Curse

R.Shayne · May 13, 2009, 04:09 AM // 04:09

I have 3 useful pve Paragon builds. I want to do more and not have to take a completely useless build. Wonder what would happen if the spear was changed to melee instead of a range weapon.

Question: I feel Guild Wars 1 was never balanced or came any where near balanced. I see no indication that A.Net learn from past mistakes on the balance issue (and apparently has the same person that did the balancing for GW1 doing the balancing in GW2). To those that are saying they will do better in GW2 do you feel that they will wave a magic wand and become the guru's of balance? To quote John McCain, "Oh, please!"

Want to prove you can balance a game, do it in Guild Wars 1, even if it calls for major changes that will have the community crying for lost builds, they have done it before. I don't believe anything is ever too far gone, just people are un-willing to make the effort.

bhavv · May 13, 2009, 05:19 AM // 05:19

Go go ellys, monks, necros and warriors.

Everything else sucks in PVE :P.

You really need to judge each class purely without any of the PVE only skills, without which Paragons, Sins and Mesmers arent as good as other classes.

Warrior > Paragons / Dervs and Sins.

Monk or Elly > Ritualist

And necros just wipe the floor with mesmers.

Since the skills have been seperated into PVE and PVP, there has been very little effort to even out the classes.

Paragons can now be fully reverted to the excellent motivation line they had on release for PVE only, bring back bigger heals, 15s recharge on [SONG OF RESTORATION], energy gain scaling on [Emergising Finale], 10e gain from [Aria of Zeal], revert [incoming] back to 10 seconds of 33% less damage (50% is broken yes), reduce [stand your ground] to 10e, 15r, power up some spear attacks, e.g make [holy spear] inflict its bonus damage if any enemy spirits are in range of the target, make some of the other attack skills hit multiple targets to give them more AoE damage.

There are so many easy PVE only tweaks that can be made to bring Paragons and other classes in line with the main classes, why exactly are Anet or anyone in the PVE community really using the excuse of balance in PVE when we already have broken PVE skills and consumables?

For ritualists, make spawning power increase the damage done by conjured spirits and creatures by 1 point per rank, and also boost the health gain they get. Maybe also increase the bonus weapon duration.

Go go super ritualist MMs and summoners, something that was meant to have been possible all along with Spawning power, but never really had and point to it.

Right now, ritualist summoners have too little benefit over a necro or even an elementalist with healing spirits, both of which heal far far better with Restoration skills than Ritualists can.

The class is also broken right there, that ellys and necros are more effective with their healing skills, as opposed to monks who will always be superior with their divine favor bonus.

Dervishes are actually fine in PVE, very solid, balanced and reliable class compared to the other 3 extra professions.

bhavv · May 13, 2009, 05:29 AM // 05:29

Another way to improve Spawning power is to improve its skills:

[Attuned Was Songkai] - increase duration to be equal to its recharge. Change functionality to:

Your ritualst spells and binding rituals cost up to 50% less energy and cast 50% faster. Resurect one nearby ally with full health and 0 energy when dropped.

[energetic was lee sa] - 5e, 1c, 20r, 30s duration.

You have +0...2 energy regeneration. When dropped, all allies in earshot gain 0...10 energy.

Wow, spawning will now make ritualists just a little more better at doing their own job then an [ether prism] elly or a soul reaping necro, how broken it is that ritualists would now be better at being ritualists then my Elly is lol.

Speaking from my experience with a PVE elly, monk and rit (also have mesmer and paragon), in terms of healing and party support:

Monk > Elly / Necro > Imbagon > Ritualist.

Yea, my Paragon, mesmer and Rit are all sat collecting dust while I only play my elly and monk, plus my new account with a warrior, which is surprisingly much more fun than I had expected a warrior to be.

Improvavel · May 13, 2009, 05:38 AM // 05:38

Yes, at PvP they are non-existent. And you can understand why.

But at PvE? C'mon.

Paras work better in numbers. One para doesn't have many options, since their shouts alone won't accomplish much, with the exception of save yourselves and tntf. But start to add more and more paragons and suddenly you have a damn team that hits hard, has high armor, has powerful healing, hex removal, condition removal, unblockable attacks, adrenaline gain engine, you name it. The only thing they can't do is AoE with spear (well [holy spear] and [splinter weapon (pve)] can, but...).

And the paragon heroes are amazing! Quite on par with the necro heroes. One of my wishes is to see Anet release a 3rd para hero!

That's the main problem with paragons in PvP too - a frigging mob of paragons throwing frigging powerful spears while covered by 2nd highest armor in the game and infinite resources. What can you do against that? Die!

Lishy · May 13, 2009, 05:42 AM // 05:42

Yet, the condition removal of multiple Paragons is still inferior to a single PnH monk.
And the healing of multiple Paragons is vastly inferior to a single HB Monk.
The energy support is also inferior to that of a Necromancer.

Have fun with "multiple" paragons, when multiple paragons can be replaced by the role of a single player.

... I still stay it needs a reworking.

bhavv · May 13, 2009, 05:45 AM // 05:45

But remove TNTF and SY, and paragons are deficient.

Multiple paragons (3+ in a group, like my paragon and heroes) is a brilliant setup.

However, do try removing the orders dervish and watch how badly the build fails.

Without the orders, you have solid defense, but hardly any damage, the orders dervish is what makes paraway broken, not the multiple paragons themselves.

And, unlike with ellys and necros, paragons alone cannot keep a party alive in HM with the absence of any monks or ritualists.

bhavv · May 13, 2009, 05:53 AM // 05:53

I can garantee you that I can provide more healing and party support with my elly then you can with 3 paragons.

Go go perma ether renewal Infuse Health spammer, or even just heal other and jameis gaze spammer with infinate non depletable energy and epic self healing from every single spell cast.

Enchant removal you say? Not a problem, just change to Ether Prism E/Rt for that area instead, but then I will only be as good as 2 paragons instead of 3

.

Ellys and Necros steal all of your thunder for both party support and damage output, oh, so do smiter monks now with [smiter's boon] and RoJ.

Yet, as this thread is saying, everytime there is a skill update, guess which classes keep on recieving the benefits?

Elly. Monk. Necro. Warrior. Mesmer got a few, but not enough.

What about the poor paragons / ritualists / sins? Oh right, Anet have forgotten about making them any better.

If you want the best enjoyment possible from GW PVE, Elly, Necros and Monks are the way to go, warriors are also ok. All the other classes are boring and rather pants in comparison without any PVE only skills, and will likely end up just collecting dust. Need more skill balancing for PVE on the weaker classes, much much more.

Ignoring the ellys, monks, necros and warriors for every remaining skill update throughout the rest of this year and focusing on the remaining classes should do the trick.

Sifow Chan · May 13, 2009, 06:32 AM // 06:32

The problem is the devs suck at skill balancing. They nerf a skill when all other profs are abusing the paragons skills and don't even consider what it will do to the actual profession it comes from. Same goes for rits. Splinter weapon was abused by other profs such as rangers. The 4 non core classes didn't suck until the core profession abused their skills causing the devs to nerf skills without thinking.

I main a Paragon and I've achieved so much on it. Obsidian armor, elite weapons, chaos gloves, high rank in max titles track, the list goes on. The fact is I love Paragons even if they suck. However I think it sucks that the devs can't give them same love to them, and even the other 3 added professions, as the core professions. If you're going to add new professions, you should be responsible for everything it comes with, otherwise don't add anymore. Just think if they added new professions for Utopia. What a big mess that would be.

Longasc · May 13, 2009, 06:49 AM // 06:49

Interesting insights in the minds of a male elementalist player and his beliefs about the relative usefulness of his class. :P

bitchbar player · May 13, 2009, 11:16 AM // 11:16

the problem with the para is numbers, if you make one para powerful enough the chances of people bringing multiple in pvp and there by making in OP is a fact.

maraxusofk · May 13, 2009, 11:52 AM // 11:52

Paragons exist in 2 flavors

1) incredibly broken (see old school paraspike, DA chains, etc etc)

2) niche with everything nerfed to oblivion

ZenRgy · May 13, 2009, 12:35 PM // 12:35

Spear of Fury attacks target and adjacent targets.
Go for the eyes causes blindness on a crit.
We Shall Return summons 3 fallen paragon spirits to aid you in battle.

Am I promoted to GW skill balance yet?

Lishy · May 13, 2009, 01:04 PM // 13:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by maraxusofk

Paragons exist in 2 flavors

1) incredibly broken (see old school paraspike, DA chains, etc etc)

2) niche with everything nerfed to oblivion

Here's the thing: PVP and PVE skill changes are split.
Problem? It doesn't look like Anet gives a damn to use it :|

FoxBat · May 13, 2009, 01:55 PM // 13:55

A big part of paras breaking PvP (after energizing finale was nerfed) isn't that they were better than monks, its that they were monks with 110 AL and throwing axes. This principle still somewhat works in PvE but really, SY lets you set the rest of your party to an arbitrarily high armor level, and then they can go do everything else more effectively with their spells.

beaverlegions · May 13, 2009, 01:59 PM // 13:59

Ever tried joining a pug a an assassin?

Stolen Souls · May 13, 2009, 02:04 PM // 14:04

Yeah, it sucks that the only things a para really has going for it right now are TNtF and SY. Playing Imbagon gets incredibly boring, and using other builds is kinda pointless, since other classes can do the same things, but better.

PvE is imbalanced beyond repair...just revert paras (in PvE) to the way they were at release. What could it possibly hurt, seeing how we already have Imbagons anyway. >_>

JONO51 · May 13, 2009, 02:28 PM // 14:28

I completely agree with what has been said about how they gain strength in numbers, and how that has caused a lot of imbness in PvP and they were rightly nerfed. This is the reason why they'll enever truly be allowed to be effective in pvp, as you wont get the numbers needed in 4 man and they'll be broken in 8 man if they are buffed.

however, now with the pvp/pve split, i think they can realisticly buff the moti and command lines, and bring them back to previous levels, as it will make more people play the class, and teams where you have 4 or 5+ para's are pretty fun.

Also, nerf sy and buff tactics :P

smilingscar · May 13, 2009, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Just running a couple of good spear attacks, Aggressive Refrain, GTFE!, and a chant or two, and you have a ranged attacker with sword war DPS that buffs the damage output of the entire party. That's not bad, and it's not a "lack of strategies", unless you're going to call the warrior bad because all they can do is kill stuff really well.

But a paragon loses a lot with his abilities. For example, he can't hold/manage aggro because of his spears. In fact, he can become a liability when foes use him as a stepping stone to reach the back line. He has some crazy good methods of gaining adrenaline, but I've often suspected that a good multi-target attack (Like cyclone axe) would be as good as, if not better than, elite adrenaline gain.

Each warrior weapon line has an elite multi-target skill, Rangers have barrage/volley, Assassins have aoe damage from DB, and dervs have crazy aoe scythe attacks. And if they wanted to they could all pump out SY with those attacks, a speed buff, maybe FGJ, and be on par with an imbagon.

Ney Matogrosso · May 13, 2009, 06:10 PM // 18:10

Well, I really don't know why are you abandon your para to be a mule.
1-) Imbagon help all party members and in many cases is not invencible.
2-) Paragons can help monks in the support, reducing damage, helping healer, given energy.
3-) Can increase the damage of the party.
4-) There are more than one possibility to builds (not only imbagon), people must use your creativity and must be less prejudice to accept then in the partys.

SY and TNTF are not the problem, because paragons need a party to work, and the aim of the game is the group battle, if paragons could solo using SYand TNTF, I aggred that this skill must be nerfed, but in group, helping others? Don't.
Paragon is a mide-line attack/support class, they are a class to help increase damage deal, reduce damage received by the group. To Help! Think this. An army work in group, an only soldier can do few.
I agree that in pvp, Para has a few possibilitys but in a great group with 8 players if they work toggeter, a para can do much for the party.
Idon't agree that ANET forgot Para, but I think that the creativity of the players are forgot first.

Improvavel · May 13, 2009, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Yet, the condition removal of multiple Paragons is still inferior to a single PnH monk.
And the healing of multiple Paragons is vastly inferior to a single HB Monk.
The energy support is also inferior to that of a Necromancer.

Have fun with "multiple" paragons, when multiple paragons can be replaced by the role of a single player.

... I still stay it needs a reworking.

Pitty a monk can't add the damage of a paragon while providing the same support...

And in terms of condition removal - [cautery signet] and [its just a flesh wound]? Hex removal they can use [expel hexes] and [empathic removal] + non elite skills and their own chants.

The thing with the paragons is they will add damage and cover the other roles. Add an order of vampire paragon + [ebon battle standard of honor] and you are gold.

8 paragon parties are very very fun