Curse

Thom Bangalter · Oct 17, 2006, 08:13 AM // 08:13

I'd put this in the paragon forum but we all know how that would go.

Looking at the wiki, a lot of the command line is practically imbalanced when combined with any sort of pressure build. Go for the eyes+find their weakness means that allies within earshot are basically spamming deep wound on everyone. Crippling anthem fits nicely in there as well, meaning you're spamming deep wound and cripple and your crit rate is up to 75% at 15 command. Combined with a few pressure skills like barbed spear and blazing spear, and you're adding way more pressure than a melandru's ranger or crip shot could, at the cost of trading off the disruption they provide.

I already know that find their weakness+go for the eyes is pretty powerful in ranger spike, my guild could clean spike people without orders. however, I think pressure builds are where paragons are really going to find their place.

If you wanted, you could also use soldier's fury to get a fairly consequence free IAS as long as shouts are staying up. Am I QQing about nothing, or do paragons seem as strong as I think they are?

Dervishes can suck on it.

Vermilion Okeanos · Oct 17, 2006, 08:24 AM // 08:24

Not only that, paragon also got ranged deep wound spike.

GftE + vicious attack + harrier's toss + disrupting throw; I have a feeling that paragon don't have cast delay yet... anyone get to test this over WPE?

Yanman.be · Oct 17, 2006, 08:35 AM // 08:35

"It's just a flesh wound" + plague sending. No attribute needed + aoe deep wound.

Tainek · Oct 17, 2006, 09:20 AM // 09:20

Ive made a paragon pressure build in the gvg section:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10061211

i agree that the dps is revolting, assuming the paragons only keep bleed and poison on 5 targets , IAS attacking both , its got to be about, prehaps 35-40 DPS just attacking IAS , slightly lower than a warrior, now we factor in the critical hit every attack (go for the eyes), this makes 4/5 attacks about 56 or so damage (i belive thats a perfect damage) , the attack speed is just over a second, so lets say 50 DPS, now we factor in Bleed+ Poison , 14 Heath per second, making the paragons put out around 64 DPS on paper, 64*5= a potential of 320 damage a second to a team, left unmitigated of course, this is combined with the ability to spike (even if it is weak, the enemy monks are going to be panting anyways)

Spura · Oct 17, 2006, 09:49 AM // 09:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

Go for the eyes+find their weakness means that allies within earshot are basically spamming deep wound on everyone.

No it doesn't. Find their weakness is single target shout and expensive.

Xasew · Oct 17, 2006, 11:51 AM // 11:51

3 W/P with "GftE!" and a Paragon with Blazing Finale+Crippling Anthem sounds delicious. And the Paragon can go P/W, put some points to Tactics and get "Watch Yourself!", "To The Limit!" and "Shields Up!" for some defence. No elite required, too. And the W/Ps can take stuff like "Never Surrender/Give Up!" for some added defence.
Actually, with "Never Surrender!" it's almost like IWAY: Craploads of pressure, high regen and such.

Tainek · Oct 17, 2006, 12:30 PM // 12:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xasew

3 W/Rt with "GftE!" and a Paragon with Blazing Finale+Crippling Anthem sounds delicious. And the Paragon can go P/W, put some points to Tactics and get "Watch Yourself!", "To The Limit!" and "Shields Up!" for some defence. No elite required, too. And the W/Rts can take stuff like "Never Surrender/Give Up!" for some added defence.
Actually, with "Never Surrender!" it's almost like IWAY: Craploads of pressure, high regen and such.

i think you mean w/p

Tainek · Oct 17, 2006, 12:37 PM // 12:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spura

No it doesn't. Find their weakness is single target shout and expensive.

it is expensive, at 9 energy a pop, but as long as that paragon has gfte (which 99% do) , if he hits only four people a time, he will still gain much much more energy than he is spending even if he used find everytime its recharged

Xasew · Oct 17, 2006, 02:44 PM // 14:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tainek

I think you mean W/P.

I think so, too... It's edited now.

Greedy Gus · Oct 17, 2006, 03:53 PM // 15:53

I'm not sure about paragons yet, but spears are extremely strong compared to other weapons. They do seem to miss semi-regularly, but the stats are insane, basically a one-handed bow with better DPS.

Byron · Oct 17, 2006, 04:02 PM // 16:02

I don't think it's very prudent to label something harmful to the game without also evaluating its counter. I didn't have very much time to evaluate the new monk and ritualist skills, but it seems that condition removal and pressure-counters are getting a significant boost.
For example, mending touch removes two conditions from a touched ally(for example, the monk who is wielding it) at a 3/4 cast time. Deep wound, espcially one coming from range and without a KD, isn't nearly as scary with mending touch on the bar. The metagame has plenty of room to evolve IMHO, especially with the considerable boost of utility to the healing line. And, how about passive protection (bonds)?

Patccmoi · Oct 17, 2006, 04:27 PM // 16:27

Ya, spears are imbalanced on paper, but in game they were actually very easy to dodge which balances them. There is no 'increased spear speed' skill like arrows, so it's like shooting with a wand from shortbow range (slightly longer, but easier to dodge too), and wands are a joke to evade.

Their damage and attack speed makes up for the fact that they miss quite often, but then again missing on a 10 adrenal skill hurts a lot. If you can pin a target in place though, they hurt a LOT.

I don't think personally that Paragons add more pressure than Dervishes (2s recharge AOE Deep Wound for 5E? Apply Poison + Sandy Grip + Wearying Strike = Poison-Blind-Deep Wound every 2s for 5E to all adjacent foes... use Armor of Thorn, and they're also all crippled, and when it ends they're all bleeding... i mean, for condition bombs, Dervishes can't be matched at all). But they offer nice team support pressure.

But keep in mind that condition pressure only goes so far. Martyr and Heal Party still exist.

Thom Bangalter · Oct 17, 2006, 06:18 PM // 18:18

I didn't mean to imply they were imba, just really really strong.

Misread "Find Their weakness" though.

Drewfense · Oct 17, 2006, 06:54 PM // 18:54

I worry more about spike potential. The more front loaded spikes become due to shouts/chants/spears (so infuse/rof cant counter), the more reliant on preprot skills and interrupting a team becomes. If interrupting is taken out of the equation by new skills (ward of stability for oflame spike recently), spike defense becomes more and more reliant on the monks preprot skills. Even if new preprot skills are added, it still depends on the monk efficiently recognizing and tagging the target prespike. Considering spikes teams have the capability of having mass amounts of defense, it can take a significant amount of time to score a kill. This forces the task of preproting to not only be done well, but highly consistantly, a challenging job for even the better monks in the game. This logically leads to a need for party wide preprot skills...the ritualist...which butchers the game...

Things that are horribly imbalanced will be corrected quickly (fragility + hypochondria...), but I worry more about the things that are just enough to make GvG crappy and are left till the end of the next season to fix.

Patccmoi · Oct 17, 2006, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Well, with the range stance removal (spears have it) as well as Wild Blow, interrupting isn't actually THAT much of a problem.

Mass preprot a war with Wild Blow to rush in the MoR spikers and Wild Blow their stances, and an interrupt ranger or the like can easily interrupt spikes afterwards. It's not things that are incredibly hard to include in a build, most of the times it means 1 skill slot on a war and that's it. Things like OFlame spike (which i agree are quite lame overall, that 2 Me/W + 3 E/Me spike is truly annoying) mostly take advantage of the fact that few teams come with a counter ready.

I don't like spike teams much either, but i don't think Paragons make them work more than they already did. Keep in mind the counters that come in Nightfall too (like Area AOE hex preventing the use of any shout/chant combined with an Area AOE Shadow of Fear! A hex heavy team might make it quite hard to use things like that by covering enough hexes. Area AOE hexes makes it pretty easy to overload a team's hex control)

And attack spikes are usually actually pretty easy to interrupt. A Dual Shot (or a spear attack) is easier to dshot than a Mesmer casting Energy Burn or a Monk casting Orison, and those are pretty easy interrupts. Just get a stance control in case they have too much block/evade or MoR. You don't need to Cry a full team to stop a spike, most of the time interrupting a key caster along with an Infuse (or other fast healing skills like Spirit Transfer on Rt, or Imbue Health coming on Dervish) can pretty easily save spikes.

Paragons also bring anti-spike skills like Incoming, Angelic Bond, Angelic Protection, They're on Fire! (with mass burning) that totally screw up spikes. They're on Fire will make even Energy Burn deal 41-50% less damage, and with things like Anthem of Flame, Burning Refrain, Blazing Finale and Rodgort's/Immolate Ele it's pretty easy to actually keep key targets burning.

So i'm not too worried with spikes becoming uncounterable overall.

Vermilion Okeanos · Oct 17, 2006, 07:48 PM // 19:48

I think people are missing the point.

Paragon can spike and buff/support pressure in the same game with 1 bar is like an old dream comming true (after some nerf like gale etc). Not just that, they got rez buff + hard rez.

SaintGreg · Oct 17, 2006, 09:57 PM // 21:57

Most of the more potent paragon buffs are both adrenaline, and have casting times. This means it probably wouldn't really be that lucrative to go around spamming buffs and have your whole team just instagib on the next spike since you'd waste so much time gaining adrenaline to use all the buffs AND still use attack skills. It'll be interesting to see how it goes, but I think it has enough natural counters that it'll never get too out of hand.

Already many teams bring shields up, if paragons get too out of hand, everyone will just start bringing it.

Spura · Oct 17, 2006, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tainek

it is expensive, at 9 energy a pop, but as long as that paragon has gfte (which 99% do) , if he hits only four people a time, he will still gain much much more energy than he is spending even if he used find everytime its recharged

GTFE triggers every 6.66 sec, supplying 4 energy as you say , Find their weakness would burn 9 energy every 5 sec.

I fail to see how gaining 4 energy every 6.66 sec and spending 9 energy every 5 sec is gaining much much more than he is spending(sic).

Red Locust · Oct 18, 2006, 12:05 AM // 00:05

Yeah the paragon command shouts are really nice in pressure builds. Crippling anthem, go for the eyes, find their weakness, aria of swiftness, all combine for a lot of pressure in a warrior or thumper (especially a "scythe thumper" for the huge criticals) heavy build.

Vermilion Okeanos · Oct 18, 2006, 03:00 AM // 03:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by SaintGreg

Most of the more potent paragon buffs are both adrenaline, and have casting times. This means it probably wouldn't really be that lucrative to go around spamming buffs and have your whole team just instagib on the next spike since you'd waste so much time gaining adrenaline to use all the buffs AND still use attack skills. It'll be interesting to see how it goes, but I think it has enough natural counters that it'll never get too out of hand.

Already many teams bring shields up, if paragons get too out of hand, everyone will just start bringing it.

Mind naming your "potent andrenline cast time" buff? You provided no example.