Curse

Patccmoi · Nov 11, 2006, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Is that combo honestly considered fine atm?

It seems to me that the introduction of Motivation Paragons in GvG does the same as the old Rt Lords. Pretty much all they do is stall game by providing hard to counter protection on your team (possibly harder than Rt Lord since out of Vocal Minority and other hex stacking or managing to keep them permanently blind there's really not much you can do... and monks usually have all it takes to prevent that from happening to their Paragon).

My main beef seriously is Watch Yourself! Since they raised this skill to earshot range (wasn't it balanced at Nearby range before?) it seems like you nearly gotta be stupid not to put it in your team somewhere. It basically provides everyone in earshot range with an unstrippable 20AL, which is close to 30% damage reduction. And it's really easy to have it on at all time.

Every match i watch on obs, it seems that pressure teams have a really hard time doing much about it except if they go all-out pressure (like mass Searing Flames). 2 teams having a Motivation Paragon facing each other often result in a big stalemate where even the health of both teams doesn't lower much.

No, it's not an uncounterable thing. No, i'm not posting this because i lost to it either, we faced many and i mostly find that it leads to very boring game. We win mostly due to ganks against them since they can't be everywhere hopefully.

But just Watch Yourself! spam with them is already nearly worth a character slot. Positioning becomes much less relevant because your full team consists of people with 80-90+ AL, all of which aren't easily spikable (out of real spike builds like OFlame) and aren't even really pressurable by warriors or anything else not ignoring armor (Searing Flame is better cause of AOE and burning, and Thumpers aren't too bad because of the massive disruption). And not only is Watch Yourself! providing awesome party protection, it's also your best energy management all at once.

I'm not gonna rant more on it, i just wanted to see what's the general opinion on this. Are these considered like a great addition to the game that is balanced? It seems like people were all complaining about Rt Lord stalling game while for me those Motivation Paragons are the exact same thing, but surprisingly they seem liked while Rt were despised. The game is still playable and Paragon != instant win, but it seems to me like Watch Yourself! with Earshot range on a Motivation Paragon as a whole isn't balanced atm.

Burton2000 · Nov 11, 2006, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Our guilds been running motivation paragon with energizing finale and watch yourself and its insane. Our monks never run out of energy as long as its not being shutdown and as you said "Watch yourself" is very good.

Patrograd · Nov 11, 2006, 08:04 PM // 20:04

Thres nothing wrong with "Watch yourself!" which has been around in GvG for as long as anyone can remember pretty much. In fact, in the motivation para build it is run at low tactics so it expires quickly, it is just used as a trigger mechanism for what has to be THE most broken skill in GW history, Energizing Finale

if EF was elite, cost twice the energy and had twice the recharge you'd have to consider bringing it on a GvG team imo. As thing stand now its ridiculous. You can maintain pretty much 24/7 3 pips of energy regen (with one paragon) onto 4 characters in your team. Thats something over 200 energy per minute to your team's nett energy pool. Throw in an aria of zeal and the numbers go through the roof, your team has effectively limitless energy and can forget all about those bothersome energy management skills and focus their entire skill bar to other stuff. IMO this one skill is almost worth an extra character, I've never seen anything like it tbh

Patccmoi · Nov 11, 2006, 08:13 PM // 20:13

I agree that the combination with Energizing Finale is very important. But i think you understate WY! a lot.

Watch Yourself! was around forever - with Nearby AOE. Earshot AOE is MUCH bigger, meaning that while before you had to be basically sitting near your backline for them to benefit from it (and nearly no one was using it this way) now a midline Paragon covers your FULL TEAM with it.

+20AL to everyone makes a huge difference for balanced pressure. Yours wars are doing much less with auto-attack on casters, etc. It adds a huge defense to the team.

But ya, EF might be even broken that's true.

Wasteland Squidget · Nov 11, 2006, 09:56 PM // 21:56

Patro is correct about EF. That's the insane skill that has allowed motivation paragons to supercharge both defense and offense.

The other issue isn't specifically Watch Yourself or Stand Your Ground, but both used in combination. These skills combined give you +44 (conditional) AL, which makes it extremely difficult to punch through the defense. These two skills in combination are what has made it so difficult to kill things recently, and unfortunately Motivation paragons also supercharge your offense. It's Ritualists all over again, with every game going to VoD before anything interesting happens.

I feel that the problem has more to do with GvG mechanics than these specific skills though. If GvG didn't encourage such defensive builds and such a focus on preventing deaths, throwing a 3rd primarily defensive character into a build would be a much bigger issue.

s w o r d y · Nov 13, 2006, 12:33 AM // 00:33

they also put in 4 new maps that encourage teams not to play this stalemate type of game, but people still refuse to do it

Vindexus · Nov 13, 2006, 12:37 AM // 00:37

Energizing Finale is the problem. 10e and longer recharge in my opinion.

Kabale · Nov 13, 2006, 11:44 AM // 11:44

Agreed. I've never had a more pleasurable monking experience in GvG ever before. Full energy is ftw! <3

But EF is still horribly broken and should be fixed.

phasola · Nov 13, 2006, 03:32 PM // 15:32

Enjoy this while you can, because we all know Anet doesn't do skill changes mid season. God knows why...

exiled mat · Nov 13, 2006, 04:24 PM // 16:24

Funny that people are complaining that our "protector paragon" protect too good

Although i've never looked at energizing finale, it sure sounds ... powerfull

killer_sss · Nov 13, 2006, 04:55 PM // 16:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

Thres nothing wrong with "Watch yourself!" which has been around in GvG for as long as anyone can remember pretty much. In fact, in the motivation para build it is run at low tactics so it expires quickly, it is just used as a trigger mechanism for what has to be THE most broken skill in GW history, Energizing Finale

if EF was elite, cost twice the energy and had twice the recharge you'd have to consider bringing it on a GvG team imo. As thing stand now its ridiculous. You can maintain pretty much 24/7 3 pips of energy regen (with one paragon) onto 4 characters in your team. Thats something over 200 energy per minute to your team's nett energy pool. Throw in an aria of zeal and the numbers go through the roof, your team has effectively limitless energy and can forget all about those bothersome energy management skills and focus their entire skill bar to other stuff. IMO this one skill is almost worth an extra character, I've never seen anything like it tbh

its not 3 pips of energy regen its 3 energy when shout or chant ends
and mending refrain is another good skill to be thrown can keep up all time provided you keep the watch yourself going.

echos in this game are just godly im looking foward to when paragon gets new skills. the echos that reapply hell you can keep them up forever if you wish

Patccmoi · Nov 13, 2006, 04:58 PM // 16:58

You can consider that it's 3 pips of energy regen when they get that +3E every 3-5s on average.

JR · Nov 13, 2006, 07:03 PM // 19:03

To be honest I think you would have to be crazy not to run a Motivation Paragon at the moment. They are compeltely nuts.

Patrograd · Nov 13, 2006, 07:50 PM // 19:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

You can consider that it's 3 pips of energy regen when they get that +3E every 3-5s on average.

20 shouts per minute = 60 energy/minute = 3 pips of regen at 12 motivation. If three of those shouts are aria of zeal (20 sec recharge iirc), then its 4 pips of regen (3x7=21)

On 4 characters if you like.

I noticed [PVE] last night doubly abusing this with a command paragon alongside the motivation guy also producing about 20 shouts per minute

7 pips of extra energy regen on those monks.

Wasteland Squidget · Nov 13, 2006, 08:15 PM // 20:15

We decided to abuse this a few weeks ago with a paragon spike build. 5 paragons spiking with spears, two monks, and a runner.

It was the most ridiculously defensive experience I've ever had. I was on a monk spot and lagging horribly (e7ed out of 50% of games), but even with only one monk we never had any problems with pressure or energy. The only time we took deaths was on the split, and that was more due to our split caller not making the right decisions. When I wasn't lagging I was able to use 10e skills like Blessed Light and Spirit Bond on recharge without going below 30 energy.

Energizing Finale is akin to pre-nerf Ether Renewal in that it starts good and just keeps getting better the more shouts you stack into your build. Any E-management skill with the phrase "Gain X energy for every Y" should be sending up red flags, because that kind of skill can go nuts once you have a build that adapts to it.

Seamus Finn · Nov 13, 2006, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Yeah, whoever said they take the spot of old-school rits is wrong. They own old shool rits in the face so hard its sad. Way less susceptible to shut downs, and they more represent a hyprid spiritspam/smiter as they buff both the offense and defence. We ran a big hex build last night and couldn't keep anything sticking only because of E finale and a friggin Blight. One blight owned all our hexes as it was spammed upon recharge. In other words, I think Paragons are a fine class to ignore if you enjoy losing.

Stealth Rider · Nov 14, 2006, 03:22 AM // 03:22

Quote:

We decided to abuse this a few weeks ago with a paragon spike build. 5 paragons spiking with spears, two monks, and a runner.

i remember fighting that. off topic a bit, but that spike was pretty riddiculous as well (lots of small hits, very scary especially with Wild Throw)

Thing about motivation Paragons is it allows you to use secondary Paragons with Command shouts very effectively, without removing too much from your team. for example, ive been considering different builds involving a motivation paragon and Searing ele with Stand your ground and Godspeed with an Aegis chain in the build. In theory it would be very strong defensively *and* offensively, but it hasnt been tested yet. Imagine a build that can pressure very well, has room to split 2-3 chars without losing flagstand defense/pressure, and is very strong defensively 8v8 against most builds. Hell, the only thing it had theoretical problems with was vs hex teams, and theres a Shout for that (Paras are like Visine. Itchy eyes? There's a SHout for that.)

Patrograd · Nov 14, 2006, 07:28 AM // 07:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

One blight owned all our hexes as it was spammed upon recharge. .

You can easily run purge sig on both monks if you've got enough shouts going round, which as an interesting side effect also removes ALL the counters to paragons bar one, diversion. 2 x purge, x 2 blight, both spammed on recharge. Prot spirit and spirit bond spammed all over the place continuously. Massive defence for everyone, including NPCs at VOD.

Kabale · Nov 14, 2006, 10:23 AM // 10:23

What more could you want?

A nerf probably.

neoflame · Nov 14, 2006, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Watch Yourself! was around forever - with Nearby AOE.

This, and

Quote:

[15:33:52] [Vindexus] watch yourself is good I M O
[15:34:06] [Vindexus] but it's hard to find a midline character with a warrior secondary