Curse

lorinton · Feb 11, 2007, 06:44 PM // 18:44

I have a separate thread for PvP, specifically AB battles.

The paragon still appears to be effective in PvE after getting hit hard in the recent skill changes. However, I'm finding it a lot less fun. I've just opened a path to Vabbi so a lot of skills are still inaccessible. In fact, its hard to use the command line at all up to that point in the game. Regardless of the access to skills, I'm curious if anyone has PvE builds they enjoy now. I'm even more curious if someone has a build they enjoy prior to Vabbi.

Before the big hit to They're on Fire, I had a motivation paragon that could also dish out some damage in between chants and shouts. It went something like this, place Blazing Finale on a melee, put up They're on Fire, put up Anthem of Flame and start fighting. Hit a second melee with Blazing Finale and then start throwing spears. Fire off Ballad of Restoration and Chorus of Restoration as they come up and are needed. Neither provided significant healing power but they helped healers focus on spike damage. Place Finale of Restoration on anyone taking a lot of damage. Continue the cycle until the battle ends. That's seven skills devoted to helping the party leaving one for discretionary use.

Now, I find there's no time to throw a spear or use the discretionary skill. They're on Fire has to be refreshed as soon as the motivation skills are used. With the reduced effectiveness of ToF, its necessary to use the healing skills as soon as they recharge. At least in PvE there is enough energy gain from leadership to keep spamming the chants and shouts. If I don't do this, I find I'm not providing significant benefit to the party. I don't find this a fun style of play so I'm looking for help in finding an alternative.

Ensign · Feb 11, 2007, 10:03 PM // 22:03

The standard template I use for any solitary Paragon in a PvE build is:

"Go for the Eyes!", "Stand Your Ground!", Anthem of Flame, Aggressive Refrain, 3 spear attacks of choice, and a Res of choice.

You only stop to cast Anthem of Flame and are otherwise chucking spears the whole time, dealing solid DPS under Aggressive Refrain.

Peace,
-CxE

oinkers · Feb 11, 2007, 10:10 PM // 22:10

I dont believe you can find a viable PvE build for Paragons anymore. Here's why - look at the ratio of nerfed versus buffed skills:

Nerfed skills: They're on Fire, Stand Your Ground, Incoming, Energizing Finale, Song of Restoration, Ballad of Restoration, Aria of Restoration, Cruel Spear.

Bugged skills: Focused Anger (capped at 100% despite description)

Untouched: GFTE

All the other Paragon skills were crap to begin with, and not worth including in a skillbar really.

Edited by Dralspire.

TLLOTS · Feb 11, 2007, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Just because a skill was nerfed doesn't make it instantly bad. Honestly with the way people react to nerfed skills, you'd think nerfing meant 'infect with leprosy'.

I use a similar build to what Ensign suggested, though I drop one spear skill for "Fall Back!", just because a party wide speed buff is so very addictive.

oinkers · Feb 11, 2007, 10:31 PM // 22:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by TLLOTS

Just because a skill was nerfed doesn't make it instantly bad.

Honestly, the way people reply you'd think they didn't read the previous postings. It's not because a skill was nerfed, it was because dozens of skills were nerfed.

Repeatedly.

pingu666 · Feb 11, 2007, 10:44 PM // 22:44

i used..

spear of lightning
something (WY,charm animal etc)
gtfe
anthem of flame
focused anger
stand your ground
never surrender? + health regen one
res

never been too keen on aggressive refrain personaly, as i always forget to spam anthem of flame between fights

youve got a post for AB builds, if you AB then ull have balthezar points, so u can unlock skills, thats what i did..

lorinton · Feb 12, 2007, 01:45 AM // 01:45

True, many of the non-elite skills are available as a result of AB work. Some may be captured if you know where to go. Too bad those that don't want to PvP have to finish so much of the game to get what are considered the currently useful paragon skills.

You're covering a lot of bases there pingu. How are you allocating your attribute points? I'm not far enough along for Focused Anger but Aggressive Refrain may work as a substitute. I agree with you about the tedious nature of keeping Aggressive Refrain up.

I'll give it a try Ensign. My assassin has so many different and effective ways to deal pure damage that I may be biased in the outcome though.

After reading many posts in several forums, spears and command seems to be the direction people are taking the paragon in PvE. The blend of support and damage is the appealing factor for me, if the support is through command instead of motivation that's OK, as long as its an effective benefit to the party. It'll be interesting to see how the fights with mobs go without ToF.

FoxBat · Feb 12, 2007, 07:29 AM // 07:29

Most of motivation is fairly worthless unless you have a mass of paragons constantly triggering finale of restoration on everyone. You could use ballad of restoration once every 20 seconds, or a monk can cast LoD every 4. Maybe this is what people keep doing wrong with the paragon.

ToF is still pretty much the best damage mitigation a solitary paragon can do, assuming you have ways to set your foes on fire (the popular SF eles can help or replace your anthem of flame/burning refrain) That's a lot of defense you don't necessarily need everywhere in the game though.

pingu666 · Feb 12, 2007, 03:51 PM // 15:51

erm, 8 or 9 on leadership
14 on command
rest on spear (13 or so i think)
in the endgame area i was using watch yourself with 8 on tatics i think
btw when you cap focused anger you need to go into the exploreable, not mission...

i think the only command skills i have, are the ones i use in that build XD

i didnt really care for motivation line, but it certainly can be good aswell. ill haveto buy my para some radient insig's with SYG now costing 15e :/

Chipp Zanuff · Feb 12, 2007, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by pingu666

btw when you cap focused anger you need to go into the exploreable, not mission...

I think he meant the adrenaline gain is capped at 100% gain , the 100% cap should be for stacking buffs not from one buff alone , in this case [skill]Focused Anger[/skill].

lorinton · Feb 12, 2007, 06:48 PM // 18:48

I found focusing on command and spears pretty effective. I'll charge a Kournan fortress again soon to compare to my pre-nerf motivation build. I used deep wounding spear skills while switching targets as I wasn't too impressed with damage caused by the other skills. Not to mention Cruel Spear is my only elite at this time.

I tried using Fall Back as I also like the speed boost but found it too costly to use with Aggressive Refrain. I took Spear as high as I could, command to 9+, leadership to 8 and reserved 8 I think it was for a secondary profession when used.

Vicious Attack, Cruel Spear
Go for the Eyes, Stand Your Ground, Fall Back (probably going to swap this for Find Their Weakness)
Anthem of Flame, Aggressive Refrain
Optional (Ice Spikes for a runner snare in Moddok Crevice for example)

I'd probably swap Anthem of Flame for other skills when needed, a resurrection skill for example.

pingu666 · Feb 12, 2007, 07:10 PM // 19:10

lorinton, u could try the mesmer skill, epidemic

spread that deepwound love

clawofcrimson · Feb 12, 2007, 07:21 PM // 19:21

check out the builds directory..there are still useable builds there

Enchanted Warrior · Feb 15, 2007, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Paragon / Warrior

Skillbar:
Signet of Return
"Watch yourself"
Hamstring
Sever Artery
Deadly Riposte
Galrath Slash
Final Thrust
Quivering Blade [Elite] (Best he can cap at this time)

Attributes:
12 Swords
12 Tatics
3 +1 Leadership

Weapons:
(Gold) Furious Butterfly Sword of Fortitude
15-22 req 9
Double adrenaline on hit (10% chance)
15%^50
+30 Health

(Gold) Diamond Aegis
+16 req 11 tatics
+30 health
-5 rec'vd damage (20% chance)

Runes/Insignias

Heralds Insignia in each piece of armor
+41 Health rune
+1 leadership (Elonian Crest)
4 +10 vitae runes in remaining armor pieces and crest. (total health 620)

Dunno what others will think, but I'm having a blast with this build in pve. Visually others get a kick out of him in his Elonian armor with sword and sheild.

Spura · Feb 15, 2007, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Well there's always the 55 HP paragon

Currently I only have 1 monk elite capped with him so he gets into trouble when he pulls like 10 minotaurs. 5 are a breeze though.

ElinoraNeSangre · Feb 15, 2007, 10:49 PM // 22:49

I don't have any killer build yet, but I've been bantering around the idea of doing some paragon team PvE activities; I'd love to get something going like the mesmers do.

Someone started a great PvE team build here. I think something like this could be a lot of fun with the right group.

I'm still not to Vabbi, and I'm having lots of fun just throwing spears and using skills that help the rest of the group get energy/health. I'm using the Darksong and I've had been having some fun doing bleeding/degen (no idea how great that really is, but I also have a degen mesmer so I guess it's just something I really like).

Crazyvietguy · Feb 15, 2007, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enchanted Warrior

Paragon / Warrior

Skillbar:
Signet of Return
"Watch yourself"
Hamstring
Sever Artery
Deadly Riposte
Galrath Slash
Final Thrust
Quivering Blade [Elite] (Best he can cap at this time)

Attributes:
12 Swords
12 Tatics
3 +1 Leadership
.

Well to be brutally honest.. ToF tank would work much better than this. And what is different about the ToF tank and this build is that this one is made up of 7 W skills.. and 1 ressurection from the paragon line. To be honest.. A warrior does it better. Reason.. you have 4 in leadership.. this is hardly a paragon, and you use the "Signet of Return" from the Paragon line.. only.
While Quivering is something to look at with Paragons. I dont believe it's used correctly here.

Enchanted Warrior · Feb 15, 2007, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crazyvietguy

Well to be brutally honest.. ToF tank would work much better than this. And what is different about the ToF tank and this build is that this one is made up of 7 W skills.. and 1 ressurection from the paragon line. To be honest.. A warrior does it better. Reason.. you have 4 in leadership.. this is hardly a paragon, and you use the "Signet of Return" from the Paragon line.. only.
While Quivering is something to look at with Paragons. I dont believe it's used correctly here.

I'm sure there are a lot of ways to do things. But in it's defense, it works, I don't die and I kick a..

This is of course a group build, if I need a tank my Tyrian warrior has over 3.5 mil of exp and can hang with the best of em. This one is more for fun. In case it matters, I use it in groups of 4. My hero monks (one straight heal, one straight protection) and my dervish (w/ava of balth) so it seems to work very well.

But thanks for the suggestions, I'll give them some thought. My main reason for making him a warrior secondary, is because I am tired of all the warrior armor. I like the paragon armor. LOL (I know strange reason but what the heck I was bored LOL)

lorinton · Feb 16, 2007, 12:47 AM // 00:47

A gentle reminder that unlike so many other posts I've read, this one does not proclaim PvE paragons to be dead.

I find the paragon effective in PvE, including use of the motivation line. I believe all the doom and gloom about the nerfs is overstated and harmful to the class in PvE.

However, effective and fun aren't the same and what's fun for me may not be fun for someone else. I appreciate the suggestions and I've been trying a few of them. I haven't tried a P/R yet and probably won't as I have very few ranger skills unlocked. I've tried the front line paragon and its not for me. Besides personal bias, I find it difficult to use the leadership attribute in that role as too often members of the party are out of shout range.

Mixing command and spear is working best for me. I did a comparison of my motivation build against a spear and command build storming Kournan fortresses. I'm also comparing to previous performance with the motivation build in the same situations. The spear and command build proved better in that test case. The motivation build was nearly as good as before the nerfs but it wasn't as fun for the reasons given in the first post. The motivation build always suffered at least one henchman death, usually the elementalist, while the spear and command build did not.

This wasn't a completely controlled experiment as I switched a henchman as well. I used a dervish henchman with the motivation build and a motivation paragon henchman with the spear and command build. Essentially, both team builds have a motivation paragon while one has a dervish and the other a spear paragon for damage. Its possible that the henchman is a better paragon than me but I prefer to believe otherwise.

I think its because I could draw opponent's attention away from casters, or kill them, faster than the dervish running around to get to each newly called target. This could be a significant paragon strength that isn't being talked up in the forums currently.

Enchanted Warrior · Feb 16, 2007, 03:02 AM // 03:02

" A gentle reminder that unlike so many other posts I've read, this one does not proclaim PvE paragons to be dead. I find the paragon effective in PvE, including use of the motivation line. I believe all the doom and gloom about the nerfs is overstated and harmful to the class in PvE."

I look at it this way, if they ruin too many professions I'm gone. If they make things better, I'll stay. Simple as that. So far things are basically ok.