Curse

Zinger314 · Sep 22, 2006, 09:00 PM // 21:00

Paragon Elite Analysys
-By Syria Blackblood

Paragons were hit with the nerf stick. Hard. Very Hard. Almost every crappy skill the Paragons had was made into an Elite!

Plus, the Duo Paragon build has been rendered near unusable. GG, ArenaNet. (However, ToF hasn’t been nerfed. We’ll see.)

Anyways, let’s get to the Elites.

(All were taken with Rank 12 in the Attribute)

Slightly different than the PvP Beta one. If you have 12 Command, it has a better effect than the previous. If you don’t have 12 command, it has a worse effect. Meh. Still a bit too situational, though.

Rating: 3/5

Was normal, but made into Elite. It’s cheap, but saying it’s too situational is an understatement.

Rating: 2/5

Was normal, but made into Elite. This is a tad better, since the duration of Crippling is pretty nice.

Rating: 3/5

Phew. I was hoping that atleast this skill wasn’t nerfed. Fortunally, it was buffed.

Energy cost is now 5e instead of 10e and recharge is now 5r instead of 10r. That’s pretty damn good. But it’s in Leadership now, which is so-so.

Rating: 5/5

Was made into Elite, but they also gave it a slight nerf. (15r instead of 10r). However, atleast it’s compatable with Paragons.

Rating: 3/5

It’s worse than Aegis, and it was made into Elite? What the heck?

Rating: 2/5

Apparently ArenaNet is pushing Spear Mastery here. This skill, admittingly, is pretty sweet, since Paragon Spear Mastery skills cost way too much. Leadership requirement is a pain, but atleast it won’t be abused by Warriors. Combined with an IAS, things will die.

Rating: 4/5

See above. It’ll be a tough choice between the two elite. Focused Anger is for high-adrenal builds, and Soldier’s Fury is for low-adrenal builds. Still, Flurry would be a better IAS for Paragons.

Rating: 3/5

1 second Recharge. Case closed. Although I could see some builds with 0 Motivation use this along with Plague Sending…

Rating: 3/5

-10 Degen?! I can’t even think of a way to recover from that!

Rating: 1/5

Was made into an Elite. Low Adrenal Chants never hurt, although I’d prefer a more efficient removal. However, this is near virtual immunity from Conditions, since it can be spammed so easily.

Rating: 4/5

Was made into Elite. It’s just average, really.

Rating: 3/5

Was made into Elite. This is basically a Ranged Eviscerate. No complaints there.

Rating: 3/5

10a? Why does this skill remind me of Skull Crack?

Rating: 2/5

I believe the recharge was reduced from 20r to 15r. Still, nothing bad.

Rating: 3/5

Izzy got lazy. He should have added new elites, not make old ones slightly better. Now the Paragon is a significantly weaker class than I had hoped. I’m not pleased.

(Atleast Necromancers got incredible skills…)

Run Red Run · Sep 23, 2006, 06:38 AM // 06:38

Nice post Zinger, thanks for taking the time to put it together.

The Fox · Sep 23, 2006, 03:37 PM // 15:37

You just changed my mind about wanting a Paragon.

Elthanor · Sep 23, 2006, 03:51 PM // 15:51

The power is yours... Im reading and skill and wondering why in the world its an elite... it to long of a recharge, and -10!!! omg... sick.

The ONLY use I see if if you have a warrior using all adren, and you can kinda spam this... but 7 for each ally every 20 is nice... your warrior is dead if you use Soothing images... game over.

Axis · Sep 23, 2006, 06:20 PM // 18:20

The power is yours its actualy very good. Cast it when you are low at energy and that -10 energy deg will disapier very fast. Or just switch weapons.

And who said that you have to be paragon to use it?

And Soldiers flury rocks with "stand your ground". I have played that build the whole day.

Zinger314 · Sep 23, 2006, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axis

The power is yours its actualy very good. Cast it when you are low at energy and that -10 energy deg will disapier very fast. Or just switch weapons.

But Paragons have 2 Energy Regen. It would take 7.5 second just to get 5 Energy to cast something after it ends.

SnipiousMax · Sep 23, 2006, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axis

Or just switch weapons.

And who said that you have to be paragon to use it?

That was my thought. Simple focus swap.

Tingi · Sep 23, 2006, 09:47 PM // 21:47

Very nice and helpfull post, thanks

.

Tainek · Sep 24, 2006, 11:58 AM // 11:58

My Take, And a Few Additions

Incoming: Agreed, if this had a 10s Recharge it might be worth something, right now its trash

Anthem of Guidance:
It definatly needed Elite, Was overpowered before, this is a spiking elite (put on a R/P For R-Spike) it is only situational if used incorrectly (Also you forgot to mention, this is essentailly an unlinked skill)

Crippling anthem
Not a bad elite, just not a particulally good one either

Angelic Bond
Essentally, this is like a Life Barrier, but with a lesser cost (Life barrer costs 10 Energy Ever 30S to maintain, this is 5) but its lacking the -50% damage reduction, this is the ultimate Anti Spike Skill

Anthem Of Fury
Not a bad elite, just not a particulally good one either

Defensive Anthem
If this had a 20s Or Lower Recharge this would be awesome, people forget that this cannot be removed, so it is most definatly *not* Worse than Aegis, shame its elite

Focuses Anger
Made obsolete by the skill below

Soldiers Fury
once you actually take a proper look at this skill, and focused anger, you realise this is by far the better solution

1: with 33% faster, you gain 150% Adrenaline, as well as 150% Damage
2: This can be kept up 24/7 without much issue, there are plenty of long lasting Shouts you can maintain on yourself, watch yourself would be a perfect candidate

There simple is No Reason at all to use focused anger, unless you are using a build with no easly renewable shouts, which is not very often at all

Its Just a flesh Wound
Awesome elite, nuff said

The Power Is Yours
This skill just needs some common sense, you switch to a Minus energy set (so you have 10 energy for the cast) and stay in it until duration is gone, then switch back to have a healthy reserve of energy left

(guessing the OP isnt a PvPer , Focus Swappings one of the oldest tricks in the book)

Song of Purification
I Can See RC prots Becoming Obsolete by this skill, awesome

Song of Restoration
Pretty Average

Cruel Spear

Still one of the best Spiking Elites in the game

Stunning Strike
Not much to see here, i'd prefer a KD+Awe to this

Cautery Signet
Not a Bad Elite, Not Brillaint either

Saider maul · Sep 24, 2006, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Stunning spear's dazed duration is excessive for the fact that it causes dazed without needing to interupt. Paragons have been tagreting enchantment spamming dervish and spamming stunning spear to keep them shut down.
With P/W to to the limit and 1 shout and stunning becomes about a 5a skill due to stacked adreniline. Aside from that one skill they are about balanced.

CoPway just became VimWay with a monk for condition and hex removal.
Still fairly powerful but only in groups now,

ogami_ito · Sep 25, 2006, 09:37 AM // 09:37

Wariors will get a sucky sword elite which puts crippling on for 6a. No damage bonus. Crippling Anthem basically allows a melee-heavy team to keep the entire enemy team under cripple, constantly. That's pretty damn good.

neocodex · Sep 25, 2006, 01:28 PM // 13:28

Stunning Strike is actually pretty good and combined with distrupting throw and some conditions I've been shutting down monks and other casters without a problem.

Anir · Sep 26, 2006, 05:30 AM // 05:30

Just thinking of other ways to look at the skills:

"Incoming!"
Assuming you can get this up to 5 seconds (I haven't checked), you'd be effectively taking off 12-13% damage off over time. That's practically like not having a +15% mod.

Anthem of Guidance
Since it's an adrenaline-based chant, you gain energy for using it, and at 3 adrenaline, this is highly spammable.

Cripple Anthem
Same as above.

Angelic Bond
Unremovable life bond for 3 or 4 people possibly?

Focused Anger vs. Soldier's Fury
FA can stack with IAS (attack speed is capped at +33%, right?). With +33% IAS, you get +105% adrenaline gain (that's double adrenaline for the math-impaired) and 133% damage output, no? Of course, you'd need to use two skills slots in this case. There's also the 15-second downtime.

Quote:

with 33% faster, you gain 150% Adrenaline, as well as 150% Damage

That's 133% adrenaline and 133% damage, I believe.

EDIT: Even with the downtime of FA, you're still getting about 175% adrenaline and 125% dmg output. Of course, this is all assuing you can keep +33% IAS during the 45 seconds that it's active. Seems like neither skill is clearly better than the other, in my opinion.

"It's Just a Flesh Woud!"
Even with 2 pips of regen, this is probably easily spammable as long as you stay near a couple allies (and have at least a little bit of Leadership).

Song of Purification
You'll probably gain energy from using this since it's adrenaline-based.

Stunning Strike
One of only two ranged skills that cause dazed without interruption.

Arkantos · Sep 26, 2006, 05:40 AM // 05:40

I'm not happy with some of these changes. The non-elites shouldn't of been changed, they were fine really. The power is yours shouldn't even be a skill. I don't think anyone can keey up with -10 energy regen. Focused Anger is a pretty nice skill. Defensive Anthem is well, a joke. Hopefully ANet changes some of these skills.

Zui · Sep 26, 2006, 05:50 AM // 05:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkantos

I'm not happy with some of these changes. The non-elites shouldn't of been changed, they were fine really. The power is yours shouldn't even be a skill. I don't think anyone can keey up with -10 energy regen. Focused Anger is a pretty nice skill, but I think it should be 45r. Defensive Anthem is well, a joke. Hopefully ANet changes some of these skills.

You mean an Elite aegis that's worse than Aegis isn't good?

/sarcasam off

dgb · Sep 26, 2006, 06:44 AM // 06:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zui

You mean an Elite aegis that's worse than Aegis isn't good?

/sarcasam off

Admittedly it can't be stripped, but it is not the best I agree.

Anthem of Guidance is brilliant, that's an Evisc that's never going to miss and it's spammable as hell.

ubermancer · Sep 26, 2006, 07:05 AM // 07:05

33% IAS = 150% dmg
25% IAS = 133% dmg

Tainek · Sep 26, 2006, 10:01 AM // 10:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anir

Focused Anger vs. Soldier's Fury
FA can stack with IAS (attack speed is capped at +33%, right?). With +33% IAS, you get +105% adrenaline gain (that's double adrenaline for the math-impaired) and 133% damage output, no? Of course, you'd need to use two skills slots in this case. There's also the 15-second downtime.

That's 133% adrenaline and 133% damage, I believe.

EDIT: Even with the downtime of FA, you're still getting about 175% adrenaline and 125% dmg output. Of course, this is all assuing you can keep +33% IAS during the 45 seconds that it's active. Seems like neither skill is clearly better than the other, in my opinion.

A Common Misconception

I Refer you to : Guild Wiki

it is +50% Damage And Adrenaline, Soldiers Fury Still Owns Focused Anger

Math:

With SF, you attack once per second, so you gain 60 adrenaline/per min

with FA , you attack once every 1.5 seconds, and gain 1.75% the adrenaline

So with FA, you strike 30 Times with FA on, and 15 Without, you gain 67 Adrenaline/Per Min

Is 7 Adrenaline Every 60 Seconds (.1 adrenaline a second) worth a 50% Drop In Damage? prehaps if you were using a Ripose Build or somthing daft like that, but how many paragons are going to do that?

Anir · Sep 28, 2006, 04:21 AM // 04:21

Quote:

I Refer you to : Guild Wiki

it is +50% Damage And Adrenaline, Soldiers Fury Still Owns Focused Anger

Woops. My bad. That's a good note. (Anet needs to change the description of those skills. It's a 50% increase in attack speed -- 33% reduction in time between attacks... -_-)

But my point still stands though, no? FA can be stacked with something such as Frenzy/Flurry to make it even stronger, while SF can't be stacked with an IAS skill. Using FA with Frenzy, you get the +33% IAS plus the ~70% adrenaline gain. I dunno. There's gotta be a good use for this :P

Spura · Sep 28, 2006, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Likewise Soldier's Fury can be stacked with adrenaline gain upgrade that is not Focused Anger . Like Natural Temper or For Great Justice(which can be combined with Enduring Harmony).