Curse

Voodoo Rage · Jul 20, 2010, 04:13 PM // 16:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dame Laureline

About Eles, HM PvE is not the only aspect of the game. Fire eles are omnipotent in NM prophecies and factions, it's ridiculously easy.
Also, lvl 28 eles are quite hard to face, they can easily wipe a party (H/H) if their number at the start of the battle isn't well counted. They do not need to be boosted.
The only change eles need is a reduce in HM foe armors. Maybe reduce their armor against elemental damages so they aren't as high as against physical damages.

That's the point in made in the Ele qq thread. You can't just let high end HM dungeons dictate class design. I'm willing to bet that the vast vast majority of GW players are playing NM quest chain missions (that's what I usually do). I think it is reasonable to have buffs applicable to "monsters with more armor than you", "monsters with more health than you", etc... The ritualist right now is ridiculously overpowered in NM. You can lay spirits down, walk away, and come back to them being nearly full health with a dead mob at their feet.

I haven't been following this thread very closely, so I apologize if I an covering already discussed topics. I would preserve the paragon in the spirit in which it was intended, as a party-wide enhancer. Kind of like Channeling vs. Communing, I would make the Command line primarily skills that increase the damage your party deals and make the Motivation line more defensively oriented skills. I would tweak leadership so that you aren't punished energy-wise in forced smaller team areas (4 man areas..).

Commander Kanen · Jul 20, 2010, 04:41 PM // 16:41

I think paragon needs a couple different skills so you have better options to use while running teams. so more divercity.

One or two reworked skills that help yourself. "Selfish skills" that add hp armor or damage. Nothing imba like SoS SF or RoJ but something useful possibly all in the Leadership line.
Being Selfish you will not gain loads of energy through Leadership as it is only affecting yourself.

A couple re worked motivation skills that can add some direct damage reduction to target Or Direct healing as other healing skills are a bit... Random. Again this will only affect the target so not loads of energy gain through Leadership. These could be Chants so just a quick idea...
" For 5-20 seconds damage received by target ally is reduced by 5 - 10. " 10e 25s cooldown

So you could help prot a team mate but not the hole party.

And finally one or two reworked Spear Attacks that offer mild AoE (Im not talking RoJ on a spear) Maybe like a small version of chain Lightning possibly a small version of "Splinter Spear" Or a spear attack that explodes on target for and foes ajacent almost like Ignite Arrows.

Again these spear attacks arnt affected by leadership and could only offer MILD aoe.

And on a final note, i am not a Anet Dev and dont exactly know how these will affect the game, however IMO Para's need divercity and this is just some ideas how this could be done.

Khomet Si Netjer · Jul 20, 2010, 08:56 PM // 20:56

/agree with commander kanen, except i think he understates things when he says that paragons need diversity. as it stands now, it is imbagon or nothing unless you're going H/H.

the basic problem is that the paragon does not fulfill any of his roles well.
(if I have left out anything please say so)

direct damage (spear) is weak compared to all other physical attackers

offensive support (anthems) is weak compared to necromancers, ritualists, or monks

defensive support (shouts, echoes, refrains) is generally weak unless we use PvE skills (SY, TNTF). The only decent defensive paragon skills that come to mind are Stand Your Ground and Never Surrender.

healing, energy (motivation chants) is weak compared to what necromancers and monks provide.

Simply put, there is no reason to take a paragon because other professions will be superior in whatever role you choose. There are a lot of people who say that the paragon has well-defined roles within the party, and they resist any attempts to make paragons more equivalent to the other professions. However, as it stands now the paragon does not *HAVE* any role within a group because he is strictly inferior to the alternatives in every category. Thus it is no wonder that other professions are preferred. If it were not for PvE skill abuse paragons would vanish from groups completely because the paragon skills themselves are not good enough to merit a party slot.

NerfHerder · Jul 20, 2010, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Commander Kanen

And finally one or two reworked Spear Attacks that offer mild AoE (Im not talking RoJ on a spear) Maybe like a small version of chain Lightning possibly a small version of "Splinter Spear" Or a spear attack that explodes on target for and foes ajacent almost like Ignite Arrows.

Again these spear attacks arnt affected by leadership and could only offer MILD aoe.

I appreciate the idea, and we can use as many suggestions as we can get. But, if you buff a spear skill, what will stop an Assasssin, Ranger, Warrior, or even Dervish from exploiting it? They are already better spear chuckers. I like the Ignite Arrows effect, but wouldnt that be better as a shout or chant? You would have a similar effect but it would work in a more paragon like way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

:::snip:::
direct damage (spear) is weak compared to all other physical attackers

offensive support (anthems) is weak compared to necromancers, ritualists, or monks

:::snip:::

I agree with Khomet an alot of things like what areas need buffing and I even like some of his suggestions. However, comparing Paragons to other professions isnt the best way to approach fixing things.

The Spear is only comparable to the Shortbow. Here is an example:

Spear
Maximum damage range: 14 - 27.
Damage type: Piercing damage.
Attack rate: 1.5 seconds.
Range: 1.0 danger zone radius.
Projectile flight time: 0.60 seconds.
Projectile arc size: Low.

Shortbow
Maximum damage range: 15 - 28.
Damage type: Piercing damage.
Attack rate/interval: 2.0 seconds
Range: 1.0
Projectile flight time:0.59 seconds
Projectile arc size: Medium

The Baseline advantage goes to the Spear due to attack rate. When you compare Spear skills to Bow skills, thats comparing apples to oranges. Like professions themesleves, they provide a unique niche and should stay unique.

Saying that the Paragon has weak offensive support is an understatement, Im sure alot of people agree. "GftE" and Anthem of Envy are it. If I missed an offensive Paragon Shout or Chant let me know. In order for "GftE" to make a significant contribution to a team, you have to have 3-4 physical attackers minimum. Anthem of Envy can potentially be a very powerful skill, but it also needs a physical team set up with spirits and is very conditional. See my above post for suggestions.

Lanier · Jul 20, 2010, 11:55 PM // 23:55

Paragons have good single target damage. I'v said it before and i will continue to say it. Spears are good and spear mastery (with the exception of the obviously bad skills like mighty throw and unblockable throw) is fine as it is. We have had enough power creep, and while i am all for buffing the underpowered support and healing that paragons have, i dont want power creep to raise any more with needless buffs to the paragon's offensive potential.

I figured i would find some quotes by others who have had enough experience with paragons to write guides on them and post them in the campfire section.

This first quote is from Clawofcrimson's guide:

Quote:

The spear (as we will learn) is probably the most underestimated weapon in the game. It has extremely high Damage per second and can compete with some of the warriors best damage builds. The Spear line (barring skills… under perfect conditions… as have seen already) has higher damage per second than both the Warrior’s axe and sword.

The next are from Snow Bunnies' guide:

Quote:

Well, you are a physical, and you should be doing damage. A lot of people believe that Paragon offense is minimal. This is crap. Paragons autoattacking do very similar damage to Sword warriors. The numbers (14-27 vs. 15-22) are fairly close to each other and the damage is quite consistent. Spear damage is good and you should use it.

Quote:

A spear provides you ranged sword DPS. What more do you want?

I also am remembering back to a study done a long time ago (i forget what the guy who did the study's name was but i think it was celestial beaver or something like that. Regardless of his name, he had done enough research about paragons to have a guide posted in the campfire section prior to the current ones). In this study, it was determined that spears do in fact have the highest single target dps. Now im not saying that paragons are the most effective spear users, and i am completely in support of critical strikes only affecting dagger use and strength only affecting warrior attack skills so that paragons are the best spear users. However, spears and, in general, spear mastery, are good as they are.

1. Spears are ranged.

2. Spear attacks in general add a good bit of bonus damage. The only weapon attribute that adds more bonus damage to its attack skills is dagger mastery, and that is fine since assassins are supposed to be a primarily offensive class and daggers have a very low dps without attack skills. While there are some warrior attack skills that do more damage than spear attacks, the only ones that are like this are executioner's strike, mighty blow, and the really high adrenaline-costing attack skills. In PvE, where dps wins over spike potential, spear of redemption is going to do more damage than executioner's strike (Spear of redemption only costs 3 adrenaline to use and can be spammed very often). Blazing spear which costs 2 adrenaline less causes a lot more damage. Spear of lightning inflicts a massive amount of bonus damage with its armor penetration, and vicious attack is a good, reliable way to inflict deep wound in builds not utilizing cruel spear. Daze is very good, and spear swipe gives paragons a good way to inflict daze when stunning strike isn't being used. Other attacks like maiming strike, barbed spear, distracting toss, and merciless spear are PvP oriented attacks and are good in their intended setting (and remember that there are attack skills in all weapon attribute lines that are intended for pvp and not useful in the pve setting). This leaves only a few spear attacks (mighty throw, unblockable throw, slayer's spear) that are weak in pve, and there are a few attack skills in all attribute lines that are weak as well. I'm not saying that these few weak skills shouldn't be buffed, but i saying that spears in general should be buffed because of a few weak skills is wrong.

3. Spears are one handed weapons. This gives them an inherent advantage over hammers, scythes, bows, and daggers since it allows the paragon to bring a shield.

4. Once again, spears have the best dps of any weapon.

5. Paragons are the only class that have access to a permanant IAS. While AR does have a drawback, so do all IAS skills, and AR's drawback is very minor considering paragons are backliners with high armor (even with the -20) that rarely get targeted.

So please, i'm all for buffing the useless motivation chants and the rediculously situational/conditional leadership and command shouts and chants, but there is absolutely no need to buff spears.

Voodoo Rage · Jul 21, 2010, 12:02 AM // 00:02

I'd like to see them give the paragon more fast recharging, low cost shouts to provide leadership fuel (Go for the eyes and The Power is Yours are lame). It does seem like I run out of energy a lot playing a paragon.

And I way second more offensive buffs. Stuff that makes minions do nasty stuff. Stuff that gives party-wide splinter-wep type effects. Stuff that effects monsters within shout range (banshee type effects).

Also, if you want to keep other professions away from the paragon skills, give Leadership an Expertise-like quality (for every x ranks in leadership your paragon skills cost less) or like the Mesmer buff (for every x ranks in leadership your paragon skill recharge faster). You can then raise the energy costs or recharges to compensate. That's what they did to the mesmers.

Lishy · Jul 21, 2010, 12:31 AM // 00:31

I disagree with AR being good. You might as well take a squishy and give him a shield. Since that is what the -20 armor turns you. It's a little dumb for PvE in my opinion.

Lanier · Jul 21, 2010, 12:37 AM // 00:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lishy

I disagree with AR being good. You might as well take a squishy and give him a shield. Since that is what the -20 armor turns you. It's a little dumb for PvE in my opinion.

paragons still have a ton of armor due to the insignias (+10) and shield (+16). It is widely advised that you have a shield set with +10 ar vs. x damage so that adds another 10 giving a grand total of 86-96 armor. Thats not squishy. Plus, like i said, enemies rarely target paragons since they go for low armor casters and frontliners first (making paragons tied with rangers for the least desirable target for an enemy). I mean, i am rarely targeted in PvE when playing my paragon. IAS's all have some type of negative drawback, and AR has the least of a drawback among all the IAS's. Plus, AR is permenant and therefore free.

Ugh · Jul 21, 2010, 01:08 AM // 01:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

5. Paragons are the only class that have access to a permanant IAS. While AR does have a drawback, so do all IAS skills, and AR's drawback is very minor considering paragons are backliners with high armor (even with the -20) that rarely get targeted.

Critical Agility can be permanant if you're really quick.

Oh, and it has no drawbacks either (well, I guess being a PvE skill could be drawback), but yea, it's more of an exception than the rule.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo Rage

Also, if you want to keep other professions away from the paragon skills, give Leadership an Expertise-like quality (for every x ranks in leadership your paragon skills cost less) or like the Mesmer buff (for every x ranks in leadership your paragon skill recharge faster). You can then raise the energy costs or recharges to compensate. That's what they did to the mesmers.

Nah, leadership does its job unless you bring way too many energy skills. Also, if it did need a buff, copying other professions' attributes would be pretty lame. The only real problem I see with leadership is that it's pretty bad in any party size less than 8, which is also a problem with the paragon as a whole.

Lanier · Jul 21, 2010, 01:47 AM // 01:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugh

Critical Agility can be permanant if you're really quick.

Oh, and it has no drawbacks either (well, I guess being a PvE skill could be drawback), but yea, it's more of an exception than the rule.

Yea, its kind of an exception seeing as it is a pve skill so its supposed to be op. I was talking about normal skills.

Dame Laureline · Jul 21, 2010, 07:02 AM // 07:02

Quote:

Uh what? Pretty much anything can make nm PvE wither quickly. Making Hard Mode easier is not the key to fixing ele's.

Let's start a character with prophecies, will you take Orion or Reyna ? Orion or Dunham ?
Why do you think Factions first ele henchies are not fire eles ?
I've made engouh characters through prophecies and factions to tell you the more fire eles, the easier the missions (of course there's arguably exceptions, more evident when foes are immunes to burning conditions).
Will you take Sousuke or Jin in Nightfall ? Will you team with Melonni or Sousuke as hero ?

PvE isn't easy, man need hundreds hours of play to really understand its basics. Of course, if you're so used to abuse op PvE skills, you probably miss the point.

Anyway my idea is not to make HM easy, but easier for ele who are stuck with elemental damages. I think only eles are stuck with elemental damages, others have physical, shadow, chaos, holy, untyped, or even no damage at all but lifestealing or degen.

Quote:

I disagree with AR being good. You might as well take a squishy and give him a shield. Since that is what the -20 armor turns you. It's a little dumb for PvE in my opinion.

I agree, -20 armor is a very bad thing. Well, it's always better than the -40 of frenzy, but who uses frenzy ? In H/H mode (99 % of the game), you'll have the whole first wave of each attacks as you're always the first to enter the aggro range of foes.

Tenebrae · Jul 21, 2010, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugh

Critical Agility can be permanant if you're really quick.

Oh, and it has no drawbacks either (well, I guess being a PvE skill could be drawback), but yea, it's more of an exception than the rule.

Being quick doesnt matter, what matter is achieving criticals in those 14-20 sec. It may not require 2 careers but is not as easy as pressing a button ( chant , to maintain SFury or AR ) and has its drawbacks :
- Its a PvE skill
- Everytime it refreshes stays on top so any Enchant Removal > CA.
Anyway sins have it for its armor bonus , otherwise Alcohol + Drunken Master would be hell better and only has 1 counter , stance removal ( pfff @ PvE ).

For anything else , Laniers post are pretty clear. Spear attacks ( yes lol , its 1,33 sec , like a swd/axe ) with an IAS + Ebsoh and Splinter/GDW + Asuran Scan + GFTE = Win. Its a bloody brutal DPS that only requires 4 skills and 1 buff from the outside and any spammable attack ..... what did you expect ? rangers also gotta have 5-6 slots or more to do decent DPS.

reaper with no name · Jul 21, 2010, 09:17 AM // 09:17

AR is not the only permanent IAS. Honestly, it's one of the crappier IAS's in the game (it's just that ranged characters in general have horrible options for IAS, and AR is not quite AS crappy). CA, as mentioned, is maintainable, as is Onslaught (as terrible as it is), as well as Frenzy and Flail. And since AR is only a 25% IAS, you don't even need to be maintainable to beat it in terms of overall attack speed. A 33% IAS that can be maintained 2/3 of the time is actually slightly better than a maintainable 25% one (ie, Heart of Fury).

Khomet Si Netjer · Jul 21, 2010, 11:50 AM // 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

paragons still have a ton of armor due to the insignias (+10) and shield (+16). It is widely advised that you have a shield set with +10 ar vs. x damage so that adds another 10 giving a grand total of 86-96 armor. Thats not squishy. Plus, like i said, enemies rarely target paragons since they go for low armor casters and frontliners first (making paragons tied with rangers for the least desirable target for an enemy). I mean, i am rarely targeted in PvE when playing my paragon. IAS's all have some type of negative drawback, and AR has the least of a drawback among all the IAS's. Plus, AR is permenant and therefore free.

There are many IAS skills which give permanent IAS with no drawback, not to mention consumables or PvE skills. Soldier's Stance, Onslaught, Way of the Assassin, Expert's Dexterity, Rapid Fire are some examples. Most of these are elite so perhaps it makes sense that Aggressive Refrain should get the armor penalty while the elite IAS (Soldier's Fury) should not have any armor penalty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanier

Paragons have good single target damage. I'v said it before and i will continue to say it. Spears are good and spear mastery (with the exception of the obviously bad skills like mighty throw and unblockable throw) is fine as it is. We have had enough power creep, and while i am all for buffing the underpowered support and healing that paragons have, i dont want power creep to raise any more with needless buffs to the paragon's offensive potential.

I figured i would find some quotes by others who have had enough experience with paragons to write guides on them and post them in the campfire section.

I also am remembering back to a study done a long time ago (i forget what the guy who did the study's name was but i think it was celestial beaver or something like that. Regardless of his name, he had done enough research about paragons to have a guide posted in the campfire section prior to the current ones). In this study, it was determined that spears do in fact have the highest single target dps. Now im not saying that paragons are the most effective spear users, and i am completely in support of critical strikes only affecting dagger use and strength only affecting warrior attack skills so that paragons are the best spear users. However, spears and, in general, spear mastery, are good as they are.

1. Spears are ranged.

2. Spear attacks in general add a good bit of bonus damage. The only weapon attribute that adds more bonus damage to its attack skills is dagger mastery, and that is fine since assassins are supposed to be a primarily offensive class and daggers have a very low dps without attack skills. While there are some warrior attack skills that do more damage than spear attacks, the only ones that are like this are executioner's strike, mighty blow, and the really high adrenaline-costing attack skills. In PvE, where dps wins over spike potential, spear of redemption is going to do more damage than executioner's strike (Spear of redemption only costs 3 adrenaline to use and can be spammed very often). Blazing spear which costs 2 adrenaline less causes a lot more damage. Spear of lightning inflicts a massive amount of bonus damage with its armor penetration, and vicious attack is a good, reliable way to inflict deep wound in builds not utilizing cruel spear. Daze is very good, and spear swipe gives paragons a good way to inflict daze when stunning strike isn't being used. Other attacks like maiming strike, barbed spear, distracting toss, and merciless spear are PvP oriented attacks and are good in their intended setting (and remember that there are attack skills in all weapon attribute lines that are intended for pvp and not useful in the pve setting). This leaves only a few spear attacks (mighty throw, unblockable throw, slayer's spear) that are weak in pve, and there are a few attack skills in all attribute lines that are weak as well. I'm not saying that these few weak skills shouldn't be buffed, but i saying that spears in general should be buffed because of a few weak skills is wrong.

3. Spears are one handed weapons. This gives them an inherent advantage over hammers, scythes, bows, and daggers since it allows the paragon to bring a shield.

4. Once again, spears have the best dps of any weapon.

5. Paragons are the only class that have access to a permanant IAS. While AR does have a drawback, so do all IAS skills, and AR's drawback is very minor considering paragons are backliners with high armor (even with the -20) that rarely get targeted.

So please, i'm all for buffing the useless motivation chants and the rediculously situational/conditional leadership and command shouts and chants, but there is absolutely no need to buff spears.

Lanier I understand what you are saying here but the conclusions are all wrong. The 'spear DPS guides' you mention compare autoattack DPS of various weapons. If you are doing nothing but autoattacking, spear may have comparable DPS to the other weapons assuming no other modifiers; however, since all other professions have higher bonus damage on attacks and also higher buff damage that can be applied to their weapons, other professions will always win.

1) "Spears are ranged". This is a useless argument since bows are also ranged, with slower attack rate, and are still far superior in terms of damage.

2) Spear attacks typically add 5..17..20 bonus damage, only the elites go higher than that. (I'm not counting the broken 3s activation time spear skills)
There are many warrior, dervish, assassin and ranger skills that deliver up to 40 bonus damage or even more. That said, if you look at the suggestions I posted you'll notice that there are really no boosts to bonus damage at all, instead I have focused on the weak skills and attempted to make them useful by adding multi-attack or minor AoE or making them less conditional. Single target DPS would not be affected at all.

3) "Spears are single-handed weapons, thus allowing the use of a shield." Perhaps you've heard of swords and axes? There is a reason why warriors are preferred in PvP, it's because they have the most reliable DPS, period. If paragons could compete teams would be using them. Warriors also have easy access to knockdowns (and they are 50% longer besides) which no other profession can match. Aside from the above, this claim has little importance in a world where we have SY, TNTF, Shelter, Union, Displacement and Ether Renewal prot spam.

4) "Spears have the best DPS of any weapon." It is trivially easy to prove that this is false in any case other than pure auto-attacking, which is useless.
Anyone can load Strength of Honor, AoHM, or Glass Arrows and put the lie to this claim in an instant.

5) "Paragons are the only profession with access to a permanent IAS". This is also false, every profession has a maintainable IAS and I will give a few examples of these: Soldier's Stance, Onslaught, Way of the Assassin, Expert's Dexterity, Rapid Fire. Note that *ALL* of these provide permanent IAS with no drawbacks of any kind; this really makes the paragon's IAS options seem weak by comparison.

Dame Laureline · Jul 21, 2010, 01:39 PM // 13:39

Khomet, about your point 2), there's paragons non elite skills with +40 damages :

- Spear of fury (ok, pve)
- Wearying spear (inflict weakness, but with condition remover in the team it's not so important)
- Holy spear (if you target a sprit or a minion, if the conditions isn't met it's despite all a decent 4 adrenalin skill)

Gill Halendt · Jul 21, 2010, 02:09 PM // 14:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

1) "Spears are ranged". This is a useless argument since bows are also ranged, with slower attack rate, and are still far superior in terms of damage.

Arguments? Just because you say so, it doesn't mean it's true. Actually, FACTS prove otherwise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

2) Spear attacks typically add 5..17..20 bonus damage, only the elites go higher than that. (I'm not counting the broken 3s activation time spear skills)

So do Bow attacks. And that's even before we take refire rate into account. If anything, it's Rangers who need an improvement in this field.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

There are many warrior, dervish, assassin and ranger skills that deliver up to 40 bonus damage or even more.

What part of "Ranged Weapons" can't you understand?

It's supposed to be like that, and for the sake of balance it's better for it to stay like that. Ranged weapons were NEVER meant to deal as much damage as Melee Weapons, due to the fact, guess what, that they are ranged.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

That said, if you look at the suggestions I posted you'll notice that there are really no boosts to bonus damage at all, instead I have focused on the weak skills and attempted to make them useful by adding multi-attack or minor AoE or making them less conditional. Single target DPS would not be affected at all.

Sure... No direct boost to damage, indeed. Thank goodnes, I might add, since you just took every drawback to these skills - mostly motivated by the fact that Spears are ranged weapons - and simply got rid of them. Cruel Spear is the finest example...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

3) "Spears are single-handed weapons, thus allowing the use of a shield." Perhaps you've heard of swords and axes? There is a reason why warriors are preferred in PvP, it's because they have the most reliable DPS, period.

Perhaps that's why most PvP warriors are Hammer Warriors. Are you sure we're playing the same game?

Lanier · Jul 21, 2010, 02:15 PM // 14:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

AR is not the only permanent IAS. Honestly, it's one of the crappier IAS's in the game (it's just that ranged characters in general have horrible options for IAS, and AR is not quite AS crappy). CA, as mentioned, is maintainable, as is Onslaught (as terrible as it is), as well as Frenzy and Flail. And since AR is only a 25% IAS, you don't even need to be maintainable to beat it in terms of overall attack speed. A 33% IAS that can be maintained 2/3 of the time is actually slightly better than a maintainable 25% one (ie, Heart of Fury).

AR is the only one that is permanent in the sense that it stays on you... forever.. without having to refresh it with energy or adrenaline. I didn't think about CA earlier, and i will give it to you that CA is better due to the + armor but it is a PvE skill, so its supposed to be more powerful. Onslaught is an elite and therefore should be compared to soldier's fury rather than AR. Frenzy can be permanantly maintained, but it gives even more of a downside than AR does. Im sure other people who have played warriors in PvE will tell you that upkeeping flail in the middle of a battle is counterproductive when you have to move from target to target. That is why warrior's always bring a cancel stance with their flail, b/c flail can actually decrease their total dps if it is active when the warrior moves from one target to another. Since creatures don't autobunch themselves, i have found this to happen quite often meaning there are many times when i am left without an IAS or when i have to pay some adrenaline to refresh it. Heart of Fury costs 10 energy to refresh on a profession that is already strapped for energy. AR is permanant and free.

Quote:

There are many IAS skills which give permanent IAS with no drawback, not to mention consumables or PvE skills. Soldier's Stance, Onslaught, Way of the Assassin, Expert's Dexterity, Rapid Fire are some examples. Most of these are elite so perhaps it makes sense that Aggressive Refrain should get the armor penalty while the elite IAS (Soldier's Fury) should not have any armor penalty.

While I would agree that Soldier's Fury shouldn't have the armor penalty, you can't really compare AR to elites. Maybe I should clarify what I said earlier. AR is the best non-elite, non PvE skill IAS. In addition to what i have already said, echos can be stacked with other echos meaning that you arn't limited to just using AR like you would be if you were using one of the warrior's stances or one of the rangers stances or preparations. Rapid Fire takes up the rangers preparation slot, ensuring that they can't use another useful one like expert dexterity, glass arrows, ignite arrows, or apply poison.

Quote:

1) "Spears are ranged". This is a useless argument since bows are also ranged, with slower attack rate, and are still far superior in terms of damage.

No, no, no. You have already acknowledged that, throw autoattacking, spears do more damage than bows. So the issue is with attack skills. Thing is, spear attack skills are good and, imo, better bow attack skills. Dual shot (ill leave out triple shot, along with spear of fury, since they are PvE skills) is a pretty awful skill on its own unless you stack attack buffs, and if you stack attack buffs, any attack skill will be powerful. For the most part, the bow attack skills are either expensive or not very powerful. Ones like sundering attack and penetrating shot may be powerful but they are too expensive to spam without significant energy support (elite energy support like prepared shot, thus using your elite), plus spear of lightning and vicious attack (if you use it with gfte to get they deep wound like you should) do more damage. Im not sure where you are getting that bows are powerful damage dealers.

Quote:

2) Spear attacks typically add 5..17..20 bonus damage, only the elites go higher than that. (I'm not counting the broken 3s activation time spear skills)
There are many warrior, dervish, assassin and ranger skills that deliver up to 40 bonus damage or even more. That said, if you look at the suggestions I posted you'll notice that there are really no boosts to bonus damage at all, instead I have focused on the weak skills and attempted to make them useful by adding multi-attack or minor AoE or making them less conditional. Single target DPS would not be affected at all.

Spear of Lightning adds far more damage. Blazing Spear adds far more damage. Vicious attack adds far more damage (with the deep wound). And of course, the elite spear skills do more damage than that. Spear of redemption, like i said, may have the bonus damage that you say but it has a far greater dps than say an executioner's strike due to the far lower adrenal cost. Same goes for holy spear which is twice as spammable as the 8 adrenal warrior attacks. When you compare skills, you have to take adrenaline cost and spammability into consideration since this is PvE where dps matters and spike potential doesn't. This leaves only bad ones like swift javelin, slayers spear, and ones like wild throw that are not used for the bonus damage but rather for the secondary affect (if you want a higher adrenal skill for the bonus damage, use cruel spear or blazing spear).

That said, you are incorrect in saying that most warrior, ranger, and dervish attack skills hit for "40 or more damage". The only ones that get that high are either exceptionally expensive ones for the dervish (like chilling victory) that cant be used that often anyway due to their cost (or require an elite energy management to be used efficiently), one ones with very high adrenal cost for the warrior like executioner's strike and mighty blow that have far less of a a dps than even spear of redemption. Pretty much all ranger bow attacks do either the same amount of damage or fewer bonus damage than the spear attacks.

Finally, like i have said in the past, Paragons do not need AoE. Different professions should be better at different things, and not ever offensive profession needs to have the same strengths. Paragons (who arn't even supposed to be an offensive profession... they are supposed to be a support one) don't have AoE but they shouldn't have AoE because they have good single target dps with both their spear in general and with their spear attacks.

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3) "Spears are single-handed weapons, thus allowing the use of a shield." Perhaps you've heard of swords and axes? There is a reason why warriors are preferred in PvP, it's because they have the most reliable DPS, period.

Warriors are preferred in PvP not because of their dps but because of their spike potential, Period. Skills like executioner's strike are useful in PvP because of the way they can put high damage on a target at once. In PvE, spear of redemption, holy spear, or blazing spear is better because it can pump out more damage overall. Also, warriors are preferred because they automatically do more damage with their strength armor penetration. I'll acknowledge that this is one bonus that warriors have over paragons in damage potential, and i have stated in the past that i would like to see paragons better offensively than warriors or assassins using spears by limiting critical strikes to daggers and limiting strength to warrior attack skills. However, i am in this post trying to say that spears and spear attacks are good as they are, regardless of which profession is using them.

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4) "Spears have the best DPS of any weapon." It is trivially easy to prove that this is false in any case other than pure auto-attacking, which is useless.
Anyone can load Strength of Honor, AoHM, or Glass Arrows and put the lie to this claim in an instant.

It would be more accurate to discuss dps in situations without buffs since any weapon is technically buffable. Sure you can buff an axe warrior with strength and honor, but i can also buff a spearchucker with orders. Still, this is kind of beside the point since i am talking about the strength of spears and spear attacks - not of buffs. If you want to improve buffs to spears, thats another topic and could be handled by giving them a shout or something but for now, lets accurately compare dps by assuming no external buffs are present.

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5) "Paragons are the only profession with access to a permanent IAS". This is also false, every profession has a maintainable IAS and I will give a few examples of these: Soldier's Stance, Onslaught, Way of the Assassin, Expert's Dexterity, Rapid Fire. Note that *ALL* of these provide permanent IAS with no drawbacks of any kind; this really makes the paragon's IAS options seem weak by comparison.

Like i said above, you can't compare AR to elites. this leaves rapid fire as the only comparable skill you mention, which does have a drawback in that you can't take any of the other preparations (and there are a lot of effective ones to choose from).

Khomet Si Netjer · Jul 21, 2010, 03:27 PM // 15:27

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Originally Posted by Dame Laureline

Khomet, about your point 2), there's paragons non elite skills with +40 damages :

- Spear of fury (ok, pve)
- Wearying spear (inflict weakness, but with condition remover in the team it's not so important)
- Holy spear (if you target a sprit or a minion, if the conditions isn't met it's despite all a decent 4 adrenalin skill)

PvE skills don't count. :-)

Wearying Spear reduces your own damage, I don't think that is helpful to a damage discussion at all. Now if there were a way to become immune to conditions (e.g. Avatar of Melandru) then this skill might be useful. This is what the Dervish was abusing with Wearying Strike, and Avatar of Melandru was nerfed because of it. Note that even if a healer removes the weakness quickly you're likely to throw at least one spear while under the weakness condition. It hurts your overall damage and it wastes your healer's energy.

Holy Spear is great but the normal effect is 5..17..20 damage as I have said. The bonus effect is spectacular... up to 90 holy damage to all nearby, PLUS 3s burning? Yes please... but it only does this to minions and spirits, so this great skill becomes mediocre in most parts of the game including PvP. I don't know how to make this skill better without making it overpowered. Possibly it could be changed to deliver up to 45 holy damage to all adjacent and another 45 damage to all nearby if target is a minion or spirit.

Lanier · Jul 21, 2010, 03:36 PM // 15:36

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Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Holy Spear is great but the normal effect is 5..17..20 damage as I have said.

for a cost of only 4 adrenaline... compare to executioner's strike with twice the damage but can only be used half as often. If this attack weren't ranged, i would say they were equal in power (in PvE). The fact that holy spear is ranged means that it is slightly better.

Desert Rose · Jul 21, 2010, 03:40 PM // 15:40

I created and tested a spear ranger build just for giggles: Spear Ranger
The build would be even better if I had Spear of Redemption and a zealous spear, but it's still able to deal 100-105 DPS against the MoD and ~10 more if the pet is also inside of the EBSoH.
But since bows are superior in terms of damage belshazaarswrath or Khomet Si Netjer can surely show us a bow build that outdamage my build and is able to maintain its energy for 30+ seconds, right?

Btw: In an actual PvP match Paragons can often match or even surpass Warriors DPS because kiting and snares have a far smaller effect on them.