Curse

ARK729 · Aug 14, 2007, 04:33 PM // 16:33

After looking through the posted skill descriptions on guild wiki I felt that it would be great to discuss the skills and how others feel about them. I will start off by stating my opinion and rating the skills.

Command

Anthem of Disruption – [8/10]
Chant. For 1...8...10 seconds, the next attack Skill used by each ally within earshot also interrupts an action.
- this is a great chant but it has quite a high activation time, 2 seconds is quite long, although I agree it would be way too over powered with a shorter activation. Still a great skill. Can be timed to keep the foe interupted if everyone attacks in a chain to keep the interuptions occuring often.

Anthem of Weariness – [9/10]

Chant. For 10 seconds, the next attack Skill used by each ally within earshot also causes Weakness for 1...13...16 seconds.
- this chant has a great cost, decent activation time of 1 second and a great effect. I defently will add this one to my skill bar. This will make hardmode missions even easier in my oppinion since weakness helps a lot.

Leadership

Burning Shield – [9/10]

Skill. For 3...8...9 seconds, while wielding a shield, the next attack Skill used against you is blocked. If it was a melee attack, your attacker is set on fire for 1...5...6 seconds.
- I find this to be the best one so far for pvp, timing this skill correctly will help a lot against those quick assasins whos first skill really effects there combo, and it even put up a great effect asside from block the attack.

Hasty Refrain – [4/10]
Echo. For 3...9...11 seconds, target ally moves 25% faster. This Echo is reapplied every time a Chant or Shout ends on that ally.
- cheap cost, decent activation time of 1 second but it seems to have way too short of a lasting time. I don’t think it even helps that it refrains since this will not allow someone to have a lot of time to stop between running and cast another shout. Quite pointless since there are already plenty speed boosts for the para that are way better.

Spear Swipe – [6/10]
Spear Attack. If this attack hits, you deal +5...17...20 damage and target foe is Dazed for 4...9...10 seconds. This attack has melee range.
- decent damage bonus, nice dazed condition, only issue I see about this one is that its melee attack and that it costs 10 energy. If the cost was less I would consider taking it, but till then I will still only use blazing, merciles and mighty spear attacks and maybe harrier's toss once in a while since this skill rocks.

Motivation

Inspirational Speech – [2/10]

Skill. You lose all adrenaline and target other ally gains 1...3...4 strikes of adrenaline.
- this skill fits in the motivational track perfectly, yet I can’t see any decent use for it, since it can’t be spamed because of the 20 second recharge.

Spear Mastery

Chest Thumper – [???/10]

Attack. If this attack hits a foe with Cracked Armor, that foe suffers a Deep Wound for 5...17...20 seconds.
- I really have no oppinion on this skill yet since im not sure how cracked armor functions.

Holy Spear – [ 6/10]
Attack. If this attack hits, you deal +5...17...20 damage. If it hits a summoned creature, all nearby foes take 15...75...90 holy damage, and are set on fire for 3 seconds.
- even though this skill has potentially the most damage a paragon can deal it still quite conditional because you must hit a summond creature to get the effect, therefore I would only take it if it help in the area otherwise I find it ok but nothing really special.

Maiming Spear – [7/10]
Spear Attack. If your attack hits a Bleeding foe, that foe is Crippled for 5...17...20 seconds.
- this looks like great skill used together with barbed spear, it also has a cheap cost and quick recharge.

Spear of Redemption – [8/10]
Spear Attack. If it hits, you deal +5...17...20 damage, otherwise you lose 1 condition.
- this a quite a good skill yet I would prefer it cost 5 energy instead of adren. Then it would be more essecibal when your blind which this is suppose to protect against. For 3 adren it still has good damage so I will probably try to fit it into my pvp build.

In general from the first look I was quite disappointed with the skills, but after thinking about them I realized they were well design to help fill in the gaps that the paragon has at the moment. Im quite happy about that.

Now I want some paragon pants, a sick looking helmet and some nice spear skin finally. Anyone have ideas on spears?

Id like a chaos spear, and a nice magma spear.

Narayanese · Aug 14, 2007, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Anthem of Weariness looks very nice. Good for stunning strike and disrupting throw, and a good condition on its own.

I think you underestimate Hasty Refrain. The other speed boosts cost a lot of energy, this doesn't. Simply GFTE spam will keep it up once you have cast it. Speed boosts on melee (including hammer+awe) are very useful for chasing kiters in PvP and switching targets in PvE.

Chest Thumper doesn't look very useful, there are easier ways go get deep wound for a paragon. Has anyone figured out a use for it?

Dean Harper · Aug 14, 2007, 06:46 PM // 18:46

Holy Spear would be amazing in AB against MMs, knocking out most if not all of their minons at once, ill definetally use that one!

Burning Sheild is my favorite by far, awsome skill!

love the new paragon skills and they make me want to play paragon even more.

-Dean

Trx · Aug 14, 2007, 09:29 PM // 21:29

Anthem of Weariness and Burning Shield are two skills I'm also really looking forward to. The other one I really like is Spear Swipe. Dazed is a very powerfull and hard to apply condition. With this one you can simply run up to somebody and use it which isnt so hard in PvE (instead of Stunning Strike that is ranged but you have to charge 10 adrenaline and meet the condition required and use up an elite slot). For PvP take a shadowstep maybe, should be fun

.

ARK729 · Aug 15, 2007, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Hasty Refrain has a very small length of time, lasting only 9 seconds at 12 leadership. Although if u have 14 leadership you can keep it up continuesly I have to say that I dont feel that the Refrain does much, you have to keep using adren shouts to keep it up without wasting more energy to start it up and personally I feel that a party wide shout is much more efficient since you dont go up an fight by yourself. Besides using this skill for fff since it is the only one other then fall back that can be targeted onto yourself I dont see myself using it.

If your planning to use for pve your better off using a stance since you dont have to stop to cast it. I know if you really feel you wish to manage this and aggressive refrain go for it, but it will be a pain when you have to wait in between large agros for casters energy to recharge before you can get some more adren to refrain it up again. That is why I use soldiers fury, I have TNTF and Stand you Ground up as much as possible anyways.

Burning Shield FTW!

Jakerius · Aug 16, 2007, 07:57 AM // 07:57

Personally I can't wait for Spear Swipe. Finally, a melee skill!

As for recommending a good looking spear, use Luluh's (or just dye a Suntouched Spear white). A "chaos" skinned spear would look ridiculous.

Cebe · Aug 16, 2007, 08:48 AM // 08:48

P/A -- Aura of Displacement + Spear Swipe!

= Leet?

MisterB · Aug 16, 2007, 10:42 AM // 10:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by ARK729

Hasty Refrain has a very small length of time, lasting only 9 seconds at 12 leadership. Although if u have 14 leadership you can keep it up continuesly I have to say that I dont feel that the Refrain does much, you have to keep using adren shouts to keep it up without wasting more energy to start it up and personally I feel that a party wide shout is much more efficient since you dont go up an fight by yourself. Besides using this skill for fff since it is the only one other then fall back that can be targeted onto yourself I dont see myself using it.

If your planning to use for pve your better off using a stance since you dont have to stop to cast it. I know if you really feel you wish to manage this and aggressive refrain go for it, but it will be a pain when you have to wait in between large agros for casters energy to recharge before you can get some more adren to refrain it up again. That is why I use soldiers fury, I have TNTF and Stand you Ground up as much as possible anyways.

Burning Shield FTW!

[skill]Godspeed[/skill][skill]"Lead the Way!"[/skill]are target ally skills, so you can use them on yourself.

I'm not sure if Hasty Refrain will be on my bar, though, unless I grab the other 2 Paragon heroes so we can run around PvE yelling and shouting.

Wait, that sorta sounds fun....

Spura · Aug 16, 2007, 02:22 PM // 14:22

Anthem of Disruption

2/5 - Mediocre skill. 2 sec cast time ruins it, it is interrupt bait and now even mesmers can interrupt it. Effects are greatly overestimated, you get on average 3 non-timed interrupts per team.

Anthem of Weariness

3/5 - Average. It is nice alternative to Anthem of Flame for keeping up Refrains but nothing to get excited at.

Burning Shield

1/5 - Shit. The most overestimated skill ever. Everyone's pants are exploding as they orgasm at the thought of a single block + up to 84 dot damage, not realising that not only Deadly Riposte does the same damage instantly and adds bleed, but that 0 spec Shield Bash is 243242353254234235235235235 times better vs assassins, as it disables their lead for 15 sec AND knockdowns allowing paragon/warrior to flee or at least punch them in the face a few times, which is significantly better than some lame burning.

Hasty Refrain

2/5 - Mediocre. The problem of keeping these refrains up is keeping this skill down. Also thanks to nightfall power creep 25% speed boost is yawn worthy
as now even elementalists have long lasting fast casting 33% speed boosts.

Spear Swipe

4/5 - Good. Excellent arena and AB skill. Not too shabby in PvE either.

Inspirational Speech

1/5 - Shit. Shit skill in a shit attribute.

Chest Thumper

1/5 - Shit. Yet another conditional DW skill with no +dmg. And condition is impossible to meet with pure paragon makes it even worse...yawn.

Holy Spear

5/5 - Excellent. Actually a spammable adren attack with +dmg, something paragon has been missing all along. And it has the added effect of really owning minions and spirit spam.

Maiming Spear

4/5 - Good. Has good uses and it is spammable.

Spear of Redemption

5/5 - Excellent. Another good spammable adrenaline +dmg attack with nice secondary effect.

In general let's look at paragon's path. First they nerfed the hell out of Motivation. Now it is like weak LoD monk(Song of Purification need shorter cast, IJAFW needs complete change of functionality, same for The Power is Yours). Then they nerfed the shit out of support skills in command and leadership(say hello to insane costs). The only thing that remained are spear chucker builds with aggressive refrain. GW:EN is keeping in that line, with crap support and utility skills and very good spear skills. Yep, they are deliberately changing paragon to just another attacker, cos weapon skills are easy to balance, support skills aren't.

Series · Aug 27, 2007, 05:52 AM // 05:52

Anthem of disruption owns, weariness is good, burning shield is mediocre, hasty refrain is horrible, spear swipe is good in pve/ra/ta, inspirational speech is horrible, chest thumper is HORRIBLE, holy spear is amazing, maiming spear is great, spear of redemption is pretty bad, because if you are blind, you can't get adrenaline in the first place! Overall, I love the skills, because they bring some new options to the table. Some are crap though.

Dr Strangelove · Aug 28, 2007, 07:08 PM // 19:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

P/A -- Aura of Displacement + Spear Swipe!

= Leet?

[skill]beguiling haze[/skill] ?

jimmyboveto · Aug 29, 2007, 04:06 AM // 04:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spura

Anthem of Disruption

2/5 - Mediocre skill. 2 sec cast time ruins it, it is interrupt bait and now even mesmers can interrupt it. Effects are greatly overestimated, you get on average 3 non-timed interrupts per team.

Anthem of Weariness

3/5 - Average. It is nice alternative to Anthem of Flame for keeping up Refrains but nothing to get excited at.

Burning Shield

1/5 - Shit. The most overestimated skill ever. Everyone's pants are exploding as they orgasm at the thought of a single block + up to 84 dot damage, not realising that not only Deadly Riposte does the same damage instantly and adds bleed, but that 0 spec Shield Bash is 243242353254234235235235235 times better vs assassins, as it disables their lead for 15 sec AND knockdowns allowing paragon/warrior to flee or at least punch them in the face a few times, which is significantly better than some lame burning.

Hasty Refrain

2/5 - Mediocre. The problem of keeping these refrains up is keeping this skill down. Also thanks to nightfall power creep 25% speed boost is yawn worthy
as now even elementalists have long lasting fast casting 33% speed boosts.

Spear Swipe

4/5 - Good. Excellent arena and AB skill. Not too shabby in PvE either.

Inspirational Speech

1/5 - Shit. Shit skill in a shit attribute.

Chest Thumper

1/5 - Shit. Yet another conditional DW skill with no +dmg. And condition is impossible to meet with pure paragon makes it even worse...yawn.

Holy Spear

5/5 - Excellent. Actually a spammable adren attack with +dmg, something paragon has been missing all along. And it has the added effect of really owning minions and spirit spam.

Maiming Spear

4/5 - Good. Has good uses and it is spammable.

Spear of Redemption

5/5 - Excellent. Another good spammable adrenaline +dmg attack with nice secondary effect.

In general let's look at paragon's path. First they nerfed the hell out of Motivation. Now it is like weak LoD monk(Song of Purification need shorter cast, IJAFW needs complete change of functionality, same for The Power is Yours). Then they nerfed the shit out of support skills in command and leadership(say hello to insane costs). The only thing that remained are spear chucker builds with aggressive refrain. GW:EN is keeping in that line, with crap support and utility skills and very good spear skills. Yep, they are deliberately changing paragon to just another attacker, cos weapon skills are easy to balance, support skills aren't.

I agree with you on just about everything. Burning shield<shield bash, as most of the dangerous melee harrassment comes from assassins, and it still isn't bad against wars either. However, i think anthem of wariness is better then what you gave it credit for. This would come in great help for those HM missions in which there are groups of like 5 wars. With this its simple, pull-war catches agro-paragon uses the anthem-war uses whirlwind attack. Now...we have a toned down mob of wars

Darkpower Alchemist · Sep 11, 2007, 09:31 PM // 21:31

[wiki]Burning Shield[/wiki]

VS

[skill=big]Shield Bash[/skill]

Comparing the 2 is rather a moot point, since they are not interchangeable by their respective professions. What one must then do is compare them in and of themselves and their benefits for their primaries respectively.

As each individual skill does similar things, the bonus of setting your attacker on fire is very compareable to Deadly Riposte/Bleeding. Shield Bash may prove more favorable still on a monk, unless that same monk is also dabbling in motivation or another shout line of the paragon.

Unlikely, but possible. However, for each profession primary, they are on equal footing, imo.

iridescentfyre · Sep 11, 2007, 10:51 PM // 22:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmyboveto

I agree with you on just about everything. Burning shield<shield bash, as most of the dangerous melee harrassment comes from assassins, and it still isn't bad against wars either. However, i think anthem of wariness is better then what you gave it credit for. This would come in great help for those HM missions in which there are groups of like 5 wars. With this its simple, pull-war catches agro-paragon uses the anthem-war uses whirlwind attack. Now...we have a toned down mob of wars

Anthems + Barrage never worked that way, I don't really believe Whirlwind would either. I'd bet a whole lot of money it only applies to the target, not everything you hit.

Trx · Sep 12, 2007, 12:49 PM // 12:49

Just tested it, does indeed only apply on target with whirlwind attack.

I run morgahn with AoW and Epidemic though, which works fine for aoe weakness plus it spreads all other conditions around.

Cebe · Sep 12, 2007, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

P/A -- Aura of Displacement + Spear Swipe! = Leet?

[skill]beguiling haze[/skill] ?

Wow, this thread is getting old, and, lol...totally forgot I posted that!

I'm not sure why you came back with Beguiling Haze... My thinking was, Shadow Step to foe, smack em with Spear Swipe, and Shadow Step away from them...but, to this day, I'm not sure whether I was being serious or not.

Paragons do have better elites in their own attribute lines after all.

jimmyboveto · Sep 16, 2007, 12:14 AM // 00:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trx

Just tested it, does indeed only apply on target with whirlwind attack.

I run morgahn with AoW and Epidemic though, which works fine for aoe weakness plus it spreads all other conditions around.

Awww... thats too bad

I'm going to go sit in the corner now and feel stupid

Da ford · Sep 17, 2007, 01:38 AM // 01:38

my favorite skills: maining spears and burning shield ftw =D
and a lil bit off topic
and about thoose pant's and spear skins you want =D
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Paragon_Norn_armor
pants
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Destroyer_spear
magma spear =D
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Voltaic_Spear
and who the hell needs a chaos spear when you got this over-sized metal throwing stick!ITS EVEN ANIMATED!!!

ARK729 · Sep 17, 2007, 02:35 AM // 02:35

yeah. only thing Anet left out was the helm. I guess there is a reason why they never added one, since it would clip with the elonian armour. The should have done it ether way though. Yeah the gwen skills are quite good.

zling · Sep 19, 2007, 01:49 AM // 01:49

burning shield is a weak version of shield bash. only reason to use it I think is if running a ToF tank with a lot of SF eles in the backline... the eles will love the free burning and you'll get your damage reduction.
however most paragorn builds can fit both which can be nasty. for sins, shield bash alone is enough. for wars and dervs who arent restricted to their combo using burning shield and than shield bash can be awsome. a little burning never hurts and if they're smart they'll save their better attack for the middle of the combo
executioner's->evis->agonizing is the way to go not evis->executioner's->agonizing so with both of them you get to save yourself from both evis and executioner's without monk's help. not to mention disabling 1 of these skills for 15 seconds!

this will be scary in GvG I think. a paragorn can just stand there in the middle of battle with shield bash, burning shield and shield stance and almost completely ignore all melee foes altogether. almost constant block without monk's help! with your 5 other skill slots you can do whatever you want, just use the fact that you're pretty much immune to melee to make the most out of those 5 skills.