Paragons; Anet why ?

Whats so confusing about this? Paragons suck unless stacked with other paragons because of the lack of useful skills outside of paragon-based parties. You're completely right on all three accounts, and I don't seen how they are confusing.

This is partially true. However, while paragons were left behind in power creep, you have to keep in mind that they have also suffered many nerfs in PvE due to PvP issues. I'm not for advancing power creep, but I think that having balance between classes is more important. Ideally, anet should nerf the powercreep, but since this isn't going to happen, they should at least make paragons viable outside of paraway parties.

I don't think spears are the problem, the rest of the attributes are. Spears deal comparable damage as swords at range, it allows for shield (although that is less useful since you are at range anyway) and has utility functions comparable to sword.

The problem of the paragons has different sources:


1. Design was bad, pvp wise mostly, since the more paragons you have the better they get. This just gets worse the moment they have powerful skills that gets multiplied in effect if there are more paragons.

2. nerving and no pve/pvp splits, paragons needed nerfs in pvp but without the splits they seriously nerved the crap out of paragons in pve.

3. Power creep, this has just made everything seem worse since all other professions have more builds that are considered strong.

I'm guessing that when the promised paragon buff hits it is either going to fail drastically or going to be op, all as a result of bad profession design.

I agree paragons work best when tailored to the area and group. I have a paragon that specializes on Moddock Crevice. She is so specialized that she doesn't do anything outside of the ZM day. The problem is that is takes a few runs through to develop a good skill set and few player have the patience to do that.

just 4 important skills

"For Great Justice"
Signet of Aggression
Crippling Anthem
"Fall Back!"

OQGkUym4pgqzVBeLh3xAAAAAAAA

There are some easy things that can be done to help paragons:
1. since the spear is a ranged weapon allow it to have ranger bow preps
2. give them at least 1 multi weapon attack skill

1x motigon with Finale of Restoration = 3 party members gain 20 HP/s
2x motigon + 1x SY = 6 party members gaining 50 HP/s

(just conservative estimates)

So with 1 paragon we have a total of 60 HP/s and with 3 paragons we have a total of 300 HP/s (not even counting the SY obviously). That is the paragon exponential scaling.

Keep in mind that damage is also scaling at above linear rate. Multiple GftEs = ~+100% damage per attack, multiple paragons standing around in EBSoH means only 1 paragon needs to sacrifice the PvE slot, with the vital paragon skills better split up more extra things can be had. Not to mention the power that 100% uptime on TntF provides (and with multiple paragons causing burning you should have 100% protection from ToF as well). All this adds to make 3 paragons be something like 5-6x more powerful than 1 paragon.

Easier to maintain = getting better because when an echo goes down in the middle of battle that is bad, causing lost damage/protection and causing long downtimes after every battle figuring out who lost it and reapplying it.

Hasty refrain sure isn't easy to maintain. Burning/Mending/Bladeturn can all easily be lost in the heat of battle when using a single paragon if shouts don't land properly, the monk doesn't wand once to activate GftE quick enough, the paragon gets blinded/misses, etc.

Finale of restoration is the 2nd most abusable healing skill in the game (1st goes to AoD for obvious reasons). Yes, it is only one skill. MoP is only one skill. Splinter Weapon is only one skill. Panic is only one skill. Doesn't mean it can't be the skill an entire team build is based around.

Purifying finale being activated by other paragons is especially helpful in preventing blind from screwing someone over (since blinded paragons can't get adrenaline to use shouts to clear themselves). Plus its simply hard to fit it in most builds.

Unfortunately there's no really good way for paragons to support caster teams (i.e. 95% of all teams since heroes suck at physical). Single paragons can support physicals half-decently simply by spamming GftE till the end of time, but there is no real counterpart for casters. None of this means paragons are utter shit that can't do anything in PvE, they are only relatively much worse off than other professions.

Spears have nothing wrong with them. They are an amazing weapon on their own. The problem is a complete lack of AoE or other method of multi-attacking, relatively slower attack speed (only 25% IAS + 10% slower than swords to begin with), and inability to take SoH. PvE is all about number of attacks per second times the number of buffs you can add. Paragons fall way behind on that count.

Actually, paragons did get nerfed when the game was more active, especially because many builds relied on it and it was a pain to kill( especially referring to 6 paras teams or zergways). At the time it was ok, you could still use them .. But when a few years later( around end 2009) they did show their will to destroy PvP with terrible skill updates, terrible PvP changes , it was quite over ...

Paragon is one thing among many.. The main problem with him in my opinion is that other classes can do basically the same result using a spear, so it leaves only support skills.. However, those support skills were nerfed and are only quite viable when you have other paragons in team, and that's quite hard to expect in random formats...

They make me run fast.

I still like one in my hero build....they make mobs drop fast.... but I agree, never wanted to roll one at release, as they stand now.....hell no.

Good post. I disagree about the refrain duration part, but that's about it.

The main issues with paragons today are that:
1) Imbagon is SO much better than any other party support build they have, that nothing else has a chance at getting played. There is literally no reason to play Motivation, because imbagon does everything the entire Moti line does, but better.

2) Attack skills are very different from spells in GW1, which means that "on attack skill" triggers need to be balanced differently than "on spell use" triggers. You can't have +damage chants for spells, for example, or if you can then they haven't done it for some reason. The end result of this split is that paragons can buff physical damage and defense, but can ONLY buff the defense of their caster teammates.

3) Most parties use casters, not physicals. It's true: if you ever see 3 warriors in a party, your first thought is "oh god this is so unbalanced, we're going to fail." If you see 3 necros, monks, rits, eles, or mesmers, your thought is "ok, they're going to have to diversify, but this is good."

4) As a result of issues 2 and 3, paragons do not do much to offensively help most "balanced" teams. Oh, sure, they can help out teams of mainly physicals, but it's become ingrained in our heads that teams of all physicals are terrible and will fail. This is why people think a single paragon can't contribute to a party; the party needs to be built around the paragon, because on their own most people do not stack their parties with physicals.

TL;DR:
Precisely.

EBSoH buffs armor-affected spell damage, and BUH/Vengeance both apply +% modifiers to all damage dealt. I don't think it would be hard at all to make a shout that does something similar.

The reason paragons don't buff spell damage is probably because it would massively imbalance PvP Spikes. Paragons already had problems before with that, imagine how much worse it would be if all casters could get a +damage boost. Naturally, since it would never work in PvP the only way it would make it to PvE (at least before a paragon overhaul) is through PvE only skills, and Anet already used their 2 paragon-specific skills up.


As far as refrains, what would you say to the 30s duration if the caveat of "if the paragon who cast this refrain dies the skill ends immediately" was added?

Please provide an example of a para's build (or, to follow your earlier remarks, a full teambuild of 64 skills, where only 8 are from paragon, squeezed in one bar) that would be a viable support, worth taking over another monk, n/rt, MoP, spiritmancer, ST rit, minion master, Panic shutdown... over anything not just dishing out damage. Please be sure not to use SY in the build. A short description of how the build is supposed to work and why exactly it should be preferred over other desirable options (or at least somewhat on the level with meta builds) would be appreciated.
The problem is not that you can't complete content as a paragon - you can; the problem is that (1) you are severely underpowered when compared to any other profession, (2) you can only run one viable team-build, not just standing there and chuckling your spear all the time, while the heroes do everything for you, and (3) you need at least 2-3 other paragons until you get even in more remote proximity of what is commonly used.

I have a Paragon/Warrior that's stalled at Hell's Precipice, Ruins of Morah, Unwaking Waters, and Heart of the Shiverpeaks. While I'm trying to decide which I want him to do next, I've got him doing cartography and vanquishing.

I like my Paragon but he's not my favorite character to play because I don't find him to be as versatile as some of my others (i.e., Assassin, Mesmer, and Necromancer). Paragon skills aren't all that interesting and some are just odd. Add another layer of strange by making PvE skills that are real nice but cost so much energy you won't be able to use them without swapping helmets and/or weapon sets. Frankly, I'm not that coordinated.

I have resorted to having him run a Rit Spirit bar when he does Tihark Orchard and Augury Rock in Hard Mode knowing that he also has to use a Candy Corn and Candy Apple (plus a Green Rock Candy for Tihark). Do my other characters need to do that? No. (Well, maybe my Warrior does too.)

The problem I'm having with my Paragon right now is that he currently has 4,257,513 XP without a death. That's why he's stalled at those spots I listed. He's not exactly a weakling, but he's not the character I pick to take in a party of other players. I don't think he fills any roll that can't be better filled by another profession. Once he dies for the first time, then I may rethink the Imbagon bar, but I doubt it. I don't like that build and I won't run Save Yourselves! or Fall Back! on my Paragon.

Or, simply by making pvp/pve splits as with the other professions...it's so silly that a profession can't be viable in pve cause otherway it would be op in pvp...

PvE/PvP splits generally only power up and down certain skills, not revamp them completely. The only instances in which PvE gets entirely new skills is for the profession updates, which hasn't happened for Paragon yet.

Well yes I said that having a theoric update in mind...meaning, just splitting skills when they do the revamp. And, sadly, I know we'll have to wait for a while for that to happen...or possibly forever <.<

Aegis.

/pedant

PvP got the new skill though, PvE just kept the old version.

/pedant-deflection

Touché.

Spirit cast times and energy costs. Not technically a functionality change, but they completely changed how you can play with spirits in PvE compared to PvP.