Dear Arenanet: Please expedite paragon fixes

I've been fiddling around around with my ranger as of late and it seems to me that they can deal considerably more single target damage than a para can.

If you run glass arrows with Asura Scan and PBS+Zojun Shot and Favorable winds you can deal around 150dmg to foes with 100 armor per attack skill. Then you can deal like nearly 200 (180-190) to squishes. That means in about 4 attack skills you can take out pretty well armored for and in 3 you can take out a squishy. No paragon can top that I think. Then there's barrage and whatnot that you could also be using to deal damage over an area which paragons can't do (except through burning and holy spear...derp).

Damge boost pl0x...or nerf rangers. Whichever would make everyone happy...

Hahahahaha ...... its .... a joke ..... right ?

Yeah lets nerf ranger damage even more so they can only use their omfgpwning skills like Spirits and Traps ! .... oh wait ....

I agree that the paragon shouts and chants need to be made more controllable by the paragon himself, but your idea looks like you're trying again to present your idea of the paragon as a backline character. Such a character is either useless because he's weaker than a monk, or overpowered because of 110+ base armor.
Also your idea would only slightly encourage any intelligent use of the motivatian chants themselves because you'll still spam them and then cast echos, signets etc. at the target in peril.
Conditions based on what your allies are doing right at the moment when you activated the chants (i.e. is casting a spell, is moving, is attacking etc.) will not saves time to attack because you don't waste time to manually active them, but you also have to use the chants at the right moment and simply spamming them will be far less effective.

Yes, such a build does high damage per attack, but how often do you attack? How much damage do you over time? How long can you manage to spam your skills energy-wise? How much support do you can bring?
A turret ranger deals about the same DPS, but attacks way faster and can therefor be buffed better.

AR, "TPiY!", "GftE!", EBSoH and Scan deals about the same DPS than your build, but attacks faster and can therefor be buffed better, already has more support and has sufficient e-managment to bring even more support and/or can bring attack skills to deal even more damage.

Since you're not believing me go the to ranger forum and ask how strong Barrage (and whatnot, whatever that is) is in general PvE.

No, only the ones who want to see paragons overpowered (or have an insufficient knowledge about the game mechanics, these two things seems to go hand in hand).
Ranged weapons are not meant for damage (many arguing that spears already deal far too much damage for a ranged weapon), if you want to deal very high damage grab a melee weapon.

/agree

I think rangers (bow skills, anyway) are fine as is... they can do a lot of damage to a single target, or a lot of damage to an area, they have a lot of flexibility. The paragon loses to the ranger in both cases and he doesn't have the ranger's bow preparations to boost his damage either. This is the primary reason why I feel that the paragon's damage is subpar and needs a boost. Paragons don't have preparations, so they are still going to lose, but if they had some form of multiattack it would help a bit.

I don't see to many people saying "ZOMG rangers are overpowered" so I don't think there is much justification for nerfing them. Instead the paragons need to be brought up to the ranger's level, or at least close to it.

This has been covered in #237 and elsewhere. There is no way that the paragon can compete with the ranger in raw damage because the ranger has multi-hit capability and preparations while the paragon does not. If you haven't realized this yet do the math and see for yourself. Numbers don't lie.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/r...t10425829.html


This has already been covered in great detail on gwg. As a real world example, recall that entire teams of splinter barrage rangers were used to farm Tombs. They can deal good mass damage with the proper team setup.

If you still say that Barrage sucks, history is there to prove you wrong.
Is it the best build in the game? Maybe not, but it's not bad either.

This is more misinformed crap from a melee-biased point of view. Glass Arrows is all about damage. Barrage is all about damage. Cruel Spear and Spear of Fury are pure damage. Saying that ranged weapons are not meant for damage is pure nonsense.
Lest you get confused again, I'll note that melee damage is always going to be higher because of faster attack speed, inherent bonuses (strength/crits), and things like Aura of Holy Might and Strength of Honor. But that does not mean that ranged weapons are (or should be) useless.

You attack relatively frequently since there are options for adding an ias. And you have expertise working for you so the attacks skills are about 2 energy pet usage and 1 if you have a zealous bow.

If you're just trying to do straight damage to one foe it's a damn good set up.

I can't test this in game since I don't have two of the skills required for it. So I can't say whether this is or is not true. Also this build I brought up isn't mine. It's from some guy on PvX

I don't need to. I actually run builds with barrage and they are effective. Like in the game. It's a good skill. And it deals good damage. I've been using it for years and years.


I understand that ranged weapons aren't going to be as powerful as close range weapons. But giving paragons a LITTLE BOOST in damage and SOME Aoe isn't going to have them dealing near the same amount of damage as warriors, assasins and dervishes. It simply will not.

you have to keep in mind that rangers only access to a couple of multi hit skills (dual shot and triple shot - which is a pve skill and should thus be compared to spear of fury), these skills do reduce damage done (thus partially compensating for the extra damage done by shooting two arrows), and bows have a much slower attack speed than spears. Attack speed has a very large impact on total dps. Bow Attacks also don't add much bonus damage (not nearly as much on average as cruel spear, blazing spear, stunning strike, and spear of lightning). Finally, all bow attacks cost energy which, even with expertise, can put an energy strain on a ranger, which is not something that paragons have to cope with.

All valid points. But they also have the advantage of being able to use preparations which can boost damage, add effects, help energy management, and increase attack speed. Also they generally have access to more conditions. There's also the fact that bows in general have longer ranges than spears. Then there's the fact that Rangers don't rely on go for the eyes to give them critical hits. Criticals are just icing on the cake for rangers.

Plus they can use pets, traps, and nature rituals...which of course are not the greatest damage boosters but they are there to help boost damage if you want them.

Also they have more AoE (Barrage,Volley, Traps, Melandru's Assault, a few preparations and incendiary arrows).


Also I've been thinking and I don't think it's a good idea to just power creep spear mastery skills. I think that anet should change the functionality of some of the command skills so that they aren't helping the team defensively but offensively.

Perhaps have a shout that makes you/the party give cracked armor with their next attack? Maybe an elite skill that makes the whole party deal more damage with their next attack/spell? A skill that makes hitting a foe with a spear attack hurt foes adjacent to the foe you hit would be cool too. Maybe even some e denial similar to fear me? (yea ok e denial sucks in pve...but I'm just giving ideas here).

What do people think of this? It would give paragons a more unique role in parties and make them more fun to play in my opinion.

Here's the deal.
We all know that most physical damage comes from buffs, this includes skill bonus damage plus things like orders, strength of honor, preparations. Since most damage comes from buffs the base weapon damage is relatively unimportant. Thus having Dual Shot reduce your base weapon damage by 25% is unimportant because the buff damage comes through without modification... 2 x whatever buff damage you have. So you can see that delivering more damage packets is the best way to take advantage of whatever buffs you have in your team. Warriors have a plethora of ways to do this with attack skills, Assassins do it natively with dual attacks, Dervishes do it natively with scythes, Rangers have access to Barrage/Volley/3Shot/2Shot/Forked as well as numerous 1s attack skills to get around slower bow attack speed. Paragons have nothing to match any of that and they are not able to take advantage of melee buffs or preparations either.

and about attack speed...
spears attack every 1.5s
shortbows/flatbows every 2.0s

under 33% IAS, this becomes 1.005s and 1.35s, according to http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Attack_speed.
0.3s difference between attack speed is not that significant, especially when I launch 2, 3, 4 or 7 arrows in slightly longer than it takes you to throw 1 spear. Go throw this against Master of Damage and I guarantee that the ranger will win every time.

If rangers couldn't deal more damage then a para, where would they fit in? If you haven't noticed, all rangers do is damage (which they don't even do as well as other professions). If they weren't the best ranged dps, they wouldn't fit in anywhere.

Also, paras weren't designed for dps (or aoe). IMO, they should have moderate dps that they can use while primarily focusing on party buffs (which could be both defensive and offensive).

And no ranger can top a para support-wise. Sounds good to me (actually, it doesn't sound good to me because rituals should be able to provide good support, but whatever).

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

I actually lol'd at that. Not a hearty, extensive, thunderous lol like the preceding use of caps lock may imply, but yea, I lol'd.

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This goes to all the super-para/mesmer-fans that have been so vocal lately: if you want buffs for your class, you should keep your recommendations sensible and keep the role of that paticular class in mind.

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Crash course on the PvE ranger on its way:

All conditions caused by bows are bad in PvE. Yes, all of them.

This is partially negated by Asuran Scan, entirely negated by shortbows, and completely reversed when using PBS/ZS. A ranger at Scan range will only have a few feet on a para at spear range, a ranger at shortbow range will be at the same distance, and a ranger using PBS/ZS (which is what you're using, apparantly, so it's interesting you brought up this point) will be much closer.

Criticals are 'icing on the cake' for every non-sin profession. Also, GftE raises all party damage and gives you good energy management, so I don't know why you're complaining about it.

Traps? Really? Lol.

Pets are useful to activate NRA and bodyblock. Including all the time they spend not attacking (which is literally more than they spend attacking), you'll get some retardedly low number of additional dps from them.

Rituals are pretty much always either counterproductive or too slow to actually be helpful.

Not every class is supposed to have offensive AoE, so this doesn't mean paras should.

Barrage is bad outside of organized tank 'n' spank PUGs. Volley is bad everywhere. Traps are... just bad all-around. Melandru's Assault just gives you ~20 damage (it's not +damage like the skill says, it's just damage) in a nearby range, so it's a pretty terrible skill. Incendiary would probably be good if you could spam it, but you can't so it's not. All the AoE preps are bad; they cause scatter and have very low damage (even with EBSoH) so they're counterproductive.

Oh, this is much, much better. /bow

That build still has pretty bad energy management. It's fine for areas with very short fights and small mobs, but not anywhere else.

Don't trust that guy; he listed Mtouch as an optional in PvE.

Overall, PBS/ZS spamming are quite mediocre, even by a ranger's standards. They kill your range, which is pretty much the only advantage a bow ranger has over a melee; energy management is 'meh,' which is bad for med-large battles; and PBS/ZS don't have activation times, which means they're worse for spiking (and that's the only strength of a PvE bow ranger).

Not for H/H. Unless you're in a very cramped area.

Haven't tested it with an IAS, then the damage might be slightly ahead of a Turret Ranger or an all damage Paragon.
Also what kills the build energy-wise are primary the PvE skills because they aren't affected by Expertise.

I haven't said Barrage is so bad that you cannot use it in PvE, but unless you tailor your entire teambuild around some Barrage users it's inferior to a single target bow build, and both are in general inferior to a dagger or scythe build.
Bows suck at dealing damage, that's why you read threads like "Are Bows Rendered Useless In PvE?" here and most good ranger players advise you to lay aside your bow in PvE and instead use daggers or scythes.

You've lost me here. Why do Paragons need critical hits? You rather mean "Paragons rely on cheap adrenaline chants/shouts for e-managment", right?

Most Command skills have their niches and uses, you don't have much skills to choose from without changing a currently useful skill. Also, "Never Give Up!", Godspeed or "Help Me!" doesn't sound like skills that could inflict Cracked Armor etc.

For the group of skills you brought up a good chunk of the damage comes from gfte no? Gfte in general is one of the main skills keeping paragon damage totally out of the gutter.

Well asuran scan doesn't really need it...and ebsoh is kinda energy taxing but you don't need that for big damage.


Eh I'd say there are enough to add some changes. You could always dip into motivation and leadership as well.

I've never really had to tailor my whole team around it...and Scythes and daggers are good on pretty much all the underpowered physicals.


But they already do :/ it just isn't worth thinking about. At least give them something that is almost as good as barrage. Since everyone seems to think it's not that great I don't see the harm in them getting a skill like that.

Also the whole let's nerf rangers thing obviously wasn't serious. I was just illustrating my point.

To be honest though the more often I play the more I think anets priorities are whack as far as buffing goes. They've got Dervishes,Paragons and Smite Monks before Ele's and Rangers...who are basically staples of the game. That doesn't make any sense to me.

And you know only one or two of these classes in need will get the buff they need before GW2.

If it's not great, why do you want it? It's redundant, not good, and doesn't fit with the paragon role at all. All it does is step on the toes of rangers in the few areas where it is good, and I'm not saying that's bad just because rangers are my pet class; a para version of Barrage would probably just make Barrage fall out of use completely, since paras would have AoE comparable to rangers, but with good support. It could also be pretty OP since paras are a class that involves adrenaline, so easy ranged hitting = mass spam of the soon-to-be-buffed defensive skills.

Also, how would it work? Cost? Energy or adrenaline? Number of targets? Drawbacks? If it's good enough to be useful without being overbearing, I wouldn't particularly mind its inclusion, though I still wouldn't completely support it, either.

Really? You made rangers sound pretty pwnsauce in the preceding paragraphs, so it sounded like you legitimately thought they were good. Then, you went on to share how rangers have 'awesome' stuff like traps, rituals, and Barrage (unless you were sarcastic there, too?). The only part that hints at sarcasm is the final sentence of the post in question, and that's only because a ranger nerf obviously wouldn't make anyone happy.

If all that was sarcasm, you're bad at sarcasm...

I agree with this. Not to mention, they buffed warrior, necro, and ritualist attributes in the update before mesmers, and all those classes were all very effective before the buffs, so...

So what if Ele's and Rangers aren't expansion classes? They have plenty of builds that are beyond viable. Try getting into a high-end PvP/PvE group as Ranger or Ele. You will. I don't know about Paras or anything else, but I know you won't as a Derv, hence the need to buff. And yes, believe it or not there are some of us who enjoy playing as the expansion classes.

Since Anet is looking at Paras, I suspect a similar situation for them, unless of course you're pigeonholed into running IMBAgon.

Eh I guess. I still think they should have something. Maybe something through the whole shout thing I was talking about earlier would be enough.

I wasn't being sarcastic...I was describing things that they do indeed have to boost damage. To show that they have all these possibilities to boost damage (be they good or bad) and paragons don't. That was my point.

I play all the classes...

A Derv can deal a shitload of damage. Not as much as Warriors and Assassins but they can get shit done. They aren't nearly as far behind as ele's who are supposed to be the main damage dealers in the spell casting world. Rangers can deal OK damage but have a ton of useless crap skills tied to their profession. These guys have been around since day one. By now they should be fine.

Paragons are in bad shape. But they are new compared to the other classes in bad shape. I'd say they should have priority over Dervishes for sure. But I think Everyone else should too (except smiting monks...I think that could be put at the end o the line).

Hey, get your quotes in order, I was the one who called you on that.

You admit it yourself, Derv's are the last one of the melee characters in terms of effectiveness. And while they do more damage than Ele's in HM, you're forgetting that Ele's don't need to be up in a monster's face to cast a spell. Not to mention their AoE spells aren't restricted to hitting three enemies like a scythe. You're comparing apples to oranges and it does not work.

You make two arguments as I see it:
1. The core classes have been around longer so they should have been balanced already.
2. Ele's and rangers are more in need of buffing, which is tantamount to saying they're less useful in a group.

@ 1. The only reason they're still trying to balance is because of the inevitable power creep, combined with the lack of attention they've given GW1 since GW2 production. We could argue back and forth on whether the Ele/Derv/Para needs balancing first but that's not what's important. The fact is that Anet is getting it done. The only one that annoyed me was the Warrior buff which definitely should not have been a priority.

@ 2. Ele's and rangers can get in high end PvP/PvE. I'm not sure about Para's but I know as a Derv I am not welcome in high end PvP/PvE. 'Nuff said.

PS: If a "new" to you is one introduced in 2006, then I think you need to update your stuff. Its the middle of 2010. At this point in the game's life, using the fact that the core classes are over a year older than Para/Derv is kind of moot.

Alrighty, then. If they're as bad as they are, I don't think they're worth considering, though, because they might as well not be there.

Eh? I didn't say that...

The only commonly ran, high-end PvE that eles and rangers are welcome in is physway and glaiveway, which also accept dervs.

So dervs are pretty much on par with rangers and eles farming-wise. However, rangers (and maybe eles) are actually worse than dervs in general PvE. Having played all the underpowered professions somewhat extensively, I think the priority order should've been ranger, derv, ele, para. Though, arguing over priority order is meaningless, since they already confirmed that they're working on dervs, paras, and lolmonkslol.

I play all 10 professions, in PvP and PvE. The Derv and Para need the most help, because they have the least amount of options atm. But, I wouldnt say the Ranger and Ele have plenty of viable builds. Rangers and Eles have a few niches in PvP, depending on the format. PvE is another story. The damage an Ele deals in HM PvE is subpar at best. And the team builds that involve Eles takes 3 or 4 of them spamming SF to work. The fact that Anet stated smite Monks need help instead of Eles is beyond me. My list for what needs help would be Derv, Para, Ele, and maybe Ranger. Comparing the four is pointless because they all need help and hold a different niche.

Paragons dealing AoE barrage type damage with a Spear is the wrong way to go. Paragons should deal AoE damage indirectly. Spears are just fine the way they are. They should have shouts that increase the damage of thier party members. I would even be happy with a shout/chant that allows all party members to deal +X damage to target foe and +X damage to adjacent foes with thier next attack. Anthem of Fury and Anthem of Guidance would be perfect for a buff like that. Something like Splinter Weapon(but not as powerful because it would be party wide) with a Paragon twist.

Ive said this before and I'm going to repeat it until it changes. Paragons should be able to specialize in offensive buffs as well as defense. Paras already have the prot part of defense and the Motivation line is already close to being viable. Give Paragons an offensive way to support the team and they wont have any trouble getting into a group w/o using an Imbagon.

About Eles, HM PvE is not the only aspect of the game. Fire eles are omnipotent in NM prophecies and factions, it's ridiculously easy.
Also, lvl 28 eles are quite hard to face, they can easily wipe a party (H/H) if their number at the start of the battle isn't well counted. They do not need to be boosted.
The only change eles need is a reduce in HM foe armors. Maybe reduce their armor against elemental damages so they aren't as high as against physical damages.

I still cant believe the huge amount of BS when comparing to other classes. Those 2 ( yes , because there are only 2 guys supporting this outofmind buffs ) are still comparing P to a guy with a 2-2.4 sec fire rate , little faster if using IAS ( a P with an Ias is 1 attack per second LOL ) that has NO supporting skills AT ALL. Yes , i didnt forget spirits because spirits AND traps are EVEN WORSE than Motivation skills ( yeah, not QQ , just reflections of reality ).
Now some ppl seem to forget that Rangers have stupid 70 armor and 100 vs elemental , on the other hand , Paragons with its insignia ( wich is regular ) are about 106 GENERAL armor under a shout + AL insignia ( if you have ).
Now you want same DPS than ranger , almost same armor than the warrior , be able to heal almost like a Rit or Monk and buff defense and attack to the party like NO ONE can with IRREMOVABLE buffs ????? what else dude ? AOE ? holy lol , what more ? an "i win button" ?.

Seriously , let this thread die , its sad .....

PS: Boosting your party damage ITS your AoE , cut the bullcrap for G sake.

Woops. I guess with all the mass post dissection going on I got confused somewhere. That's why I hate arguing that way.

At any rate. I think after the big derv update they should do a few small fix updates for rangers and ele's (because I don't think they need a total reworking just a few choice changes). Then after that they should do a big update with paragons.


Uh what? Pretty much anything can make nm PvE wither quickly. Making Hard Mode easier is not the key to fixing ele's.

That's the point in made in the Ele qq thread. You can't just let high end HM dungeons dictate class design. I'm willing to bet that the vast vast majority of GW players are playing NM quest chain missions (that's what I usually do). I think it is reasonable to have buffs applicable to "monsters with more armor than you", "monsters with more health than you", etc... The ritualist right now is ridiculously overpowered in NM. You can lay spirits down, walk away, and come back to them being nearly full health with a dead mob at their feet.

I haven't been following this thread very closely, so I apologize if I an covering already discussed topics. I would preserve the paragon in the spirit in which it was intended, as a party-wide enhancer. Kind of like Channeling vs. Communing, I would make the Command line primarily skills that increase the damage your party deals and make the Motivation line more defensively oriented skills. I would tweak leadership so that you aren't punished energy-wise in forced smaller team areas (4 man areas..).

I think paragon needs a couple different skills so you have better options to use while running teams. so more divercity.

One or two reworked skills that help yourself. "Selfish skills" that add hp armor or damage. Nothing imba like SoS SF or RoJ but something useful possibly all in the Leadership line.
Being Selfish you will not gain loads of energy through Leadership as it is only affecting yourself.

A couple re worked motivation skills that can add some direct damage reduction to target Or Direct healing as other healing skills are a bit... Random. Again this will only affect the target so not loads of energy gain through Leadership. These could be Chants so just a quick idea...
" For 5-20 seconds damage received by target ally is reduced by 5 - 10. " 10e 25s cooldown

So you could help prot a team mate but not the hole party.

And finally one or two reworked Spear Attacks that offer mild AoE (Im not talking RoJ on a spear) Maybe like a small version of chain Lightning possibly a small version of "Splinter Spear" Or a spear attack that explodes on target for and foes ajacent almost like Ignite Arrows.

Again these spear attacks arnt affected by leadership and could only offer MILD aoe.

And on a final note, i am not a Anet Dev and dont exactly know how these will affect the game, however IMO Para's need divercity and this is just some ideas how this could be done.

/agree with commander kanen, except i think he understates things when he says that paragons need diversity. as it stands now, it is imbagon or nothing unless you're going H/H.

the basic problem is that the paragon does not fulfill any of his roles well.
(if I have left out anything please say so)

direct damage (spear) is weak compared to all other physical attackers

offensive support (anthems) is weak compared to necromancers, ritualists, or monks

defensive support (shouts, echoes, refrains) is generally weak unless we use PvE skills (SY, TNTF). The only decent defensive paragon skills that come to mind are Stand Your Ground and Never Surrender.

healing, energy (motivation chants) is weak compared to what necromancers and monks provide.


Simply put, there is no reason to take a paragon because other professions will be superior in whatever role you choose. There are a lot of people who say that the paragon has well-defined roles within the party, and they resist any attempts to make paragons more equivalent to the other professions. However, as it stands now the paragon does not *HAVE* any role within a group because he is strictly inferior to the alternatives in every category. Thus it is no wonder that other professions are preferred. If it were not for PvE skill abuse paragons would vanish from groups completely because the paragon skills themselves are not good enough to merit a party slot.

I appreciate the idea, and we can use as many suggestions as we can get. But, if you buff a spear skill, what will stop an Assasssin, Ranger, Warrior, or even Dervish from exploiting it? They are already better spear chuckers. I like the Ignite Arrows effect, but wouldnt that be better as a shout or chant? You would have a similar effect but it would work in a more paragon like way.

I agree with Khomet an alot of things like what areas need buffing and I even like some of his suggestions. However, comparing Paragons to other professions isnt the best way to approach fixing things.

The Spear is only comparable to the Shortbow. Here is an example:

Spear
Maximum damage range: 14 - 27.
Damage type: Piercing damage.
Attack rate: 1.5 seconds.
Range: 1.0 danger zone radius.
Projectile flight time: 0.60 seconds.
Projectile arc size: Low.

Shortbow
Maximum damage range: 15 - 28.
Damage type: Piercing damage.
Attack rate/interval: 2.0 seconds
Range: 1.0
Projectile flight time:0.59 seconds
Projectile arc size: Medium

The Baseline advantage goes to the Spear due to attack rate. When you compare Spear skills to Bow skills, thats comparing apples to oranges. Like professions themesleves, they provide a unique niche and should stay unique.

Saying that the Paragon has weak offensive support is an understatement, Im sure alot of people agree. "GftE" and Anthem of Envy are it. If I missed an offensive Paragon Shout or Chant let me know. In order for "GftE" to make a significant contribution to a team, you have to have 3-4 physical attackers minimum. Anthem of Envy can potentially be a very powerful skill, but it also needs a physical team set up with spirits and is very conditional. See my above post for suggestions.

Paragons have good single target damage. I'v said it before and i will continue to say it. Spears are good and spear mastery (with the exception of the obviously bad skills like mighty throw and unblockable throw) is fine as it is. We have had enough power creep, and while i am all for buffing the underpowered support and healing that paragons have, i dont want power creep to raise any more with needless buffs to the paragon's offensive potential.

I figured i would find some quotes by others who have had enough experience with paragons to write guides on them and post them in the campfire section.

This first quote is from Clawofcrimson's guide:

The next are from Snow Bunnies' guide:

I also am remembering back to a study done a long time ago (i forget what the guy who did the study's name was but i think it was celestial beaver or something like that. Regardless of his name, he had done enough research about paragons to have a guide posted in the campfire section prior to the current ones). In this study, it was determined that spears do in fact have the highest single target dps. Now im not saying that paragons are the most effective spear users, and i am completely in support of critical strikes only affecting dagger use and strength only affecting warrior attack skills so that paragons are the best spear users. However, spears and, in general, spear mastery, are good as they are.

1. Spears are ranged.

2. Spear attacks in general add a good bit of bonus damage. The only weapon attribute that adds more bonus damage to its attack skills is dagger mastery, and that is fine since assassins are supposed to be a primarily offensive class and daggers have a very low dps without attack skills. While there are some warrior attack skills that do more damage than spear attacks, the only ones that are like this are executioner's strike, mighty blow, and the really high adrenaline-costing attack skills. In PvE, where dps wins over spike potential, spear of redemption is going to do more damage than executioner's strike (Spear of redemption only costs 3 adrenaline to use and can be spammed very often). Blazing spear which costs 2 adrenaline less causes a lot more damage. Spear of lightning inflicts a massive amount of bonus damage with its armor penetration, and vicious attack is a good, reliable way to inflict deep wound in builds not utilizing cruel spear. Daze is very good, and spear swipe gives paragons a good way to inflict daze when stunning strike isn't being used. Other attacks like maiming strike, barbed spear, distracting toss, and merciless spear are PvP oriented attacks and are good in their intended setting (and remember that there are attack skills in all weapon attribute lines that are intended for pvp and not useful in the pve setting). This leaves only a few spear attacks (mighty throw, unblockable throw, slayer's spear) that are weak in pve, and there are a few attack skills in all attribute lines that are weak as well. I'm not saying that these few weak skills shouldn't be buffed, but i saying that spears in general should be buffed because of a few weak skills is wrong.

3. Spears are one handed weapons. This gives them an inherent advantage over hammers, scythes, bows, and daggers since it allows the paragon to bring a shield.

4. Once again, spears have the best dps of any weapon.

5. Paragons are the only class that have access to a permanant IAS. While AR does have a drawback, so do all IAS skills, and AR's drawback is very minor considering paragons are backliners with high armor (even with the -20) that rarely get targeted.

So please, i'm all for buffing the useless motivation chants and the rediculously situational/conditional leadership and command shouts and chants, but there is absolutely no need to buff spears.

I'd like to see them give the paragon more fast recharging, low cost shouts to provide leadership fuel (Go for the eyes and The Power is Yours are lame). It does seem like I run out of energy a lot playing a paragon.

And I way second more offensive buffs. Stuff that makes minions do nasty stuff. Stuff that gives party-wide splinter-wep type effects. Stuff that effects monsters within shout range (banshee type effects).

Also, if you want to keep other professions away from the paragon skills, give Leadership an Expertise-like quality (for every x ranks in leadership your paragon skills cost less) or like the Mesmer buff (for every x ranks in leadership your paragon skill recharge faster). You can then raise the energy costs or recharges to compensate. That's what they did to the mesmers.

I disagree with AR being good. You might as well take a squishy and give him a shield. Since that is what the -20 armor turns you. It's a little dumb for PvE in my opinion.

paragons still have a ton of armor due to the insignias (+10) and shield (+16). It is widely advised that you have a shield set with +10 ar vs. x damage so that adds another 10 giving a grand total of 86-96 armor. Thats not squishy. Plus, like i said, enemies rarely target paragons since they go for low armor casters and frontliners first (making paragons tied with rangers for the least desirable target for an enemy). I mean, i am rarely targeted in PvE when playing my paragon. IAS's all have some type of negative drawback, and AR has the least of a drawback among all the IAS's. Plus, AR is permenant and therefore free.

Critical Agility can be permanant if you're really quick. Oh, and it has no drawbacks either (well, I guess being a PvE skill could be drawback), but yea, it's more of an exception than the rule.

Nah, leadership does its job unless you bring way too many energy skills. Also, if it did need a buff, copying other professions' attributes would be pretty lame. The only real problem I see with leadership is that it's pretty bad in any party size less than 8, which is also a problem with the paragon as a whole.

Yea, its kind of an exception seeing as it is a pve skill so its supposed to be op. I was talking about normal skills.

Let's start a character with prophecies, will you take Orion or Reyna ? Orion or Dunham ?
Why do you think Factions first ele henchies are not fire eles ?
I've made engouh characters through prophecies and factions to tell you the more fire eles, the easier the missions (of course there's arguably exceptions, more evident when foes are immunes to burning conditions).
Will you take Sousuke or Jin in Nightfall ? Will you team with Melonni or Sousuke as hero ?

PvE isn't easy, man need hundreds hours of play to really understand its basics. Of course, if you're so used to abuse op PvE skills, you probably miss the point.

Anyway my idea is not to make HM easy, but easier for ele who are stuck with elemental damages. I think only eles are stuck with elemental damages, others have physical, shadow, chaos, holy, untyped, or even no damage at all but lifestealing or degen.

I agree, -20 armor is a very bad thing. Well, it's always better than the -40 of frenzy, but who uses frenzy ? In H/H mode (99 % of the game), you'll have the whole first wave of each attacks as you're always the first to enter the aggro range of foes.

Being quick doesnt matter, what matter is achieving criticals in those 14-20 sec. It may not require 2 careers but is not as easy as pressing a button ( chant , to maintain SFury or AR ) and has its drawbacks :
- Its a PvE skill
- Everytime it refreshes stays on top so any Enchant Removal > CA.
Anyway sins have it for its armor bonus , otherwise Alcohol + Drunken Master would be hell better and only has 1 counter , stance removal ( pfff @ PvE ).

For anything else , Laniers post are pretty clear. Spear attacks ( yes lol , its 1,33 sec , like a swd/axe ) with an IAS + Ebsoh and Splinter/GDW + Asuran Scan + GFTE = Win. Its a bloody brutal DPS that only requires 4 skills and 1 buff from the outside and any spammable attack ..... what did you expect ? rangers also gotta have 5-6 slots or more to do decent DPS.

AR is not the only permanent IAS. Honestly, it's one of the crappier IAS's in the game (it's just that ranged characters in general have horrible options for IAS, and AR is not quite AS crappy). CA, as mentioned, is maintainable, as is Onslaught (as terrible as it is), as well as Frenzy and Flail. And since AR is only a 25% IAS, you don't even need to be maintainable to beat it in terms of overall attack speed. A 33% IAS that can be maintained 2/3 of the time is actually slightly better than a maintainable 25% one (ie, Heart of Fury).

There are many IAS skills which give permanent IAS with no drawback, not to mention consumables or PvE skills. Soldier's Stance, Onslaught, Way of the Assassin, Expert's Dexterity, Rapid Fire are some examples. Most of these are elite so perhaps it makes sense that Aggressive Refrain should get the armor penalty while the elite IAS (Soldier's Fury) should not have any armor penalty.


Lanier I understand what you are saying here but the conclusions are all wrong. The 'spear DPS guides' you mention compare autoattack DPS of various weapons. If you are doing nothing but autoattacking, spear may have comparable DPS to the other weapons assuming no other modifiers; however, since all other professions have higher bonus damage on attacks and also higher buff damage that can be applied to their weapons, other professions will always win.

1) "Spears are ranged". This is a useless argument since bows are also ranged, with slower attack rate, and are still far superior in terms of damage.

2) Spear attacks typically add 5..17..20 bonus damage, only the elites go higher than that. (I'm not counting the broken 3s activation time spear skills)
There are many warrior, dervish, assassin and ranger skills that deliver up to 40 bonus damage or even more. That said, if you look at the suggestions I posted you'll notice that there are really no boosts to bonus damage at all, instead I have focused on the weak skills and attempted to make them useful by adding multi-attack or minor AoE or making them less conditional. Single target DPS would not be affected at all.

3) "Spears are single-handed weapons, thus allowing the use of a shield." Perhaps you've heard of swords and axes? There is a reason why warriors are preferred in PvP, it's because they have the most reliable DPS, period. If paragons could compete teams would be using them. Warriors also have easy access to knockdowns (and they are 50% longer besides) which no other profession can match. Aside from the above, this claim has little importance in a world where we have SY, TNTF, Shelter, Union, Displacement and Ether Renewal prot spam.

4) "Spears have the best DPS of any weapon." It is trivially easy to prove that this is false in any case other than pure auto-attacking, which is useless.
Anyone can load Strength of Honor, AoHM, or Glass Arrows and put the lie to this claim in an instant.

5) "Paragons are the only profession with access to a permanent IAS". This is also false, every profession has a maintainable IAS and I will give a few examples of these: Soldier's Stance, Onslaught, Way of the Assassin, Expert's Dexterity, Rapid Fire. Note that *ALL* of these provide permanent IAS with no drawbacks of any kind; this really makes the paragon's IAS options seem weak by comparison.

Khomet, about your point 2), there's paragons non elite skills with +40 damages :

- Spear of fury (ok, pve)
- Wearying spear (inflict weakness, but with condition remover in the team it's not so important)
- Holy spear (if you target a sprit or a minion, if the conditions isn't met it's despite all a decent 4 adrenalin skill)

Arguments? Just because you say so, it doesn't mean it's true. Actually, FACTS prove otherwise.
So do Bow attacks. And that's even before we take refire rate into account. If anything, it's Rangers who need an improvement in this field.

What part of "Ranged Weapons" can't you understand?

It's supposed to be like that, and for the sake of balance it's better for it to stay like that. Ranged weapons were NEVER meant to deal as much damage as Melee Weapons, due to the fact, guess what, that they are ranged.

Sure... No direct boost to damage, indeed. Thank goodnes, I might add, since you just took every drawback to these skills - mostly motivated by the fact that Spears are ranged weapons - and simply got rid of them. Cruel Spear is the finest example...

Perhaps that's why most PvP warriors are Hammer Warriors. Are you sure we're playing the same game?

AR is the only one that is permanent in the sense that it stays on you... forever.. without having to refresh it with energy or adrenaline. I didn't think about CA earlier, and i will give it to you that CA is better due to the + armor but it is a PvE skill, so its supposed to be more powerful. Onslaught is an elite and therefore should be compared to soldier's fury rather than AR. Frenzy can be permanantly maintained, but it gives even more of a downside than AR does. Im sure other people who have played warriors in PvE will tell you that upkeeping flail in the middle of a battle is counterproductive when you have to move from target to target. That is why warrior's always bring a cancel stance with their flail, b/c flail can actually decrease their total dps if it is active when the warrior moves from one target to another. Since creatures don't autobunch themselves, i have found this to happen quite often meaning there are many times when i am left without an IAS or when i have to pay some adrenaline to refresh it. Heart of Fury costs 10 energy to refresh on a profession that is already strapped for energy. AR is permanant and free.

While I would agree that Soldier's Fury shouldn't have the armor penalty, you can't really compare AR to elites. Maybe I should clarify what I said earlier. AR is the best non-elite, non PvE skill IAS. In addition to what i have already said, echos can be stacked with other echos meaning that you arn't limited to just using AR like you would be if you were using one of the warrior's stances or one of the rangers stances or preparations. Rapid Fire takes up the rangers preparation slot, ensuring that they can't use another useful one like expert dexterity, glass arrows, ignite arrows, or apply poison.

No, no, no. You have already acknowledged that, throw autoattacking, spears do more damage than bows. So the issue is with attack skills. Thing is, spear attack skills are good and, imo, better bow attack skills. Dual shot (ill leave out triple shot, along with spear of fury, since they are PvE skills) is a pretty awful skill on its own unless you stack attack buffs, and if you stack attack buffs, any attack skill will be powerful. For the most part, the bow attack skills are either expensive or not very powerful. Ones like sundering attack and penetrating shot may be powerful but they are too expensive to spam without significant energy support (elite energy support like prepared shot, thus using your elite), plus spear of lightning and vicious attack (if you use it with gfte to get they deep wound like you should) do more damage. Im not sure where you are getting that bows are powerful damage dealers.

Spear of Lightning adds far more damage. Blazing Spear adds far more damage. Vicious attack adds far more damage (with the deep wound). And of course, the elite spear skills do more damage than that. Spear of redemption, like i said, may have the bonus damage that you say but it has a far greater dps than say an executioner's strike due to the far lower adrenal cost. Same goes for holy spear which is twice as spammable as the 8 adrenal warrior attacks. When you compare skills, you have to take adrenaline cost and spammability into consideration since this is PvE where dps matters and spike potential doesn't. This leaves only bad ones like swift javelin, slayers spear, and ones like wild throw that are not used for the bonus damage but rather for the secondary affect (if you want a higher adrenal skill for the bonus damage, use cruel spear or blazing spear).

That said, you are incorrect in saying that most warrior, ranger, and dervish attack skills hit for "40 or more damage". The only ones that get that high are either exceptionally expensive ones for the dervish (like chilling victory) that cant be used that often anyway due to their cost (or require an elite energy management to be used efficiently), one ones with very high adrenal cost for the warrior like executioner's strike and mighty blow that have far less of a a dps than even spear of redemption. Pretty much all ranger bow attacks do either the same amount of damage or fewer bonus damage than the spear attacks.

Finally, like i have said in the past, Paragons do not need AoE. Different professions should be better at different things, and not ever offensive profession needs to have the same strengths. Paragons (who arn't even supposed to be an offensive profession... they are supposed to be a support one) don't have AoE but they shouldn't have AoE because they have good single target dps with both their spear in general and with their spear attacks.

Warriors are preferred in PvP not because of their dps but because of their spike potential, Period. Skills like executioner's strike are useful in PvP because of the way they can put high damage on a target at once. In PvE, spear of redemption, holy spear, or blazing spear is better because it can pump out more damage overall. Also, warriors are preferred because they automatically do more damage with their strength armor penetration. I'll acknowledge that this is one bonus that warriors have over paragons in damage potential, and i have stated in the past that i would like to see paragons better offensively than warriors or assassins using spears by limiting critical strikes to daggers and limiting strength to warrior attack skills. However, i am in this post trying to say that spears and spear attacks are good as they are, regardless of which profession is using them.

It would be more accurate to discuss dps in situations without buffs since any weapon is technically buffable. Sure you can buff an axe warrior with strength and honor, but i can also buff a spearchucker with orders. Still, this is kind of beside the point since i am talking about the strength of spears and spear attacks - not of buffs. If you want to improve buffs to spears, thats another topic and could be handled by giving them a shout or something but for now, lets accurately compare dps by assuming no external buffs are present.

Like i said above, you can't compare AR to elites. this leaves rapid fire as the only comparable skill you mention, which does have a drawback in that you can't take any of the other preparations (and there are a lot of effective ones to choose from).

PvE skills don't count. :-)

Wearying Spear reduces your own damage, I don't think that is helpful to a damage discussion at all. Now if there were a way to become immune to conditions (e.g. Avatar of Melandru) then this skill might be useful. This is what the Dervish was abusing with Wearying Strike, and Avatar of Melandru was nerfed because of it. Note that even if a healer removes the weakness quickly you're likely to throw at least one spear while under the weakness condition. It hurts your overall damage and it wastes your healer's energy.

Holy Spear is great but the normal effect is 5..17..20 damage as I have said. The bonus effect is spectacular... up to 90 holy damage to all nearby, PLUS 3s burning? Yes please... but it only does this to minions and spirits, so this great skill becomes mediocre in most parts of the game including PvP. I don't know how to make this skill better without making it overpowered. Possibly it could be changed to deliver up to 45 holy damage to all adjacent and another 45 damage to all nearby if target is a minion or spirit.

for a cost of only 4 adrenaline... compare to executioner's strike with twice the damage but can only be used half as often. If this attack weren't ranged, i would say they were equal in power (in PvE). The fact that holy spear is ranged means that it is slightly better.

I created and tested a spear ranger build just for giggles: Spear Ranger
The build would be even better if I had Spear of Redemption and a zealous spear, but it's still able to deal 100-105 DPS against the MoD and ~10 more if the pet is also inside of the EBSoH.
But since bows are superior in terms of damage belshazaarswrath or Khomet Si Netjer can surely show us a bow build that outdamage my build and is able to maintain its energy for 30+ seconds, right?

Btw: In an actual PvP match Paragons can often match or even surpass Warriors DPS because kiting and snares have a far smaller effect on them.