Curse

Wyldchild777 · Jul 31, 2006, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Greetings,

In response to the thread currently going on about dervish balance ideas, I decided to start up a Paragon thread.

This one is in the same vein as the other. Discuss the Paragon class - its skills, attributes, and so on.

I'll start off with this -

There was some rumbling of the Pack Hunter premade (R/P) being ridiculous. I don't think this was a problem. The ranger's expertise attribute is designed to work with attack skills, be they bow, sword, axe, hammer, dagger, spear, or scythe. This isn't a problem in my mind. What was done with the Pack Hunter has already been done elsewhere. The one that comes to mind is the "Bunny Thumper" build. A R/W that uses expertise for hammer attacks. I myself have also played around with a sword ranger using poison with Sever Artery for degen.

Continue on with further (serious) discussion please.

Merry meet, merry met, merry meet again,
Wyldchild777

Aug · Jul 31, 2006, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Lightning Spear was the only Paragon skill that I felt was over the top. It is relatively easy to "dodge", but it packs some serious punch. At 16 Spear Mastery, I was hitting people for 80+ with it regularly, and I think I saw a few 100s. 5 en, 2 rc was a little too good. With 2 adrenal shouts, I was able to spam it nearly indefinitely.

I think they need some chants with a wider variety of effects, as well. And I'd like to see the effects of the chants triggered by plain skill usage, instead of explicitly being Attack Skill or Spell. It's very hard to get sufficient return out of skills like that, especially given the relatively short range of shouts... I think Paragon shout range should be increased, if the chants are going to remain so specific.

Also, I don't know if it was a bug, but Echos were treated as Enchants. I had my Mending Refrain shattered and defiled a few times, as well as being prohibited from using it when some Necro threw out a Well of Profane. If it is intended that Echos are to act like Enchants, they should just call them Enchants, and then give them the status bar indicator so I know who has enchants on them... there were a number of times I wish I could've been able to tell if someone had an Echo on them.

Wyldchild777 · Jul 31, 2006, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Greetings,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aug

<snip>

Also, I don't know if it was a bug, but Echos were treated as Enchants. I had my Mending Refrain shattered and defiled a few times, as well as being prohibited from using it when some Necro threw out a Well of Profane.

I agree with that being a bug. Just as shouts, preparations, and stances are not affected, Echos shouldn't be affected by enchantment countering spells as well. If they are to be treated as enchantments, then they should be labeled as such. I hope that gets fixed or clarified.

Merry meet, merry met, merry meet again,
Wyldchild777

Mighty Hero · Jul 31, 2006, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Here is what I posted in the other thread.

I have not seen alot of threads focusing on paragon except alot of threads are firing at dervish because they got beaten badly in arenas by Dervishes, but Dervish and paragon definitely need a few minor modifications.

I wonder why paragon's armor has 80 def with 10 ele def and 10 fire or cold def, and dervish armor got only 70 def? Paragon is a backline supporter for sake. it is capable of dealing damages, healing others, and deal conditions. Why paragon needs 80 def anyway? Monk is a backline supporter also. Does that mean monk's armor need to be 80 defense with other ele def too?

Dervish works wonderfully in number similar to smiting monks, but with and without an avartar skill and with 70 def armor, Dervish would be like an assassin (useless profession). It will get interrupted while trying to use a skill. Eventually, Dervish would be a sitting duck during recharge time. Dervish's def armor should be 80 with 10 ele def and 10 fire def or 10 cold def since dervish will be the frontliner up against monsters and any things.

rogerssn · Aug 01, 2006, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Fist things first, assassins are not useless. Most people just cant play them; I personally like the ones that death charge right next to my worrior. I play an (though I won't reveil my exact build) assassin and I can kill most worriors one on one, and all spellcasters.
Anyway, here are some of my thoughts on the paragons.
They have a great variety of decent defensive/restoration skills. And this is probably their strong point. I didnt get into any of the motivations skills, but the defensive combo I was running seemed to work extrodinarily well (stand your ground + watch yourself + they're on fire + never surrender). But their limitations in the offense department really bothers me. They are essentially limited to burning people (which woorks pretty well) and anthem of envy (next attack skill deals up to 17 more damage to enemies with over half health). In my opinion, antem of envy is not worth using, because of its unreliability (I like skills that are always useful, in all situations). There are also some decent status enducing chants, but I wish there was more variety in those (off the top of my head I can think of one that causes crippling, and one that does, suprise, burning). It would be great to have some that induce bleeding or deep wound. Though that may lead to your one skill inducing a deep wound on all of your opponents may be a little broken (maybe if it was elite ? or an echo you could use on one ally ?)
Anyway, my point being is that there are not many ways to improve your party's offence. Especially when compared to the paragon's ability to aid your allies. It seems strange that skills like 'never surrender' are under command rather then motivation.
Last point. The elite skills, only one offensive one ? Need a bunch more of those.

I like the class, I think that their abilities are pretty good. I just don't want a bunch of burning paragon builds running around running around.

GloryFox · Aug 01, 2006, 12:32 AM // 00:32

I have no complaints on the Armor and Shield. The Armor is good for what the Paragon is. I do hope they increase the Armor options however. Maybe armor that increases by +10 when under the effects of a shout?

Some of the skills the warrior uses under Tactics seem almost essential for the Paragon such as Shields up. It would be good under the command attribute to have some of these skills so the Paragon does not have to rely on warrior Tactics so much. Maybe similar skills (Shouts) that affect other allies instead of all allies would be compatible?

Truth is I found the Tactics attribute of the warrior more useful in my PvP Paragon builds then most Paragon motivation or command skills introduced for party protection and enhancement (Shields Up, Watch Yourself etc). I hope they do add more skills for the Paragon Command and Motivation attributes before the game is released. Otherwise I will defiantly make a Paragon Warrior for Tactics usage for a PvE character.

As for the Spear skills…. I was disappointed in what there was. A spear signet would be nice. Like the Strength Signet that grants extra damage per attack. Some preparations would also be good like a sharpen spears skill (similar to apply poison). You can always place a limitation that gets rid of all other preparations. I am sure ANET will address the Paragon before the game is released.

LifeInfusion · Aug 01, 2006, 02:51 AM // 02:51

I hope they take off the +10 elemental bonus and bump down the base armor to 70... 80 ought to be melee only. How you look at it, they still have 16AL from shields.

EDIT: rationale is because
-ranger armor is 70+30 to 70+30+15 vs. elemental and use 2 handed weapon
-assassin armor is 70 +15 and use 2 handed weapon

Aug · Aug 01, 2006, 03:07 AM // 03:07

Watch Yourself was definitely an exceptional Warrior shout. Most of the other Warrior skills weren't really that great. Frenzy kind of requires a cancel stance, and there just wasn't room on the bar for it. I used Glad's Defense a lot, mostly because there weren't any survivability elites available in the Paragon's arsenal when I was playing the "healer" version.

The class just needs more and better shouts. More adrenal shouts, too. Watch Yourself was being used by a lot of people just as energy management, I think. That's primarily why I used it... that and it made it easier to keep Mending Refrain up.

Mighty Hero · Aug 01, 2006, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogerssn

Fist things first, assassins are not useless. Most people just cant play them;

lol "most people can't play". That is low to blame on people. now don't blame on peopple because its useless, even thought you and a small percentage of players may think assassin is great and all. I am sure top guilds don't want to play a useless profession in their group to jearpardize of losing unless just for fun of it. I have not seen assassins in alot of competitions. do you see alot of people using assassins in their team at all? try to get in a group to do pve missions without your guilds help. what a joke

Wyldchild777 · Aug 01, 2006, 04:00 AM // 04:00

Greetings,

There are some interesting points being brought out in this thread. Let's keep it up, and hope ANet takes these ideas and works with them. Here's some of my thoughts about what has been brought forward.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mighty Hero

<snip>
I wonder why paragon's armor has 80 def with 10 ele def and 10 fire or cold def, and dervish armor got only 70 def?
<snip>

I agree that this seems rather odd. For example, take into consideration these analogies:
a. warrior armor (most baselines of 80) is to ranger armor (most baselines of 70) as paragon armor (most baselines of 80) is to dervish armor (most baselines of 70)
b. warrior role (frontline fighter) is to ranger role (ranged support) as dervish role (frontline fighter) is to paragon role (ranged support)
Taking these two analogies into consideration, it appears that the dervish's and paragon's baseline armor levels got switched somewhere in the development cycle. It seems that a frontline fighter (warrior and dervish) should have more armor than a ranged supporter (ranger and paragon). I hope this gets addressed, if not fixed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rogerssn

<snip>
Anyway, my point being is that there are not many ways to improve your party's offence. Especially when compared to the paragon's ability to aid your allies. It seems strange that skills like 'never surrender' are under command rather then motivation.
Last point. The elite skills, only one offensive one ? Need a bunch more of those.
<snip>

Let me first say that if I misinterpreted your meaning/point, I apologize. Now, it seems here that you are arguing that the paragon should have more offensive capabilities directly relating to damaging/messing with the opponents. I don't see this as being the paragon's role. I view them as being more of a aid your party members' offensive capabilities. Granted, I don't have much evidence of this other than the lore we were given by ANet from the guildwars.com webpage. But, as far as being a directly offensive character, I just don't see paragons in that role.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GloryFox

<snip>
I do hope they increase the Armor options however. Maybe armor that increases by +10 when under the effects of a shout?
<snip>
Some of the skills the warrior uses under Tactics seem almost essential for the Paragon such as Shields up.
<snip>
Truth is I found the Tactics attribute of the warrior more useful in my PvP Paragon builds then most Paragon motivation or command skills introduced for party protection and enhancement (Shields Up, Watch Yourself etc).
<snip>

There are two points here that I wish to touch on.
1. about the armor choices: I don't see this as being a worry. If memory serves me correctly, we saw the same thing with the Factions preview. The assassin and ritualist only has a few armor choices, but when release hit there were a lot more options to choose from, and I just don't mean artwork styles. I just hope the same pattern follows through in Nightfall.
2. about needing warrior shouts: This I do see as being a problem. To me, when a class absolutely needs to go outside its own skillset to be effective or fulfill its role, then that skillset needs to be reworked. Now, granted, this being a preview event, we didn't see the full lineup of skills that the paragon is going to have available. But, if what you say about the paragon needing warrior shouts to provide some defensive enhancements, then some should be added to the paragon lineup. I see paragons, as far as this goes, to be more of a specialist at shouts and their like than the warriors are. The paragon should have a wider and better selection than warriors have. After all, warriors are more concerned with damage output and killing the mob in their face than the paragon is or, in my mind, should be.

And, about the assassin talk - I do have my opinions about that whole situation (mainly revolving around aggro-monkey, leeroy jenkins trained, whammos

), but this isn't the place to be discussing it. Please keep it more on topic about paragons.

Well, that about it so far. Keep up the discussion. I'd like to hear from more people about their experiences and thoughts. For instance:
- How effective were the various shouts that the paragon had?
- What about the renewing shouts? Echoing I believe they were called. Are they worth having?
- What about the spears? The various attack skills? The spear itself, as far as damage range and attack range?
- How about the use of a paragon as a secondary? Aka - the Pack Hunter premade introduced this weekend.

Merry meet, merry met, merry meet again,
Wyldchild777

TadaceAce · Aug 01, 2006, 04:12 AM // 04:12

Don't nerf their armor, when I make my paragon hes definately going to be P/W with an axe, those shouts and chants (blazing finale comes to mind) belong up front. Sure you can put blazing finale on the war but your shouts aren't gonna hit him if you aren't up front too. They are given warrior armor for a reason, they belong frontline with the warriors and dying sins. NOW here would be a very welcomed thing, this could nerf R/P but make P more leet at the same time. If you would just say halve spear range, that would make me so happy, that would put them at the exact right distance to get both melee and casters with chants and shouts.

Lol yeah about the sins, people keep saying "if used correctly they are uber" well newsflash apparently nobody can use them correctly, they are used to gank bodyguards and archers before VoD and thats about the extent of it. Beyond that they are completely useless.

As far as paragon and the warrior tactics line. I can see watch yourself as just a flat out cheap way to get energy back and with a great utility. Shields up, wow, it went from useless, to semi useful (introduction of interupt spammers and rspike), to we need that skill with sins and paragons. I'd go as far as saying P/W (for paragon primary) is the absolute only way to go, watch yourself is absolutely too valueble to give up and shields up isn't bad either.

twicky_kid · Aug 01, 2006, 05:46 AM // 05:46

I wouldn't touch the Paragon's armor at all. Think about it for a second. Why give a mid-line support class 80AL base and some decent def vs specific elementals? When you are in a battle who is usually inside your mid-line? The wars and thumpers are that's who. With the paragon's high armor they can survive an assault and do their job like they need to. Their high armor also allows them to fend off those wars and thumpers.

The spear attacks are simply amazing. Stunning strike is great and can be covered immediatly. Too bad they nerfed the spear's attack speed. It was 1.33 when the event started. By the 2nd day when people were complaining about the pack hunter it was changed to 1.66. I would have rather seen some of their skill's dmg reduced than get the attack speed decreased. Paragon's have no IAS within their own class and only 3 other classes have it. The need to change that back.

Paragons are going to change the frontline offense a lot. War's skill bar will finally change a little. We've been running the same 5 staple skills in every warrior build. Enduring Hamony, For Great Justice, and Anthem of Fury are going to change adrenaline charging forever.

Add For Great Justice to the war/thumper's bar. Paragon use Enduring Hamony to on the war/thumper. Now FGJ last for 30 seconds giving it a 15 second cool down. Anthem of Fury will give 4 adrenaline at 12 attribute for the attack skill used. Since the Attack skill you used gives you 1 adrenaline back that's a 5 adrenaline gain and ending Anthem renewing the Enduring Harmony. Under FJG Anthem is a 7.5 adrenaline gain. I know my final thrust is going to love anthem. Not to mention dragon slash or dark fury with this. FJG + dark fury = 3 adrenaline per hit. How about a hammer bash or Coward! every 2 hits?

I expect that every paragon in GvG is going to run watch yourself and charge. Then you change the warrior to a more pressure style elite like quivering blade. These are the reasons I am more afraid of the Paragon than the dervish.

audioaxes · Aug 01, 2006, 06:55 AM // 06:55

i think the paragon is pretty good as is, some of the spear attacks may need a bit nerfing as far as damage
and then some of the other attribute lines could use a bit of a buff

sinican · Aug 01, 2006, 07:03 AM // 07:03

Im not sure eveyrone has grasped that the Paragon is really a warrior... at least anet dint protray them as wars but has anyone thought about the W/P spear tanks being able to set ppl on fire

or the P/W chanting axer

can you say Waragons (yes i know sounds cheasy)

but look how much better the wars self heals got as well as elemental strikes to strike down recently nerfed(balanced) AL

RoyalFloyd · Aug 01, 2006, 07:08 AM // 07:08

I think the thing that made R/Ps powerful was the spear of lightning. It is so good that you don't need another energy-based spear attack for damage. Just get one or two more adrenaline skills, use an IAS(Tigers or Frenzy) and spam them.

Compare it to penetrating shot, which has 10 energy 3 recharge and 5% less armor penetration. Now anet shouldn't just duplicate this skill as deing a spear version of penetrating, but can increase the recharge of spear of lightning to 4-5 secs. This would make it a good cheap attack skill but not so spammable.

Other than that, I think the R/P is just fine. People just don't know how to play against it or counter it in order to suceed. It's just like a warrior that can't spike as well but can attack from range instead.

Blind him, and he's completely useless. Use a defensive stance or enchantments like guardian so that he can't spam attacks on you. SS/Empathy working under IAS, blurred vision, faintheartedness, price/spirit of failure,anti-adrenaline skills etc... Counters against warriors do work against r/p ( you just can't kite them that easily )

Aug · Aug 01, 2006, 12:53 PM // 12:53

Enduring Harmony doesn't reapply. IMO, all the Echos should reapply. None of the Echos seemed good enough on their own to justify using them, w/out a reapplication clause.

And Paragons aren't just like Warriors. Paragons have a slew of energy based Shouts, Chants, Echos, and also Signets that are unaffected by Blind. Warriors have Healing Signet, and that's pretty much it.

I do expect many Paragons to be Warrior secondaries using Watch Yourself! and/or Charge! in GvG. No other class seemed to synergize quite as well as a Warrior with them.

I don't agree that the armor of the Dervish and the Paragon should be switched. The Dervish is compensated for a lower base armor with their Forms. They get +40 Armor out of those, and at 15 Mysticism, they last something like 60 seconds... so half the time a Dervish has 100+ Armor.

Spura · Aug 01, 2006, 01:35 PM // 13:35

1. About R/P. I think Reckless Haste works wonders. IAS doesn't stack so the attack speed increase from Tiger's doesn't do anything for them.

2. Echoes: Despite what you think Twicky Kid, Enduring harmony won't get renewed when anthem ends. Only echoes that have specifically stated in description that they renew do so. These echoes all have Refrain in their name.

Echoes that renew when chant ends:

Mending Refrain
Burning Refrain
Bladeturn Refrain

Echoes that don't renew when chant ends:

Blazing Finale
Enduring Harmony
Finale of Restoration
Purifying Finale

Things that are amazing:

1. Spear Mastery:

Very good, completely comparable to other weapon in terms of damage. It is like ranged axe. The nerf to 1.66 sec attack speed was well deserved. It needs a nerf to some damage skills and at least 5 sec recharge on spear of lightning(heck, lightning stike has 5 sec recharge).

2. Motivation and healing.

Its healing is on ritualist level. Paragon can be amazing healer with lots of armor.

Things that I think are bad and I hope they change:

1. No way to know what player has what echoes on if any at all. This makes maintaining echoes on all players a living hell. Especially ones that don't renew. With 30 sec durations I completely forget who has what on and can't make even a loose estimate when I'll need to reapply. We need some icon like with weapon spells of ritualist.

2. Shout range, as large as aggro range, was only a temporary change. Normal range for shouts is 3 times adjacent range I think. It is very hard to keep team in range, especially in less organised teams people tend to wander off on their own(AB, PvE). I hope they keep the agro range of shouts when nightfall is released.

3. Too many skills are target other ally ones. That means that any functionality those skills provide has to be duplicated somewhere on the team to cover paragon himself.

Some are fine with this or they would be overpowered like "Make haste" would make paragon have permanent boost.

But some are more needed

Skills like:
Angelic Protection
"Brace Yourself"
"It's just a flesh wound"

For instance if you use it's just a flesh wound then you have to have condition removal somewhere else too, just to take care of paragon.

IMO something like halved duration on Angelic if cast on yourself would be fair.

4. Too many chants affect only a part of your team often because of
poorly chosen triggers.

These 2 chants have this problem.

For instance, Aria of Zeal, gives energy next time a player uses an attack skill. This will mostly benefit rangers, assassins and paragons. I highly doubt that these classes will be more than 2 characters in a balanced 8 man team. It's a question as well: do their build need additional energy bad enough to use a skill slot.

Hexbreaker aria triggers on spellcasting. This is pretty bad. Paragons, rangers, warriors have no spells to speak of so they can't knock off hexes of attacker hate. Assassins and dervishes will be able to use this. Most hexes that land on casters are usually against casting spells (backfire, shame, soul leech, etc) so by trying to cast you will triger the hex, which makes it not very useful for them. So basically 2 classes will be able to use Hexbreaker aria to lose hexes that bother them.

Exception being degeneration hexes, which hurt all classes. But generally warriors won't be able to lose i.e. blurred vision with aria, because they have no spells and spellcasters are bothered by anti-spell hexes which is the trigger anyway. Poor design there IMO. Should activate on any skill.

Having good chants trigger on attack skills only or on spells only is asking for gimmick builds like caster spikes or attacker heavy teams(dervishes or iway) to abuse it. Of course for some chants it makes sense like adren chant triggering on attacks.

5. Chants with one time effect

A lot of chants have one time effects. Like chant of flame. And that's fine and all. There is one which bother me though. Anthem of guidance. Casters gain nothing from it and attackers only get 1 attack which doesn't help much when you try to chain with warrior or assassin. Would much rather see something more to the effect of 3 attacks on a single ally.

6. Effects too small for slot investment

Paragon has chants and shouts and echoes with all kinds of effects, which makes the class able to support a lot of builds. However a lot of these do too little to succeed in 8 slot enviroment (7 slot actually). Like Bladeturn Refrain.

7. Non-attributed skills in attributes

Well this is more of a cosmetic glitch. Anthem of Guidance, Hexbreaker aria, Song of Concentration have no values affected by attributes yet they are in attribute lines.

twicky_kid · Aug 01, 2006, 03:57 PM // 15:57

It doesn't matter that ER doesn't renew. Its a 10 second recharge and a 37 second duration and cannot be removed. Renew or not I'll be abusing it.

Its just a flesh wound is really a no attribute skill. I'm going to be using this with a p/n or n/p for plague sending. The Elite Sig I feel the same way about. Ok I just removed the conditions in my party and I'm set on fire for 10 seconds here you and you little friends there can have that. Thank you have a good day.

Between Expel hexes, CoP, Pious Restoration, and that sig conditions/hexes just got nearly killed.

GloryFox · Aug 01, 2006, 04:07 PM // 16:07

I agree with many posters here.. don't touch the Armor for Paragons at all 80 is perfect. There is a link between the Armor and the energy factor. Whereas a Ranger has 70/100 it also has 3 energy pips. Paragons have only 2 pips. Sins have 70 armor but has 4 pips for use of defense skills same with the Dervish. (I DON"T CARE WHAT OTHERS SAY SINS ROCK!)

Anyways I also think there should be various spears like a Ranger has various Bows. Some spears attack faster, some slower, some longer, some short range, some long range, some with 10% armor penetration etc. Spear damage is fine not as good as a Ranger however.

Did anyone make a Paragon/ Ele? I was thinking some Ele wards might also go well with the class.

mqstout · Aug 01, 2006, 04:10 PM // 16:10

Easiest way to balance paragon is to make sure there's a counter to shouts. They're currently uninterruptable, unpreventable (excluding "diversion"), and unremovable.