Curse

Blame the Monks · Jan 31, 2007, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Hey all,

I have wanted to play a little para in RA and was hoping to get some suggestions for quality builds. I was thinking just a damage para with stunning strike + burning skills and perhaps a few defensive shouts. But I admit I am a para noob.

Any suggestions or builds that have worked well for you? Thanks in advance.

Divineshadows · Jan 31, 2007, 05:40 PM // 17:40

Paragons suffer from a serious scaling issue in the 4v4 arenas. They really have no reason to go above 8 leadership unless you want to hit key breakpoints on some leadership skills (such as awe, angelic bond, anthem of flame, etc.). In addition, if you're running a command paragon with go for the eyes and anthem of flame, then you really want to run 2 melee to justify running command in the first place. However, it is very difficult to run a build with 2 melee, a paragon, and a monk with basically no anti-melee to speak of.

Motivation suffers from similar scaling issues. Shouts such as ballad of restoration are balanced on energy cost, recharge, and duration for 8 players, but in arenas you are only affecting 4 players with them. Other motivation skills such as finale of restoration require a lot of shouts in the team to be useful. Keeping a +4 mending refrain going on all 4 of your players in TA is quite a strong play, but then you need some shout to keep the refrain going. If you're speccing 13 in motivation, then it is very hard to spec high enough into tactics to get a reasonable watch yourself as you're probably going to still want 8 in leadership and about 12 in spear. You could use go for the eyes, but at very low spec it's not going to do much other than just keep the refrains going.

While I have toyed with some different TA builds that included a paragon, the closest I have been to finding mildly successful paragon builds that could fill a useful enough role in a team were when the paragon ran either stunning strike/barbed spear/go for the eyes/make haste or angelic bond/shield of absorption. Angelic bond is run in place of running an anti-melee and you rotate the two copies of shield of absorption onto the paragon. The value a stunning strike paragon provides to the team is mainly through spear damage under aggressive refrain and condition pressure with dazed at key moments, while make haste can turn the monk on your team into a kiting machine.

Still, there are plenty of good reasons why paragons are the least seen class in Team Arenas and all of them come down to scaling and lack of character efficiency. As for RA, I've been told by a friend that a motivation paragon can be quite successful there, but I am not sure of the exact skills that he was using aside from mending refrain.

urania · Jan 31, 2007, 05:49 PM // 17:49

Song-of-purification paras are great in RA as well as TA...you can help monks get rid of daze/deep wound fast and also keep blind spam more under control.

and it just plain owns any cond based build.

at least till it gets diverted/distracted etc..

Orphan Anthem · Feb 13, 2007, 04:24 AM // 04:24

Agressive refraim and burning anthem is a must aswell as go for the eyes

go for the eyes + vicious spear is nice deep wound combo

go for the eyes, vicious spear, spear of lightning, burning anthem, stunning spear, stand your ground, agressive refraim, res sig

tomcruisejr · Feb 13, 2007, 06:09 AM // 06:09

Paragon/Warrior

12 tactics
12 sword

Res Sig, Rush, Healing Signet, Frenzy, Sever Artery, Gash, Final Thrust, Bullstrike

Kill all and /dance. paragon's /dance > warrior's /dance.

Patrick Smit · Feb 13, 2007, 07:42 AM // 07:42

I like offensive stuff, as otherwise fights become a drag, and it will take ages to get points, being defensive means that you will have better staying power, but it also means u have less offensive, meaning u cant take down targets.

I use:
-barbed spear
-merciless spear
-go for the eyes
-anthem of flame
-mending touch
-Focused anger
-agressive refrain
-res signet

i use a furious spear of fortitude (15%^50), armor with survivors insigs, command shield of fortitude, and high spear mastery. i keep command and leadership high enough so that refrain and anger give enough benefit, GFTY gives me around 60 % chance to critical. I have around 500 health, not a lot, but he i will do some damage plus that i benefit other physicals in my group. You wint win any fight, thats alwasy impossible, but the build promotes fast and aggressive fights.
You see correctly that i have no real heal, but thats how it works, just pray for a healer of some sorts ^^

Divineshadows · Feb 13, 2007, 04:47 PM // 16:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

Paragon/Warrior

12 tactics
12 sword

Res Sig, Rush, Healing Signet, Frenzy, Sever Artery, Gash, Final Thrust, Bullstrike

Kill all and /dance. paragon's /dance > warrior's /dance.

Tom, that build is just a gimped warrior. It's missing IWAY too

. IWAY at 0 strength is win.

Windjammer · Feb 13, 2007, 06:12 PM // 18:12

I used to play a P/E with Gale, Awe, Stunning Strike, and the typical Aggressive Refrain setup. All I did was keep daze on monk or other casters as appropriate. Paras make good dazers because they attack fast enough and I guess the range helps too. I've also always thought there may be a good Para build to take advantage of the fact the AggRef and skills like Lead the Way are shouts not stances. So you could have somthing like a Steady Stance Para with IAS and speed. Foc Anger also probably has some potential in RA. I made a Para with the that, Burning Refrain, GftE, and a scythe. If you get lucky and are paired with a decent Axe warrior or Derv, then spamming GftE on every other of your attacks (or more often if they clump up) is just fun. Plus you set everybody on fire. When they used to be more used, that scythe build would eat through Thumpers too. The scythe would always hit both them and their pet, and I would get two hits of double adrenaline each attack, enough to use GftE every attack.

Anyway, thats the Para builds I've experimented with in RA.

Dzan · Feb 13, 2007, 10:34 PM // 22:34

The best "para" build in TA is...

Ranger/Paragon

Spear 12
Beast Master 10
Expertise 13

Rampage as One
Charm Animal
Disrupting Lunge
Comfort Animal
Res Signet
Merciless Spear
Cruel Spear
Blazing Spear

I know is isn't what you were hoping for at all, but its much better than than going Paragon primary in terms of RA/TA effectiveness.

Divineshadows · Feb 13, 2007, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzan

Rampage as One
Cruel Spear

Two elites? Teach me how to be leet like you

remmeh · Feb 14, 2007, 06:21 AM // 06:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Two elites? Teach me how to be leet like you

It's the Mirage Amulet... kind of like the Korean Amulet or the Triclass Amulet, but here you get to pick your second elite once you're ingame =)

But regardless the R/P remains much more popular in TA than a paragon primary. Maybe because d-lunge is amazing.

Morganas · Feb 14, 2007, 06:38 AM // 06:38

Now that we're proposing "paragons" instead of paragons, I present to you the "I'm too drunk to reliably use skills so I'm going to press 1 and autoattack" build:

W/P
12 spear mastery
16 strength

Skills:
Primal Rage
Signet of Strength

If you're not completely wasted yet, you can add any of the following skills to the bar:
2 energy using spear attacks (don't bring adrenal skills with primal rage)
doylacks signet (lol)
Remedy Signet
Healing Signet
Res Sig? (no)

You'll be able to operate at about 80% of the effectiveness of a mending wammo with just 5% of the effort. Yay

Windjammer · Feb 14, 2007, 07:26 AM // 07:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

You'll be able to operate at about 80% of the effectiveness of a mending wammo with just 5% of the effort. Yay

Some people totally underestimate the value of an easy to play build. There are times I just don't want to have to think or look at the screen at all, and just want to push some buttons and see evanescing flashes of the beautiful goodness of green and yellow floating blissfully up my screen. At those times, I play a Thumper (or at least used to).

Back on topic, I guess uh... I used to see alot of the R/P RaO when Nightfall first came out. Don't see em much anymore now, I guess the newness of "Oh Look another way to abuse RaO!" wore off. I never thought they were that hot anyway, seemed like less use of the power or RaO to me, though I guess I never did try them. I think though that if you made any build (but especially a caster) that didn't need another secondary and had one extra slot and nothing you need to put there, then going secondary Paragon and getting Remedy Sig is a great idea.