Paragons; Anet why ?

I took a very long break from this game and just recently came back to work on HoM/play with friends.


The paragon used to be one of my favourite, if not my favourite profession, I'm one of the few people that really enjoyed the synergy paragons had with every other professions, they were the perfect support class, they had heals, prots, good synergy with secondary professions ( for example, /E for wards or /W for Shields UP/Watch Yourself) and they could also assist in spikes with fast spear attacks.

Basically I thought Paragon was very well designed profession, much better designed then the Dervish in my opinion but Anet completlely killed them, why? I just went through reading a few of the skills that were used a lot before such as Bladeturn Refrain, Incoming, Mending Refrain, Angelic Bond, Song of Restoration etc and they have been completely nerfed, no, they haven't been nerfed or toned down, they have been literally destroyed to the point where they are useless, I mean, Incoming used to be an amazing skill and now it's nothing more then a "Charge" which is considered one of the worst elites. Anet, you have destroyed the paragon class the way it was suppose to be designed, the only thing left for it is a weakened/dumbed down version of a physical damage dealer that's inferior to D /W/A and even R/P.


What do people here think about the way Anet decided to deal with Paragons? Too harsh or was it necessary to render this profession useless? I even feel sorry for people who like me loved this profession and invested a lot of time in it.

Come back in 2014, they have probably realeased a new rework for..ranger? by then, and you can repost this thread.

The ranger is still a very useful class and pretty much used in every team, interrupts and condition spam is never going to die. If they aren't as good in PvE then I'm sorry for that but it's worse to be completely useless at both sides of the game rather then just 1.

The problem with Paragons is that they weren't balanced for 8 man PvP and they got exploited. When they were nerfed it was before ANet started doing PvE/PvP skill splits. Once the skill split balances started happening, no one at ANet reverted the Paragon skills to work for PvE again. Take a long look at the Motivation line for Paragons. Other classes have better versions with shorter recharge than some of those skills. It's lame. I wish they would just revert Paragons back to release day for PvE.

yup this^^

Paras got nerf'd due to pvp....not that paras themselves were the problem, but other profs going para secondary in pvp that caused the demise of the paragon. So now we are left with a whole prof, that due to formats that not many play....is the weakest (exception imba) of all.

Paragons were not well designed.

They have several huge flaws:
* They have way too many skills that target all party members or even all allies within earshot.
* Their skills are far from versatile. Most of them do just one thing that requires certain conditions that doesn't happen often or in many builds. Like using a shout or a signet.


If we look at ways to fix that, we don't have to invent anything new. There's already things in skills:
- "Effect pools" and effect counters like the spirit health with ritualist spirits and the counters in ritualist weapon spells, that limit how many people the effect can affect and how many times they will work. For example, chant that heals should be limited on how much it should heal, if it heals more than that, it should end in all affected creatures even if they didn't trigger it. And if a chant makes party deal a condition or extra damage, it should not happen more than a certain amount of times. That way if the chant affects more than a certain amount of creatures, the effect is not multiplied for all affected creatures, instead it is spread between the creatures.
- Extra effects and multiple effects. So if the condition is not met, something still happens, not as good as if the condition is met, but good. And different things happen depending on affected target. A skill that heals those casting spells should do something too for those without spells.

Because they were a terribly designed profession. They scale exponentially with the number of paragons in a group because of echoes and refrains; none of their mechanics have any counters that are useful against other, more common mechanics (like enchantments); and all of their mechanics promote passive defensive play. This is of course talking about PvP. As a result of this, they had to be nerfed.

Maybe they'll be buffed in PvE (using split skills) some day. Maybe they'll rework the entire profession so it isn't so degenerative. Either way, that's why it's nerfed now. Imbagon is still ridiculously powerful, though.

Aside from pre-release when expertise worked shouts, the only significant /P stuff has been wild throw and fall back/make haste/song of conc. The former was nerfed because it was actually used in GvG, and that's it. All of the other nerfs like the mentioned incoming, mending/bladeturn refrain, angelic bond, etc were from paragon *primaries* making their party impossible to kill, particularly multiple paragons.

No it wasn't neccessary. They went overboard and Smiter's Boon'd many skills and almost the entire Motivation line, taking the easy way out and just weakening the power on all the skills until the class effectively became removed from play, instead of using their intelligence and thinking of the simple, creative, alternative ways they could have fixed it (that pretty much the entire community has, that would work too) but they were never willing to take on.

Fortunetly in the past few years with changes to other professions they've started to put some effort into it and actually redesign the way certain problematic skills or professions work instead of just making them utterly useless, but alas it'll be a long time before Anet get around to fixing the damage they did to the Paragon in there less enlightened phase, if it ever happens.

They seem far keener on 'fixing' classes that didn't really need fixing to begin with now, like the Elementalist. It's unlikely we'll see a Paragon update before GW2 comes out now, if we ever do. They appear to have mostly abandoned the class, with the only Paragon skill changed in recent years being Wild Throw, which was yet another nerf (albeit one aimed at Warriors, not at Paragons, fortunetly it didn't affect Paragons too much).

The only positive change they've had in years was making them gain upto 2 energy per ally instead of only 1 (which shoulda been that way to begin with TBH), which has helped make Paragon 'playable' in the smaller PvP arenas and earlier PvE areas, but unfortunetly hasn't done much else to help the class gain some respect and lose many of the other problems that ail it.

Having Izzy on balance for GW2 does make me worry sometimes that we might see this entire problem again in GW2 for some classes (like the Guardian, looking at the ridiculous 1min30sec+ cooldown on some basic Guardian skills at various points in it's development, I guess he really hates defensive classes...at least they are more reasonable now so maybe someone else at Anet stepped in), but I guess that's a discussion for another thread. For now we should just be glad he's no longer on GW1 balance I guess.

Paragons are in a horrible state at the moment, mine cries in the dark every night. There have been a lot of complaints about it in the last years, and they said they're gonna rework them someday...but who knows when? They've put em in a raffle together with ele, ranger(not really needed imho) and smithe monks, they're currently doing eles and taking long months for it...so who knows, maybe in next life...

The reason that "paragons suck" in PvE is not because of nerfs, but because very few actually make team based builds in PvE. PvE formation is about individual builds that work well, then just adding them together. The only paragon build that really fits into this is the imbagon.

Paragons, particularly when stacked, can do a hell of a lot for a team, but it requires tailoring the whole team's build. And no one wants to take the time to do it. Paragons can still greatly increase physical damage, in pairs can backline, and can still put out good damage.

The root of this issue is that there is nothing that Paragons particularly do better than any other class. People don't have as many paragon characters because there is no reason to create one (like oh say a shadowform assassin), because it is not best at anything. Since they are not best at any one thing, they must suck.

Without a doubt Paragon are still reasonably strong in numbers, but if a class has to have an entire team centered around it, for it to be good, something is wrong with the class, non? As that is a handicap like no other.

And besides, many of their skills are just watered down, weaker versions, of similiar skills on other classes, that sometimes carry an Elite skill tag with them just for giggles. Shield Bash -> Burning Shield, Aegis -> Defensive Anthem (E), Divine Intervention -> Angellic Bond (E), Spirit Bond/Protective Spirit -> Angellic Protection, Mending -> Mending Refrain (PvP), Shelter -> "They're on Fire!", Aura of Stability -> Brace Yourself, Windborne Speed -> Make Haste!/Lead The Way/Hasty Refrain, "To The Limit!" -> "Make Your Time!", any other IaS -> Aggressive Refrain, Protective Was Kaolai -> Any Paragon party-Restoration chant (including the elite Song in PvP) except maybe Aria, any 'Disrupting'/'Distracting' named skill -> Disrupting Spear, Blood Ritual/Blood is Power (E) -> "The Power Is Yours!" (E), Martyr (E) -> Cautery Signet (E), Antidote Signet -> Remedy Signet, etc.

Other skills are just almost utterly useless to begin with (this can maybe said the same for any class, but as the Paragon skill pool is so limited, it's more important here), such as Bladeturn Refrain (PvP), Help Me!, Stand Your Ground (PvP), We Shall Return (PvP), Awe (see: Spear Swipe), "Incoming!" (see: "Fallback!"), Inspirational Speech, half the deep wound causing skills, Mending Refrain (PvP), Natural Temper, Zealous Anthem, Song of Power, any of those skills that only do something if you target someone with higher health than you, and probably more.

Granted the Paragon can do a bit of everything (except AoE damage, heh, Holy Spear non-withstanding), but it can't do most of them to any worthwhile level unless with 3+ other Paragons, which is silly.

The Paragon should not have it's skills punished because it can do so many things, seems due to the 8 skill limit in Guild Wars, there's no way it could do them all at once anyway.

?


12345678

Paragon is Awesome for PVE
If anything SY/imbagon gave mainstream paragon users a lack of imagination

PVE Paragon is fine right now, you can argue you need more Ias and AoE ... but barrage/volley/flurry/AggRef will do that for you easily.
Paragon can pretty much be used in any area of the game very effectively.
After all you can't strip shouts/chants/echo ect

So what do they suck at ? Dps .... (without team backup)
but since when was Paragon ment to out damage Other "dedicated" melee classes. I think this is more an issue with the game in general as weapons are getting less and less effective.

Maybe make spear 17-41 damage and slower...

Bottom line:
If damage is made better, Party support will suffer and vice versa.
Its a tough issue!....So yeah 2014 can't wait

I don't think it's them sucking at dps or at anything in particular, the problem is rather the number of usable skills. It's already punished enough for being a nightfall class, and so having an almost null skill pool compared to the other classes. Add the fact that a great part of its skills are pretty bad or too much situational...and you'll have an hardly versatile class. Sure imbagon is...well imba. Sure you can do good builds and beat all the game with it. But, compared to the other classes, it's very gimped. And imho the lack of possibilities makes it very boring for people who like to change their bar every once so often.

EDIT: all this about PVE ofc

Dude, Anet started screwing up the whole game after GW2 was announced. Simply put, They just don't care enough to balance much of anything anymore. The last several updates was Anet responding to a select few players and watering down some skills so other professions looked better. They will never get around to ranger,monk or paragon updates now that GW2 is to be released. They fail to take in account current balance or such when releasing updates now and i doubt they even tested the "hero ai update" prior to dumping it on us. GW is dying and ANET knows it. If GW2 isn't commercially viable then ANet is toast anyway.

I completely agree with this. Paras, when combined with a few more paras, can be amazing. The synergy they can create within a team, especially when that team utilizes skills that compliment the para, can push you through the toughest of areas. The thing is, though, people don't want to put in the effort to utilize this, because they cannot simply go to PvX and load in random builds on their heroes/their own bars to make paras work.

I think the number of usable skills is fine to a point, infact i have enough
trouble picking which skills to take for 3 paragons team as it is.
Your probably right though, because: paragon has got to be the worst class to have such a limited "total" of skills since a support/offense "class" obviously needs more versatility than any other class.
Compared to other classes.. it has no comparison except maybe Ritualist?

RT= party wide defense and weapon skills. + body block
P=party wide defense, offense and single target shouts n echos. without using an elite slot to spam just need leadership.
But Rit has splinter ect..! and also WAY better synergy with secondary.

Paragon isnt living up to the name
Paragon = large, flawless diamond/a perfect embodiment of a concept

This isn't a good thing. Professions shouldn't only be useful when used alongside themselves. There is definitely a problem with a profession when the only way to make one useful is to have to build a team around them.

The main problem with paragons is that they are a support profession that is awful at supporting. There are a couple of decent motivation elites, but no good motivation non-elites to run beside them. Most, if not all, of the leadership support skills are complete crap. Command has a couple of good non-elites that are for physical support, but aside from gfte, anthem of envy, SyG (which is completely overclassed by SY anyway..), and maybe fall back, command is also crap. Necros and Rits have so many good options for supporting the team. I just wish that paragons would be given the tools necessary to be effective supporters, like they are meant to be.

I don't really mind the dps of paragons. Spear single-target dps is actually pretty good, and if you care that much about AoE, just add splinter weapon or MoP. What anet needs to focus on is the supporting capabilities of a paragon.

Hopefully, the paragon update is the next task on the list of PvE updates. I certainly can't think of anything else that is needed more.

@above post: No, a major problem with paragons is the lack of useable skills. If the only way for paragons to have useable skills is to use many of them in the same team, there is a problem. Once again, it is a bad thing if the only way to make a profession viable is to have to build a team around them.

This is nearly spot on for why Paragons are bad for PvP. You just missed the complete reliance on 8v8 (preventing any kind of interesting split play) along with infinite energy 4 teh lulz.

Now for PvE:

Passive prots/buffs are generally designed to be anti-pressure. Spears are designed to be pressure. Neither is what happens in PvE, its all about spike vs spike protection, and paragons lose out on both counts for the same reason degen/regen aren't used.

Shouts that take time to activate are bad for the same reason that Derv enchants that took time to activate were bad. Its a sad fact that every offensive anthem the paragon has actually LOWERS their DPS unless there are 3+ physicals in the group.

Refrains are an absolute PITA to keep up.

This leaves us with the good paragon skills being: GftE, SYG, FB, and an IAS. The rest are either always bad or only good within a very specifically tuned build (in which case sacrificing other elements for group cohesion hurts more then the paragon-specific abilities help).


PvE fixes needed (won't make them a well designed profession but at least workable outside of SYtardation):

Make Chants instant cast or at least no cooldown and .75s cast.

Greatly extend the duration of refrains/finales. 30s minimum on refrains, finales at a 45s-1 min.

Buff AR to +33% IAS.

Make SoH work on ranged attacks (ranger needs this too).


PvP fixes needed:

lol no chance I'm trusting Anet with this.

Frankly, my Para is doing quite well and has had an easier time than most of my other characters (my Necrosis Necro and Ritualist have had it easier), and Morghan's a staple on my 7-Hero teams. Definitely notice it when he's not there, though the Paragon contributions are rather subtle...

My Para/War: OQGlUVlsJeKoJpgxgpVYhxVAEWhdVA - Blazing Spear, Cruel Spear(e), Frenzy, "Go for the Eyes!", "Watch Yourself!", "There's Nothing to Fear!"(pve), Anthem of Flame, "For Great Justice!" (AoF or FGJ possibly swapped for "Save Yourselves!" once he reaches Cavalon or I get into a [Luxon] guild... A 334,670 XP survivor so far, maybe half of that with this build)

My Para Hero: OQGjUumKqS8YhiKY1bVYWYifXFA - "Incoming!", Holy Spear, Blazing Spear, "Find Their Weakness!", Anthem of Flame, "Go for the Eyes!", Anthem of Disruption, "For Great Justice!" (think I found this one off PvX, can't remember - but it DOES make a nice difference)

Paragons needed killed. They did warrior type damage at range and had ritualist like support in that shouts and echos are irremovable(weapon spells). Paragons are still very useful, dont think they are not.

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Guild wars was based around the PvP format. PvE just keeps people interested that can't PvP very well. I don't see any underworld runs on observe and I don't think i'll see any raptor farmers/chest runners/speed clears/etc etc etc....on observe. Anyone can PvE, not everyone can PvP. Everyone can try but not everyone gets a shiny cape.

Guild Wars was originally based around pvp but by nightfall you can more than tell that pvp took the back burner to development. Everyone can PvP as seen when there is a zaishen bounty or other similiar reward, however majority would rather not as with any online game PvP is full of aggression.

The reason you can't see any of those pve runs on observe is because it wasn't programmed that way and more importantly judging by Gw2 as to what is known I think you may see observer mode of pve and hybrid content rather than just pure PvP.

The simple fact is Gw started as a PvP game and evolved into a pve game even though it wasn't intended originally anet is running with this idea for Gw2.

Now back to the original topic paragons were in fact broken in PvP at their release, however I would say they have been utterly destroyed for PvP and PvE with the nerfs. The imbagon build is nice but it doesn't make an appearance in any of the meta elite zone builds for pve.

The only way I see to fix paras would be to just full on allow power creep like they are doing with every other class for pve. In pvp they should adjust skills and possibly add a stripping mechanic to some skills to make the paragon viable but not overboard for pvp.

Don't be rediculous. Nowadays, GW is a PvE oriented game with PvP being on the fringe. Plus, PvE certainly isn't only about farming, running, and speed clears. There is so much more to the game than that.

As for your first point, I agree that paragons are not good overall for the PvP format, and that they should have only be useful in niche situations. For PvE, where you can't simply "reroll" our characters, its completely rediculous to say that any profession should be killed. Plus, you're wrong about their support options. They suck.

@ogre: no one is denying that imbagons are powerful. However, the problem is that this is literally the only use that paragons have, and isn't even predominately based on paragon skills. SY is a warrior skill, and can be spammed just as easily by warriors or assassins (or even rangers...). Every other class has multiple, viable builds available in PvE that either do more damage or do better support than the paragon - plus these other profs can actually use their own skills effectively.

Hardly an Imbagon, though I could do the PvX version of the build, if I wanted (except for Ebon Battle Standard of Honor, of course - ain't risking Survivor to go for that). Hell, I might not even use SY! in the build I listed above because I'm doing more than good enough as it is - even Watch Yourself is in there only because I couldn't decide on what else to put in that slot (was thinking Anthem of Disruption, though the odds of it ever interrupting anything useful are very slim) and had enough points to put a random attribute at 5 (went Warrior for Frenzy, which my Marksmen Rangers also love, and FGJ to power up my attacks and GFTE).

You see Guild Wars is a team game. Everyone gets so hung up on the 8 skills that they bring, to fail to see the fact that it isn't about your 8 skills, it is about the 64 skills of your team.

To me the problem is just the opposite. It isn't that paragons require team synergy to work, its that every other class does not.

Other classes require synergy to work (Melee + Curse Necro + Smite monk + Channeling Rit for Massive Damage). The problem is that Paragons don't require synergy to work, they require other Paragons.

Imagine if all monk spells healed a max of 50 health but for every additional ally monk within earshot they healed another 50 ontop of it. That would be pretty RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up, but thats the essence of what Paragon "synergy" is.

paragonway, beated iway and balance way, and all other ways before, so they nerf paragonway until iway and balanceway beated paragonway into disappearance.

true about the "whole team is important" but i think paragons (and all other profs) should in pve also have use as a 1 prof per team

the "1 prof per team" would make many more builds possible
i'm using 2 monks, 1 MM necro (sometimes trying to make different necro builds also), 1 spirit rit, 2 mes (1 panic + 1 ineptitude), 1 general dmg reduce and healing paragon.... only for survivor chars and 1 fire or earth ele

but never seen much use of paragons other than extra heal, which dont work half as good as any healing-prot monk i ever used

my paragon is survivor, most likely cuz she isnt doing hard stuff at all, as i am not good at surviving (wanna do it oldschool), and she cant do much with spear
but my paragon heroes dont heal or protect much either, as they gotta cast chants and shouts, but GW lately has too many interrupters for chants to work out well, and their healing/protection isnt strong enough to bother

maybe some people know how to make betyter paragon heroes, but AI = bad, and their effects are weak

3 major things i can come up with about em:
1. casting time is a problem with some good chants they have
2. recharge is high
3. duration of echoes are too low to be effective

and then prolly a minor one which is that the healing or protection effects are weak, so that rits and monks can be way more useful

i dont mind para's being some weaker, but they are too weak with those points combined
like a chant is 1 or 2 casting time, and GW is full of interrupts, then has a small effect of healing or defensive AND high recharge
this already makes em inferior as a defensive prof
then dont forget the echoes, which are supposed to be maintainable with chants and shouts, but end so soon, the chants and shouts wont end before the echoes, if you need to get dmg for a chant/shout to end

then 1 detail: the mending refrain nerf, it costs 10 energy even for pve, while only chants and shouts give para's energy, but if that echo (and some of this is also with other echoes) has to be casted by a hero, she loses 10 energy, and doesnt think: ok, now gotta get energy again
and the only energy gaining skill "Leader's Zeal"is motivation (not useable for command para's) AND has short range, and you know AI will either walk into battles if they need to have an ally for a skill, or tehy just use it even if there's no allies around at all

also seen some skills not able tyo use on yourself, and some skills only target 1 ally, so are already weaker, and heroes keep using em if they have no skills better to them

1 more example
"angelic bond" ends on all allies who got it on em if it triggered on 1 ally, and its a skill, so no energy from leadership

as for the "not usable on yourself" i ask: why not? a healer/protector/defender needs to stay alive too

if they get OP in pvp, simply make splits, cuz those have worked so well on everything (even smiter's boon, as it was OP in pvp, and is useable in pve now)

let 1 or 2 para's be useful enough in 1 whole team to take em, whether its a hero or player (players have pve only skills, heroes dont)

this is from my point of view
i dont think spears should stay weak, but dont need to be that strong either, just a lil more useful, as both player and hero
and i also think their "defensive playstyle" should be improved in pve

i see the profs as 1, not like "but you have SY" as that would be p/w

again:
this is from my point of view

You are wrong. Paragons synergize well period. That is their niche. The problem is that people want a one-size-fits-all bar.

A paragon bar works best when its tailored to the team and the zone. GftE is great in a physical team, and kind of crappy in a caster team; most of the paragon skills are like this.

While paragons do get better in groups (Its because they synergize. And since they synergize, they also synergize with each other and the team at the same time.), everyone seems to be under a delusion that a single paragon is horribly gimped and incapable of doing anything. The truth is that there is no one-size-fits-all bar (well other than imbagon) and people are too lazy to do anything other than just load a pre-made build.


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Also your examples of classes that 'synergize' is pitiful. Those are 4 separate classes that are viable on their own, just thrown together. They bring 1 skill to play off of someone else (SoH, MoP, AR) and those bars are still viable with those slots straight up empty. That is hardly an example of "require synergy to work".

Your example about paragon synergy is also completely offbase. It is just so wrong it is not worth talking about.

Synergy is good.

But synergy is NOTHING without versatility.

Take any one of the 'triple effect' Dervish Flash Enchantments, for example.
- You can pre-cast them to quickly term them right when you reach the target.
- You can cast them by the target.
- You can strip them right away for the final effect.
- You can leave them to benefit from their effect.

With a single skill, you have several options.


Now, let's have a chant, any chant:
- They'll affect the whole party.
- The effect may or many not affect all party members. Usually because the triggering condition is very particular.
- Since the effect my affect all party members, it's balanced for that.
- Since it rarely affect all party members in the practice, it's severaly underpowered most of the time.

They have the potential for synergy, but since they don't have versatility, they are bad in most situations and in random party formation, they are the worse.

Tell that to the SF sin solo farming HM dungeons.

Paragons are just the odd man out. Their shouts, chants and echoes are teetering on the edge between shit and godly. Without a good chunk of time dedicated to looking at their skills for balancing they will continue to suck. I even doubt the live team has the know-how to make them useful without making them over-powered.

Congrats, you picked the ONE good offensive paragon skill in the game as your counter example. Care to mention how anything else can synergize well with other classes, with the exception of TOF! (and maybe BY! if you want to stretch your definition)?


Its true. Paragons are still OK. But thats because you can beat PvE HM blindfolded just button mashing, not because they are worthwhile power-wise in comparison to other classes.


So GftE + Physicals is synergy but MoP + Physicals isn't? lolwut? MoP actually requires skill to use while GftE is just buttonmashing for buttonmashing-tards (I will now revert to calling them by their proper name, Paragons).

lol OK. Go fail somewhere else then and leave those who actually know how to play in peace.

why would everyone HAVE to use premade builds for stuff to work out well?

GW has this many skills, so people can build their chars, but with 7 heroes, we can now build our own teams

besides, in my case (and there's more like me) its that i cant get used to builds people made

builds you make by focussing on everything you do, so being serious about, makes you "feel" them
so in other words, if i take a few days to make 1 build on my own, without copy/paste and change 2 skills, i can use it better than any other builds i havent made

plz quit telling everyone to go pvx, that site was made to share builds to either let people see what skills work well in what kind of builds, or let em copy paste
however, pvx is a fanmade site, inf anet would've made it, everyone would have to use it now

funny is, i heard panic works great on heroes builds, so i used it, along with other interrupts, but now i see mine looks a bit like other's and even pvx
just like i made that defensive spirit build with ST

someone said: ah, you used pvx
while i never seen that one, i just use wiki as my base, then make builds myself

in short: if the game requires premade builds, Anet would've said so, which they havent, plz stop telling others how to play a game

its just that paras dont have much to offer when alone, especially heroes IMO
weak skills + hero AI = double trouble

1 example before i go off to bed:
fall back is used by lots of people, even on non-para heroes
fall back is a useful skill, BUT requires people to move, and i (luckily) dont see my heroes move all time if they are on low HP while under this effect
same with people, who wouldnt run around cuz they have fall back on them, in battles of course
(this is also with that elite version AND fall back)

i dont mention farming and/or running, as thats also not a real part of the game itself

Paragons incorporate a lot of the bad stuff brought about in Proph and Factions:

-Ranged physical with sword DPS
-Primary attribute providing (dumb, easy) energy (see: necromancers)
-Party buffs (see: old Heal Party, old Aegis)
-Irremovable buffs (see: weapon spells)
-Stupidly high armour
-Irremovable IAS
-Abuse by rangers (spearchuckers a la thumpers)

Thanks to all this, delights like Paraway cropped up which shone a light upon Para retardedness and Anet decided to get their finger out and nerf. And rightly so. In order for there to be any sort of homoeostasis in the game they had to knock them down.

As for PvE, there's one good build which is dependent on the PvE-only skills. Everything else is used pretentiously by 'GW hipsters' trying desperately to be different by bringing paragon heroes and glorifying them on forums. Not even ironically, though.

In conclusion, unless you count muling, Paras suck in PvE and PvP and there are too few staff to rectify this. Expect this less-than-mediocre profession to remain as such because it won't change at the hands of the current payroll.

The problem is that there is that there are too few good paragon skills to "synergize" toward the rest of the team. Almost all of the motivation skills, for example, are bad in just about any situation or in any team build not using lots and lots of paragons. Really, the only decent motivation skills for any area or team are a few of the elites. Command/leadership has 3 decent skills for physical damage support, but everything else just doesn't really cut it (outside of SyG which is completely outclassed by SY and fall back... if you really care about speed boosts in PvE). Skills like can't touch this and brace yourself might seem decent in niche situations, but they're still fairly weak.

Thats the problem with paragons. I wouldn't mind if they actually had skills that were good enough to use in niche situations. The problem is that they dont.

If they were able to rework so many ele skills why can't they do the same for the para skills? Rework the support skills along the lines of double enchants. Single target effects, conditional effects etc.

They're already doing that, internally. For example, the recent slight tweak to the Leadership attribute was one of the many changes being tested on the Paragon, that unintentionally slipped through, and they let it be as it would do no warm.

It just happens that elementalists got a higher priority.

At this point I'm confused at what people are arguing. It started with paragons suck. Then moved on to paragons suck unless stacked with other paragons. Now its paragons suck because there are too few good paragon skills.

If there are too few paragon skills for one bar, then how can bringing more less effective skills get any better? Before someone starts talking about echoes actually look at the echoes. Refrains do not get better with more chants/shouts, they merely become easier to maintain and it is perfectly easy for a single paragon to maintain refrains. The only ones that get better are finales and there are only 4 finales. Lets look at them. Purifying finale removes conditions, its strong, but it doesn't take long before the person with the finale has no conditions and further triggers yield nothing. Burning finale applies burning, but since burning doesn't stack with itself, again adding in a whole bunch more shouts doesn't tremendously increase the damage. Energizing finale is kind of bad since it was nerfed way back when; in a really high paragon build it can show returns, but even with 4 paragons its still lackluster (its a bad skill). Final of restoration is the only refrain that really has much stronger returns with more paragons; one skill.

In general paragons are not as powerful as some other classes, but this isn't due to paragons being underpowered, but because Anet just keeps buffing other classes like crazy. Most of the real issues in the game have come from this continued power creep.

That said there is an overwhelming outcry that a single paragon isn't useful at all, which is completely bogus. A paragon is just fine in any non-specialized (UWSC, etc) team. The only issue is that the paragon needs to roughly know the team's composition. No one wants to wait for a paragon to get a bar, nor do they want to make a bar as a paragon itself. Instead they keep saying that paragons suck until they irrationally believe it.

i'll say this then: in pve paragons cant do much against dmg and for healing
you can blame all other profs, but it would be foolish to nerf all profs except for paragon
better buff paragons with their skills, as that'd make people wanna try and play paragon

i myself play paragon, i use spear skills, and see it sux.... but i wanna have a spear paragon
paragons got spear attacks, so why not let em use em effectively?

paragons are decent with their defense skills, but the rest even in pve, are too much for paragons to handle

i think paragons should become better spear and chant/shout wise, as warriors have lots of defensive skills which are good enough, and have dmg
they didnt give spears for fun, if it really was an only-defensive class, they'd give paragons a staff instead.... or a bow (longer range)

you are right saying the rest is stronger, but dont say the rest is too strong
i think Anet is looking into paragons, but i doubt they'll ever make every kind of skill they have good enough

so chants, shouts, echoes and spear skills (maybe that res sig for pve)

btw, before i get: no, they shouldnt get much stronger, just a lil
i'm talking about pve paragons, as i dont pvp at all

oh i know 1 suggestion: make all chants have casting time of 1/2 second, and the animation being aftercast-ish
just an idea

then echoes arent useful at all, as they require chants/shouts AND dont last long enough, so their duration should be longer, so that they actually are useful
chants and shouts of paragons take too long to recharge.... and to be triggered, as i've never seen any echo work well in pve for heroes

remember: heroes dont have pve only skills, and so the paragon and war pve skills (the shouts) cannot be used by them

my suggestion would be: echoes last longer maybe with leadership points, have better trigger effects, and maybe reduce paragon's chants and shouts recharge a bit

then some skills really need to be reworked

not only do heroes suck at using them, but those skills also dont really are effective
and players can use em well, but must choose chants/shouts which can be triggered very easily, so that the echoes actually have a good use

then some skills have too much recharge or too short duration, and this is about other skills, like that angelic bond, which is strong, but an elite and no shout/chant AND ends on all affected allies (allies are also minions and such.... even togo is one, lol)
its an elite, so i'd never use it

now that i think about it, i've been busy with paragon builds for me and my hero (just hero, as i only use hayda), and seen that paragons elites arent that great for the current pve, especially HM..... which is far overpowered for paragons, tbh, if using regular teams that is

also (i dont wanna mention it, but have to) dont count pvx, as that has nothing to do with the gameplay itself
even if you do count it, look at the amount of paragon builds for pve..... not much eh? and the player one is just pve skills and half a build, lol
it has 3 functions: big defense (not allowed for heroes), too much adrenaline gain skills (2 in the whole build), and a tiny bit of dmg (which isnt much in pve, especially not in HM, even with the AL minus and HP plus update)

if i look at that build it says to me: this is all you can do, take these skills,a nd find out what other skills you should use to be effective
i rather take a hard res, so thats 2 more spots... not much for a whole build o_O

anyway, not counting pvx, i'd say: buff paragons at least for pve, so they become useful enough and wanted by others to team up, with at least the few people left in GW