Curse

Lambentviper · Nov 22, 2006, 03:15 AM // 03:15

its true, a paragon on an altar holding team usually guarantees a win. GG HoH.

But more than once have i been completely shutdown by Vocal Minority, Wither, Malaise, and Parasitic Bond Combo.

Key Facts

1) Cant gain energy from shouting because i cant use any shouts or chants.
2) Cant do ANYTHING but suffer the degen, and watch the rest of my team slowly die.
3) Echos on my team mates will expire because i cant use the shouts or chants to keep them up.
4) Dont have the enegry to spam new echos as old ones wear off.

There may only be one successful shutdown to paragons....but its a doozy lemme tell ya

Carth` · Nov 22, 2006, 05:29 AM // 05:29

I just think it's funny how similar to ritualists in Factions it is. Ritualists basically played only 1 build - the spirit spammer - and it made a team hard to kill. Anet nerfed it, and ritualists became a hardly used class (except for RA). They can heal, they can deal damage, but usually another class can do it better.

And then Nightfall is released, and we have a paragon. It fills the same role the ritualist used to - protection for the whole party - and in this case also healing and battery. A team with paragon shout spammers is very hard to take down because they take hardly any damage and the monks have almost infinite energy.

So the question is will Anet do what they did to rits and nerf it so that paragons will become just an inferior version of another class.

Maybe instead of nerfing paragons they will buff the necro anti-shout skills.

Bankai · Nov 22, 2006, 07:41 AM // 07:41

Actually, that's not all a paragon is used for.

Pack hunters are lots os fun when paired with thumpers.

Riotgear · Nov 22, 2006, 10:59 AM // 10:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lambentviper

But more than once have i been completely shutdown by Vocal Minority, Wither, Malaise, and Parasitic Bond Combo.

Pack a -energy weapon set, switch to it once it'll drop your energy to/below zero, which automatically ends wither and malaise. Then you've got VM with a single cover, fairly easy to get rid of. Or run Divert Hexes which will chew through everything but VM instantly.

Lambentviper · Nov 22, 2006, 02:57 PM // 14:57

Being an experienced player, i always pack my normal weapon, -energy set, +energy/health set, and +armor vs phys. set.

But as a paragon the only option i have is a -5energy zealous spear, and thats usually never enough because im always at such high energy once the hexes get cast.

But your right, with the swap i can easily get -3 energy regen, which will just speed up the process of Wither and Malaise, which im not so worried about because being cover hexes, they are usually removed. The only problem is that both of the hexes have a very short recharge time compaired to their duration.

Riotgear · Nov 22, 2006, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lambentviper

But as a paragon the only option i have is a -5energy zealous spear

Just make a -5e focus! Two seconds of not holding a shield will not kill you. If your energy is too high to make it happen and you need them removed immediately, cancel-cast a few times.

Malaise is a fast recharge, Wither is not, vocal minority is DEFINITELY not, and if VM is down, then you can still gain energy through adrenal shout/chant spam.

For what it's worth, I think it shows poor balancing to begin with if one of the only ways (short of anti-spam crap like Diversion) to shut down a Paragon is a specialized hex which seems to have no purpose on any other class. I can't think of any other class which has this... "priviledge." Nevermind that Divert is seeing increasing popularity and completely negates it anyway.

Suggestions like "shut down what they're buffing" only reinforce it. You don't "shut down what a monk is healing" because you can't do anything to the monk, not to mention that mentality is precisely what made rit lords broken prior to getting nerfed.

Patccmoi · Nov 22, 2006, 08:19 PM // 20:19

I think that comparing Mending Refrain with Heal Party spam is a pretty big mistake.

Mending Refrain is a skill the Paragon uses and keeps up ALL the time on everyone around him (which is also usually everyone that would be affected by Heal Party except the user himself which rarely needs it. If someone goes to gank he's not in Mending Refrain but he's also rarely a Heal Party target when he needs it even if sometimes you can save someone running back to you with Heal Party). Now the big difference with Heal Party is that while Heal Party is superior (say it's around 15 HPS vs 8 HPS in complete spam mode) it requires you to fully lock a character that requires an emanagement elite (and nothing short of EProdigy can really keep up with it. Some N/Mos with OoB can do some Heal Party for example, but they can't go in spam mode). Mending Refrain though is passive. If you add Ballad or Restoration and/or Song of Restoration, your party heal ability is VERY comparable to Heal Party. The difference? You're not ever in spam mode, or you could say you always are. You're still there chucking spears to add pressure, buffing your party's defense and/or offense and possibly acting as an insane battery for monks. And there is extremely few counters to it, and as long as you're not shutdowned (which is VERY hard to do to a Paragon, honestly you might as well vainly try to kill him) that Mending Refrain will keep going. You can try to send a Cripshot to DShot Heal Party or force the guy to run. You could potentially take down Recuperation spirit when it was there. But just like with a bunch of other Paragon stuff, there is no way to get rid of this, and it significantly cuts the one thing that isn't really stopped by Paragon's other defenses which was degen.

I don't think it's nearly as broken as Energizing Finale, but i think it is indeed too good. The problem is that as long as no real counter to Echos (especially Refrains) or Shouts/Chants exist out of 1 single hex (and a powerful Well!) too many Paragon skills might just end up nerfed when they could've been fine if counters were in place or if they were thought otherwise. For example, they could've limit the stacking of Paragon buff on allies (only one Echo per target, just like you can only have 1 Weapon Spell which prevents them from being broken even if they can't be removed), give Daze the extra effect to make Shout effects last 50% of the duration on people and/or make Chants cast twice as long and be easily interruptable and/or give Shouts 50% failure, etc. Anything that has no counter must be underpowered in a sense to be balanced, the problem is that it's actually the opposite for Paragons. Their stuff is incredibly powerful and counterless.

The Fallen One · Nov 22, 2006, 09:18 PM // 21:18

I have a couple of things to disagree and agree with here:
1)I beleive that Mending Refrain is a slight bit over powered in that it restarts whenever a chant/shout ends and has twenty seconds for you to recast if you're under VM or some other hex preventing you. I think that a great balance for this though is to make it last ten seconds, it's not much but then again if you have a second to spare to interupt something that the Paragon has on his bar with a diversion or something, then eventually you can get it off. On the subject though I do not feel it can ever replace Heal Party for degen because of its passive nature and slow regeneration, you need the hp for the actual heals, because if you don't have them if your team is just degening slower with the mending refrain they're still dying

.
2)Energizing Finale *Is* broken in my honest opinion. It keeps energy way too far up. In my own example I give you a team that we faced, we were running hexes with VM in there along with some others (Not to give out entire build

) but the thing is, as stated already before in this topic, the Vocal Minority comes off because it's veiwed as priority, and Divert Hexes or just two Blessed Light monks can take it off within a matter of seconds. Bearing this in mind they have the energy for it because right after they releive him of his hex, what does he do? Go back to spamming the Energizing Finale and Aria of Zeal. That's eleven energy at the usual level when they cast the spell, then they could have others on that cancel quickly. Energizing completly beats the point of anything energy denying and should be made elite, then you would have to think more about what you were going to bring. I've personally monked under one of these Paragons and the energy is just extrordinary, I find myself able to cast many of my heavy energy skills like BL and Prot spirit next to whenever I have a whim to do it because of the mangement from the Paragon. Or in the very least make is so you cannot cast it on yourself, making the description, "Target other ally", without his energizing the paragon can easily be shut down with energy because of the lack, the only solution is dual Paragons which, while usually possible in HA is nearly always a waste in GvG of a slot if you're going to use two of your five unique GvG characters (assuming that you aren't making much of a custom flag runner or monks).
3)A note about the hex spam that you were talking about with Malaise+Wither, it is true that they have some pretty potent abilities, but consider that the monks in most cases (I'm speaking mostly GvG as I have during my entire post if you haven't gathered

) and most of the time you can now use the Nightfall skill Divert Hexes, three hexes gone right there, then if you have a BL partner that's four for twenty energy split between the two monks. Also that would take up a lot of a character just to have Paragon hate, though of course I do see it working on other characters in different situations as a hex spam build.
In conclusion I believe, though it was my first PvE character to create when Nightfall came out, that Paragon needs a nerf to quite a few of its skills, but it doesn't need to be totally thrown out, as ritualist was. Of course that is also one of the complexities of skill balancing, but best leave that to Anet.

shardfenix · Nov 25, 2006, 08:05 AM // 08:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lews

HA is a complete joke anyway.

When was HA not a joke? Over a year ago? Too long for me to remember.

Patrograd · Nov 25, 2006, 11:38 AM // 11:38

Just as a point for discussion

Is it really the case that paragons are overpowered specifically, or is it more accurate to say that the game as a whole has got more "powerful" for want of a better word?

There seem to be alot of skills being described as "overpowered". Rampage as One, Energizing Finale, Searing Flames, Spoil Victor, Reapers Mark etc, and these seem on the face of it to be spread fairly evenly between defence and offence. There doesnt really seem to be one specific build dominating the ladder, there are spikes, there are pressure, there are overload there are splits, there are VOD holding builds.

Perhaps, with VOD now occuring at 20 minutes, the intention from ANet is to speed the game up generally, and so they have added a bunch of skills that "power up" the game.

Discuss

Wasteland Squidget · Nov 25, 2006, 12:27 PM // 12:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

Just as a point for discussion

Is it really the case that paragons are overpowered specifically, or is it more accurate to say that the game as a whole has got more "powerful" for want of a better word?

There seem to be alot of skills being described as "overpowered". Rampage as One, Energizing Finale, Searing Flames, Spoil Victor, Reapers Mark etc, and these seem on the face of it to be spread fairly evenly between defence and offence. There doesnt really seem to be one specific build dominating the ladder, there are spikes, there are pressure, there are overload there are splits, there are VOD holding builds.

Perhaps, with VOD now occuring at 20 minutes, the intention from ANet is to speed the game up generally, and so they have added a bunch of skills that "power up" the game.

Discuss

I completely agree that Arenanet wants to power up the game and make things more deadly. However, I think they have taken the wrong approach.

VoD occuring at 20 minutes has made the NPCs and VoD shout much more relevant in games against good teams. People know that they can't count on breaking most teams before VoD hits, so almost every build at the moment is centered largely around VoD. You run a split to gank their NPCs or a spike to deplete their sigs and give their offense DP, then you bring a lot of AoE tools that nuke the hell out of everything once VoD hits. As a result, GvG feels much less dangerous to me than it did 6 months ago - most games, it's 20 minutes of preperation and gunning for boosts or NPCs, then 5 minutes of real heart-pounding action where battles are quick and decisive.

I will grant that power creep has a pretty big effect on the speed of low level play. I've guested with some lower ranked guilds recently and watched their flagstand teams getting blown up in seconds by SF/thumper teams. SF isn't a really powerful offensive tool in high level play because it lacks flexibility, but at the lower levels its "point and shoot" nature is absolutely brutal. Skills that don't get better with player skill are absolutely brutal on the lower tiers of the ladder.

If Arenanet wants to make GvG a dangerous environment across the board, they need to take a long hard look at the mechanics. Provide methods for good teams to finish games well before VoD (or rework VoD) and people will have that much more incentive to play dangerously and take risks.

Patrograd · Nov 25, 2006, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I will grant that power creep has a pretty big effect on the speed of low level play. I've guested with some lower ranked guilds recently and watched their flagstand teams getting blown up in seconds by SF/thumper teams. SF isn't a really powerful offensive tool in high level play because it lacks flexibility, but at the lower levels its "point and shoot" nature is absolutely brutal. Skills that don't get better with player skill are absolutely brutal on the lower tiers of the ladder.

.

Well, I think it has always been the case that the top end of the ladder is about who can run the best balanced control build, as this is the hardest build to operate, and so the most skilled players will pretty much always gravitate towards that format as it pretty much guarantees them wins against less skilled opponents. Since Nightfall they have added as you say the VOD AOE element, which is fair enough

I think though, that once you are talking about outside the top 20 or so, then the presence of, for example, an EF para is no kind of guarantee of success against anyone. Teams running such balanced control setups that dont quite have the ability to run them at maximum skill levels are asking to be countered by heavy beatdown builds, which are generally easier to play and since NightFall's release the number of skills available to really ramp up such beatdown strategies has increased heavily.

Thom Bangalter · Nov 25, 2006, 01:02 PM // 13:02

considering how long control has dominated GvG, I think it's a nice change of pace that beatdown is currently doing so well. Then again, every time it does it's deemed overpowered and nerfed...

phoenixtech · Nov 25, 2006, 01:26 PM // 13:26

To start fixing the paragon problem:

1) (Obvious) nerf energizing finale
2) Make the hexs + well of slience + (MAYBE) even roaring winds REMOVE all existing chants/echos when it's casted on you. Chants + Echos are very much like enchantments, making Roaring winds act like the old NR might just do the trick. Making vocal minority + well of silence acting like well of profane (vs chants/echos) will definately do the trick.

3) This might be over-doing it, but make an existing condition (maybe daze) to cause chants/echos either easily interuptable or take twice as long to execute. I'm not sure this is needed, prob will result in over-nerf.

That's all the paragon really needs to be hit with. Energizing finale is obviously too much, and the lack of ability to REMOVE existing chants/shouts compounds the problem. When you compare chants/echos with other unremovable effects in the game such as weapon skills, it's obvious that chants/echos needs to be nerfed since:

1) You can only have 1 weapon skill on you.
2) Weapon skills are "SPELLS" and can be shut down just like any other spell caster.

Naomi Heartily · Nov 26, 2006, 02:09 AM // 02:09

Paragons as a whole need re-thinking. I think it's ridiculous seeing the same 4-5 guilds holding halls for HOURS every single day. It really takes the fun out of it when you get to HoH and you know you can't win.

Riotgear · Nov 26, 2006, 04:58 AM // 04:58

Easiest way to fix Energizing Finale would be to just increase the recharge and/or shorten the duration. Making it only castable on other allies wouldn't be a bad idea either.

It's hard to say just how broken they are until EF is fixed. Roaring Winds for example is a joke largely because EF makes it completely ignorable. It's hardly even clear if Roaring needs a buff because an EF nerf WOULD be a buff. :P

Another possibility would be to simply make charge limits on repeatable (or even all) echoes, i.e. make them expire after 2..5 shouts/chants or something. That's the exact same scaling limitation that got placed on ritualists with spirits losing health as they take effect.

Seltack · Nov 26, 2006, 12:38 PM // 12:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naomi Heartily

Paragons as a whole need re-thinking. I think it's ridiculous seeing the same 4-5 guilds holding halls for HOURS every single day. It really takes the fun out of it when you get to HoH and you know you can't win.

HoH has always had the same people holding for hours. I remember "back in the day" when Power would hold forever, I remember seeing other players/guilds there for ever more recently and before that. Ok so maybe its the first time since HA became 6 players, but still HoH has always rewarded boring crap that can hold, you can't blame paragons. If there weren't paragons everyone would be holding with some other lame holding build, mystic wrath spike or whatever.

Patccmoi · Nov 26, 2006, 05:31 PM // 17:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Another possibility would be to simply make charge limits on repeatable (or even all) echoes, i.e. make them expire after 2..5 shouts/chants or something. That's the exact same scaling limitation that got placed on ritualists with spirits losing health as they take effect.

I think that this is honestly one of the best options. Just like Spirits have a number of charges (well, indirectly but let's face it that's what it is) AND a duration and the first to run out ends their effect. Echos could have a set number of charge too preventing abuse (at least some of them like Finale, Refrains should obviously be balanced in another way since they're MEANT to be maintainable). Make EF next 2..4 shouts for example. You're still giving that monk 12E, which is pretty damn good. Blood Ritual can give a little more (about 17E) but it costs more, makes you sac life, can be removed and is touch range. And make it something like 5/1/10 so that it's not as easy to keep on tons of people all the time.

LoyalSoldier · Nov 26, 2006, 07:19 PM // 19:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Just make a -5e focus! Two seconds of not holding a shield will not kill you. If your energy is too high to make it happen and you need them removed immediately, cancel-cast a few times.

Just wondering, but unless he has caster skills from his secondary profession....how is he suppost to cancel cast as a paragon? Other than chants (Which would be shut down by vocal minority) how would he?

Byron · Nov 27, 2006, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

Skills that don't get better with player skill are absolutely brutal on the lower tiers of the ladder.

QFT. Such wisdom is... iQ-esque.

Quote:

Provide methods for good teams to finish games well before VoD (or rework VoD) and people will have that much more incentive to play dangerously and take risks.

The VoD mechanic definitely needs reworking, most of all the NPCs. I think this was discussed in a thread some months ago.

I suggested that NPCs stagger their advance rather than all rush out to the flagstand at once. This helps prevent mega-ganks, block/ganks, and whatever kind of Glyph of sac/aoe you can bring to play. If the NPCs were staggered by say, one minute, so that at 20:00 all outer-base NPCs walked to stand, then at 21:00, all inner-base NPCs walked to stand, and finally at 22:00 the cage NPCs walked to stand, I feel it would greatly reduce the effectiveness (gimmicks?) of VoD builds. Not to mention catapult tactics, which can (IMHO) unfairly alter the course of a match.

As for paragons, there needs to be some fundamental counter and hate to shouts. The best we have right now is an obscure necro hex. Enchantments have both removal and punishment - a similar thing needs to be done for shouts.

I think it opens up a very interesting field of skills...

"Don't listen!" Leadership. Counter-ballad. 10e, 8rc. For 1..8 seconds, all foes in earshot lose the next shout cast on them.

"They're lying!" Leadership. Counter-echo. 5e, 10rc. For 2..8 seconds, target foe's shouts, ballads, and echoes expire 50% faster. This echo renews everytime a shout is cast on that foe.

Intimidating Laugh. Leadership. Counter-shout. 5e, 2rc. Target foe loses one shout. 50% failure rate with 7 leadership or less.

Mockery {E}. Leadership. Counter-shout. 5e, 8rc. Target foe loses all shouts, ballads, and echoes, and for 1...8 seconds, cannot be the target of further shouts, ballads, and echoes.

Sonic Boom. Air Magic. Hex spell. 10e, 20rc. Cast a sonic boom that deals 5...25 damage to all foes in the area. For 2..8 seconds, any foes affected by sonic boom cannot be the target of further shouts.

Ambitious strike. Strength. Melee attack. 5e, 4rc. If this attack hits, you deal an additional 5..20 damage for each shout on target foe.

Ideas?