Dear Arenanet: Please expedite paragon fixes

Yes, I can imagine, because I vanquished Ascalon that way... before they nerfed Motivation into oblivion. There are still some good skills there but many have been made useless. Paragon healers used to be able to do a decent job but they are shut down easily... any form of blocking, blinding, miss hexes, anti-adrenaline hexes, etc. makes them pretty useless because without adrenaline their adrenaline-to-energy conversion shuts down. Because of this problem I would consider Monks and Ritualists to always be superior healers as they are better able to deal with adversity and they have more energy to start with. Having used one extensively, my opinion is that paragon healers are only useful in a team with other paragons... the constant rain of shouts and anthems make the few decent motivation skills shine.

Actually I am glad you brought this up because I think that Ritualists and Paragons are very similar from a design standpoint... ritualist is the caster version of paragon, and paragon is the physical version of ritualist. Both can deal direct damage, both can provide unstrippable party support (with weapon spells, spirits, shouts, anthems, refrains), both of them have healing ability, including mass healing. When you draw a direct comparison between the two the imbalance becomes pretty obvious.

paragon:
direct damage (spear): poor
offensive support (anthems): good
defensive support (imbagon, etc): excellent
healing/energy: poor
farming: poor

ritualist:
direct damage (SoS, DwG, Spirit's Strength): excellent
offensive support (weapon spells): good
defensive support (shelter, union, displacement, etc.): excellent
healing/energy: good
farming: excellent

The professions shouldn't be exactly equal but there should be good reasons to play each profession. At the moment there are plenty of things that ritualists are good at and only one thing that paragons are good at. This is the definition of imbalance.

I think the paragon is in need of a total re-invisioning.
How about Motivation actually is be about motivating instead of half-baked almost healing?
They don't need to be overpowering, but how about a shout that gives the party a 10% IAS for 8 seconds with a 12s recharge?
They can be balanced or have trade-offs as well. How about spells recharge 40% quicker but attack skills recharge 25% slower?
Why not make song of restoration take effect over time. +1h, +1e for 12s, with 30s recharge. Make Song of purifcation act like the rit spirit Recovery?

Command is pretty balanced since the GtfE buff (along with others) so it doesn't need anything.

Spear Mastery needs tweaks. I believe that while paras have decent dmg output with the spear, it's not equal to the 2e pip deficit and having to use an armor reducing IAS to be effective. Players severely restict their multiclassing ability by choosing a para and shouts alone don't make up for this. Get rid of the absurd casting times of the unblockable throws (increase cost if it bothers), decrease cost of wild throw (complete buff, no tradeoff please) and make the elites worth bringing. The two Spear elites are probably two of the most useless attack elites in the game. Stunning Strike has an adrenaline cost that makes it impractical for heavy use and Cruel Spear's conditional use needs to go. Like I said, increase the cost of Cruel Spear if you fear heavy abuse.

Leadership. I love the energy gain in 8 person groups, but I would like it tweaked to provide the same energy in a 4 or 6 person area. It stinks to be punished for trying to vq early areas. Also please decrease cost of hexbreaker aria or better yet make it a 15e skill. With a lot of the more difficult content in NF, EotN, and WiK having adrenal and shout shutdown, it's not fair that paras more than any other class are rendered useless and only a burden on their teams in these areas.

The single best thing that they can do for paras in the short-term and would have the most immediate effect would be to move TPiY from Motivation to Command and increase the time it's in effect. This would make the dagger/scythe spammer builds suitable for team play in advanced areas and would solve the "only one build" issue.

This is another thing that bothers me about paragons. It only takes one hex to completely make you useless. And often this hex is MAINTAINABLE and is packed on several foes in the opposing party. So basically if your planning on clearing a specific area with mobs that have these skills you either have to be ready to be useless or have excellent hex/condition removal on tap (which still will leave you useless for periods of time because most likely your friends/heroes/hench won't get around to removal right away).

I think the stuff that specifically targets and shuts down paragons should get toned down.

They should either do that or make it so that paragons are not married to adrenaline. Soothing images could be nerfed (longer recharge, more energy), and that would help.

I hate in Ravenheart Gloom or when facing Riders in Asuralands that they will ignore whoever aggroed and everything else to dive in and hex the imba.

There are several possible fixes, but they need to happen.

Eh, my biggest problem with the paragon is that so many of their shouts/chants are so absurdly conditional or situational. Although this problem effects the motivation line worse than the command line, there are still plenty of command shouts that need fixing. Im thinking of ones like brace yourself, godspeed, and can't touch this. There are also several skills that are fine in PvP but flat out underpowered in the PvE setting. The ones that come to mind immediately are bladeturn refrain and all of the elites. Its pretty bad when not one of the elites is of any use in the general PvE setting.

Err, do you ever use Cruel Spear? It is practically unconditional. I mean the condition is soooo easy to meet that I don't even really consider it any more. As it is, Cruel Spear is a ranged version of eviscerate that costs one adrenaline less. That is pretty good. I use it quite often and I never, never, never find the condition to be of any inconvenience at all.

I'm not quite sure how the dagger/scythe spam builds first caught on. They arn't really any better than spear builds and even if they were, using your elite on Tpiy is kind of a waste when energy can be maintained through other, non-elite methods (i use gfte, anthem of flame, and glowing signet on my scythe builds). This opens up room for an elite scythe attack like reapers sweep. But anyway... Don't you think that it would be better to solve the one build issue by promoting spear use rather than by promoting dagger/scythe use?

While I agree that it should take more than just one maintainable hex to shut paragons down, what really should they do to skills like soothing images and vocal minority? Neither of these skills is overpowered and nerfing them would kill a couple of well balanced skills. I think that instead, Anet needs to give some options for self-hex removal in the same way they gave remedy signet for self-condition removal. Maybe remedy signet can remove both a condition and hex from self (with an increased recharge to balance it) and an maybe one of the elite condition removals (paragons certainly have more of them than they need) can be changed into an elite hex removal instead.

Another change that I really, really want to see is for Angelic Bond to get reverted to its original behavior, except with a cost of 5 energy rather than 10. I remember enjoying playing the role of the protter in my group with skills like Angelic Bond, Angelic protection, and some defensive shouts like Stand your ground and tntf... good times, good times.

I don't completely agree. CTT buffed would be nice, but it gets the job done as is. Brace yourself is pretty useless, but how often are you really going to give up a spot on your bar for knockdown prevention, especially with I am Unstoppable as a cheap skill for individuals? Godspeed is a wasted skill, but I don't see how they can buff it without copying the other 4 "make someone run faster" skills.
I agree with the elites and BT refrain, they are just kinda...there.



I'm still for removing the condition, because given how gimped the spear line is, I think they need every little bit they can get.

I tried dagger spam and tried even 100b for giggles to research what I would want changed. I found the att. spread on dagger spam really underpowered it. Which is why I suggest moving TPiY to command or leadership.
As for why bring TPiY, it's a good thing when running Discordway or playing with casters. I would like to see it buffed because it's currently substandard for e-replenishing; but I see the logic in it.

Fixxing spear mastery is a fix for the one build issue, but it also doesn't "feel" right. Just OP'ing spears will just make them a ranger replacement. One idea that occurs to me is to indirectly buff Spear Mastery with shouts and chants that take effect over time. ie Next 1..3..4 spear attacks do +9...14...18 dmg.
Ideally I would like to see the shouts in Leadership since they are prof. specific, but I don't know which ones they could use.


I actually think nerfing soothing images and vocal min. would be harmless because you almost never see a human using these skills. Well balanced or not, they are primarily used by monsters in PvE. I don't think you'd see a single person QQ over their ruined build if Soothing Images or Vocal Minority disappeared. (especially VM, which was created specifically for PvE monsters to use against paras). You don't see a hex skill that prevents an enemy from casting fire magic do you?

I admit that I missed the AnBo days because I was still playing my ranger a lot. The skill isn't too bad now, but a nice buff to get it into people's bars again would be nice.

I'm gonna have to disagree STRONGLY that these dagger/scythe builds aren't any better than spear builds. I play dag spam all the time and it's night and day as far as damage goes. Go for the eyes is a godsend when it comes to dealing damage on paragons and maintaining energy.

Also Tpiy is good because it gives you your leadership bonus often (just as often as go for the eyes) and helps (albeit somewhat slightly) everyone else's energy.

Promoting spear use is important but I don't think that every possible other weapon build should be nerfed to further this end.

In general they aren't over powered but in their niche they completely destroy the specific class they are designed to go against. Also generally human players don't run these skills (in pve).

The way I see it you could actually buff these skills for players by modifying them a little and help out paragons at the same time. Make vocal minority more like backfire and cause damage when you shout. Make soothing images have degen and SLOW your adrenaline gain rather than halt it entirely (target foes gain 1/2 the adrenaline they would normally gain).

That way you're not nerfing them so much as you are changing them to suit players better.

I never capped that skill because by the time I started using my paragon regularly it was useless.

I'm not suggesting nerfing scythe and dagger builds.

I recognize that if u want to buff your party, tpiy would be a decent option but it isn't necessary for maintaining energy. In my scythe build, I use anthem of flame + glowing signet and gfte and this leaves space open for one of the powerful scythe elites.

You should try blazing finale. If your using that in conjunction with gfte you'll keep everything constantly on fire and won't have to recast the anthem.

Anyway yea it's not necessary but it's half decent. I don't think a buff (2 pips of regen?) would make it overpowered either.

"The Power Is Yours!" is one of those skills like looks like a completely worthless elite at first glance but it is an incredibly powerful leadership trigger engine. I really love the scythe build that utilizes it.

reasons why TPIY is good:
1) it's a shout and has no activation time
2) only costs adrenaline, thus gives the paragon energy on every use
3) ends quickly, so it triggers refrains and finales
4) gives +1 energy to everyone in the group

unfortunately, Go For The Eyes provides benefits 1,2,3 without using your elite slot, and 4 is hardly worth an elite slot. If the party really needs energy would you rely on a TPIY paragon or bring a necromancer with Blood is Power? Yeah, that's what I thought. TPIY needs a major buff imo, even in PvP. Lyric of Zeal gives 6 energy to everyone @ 10 motivation, providing they have a signet to use. If the conditions are met this skill gives at least six times the energy gain of the elite skill TPIY. :-\

I would be happy if they changed Hexbreaker Aria to: Chant. For 10 seconds, the next time each ally within earshot casts a skill, that ally loses 0..1..2 hexes. Kept the adrenaline cost and casting time. As it is now, its only helps casters. There are alot of PvE foes that carry anti-adrenaline/physical hate hexes. And this change wouldnt be OP, because for the most part a paragon would still rely on others for hex removal. Ironically, many hexes prevent paragons from using thier own hex removal. You could give it an energy cost to prevent this. But, if it cost energy it would have to be tied to Leadership with 0 hexes removed with 0-3 leadership, so other classes could not exploit it.

My reason for wanting a buff, is because unlike condition removal, there arent many options for hex removal. And if a Paragon is supposed to be about support, at least one good hex removal couldnt hurt.

hey guys, I have compiled a list of proposed changes to various paragon skills which I am preparing to send to the Arenanet dev team so they can lol at me. :-D I'd appreciate it if you could give me some feedback. A lot of the changes may seem familiar because most of them have been discussed on gwg at one point or another.

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/User:Khome..._skill_changes

Anthem of Guidence is meh. I'd like it better if it was an ias or added damage as well.

Angelic Bond looks cool but recharge is a bit long. 5 secs? Give it an adrenal cost (6-8 adren?).

I'd up the blocking to 75% for Defensive anthem.

Aria of zeal and restoration I'd make it skill rather than spell.

Also I'd tone down mighty throws AoE.

Overall I think those would be good changes though.

Okay thanks for the input! :-)
In response to your comments...

The changes to Anthem of Guidance were intended to make it useful without changing the basic function of the skill, making attacks unblockable. Besides that a global maintainable IAS would be pretty OP. then again, we have essence of celerity doing this already...

Angelic Bond was supposed to be 10e, 1s, 10r... if i botched it I will have to fix the page. The idea is to have a Shelter-like effect that covers the whole party, but it wears off on each party member after it reduces damage from an attack, so it is not invincibility by any means. I think it fits the intent of the skill and is useful without being overpowered.

Defensive Anthem is 50% because the original was 50% blocking. I thought that reducing the recharge was enough, because it is unstrippable... but since the non-elite Aegis can replicate this functionality, is 50% blocking really worth the elite slot? Maybe only in special cases like fighting Mallyx. We already have precedent for mass 75% blocking with the ritualist spirit Displacement so I don't think 75% is unreasonable.

Aria of Zeal and Aria of Restoration maintain the original intent of those skills, ie. triggering on spells only. There are other motivation skills that trigger on attacks, signets, etc. I agree that it would be better to have more generally useful and less specialized skills though.

Mighty Throw does have some AoE damage but it's not really that serious, it's similar to what you get with the ranger's Splinter Shot or one pulse of Ancestor's Rage or a hit from Splinter Weapon or Golden Phoenix Strike. It's less than half of what you get from Death Blossom. The spear buffs I suggested are intended to take the spear paragon from the "lol" category into the "decent" or "good" category. I don't think any changes I suggested could possibly take them into the "excellent" category, e.g. Hundred Blades, Critscythe, Death Blossom, AoHM, etc.

Maybe Anthem of Guidance can be turned into something like orders for ranged attackers?

something like...

10en
1ct

for 5 seconds, ranged attacks do 5...15...18 and projectiles move twice as fast.

that sounds good too, but it would mean losing the unique functionality of this elite skill; no other skill can make all attackers unblockable. Also remember that your proposal would stack with Orders, Barbs, etc. which could be a lot of damage. Then again, Strength of Honor stacks with all of those things already.

I love the list, but I also know that Anet likes a little give and take.

Angelic Bond might be overpowered a tad, but I like it and it sounds fair.
TPiY will be frequently abused but I like the short duration (for the give)
Spear of Redemption is begging for abuse though. It can't remove a condition stack but a low cost attack that also removes conditions. If you want Anet to seriously consider that one up the cost to 4a (trying to be impartial).

Bladeturn Refrain is very buffed up. I can see paragons bringing it to DoA Glaiveway and reading about GW players' heads exploding the next morning in the paper. It needs a longer recharge or else a smart para will refrain the whole party, which will make Ursan look like leet-skills required.

Also never surrender is practically party-wide mending. I know there are a lot of pve buffs and consumables that make it seem like nothing, but again, ex-perma farmers bursting veins and bleeding to death when ambraces start going for less than z-keys.


Other than that I love EVERYTHING, even the ones I think are overpowered.
It would be interesting to see this and see the return of the 8 para FoW clear (Singers of Woe back in the day)

Yea it's a shame we probably won't be seeing any changes like this for 6 months+.

Oh I doubt it will be that long Bel. The Dervish update is completely and is in test already. They are still not sure what they want to do for Paras so Khomet's wishlist is a very good idea. It gives them an idea what the players would like to see.
After that it's not too hard, especially since Khomet is not suggesting drastic changes, and even references other skills for similar effects.
The only drastic changes are Ballads and Anthems that affect multiple attacks, Angelic Bond reverting to old (not quite), and sustainable shouts in the Command line.
While all this would mean drastic changes in game and what's considered "meta"; the mechanics of this shouldn't be too stressful for Anet.
Unlike Rits that totally changed the mechanics of the skills, or even the mesmer update which saw drastic changes.
Most of Khomet's suggestions involve removing absurd conditions and changing numerical values (recharge, cost, and time). Anyone who's done coding knows the last is not difficult and the conditional arguements can simply be deleted.

The only hard part for Anet will be testing and weighing a deserved buff vs. shutting out other builds.

To be honest, I think this buff will be hardest on warriors and rangers. Hopefully Anet can toss them a few bones (reduced recharge times and cast times, etc.)