrior but they hardly see any use in PvE... not because they are bad skills, but because they lack AoE. PvE is always a battle against many, and thus single-target skills like these are inferior to AoE even though they are otherwise excellent skills in a PvP context. Therefore we are not surprised to see Hundred Blades, Triple Chop, and Earthshaker more widely used in PvE as opposed to other elites that see wide use in PvP.

because all other professions have AoE damage, paragon is inferior to all of them when it comes to dealing damage. I don't think they can ever compete with hundred blades and whirlwind attack, or death blossom spam from the assassin, but if the paragon had a spear skill that delivered the equivalent of the ranger's Volley skill and one that did the equivalent of the warrior's Sun And Moon Slash (or dervish Twin Moon Sweep, or the ranger's Dual Shot) that would go a long way toward fixing the damage problem. This wouldn't make them OP, but it hopefully would make them roughly equivalent to rangers in ranged damage. I don't think anyone will make the claim that rangers are OP at present, so this seems a reasonable suggestion to me.

my suggestions for the spear skills:

slayer's spear: change to 5e, 2r, +x..y damage, shoots up to 3 (2?) additional spears at foes near/adjacent to target. (clone of Volley)

unblockable throw: attack target twice, and these attacks are unblockable (clone of S&M slash)

mighty throw: deliver +X AoE damage to all adjacent (clone of death blossom)
change skill cost and +damage as appropriate to balance it. death blossom can be thrown every 6s so perhaps a 6s recharge is a good place to start.

harrier's toss: not sure what to do about this skill, but it does not see any use in PvE that I am aware of. It is too conditional and costs too much compared with good spear skills like Spear of Lightning and Vicious Attack.

disrupting throw: why the conditional effect? dshot, savage slash, disrupting stab, disrupting dagger are not conditional, but this is? what is the deal. This doesn't see much use in PvE either.

No, that is how the META handles encounters. You do not NEED AoE to win an encounter.

A lot of the shout/chant suggestions are going to go back to the original problem with Paragons: they end up being best used in groups of paragons. As long as these changes are PvE only (where most things are so lol-overpowered that it doesn't matter) then its okay.

The next big threat is that you don't create skills which completely outshine other professions. If you give Paragons skills which are as strong as warrior skills, then they will outshine warriors by doing their damage ranged, while having the same armor and offering party buffs.

Paragons, IMO, were just a poorly designed class. High armor, party buffing (unremovable buffs, many instant-cast), reasonable DPS classes are going to have a hard time being balanced.

Again you don't NEED anything in PvE. Hell anet could nerf every single class and nearly cripple them all and there would still be around it to accomplish things in PvE.

Would that be fun? To some perhaps. But not everyone likes OMG WTF THIS IS TOO HARD all the time. I personally enjoy a challenge now and then but I think there are some things that are more fun if not dragged out.

Another big problem for paragons that other 4 physical damage classes don't have a lot of damage variety. Dervishes have a ton of things even in other attributes that help scythe mastery a lot and directly relate to it. Same for all the other classes. Paragons kinda influence their spear mastery through their other attributes but are usually limited when it comes to diversity in dealing damage. I think if their attack skills were given a lot more variety ((including aoe) that would in general make them more fun to play.

I mean there are plenty of useless skills or nearly useless skills on paras. Why not give them a purpose in increasing spear mastery's diversity and usefulness? It'll spice up the class and if done right won't overpower the para's.

Of course as everyone keeps stating they are a support class...but would it be so bad if they could be a little more like an offensive class too?

Activation times on shouts? LOLWUT?

From wiki (and frankly, common knowledge of the game): "Shout
Skill type. Shouts have no activation time and are therefore instantaneous"

What game are you playing?

Probably means chants.

... but they are already good enough offensively. I would say that besides imbagon, they are more powerful offensively than support-wise, and they do have quite a few good support skills despite having many not so good support skills as well. They simply don't need buffs to spear mastery at all. Spear of Lightning, Spear of Redemption, Blazing Spear, Spear of Fury, Cruel Spear, ect. all have a very high damage output for a ranged weapon. Having a permanent + 25% IAS is very nice for their offensive output. The paragon has access to many good conditions as well like deep wound, burning, and daze, and none of these conditions have tough... conditions... to meet in order to apply them.

I guess your standards of "good enough offensively" and mine are just too different from each other.

In comparison with the other physical classes I just don't see how they can be considered a competitor. ALL of the other classes deal more damage. Most classes are in fact blowing paragons tits off when it comes to damage.

Yes. They could easily make changes that would completely dumb down the paragon if done wrong, just like they damaged dervishes so bad.

Never have I felt underpowered when playing a Paragon offensively.

You are missing the point that paragons SHOULDN'T excel at damage dealing. they should be ok/average at it, but definitely not excel. That's not the point of a paragon. The more you change it from that, the more you create just another boring attack spammer physical class (read: dervish)

They dont excel at anything if we take out Imbagon. Bad damage, mediocre party defense that bore the brunt of PvP nerfs years ago, next to no ability to boost the party's damage output to any significant level. They can't solo farm like every other profession because they are centered around party support, which also ties in with the problem that Leadership is god awful and just prevents them from doing anything other than spamming shouts.

When Paragons get fixed, I have a feeling that SY! will be nerfed. When this happens, I hope to god you know what your doing because that one skill is the only thing keeping Paragons in the game right now.

Giving paragons more damage dealing abilities makes them dumbed down? How does that work?

Why shouldn't they? And they aren't ok/average damage. They are doing damage that is significantly outshined by everyone. And if your running an offensive build is it not better to spam effective things than to wait for ineffective ones?

some things that occured to me while playtesting a bunch of para skills:

does anyone actually use aggressive refrain? ...really? a 25e skill for a profession with 2 pips of energy regen?

also whats with the 3 second cast time for mighty throw and unblockable throw... the enemy would be miles away by the time your javelin takes flight...lol

They can hardly even do THAT effectively, in 4-in-a-party areas. Or even 6-in-a-party.

No way.

Why would I spend 2secs and 25e on a 25% IAS, which gives me cracked armour, and which I then have to maintain with shouts...

...when I have Pumpkin Pies? One pie = 10 minutes of non-removable 25% IAS, AND it reduces skill activation times 15%. I farm a year's-worth of pies every November, just so I don't ever have to see Aggressive Refrain on my Paragon's bar.

I guess this explains a lot... Really, you should give a profession some extensive playing time before making comments on how to balance them. The credit of you two's opinions regarding paragons just went completely down the drain.

Aggressive Refrain is widely considered the best non-elite IAS in the game. It is also often considered one of the paragon's best skills and is put as a staple on nearly every paragon bar, even those that do not focus on offensive power. The reason for this is because it can be maintained indefinitely, and rather easily at that. Just precast it at the beginning of a given area and maintain it with Anthem of Flame, Anthem of Weariness, or Theres nothing to fear (there really isn't any situation in which Tntf shouldn't be on a paragon's bar). You never again have to pay the 25 energy cost or 2 second casting time... really you should try out a skill/profession first before making comments on it.

I guess this shows how much you actually play your paragon. AR hasn't inflicted cracked armor since February's update. Plus, why should the 2 seconds/25 energy matter? Your energy should be recharged or close to by the time you get to the first group of enemies.

Leadership's energy management is so good its broken by many of the experienced paragon players and is considered second/third only to soul reaping/critical strikes.

I dont AR anymore, if im going anywhere that requires an Imbagon, im most likely using cons. Otherwise I use Soldier's Fury. SY! is still pretty much maintable. And it adds the ability to do a little spike damage on a single target. I personally dont mind the -20 armor, I never notice it. The fact that you are ranged and still have 86 armor + whatever damage mitigation your carrying makes up for it. Honeslty, there isnt anything wrong with AR its easily maintainably once you get started, I just prefer not to use it.

When it comes to spear mastery, I think its fine where it is. Spear mastery is good for spreading conditions, and thats enough for me. Any buffs would lead to it being exploited by another profession. Besides, a Paragon's source of damage should be through shouts, chants, and echos. However, they are currently very weak at doing so.

Edit: TNTF maintains AR if you use a chant first

It's not about the E management, it's about how restrictive it is. Leadersihp requires you to spam shouts, you have to make sure your bar can do that or else you wont be doing anything with that 2 energy regen. Soul Reaping and Critical Strikes don't require you to base your skill bar around it, merely they complement whatever set up you have working for you, be it healing, curses or daggers, scythes or spears. It gives you options, something the Paragon needs badly.

My biggest beef with leadership is that we get punished on solo missions and 4 man areas.

I think all of these skills were balanced with PvP in mind. 25e for aggressive refrain is over the top... in PvP it's meant to punish you if you ever let it drop, while in PvE it is just annoying since you never let it drop. If the energy cost is meaningless in PvE why have it so high? In PvP, it is still over the top. 25e to activate a mediocre IAS skill? really?

3s attack skill activation is not only the slowest attack skill in the game, it also encourages rspike style play, as both of those are high damage and/or unblockable. paragons have been nerfed out of competitive play anyway so I am less concerned about the PvP aspect... though I do hope that anet will make paragons viable again.

so it's pretty clear that you haven't played warrior, assassin, dervish or ranger... any of these deliver a lot more damage than paragon can. the paragon skills are pretty good single-target damage but that is not enough to compete with the AoE damage from the other professions.

More paragon hate without any justification for it. Why should paragons be inferior to all other damage dealers? Even if you have convinced yourself that paragon is a "support" profession (whatever that means) why should they be inferior to the ranger, another ranged damage "support" profession. Splinter barrage has always been pretty good, if not the absolute best.
There is far too much melee bias IMO.

Aside from the above, your argument falls flat when you consider that the "support" professions (ie. mesmer, necromancer, ritualist) are the best damage dealers in hardmode aside from uber-buffed physicals. If support professions are meant to be gimped and prevented from dealing any significant damage then how do you explain the mesmer and ritualist updates?

No, it shows how oh-so-clever-and-superior you THINK you are, by pointing out that it gives you -20 armour, instead of "cracked armor". Wow, big difference there.

Oh and trying to make out that I haven't played my Paragon, doesn't make you look clever either, or add weight to your arguments - it makes you look like a blithering idiot. Because the fact is, I've played her extensively through all 3 campaigns and EotN, and I still use her to repeat all the WiK quests/bounties.

Since you are so VERY clever, how about you answer my original question, instead of parroting what everyone already knows about how we can maintain Aggressive Refrain:

Why would I take Aggressive Refrain, when I have Pumpkin Pies?

Pumpkin Pies give the same IAS, have no cast time, require no energy, do not give me -20 armour, last for 10 minutes unconditionally, do not take up a skill slot, works under Vocal Minority and standing in a Well of Silence, and reduces skill activation times. They even give me sweet points.

What happens when you run out of pumpkin pies? More to the point, a good build should not require consumables. All IAS skills have some sort of drawback, besides Critical Agility, it just so happens the paragons seems a little more severe,in the form of AR.

And the -20 armor is better than cracked armor IMO, because I use H/H alot. That way they can focus on healing me instead of taking off a condition, that barely effects me. And it doesnt trigger spells like Fragility.

I don't run out of pumpkin pies. When they're dropping, I farm enought to last a year. Sure, a good build doesn't need consumables... but a good build is even better with an extra skill slot.

If did run out, then sure - I'd choose an alternative IAS. That's the only time I'd consider AR.

Err, I would have to disagree with you on this one. There were studies awhile back that concluded that spears had the highest DPS of any weapon not taking into consideration attack skills. When those were taken into consideration, the assassin came out on top. However, the paragon's attack skills generally add about the same bonus damage as the warrior's or dervish's attack skills. The ranger's base dps and dps with attack skills just falls way behind...

What I'm trying to say is that from a scientific DPS standpoint, paragons really are pretty well balanced with warriors and dervishes. Assassins do more damage but that is to be expected from a class that is intended to be more offensive than the paragon class. But in terms of DPS, the paragon is well balanced.

Now taking into account AoE damage makes things more difficult. What you have to consider is how well enemies are going to be balled up in a given area. If you are tanking and spanking in an organized team build, then AoE is clearly superior to single target damage. However, in general PvE, when im just running around VQing with H/H, I really have not found AoE to be all that worth it. Strait up DPS will get you through PvE swiftly, and the paragon is not lacking in terms of DPS.

Also, everyone has to remember that often the effects of a warrior's dps is exaggerated in physway builds. A lot of the damage comes from splinter and MoP, not just HB.

So what I think is that IF the paragon's offensive capabilities were poor (like the ranger's is now), then yes, it would need buffing. However, I really do not see the paragon's offensive capabilities as being poor... at all.

This, I have to agree with. AR is very annoying to upkeep unless you let Morgahn or hayda do it for you. I would making it no longer maintainable and instead changing it to a 5 energy costing, 20 second recharging echo that lasts for its duration and then goes away. This would actually be a nerf to it since you would have to spend 5 energy at the beginning of every battle casting it, but it would make the skill a whole lot less annoying to use.

Thats an obvious question. You could also ask the question why bring extra prots when you could bring an armor of salvation? or why bring any IAS when you could bring an essense of clarity? Why bring IMS when you could bring birthday cupcakes? Why even bother with the fast casting attribute when you could use red rock candies and essenses of clarity? If you have an unlimited supply of cons, then by all means use them. For everyone else who would rather use the cons to make money or, more likely, wouldn't have them in the first place, there is AR. My suggestion to you is, if you really do have an unlimited supply of pie, sell it to make a buttload of cash and then run AR anyway. Is having that one extra skill slot free really worth having to use personal cons wherever you go in PvE?

Aggressive refrain is mediocre at best. Sure it's a "permanent" IAS but it puts you down at caster armor and is a bitch to bring back if you somehow let it go away. Also it forces you to bring easily spammable shouts which may or may not be what your build needs. With all that said I use it because it's the best non elite IAS paragons have and there's something to be said for at least having a decent IAS (Dervishes don't have any...but they still deal way more damage than paragons)

Eh, iv found the -armor to be of very little consequence in PvE. I mean how often do you as a base 80 ar backliner with a shield get targeted by the enemy. Plus, with the shield and the +10 from the centurion's insignias, the paragons armor is still at 86

Also, like I stated earlier, Tntf is the only skill necessary for maintaning AR. I really can't think of a situation when a paragon shouldn't have Tntf on their bar anyway. Therefore, AR really shouldn't force you to bring a skill you wouldn't have on your bar anyway.