Curse

Del · Jun 15, 2010, 01:09 AM // 01:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by belshazaarswrath

Assassins and Ritualists are meta right now and they came late in the game too (not as late but were not around since the beginning).

Mesmers have been around since day one and they are STILL arguably outclassed by all other classes that came out at the same time.

Even pre buff, mesmers were stronger than eles in hm due to armour ignoring damage and punishment hexes. The only reason mesmers were ever mistaken for being bad is because bad players think if they can't constantly roll their faces acros their keyboard and spam, then the class is bad.

Raccoon · Jun 15, 2010, 01:27 AM // 01:27

I find that the biggest problem in both PvE and PvP is that Paragons use adrenaline for a good 80% of their skills. The fact that an older, more commonly used profession (warrior) uses the same mechanics is what pushes Paragons into the shadows. Not to mention that some skills require 7 or 8 adrenaline just so that everyone in your party gets healed for 20HP or lose a hex

I don't think skill changes will help Paragons now, I think they either need a new form of energy, or change leadership to dramatically increase adrenaline gains.

However, I have a sneaking suspicion that Paragons won't be making a comeback in GW2... I think the Monk/Paragon hybrid is what we should be expecting

Lanier · Jun 15, 2010, 01:35 AM // 01:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

EDIT @ Del: I'm not saying Paras should necessarily have access to AoE. As I have said before and apparently must say again, I do not play my Para enough to say one way or the other. However, I can say that at least the OP is arguing that this would make them just as desirable as other classes for grouping purposes. The other person's counter argument was that it "didn't make sense." Unlike the OP's practical reason, the responder's reason has very little weight in a fantasy game.

Yes, it is a fantasy game. Still, the physical professions should have realism associated with the non-fantasy stuff they do (ex: dervish's spells can be as ourageous as they want but the dervish shouldn't be able to throw their scythe like a boomerang at the enemy). Maybe if AoE was necessary to balance the profession, it would be excusable to give the paragon a barrage type attack, but it really isn't necessary.

MisterB · Jun 15, 2010, 02:12 AM // 02:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raccoon

I don't think skill changes will help Paragons now, I think they either need a new form of energy, or change leadership to dramatically increase adrenaline gains.

You honestly feel that Leadership is inadequate energy management? Wow.

The update will happen when it's done. Asking for it sooner isn't going to make it happen, and you shouldn't really want that if you think about it for a moment or two. Unless you like incomplete or broken updates full of bugs.

Lishy · Jun 15, 2010, 02:33 AM // 02:33

Wait, people are saying Leadership isn't good for energy? Wow. Whatever happened to "Infinite energy" and being the one profession to spam Searing Flames better than Eles themselves?

Ugh · Jun 15, 2010, 02:41 AM // 02:41

My biggest issue with paragons is that they're damn near impossible to balance; they're overpowered and underpowered at the same time, depending on party size. The only real way I see to fix this is to give them some skills that scale effectiveness with the number of allies (kind of like the distribution of benefits in effects like Shield of Saint Viktor) and skills that apply to the entire party rather than each individual member.

Those skill types could be hard to balance, however. Making Anthem of Flame into something like Chant. (10 seconds.) The next 4...7...8 attacks skills used by party members in earshot inflict Burning condition (1...3...3 second[s]). would probably be OP in small parties and solo quests, but useless in large ones, depending on Leadership level. Although, that problem could probably be solved by reducing the duration to 5ish seconds. Meh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

Using "what makes sense" in a video game is not valid most of the time. You need an actual balance reason why Para's should not have access to AoE damage skills.

Paragons weren't meant to have AoE damage. Classes have niches in this game, so every class having nuking power would be quite redundant (yes, I know the niche system is sort of screwed up with things like ritualists, but there's no need to make it worse). The Paragon's niche is obviously party support, so that should be buffed instead of damage.

Quote:

I know Wars/Sins/Rangers can all use scythes better than Dervs and that Mysticism does little for Dervs other than some gimmicky forms.

The tactics update has put dervs on par with warrior and sin scythe builds (rangers have always been worst of the four in scythe use). Warriors have high armor, can easily spam, have SY, and have armor penetration; sins have high armor, can easily spam, have DW, and have shittons of crits; and dervs have permablocking, can spam, have SY, have lots o' crits, and have runes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by belshazaarswrath

Mesmers have been around since day one and they are STILL arguably outclassed by all other classes that came out at the same time.

"Arguably" being the keyword. Mesmers are great in PvE now (they were still good before, too) and have plenty of options; they're cetainly better off than rangers and eles, with their 'good build counts' at 0 and 1, respectively.

Imaginos · Jun 15, 2010, 04:04 AM // 04:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

scythes and spears are gone in GW 2? Are they getting rid of the paragon and dervish professions? If so, then they better have other professions replacing them. I mean I can see why scythes are kind of a wierd weapon to have in a game, but spears were some of the most common Pre-gunpowder weapons, and it really makes sense to have spears be in the game at least as an option for the warrior if the paragon isn't going to be in gw2.

Why? Guns are in gw2 and warriors can use them and bows just fine. The list of weapons for warriors has been extended compared to gw1 and from the looks of it they seem to be kind of rolling different classes all into singular classes in order to extend the capabilities of said classes while keeping the number of classes down. Who knows if there will even be a ranger type. Wouldn't surprise me if ranger+assassin got merged into some sort of thief class.

belshazaarswrath · Jun 15, 2010, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

Even pre buff, mesmers were stronger than eles in hm due to armour ignoring damage and punishment hexes. The only reason mesmers were ever mistaken for being bad is because bad players think if they can't constantly roll their faces acros their keyboard and spam, then the class is bad.

Notice I said arguably. I've been using my mesmer for years now and have found success everywhere I go. But I still would take my warrior,monk,ranger, or necromancer over her. Ele...if I'm doing normal mode I'd take her too but in HM probably not.

But all of this is here nor there in regards with my actual point which is just because the class is more recent doesn't mean that it is underpowered by default. And in reality elementalists (a class that has been around since day one) needs much more help than paragons do in my honest opinion. Paragons can dish out decent damage and can mitigate amazing damage while ele's can pretty much tank (and can get outtanked by several other classes) and deal mediocre damage (and blind people with blinding surge...)

Buff ele's, dervs then paras...

Faer · Jun 15, 2010, 04:45 AM // 04:45

I saw some people talking about what "makes sense" and all that psuedo-logic talk that should never, ever be brought up when talking about a video game. But here's something to think about anyway.

Tie a Molotov Cocktail to a spear. Throw the spear at something. Grab another spear with a small keg bomb tied to it, and throw that one too. There you go. Logical AoE for Paragons. Because making sense is incredibly important.

Personally though I don't see this as a problem, because Paragons destroy PvE without these things as it is. In an ideal world, everyone would be running teams consisting of six Paragons, one N/Rt, and an AP Monk.

Lanier · Jun 15, 2010, 05:10 AM // 05:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Theocrat

Tie a Molotov Cocktail to a spear. Throw the spear at something. Grab another spear with a small keg bomb tied to it, and throw that one too. There you go. Logical AoE for Paragons. Because making sense is incredibly important.

That wouldn't be very aerodynamic. The keg bomb or cocktail would weigh the spear down.

Del · Jun 15, 2010, 05:19 AM // 05:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

That wouldn't be very aerodynamic. The keg bomb or cocktail would weigh the spear down.

But with the paragon's awesome might, the poor aerodynamics are a mere inconvenience.

shoyon456 · Jun 15, 2010, 05:28 AM // 05:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugh

My biggest issue with paragons is that they're damn near impossible to balance; they're overpowered and underpowered at the same time...
Paragons weren't meant to have AoE damage. Classes have niches in this game, so every class having nuking power would be quite redundant (yes, I know the niche system is sort of screwed up with things like ritualists, but there's no need to make it worse). The Paragon's niche is obviously party support, so that should be buffed instead of damage.

What you say in these paragraphs are very true. Read this now and understand that I agree with you on this part, because below this is going to be me calling you out on a few things. It's not personal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugh

The tactics update has put dervs on par with warrior and sin scythe builds

You mean this build? Do you realize that that build utilizes three attribute points in Mysticism? There's no point to a primary Dervish running that build since Mysticism has no use in it. And the point still remains that Warrior could still do that exact same build better with a higher Tactics att and higher AL than Dervs..

And personally, in most cases when I see a profession using an elite from their secondary I tend to think there's something wrong with either that class or that particular elite skill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugh

(rangers have always been worst of the four in scythe use).

True. Again, don't take any of this personally...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugh

Warriors have high armor, can easily spam, have SY, and have armor penetration;

sins have high armor, can easily spam, have DW, and have shittons of crits;

Sins have the same AL as Dervs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugh

and dervs have permablocking, can spam, have SY, have lots o' crits, and have runes.

The one build that offers blocking for Dervs isn't up 100% of the time. And yet again I have to say the Warrior could use that exact build except better since it has runes for tactics. It also forces Derv use of one particular, unchangeable elite from your secondary. Attack "spamming" on Dervish is invalid, Mysticism, while useful, does not allow this. For Derv's to attack spam on par with Sins they'd need Zealous Vow and that still doesn't compensate for Sin's crit strikes.

The fact remains that Mysticism offers no melee or dmg advantage whereas Critical Strikes and Strength make both the Sin and War, respectively, better with all melee weapons. Anet tried to make the Derv a caster-melee, and in effect made it sub par at both.

Here are some suggestions mentioned by others as well as myself numerous times:

-AoHM needs to be tied to Mysticism.

-Mysticism needs to be reworked or buffed like Spawning recently was.

(I believe Anet said they were working on this/Dervs in general in the dev update)

-Scythe damage needs to be normalized so that it's not a random gamble on what you're going to get when you swing unless you're setup to crit. This is one fact that has kept them out of High-end/organized PvP for the most part.

-Scythe-striking multiple foes needs to be tied to Mysticism or just completely removed and injected into individual attack skills.

(They were talking about doing something to scythes specifically on the dev update)

belshazaarswrath · Jun 15, 2010, 06:19 AM // 06:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

Keep the personal attacks out of it please. Yes, I did report your post for this fact. And how arrogant of you to pull one or two sentences out of my whole post to try to find some flaw in it without accepting the validity of other parts. This is how flame wars start kids.

If you want to play it that way, then I suppose it would be more accurate to say an Assassin could use the build better than Wars and Dervs. But the point remains the the supposed "main selling point" and main e management of Dervs, Mysticism, is completely unused making Dervs redundant with that build.

4 bips of energy is more than 2. Assassins can't put points into scythe mastery without being A/D.

Quote:

OSHIT You reported my post? oh whatever will i do banned from guru again for trolling? I am deeply sorry for insulting you for making such a retarded statement in your flawed argument.

He might have had a slightly off post, but you started a sentence with a lower case letter. You look like an idiot here.

Riot Narita · Jun 15, 2010, 07:44 AM // 07:44

You'd think it would be easy to revamp Paragons for PvE, and A-Net wouldn't need to spend that much time on it...

There was a time they were awesome. Their awesomeness was duly exploited in PvP, so they were bludgeoned beyond recognition with the nerfbat.

Simply undo some of the nerfs (PvE-only), and they could be awesome again?

AlsPals · Jun 15, 2010, 10:23 AM // 10:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riot Narita

You'd think it would be easy to revamp Paragons for PvE, and A-Net wouldn't need to spend that much time on it...

There was a time they were awesome. Their awesomeness was duly exploited in PvP, so they were bludgeoned beyond recognition with the nerfbat.

Simply undo some of the nerfs (PvE-only), and they could be awesome again?

Cannot do that. As mentioned, paragons are the ultimate class for playing the numbers game(aside from Eles with Searing Flames, but thats only good in Normal mode and low level PvP). Normally, one paragon in PvE sucks, unless its an imbagon. Add one more, and you got some good shit going. If one is an imbagon, even better. Add a third, might as well get a N/Rt to play off physical damage. Add a forth and face roll PvE. Hell, even 3 can do it with a good backing. Paragons synergies can allow massive passive denfense, healing, damage buffs, in addition to its innate spear damage. Even seen 6 Paragons spear chuck at an opponent with barbs? MOP? It may be no Manylyway-type damage, but they can constantly negate as much as they can dish. In the abstract, some skills may end up getting nerfed in order to push through buffs, just so some builds never see the light.

Edit:Actually, you may disregard most of the post. I didn't realize the reasoning behind your post. Anet put Cons and PVE skills in the game so more OP paragon builds might not make a difference.

jimbo32 · Jun 15, 2010, 10:48 AM // 10:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Bad examples FTL. Elementalists throwing a ball of fire makes perfect since. In fact, when I think of the stereotypical fantasy elementalist, a fireball is the first thing that comes to mind. Same with a monk smiting down an opponent. It makes perfect sense for a monk who is smiting an opponent to do so by calling down a god's wrath from heaven. Hell, even the barrage example is a bad one. There are other cases in movies and games where archers have been able to shoot multiple arrows at a time (legolas for example).

My mistake, I assumed you were making a real world comparison when you said that chucking multiple spears didn't make sense. Y'know...as opposed to a fantasy world comparison.

But let me get this straight - because you saw Legolas shoot multiple arrows in a fantasy movie, you are of the opinion that it all of a sudden makes perfect sense? LotR is no more real than GW - fantasy movies (like games) define their own reality. The people who decide what "makes sense" are the game designers and screenwriters. If you think that firing multiple arrows and actually hitting stuff with them makes sense, you've been watching too much TV.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugh

Paragons weren't meant to have AoE damage. Classes have niches in this game, so every class having nuking power would be quite redundant (yes, I know the niche system is sort of screwed up with things like ritualists, but there's no need to make it worse). The Paragon's niche is obviously party support, so that should be buffed instead of damage.

But aren't Paras the only class in the game without some sort of AoE capability? And I'm not talking about Splinter Weapon - I mean skills innate to the class. The caster professions are obviously covered. As for the physical ones: Warriors have PBAoE with all their weapons (sword is somewhat limited I guess with just HB, but there's also Whirlwind Attack). Dervishes do PBAoE with every swipe of their scythe. Rangers have Barrage and Volley. Assassins have Death Blossom, Golden Phoenix Strike, and a few others. Paras really only have Holy Spear, and it's AoE is highly conditional.

The best one to use as a comparison is the Assassin. They have (imo) the highest single-target spike ability out of all the physical classes. I would go so far as to say that it's the main role of the Sin in the grand scheme of GW. Yet they also have some AoE.

I find the whole thing kinda odd really - in my opinion, the two most flexible professions in GW are the Canthan ones. And the two most narrow are the Elonians. It's like the design team overcompensated for giving Rits and Sins such a broad range of skills by shafting the NF classes.

Anyway, I'm not saying that Paras absolutely need AoE skills - I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate. But there's no doubt in my mind that something should be done with the class. Personally, I thought the Para buff was more urgent than Mesmer. And yes, I've played both (my Legendary Survivor is a Mes).

wilebill · Jun 15, 2010, 11:36 AM // 11:36

All for fixing Paragon as soon as ANet can get to it. /sign

AoE, well Holy Spear can give you some if you have a summoned creature to hit. What I would really like is to see the original skill balance return for PvE only.

Cuilan on GW2: The overpowered skills are purely for testing purposes. We have seen this before with other game previews. By the time GW2 comes out the "one hit kills" are mostly going to be of players, not of monsters. Trust ANet on this one.

Raccoon · Jun 15, 2010, 02:56 PM // 14:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

You honestly feel that Leadership is inadequate energy management? Wow.

No, what I'm saying is that with warriors also using adrenaline, most W/P builds outclass what a paragon can run because the warriors are gaining adrenaline too, using the para chants and doing massive damage at the same time. The issue comes down to what makes a Paragon so special that anyone would play it over a warrior?

Skyy High · Jun 15, 2010, 03:01 PM // 15:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

I don't think Guild Wars 2's release will matter. There will be people who will want to play a good game than a game where apparently everything dies from the slightest hit.

Are you serious man?

On-topic: I still feel that paras are fine. They do sword-level DPS, while simultaneously throwing defensive buffs up like mad, and can bring a couple of support skills to buff defense or offense of their team even further. The issue is that they really shine in a physical party, which most players don't run (hullo 3 necro builds and spiritway). Of course, I also thought mesmers were "fine", not excellent but fine, and they got buffed to the point where running around with my mesmer feels very, very powerful (but still in a mesmer-y kind of way). I'd be fine with motivation getting buffed to the point where it can almost do as good a job as an imbagon right now.

Also, you guys better brace for imbagon getting nerfed, because I totally see that happening. They can't make paras use all the cool new buffed skills if they leave them the most ridiculously OP-ed build they have, and there's absolutely no way they can (or, at least, should) buff motivation to do a better job at party defense as imbagons do now.

Quote:

No, what I'm saying is that with warriors also using adrenaline, most W/P builds outclass what a paragon can run because the warriors are gaining adrenaline too, using the para chants and doing massive damage at the same time. The issue comes down to what makes a Paragon so special that anyone would play it over a warrior?

The fact that their massive energy management lets them use energy skills like a caster, on two pips of energy regen? Warriors certainly can't do that, so they can't use the majority of para shouts and chants. They also are a melee class, so stopping to cast a 1-2 second chant is prohibitive because they need to run to catch up to a fleeing enemy, whereas a para just chants and gets back to spear hucking.

Angel Killuminati · Jun 15, 2010, 03:46 PM // 15:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

unlike other damage-dealing professions, paragons have no way to deal AoE damage which leaves them inferior to all other damage dealers. Paragons and rangers are also unable to benefit from some common physical-damage buffs such as Strength of Honor which only widens the gap. unlike other support professions, paragons lack the energy to be useful without constantly attacking (and being subject to dodge, miss, block, blind, etc) in order to gain adrenaline, and many of the skills which he would use to support the team have been nerfed into uselessness because of pvp concerns.

They are much the same as a ranger yes, but then most rangers use splinter weapon as ONE example in order to use AoE to foes clumped up, although rangers have skills that also fire multiple arrows, leaving paragons behind in that respect.

But they aren't a main physical dealing class, opting more for support. They are there to inspire teammates with shouts and chants.

I do agree though about the energy issue, regardless of equipping your paragon with all manner of energy helping insignias, runes and zealous upgrades, their energy regen doesn't help them support that well, when you consider that most of their better helping skills require a great deal of energy, plus the fact they might need to be activated quite often to actually seem of help.

With the Imbagon it's focused around adrenaline gain, which when using a spear is significantly helped due to the increased attack speed. The adrenaline gain for a paragon in PvE seems more viable, which sadly only limits them to a few builds, or pure attack based using adrenaline based attack skills much like a warrior for example.

As it happens, most energy based skills are left behind.