Dear Arenanet: Please expedite paragon fixes

You're right. I just tested it with GFTE instead and it more or less worked the same. Thanks.

Firstly, thanks for the input, and thanks for your kind words. :-)

re: Angelic Bond, it's competing with a non-elite ritualist skill (shelter). I don't think it's OP as described but I suppose that is for Anet to decide.

re: TPIY, it does provide good energy to the group and I think it would be better than BiP in 'normal' groups. Farming or tank-n-spank groups will still choose BiP because it will give much more energy if you spam it everywhere and the BiP does not need to enter aggro to hit enemies to gain adrenaline to trigger TPIY. I think this might give people a good reason to bring TPIY instead of the bizarre uses it has now (P/A dagger spammer, etc.)

re: Never Surrender, I have had the same concerns about it being overpowered, but the power level shown on my page (1..4..5 health regen) is what Anet has it set to now; the only difference is that I removed the trigger condition so that it works all the time. Mainly I want this skill to be capable of being maintained permanently, that way it can have synergy with other paragon skills. If that means weakening the effect that's fine with me. For comparison, Recuperation gives us permanent unconditional health regen on the entire group, but it has a much higher cost and the spirit can be destroyed.

re: Spear of Redemption, I am not worried about removing one condition, it's very easy to stack 2-4 conditions on a target with one hit. (using paragon as an example... poison tip signet, anthem of flame, cruel spear. Spear of Redemption might save you from Blindness if it is not covered quickly and I think that was the original intent of the skill.

re: Bladeturn Refrain... with all of the unblockable attacks out there I don't think this is OP, besides that having Displacement or perma-Aegis up all the time is not that difficult. No one uses it now because it is too weak.

thanks again for the constructive input. the more people we have asking for changes the more likely it may actually happen. I just wish it had happened years ago. :-\

I think Khomet's changes are good for the PvE for the most part. I don't feel those changes will OP the paragon at all. Most of those skills are comparable to other existing skills. With the current state of play, the para needs a boost to be able to compete.

I would like to see some drastic changes to a few skills, kind of like some of the mesmer changes.

Kind of like an inverse to They're on Fire! If target foe is suffering a condition, target foe take 5..29..35% more physical damage for 5 sec.

It would give paragons ability to call target and reward teamwork, which would fit in with the concept of what a paragon is. With TnTF and SY, that skill is rarely used and I doubt many will miss it.

I like alot of Khomets ideas. I have suggested similar changes in this thread and under the campfire section.

For Motivation, alot can be fixed simply by reducing recharge times. I dont think Pargons should out heal a Monk because thats what a monk is supposed to do. But I wouldnt mind it if they were on par with a Rt. A few small buffs can help them achieve this. The reason I want motivation buffed is so that a Paragon can have another role to play, in the event your in a group with another Paragon. Paragons already have a beautiful synergy when used together but in todays meta, everybody only wants one Imba.

I undertand the concern about Paragons not being able do AoE damage. IMO, Paragons should have the ability to indirectly do AoE damage by buffing or adding damage to the skills of his party. Command and Leadership are perfect places to implement this ability. Something along the line of how orders works but in a more Paragon like way. Here again this would allow another option for the second Paragon in your group.

As for Spear Mastery, I dont see anyway to buff it without Rangers, Assassins, Dervishes, and Warriors abusing it. If Paragons get the right changes to add damage through shouts, chants, and echos, then there shouldnt be a need to buff Spears much.

As for Khomets changes, I wouldnt take the armor penalty away from AR and SF. If Paragons get the Motivation buff we want, they need to have a drawback somewhere. And before any shouts like SYG or TNTF are applied, Paragons will still have 76ar. Add a shout, which you almost always will, and the armor goes up to 86. IMO, 86ar is plenty even in HM.

Random skill Suggestion
Remedy Signet-1s 4r-Remove Blindness from yourself, and one additional condition. Blindness can shutdown a Paragon faster than a pissed off Mesmer. I dont see many people using this skill, so a small buff could give it more action. And it would still be less powerful than Antidote Signet.

Yea but every experience with them tells me that it would be a bad idea to put my hopes up. Hell it took 5 YEARS to throw mesmers a bone...

But hey if you're right and I'm wrong I'll be a very happy camper.

Let me brutally honest with my opinion: Don't get your hopes up for any major skill changes before WiK is finished. I don't think that it will be done until WiK is.

For the most part, I agree with most of what is on the list. These are some really good recommendations. I like the second option for both of the "never..." shouts. Command shouts really need to be less conditional and the second option removes the conditionality without overpowering it. I might suggest reducing the health regeneration by 1 pip. Anthem of Guidance, however, would still be very much underpowered in PvE. In my opinion, it should be a party damage buff like OoP. Maybe increase the adrenaline cost to 8ish and give it a 5ish second recharge and then make it last like 10 seconds at 10-12ish command.

Like your recommendation states, Anthem of Envy would be good as a miniture version of OoP (less of a positive effect but cheaper to use as well). I would recommend lowering the attack bonus a little though.

As for Godspeed, I really think it needs a different function altogether. Paragons already have a good party movement buff with fall back and a good single target one with make haste/hasty refrain. Maybe, in order to stay in line with the name, have it affect attack speed in some way (maybe make it a very expensive party wide attack speed buff.)

I would go ahead and recommend lowering AR's energy cost to 5 in PvE. The energy cost already doesn't matter since it's maintainable, so lowering the energy cost to 5 would not provide a buff but it would remove an annoyance.

Angelic Bond is the one skill that I am really going to have to disagree with you on. In my opinion, it should return to its original functionality but should cost 5 energy and cause a slight damage reduction (that scales with leadership) to the damage redirected to the paragon.

I'll get around to looking at the other suggestions later when i have more time but so far, i like what i see.

EDIT:

So, I looked at the rest of the list. When I saw anthem of fury, it reminded me of my suggestion for anthem of guidance. I guess they could both be made into similar skills but with one costing energy while the other costs adrenaline and one boosting adrenal gain while the other provides unblockability. These would both, however, be pretty powerful effects for an unstrippable chant. Their costs would have to be adjusted so that the skills would be balanced.

On the motivation skills: Honestly, I don't think that the suggestions you made for the healing skills were enough. Their were previously two problems with these chants: their recharges were very long and their effects were too conditional for a balanced party when the effects can only be activated by the other party members. What I would like to see is both the decrease in recharge (that you already suggested) and a way for either the conditionality of the skills to be erased/eased up drastically or for the conditions to be activatable by the paragon. For example, rits have a pretty good healing ability. Although many of their skills have condition for the skill to take full effect, the rit is the one who meets the condition by providing the spirits/weapon spells. The rit doesn't have to wait for their target to fulfill the conditions.

Also, as I have previously stated, I really don't think paragons need or should have AoE options beyond the AoE through party buff options they already have (blazing finale and the use of any attack buff on a physical with AoE).

lol agree'd

i don't think para needs aoe on it's primary it just don't make sense. now maybe with a chant or something? sure.

Like the other guy said you can strap a little powder keg or something to the end of the spear. That kind of feasibility is really a non issue.

And once again no class needs anything at all. But it would help put them on par with everyone else who all have aoe (in their main no less). But both of these arguments have been had...

Removing the conditions of AoE buffs is the worst move you can make because they're the main reason that prevents those from turning into mindless, broken skills (either to strong or to weak).

The final balancing is up to Anet, of course, but hopefully we can give them suggestions on what the community thinks is appropriate. I'm trying hard not to suggest anything too radical so that the changes have a better chance of being accepted and implemented.

re: Anthem of Guidance... as written in the suggestion, this is basically Order of Unblockability, and it can be maintained 100% given enough adrenaline. I thought that the effect was quite strong enough to justify the elite skill, especially compared to its earlier incarnation. It's worth noting that this skill has always done what it does now, and it was too weak to prevent "turtling" in GvG and HA with heavy defense like Aegis, Ward against Melee, Weapon of Warding, Defensive Anthem, etc. This version will cut through all of that making for more interesting and less defensive play. In PvE it will cut through all of the blocking spam you see in Kourna and the Realm of Torment. And besides, making attacks unblockable is what the skill was meant to do.

I've already suggested that Anthem of Envy become a rough equivalent to Order of Pain, and Anthem of Fury is the same thing plus adrenaline, so having yet another +damage "order" skill might be a little redundant?
As far as damage goes, it is a direct copy of Order of Pain so I don't think it is imbalanced at all.

I like this idea a lot! Except for the "very expensive" part. If the cost is too high it is simply never going to be used. What about a party-wide +25% IAS that only works on allies who are not enchanted. This goes with the original theme of the skill, and it prevents abuse by gimmick teams full of shadowform assassins and the like. However this variant would also prevent it from working on dervishes at all in most cases.

Fine with me, but this seems unlikely to happen. I have tried not to change the numbers too drastically so that they stand a chance of being accepted. 5e is probably not going to be accepted given AR's history, and even getting 15e without the armor penalty is possibly too much to hope for.

I can sense that you have some nostalgia for the original Angelic Bond. :-)
It was nice, but looking back on it from 2010 it seems to me that it was just an inferior version of the monk's Life Bond skill. Life Bond halved the damage but only passed a fraction of that damage on to you, while Angelic Bond made you take half of the damage without reduction. Angelic Bond could not be stripped but in my mind that hardly made it elite-worthy or even equivalent to Life Bond. Given Angelic Bond's history (and the unstrippability that led to its abuse in PvP) I think this one is unlikely to be reverted as well.

Yeah, final balancing is clearly up to Anet, but I want to caution against making the cost too high. Because the Orders have a very short duration the cost of the skill must be paid frequently, especially if multiple "orders" style skills are used. This can be a heavy energy cost even for the necromancer which usually has energy to burn. The cost for the paragon is higher because he doesn't have as much energy to start with, and his energy renewal depends on turning adrenaline back into energy, which takes time. If he is spending all his time activating Orders, there is no time to attack. And if he spends all his time attacking to gain energy and deal damage, he doesn't have time to activate the anthems. The necromancer doesn't have this problem because he can just sit there and gain energy as things die. I made these new Anthems have a similar duration to Orders + 20% enchanting mod which would be standard practice on any character with Orders. Even at 1s activation time (plus aftercast) that means you are losing up to 2 attacks because you chose to activate the anthem instead. Making the activation time too long will make it unusable.

You're probably right about this, let me explain though. The suggestions were made with the idea of not changing the skills very much so that there would be less resistance to getting the updates in place. Therefore changing recharge times, skill cost, etc. is easier than changing functionality. Motivation could probably use some functionality changes though, since Anet has stated that the Motivation nerfs were due to PvP abuse with shout stacking and chaining. What if we changed some of the motivation chants to deliver healing over time (e.g. Vigorous Spirit, Spirit Light Weapon) rather than a large packet of healing? This would allow the healing to trigger more often, have a long duration (which is beneficial for some skills and Centurion Insignia), and prevent chaining. For example, Aria of Restoration heals for 15..90 when affected allies cast a spell and then it ends on them. Instead, we can make this a chant with a fixed duration (10s? 15?) and have it deliver smaller packets of healing throughout the duration. If it is X healing per spell, that clearly favors short-activation-time spells that can be spammed, whereas long cast time spells will gain less benefit from it. Perhaps this should be changed so that it heals for +X% of the cost of the spell, similar to Aura of Restoration, that way it would have a more balanced benefit for all casters. For Inspirational Speech we can change it to work like a mass Vigorous Spirit where targets heal whenever they attack. If it lasts for 10s and we assume that characters can attack once per second they will get about 10 healing packets out of this. Based on the numbers we have in existing skills, we should expect up to 90 healing from one of these chants, perhaps more because it is spread out over time. So healing of 5...12..15 per attack might be reasonable.

Okay fair enough, everyone has a right to their opinion. However I believe that balance dictates that paragons must be given some form of AoE damage and/or multi-attack capability since *ALL* of the other professions have it. Even the so-called healers. The changes I suggested will not infringe on the superiority of the melee professions in this regard, they will still be dealing more damage.

Eh... i don't know. With its adrenaline cost where it is, Anthem of Guidance can already be upkeeped almost continually (Enduring Harmony + FGJ makes i spammable after every other attack). I don't think this would be much of a buff to it, and in PvE, I think there really needs to be something else on top of the unblockability. Nothing major, just some minor change to the utility of the skill to put it on par with +dmg elites. One idea that I kind of like is increasing the +critical hit & of all party members for a certain amount of time. This would work well with the naming of the elite and the numbers could be adjusted to balance it.

Well when I was thinking "very expensive", i was just thinking of a energy cost of ~15e and maybe a recharge that is high enough that the shut can only be maintained at high levels of command (possible 12 sec duration w/ 15 sec recharge at 9-10 command and 15 sec duration somewhere aroung 13-14 command.)

Well in PvE, it was kind of an inferior version of life bond. Thats why I suggested making it less clunky by giving it a 5en cost rather than a 10en cost and giving a little damage reduction on the damage redirected back at the paragon. This would be enough to balance it but not to make it too overpowered compared to life barrer/bond monks. This change could apply only for PvE. PvP can keep the current version (or possible a buffed version of the current version) of the elite.

did you have any specific skills in mind?

if we look at AoE buffs from other professions such as the ritualist we will see that they provide blocking, damage resistance, etc. to everyone in the group with no condition. AoE healing from monk and ritualist (heal party, divine healing, PwK) also have no conditions. Party-buffing skills such as Orders have no conditions either. So I am not really understanding what you mean...

I agree. Skills definitely can be balanced without the conditions. Plus, many of the conditions are soooo conditional or situational that there really is no way to balance the skill while the condition exists. Recharge, cost, and casting time can all be used to balance skills.

As others said, Paragon already has AoE attacks - like that burning chorus.
Paragon is also supposed to have multi attacks with chants that affects the party. It's indirect but still multi attack.

The problem is that Paragon is a broken class by design and only supports gimmick.

Paragon and balanced party just don't go together. If you give Paragon a "+15dmg next attack skill", you're just asking for entire party of physicals which sucks.
If Paragon has "next signet gives +x energy", you're either asking for a gimmick - overpowered or underpowered skill. Nothing in between.


Paragon needs a complete redesign including primary attribute. As I've been saying from the beginning of Nightfall - Paragon is a perfect example of how not to design a profession.



ps: And please don't be silly with some suggestions on how to buff Paragon. Like trying to make him an unconditional ranger warrior.

Did a Paragon beat you up when you were a kid? Does a man wearing a skirt make you nervous? I dont know where all this Paragon hate is coming from.

So Leadership is OP? Soul Reaping and Crtical Strikes are just fine I suppose. Im also guessing that when the Mesmers got a buff, you thought that was OP too? I think we have different ideas on what gimmicky is. To me a gimmick build is when an assassin uses SF or when a profession exploits his secondary better than the profession it belongs to, like an ER prot/orders or N/Rt Healer. Lyric of Zeal says Hi. Its fairly rare for anyone but a Mesmer or Smite Monk to have more than one or two signets, how does that unbalance things? Order of Pain and Physical Way have something different to say about physicals. It sounds like youve only played a Mesmer. You should really try the other professions before you jump to conclusions.

Alot of the discussion in this thread is reasonably balanced, and so far has had alot of postitive feedback. Dont start trolling it up. If you have some helpful suggestions to balance the Paragon, by all means, lets hear them. Otherwise your just trolling for no reason.

In particular "Never Surrender!". That skill is a prime example how paragons skills should function; it has a condition that the paragon player himself can control and is very powerful if used right but next to useless if mindlessly spammed.

Your way to balance the paragon: Look, class X has a skill with function Y, lets give the paragon also a skill with function Y, only three times more powerful than the skill of class X.
I don't have the motivation to go into detail because I'm sure it has been explained to you why exactly most of your ideas are way overpowered in the other thread where you already showed your ideas a couple of months ago.

Ehhh I wouldn't like this. If it has something like that then packing aegis or any type of order will completely screw this skill over. I still think in general the idea of a party wide ias isn't a great one because it' either going to be mostly useless (You're the only physical on the team and you have AR) or only kinda helpful for mostly physical teams (in which everyone should be packing their own ias anyway).

But I am probably not seeing the whole picture or something because people keep suggesting this over and over.

Let me know when you grow up. I don't see a point in talking till then.

Actually many of the suggestions I posted were almost exact copies of skills from other professions... skills which are theoretically balanced already. Please read more carefully.

If you are simply here to spread paragon hate, don't bother.
If you are saying that paragons are fine the way they are, Arenanet disagrees with you. They have already stated that updates are planned.

So... why are you here?

Josip... I'm not trying to be rude, but you are four years too late to QQ about how paragons never should have been in the game and are broken by design, etc etc. Perhaps you will get your wish and paragons will not be in Guildwars 2. But the question is how to make paragons work in gw1 since they ARE part of the game. It will not be redesigned, it's too late for that. The shout mechanic was perhaps never balanced properly because there is no way to remove them or interrupt them... but warriors had them first, and remember that Tactics shouts were also nerfed into oblivion. I used to use Watch Yourself and Shields up on my paragon all the time, way back in time when they were worth a skill slot.

re: gimmick builds... perhaps you are playing some other game than the rest of us, but PVE is full of gimmick builds and it has always been that way. "Manlyway" with parties of buffed physicals... teams full of shadowform assassins... DwG spike teams in the Domain of Anguish. I don't see any teams full of paragons though... perhaps that is because they are actually underpowered and need buffing. If they really were overpowered as you claim people would be using and abusing them. This isn't happening so we can conclude that you must be wrong.

It's just an idea... whether it is a good idea or not is open to question. No harm in talking about it though. Anet makes the decisions not us.

I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about it. I just want someone to explain to me why a party wide ias is worth doing. From my perspective it seems like something that is cool at first but once you think about it it's kind of pointless.

Alright, here:

1. Leadership needs to be redesigned so gain is not based on the number of allies. I would even go as far as to redesign this into not-another-energy-gain primary attribute. Hate those. Assassin and Paragon primary attributes should not have had energy gain. Energy gain primary on Paragon is just stupid and boring. Instead, balance skill energy cost for Paragons 2-pip energy regeneration + adrenaline, and give Paragon something interesting - if nothing else longer shout/chant/chorus duration for each point in Leadership, or more "uses" (see #2).

2. Buffs expire *not* the next time *each* party member attacks or uses a special type of skill - but next x (say, 3 or 4) times *any* party member(s), any, use that skill/attack - then buff ends.

Example: You cast Go For The Eyes. This works for next 3 attacks. John hits a foe - now for 2 next attacks. Bill hits a foe - next 1 attack - John hits foe again - that's it. If James hits, nothing will happen, because the buff was exhausted.



This would make things more fun, and promote balanced builds - not just "all-physical-way" or "all-at-least-one-spell-way". It would also make Paragon more useful in 4v4 and 6v6.


Without the above change, and lame imbagon-like 'fixes' don't interest me. Imagine if Mesmer had fixed automatic party-wide -82% reduction to all spell damage, with just 2 skills. Everyone would complain. But when someone can have that for all damage then ANet leaves it for centuries. Their way of promoting certain professions does not make me want to pay for gw2. Instead of fixing stuff they just make something insanely overpowered. Ok so people complained about assassins in PvE in the beginning and rightly so - "death nova" on all afflicted was ridiculous. ANet's solution: make Shadow Form so overpowered that the rest of the skills don't even matter. Then Paragon, ok the class was nerfed because of bad design as I said. ANet's solution - ok give PvE Paragon some ridiculous skill (Imbagon set) so no one notices how sucky Motivaton is and most other skills. Ritualist same thing - just give ridiculous spirit spam and they think profession design is solved. Eles - just give ridiculous Ether Renewal so pro players will not complain much and the rest will still think they are awesome in HM.

So as you can see, I'm tired of Imagon-like buffing style to "change the metagame". ANet said itself - they like to make overpowered skills and shuffle them to change the metagame. I don't like that style. I'm all for Paragon being useful outside of Ridiculous-gon, but I'm afraid those 2 suggestions need to be incorporated first.

You're probably right... after all, why design your team to take advantage of a mass IAS skill when you can just use Essence of Celerity. But it is still interesting, and there are too many running skills already so if Godspeed did something else I don't think many would complain.

Just to be clear, I think it's pretty universally agreed that if Anet reworks the para to not suck they must nerf Save Yourselves! at the same time. Nobody is saying make para into the most overpowered class. People just want functionality that isn't so "out there" that no one has bothered with paragon builds besides imba.

That's an interesting idea but I doubt that Anet is interested in major redesign of anything in gw1 at this point.

Why should they be limited at all? Orders affect all physical damage for the duration of the enchantment. Judge's Insight and Strength of Honor last for the duration of the enchantment which could be forever since SoH is maintained. Most weapon spells last their entire duration as well; Splinter Weapon is the only one I can think of that has a fixed number of uses as you describe. With the limits placed on paragon buffs at present it is no wonder why people use Necromancers and Monks and Ritualists for physical damage buffing because they are clearly superior. And that is pretty sad since it is apparent that physical damage buffing was part of the paragon's design.

I agree with what you are saying for the most part, but when you say that Paragons are overpowered what you really mean is that the "Imbagon" is overpowered. This revolves around the abuse of two powerful PvE skills and is not part of the profession itself... remember Save Yourselves is a warrior skill. If the paragon was overpowered without the need for PvE skills you would see them used everywhere and with different builds. What I am suggesting is actually the same as what you seem to want... namely, changing the paragon skills so that they are useful by themselves and the player is not locked into playing Imbagon. Think back to the days when Cryway was popular. Sure it was powerful, but did you enjoy playing it? I know I didn't. Remember when any mesmer in the group was asked to run Cry of Pain spam, and that's if the mesmer was lucky enough to be accepted into the group at all? The discrimination that mesmers faced then and the discrimination that paragons face now are the same. Both of these professions had very limited use outside of PvE skill abuse because their normal skills were not that useful in PvE. Mesmer was fixed recently and now it's time to fix paragons as well.

They changed mesmer primary and stated they are ready to do such drastic changes in the future. They are also lowering cross class possibilities; gw2 influence. If strong non Leadership skills are to be used mostly by Paragons you have to change Leadership in a way i suggested. Otherwise you will just see plenty of N/Ps and A/Ps who will do better what Paragon does. Think Dervish.

Of course.

I didnt even play it; it was lame to begin with and made mesmers into eles. Plus others used it more efficiently anyway.
Cryway was an attempt of Anet to do same thing to mesmers they did with ridiculousgon skills to paragon. They want quickfix and never mind if people enjoy it or not, they know most just want to exploit whatever silly skill they can.

Last mesmer update, while not perfect, at least went in the right direction.

If by fixed you mean improved then yes. I think you exaggarate mesmer buff. Mesmers were trash, now they are ok. Thats it. They are still behind assassins dervishes warriors necros ERelementalists imbagons and Rts. Unknown for rangers and monks.

Even after the "great buff", strongest builds others can take are still stronger than the strongest build mesmer can take.

Dont let numbers fool you.

Thank you for using specific examples, I retract my childish statements. I actually agree with some of what you say. My Sin and Derv that use SY! will hate to hear this, but an easy fix to the Imbagon is tie SY! to strength. AoHM should be tied to Mysticism, but thats another topic. TNTF, SYG, and ToF provide adequate blanket protection when used properly by an Imba. Ironically, if you nerf the Imbagon, I forsee an ER Protter taking its place. And that would take away the only position a Paragon has atm. So were kind of back to square one if we totally nerf the Imba. Anet has also said, it plans on changing non-Imbagon Paragons at a future date so I dont think Imbagons will get the Nerfbat anytime soon.

I dont agree that Leadership is a broken mechanic. There is plenty of physical hate and anti-adrenaline in PvE to keep this in check. Even energy denial works against Leadership as Paragons have a limited pool to begin with. The idea for changing Paragon shouts, to a form of "Watch Yourselves!" could see some action in PvP but would require alot of skill splitting. Not to mention no one use WY! since it was nerfed.

Im not asking for another Imbagon. As a matter of fact, most people giving useful suggestions believe Imbagon could use a little tweaking/nerfing. I am asking for a buff to the motivation line and the ability to increase damage of the party. I like the "Orders for Imbas" style changes that have been suggested in this thread. If done right, it would provide another role for Paragons, same with a Motivation buff. Dont forget that if you diversify a Paragons role you also give your team mates other options as well. A newly physical/skill buff Paragon would allow your Orders Necro or Ele to go MM or dare I say your Ele could even do Elemental damage. A newly buffed Motivation Paragon and Imba team could allow your Monk to go Smiting in certain situations. Most importantly, it would allow two Paragons to coexist in a team.

If used properly a Mesmers Panic build gives awesome damage mitigation, Keystone signet gives the ability to do outstanding AoE, and dont forget Stolen Speed, they can even tank now although not as well as other physicals. Rts can go Spirit Spammer, DwG, or Restoration. An Ele can go ER Orders/Prot, provide snares and do supbar damage, but damage none the less. A Monk can go Smites, Heal or Prot. A Necro can go Orders, MM, Discord, BiP, SS etc. They are all casters, but have all found a niche in party support along with the ability to do damage. The Paragon was designed from the ground up to be a party supporter, and so far all they can do is blanket protection, but its still only one role they can do. Thats why its long over due for Paragons to become diversified party supporters.

I think Leadership is fine the way it is but I think giving it added functionality would be good. I would like to see leadership somehow boost damage dealt by the para. Perhaps adding 1 point of life stealing for spear skills for every 1 or 2 ranks of leadership? This is just an example...obviously this change would be a bit odd.

As for your second point I don't think that would benefit paragons at all. If anything that's just another nerf which is something para's don't need right now (besides imba of course).

Mesmers can SoS too you know. Furthermore, panic is absolute ROFL and Mesmers easily replaces the need for Curses necromancy even with their other abilities. Oh, and don't tell me you still think Ineptitude sucks because it is now the definition of high damage+awesome blind spam. The problem with mesmer is more than one can't be used. And I certainly don't see why they are behind Dervishes.

I did Kathandrax hardmode on my ele a few days ago and I brought Ward Against Harm to deal with all of the fire damage I knew I would find there. I had no trouble with the fire elementalists at all, but the roaring ethers were brutal. Thanks to 20 Domination and 20 Fast Casting they were doing -117 damage and -13 energy with Energy Surge, and because of fast casting and hardmode they were able to cast Esurge every 7 seconds or so. Just two of them cause 234 damage and -26 energy to everyone instantly, and 7 seconds later everyone is dead. And don't think your monks will save you either, because LOLinterrupts and the monks have no energy to cast with anyway. Mesmers are MUCH more dangerous than they used to be even without optimizing builds to take advantage of the changes.

BTW it's easy to use more than one mesmer in a group... there is even a thread here called Mesmerway or some such. Panic and VoR don't synergize very well but imagine Shared Burden, Esurge, and Ineptitude all working together.

I've updated the suggestions page, comments are welcome as always.
Also I moved the page to the Guildwars wiki, the skills look better with their formatting templates.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:..._skill_changes

Hmm, Im still concerned that Anthem of Guidance would be pretty useless in PvE. Regardless of how Anthem of Guidance is handled, I definitely think that the duration should scale with command. On the topic of Command elites, I also noticed that suggestions for crip anthem and incoming were not on the list. This means that none of the command elites would be useful for the general pve setting. One Idea I think is to change Incoming so that it negates a certain amount of damage done to each party member; something like: 5 energy, 20 sec recharge. The next 10...40...48 damage done to each party member is negated. numbers can obviously be adjusted to balance the skill. For crip anthem. Maybe you could make it so that (in pve only) the next attack skill used by each ally inflicts both crippling and weakness. Crip anthem is already fine as it is in PvP.

Obviously, I still want Angelic Bond to be reverted to its originalesque behavior (with the modifications i stated earlier in this thread.)

Also, in regards to some of the motivation chants, i am still troubled that the conditions, many of which only work on certain party members in a party anyway, can not be activated by the paragon using the skills. I think there needs to be some way for the paragon to activate the healing from the chants. Finally, a minor change I would suggest is a change to signet of synergy. In order to give the paragon one reliable target heal, I think it would be good to lower the recharge to 4-5. In order to balance this, I would suggest removing the healing done to the paragon and making half of the heal conditional based on the target being nearby to another ally. I guess you could compare this to signet of devotion except with a shorter casting time and a condition for half of the heal.

I think even the creator of old Shadow Form would feel ashamed.

"Allies in earshot gain 1..4..5 energy and an additional 1..4..5 energy if below 75% health. "

So, non-elite skill that gives 40 energy every 15 seconds, with conditional 40 more energy. Cannot be stripped or interrupted. Instant Cast.
Just for comparison, Blood Ritual gives around 15 energy during 15 seconds, costs 5 energy, 17% of health, needs 2 seconds to be cast, and is touch range. Can be stripped, can be interrupted. Can also be, however, recast every 4 seconds (because of touch range and aftercast this will be rarer). BiP is overpowered when used with low health, true, but at least it's also elite in otherwise weak line
Energy Drain, an elite, will give you 24 energy every 21sec or so, while it costs 5e (so 19e total).


"Brace Yourself!"

This skill shows why I think you should stay away from skill balancing You look at what other skills give, but you don't consider the downsides of other skills.
You want Paragon to be one-man army - Command will have everything and everything better than others.
If you try to compare Ward of Stability you'll get this: Ward of Stability is in a line that isn't much useful in PvE HM at all, and the best part of it are Wards. And even Ward of Stability cannot (unlike your skill) be maintained 100%, it doesn't affect earshot range but only ward range - where you will get hurt if you group together so it's not a smart idea usually. Ward has casting time. Ward costs more energy. Ward cannot be recast as fast and is less practical. Ward can be interrupted. Sure you can run, but your heroes won't except rarely.

Bladeturn Refrain is ridiculous.

I didn't bother with the rest. I'm honestly hoping for skill *balance* and not skill imbalance update.

Mesmers can do a lot of things if used properly, and a lot of things if used improperly.


That doesn't change the fact that their best build is inferior to best builds of all other professions except maybe monk, and through history of GW monks always had some super builds one way or another, while mesmer is after "super buff" worse than everyone else. Sad.

The "outstanding" AoE ability of Keystone build is at least 3x smaller than AoE ability of psychic scythe mesmer build, and who knows how much smaller than A/D build. Same for the rest.

Except that people are seeking curse necros and not panic mesmers, and that everyone is using necro and not mesmer heroes. And that mesmer can SoS, which was not the point, the point was others do it better. Panic is overrated.

The problem with theory is that its theory. So if you don't mind, I would humbly suggest scientific measures in debates.

I don't think Ineptitude sucks. But even by mesmer standards, Ineptitude build is inferior to AP EVAS spam, still, and to Psychic scythe build.

Because damage Ineptitude does once every 10 seconds is lower than the damage done by Dervish in two seconds or less. Ineptitude will blind, but usually it will blind up to few melee, it won't blind rangers who are up there or casters on the left. That dervish will in the meantime spam SY all the time for insane team-wide damage protection which is far more important considering main PvE threat are casters - melee PvE mobs are easily weakened and blocked by few skills in the entire party. Dangerous and annoying areas in PvE are always caster areas.

I don't have to imagine it, I tried it. It's only fantastic for people who either don't play mesmers and fantasize how mesmers must be good "if you know how to play them" (favorite line), or play mesmers in a relaxed non-competitive way: "look how cool and strong Frustration is!".
Yes, you can HM an area with those 3 mesmers in your party. Now try that area with 3 A/D assassins or 3 Psychic scythe (Me/D) mesmers.

Apples and oranges. You are comparing to mesmer (hero) a PvE monster which is lvl26, with +1 energy additional regeneration, who only fights one battle in entire instance and can use 100 energy with no regard to whatever happens 1 minute later.

I am sorry but the fact that you have trouble in PvE with fire and energy surge is no indication of how mesmer is good. Roaring ethers are only strong because they use AoE damage at high level. Any other AoE spell is dangerous in HM when you play with H/H. Any. And guess what, assassin monsters are bad. But in the hands of a player, situation is pretty much reverse. So unless you have lvl26 Roaring Ether hero that you can add to your party, this is pretty pointless.

So, just because I don't want paragons to be buffed to an extemly overpowered level like you I'm a paragon hater?

No, most of your suggested skills are either way more powerful than the so called "comparable" skill (i.e. "Brace Yourself!" vs Ward of Stability), hava a similar effect, but need far less effort (i.e. Anthem of Fury vs Order of Pain+Dark Fury) or both.
Even if your suggested skills would be equal in power to the "comparable" skills, a paragon that heals as good as a monk, removes hexes and conditions as good as a monk, deals as much damage as a warrior, interrupts as good as a ranger, protects the team as good as a monk, buffs the damage of the team as good as a necro wouldn't be balanced.

Well I agree with this actually. I don't support any of the suggested changes to the spear mastery skills, thus limiting the buffs i want to see to healing and buffing. Basically, what I compare the paragon class as a whole to is the ritualist. Ritualists can heal just as well as a monk and is only slightly worse than the necro at supporting the team (my opinion of course - im sure many would put rits on par with necros in terms of support). Of course, rits also have access to insane damage but i don't want to see that for the paragon. The rit's damage (through spirits) needs nerfing anyway. What I want to see is for the paragon to be able to heal or buff on par with the rit. Another way in which rits are very much like paragons is that many of their skills are conditional. However, unlike paragons, rits can control when the conditions on their heals/prots are met (via planting a spirit, holding ashes, or casting a weapon spell). This is what I want to see in terms of healing for a paragon. First, I want the recharges of their healing spells buffed so that a paragon can actually have enough heals to function as a primary healer. Second, I want paragons to be able to control when certain conditions are met. Third, I want the conditions for rediculously conditional skills like lyric of purification to be changed to something more universal.

One idea could be to change what the nomeclature of the motivation chants do. Songs could provide an unconditional boost (so for example, an SoR with a recharge of 10-12 could give an unconditional party heal, similar to LoD but with more of a health gain at twice the recharge and energy cost). Choruses could activate on all allies under the effects of echos when the chant is used. Ballad of Restoration could remain the same functionally (though it needs either a healing boost or some damage reduction when activated b/c as it is now, it doesnt really give any net healing gain whatsoever). Arias and Lyrics would need their own way to meet conditions as well, though i can't think of any off the top of my head. And of course, I still want to see the change to signet of synergy that i mentioned a few posts back in order to give the paragons one (just one) reliable single target heal.

In terms of party buffs, I also think that paragons need some way to control when conditions of skills activate. Certain skills like gfte are fine but others, when compared to rit skills, just have rediculous conditions (can't touch this) or are just flat out weak (crippling anthem and anthem of guidance).

Anthem of Guidance:
For the next 5...17 seconds, all party members affected by this chant cannot be blocked. Ends on party members under 50% health.

Take that you stupid raptors and shield monks!

Okay I have a few problems with this.
#1, the skill is balanced at 1..8..10 RIGHT NOW, go look at the wiki. my suggestion is 1..4..5 and 1..4..5 with some conditional and some unconditional. I still think that my +1 energy regeneration variant is better though... it's not as strong but it provides a consistent and reliable effect.
#2, you fail at reading comprehension... this skill would give 10e every 15s if the condition is met, and it is giving the same amount of energy in its current incarnation. where did you get 40e from?
#3, personal attacks are not helpful to the discussion.


#1, personal attacks again. And worse because you were completely wrong on the facts and still feel obliged to insult others. Just like you did in this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/p...t10444015.html
#2, your opinion may vary but many would say that earth magic is the most useful element in hardmode. Mass blindness, weakness, wards and knockdowns are always useful. Small armor-affected damage is not that great.
#3, H/H always bunch together so they will always be in the ward unless they are melee.
#4, Are you seriously suggesting that a cost of 10e is a major burden for an elementalist? One that certainly has earth attunement on?
#5, if you have some suggestions to change the cost, recharge, etc. that's fine and I welcome that discussion. The main idea is to make the skill into something useful, and mass KD prevention would most certainly be useful. And we have an existing skill to balance against. Brace Yourself as it exists now is not useful at all. Even in PvP it fails because Aura of Stability is far superior.

Constructive criticism would be helpful here... please explain *why* it is ridiculous, instead of just saying it is so. There are more cases of perma-blocking than I can count, and most at 50% or 75%. Aegis, Guardian, Displacement, Conviction, Flashing Blades, Shroud of Distress, Soldier's Stance for examples. Whirling Defense and Magnetic Surge also give a huge long 75% blocking chance but have a long recharge as well.

If up to 40% block chance (@ 15 command) is so scary, perhaps Bladeturn Refrain should be changed to have a different functionality. No one uses it now because it is too weak. One tradeoff that might be worth consideration is making it up to 40% blocking but only against melee attacks, this would be more similar to the original version of the skill.


Thou art a whiny baby... paragon has no AoE ability of any kind, and you complain that any of the mesmer's methods of delivering AoE are inferior to other professions? At least you have some methods to compare.


Not sure why mesmers are relevant to a discussion of paragons, but imo mesmers are very nice since the buff. Many forms of mesmer AoE damage have been buffed with increased damage and reduced recharge as well as reduced cost and increased AoE. Your favorite skill Psychic Instability is a good example... 4s knockdown to all nearby? for 5e? That is unmatched by any other profession... compare to Earthshaker or Earthquake. And Signet of Clumsiness can provide AoE knockdown for no energy at all. Energy Surge went down to 5e and 15s recharge, but with fast casting it recharges 33% faster than it used to... so the net effect is a AoE damage skill with half the cost and half the recharge (~10s) than it had before the update. Echo it and you have some great armor ignoring caster damage. Show me a caster that can do more!

So when I compared hardmode fire elementalists to hardmode mesmers I think that was a very valid discussion... I brought protection to make the fire eles relatively harmless but the mesmers cut right through such protection because their damage is armor-ignoring, and they cause mass energy loss besides. This is an example of how mesmers can be more dangerous than 'scary' fire eles.

I've updated my paragon skill suggestions page with some of the things mentioned in this thread and things people have told me in-game. Comments are welcome as always.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:..._skill_changes