Burning Barrage

ArenaNet seems content to let paragons rot in their current state so I've been busy coming up with useful builds so that the paragon can do something (ANYTHING) other than TNTF/SY spam. Usually this will mean investing heavily into a secondary profession because there isn't a lot to work with if we stick with paragon skills. Anyway here is one such effort that actually works pretty well in testing, try it and see what you think. The PvE skills can be changed out for whatever you want but these are a good place to start.

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

I always liked the concept of Burning refrain seeing as if an enemy has more health than you, he is a threat, and does less damage to you [ultimatly, with BR], and if he has less health, he's pretty much dead anyway.

So kudos to you for at least throwing some new ideas together

Before they made BB take 8 strength to be useful, I loved my BB para that I would RA with.
Just use Anthem of Flame and Signet of Aggression before the fight starts and then you have BB ready to use for your first attack. And it would set them on fire.
But alas, now my paragon is weak again.

These builds are sick, I'm definitely using some of them

Thanks for throwing ideas out there. Especially if for ZMs where teams already have a para.

Thanks for the ideas Khomet will be trying this later

does this work for heroes

I'm going to give these builds a shot. Thanks.

Wow! Thanks. WIll try them out and so allow my para to come out of storage, finally.

Thanks for the positive comments! This is an extension of ideas from paragon heroes that I use in my paragon team, Kway, so yes it works on heroes. They are programmed to spam Anthem of Flame all the time and this will refresh any refrains that are in effect. You don't even have to put Burning Refrain on everyone in advance, the heroes will eventually put it on all physical attackers during combat and then it will be refreshed forever. I even noticed them putting it on casters (e.g. Norgu) sometimes.

Heroes will need Anthem of Flame, and the other two PvE skills (and possibly Keen Arrow) can be replaced with whatever you like. I suggest the following:

Anthem of Flame*
Aggressive Refrain
Hexbreaker Aria
Glowing Signet (+14 to +16 energy)
Signet of Return
Favorable Winds
Distracting Shot
Body Shot (+17 damage and +9 energy if target has cracked armor)
Crossfire (+17 damage, unblockable)
Called Shot (3x faster, unblockable)

As far as equipment goes, a zealous bow helps with energy, otherwise use vampiric or sundering. I don't usually like Superior runes because of the health loss, but in this case it may be worth it to use one... it increases the damage resistance from ToF/TNTF which helps counteract the health loss, and lower health makes Burning Refrain trigger more often, and higher leadership also helps with energy.

Some screenshots I took while doing Underworld with one of my guildmates. Note the mass burning... it happens fairly often, though I have noticed that the fire animation isn't always visible. I switched to a superior leadership helm for this run and I find that it helps a lot for all of the reasons previously mentioned. GFTE gives +8 energy with this setup and you can charge it with every Barrage... so if you are hitting 4+ foes at once, you actually GAIN energy with each barrage. I used a Vampiric Destroyer Shortbow of Fortitude with 15>50 inscription, the energy was fine without needing to use a zealous bow. I also used Body Shot on this run and it worked pretty well, my heroes were throwing Weaken Armor all over the place and I found that Body Shot gave me energy almost every time I used it. If we had more physical attackers (not just the paragon) it would be a good idea to bring Orders and EBSoH to boost the damage further. Instead I brought Tryptophan Signet to improve the grouping for barrage and EBSoW to make the hero's spells recharge faster. Orders+EBSoH could give up to +32 damage on every arrow (and there are a lot of arrows in flight) so it is probably worth it even with only one physical attacker, assuming that you can work it into your team.

This build will be less useful in the final fight against Dhuum because he is immune to conditions, thus no burning, thus ToF gives no damage resistance though TNTF still works. However a RoJ/smiting monk hero could bring Judge's Insight, and with that you would destroy mobs of skeletons almost instantly. Definitely worth trying if you aren't using Orders.

I brought a smite monk to test out some ideas mentioned previously, the key skills are Ray of Judgment and Judge's Insight. Aside from RoJ's damage it also causes mass burning which has good synergy with the Burning Barrage paragon. And Judge's Insight improves the damage quite a bit.
I bring EBSOW on the paragon to make all of these high powered spells recharge an average of 33% faster.

If I had a Paragon, I would use this. It looks quite interesting.

A good excuse for Kieran to hang onto his bow; Seems a shame to not give a highly trained and experienced sniper (and ex-Ranger) a weapon with which he can snipe with, afterall ^_^.