Curse

Racthoh · Sep 17, 2007, 06:01 AM // 06:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karmaniac

This however doesn't make me laugh one bit. For the sake of an argument lets say that -10AL is approximately 15% more damage taken and -20AL about 30% more. Why would I ever use this in pve?

Anyone who plays paragon correctly will tell you their paragon is rarely the target of a pve mob. Or anyone that has played with a paragon hero will have noticed that the hero never really needs to be healed aside from the occasional damaged caused by AoE or the spreading of hexes. *If* -20 was 30% more damage, There's Nothing To Fear! would cancel out that out anyway. It's not like you're 106 AL paragon even needs the 35% damage reduction of a maxed Sunspear Track currently anyway.

Or, you can just press your escape key and stop attacking to regain your 20 armour if the mob for some reason decides your 86 armour is suddenly squisher than the rest of your 60 AL group.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karmaniac

It costs 25e, requires another shout to maintain and 25% IAS is as low as they get.

I am quite fond of people who seem to think that the 25 energy to throw up Aggressive Refrain is a big deal, as well as the upkeep required to maintain it.

Recently I went on a trip to clear the Fissure of Woe in hopes of attaining the monument in recognition of completing every last quest in the god's realm. When we accepted our last quest reward, the timer was at 3 hours. My Aggressive Refrain dropped maybe three times when we were returning to grab quest rewards or someone went AFK for whatever reason and I forgot to use a chant/shout because I was browsing other windows/TV/vent chatter. So overall I would've spent a grand total of 100 energy for a 3 hour 25% IAS with no drawbacks.

Let's compare that to the alternatives you proposed:

Flurry: 5 energy every 5 seconds (so after a few minutes, you've already spent more energy than I did in three hours) for a slighty faster attack rate and an energy upkeep that forces a zealous weapon (as any warrior that has used Flurry in the past will tell you, zealous is necessary to maintain Flurry nonstop in a battle and both paragon and warrior have 2 pips of energy regen). The alternative to a zealous weapon is the paragon's leadership attribute, returning energy whenever you use a chant or shout. However, if you're using shouts and chants to gain energy to maintain your IAS, why aren't you just using Aggressive Refrain in the first place so all of that energy you're using can be put towards the other skills on your bar? For kicks, Wild Throw/Strike/Blow ends Flurry, nothing can stop my Aggressive Refrain if I am paying any sort of attention.

Flail: 0 spec strength, it's up for 5 seconds. Every 5 seconds you need to take a strike of adrenaline from your other pools to maintain Flail. Adrenaline that is used to gain energy to use skills, or adrenaline to pump out attacks (paragons do have great DPS for those who just toss their excess points into Spear Mastery). In addition to the Wild skills, slower adrenaline gain means you can't get your IAS in effect quick enough nor can you maintain it well enough. Any blocks, kiting enemies, or blind/blurred also means you're not building adrenaline whereas all I have to is hit a chant/shout on recharge to maintain my Aggressive Refrain. Or build 4 adrenaline for Go For The Eyes! every 21 seconds (assuming 12 leadership spec on most paragons) and then hit an enemy to reset my echo's counter.

Soldier's Fury: Using your elite slot to attack 8% faster (and in the long run, you'll be spending more energy again than I am with Aggressive Refrain). It needs a shout or chant to work, which is also what keeps Aggressive Refrain up. It also takes a second to cast, which means that it could in theory be interrupted. I have Aggressive Refrain in effect before my entire party loads into the map so no chance of it being interrupted as we have not engaged any mobs. Oh, and I can inflict a Deep Wound with Cruel Spear or give an unstrippable 50% block with Defensive Anthem since my elite slot is free.

If you want to argue that I'm spending energy to maintain my Aggressive Refrain, I wouldn't bother. Any 5 energy chant is giving me energy, as well as any adrenaline shout used once combat begins.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karmaniac

Against lvl 28 monsters dying 15-30% faster does seem awfully high price to pay for such a trifle benefit.

Again, if the paragons you've seen play choose to stand in AoEs they should be more concerned about learning how to play. Paragons don't get attacked in PvE unless you literally are not paying attention (which does happen since they take very little thinking to play effectively, you may nod off when paragoning).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karmaniac

In addition there's the psychological aspect to consider. People do recognize patterns. If paragons get nerfed in every single update does it really encourage people play them? I think not. If 50% of paragons stop playing them after every nerf it won't be very long before the paragon forum is two people telling each other sugar coated lies how against all evidence paragons are still the best profession in gw.

If the only thing that's going to get hit for paragons to make them as balanced as the community wants is this -10 or -20 while attacking, then people should really wake up and try this broken profession themselves.

Faer · Sep 17, 2007, 06:45 AM // 06:45

To put it short (and as blunt as I can without getting myself banned for life)...

Thanks to TNTF, Paragons are the most powerful profession in Guild Wars PvE, bar none. Thanks to Aggressive Refrain and Leadership, Paragons are one of the most powerful professions in the game itself, when you get down to the basics and start crunching numbers about how much damage you can pump out with them, combined with the amount of support you can crank out with the adrenaline you gain from the increased attack speed (assuming you aren't Blind half the time or more from Eruption, or something) and the energy you gain from using that adrenaline. You essentially have everything you need in one bar of eight skills (some of the following may vary depending on the skills you choose): healing, damage, self protection, party protection, party damage augmentation, energy management, IAS... The works. I'm not a hardcore PvP player like some of the other people who post on these kinds of subjects, but even I can see how horribly strong the profession is (though admittedly, it does have its faults).

If you think Paragons are bad because of the nerfs, or dead, you are wrong, and need to review some game basics.

R!ghteous Ind!gnation · Sep 17, 2007, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Paragons are not TNTF... no more dead than monks are without healing seed.

iceemaker · Sep 17, 2007, 05:54 PM // 17:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by R!ghteous Ind!gnation

Paragons are not TNTF... no more dead than monks are without healing seed.

Agreed. I'm fairly certain that Paragons are not defined by ONE skill, not to mention a PvE-only skill.

Karmaniac · Sep 17, 2007, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Now that I've had a day and a half to cool off I feel an apology would be in order. I might have been a bit rude, overly dramatic and most certainly quite childish. I'm sorry.

@Racthoh

As it is I might not be the greatest player there is in GW. I can't demolish DoA, vanquish Factions and definitely not wand aatxes with a warrior. However I would still hope you didn't patronize me. I'm full well aware how incredible energy efficiency AR has when compared to just about everything else. If it didn't would I have used it in the first place? Still my numbers aren't entirely made-up (source). And while it is as exactly you said, using anything else than AR has serious drawbacks in comparison I cannot simply overlook these numbers (which is the point if I'm correct). I will give it serious thought and maybe deem the post-nerf skill smaller of the two (or in this case several) evils. Who knows. Anyways I apologize for my poor behavior and thank you for your helpful (if a bit condescending

) response.

Not that paragons didn't have good or even great skills just that they have so many mediocre and poor ones that virtually only one build can exist. This is seen both in pvp and pve.Finally, I might be going a bit off-topic on this but in a sense maybe TNtF was the worst thing that ever happened to paragons. Another skill you simply cannot live without. Not much I can do about it anyways except as Edmond Dantes put it: "Wait and hope"

Mr Pink57 · Sep 17, 2007, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

So overall I would've spent a grand total of 100 energy for a 3 hour 25% IAS with no drawbacks.

I think your math would be a little off on this. You would need to add in the shouts to upkeep refrain also. Which just by guess would put you well over 300e to do such a thing, you are not fighting all the time in FoW there are some empty spots where you just have to keep up the refrain, its not all the time you can use adrenaline based shouts to keep it up. I do however use Aggresive most of the time, UNLESS I am with another para then I run Soldier's Fury as his shouts will fuel me.

Also it is not in my quote but you said Soldier's has a 1 sec cast time which means it can be interrupted, but at a 5 sec recharge it really does not matter, even if it gets hit with distracting shot.

pink

zling · Sep 17, 2007, 11:17 PM // 23:17

paragorns are far from dead in both PvP, which TNTF nerf doesnt mean anything to and PvE.
the problem with paragorns is the same problem with mesmers, sins, dervishes and rits. dont fit into the warrior/ele/necro/monk combo
although paragorns can make an excellent bonder with angelic bond, and dervishes can make excellent tanks but people are too close minded to see such things

paragorns are not tntf and tntf is not paragorns... each class isnt restricted to 1 build and more specifically 1 skill.
warriors isnt eviscerate nor even the axe spike which includes eviscerate->executioner's->agonizing
ranger isnt BA nor triple shot
Monk isnt ZB not life seed
Dervish isnt Avatar nor Mystic Regeneration or whatever
so why do people think paragorns are tntf? which isnt even a paragorn skill but a PvE only paragorn skill...
people should be more open minded and accept paragorns for what they are, a very good supportive class that can also dish out nice chunks of damage... and because of 1 skill nerf it isnt dead, not even close to it...

Sifow Chan · Sep 18, 2007, 12:43 AM // 00:43

It's a shame all these paragon lovers actually WANT to see them get more nerfs...Shame Shame~

SleepyLuxon · Sep 18, 2007, 02:08 AM // 02:08

I think most of high end Paragons will agree that we dont want our skills nerfed to death or truly overpowered skills we just want to be effective.

Paragon is getting hit because of passive defences in PvP
Paragon is basically passive defence thus we get the nerf bat and get the short end of the stick.

But they dont realize that further nerfing these skills cause the popularity and the want of the class decreases although we know we can hold our own even after these nerfs the people who dont give paragons a chance cant see that.

So a combination of the Nerfs+PuG mindset is what kills wonderfull classes and keeps the same boring Holy Trinity.......

Terra Xin · Sep 18, 2007, 02:16 AM // 02:16

I thought this was a general thread about the paragon as a whole. OP, if that skill 'made' the paragon, you'll have a lot of flames coming your way :S

There have been threads like these for Mesmers and Ritualists, both were shot down

hotman · Sep 18, 2007, 03:58 AM // 03:58

im not trying to say that paragon's are deead in PvP, personally i like to PvE in HM sometimes, that is where TNTF came out in my bars. It allowed me to skip my prot monk, and just use 2 healing monks.

when i said dead, i meant in pve as this is not a pvp forum, so to all of you who have related anything to pvp, you are wrong, paragons might jsut be the best pvp character a team can get,(monks not included).

arsie · Sep 18, 2007, 04:44 AM // 04:44

It just means an 8 second gap in the TntF cover that can be filled with ToF, Incoming! (dumb) or at worst a Monk Prot.

The good thing is that this is PvE, the mobs aren't smart enough to save their spike for that 8 second gap.

arcady · Sep 18, 2007, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Aren't PvE only skills fairly new to the game?

I don't even recall them existing when I used to play, before December of 2006.

Surely Paragons had a use before then, new as Nightfall was, that somebody can remember.

Epinephrine · Sep 18, 2007, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sifow Chan

It's a shame all these paragon lovers actually WANT to see them get more nerfs...Shame Shame~

It's a shame that some people can't tell what's good for a game.

Aggressive Refrain and TNTF need(ed) nerfs.

Other paragon skills do need buffing, and I think there are many who will agree that the paragon skill list has weak links.

The Paragon has:
Spears (1 handed ranged weapon with huge DPS)
IAS (always up)
Shields and AL (106 base easily)
Energy management (shout for energy)
Great passive skills.

Yeah, it's got some weaknesses too, and they're typecast, but that'll happen for any class. "Can't Touch This!" is cute but ultimately useless (excepting very odd areas, solo), "Help Me!" is laughable and so on - yeah, there are weak/useless skills in their lineup. I don't play paragon enough to know them inside out, but sticking one in as a hero makes everything easier, so they've got to be working alright.

Ensign · Sep 18, 2007, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karmaniac

Not that paragons didn't have good or even great skills just that they have so many mediocre and poor ones that virtually only one build can exist.

It's not all that different for any other profession, especially the expansion ones. Most professions only have a handful of good strategies. The difference is that, for whatever reason, the community for those different professions tends to celebrate really bad bars, while the Paragon community cries that its bad bars are, well, bad. Sure, Motivation is pretty bad, but looking through that skill list is no different than looking through Blood or Air Magic. Defining a profession by its concentrations of tripe instead of its good skills is just being silly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hotman

when i said dead, i meant in pve

Paragons are awesome in PvE. If you think they're bad in PvE it's probably because you're bad at Guild Wars. Paragons are unwanted in pugs in part because most Paragons run awful bars, the rest being the general PUG population being very set in their (generally very bad) ways.

hotman · Sep 19, 2007, 12:46 AM // 00:46

Ok, I'm not bad at Guild Wars so dont even.

I was wondering the community's opinion on this subject, I never stated either way. EVER. Look at my posts they never say if I thought they were dead, I will always use my paragon, even if it becomes nerfed to death and it can only throw sick spears at the foe.

Next time do not jump to conclusions when I never stated either way.

For everyone bringing up points to support the paragon's life, I thank you.

Next time Ensign, don't jump to conclusions on my opinion, I personally think that they are alive and well, as i stated earlier, I was wondering the opinion of the community, not trying to turn this into a flame fest.

-hotman

Ensign · Sep 19, 2007, 04:09 AM // 04:09

what the hell.

moriz · Sep 19, 2007, 04:37 AM // 04:37

paragons are poorly designed from the get-go. in fact, this profession shouldn't even have left the drawing board.

let's see, we have a profession that has effective ~100 armor, essentially unlimited energy, can attack at range with warrior-like DPS and spike damage, can layer on passive defense, and as well as buffing the living daylights out of everything around them. aka: this profession is broken, and very poorly designed.

about the best solution for them is to scrap it completely and design it from scratch: lower armor to 70, destroy its natural e-management, lower energy pool to 20, and raise energy regen to 4. much of a paragon's passive defense buffs are so powerful because they can be spammed on recharge, fueled by their built in e-management. taking that away and they'll have to pick and choose when and how to use them, instead of standing in the middle of their party and button mash. lowering their armor will make them easier to kill, which helps keep them in check.

granted, the above will never happen. so, the other way to balance this profession is to nerf all their skills into the ground. which btw, i'd happily support.

Trx · Sep 19, 2007, 09:26 AM // 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faer

Thanks to TNTF, Paragons are the most powerful profession in Guild Wars PvE, bar none.

I think FA + Save Yourselves! is alot more powerfull then even pre-nerf TNTF on a paragon. If they really want to 'balance' pve they should look at that skill, make it tied to strength or something because having 100AF on the rest of the party pretty much all the time is pretty crazy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

"Paragons are unwanted in pugs in part because most Paragons run awful bars"

"The Paragon is dead in PvE because a vast majority of Paragon proponents are very, very, very, very bad at Guild Wars."

Though I agree with most of what you're saying these statements dont sound like they are based on any kind of facts. There are alot of terrible players in this game but I dont believe its worse with paragons then any other class.

Cebe · Sep 19, 2007, 10:47 AM // 10:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

paragorns

Please learn how to spell PARAGON. Sorry - just really bugged me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

paragons are poorly designed from the get-go. in fact, this profession shouldn't even have left the drawing board.

The Paragon is an in-keeping class for the continent of Elona. It is unlike most other classes and I feel should be in the game. I've read about the idea to give Aggressive Refrain an armour penalty. Well, would this really matter in PvE? I mean really? I usually take a Mesmer, and almost always a BHA interrupt ranger into missions / explorable areas. If the Armour penalty on AR would be to "balance PvP to make Paragons more susceptable to AoEs and spikes"...when it comes to PvE...I would have to say..."What AoEs?" Norgu, Zho, and Pyre, whoever I choose to take along generally deal with any AoE threat. As for the consequences of the Armor Penalty in PvP...*shrugs*...not my problem

.

In response to the OP, and others, I don't consider the Paragon dead in PvE...they're a long way off that. The only nerf I ever felt strongly about when it comes to Paragons was that to "Incoming!". I felt, and still do feel, they should have completely changed the functionality of that elite instead of making it almost obsolete. Well, either that or just deleted that elite from the game, and replaced it with another.

Paragons are far from dead in PvE...in a literal sense also. How many people have noticed if you take General Morgahn or Hayda with you...they stay alive the longest...many times the Paragon Hero has been the last one standing in a party-wipe situation...for a considerable amount of time.