Curse

Spura · Sep 28, 2006, 07:19 PM // 19:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anir

Angelic Bond
Unremovable life bond for 3 or 4 people possibly?

Except that life bond doesn't ditch half of the damage on the caster. This is usable but not as good as people think. The amout of damage on your team remains unchanged, a good portion of it just got transfered over to paragon. Bonder actually reduces damage that has to be healed. This elite doesn't. You just know who to use healing seed on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anir

"It's Just a Flesh Woud!"
Even with 2 pips of regen, this is probably easily spammable as long as you stay near a couple allies (and have at least a little bit of Leadership).

Leadership: You gain energy per number of affected allies. In this case that is always 1. Even with 15 million allies around you, you will have to pay 5 energy and gain back 1. You will easily run out of energy = crap elite. This is like 3rd piece of wrong information from you this week.

Zinger314 · Sep 28, 2006, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spura

Except that life bond doesn't ditch half of the damage on the caster. This is usable but not as good as people think. The amout of damage on your team remains unchanged, a good portion of it just got transfered over to paragon. Bonder actually reduces damage that has to be healed. This elite doesn't. You just know who to use healing seed on.

Look at Signet of Synergy. Then add thay with Finale of Restoration and a few wel-timed shouts.

As long as the Paragon isn't being focus-cired, Angelic Bond can really maintain a target.

Spura · Sep 28, 2006, 08:17 PM // 20:17

I know that it makes healing easier. Easier enough to want an elite? If pressure is mounting on the team, it doesn't exactly shine.

Tainek · Sep 28, 2006, 09:35 PM // 21:35

Anyone who thinks angelic bond has anything to do with mitigating damage has the skill completely wrong, its a PVP skill, and it is the ultimate Anti Spike Defense

It is a Shout, So Short of Blackout or diversion, It CANNOT be shutdown (Gale/Shock/Hammer KD)

This is Very Important, as 95% of the time, the Infuse Monk is Gale'd/Shocked to Stop the spike

To kill a target with a spike with angelic bond, you need to do about 1200 Damage, and then some to deal with Spike Disruption

With this Skill, your team is as close to spike proof as you get, especially if a healing seed is kept on the paragon (making him Fairly Spike Proof, especially with his 96 AL)

Its an Elite Anti-Spike, Not Damage Mitigation

Spura · Sep 28, 2006, 10:18 PM // 22:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tainek

Anyone who thinks angelic bond has anything to do with mitigating damage has the skill completely wrong, its a PVP skill, and it is the ultimate Anti Spike Defense

Its an Elite Anti-Spike, Not Damage Mitigation

Yes I know that, but everyone here is comparing it with bonders, bonders are damage migitation. Also as far as antispike goes, you can barely cover other 7 players with this. I dunno, I prefer Incoming.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tainek

It is a Shout, So Short of Blackout or diversion, It CANNOT be shutdown (Gale/Shock/Hammer KD)

Actually it is a skill not a shout. Shouts can be shutdown by Vocal Minority, Well of Silence.
They can still interrupt you, it has 1 sec cast. Distracting shot if you are not careful.

Former Ruling · Sep 28, 2006, 11:33 PM // 23:33

"Incoming!" = Only good for Anti-Spike, since if you just spam it whenever it recharges it doesn't influence the overall damage very much. Now, its uses for an anti-spike can be debated. No cast time means as soon as you see a spike coming its up and basically stops it, but one could argue that 20 recharge is alittle big.

A. Guidance = Elite because of Ranger Spike.

Crip A. = Not as good for why it was made Elite. Cheap crippling yes, but its uses are debatable becuase of where the crippling comes from.

Angelic Bond = OP, ABond was always in Leadership (even was in the pvp weekend). Anti-Spike, but I flinch in horror when I think of an AoE spell going off when you have this on more thna one person.

A of Fury = Elite because of faster Adrenaline spikes.

Defensive A = Its uses arent as limited as you'd think, even though rangers and warriors aren't going to reap its benefits, they arent the ones that need it. Its an unremoveable Aegis for Casters, if its recharge was alittle lower so it could stay up atleast 50% of the time I'd give it my seal of approval.

Focused Anger = Not even double adrenaline, and it has a downtime :\

Soldiers Fury = Much better, Best IAS actually (even a Watch Yourself keeps it up..) assuming you want to waste your elite on IAS -Which most dont, which means it won't get used. Good elite, just suffers from "theres better usage elites out there".

"It is Just a Flesh Wound!" = Not Restore Condition. If monks didnt already have the better Restore Condition, I would see a use for this. Yes this one only has a 1 sec recharge, and technically only costs 4 energy if your a primary paragon, Restore Condition is still better because It HEALS the other ally for each condition removed, while this GIVES you a condition...What a trade off.

"The Power is Yours!" = The elite for Battery Paragons. They are better batteries than Necromancers, but require more of the bar devoted to battery-ing than a necromancer so they have less they can help their team with otherwise.

Song of pur = My only problem with it is it requires them to use skills to remove the conditions (some builds just cant sacifice using skills whenever they want just to remove conditions) and its 2 sec cast. Still worth the elite, though its use over other party wide condition removal skills will depend alot on the build.

Song of restoration = dont know why it is elite now, a cheaper heal party with a LONGGGG recharge and requires the targets actively use something to get the healing >_>

Cruel Spear = Good spear elite, dont know why the Depe wound (and all Deep wounds the paragons can cause) are situational, but its a situation thats easy as pie to fulfill.

Stunning Spear = Was sex during the preview last time. Now...meh... Adrenaline cost is insane, +dmg is only decent, and the dazed depends on a condition and doesnt last that long (and theres fifty new ways to remove it).

C Signet = OP, recharge was always 15. Martyr is what it will be compaired too, and again its uses vs martyr depend on the situation. Martyr recharges faster, and has a faster cast time, but transfers all condtions to you while this just gives you burning. So Versus a condition heavy team you might want this so your martyr-er doesnt get bleeding, poision, crippled, dazed, and everything else under the sun - but for general use..Martyr's Cast and recharge are just more appealing.

Spura · Sep 29, 2006, 01:02 AM // 01:02

So basically which do you rate as something that will get used over alternatives and which as good?

Balthazars Saint · Sep 29, 2006, 05:29 PM // 17:29

I sometimes think that people dont realize that there is GOING to be skill balancing. I mean they are STILL balancing factions out muchless Nightfall which is NOT EVEN released.

Tainek · Sep 29, 2006, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spura

Yes I know that, but everyone here is comparing it with bonders, bonders are damage migitation. Also as far as antispike goes, you can barely cover other 7 players with this. I dunno, I prefer Incoming.

Actually it is a skill not a shout. Shouts can be shutdown by Vocal Minority, Well of Silence.
They can still interrupt you, it has 1 sec cast. Distracting shot if you are not careful.

Ah, i had Misread the skill, still, in HA/GvG it could be kept on both of your monks, making them practically unspikeable, but not worth the elite IMO

Spura · Sep 30, 2006, 04:56 PM // 16:56

Generally I severly dislike what they did to paragon since last preview. There were a lot of elites missing to hit the 15 elites mark and I hoped that they would be cool and unique elites like "Incoming". But Anet had other plans. They just elitized existing skills, sometimes cutting adrenaline cost in half in the process, sometimes elitized without changing anything.

They also moved all the energy support, all party heals and all conditon removal in leadership in command into motivation(Song of Power, Chorus of Restoration, Purifying Finale, Energizing Chorus, Song of Purification).

So now we basically have bunch of lame elites, motivation hogs all heals/energy assistance/condition removal, characters with it are heal party bots on crack if they are the only shouter. With several shouters on the team they can be crazy batteries with Energizing Finale. As healer there really is no point in paragon, as the new monk skills are completely crazy(Revitalize).

Leadership has some nice gimmicks like "They're on Fire" which will work nicely in pve but generally the whole attribute is ways of getting things set on fire, adrenaline buffs and IAS. Some protection like Angelic Protection which is nicely rendered crap by its recharge.

Spear Mastery was nerfed a bit, but is still comparable to other weapons.

Command is full of skills that do bunch of different stuff and as such it is best used in small doses. Second fact is also that most things in Command work almost as well at 10 attribute as at 15 attribute(Song of Concentration, Anthem of Guidance, Crippling Anthem, "Find Their Weakness!", "Go for the Eyes!", "Brace Yourself!", "Can't Touch This!", "Incoming!", "Make Haste", "We Shall Return"). Combine these 2 facts and it becomes clear Command is an attribute to be used on paragon secondaries X/P. Especially R/P can totally abuse it. For instance "Find Their Weakness!" is too expensive for paragon primary. It is single target shout so you only get 1 leadership energy, and 9 energy cost is too much for P/X, but R/X not only has 50% more energy regen it also has expertise. So Command is pretty much ranger toy, much like vamp touch. There are also some skills I don;t know a use for: "Help Me!".

Now for elites. I expected some awesomeness after last preview but anet wanted to have none of that. Nearly half of elites(6) come from normal skills being elited.

Cruel Spear(raised damage)
Song of Purification(removed recharge, only adrenaline cost now)
Defensive Anthem(elitized without change)
Anthem of Fury(elitized and recharge went from 10 -> 15)
Anthem of Guidance(cost went from 6 to 3)
Crippling Anthem(cost went from 8 to 4)

Easier to use with medium spec in Command, like 10. Things like ranger spike don't take 4 sec, so it is a better skill now for medium spec. Better 3 sec of 50% reduction than 4 sec of 35% reduction. Spikes don't take 4 sec anyway. 20 sec recharge won't stop every spike, but still OK. Not so useful in pve, maybe for cushioning that first volley of elementalist and assassin mobs.

PvE Rating: 2/5
PvP Rating: 4/5

They cut the cost in half and elitized this. It is ranger spike elite and not much more.

PvE Rating: 1/5
PvP Rating: 2/5

Again they halved the cost. I'd rather run a cripshot in pvp or something. Not useful in pve.

PvE Rating: 1/5
PvP Rating: 2/5

Ok this is mostly spike stopper in pvp. Works quite OK in that regard. Doesn't do much to stop spikes on paragon like "Incoming!" though. In PvE it can be used in combination with healing seed.

PvE Rating: 3/5
PvP Rating: 3/5

This yields about 33% extra adrenaline for swords/axes or more for hammers, but only in ideal circumstances(i.e. adrenaline doesn't get wasted by a skill adrenaline bar too full). Generally a skill that would require very well thought out skill choices for the whole team. Also random pugs will have something like 2 or 3 adrenaline users.

PvE Rating: 2/5
PvP Rating: 2/5

Yeah so it can't be removed unlike aegis. Yet we are looking at a bunch of penalties for that. Longer recharge, ends on attack skill. And let me tell you, assassins and frenzying warriors appreciate 50% block just as much as anyone else. But these are a trade-off for being unremoveable. However it was also made an elite. Sucky. Actually useful but I'd rather run Aegis and save my elite.

PvE Rating: 1/5 (won't use it over Aegis)
PvP Rating: 1/5 (won't use it over Aegis)

Lame. Not only it has downtime, but you also can't reach 100% bonus. At 16 leadership you reach 96% bonus. Which means that any attack nets you 25 adrenaline points and 24 adrenaline points bonus. Therefore 2 attacks won't charge 4 adren skill. You will need to take 2% max hp worth of damage to get 2 extra adrenaline points. Fortunately some 4 adren skills actually require only 80 adrenaline points instead of 100. Cleave, Battle Rage, Rush, Riposte, "Fear Me!", "Watch Yourself!". These will be charged in 2 attacks regardless.

This skill has 75% uptime and that means you get around 72% adrenaline increase with 16 tactics. The next skill is IAS which produces 50% adrenaline increase and 50% damage increase.

But there is a large difference. IAS never wastes adrenaline. You gain adrenaline in chunks of 1 adrenaline hit(25 points). Focused Anger makes you gain adrenaline in chunks of ALMOST 2 adrenaline(49 points). Which is wasted on non-even adrenaline costs(a lot of spear attacks cost 7), and after 2 attacks you are still a bit short of having 4 adrenaline.

That is why I wouldn't choose this elite. It needs to have 100% increase for starters.

PvE Rating: 2/5
PvP Rating: 2/5

Pretty good if you are into Spears or any weapon really. The thing is Aggresive Refrain is almost as good and is non-elite. But if you have spear
mastery 16 and wanna squeeze all you can from it, then this is quite good.

PvE Rating: 3/5
PvP Rating: 3/5

I saw Valandor(#1 at the time) use Song of Purification during preview. They were one of the few guilds that used paragon primary in their build. Then one match they swaped Song of Purification for "It's just a flesh wound". They were against #160+ guild. That guild ran disease necro and poison spreading rangers and toxicity. Valandor got steamrolled. #1 lost vs #160 Paragon couldn't keep conditions off their team. But how is that possible if "It's just a flesh wound" is godly with 1 sec recharge and no cast, you might ask. Well the thing is, since it is single target shout, paragon only gets 1 energy from leadership. So it costs 4 energy. Then remeber paragon only has 2 pips of energy regen. So there is no way paragon can spam this. 1 sec recharge is only good on paper for those purposes. But you could use R/P and make it cost 2 en and ranger has 3 pip of energy regen. Yes maybe that could work. But there is another flaw. Even when paragon had the energy, simply shooting someone with poison made toxicity kick in for -8 regen total. If it took paragon 3 sec to clean that ally with "It's just a flesh wound", he already took 48 damage. And that damage had to be healed by monks, rangers kept doing it and monks ran out of energy. If Valandor used Restore Conditions instead of "It's just a flesh wound", then any damage done by poison and toxicity would be healed and wouldn't require any extra healing from monks. That is why I would always take Restore Conditions over "It's just a flesh wound". It has slightly longer recharge and cast but the healing it does for each condition is a great help. This makes "It's just a flesh wound" rather obsolete.

PvE Rating: 2/5
PvP Rating: 2/5
Ranger Rating: 4/5

This is total crap. You can generate energy just fine with Energizing Finale and other X of Zeal skills.

PvE Rating: 1/5
PvP Rating: 1/5

This is actually quite efficient condition removal. One of its downsides though is that 1 removal gets used up when skill is activated even if you don't suffer from any conditions. In PvP this is a risky replacement for Martyr, condition heavy builds often use rangers and this skill requires you to stand in them middle of your team, to cover whole team. Distracting Shot > 2 sec cast.

PvE Rating: 5/5
PvP Rating: 3/5

Average. Cheap heal party that is non-spamable.

PvE Rating: 2/5
PvP Rating: 3/5

Bleh this skill practically makes you team up with someone with knockdown. It will trigger on mobs most of the time, but in pvp, targets usually run. In pvp I'd rather use "Go for the eyes!" + Vicious Attack or Merciless Spear and save myself the elite.

PvE Rating: 2/5
PvP Rating: 2/5

In pve targets generally go down too fast to use 10a daze, pvp daze is motly arena thing.

PvE Rating: 2/5
PvP Rating: 3/5

Martyr on Me/Mo seems better and more secure in pvp because 2 sec cast is exposed.

PvE Rating: 4/5
PvP Rating: 2/5

I don't think I will use elites with less than 3/5 much.

Quote:

Izzy got lazy. He should have added new elites, not make old ones slightly better. Now the Paragon is a significantly weaker class than I had hoped. I’m not pleased.

(Atleast Necromancers got incredible skills…)

Agreed. Paragon got nothing on the level of Revitalize, Toxicity, Warmonger's Weapon. Monks and Rangers and Necromancers have amazing new skills.

unholy guardian · Sep 30, 2006, 11:10 PM // 23:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

-10 Degen?! I can’t even think of a way to recover from that!

Izzy got lazy. He should have added new elites, not make old ones slightly better. Now the Paragon is a significantly weaker class than I had hoped. I’m not pleased.

i really cannot believe this skill, captin planet would be rolling in his grave... wait did he die... i don't know...

i give it a 0, i think it would be fair if it had like a -2 degen or -4, so it wouldn't get totally gimped..not to mention how it only gives like 7 energy. Even for an entire party 7 energy is pretty terrible considering the skill costs 10. It should at least give 15 energy, never give up gives that at 15 or something to allys under 50% health (which is usually a time to be low on energy) and it's not even an elite. Really i think "the power is yours" should cap out at like 22 energy at 16 to what ever attribute it's linked to, or give about 17 and reduce the energy degen,

TadaceAce · Oct 01, 2006, 03:05 AM // 03:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anir

Focused Anger vs. Soldier's Fury
FA can stack with IAS (attack speed is capped at +33%, right?). With +33% IAS, you get +105% adrenaline gain (that's double adrenaline for the math-impaired) and 133% damage output, no? Of course, you'd need to use two skills slots in this case. There's also the 15-second downtime.

That's 133% adrenaline and 133% damage, I believe.

1/(1-A) is how you model increased amount of damage / adrenaline gain. By your logic that means with a 100% increase you would only be doing 200% damage, see the flaw?

Spura · Oct 01, 2006, 11:10 AM // 11:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anir

"It's Just a Flesh Woud!"
Even with 2 pips of regen, this is probably easily spammable as long as you stay near a couple allies (and have at least a little bit of Leadership).

90% of people think you gain leadership/2 energy whenever you use a shout, when actually it is number of affected people. 1 in this case, so no, you can't spam this. Also note that WY! affects only party members and thus when surrounded with NPCs won't give you energy.

Skuld · Oct 10, 2006, 05:01 PM // 17:01

Defensive anthem doesn't suck as much as you've made out, Aegis will get stripped when you most need it (spikes etc), this is unremovable. Not worth the elite slot though imo.

Spura · Oct 11, 2006, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Well it suffers many problems. 15 energy cast on prof wiht 2 pips, it can't be extended for 20% with weapon mod, like enchantments(aegis) can. Aegis can be easily spammed on some character doing something else, this one takes up an elite.

Also half of professions (W,R,A,D,P) use attack skills, ending this. Spike can simply pick on the assassin.

jake jacobs · Oct 15, 2006, 08:05 PM // 20:05

okey dokey kiddles i want to have u all gather round while i tell you a story

its called, "THINGS WILL BE CHANGED/NERFED"

personally i think paragon is still completely competent. they may have not included all the new elites, with all your bitching and moaning things are probably gunna change, and stuff will get changed after a while (there are 2 skill updates yearly [i think its 2 {spring/Fall}])

if they nerfed things between the PvP weekend and the PvE/PvP weekend, they probably will get changed again.

still though, paragons do pretty good when just looking at skills. also you cant judge anything without trying it out on varying lvls.

I judge there compitence lvl by these general characteristics

we have only really seen:

Paragons in RA
Paragons in TA
Paragons in old HA
Paragons in low lvl PvE

we havent seen

Paragons in new 6 man HA (wont be used as much)
Paragons in medium lvl PvE (better b/c of larger grps, and need for more def)
Paragons in High lvl PvE (preform really good large grps, acting as an auxilary tank, and the back-up def is handy. also the attack boost is gunna help)
Paragons in small farming ( no more then 5 man could be very useful when used right, but generally wont really do well here)
Paragons in solo farming (soloing is gunna be good, but leadership basically relies off of having a team to be effective)
Paragons in running (high enough AL, few speed boost skills, good enough self reliant healing they could do it)
Paragons in large groups (imagine a Rit that doesnt have as much healing, but 10x mor mobile and tank-ish)
Paragons in small grps (wont be quite so effective the 5 man is undefeatable, but warrior tanks can always fall)

see u later alligators

jake + female par 4lyf

Ensign · Oct 16, 2006, 05:59 AM // 05:59

Soldier's Fury is total shit. The attack speed buff is conditional, and you have to keep putting it back up. Aggressive Refrain you put up once, and it stays up forever as long as you push the "Go for the Eyes!" button every 20 seconds. You'll rarely if ever have to recast it.

Focused Anger is pretty nice actually. At 10 spec it makes "Go for the Eyes!" charge every two hits, and your money attack skills drop from 7A to 4A effectively. This does stack with your IAS skill of choice as well. I wouldn't write it off at all.

Also, energy is largely a non-issue for a Paragon. "Go for the Eyes!" is an energy engine, every shout you kick out is an energy engine, and most of your skills are adrenal anyway. In practice you have two pips plus an engine going to power out only 3-4 energy skills on your bar. You could happily support Aegis or other spendy spells without much problem.

Peace,
-CxE

Mister Muhkuh · Oct 16, 2006, 06:17 AM // 06:17

I'd love to play Paragon, but I think(I couldnt test it, but by the looks of it) the (useful) Paragon skills have too long recharge times(compared to what they do)...

Spura · Oct 16, 2006, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Soldier's Fury is total shit. The attack speed buff is conditional, and you have to keep putting it back up. Aggressive Refrain you put up once, and it stays up forever as long as you push the "Go for the Eyes!" button every 20 seconds. You'll rarely if ever have to recast it.

I agree that Soldier's Fury is not exactly appealing because Aggresive Refrain is quite awesome and the only thing soldier's fury has better is 33% IAS instead of 25%. Not quite something enough to make it elite. It is still better than Soldier's Stance elite.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Focused Anger is pretty nice actually. At 10 spec it makes "Go for the Eyes!" charge every two hits, and your money attack skills drop from 7A to 4A effectively. This does stack with your IAS skill of choice as well. I wouldn't write it off at all.

Wait.... "Go for the Eyes!" is 80 adrenaline points, not 100?? Are you sure about that? "Go for the Eyes!" every 2 hits would indeed make this a strong combo(cue nerf bat). Not just the extra damage, but also finale of restoration.

Well like all party support characters paragon suffers when enemy forces a split. So like ritualist or tained necro in 4/4 split, the support is only half as strong because only 4 people are affected by buffs instead of 8, making their contribution diminished. But unlike ritualist or tained necro, a paragon is even further penalized by splits. Not only are less people buffed, but he also gets less energy and his primary attribute is less utilized. Also in teams with 2 paragons, each using different echoes and shouts, splits are very deadly, because they make one group have only 1 kind of buff and other groups the other buffs they brought. Also frequency of triggering of finale echoes is halved.

So with 8 players on the field, the energy engine is great, paragons stack amazingly as long as they don't duplicate echoes, but when they are split(or work in sitations with fewer players like TA) their effectivness decreases a lot. And their range is small compared to bonders or ritualists where split has to be wider.

A bit OT, but the point was, Ensign said they were good energy engines. IMO this mostly holds true in PvE and there are many situations where they aren't, also for them to be energy engines, they must usually use a specific paragon or warrior shout (WY! and GftE!). You can't for instance run single target shouts like "Find their Weakness!" on 2 pips.

Ensign · Oct 16, 2006, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spura

Wait.... "Go for the Eyes!" is 80 adrenaline points, not 100?? Are you sure about that? "Go for the Eyes!" every 2 hits would indeed make this a strong combo(cue nerf bat). Not just the extra damage, but also finale of restoration.

Actually, no, I'm not sure about that. I forgot for a moment that there are actually true 4A skills in this game (like Sever). So it might only drop it down to one every 3 hits, which isn't super sexy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spura

A bit OT, but the point was, Ensign said they were good energy engines. IMO this mostly holds true in PvE and there are many situations where they aren't, also for them to be energy engines, they must usually use a specific paragon or warrior shout (WY! and GftE!). You can't for instance run single target shouts like "Find their Weakness!" on 2 pips.

Part of it comes from those two shouts, but also when you mess around with Paragon builds you'll notice that they tend to be very adrenaline heavy. Not only are virtually all of your attacks adrenaline, but a good number of shouts and chants that you'd want to use as well. The 5 energy shouts are going to be very close to free most of the time, too, because of Leadership. That isn't to say that you can't make an energy hungry Paragon build, but the profession in general has smooth energy. Also even in split situations you don't suffer greatly unless you were really maxing out that Leadership. At a moderate spec you were only hitting 4-5 guys anyway, and you're still going to be getting that in a split situation.

Peace,
-CxE