Curse

rii · Jun 02, 2007, 09:29 PM // 21:29

Maybe stick a cap on Hexbreaker Arias potential targets. It does look much much better triggering on 'skills' but throwing it on all seven guys at the stand (possible on some maps w/o too much hassle) would be retarded.

If you cap it at say, 2-4 nearest people, you then get the good hex removal but can move it around the field to work on different areas of your team (monks/midline/warriors, etc). It would still be awesome tho.

Quote:

Ensign quote on aoflame.

Yeah if you waste your aoflame as soon as you put it up then there's going to be a potential problem, but frankly the exercise of a little restraint to wait 4s~ to unload an attack skill basically makes gud. I'm not saying there's no way you can ever fail to infinitely maintain an Agg. Refrain, but I've played the expel/mirror version a fair bit as well and I've probably lost my Agg. erm.... 3 times unless I've just not bothered to press the aoflame button.

Patccmoi · Jun 02, 2007, 10:17 PM // 22:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Hexbreaker Aria has a great mechanic - light party-wide removal of hexes. Except it's not, because it triggers on spell instead of skill. Making is skill would have it fill a really important role. You have single removal on single targets, you have mass removals on a single target, and you have single removal on mass targets. That last one is huge because it's good against spammed, AoE hex garbage that goes on everyone.

I agree with this, it's true that Hexbreaker Aria could be much more interesting if working on all skills, but you need to change its stats for it to be even remotely balanced though.

Personally i'd add a fixed recharge on it on top of adrenaline cost to prevent serious spamming of it (think of Dark/Weapon of Fury. It's far too easy to supercharge adrenaline gain as is if there is no recharge associated).

If it was say 10s recharge and 6 adrenal, it would recharge in about 20s in general (which seems fair to me, same as Purge Sig/Convert but instead of Purging one guy you do a light removal on the full team), but could be sped up using various skills. But not to the point where you can spam it like a madman. If Hexbreaker was something like:

6 adrenal, 2s activation, 10s recharge

For 10 seconds, the next time each ally within earshot uses a skill that ally loses 1 Hex. 50% failure with 4(7?) command or less

It would likely be a GREAT skill against mass hex without being that bad. It would also make single hex removal much more meaningful as it could just get rid of all the garbage cover hexes so that single hex removal hits what you want.

With the mix of adrenal charge + recharge + 2s cast time, i doubt it'd be overpowered at all. You couldn't mindlessly spam it and you'd have to be careful not to be interrupted while at the same time remaining in earshot, which makes it far from brainless to use efficiently. And i'd add a 50% failure with 7 command or less cause i think it'd be slightly too powerful on /P if it required too little investment. It would be extremely easy to fit for example on a R/P using Sig of Remedy instead of Mending Touch. At least a minimum of investment would slightly take out from other attributes.

And an AL nerf to aggressive refrain would be quite interesting. Would also give some point to Soldier's Fury, cause atm there's very little interest in running this over Aggressive Refrain. You hit slightly faster, but you actually have to recast it while Aggressive is always up.

Zuranthium · Jun 02, 2007, 11:26 PM // 23:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

I'm not sure I like 5/1/5 remove hex either. Not only would that be extremely effective on a split or ganker, but MOR-Remove Hex is already very powerful cleanup, and 5/1/5 means that you can have a midliner popping a hex every 3 seconds with a 3/4 second cast.

MoR-Remove Hex is not already anything. It's sucky. Even with the proposed change, it's not like you can just stick Remove Hex on your MoR and say GG to Hexes. Rather, they will say GG to you since the skill is inefficient as removal and your Mesmer will be burning through all of his resources to keep the team clean instead of actually using his Dom skills.

I really don't see it being too powerful for a split character either considering that people only have so many skillslots and Mending Touch is way more necessary.

~Z

Seamus Finn · Jun 02, 2007, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Personally i'd add a fixed recharge on it on top of adrenaline cost to prevent serious spamming of it (think of Dark/Weapon of Fury. It's far too easy to supercharge adrenaline gain as is if there is no recharge associated).

If it was say 10s recharge and 6 adrenal, it would recharge in about 20s in general (which seems fair to me, same as Purge Sig/Convert but instead of Purging one guy you do a light removal on the full team), but could be sped up using various skills. But not to the point where you can spam it like a madman. If Hexbreaker was something like:

6 adrenal, 2s activation, 10s recharge

For 10 seconds, the next time each ally within earshot uses a skill that ally loses 1 Hex. 50% failure with 4(7?) command or less
.

However, take also into account how easy it is to retard adrenaline gain(melee hate?), and that the team that really wants to shut this skill down will have more than enough tools to do so. Also take into account that this is a shout range skill, not aegis, and cannot be cancel faked since the adrenaline is lost immediately. Since again, we must assume the other team wants this shut down, is running a decent build, and is not stupid, a 2s cast kills the skill in a match where it matters. 1sec cast, and MAYBE the recharge idea. Even still, if your build is putting so much synergy into pushing the skill to its limits, its still a bunch of skill slots, at least one slightly awkward bar somewhere in your build and the result is fittingly strong(a bucnh of spirits in a build so your mend body soul = rc is a fair enough example I think).

Ensign · Jun 03, 2007, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

I agree with this, it's true that Hexbreaker Aria could be much more interesting if working on all skills, but you need to change its stats for it to be even remotely balanced though.

I agree to an extent. Thing is though, against the builds where it would really shine, adrenal gain slows down pretty significantly from attack speed debuffs, miss chance, and the like. Sure you could turbocharge it in situations where it probably wouldn't matter, but is that important?

6A/2/10 would likely be better against hex heavy teams than 8A/2/0, but it'd be worse that way against more casual hexing, which makes those numbers better on the skill overall.

The two second cast time is pretty huge, too. This thing is prime DShot bait that you can't reliably hide in the back.

I'm not sure if it's an ability that you'd want to make available to non-Paragons or not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

And an AL nerf to aggressive refrain would be quite interesting. Would also give some point to Soldier's Fury, cause atm there's very little interest in running this over Aggressive Refrain. You hit slightly faster, but you actually have to recast it while Aggressive is always up.

Soldier's Fury is straight-up worse than Aggressive Refrain as is. I've pulled it in pickerpacks before, it's so much worse than you think it is. There aren't a lot of shouts you want to maintain nonstop..."They're On Fire!", maybe, in the right build...otherwise you're stuck on "Watch Yourself!", and you get into this ugly cycle where if you lose WY, you're attacking slowly to try and get WY back up so you can attack fast again. It's so bad.

But I love that AL nerf to AR, because it does effectively the same thing to competitive Paragons that a base AL nerf would do without messing with the equipment. You get your choice between better defense and real attack speed, take your choice. You could probably even inch the armor hit up a little bit if you wanted to make the character a bit more vulnerable.

Peace,
-CxE

Patccmoi · Jun 03, 2007, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I agree to an extent. Thing is though, against the builds where it would really shine, adrenal gain slows down pretty significantly from attack speed debuffs, miss chance, and the like. Sure you could turbocharge it in situations where it probably wouldn't matter, but is that important?

There is various ways to gain adrenaline even without hitting if that's what you want. For example a P/W with Watch Yourself! and Hexbreaker Aria could also be packing To The Limit! If you go 11 Tactics (not unrealistic, you'd have like 12-13 spear, 12 lead and 11 tact) it can give you 5 adren straight and since it was buffed to Earshot it's really not that hard to hit 5. Then your Hexbreaker and WY! are nearly filled straight even if you couldn't hit at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

6A/2/10 would likely be better against hex heavy teams than 8A/2/0, but it'd be worse that way against more casual hexing, which makes those numbers better on the skill overall.

The two second cast time is pretty huge, too. This thing is prime DShot bait that you can't reliably hide in the back.

Ya, i don't want it too good against casual hexing. It's the thing i fear the most about the skill if it's changed to 'all skill', and it should be seriously kept in check, because if something like an hydro becomes worthless at stand because the other team can Hexbreaker all you do, it's gonna hurt the game more than it helps. It's the same reason i made it at 2s cast, so that the other team has time to react. I don't want something like 'I'm Shamed!', 'click Hexbreaker', 1s laster monk click Defensive Stance, cleaned. Or to see Deep Freeze thrown against a retreating team and they throw a 1s cast Hexbreaker, every1 uses a random skill and your Deep Freeze last 1-2s at best (hell, if they see you casting it they could basically pre-cast Hexbreaker and everyone hits a skill when Deep Freeze hits and it'd barely have any effect). 2s cast doesn't allow to activate it so fast to clean others of a single hex against a non-hex heavy team. It becomes a time investment and you have to think about when it's worth using and when not. I know it's DShot bait, but hell it'd be a very powerful anti-hex, and in a sense it should be. Throw a Guardian or Weapon of Warding on his back when casting to prevent DShot a bit, it's still not a spell so it's not THAT easy to interrupt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I'm not sure if it's an ability that you'd want to make available to non-Paragons or not.

I'm not either. I said <4 Command just cause that's where the skill is atm (why?), but it might be really better with < 4 Leadership. But then again, i'm not convinced of that either because then the only party hex removal (only viable anyway) would be restricted to Paragon, possibly forcing Paragons on teams a bit. But I'm not sure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Soldier's Fury is straight-up worse than Aggressive Refrain as is. I've pulled it in pickerpacks before, it's so much worse than you think it is. There aren't a lot of shouts you want to maintain nonstop..."They're On Fire!", maybe, in the right build...otherwise you're stuck on "Watch Yourself!", and you get into this ugly cycle where if you lose WY, you're attacking slowly to try and get WY back up so you can attack fast again. It's so bad.

Then again, there's Soldier's Stance. On top of sucking in the same way, it also burns all your energy and requires high investment in a defensive line =p

clawofcrimson · Jun 03, 2007, 02:07 AM // 02:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

And an AL nerf to aggressive refrain would be quite interesting. Would also give some point to Soldier's Fury, cause atm there's very little interest in running this over Aggressive Refrain. You hit slightly faster, but you actually have to recast it while Aggressive is always up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rii

If you stuck conditional of -30AL on Agg. Refrain then offensive pressure Paragons get reduced from ~100AL to ~70AL, which puts it on par with the alternate midline ranged pressure, Ranger.

If the paragon needs a nerf to AL then I think this would be the most acceptable way... however remember that the point is to not make the paragon completely useless at the same time.

If I wanted to run an all DPS paragon build... a constant -30 or -40 AL is just not acceptable when it cannot be removed ...at least warriors can stance remove frenzy... but if the proposed nerf hits AR then people will be targeting the class when they see AR go up, knowing that they are effectively targeting a squishy. then the skill will not see use on any paragon damage build and they will have to look elswhere for ias (unless they buff Soldiers ...by a lot) ...on an adrenaline based class...thats not good. Then you want to increase the adren. costs of the other (very few) actually decent skills?

I would say 16ish AL penalty at the most (if the other +AL skills are taking a hit as well)

start thinking about the builds a paragon would run after the changes... the point of Agressive refrain is 'constant' IAS ... why would anyone want constant -30 or -40 AL? Especially for a lone dps paragon who wants to take cruel spear...(and don't forget that gvg/ha is not the only way to play the game) people would just be forced to take flail...or another ias from a different class. then you have to step back and determine if taking a warrior would be a better option.

...dont forget that the skills you are targeting are pretty much the ONLY skills out of the very limited skillset that make the paragon worth taking. You are not just nerfing 'popular' skills... like you would be doing on an ele for instance... nerfing searing Flames out of use will make the ele choose a different skill set. Nerfing GFTE, AR, and other important skills in the paragon's line out of play will not just force them to choose different skills... but a different class altogether. (not even mentioning the number of situational skills in the paragons skillset that desparately need a buff)

Zuranthium · Jun 03, 2007, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by clawofcrimson

Nerfing GFTE, AR, and other important skills in the paragon's line out of play will not just force them to choose different skills... but a different class altogether.

Not if the changes I suggested were also put into play...

(also what "other skills" are you talking about? I don't think any nerfs beyond those two have been suggested for non-defensive Paragon skills)

~Z

Seef II · Jun 03, 2007, 02:36 AM // 02:36

The proposed AL drop on Aggressive Refrain is somewhat countered by Stand Your Ground, Watch Yourself, or the other passive defense on the P-heavy team builds. You'd lose ~24 (a fair number, drops the Paragon to 72 AL) AL and it's pumped to ~90 with Watch Yourself, which is still rather high. Dervishes and rangers don't have that against physical damage. 90 AL on a ranged class that offers a fair bit of team defense and close to sword DPS? That's still really good.

Productivity · Jun 03, 2007, 02:46 AM // 02:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

The thing with an on-skill Hexbreaker Aria is that all you'd need is 2 paragons and it would be impossible to make anything, even a water hex, stick. Hell, you could stick a copy on an R/P if you wanted.

Presumably it would function in the same way as song of purification, meaning that 90% of your skill activations in general remove the Aria, but don't remove a hex. It only really goes nuts when you reliable have a hex on every character everytime it comes up so each process removes one. Otherwise you're just throwing out a hexbreaker to see 1 hex removed at best and it wouldn't beat up the spot hexes particularly badly.

Riotgear · Jun 03, 2007, 03:30 AM // 03:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Hexbreaker Aria has a great mechanic - light party-wide removal of hexes. Except it's not, because it triggers on spell instead of skill.

Except you can spam the crap out of it. Remember that its effect is unlinked, I'd consider throwing it on a ranger who will be building the adrenaline anyway. You're basically casting "Extinguish Hexes Signet" every time you can successfully hit with 8 attacks. How would you make anything stick under that? Warriors would shed hexes just with incidental stance changes and attack skills they were going to use anyway, and anything left over would get mopped up by even the worst single removal. You'd have to bury any hex 3-deep just to not get spammed off.

I like the concept, but 8A/1/0 and no attribute investment required is ridiculous.

Quote:

As for Deep Freeze, I'd be happy that there was actually a viable counter to that, and other AoE hexes in the game. Counters to big AoE effects aren't neccessarily overpowered, are they?

I think Deep Freeze's cost and cast time is counter enough, personally.

Quote:

I am honestly surprised at the reaction of 'oh, single removals that can remove hexes are too good' when we're staring at a metagame where hexes are dominant and impossible to remove.

The problem is the disparity with bulk removal, in that single removal tends to line up with the costs of the hexes pretty well, but as soon as you're trying to unbury it from chaff like p-bond, it fails miserably. I'm not even sure what I want the solution to be, because the biggest part of the problem is the huge disparity of how hexes operate.

It seems like the best way to treat hexes is to keep them about as hard to remove as enchantments currently are, if not slightly easier, but the effects need to be balanced around that, which they currently aren't. Which is to say, hexes lasting their full duration shouldn't be devastating, it should be mostly an irritating fact of life which can be dealt with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I agree to an extent. Thing is though, against the builds where it would really shine, adrenal gain slows down pretty significantly from attack speed debuffs, miss chance, and the like. Sure you could turbocharge it in situations where it probably wouldn't matter, but is that important?

I don't think it would hit that point though, because you basically need to keep both copies saturated with hexes, but even that loses effectiveness because the more you spread out the hexes, the more you're vulnerable to simultaneous removal from both copies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Productivity

Presumably it would function in the same way as song of purification, meaning that 90% of your skill activations in general remove the Aria, but don't remove a hex.

Largely because there isn't a whole lot of need for mass-cleanup in a meta where LOD and too many copies of Mending Touch has made spamming conditions ineffective, and urgent effects that wind up getting quickly mopped up by RC are too urgent to wait for a 2-second chant followed by multiple skill activations. If a touch-range non-elite Expel Hexes was added, you'd probably see hexes face similar annihilation.

Long-duration hexes are another story, and continue to get much better mileage when applied to several targets so they're not Convert/Purge bait, and removing even small stacks from multiple targets is non-trivial. It would become trivial if you could basically Expel Hexes your entire team just by having two players with 8 adrenaline handy.

Ensign · Jun 03, 2007, 04:42 AM // 04:42

Sanity check: why does it seem like everyone thinks Hexbreaker Aria is a 1s cast?

Shmanka · Jun 03, 2007, 05:44 AM // 05:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Sanity check: why does it seem like everyone thinks Hexbreaker Aria is a 1s cast?

For some reason my memory is telling me during the trial and error HA weekend with skill updates make Hex Breaker Aria a 1 second cast... Going to check

EDIT: Thursday February First,

Hexbreaker Aria: increased casting time to 2 seconds.

Previously it was one second and in the midst of alot of changes its understandable alot of people did not see this.

Luna Star · Jun 03, 2007, 06:10 AM // 06:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by clawofcrimson

If I wanted to run an all DPS paragon build... a constant -30 or -40 AL is just not acceptable when it cannot be removed ...at least warriors can stance remove frenzy... but if the proposed nerf hits AR then people will be targeting the class when they see AR go up, knowing that they are effectively targeting a squishy. then the skill will not see use on any paragon damage build and they will have to look elswhere for ias (unless they buff Soldiers ...by a lot) ...on an adrenaline based class...thats not good. Then you want to increase the adren. costs of the other (very few) actually decent skills?

maybe make the penalty to armor only while attacking? that way they can save themselves while getting attacked.

D Fault · Jun 03, 2007, 06:48 AM // 06:48

Or perhaps give -armor while under the effect of a shout, chant or echo.

So to get the most use out of it you need to constantly use shouts, but while affected by them you are more vulnerable.

Also makes it worse the more paras you have in your team, as you're likely to have more shouts.

Productivity · Jun 03, 2007, 06:53 AM // 06:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Largely because there isn't a whole lot of need for mass-cleanup in a meta where LOD and too many copies of Mending Touch has made spamming conditions ineffective, and urgent effects that wind up getting quickly mopped up by RC are too urgent to wait for a 2-second chant followed by multiple skill activations. If a touch-range non-elite Expel Hexes was added, you'd probably see hexes face similar annihilation.

Long-duration hexes are another story, and continue to get much better mileage when applied to several targets so they're not Convert/Purge bait, and removing even small stacks from multiple targets is non-trivial. It would become trivial if you could basically Expel Hexes your entire team just by having two players with 8 adrenaline handy.

The point is, you can't expel hexes your entire team because unless all of them are sitting under a hex, processes of hexbreaker will be wasted (not to mention you can't stack two seperate copies). Eight members, two are hexed, cast hex breaker, six of the eight copies of hex breaker are wasted. The effectiveness of the aria scales directly with the number of hexes you are facing.

Hexbreaker as described in general balanced play would be clunky, difficult to use and generally pretty useless. About the only time I could see it really being useful is for cleaning up a deep freeze TBH. It would be too slow to get off diversions, shames and freezing gusts. The cast time etc. would mean that when a hex absolutely needs to come off or else someone dies or you don't get a kill, you're better off using the spot removal rather than the party wide stuff.

If on the other hand, you're fighting with every single member of your team under a hex, then yes it does get stupidly good. But then you're facing a hex team and I'm not going to cry if hexway teams start getting utterly owned to the face by one skill.

Div · Jun 03, 2007, 02:52 PM // 14:52

Some more skills to consider nerfing:

-Icy veins from 10...90 damage to 10...85. Recharge from 5 to 7. If all the other spikes (ritspike, SFspike, paraspike) get nerfed, I can see icy veins being very powerful and popular.

-Signet of sorrow from 15...75 damage to 5...65 damage. Cast time from 1 to 2. Recharge from 30 to 12. Makes it better for pressure and not just for spiking.

-Images of remorse recharge from 5 to 7. Way too powerful of a spam hex in a hex build.

-Signet of humility duration from 1...16 to 1...11. Recharge from 20 to 15. More uses, shorter duration promotes smarter play and more precise usage. Plus, having to spend 2 seconds using a signet every 15 seconds slows it down a little.

-Mirror of disenchantment energy from 15 to 10. Casting time from 1 to 2. Skill was probably designed to be used on mesmers, so making it a 2 second cast makes it less viable on other professions.

-Frozen burst cast time from 3/4 to 1 sec. Recharge from your proposed 12 seconds to 10 seconds. Makes it more interruptible, and a 5 -> 12 second recharge seems too drastic.

-Shatterstone recharge from 8 to 12 sec. Really powerful skill that can do 25...100 damage x 2 and acts as a hex for freezing gust to do spike damage too.

As an alternative to a widespread hex nerf, maybe there are considerations to further buff some hex removal skills. For example:

-Convert hexes becomes a skill that gives +5 armor per necromancer hex and a 4...16 sec duration instead of 8...20, but have a recharge of 16 instead of 20. One of the most popular secondary hex removals can be made better at removing hexes at a faster rate at the cost of shorter prot/armor duration.

-Reverse hex lowers damage reduction to 4...40 from 5...50 and recharge of 8 instead of 10. Doesn't see much play in high level PvP, but ok in HB?

-Remove hex has recharge of 6 instead of 7. Good for mesmer primaries.

-Withdraw hexes scales from 20...5 to 17...2 and ups base recharge from 5 to 7 and is a 3/4 second cast. Maybe it'll be used now?

-Inspired and reveal hex energy gain from 4...10 to 5...12 and cast time from 1 to 3/4. This'll bring back previously popular mesmer hex removal.

-Smite hex damage lowered from 10...85 to 5...65 and recharge from 12 to 10. This makes it a viable alternative to holy veil (which can preprot) and deny hexes (which can remove multiple hexes)

-Hex eater signet AoE increased from adjacent to nearby, recharge lowered from 45 to 30, allies from 2...5 to 1...4, energy gain lowered from 1...7 to 0...5. Much more viable recharge and good AoE hex removal, at the expense of a lower maximum number of allies (but who really expects 5 people to all be in adjacent range?).

-Hex eater vortex and Shatter hex casting time increased to 2 seconds, recharge down from 10 to 8 seconds. This promotes smarter usage of hex removal to not be interrupted (and other team to pay attention and interrupt it), but allows for more hex removal overall.

-Avatar of Dwayna energy cost from 5 to 15, health gain from 15...60 to 5...35, but whenever it uses a skill it loses 1 condition and 1 hex. Will very likely make this playable in higher forms of PvP along with melandru's and grenth's.

-Hexbreaker Aria could require 10 adrenaline but have a 1 second casting time and number of hexes removed scales from 1...2 based on leadership. Makes it less d-shot bait and more effective for light hex+cover hex. If the chant will trigger off any skill, it'd have to be renamed Song of Hexbreaker :O

Granted, not all these skills deserve to be looked at again, but some of these buffs can serve as a way to make hexes less powerful. Plus, PvE'rs like to see the word "buff" so they'd whine less :P

Draikin · Jun 03, 2007, 03:31 PM // 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by holymasamune

-Reverse hex lowers damage reduction to 4...40 from 5...50 and recharge of 8 instead of 10. Doesn't see much play in high level PvP, but ok in HB?

I wouldn't change the recharge or damage reduction but I would like to see the skill work like Life Sheath: "for ... seconds, the next .. damage target ally would take is negated". That way you'd get the full effect of the damage reduction regardless of the actual damage the next attack does.

Melody Cross · Jun 03, 2007, 03:48 PM // 15:48

If hexbreaker Aria is so good, I have to ask: why don't more teams use it in the current hex heavy meta?

I mean, like its been said, its not hard at all to stick it on anything else that is attacking regularly. if its as good as people seem to think, why isn't it seeing more play?

because its not, i tend to agree with Ensign. it needs a buff. but it needs to scale as well if it is buffed.

SirJackassIII · Jun 03, 2007, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

But I love that AL nerf to AR, because it does effectively the same thing to competitive Paragons that a base AL nerf would do without messing with the equipment. You get your choice between better defense and real attack speed, take your choice. You could probably even inch the armor hit up a little bit if you wanted to make the character a bit more vulnerable.

Peace,
-CxE

I'm not sure about it. IAS stances have their drawbacks (Flail's reduced speed, Frenzy's Double damage), which pretty much forces the user to bring a cancel to it, mostly Sprint. Shouts don't have that. So, you're basically forcing the Paragon to choose offense over defense prior to the game.
To remove this drawback in case you'd get targetted (even though your AL would still be 70 +16 +10 Centurion) and want your higher AL back, you'd have to stop using shouts for 21 seconds(@12 L), and if there are other Warriors/Paragons in the group, they'd have to refrain from using Shouts as well for that duration.
Since Paragons get their Energy and their buffs from Shouts, it's not exactly possible to cancel out AR this way, which could leave you with a permanent -10 AL, in which case some Paragons would rather leave home without this skill, which would leave the current paragon without a decent IAS, one of the problems Rangers ATM have as well. Not to mention reapplying it after it fades would cost you another 25 EN. If you could maintain echoes like enchantments (just a small icon which you could double-click like the current maintained enchants), this chance would be better, since you could change your style from higher offense to higher defense while you play easily, while going back to the other would cost you dearly.