Curse

Khomet Si Netjer · Jan 29, 2010, 10:41 PM // 22:41

All professions have a number of weak or useless skills, but the useless paragon skills hurt more because there aren't very many skills to begin with. My intent is to draw some attention to skills that are rarely or never used and possibly modify them into viable options. I'm throwing some ideas out there, perhaps they are worthless, you be the judge.

Brace Yourself: does anyone use this? Even in knockdown-prone areas no one uses it, and monks will use Aura of Stability instead. For general PvE Ward of Stability is much much better. But what if Brace Yourself provided AoE knockdown prevention like the ward? It could provide total knockdown immunity (e.g. Ward of Stability) or simply prevent the next knockdown. The damage it does is not important at all in a PvE context, perhaps this one could have a PvP/PvE split.
In PvE we have I Am Unstoppable and Drunken Master for permanent or near permanent knockdown immunity so I don't see this as a balance issue at all.
Similarly, "Don't Trip" is useless, even in areas where you might want to use it, because of the short duration and long recharge.

Help Me: no one uses this either. paragon tanks perhaps? lol. and was a 75 hp self heal every 10 seconds so overpowered that we needed a PvE/PvP split for this? Give me a break. Please see Vital Boon and Shadow Refuge for much better self heals on a physical damage dealer. Perhaps if it was maintainable you could at least use it to power Soldier's Fury.

Never Surrender: Useful to counter degen in PvE. Would be useful in PvP if it were unconditional and maintainable, that way it could power Soldier's Fury. If health regen is ZOMG scary in PvP (it isn't) the effect could be reduced to only +1...+3 regen.

Never Give Up: Anyone seen paragons using this? If it were unconditional people might use it, but then +7 or +8 energy party-wide every 20s would be too strong. Suggest changing this to unconditional energy gain but reduce the amount. +1 energy regen unconditionally would give 6.6 energy over 20s if my math is correct. if that is considered too much scale it down. this might also be a decent option to maintain Soldier's Fury if it had a duration.

Mending Refrain: OMG. +3 health regen is so powerful, and we can't get that from any other source. Like Healing Breeze, Spirit Light Weapon, Recuperation, Rejuvenation, Troll Unguent, Well of Blood, Well of Power, Blood Bond. In PvE this is completely outclassed by Never Surrender and all of the above skills. In PvP it is useless, spikes dominate. Is there a reason to use this? Not sure why Anet made a huge issue of nerfing all non-warrior damage sources in the Jan 2010 update because of spiking, but they are so worried about minor regen that Mending Refrain and Recuperation get nerfed again. New flash, spikes happen so fast that health regen is irrelevant.

Lyric of Purification: again, not that useful. perhaps if it were maintainable then it can be used for Soldier's Fury, Centurion's Insignia, etc.

Angelic Protection: has anyone ever seen this in action? even when I tried desperately to find a way to make this useful, I could not. I have two suggestions, either make a single-target version of Angelic Bond, or have it negate damage completely for a (very brief) time... 3s? 5s? Which I think is its intended purpose. And the 30s recharge is rather ridiculous.

Angelic Bond: I love the effect of this skill after the last update but the recharge is way too long for anyone to use it. I would carry this in PvE if it could be used more often. Consider that in PvE you are likely to get partywide spikes from elementalists, mesmers, necromancers, barrage rangers, etc. so even having this as a maintainable effect is not going to save your party from severe AoE damage, it will save one character for a second before he joins the rest of the dead characters. but if it saves any single party member from being spiked down by single-target damage that could be worth the elite slot.

Slayer's Spear: Costs too much and the effect is useless. Warriors, Paragons, and Dervishes are likely to have more health than anyone on the field so this skill will almost never work. Suggest making it cause Deep Wound if target is <50% health like Merciless Spear or Reaper's Sweep, or perhaps cause Deep Wound if target has 2+ conditions like Fevered Dreams.

Mighty Throw: 3s activation time? :-\ slowest attack skill in the game.
please fix, raise adrenaline cost and reduce damage if necessary.

Unblockable Throw: see above. Wild Throw owns this completely, both have the same adrenaline cost and are unblocakble, but wild throw activates normally and also removes a stance.

Soldier's Fury / Aggressive Refrain: Two skills that actually *are* widely used, and both have suffered from PvP related nerfs. Request to split these into PvP and PvE variants if the balance team really wants to cripple every IAS option that paragons have. In PvE we have perma-IAS for assassins, dervishes, and rangers already with no drawbacks, not to mention consumables or pve skills like Drunken Master. Are these two skills really such a serious balance problem or is it just more paragon hate?

Bob Slydell · Jan 29, 2010, 11:25 PM // 23:25

Paragon seems to have gotten the shitty end of the stick over the years, simply because there probably haven't been enough people that wanted to play it, and therefore anet kinda looks to balance the more popular, (though, I like them...

)

I do agree with the IAS bit, paragons' only REAL good solution for IAS was flail (IMO)...since they are ranged, they didn't need to run much and in the amount of time you've thrown spears under flail, it'll be usable again, now it's only 1 second for non Warrior primaries.

GONS NEED IAS!

EDIT: I always thought Mighty Throw was bugged.

Carboplatin · Jan 29, 2010, 11:37 PM // 23:37

People complained about Sins being useless, they got god mode SF.

Can we get something? anything?

SY! as the only good build for pve doesn't cut it.

i know paragons can upset ORGANIZED pvp balance very easily, thats why we have the pve/pvp split. lets put that to some use?

Lanier · Jan 29, 2010, 11:50 PM // 23:50

I agree completely that AR and SF should get a PvE/PvP split where the PvE split of the skills dont cause cracked armor.

On the topic of Angelic protection, i think it should be reverted to its original function, but costing five energy rather than 10. I thought its unique functionality back then was useful... and i miss the days of being able to angelic bond for deep groups.

Although there are many command skills that need some slight buffs, i think motivation should be the more pressing concern. The whole concept of motivation, supporting the team through heals, battery-support, and condition removal is useful but the skills have some major problems, namely their recharges. I would like Mending refrain to be reverted to its original behavior of +4 regen at ~12 motivation. This way, a skilled para could maintain 4 regen on a team, thus taking some pressure off the monks. I think SoR needs to have recharge of 10. This way, it would provide more healing than LoD but would have a higher recharge to balance it with the other party healing elite. Ballad and Aria of restoration also need lower recharges (maybe 12 sec?). Finally, I think the lyrics need to be activated on something other than signets.

Thats just my 2 cents. This reminds me of the time when SoR was 5en/15 sec recharge and i would occasionally replace a monk in NM with myself as a motivation paragon. Good times...

drkn · Jan 30, 2010, 12:21 AM // 00:21

the sole problem is the lack of diversity amongst pve builds. you either run XYZ or suck out there.
sins have sf, paragons have imbagon. mesmers have to run non-mesmer skills in order to be useful in a party.
but yeah, lots of para skills are inferior to their counterparts. when i think about it, i even only used para heroes at varesh and mallyx. though i quite enjoy playing my paragon

Xsiriss · Jan 30, 2010, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Agree with mighty throw,paragon attacks need some loving as well as something to make them mroe useful to paragons. In pve a spearpet ranger with NRA! easily beats a paragon using a spear...

Dabineh Deathbringer · Jan 30, 2010, 12:49 AM // 00:49

The sad thing is that Paragon is such an interesting class and has the potential to be useful, but it doesn't. Most of their elites are terrible, and the class could REALLY use a buff. I'll /sign to anything that makes Paragons better and more balanced

Shriketalon · Jan 30, 2010, 01:12 AM // 01:12

One of the major things that would help is improving Chants and Echoes in their PvE incarnations.

Chants currently fail due to targeting; a paragon gets less effective in a balanced party where chants that effect casters aren't buffing physicals, and vise versa.

Echoes are currently boring, single target effects that often aren't worth the slot. While they may work in PvP, in PvE they simply lack enough bang for their buck.

So....

1) Improve Chant targeting. Lyric of Zeal, for example, is utterly useless because not enough people will bring signets to trigger it. But if you changed it to "The next time the ally uses a skill, they gain X energy. If that skill was a signet, they gain Bigger Number Goes Here energy instead," it would have more impact.

2) Turn Refrain style echoes into earshot buffs. They might still be based off of chants ending aka "every time a shout or chant ends on all allies within earshot, they gain ___ seconds of +X health regeneration", might be passive "while effected by a shout or chant, gain +3 health regen", or even have a sliding scale, "gain +1 health regen, each time a shout or chant ends on them, increases by +1 (max X) for ____ seconds", thus working kind of like the drunkard meter.

3) Turn Finales into songbombs. "All your shouts and chants within earshot end. For each skill ended this way, have X effect", healing for Restoration, condition removal for Purification, burning on all enemies within the area of an effected ally for Blazing, etc. This will add a lot of versatility, letting you bring only one condition removal skill even in a balanced party, for example, at the cost of using your other skills without their normal effects. It will also make them truly finale-worthy, a buildup of shouts and chants that culminates in one massive effect.

Commander Kanen · Jan 30, 2010, 01:32 AM // 01:32

I would love to see a paragon update. Para is my main and he WAS fun to play at the start. but every month we see skill updates and every one for para was a nerf of some kind. (The skills that were "buffed" are mainly ones that got nerfd so bad they became unusable at all!, Check the update history)

all they need is one or two "selfish" buffs. this may help out the lack of farming issues and so on. and a fiew party buffs. possibly some more direct healing. Almost like a WoH or direct protection im thinking about angelic bond/protection buff or re-work.

After all paragon is suposed to support party members. and the only truly helpful skill seems to be a PVE only warrior one at that !

Now for the damage. maybe a spear rework, Im thinking a exploding spear attack of some kind to offer some mild AoE (hits foe and ajacent foes for x ammount on hit). every other profession has some form of aoe weather it be Barrage, Cyclone axe, RoJ or a Meteor Shower.

*wishes for para buff*

Cuilan · Jan 30, 2010, 02:03 AM // 02:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Slydell

Paragon seems to have gotten the shitty end of the stick over the years, simply because there probably haven't been enough people that wanted to play it, and therefore anet kinda looks to balance the more popular, (though, I like them...

)

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

I'd like to see paragons use Assassin's Promise since Anet is okay with that skill being used by all professions. It's a safe bet it won't be nerfed. More spear changes (damage or some weird funky skill changes) would be enjoyable.

Just something.

Lifestyle · Jan 30, 2010, 02:43 AM // 02:43

Guys and gals...

Before we go on to buff alot of the skills, why don't we go on to solve the problems we have right now? We don't need some buff that suddenly opens up fifteen new combinations to win the game (coughSFcough), but to get rid of the immediate problems. Then, when these skills have been brought down, we would have more time and a more free mind to analyze and buff the UP skills without introducing new problems.

Also, keep in mind, when you nerf skills, you also make other alternatives relatively more powerful. Or in this case, if you for instance toned down the dps of other classes, paragons would become better without even being touched.

Gift3d · Jan 30, 2010, 03:10 AM // 03:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lifestyle

Guys and gals...

Before we go on to buff alot of the skills, why don't we go on to solve the problems we have right now? We don't need some buff that suddenly opens up fifteen new combinations to win the game (coughSFcough), but to get rid of the immediate problems. Then, when these skills have been brought down, we would have more time and a more free mind to analyze and buff the UP skills without introducing new problems.

Also, keep in mind, when you nerf skills, you also make other alternatives relatively more powerful. Or in this case, if you for instance toned down the dps of other classes, paragons would become better without even being touched.

seen the update today? anet does not give one single god mother effing damn about SF, no matter what kind of garbage they tell us. get over it already.

paragons are tricky. when used properly they're strong. the only problem with that is, there's only a select few builds that are really effective in pvp. that's because of the lack of useful skills, even the number of skills alltogether. since we know no new skills are about to be added through another campaign or expansion, i think some useless para skills should be buffed just to add more variety to the playing field.

what's also tricky is how to go about buffing defensive paragon skills without letting para spike get way out of hand.

*lemming* · Jan 30, 2010, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Never Surrender: Useful to counter degen in PvE. Would be useful in PvP if it were unconditional and maintainable, that way it could power Soldier's Fury. If health regen is ZOMG scary in PvP (it isn't) the effect could be reduced to only +1...+3 regen.

Mending Refrain: OMG. +3 health regen is so powerful, and we can't get that from any other source. Like Healing Breeze, Spirit Light Weapon, Recuperation, Rejuvenation, Troll Unguent, Well of Blood, Well of Power, Blood Bond. In PvE this is completely outclassed by Never Surrender and all of the above skills. In PvP it is useless, spikes dominate. Is there a reason to use this? Not sure why Anet made a huge issue of nerfing all non-warrior damage sources in the Jan 2010 update because of spiking, but they are so worried about minor regen that Mending Refrain and Recuperation get nerfed again. New flash, spikes happen so fast that health regen is irrelevant.

News flash, party healing is the linchpin of both offense and defense in GvG.

Take a look at Recuperation if you don't believe me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Soldier's Fury / Aggressive Refrain: Two skills that actually *are* widely used, and both have suffered from PvP related nerfs. Request to split these into PvP and PvE variants if the balance team really wants to cripple every IAS option that paragons have. In PvE we have perma-IAS for assassins, dervishes, and rangers already with no drawbacks, not to mention consumables or pve skills like Drunken Master. Are these two skills really such a serious balance problem or is it just more paragon hate?

Sounds like a persecution complex to me.

Shayne Hawke · Jan 30, 2010, 04:18 AM // 04:18

Balancing Paragons seems like a rough task to me, because buffing them seems like you're buffing the whole team, and vice versa for nerfs. It's likely that for Paragons to become more versatile in PvE (that is, have more builds available that are on par for general benefit as the Imbagon), there are going to need to be some skill splits. I don't really see how you can buff Paragon attack or defense skills for PvE and keep their power in check or unchanged in PvP without a good number of skill splits.

Also, the Imbagon bar is just so ridiculously good for Paragons that it's probably going to need nerfed somehow so that other party-protecting builds can poke their head out a little further.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

Mending Refrain: OMG. +3 health regen is so powerful... In PvP it is useless, spikes dominate.

While health regen (specifically party-wide health regen) is not going to save you from a well-coordinated spike, it helps keep you topped off in between spikes so that you appear as less of a target and need to have ~90% of your health blown away in a second rather than ~80%.

moriz · Jan 30, 2010, 04:36 AM // 04:36

paragons are mobile ritualist spirits that often cost little to zero energy, cast faster, have much higher armor and health, have a built in energy engine that's powerful enough to support fast recharge spells, have better effects, and deal warrior DPS at casting range. and yet, you want them to be BUFFED.

if it were up to me, i'd nerf them harder. or delete them. they were a horrible concept to begin with, and no amount of adjustments short of a complete redesign will fix them. they are better off being useless (and despite what everybody thinks, they aren't). they cause less damage that way.

Skyy High · Jan 30, 2010, 05:20 AM // 05:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gift3d

seen the update today? anet does not give one single god mother effing damn about SF, no matter what kind of garbage they tell us. get over it already.

So, you think they're flat-out lying when they said that they're splitting the update into two parts to get the PvP changes out faster, and the changes to SF, etc, will be forthcoming after the Canthan New Year?

Can I quote you on that? Cause it'll be hilarious next month.

reaper with no name · Jan 30, 2010, 05:33 AM // 05:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khomet Si Netjer

All professions have a number of weak or useless skills, but the useless paragon skills hurt more because there aren't very many skills to begin with. My intent is to draw some attention to skills that are rarely or never used and possibly modify them into viable options. I'm throwing some ideas out there, perhaps they are worthless, you be the judge.

Brace Yourself: does anyone use this? Even in knockdown-prone areas no one uses it, and monks will use Aura of Stability instead. For general PvE Ward of Stability is much much better. But what if Brace Yourself provided AoE knockdown prevention like the ward? It could provide total knockdown immunity (e.g. Ward of Stability) or simply prevent the next knockdown. The damage it does is not important at all in a PvE context, perhaps this one could have a PvP/PvE split.
In PvE we have I Am Unstoppable and Drunken Master for permanent or near permanent knockdown immunity so I don't see this as a balance issue at all.
Similarly, "Don't Trip" is useless, even in areas where you might want to use it, because of the short duration and long recharge.

Help Me: no one uses this either. paragon tanks perhaps? lol. and was a 75 hp self heal every 10 seconds so overpowered that we needed a PvE/PvP split for this? Give me a break. Please see Vital Boon and Shadow Refuge for much better self heals on a physical damage dealer. Perhaps if it was maintainable you could at least use it to power Soldier's Fury.

Never Surrender: Useful to counter degen in PvE. Would be useful in PvP if it were unconditional and maintainable, that way it could power Soldier's Fury. If health regen is ZOMG scary in PvP (it isn't) the effect could be reduced to only +1...+3 regen.

Never Give Up: Anyone seen paragons using this? If it were unconditional people might use it, but then +7 or +8 energy party-wide every 20s would be too strong. Suggest changing this to unconditional energy gain but reduce the amount. +1 energy regen unconditionally would give 6.6 energy over 20s if my math is correct. if that is considered too much scale it down. this might also be a decent option to maintain Soldier's Fury if it had a duration.

Mending Refrain: OMG. +3 health regen is so powerful, and we can't get that from any other source. Like Healing Breeze, Spirit Light Weapon, Recuperation, Rejuvenation, Troll Unguent, Well of Blood, Well of Power, Blood Bond. In PvE this is completely outclassed by Never Surrender and all of the above skills. In PvP it is useless, spikes dominate. Is there a reason to use this? Not sure why Anet made a huge issue of nerfing all non-warrior damage sources in the Jan 2010 update because of spiking, but they are so worried about minor regen that Mending Refrain and Recuperation get nerfed again. New flash, spikes happen so fast that health regen is irrelevant.

Lyric of Purification: again, not that useful. perhaps if it were maintainable then it can be used for Soldier's Fury, Centurion's Insignia, etc.

Angelic Protection: has anyone ever seen this in action? even when I tried desperately to find a way to make this useful, I could not. I have two suggestions, either make a single-target version of Angelic Bond, or have it negate damage completely for a (very brief) time... 3s? 5s? Which I think is its intended purpose. And the 30s recharge is rather ridiculous.

Angelic Bond: I love the effect of this skill after the last update but the recharge is way too long for anyone to use it. I would carry this in PvE if it could be used more often. Consider that in PvE you are likely to get partywide spikes from elementalists, mesmers, necromancers, barrage rangers, etc. so even having this as a maintainable effect is not going to save your party from severe AoE damage, it will save one character for a second before he joins the rest of the dead characters. but if it saves any single party member from being spiked down by single-target damage that could be worth the elite slot.

Slayer's Spear: Costs too much and the effect is useless. Warriors, Paragons, and Dervishes are likely to have more health than anyone on the field so this skill will almost never work. Suggest making it cause Deep Wound if target is <50% health like Merciless Spear or Reaper's Sweep, or perhaps cause Deep Wound if target has 2+ conditions like Fevered Dreams.

Mighty Throw: 3s activation time? :-\ slowest attack skill in the game.
please fix, raise adrenaline cost and reduce damage if necessary.

Unblockable Throw: see above. Wild Throw owns this completely, both have the same adrenaline cost and are unblocakble, but wild throw activates normally and also removes a stance.

Soldier's Fury / Aggressive Refrain: Two skills that actually *are* widely used, and both have suffered from PvP related nerfs. Request to split these into PvP and PvE variants if the balance team really wants to cripple every IAS option that paragons have. In PvE we have perma-IAS for assassins, dervishes, and rangers already with no drawbacks, not to mention consumables or pve skills like Drunken Master. Are these two skills really such a serious balance problem or is it just more paragon hate?

Not trying to rain on your parade or anything, but I feel I have to point out a couple things.

1) Dervishes do not have a permanent IAS. If they did, they'd be slightly better at using the scythe than warriors.

2) As for Mending Refrain, if health regen is so useless, then why would buffing this skill change anything?

That said, as a Dervish player, I feel your pain. I feel it oh so very much.

FoxBat · Jan 30, 2010, 05:47 AM // 05:47

I find some of the command pve splits pretty useful actually. SYG, fall back, we shall return, sometimes never surrender. The irony is they work even better with soul reaping than leadership.

Khomet Si Netjer · Jan 30, 2010, 06:10 AM // 06:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Not trying to rain on your parade or anything, but I feel I have to point out a couple things.

1) Dervishes do not have a permanent IAS. If they did, they'd be slightly better at using the scythe than warriors.

Onslaught. +25% IAS and +25% IMS, no drawbacks.

Quote:

2) As for Mending Refrain, if health regen is so useless, then why would buffing this skill change anything?

That said, as a Dervish player, I feel your pain. I feel it oh so very much.

It wouldn't really change much of anything, that's why no one needs to fear it. Recuperation, Rejuvenation, Never Surrender, Well of Blood and Well of Power all give mass health regeneration with only one skill and far less work and energy, so putting Mending Refrain back to normal shouldn't alarm anyone.

Zahr Dalsk · Jan 31, 2010, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carboplatin

People complained about Sins being useless, they got god mode SF.

But Assassins were already godlike damage dealers if you weren't pants-on-head retarded.