Buff para back, but nerf groups of para

Here's a crazy idea: revert the nerfs to the paragon. But add a gimmick that nerfs skills with the more paras you have in the team.

Say, increase their recharge or activation times as many times as paras you have. Got a 10s recharge? Bam, for 2 paras it's now 20s. Got 3? 30 seconds. You get the idea.

Could even build a reverse scale effect into one of the attribute lines, such as Leadership, and chuck it down to "having too many 'leaders' on the team at the same time". Eg. you start with +1x recharge time per extra para in the team at zero spec but it tapers off to +0.5x as you raise Leadership to 20.

Obviously, getting a high spec in Leadership should not be enough to really make multi-para teams viable. Maybe just 2 paras, barely (but I think even that might be overpowered).

Because the way I see it, everybody seems to have loved the pre-nerf para, but when you get many of them together they really screw up both PvE and PvP. Fine, then, make it so they can't get together.

This could also hurt NPC teams that have multiple paragons in them, but that can be easily countered with a monster skill.

No, no no.
Paras need an rework on most skills.but your suggestion is just awful and will never work
you cant punish someone for being more than one in one team.

You can if you're the programmer for the game. They invented the flash enchantment specifically for the derv rework, a similar gimmick for the para is not out of the question.

We, as players, are used to thinking inside the box in regard to game mechanics, but we forget that ANet can alter them if they wanna.

But your reaction does bring another problem to mind, the issue of people who bought merc slots and cannot use them with paras anymore. That would be some major QQ (not that I sympathise with it. )

I'd like to see Paras reworked into the metagame, but your "but nerf this to make it balanced" suggestion I don't feel would work.

There's never been a game mechanic that punishes one player because of the way his party is set up. I've seen suggestions to make PvE only skills that are like "Your entire team sacrifices 10% health and deals X damage to all foes in target area" or whatever, but that just won't happen. I don't think we'll ever see a game mechanic where Billy has a negative effect on his health bar or skill recharge just because Joe is in his party or has a certain skill. The game is based more around player independence and bringing your own build.

Urc, similar suggestions have been made dating back to the beginning of Nightfall, maybe for all classes even earlier than that.

A negative buff penalty for multiple characters of the same type, or simply not permitting multiple characters of the same type in a PvP party. Hard to implement and players do not seem to like the idea. Random parties in low end PvP would take extra time to form. Then too, sometimes you do want two monks or warriors so this would have to apply only to Paragons and perhaps a couple other classes.

At this late stage of the game, probably not worth doing much. All becomes a non issue in GW 2.

Fixing paragons totally is worth doing. Being a six year old game is no justification not to help a class that has been in a state of disrepair for such a long amount of time.

That said, the OP's idea isn't really a good one. First, there are several good ideas floating around the paragon forum and that have floated around sardelac for the past month or two, so im not sure why this was really suggested in the first place. Second, simply reverting previous nerfs wont help paragons enough - ritualists and necromancers are simply far better at support than pre-nerf paragons. Third, classes shouldn't be punished for having multiple of one in a party, and parties with multiple paragons arn't even that powerful anyway.

What paragons need are some minor reworks to the useless shouts and leadership skills and to most of the chants, in addition to recharge reductions for those few chants that are useful with their current functionality. A change to refrains would also be nice (maybe make then maintainable, like monk enchantments, except with a unique and different downside instead of the -1 energy regen).

This would severely limit an already underplayed class. If anything, the opposite should be true, like having some beneficial synergy with multiple paragons.

I used to think paragons should be reworked, but honestly they should just stay dead. Their whole concept is poorly though out, their whole design only reinforces gimmicks. They stack defense making spikes prevail, or they reinforce melees, further supporting triple melee builds. There's just too much to change to make them work, it'd be better if anet focused on the easier to balance stuff that they're ignoring.

The game mechanic you are suggesting is a massive coding rework. I guarantee it would glitch waaaaaaay too much. Besides, the reason Paragons were overpowered was they were designed to be the best cooperative class. Reworking that mechanic to cripple Paragons is akin to removing healing from Monks. Paragons would become crippled Warriors. The only real way to redo the class would be to revert recharge times to before the nerfbat swung for PVE only. Paragons were killed in PVP for a reason, they break the game.

so basically this thread is suggesting there's still stuff that can be nerfed about paragons, the most underpowered class in gw there is at the moment.

@HellScreamS, Pistachio: please read more carefuly. I don't want the gimmick applied to the current para skills. A nerf on top of the current nerf would make no sense. I want this gimmick applied in return for bringing back the pre-nerf skills.

Guys, this trick would let us actually enjoy playing a para again, both in PvE and PvP. At the cost of having only one or perhaps two max per team at the same time. Is that such a horrible condition? I know I'd gladly accept if it meant I get to play and enjoy a para properly. Granted, I'm biased; if they had decent skills they'd be my favorite GW profession.

Anyway, I'm glad to see a wide variety of criticism so far. Allow me to respond:

* "Never done before", "won't happen", "you just can't do that." These are personal opinions, not criticism of the idea, so I'm afraid I can't really answer them.

* "Massive coding rework." I don't think we can say that for sure without actually seeing the GW code. But let's think logically about this: Fast Casting is an attribute rank which affects skill recharge and cast time for all the Mesmer skills. So that part is already done. The only new thing is checking one more condition, the number of alive/in-range primary or secondary paras among the allies. I don't think that's such a massive job. (That's an educated guess, btw.)

* "The entire concept was dead on arrival." I beg to differ. Ranged attacks and high durability makes them among the least appetising for foes, so they can be among the last standing; the party-wide abilities and their mid-line spot is perfect for the role of team leader, moreso than any of the other professions.

* "Rits and necros are better at support anyway." They are. But it's different kinds of support. I'm sure we can all think of gaps in what the rits and necros can do, which could be covered by paras.

* "Harder to join/form PUGs". As opposed to "run imbagon or you're out" as it currently stands? Hmm.

* Sure, it would eliminate certain team builds such as racway. But so what? A dozen more would appear in their place.

Paragons just don't fit into the PvE meta of "group everything up and then blow it up with AoE" (outside of running imbagon as support). Excessive buffing of current skills (or reversals of nerfed skills) without a redesign won't change this. It is not an indication of an underpowered class, but a symptom of boring stale PvE design.

Paragons in PvP. When Paragons are not in PvP meta, [some] people say they want them back in. When Paragons are in the PvP meta, just about everyone would rather them not be.

Please tell me you're just talking about PvP. No class in PvE should just "stay dead" since people can't simply reroll their PvE characters.

That is only a very small portion of the PvE meta (the speed clear portion).

What's wrong with running a char purely for support? That's not meta you're describing, it's an noob trend. I'm hoping seasoned players see the value in having some classes specialize in support.

Simple solution: forbid paragons from PvP.

Thank you, I'll be here all week! o/

PS: I'm only half joking.

Paragon are party-support characters; nerfing them as the paralayer ratio rises in the team is silly.

This suggestion sounds like there being too many necros on a team so you split the soul reaping energy return.

I've heard paragon were nerfed for a reason. Expecially in pvp.
But, even if your suggestion is terrible, i see your point....bring back the para to light of the sun, but fix the issues that created the situation that leaded to the nerf. How do it, and the pve/pvp impact, is another question.

P.S: Btw, have you heard what are the next (rumored) buff/changes? Smite and Moti lines.
Both nerfed to ground for pvp reason, seems anet will bring them back with needed changes. Wait and hope i guess (admitted that rumors aren't false obviously).

Why? Why would you do that when all it takes to roll through PvE is damage, and bringing more damage instead of support makes it roll faster?

The point I was trying to make is that it isn't a simple issue of "nerf/buff" the paragon class or any other class.

The reason you don't run support characters in PvE is that it only slows you down. All you need to roll through PvE is have 15-25% of your party be healing, and the other 75-85% be as much damage as humanly possible.

If you want to bring a Paragon for attack buffs and spear damage, you're better off bringing a melee class of pure damage. If you want to bring a Paragon for defense buffs/healing/blocking, you're better off bringing a monk or ritualist.

The only way to make Paragons metagame again is to make them ridiculously overpowered (i.e., bring back old Incoming, Defensive Anthem, Song of Restoration, Song or Purification). The only way it could work is to not change anything for PvP, or only give it the most minor buffs, and to just make it totally overpowered for PvE, since pretty much everything in PvE is already overpowered beyond belief.

Yes because my Orders toon/SoH slows down my physical way.

Support can be helpful for added DPS. But, the Paragon currently cant do much to help in that regard. So I'm all for buffing the Paragons DPS buffing abilities and even Motivation line for PvE.

Penalizing Paragons for having more than one in a party is totally the wrong direction. The Paragon has two things going for it. Imbagon and Racway. We shouldnt destroy the only two things the Paragon can do. We should give them more roles, not less.

And saying that the Paragon should stay dead in PvP shows a clear lack of imagination and inability to cope with change. I can understand a lack of faith in ANets ability to balance the Paragon in PvP, but to stay it shouldnt exist is absurd.

1st, we should probably distinguish between PvE and PvP changes to a paragon. In my opinion, we should just stick to PvE changes in this thread since there is less controvery there to buffing paragons in PvE than there is in PvP.

2nd, it is insane to say that support is useless in PvE almost every single meta build out there has massive amounts of support. Barbs, MoP, Splinter Weapon, Aegis, Panic, Orders, SoH, smite condition/hex... the list goes on. On the contrary, support (both offensive and, to a slightly lesser extent, defensive) is a vital part of nearly every meta team build there is. Saying otherwise is rediculous.

3rd, my opinion that i stated earlier still stands: merely reverting skills like aggressive refrain and mending refrain and SoR isn't going to be enough to compete with the support offered by necros/rits/monks, and I don't see any reason to penalize taking more of a certain profession in a party at a time (its not like having multiple paragons in a party is all that great right now anyway...)

There is a problem with that. Anet has already said that they don't want to do any more PvE/PvP splits unless necessary because, as far as the client is concerned, its adding a new skill to the game which reduces client performance. This is largely why so many of the class updates have had things go through to PvP that had no business doing so.

So while theoretically it is possible to do so, it practically is impossible to talk about one without talking about the other.


EDIT:
The other major problem is that paragons are extremely inflexible in a format that greatly values flexibility. If their inflexibility is so strong that it is worth bringing, that becomes a problem.

Right now they only show up in very one-dimentional 8-man builds and this is not a problem. Well until someone complains that paragons only have a spot in gimmicks.

Paragons in their current form should stay dead. They provide ranged axe damage and unremovable party wide buffs, unremovable being the major key problem. If they become viable, they are pretty much guaranteed to be OP because of how shouts and chants work. Without a viable way to remove shouts and chants, the effects have to be really weak, last a very short amount of time with a high recharge so they can't be maintained, or have a long (2 seconds or more) cast time so they can easily be shutdown by rangers and mesmers.

All those stipulations have been done with the nerfs to paragons and they are now unused simply because the alternatives are stronger. If the current wave of OP gimmicks is nerfed paragons will make a comeback and will still be regarded as OP even without any changes being done to them.

So to make the class viable you either need to rework its mechanics or significantly turn down the power creep.


P.S. everything I stated is purely PvP, as it was a response to the quoted comment.

Oh? They still split skills fairly often, and the game is pretty old anyway so its not like its that taxing on most people's systems... I'm sure that they can do some more splits, especially since PvPers seem to think that buffing paragons in PvP would be the end of the world (seems like enough of an issue to warrent splits).

Still, even if no more splits were incorporated (which wont be the case), I would far rather a dull class on life support in PvE be fixed and balance be thrown in PvP than for the class to stay dead in both formats. Far more GW players PvE than PvP, and those that primarily play paragons in PvE can't simply switch characters due to the (stupid) nature of PvE achievements being mostly character based. That said, splits would still be more desirable.

EDIT: I don't PvP often, so I don't know how this would go over... but what if a few buffed chants/shouts remained unsplit (thus would be buffed in PvP too) and several skills were changed to provide chant/shout removal? A new icon on the health bar could indicate if a user was under the effects of a chant/shout, and this would have the added benefit of providing some currently useless skills for other professions with a useful functionality. Thoughts?

2nd EDIT: Let me specify in case anyone misunderstands me: I'm not advocating imbalance in PvP. I want PvP to be balanced, and I think that paragons can be buffed in PvE with a reasonable number of splits and with those skills that arnt split not being broken in PvP.

Wait how does adding a new skill significantly reduce game performance?

Mostly speculation: Larger game files and more resources taken up to run the client. Can't really say as its one of the things that lies in the code itself and we have no choice but to take Anet at their word.

I do agree that they should do more splits. It would have made the last Dervish update a lot less painful on PvP, as well as the mesmer update, and the update prior . . .

But I can't really answer why they don't other than they have said they don't want to split skills unless its necessary as it will reduce client performance. However that is still a fact that must be addressed whenever talking about any type of balance be it PvP or PvE. Also for reference, Paragons are not dead in PvP, they are just used in very one-dimensional builds, which are extremely bad for the state of the PvP game when they become meta rather than a surprise tournament gimmick.

The problem with paragons in PvP is that the class mechanics themselves are very one-dimentional. Adding in chant/shout removal is the worst option. Adding in removals, even if they are added to existing skills, does not make balance.

paragons should 100% stay out of PvP, they ruin the game entirely to a similar extent that dervishes have at present. Shouts and Chants are non removable, in many cases non ruptable, and u can stack several of them at once, its retarded as hell and promotes MASSIVE levels of defence. Keep them out of PvP, but do what u like in PvE i dont care.

As a note though, anet should not be organising any more buffs (even though they are zzz) and instead nerf these freaking dervishes back into oblivion. The current dervish pain train, and its links with Fevered Dreams / sig humility / Mantra of concentation (worst thing ever introduced to gw), have got to be sorted out before anything else is changed, the game is unbearable atm, and after several months of it now, ppl still havent found a way to counter it, probably because there isnt one so it desperately needs fixing.

Some of the more astute readers might note that Paragons are (or at least should be) quite good at negating heavy pressure like what we see in the current dervish-heavy meta with condition spam and heavy damage.
Skills such as Stand Your Ground and Never Surrender counter damage and degen directly, and skills such as Song of Purification, Finale of Purification, It's Just A Flesh Wound, and Cautery Signet counter it by removing conditions more efficiently than the monk or ritualist can ever hope to achieve. If the paragons hadn't been nerfed so badly there would be a natural counter to what the dervishes are doing now.

Natural counters are bad for the game. Especially when the counter to an unsatisfying class/playstyle is another unsatisfying class/playstyle.

The whole reason para players want a rework in the first place is so that there is practicality in having more than one in the first place.

I understand not wanting an eight para team in PvP, but there has to be more than just the imbagon.

Yeah, you could play some really fun one off builds in the current PvE Faceroll Meta; but I want to join the daily Z-Pugs without someone leaving because they bring in a 2nd para.

Its kind of already there. Way back during an HM Underworld speedclear contest we ran a 2 paragon + 1 derv backline with no PvE skills (also 7 people). some post with sort of builds here

Aside from that we've used a 4-paragon backline-midline for a long time in PvP.

Last version we had looked something like this: EDIT: that fury bar can't be right, I know it had to have an adrenal chant for energy in it somewhere.


Now it was designed for a pure physical team. It has also undergone a large number of changes over the years. I know that at points we've used song of purification, power is yours, crippling anthem, burning refrain, hasty refrain, hexbreaker aria, stand your ground, anthem of disruption, anthem of envy, song of concentration, bladeturn refrain, energizing finale, purifying finale, and I'm sure a many others. The build has a lot of flex room. Like I said its designed for physical heavy, but it can surely be modified and quite possible one of the paragons dropped entirely.

The healing engine is infuse health for large health swings, absolutely tons of party healing which will offset the health loss on the infuse paragons. Try to save finale of resto for the paragons, but don't exclude using it from people that are going to take damage.

According to the developers, wasn't one of the biggest flaws of GW1 the fact that you couldn't have many of the same profession, resulting in people having to sit in towns waiting for teams that will take them due to a surplus of that particular profession? Your suggestion would fundamentally oppose any attempt to solve this problem in GW1 by implementing a game mechanic specifically designed to escalate this problem.

Is it really that hard to think before starting a forum thread?

THIS.

It was clearly the Paragon's intended role, but they've nerfed the skills so much it can no longer perform this.

A good example would be the change to Mending Refrain.

It was a solid poision counter, and once offered +4 regen for a modest cost (rather than the unhealthy upkeep of the Monks' mending), maintained with some Shout/Chat spam. Poison causes -4 degen, and is very easily applied and spread (by Rangers since forever, and now by Dervishes too). As a result the counter should also be pretty easy (and we all know simply removing the condition constantly via Monk isn't practical).

They wanted to encourage an offensive game rather than a defensive game, so they made it top out at +3, so Poison would still offer a net -1 degen in the end. Fine. One skill to counter another skill, with the offensive equivalent having the slight edge over it's counter.

But then they went and made it so you could only cast it on yourself in PvP, to prevent it being used at all. This was unneccessary.

What they should have done is left it at +3 but applyable to all, but made it so it only offered the regen while the character it was on was suffering from a condition. This would keep it balanced, useful, and fulfilling it's original intended role and that role only.

This is one example, but I'm sure there's many many others out there experienced Paragons could point out. And with the current Dervish heavy-meta dominating, bringing the Paragon back to it's former anti-pressure glory seems like an incredibly sensible idea (especially seems the classes came in the same expansion). The trick is making it balanced so those anti-pressure abilities can't be used as incredible benefits in a situation were you aren't suffering from heavy pressure damage (not that those don't occur anymore...).

Bear in mind, the Paragon was supposed to be Nightfall's Healer class, so it should be able to heal in pressure-light situations reasonably well too, but that shouldn't be it's focus.

I'm kind of tired of the arguments about an 80AL healer. They're pretty dull. Paragon always have Aggressive Refrain or Soldier's Fury when doing something other than just Spear-chucking, because they don't function well enough without them (the loss of the extra adrenaline gain hurts too much). So they're essentially a 60AL class (yes, they have a shield, but there's nothing stopping Monks or Ritualists bringing one of those and meeting the req for it too, they can easily make the attribute spread), without any effective self-defense skills too, I might add (as the spaces on the bar a Monk or Ritualist would use for them, the Paragon has to use on Aggressive Refrain/Soldier's Fury and maintaining/powering said skills).

Not even counting that most of what you said is flat out wrong.

So we shouldn't buff paras because then everyone has to play better? That's horrid logic. Necros have skills to prevent shouts/chants and most of the useful ones do have casting times (Defensive Anthem for example) ALOT of shouts are conditional as well, not tO mention more conditions if they are buffed. But really, just because you don't wanna play harder shouldnt mean paras don't get a buff. You may actually learn how to play from one

1) We shouldn't buff Paragons (anything) because that leads to powercreep, which hurts every single aspect of the game, not just PvP

2) Its not about getting better to play against paragons, its about Paragons themselves being unsatisfactory to play with or to play against.

3) Adding in counters makes build wars the game, not guild wars.

Wrong. Then the team with Paras doesn't have to play as well. That's the issue. Not that the team facing the DA chain has to play better, but that the team with the DA chain can play worse without it affecting them.

Sure, Necros have skills that cause bleeding when someone uses a shout, and some of the good shouts have 1 second cast times and are interruptible, but is it really fair if you change your entire team's setup just to counter one specific aspect of one profession? What if Monks had a 2 second cast, 25 energy skill that healed everyone to 100% health and provided 75% blocking for 15 seconds party-wide? Would you be like, well, if you're good, you should interrupt the 2 second cast every time!!? Sure, some things have built-in counters in the game, but that doesn't mean it's a reason to buff everything.

As an above poster said, Paras should stay dead, because they provide ranged axe damage, and unremovable party-wide buffs and healing. There's no way to make that viable without it being overpowered. Unless you made enchant-removing skills also remove shouts and chants, or something totally loony like that. But if you do that, as also previously stated, then the game becomes build wars, and more "rock-paper-scissors" than "the more skilled team wins."

Just bc paras can block brain dead dervs doesn't mean power creep

Fight OP with OP is the worst thing could happen.
And Dervs shouldn't ever existed in their actual state in pvp: that's the problem there, so doesn't work as excuse. No matter that para could be "natural derv counter". Cause we shouldn't have a counter for a single class. Sure, meele hate is ok. Derv-only killing is stupid.
And in the actual state a normal meele-hate can't stop a derv train. (avatar stuff, teardown, aoe, 3 cond in a sec, Fd ultra sinergy)

In fact, unless you can introduce some "shout/chants/echoes hate(and maybe removal)" other 2 Nec skills, and pair it with rewamped paras, bringing them back to the scene but less powerful then before, para WILL stay dead.
Not because of pvp'ers hate, but cause it would be impossible to manage the balance state.

And that was the reason for the mass nerf afaik...
"-Holy crap, i've created a moster! Nothing can counter it.
-There are some stuff to buff as counter?
-No....
-....Kill him."
And paras got smiterbooned.

If, hypothetically, paragon supplemental party healing were enough to handle dervish pressure, what do you think that would mean for pressure builds that are actually sane?

(Hint: It'd kill them permanently.)