02 Mar 2011 at 21:20 - 43
There's a fair few viable builds, its just that imbagon completely wipes the floor with them as nothing else can compete with 100% uptime +100 ar and the bonus 35%reduction and heal from tntf.
There's pretty much two ways they can go about improving the viable/effective skill pool for paragon, both of which require a nerf of SY.
1) Band aid fix. Tidy up moti. Make skills that benefit other classes more worthwhile as skills that are aimed at multi-para groups are fine as is (finale, chorus etc). Tweak a few skills & numbers through leadership/command. Add a little aoe to spear mastery, e.g. have holy spear do +20 aoe holy and an additional +80 is it hits a summoned creature.
2)Fix the core issues - eg the pretty crazy potential when you have 3-4together. The fact they have 96ar and ranged (sure, 76 w/ aggressive but this is a result of the 96ar). The way the put out solid dps and don't have to move an inch to target switch. The fact that they can adequately provide both offense and defense on the same bar with little negative effects in terms of attribs & breakpoints (another reason to take 3-4 if any at all when non imba) which in turn means a large number based buff would make them pretty overpowered as they could cover heals, armor and damage buffs and would strongly promote multi-para groups.
Essentially, until the core issues are resolved, any balance is going to have to be done carefully, because otherwise the scales are going to tip the other way very quickly due to the class design.
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And I don't see the -20ar issue tbh. If your running a melee build to be quirky, fine, but you can't expect to be as effective as the original profession. As we've seen with the derv, if other professions are using the weapons and being more effective, its generally a whole other balance issue, but being underpowered with another professions' weapon isn't something to complain about as the class isn't designed around said weapon.
