ArenaNet talk:Skill feedback/Paragon/Leadership

How about something like: "Chants, shouts and echoes you use cost 1 less Energy for each affected ally (maximum -1 Energy for every 2 ranks)."? Cost reduction would mean no energy gain from adrenaline shouts/chants, but it would still affect the energy based ones. Nicky Silverstar 15:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * What about "for each ally within earshot" to cover the single-target and foe-targetting shouts? -- Gordon Ecker 23:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah that was the point to make the para able to not having to bring a friendly buffing shout or chant, then reduced energy gain from adrenal shouts and chants to not make the Para too powerful was the general Idea. While I do agree that adrenaline based shouts and shouts is good and may need a little nerf, lowering energy costs of shouts and chants is like making expertise only work on bow attacks. Paragon is much like a warrior without any eman skills other than the attribute leadership (not counting the Glowing Signet with its 20 secs recharge)--85.225.131.117 23:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * IMO they should just make it flat out cost reduction. -1 energy required for 2 ranks in leadership. In GvG and HA, you are nearly always getting max benefit from leadership. So if they changed it so that it didn't required allies in earshot, nothing would change for those 2 game types. The change to no longer require allies would make paragons be more playable in splits, in RA and TA and AB, or any other situation with reduced amount of allies in earshot(PvE missions wiht reduced party size, PvE farming with reduced party size, running). I can't see how removing the need for allies would have any negative effect at all. --89.142.68.225 14:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I suppose that would be a reasonable trade-off for the fact that it would reduce energy instead of giving energy, but it would mess up the notion that a Paragon is as powerful as the allies he has. You know, like Leader's Comfort and Signet of Return... Nicky Silverstar 07:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well obviously, since his skills buff several people, paragon gets more powerful with more allies. --89.142.137.2 20:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * "while also allow them to use more skills for energymanagement and thus making more of their skills useful" - How will this allow paragons to bring more energy management skills? I didn't see no "paragons get extra skill slots for energy management" clause. So this change and comment is crap. It won't help balance profession in any way. I will just force paragons to bring additional energy management, thus forcing them to leave something else out. Thanks for nothing. --Spura 14:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I take it that you are joking but if thats not the case then, more skills as in diffrent skills other than "GftE!" and "WY!". Any shout with this change will give energy back depending on the amount of allies within earshot not on the amount of allies affected. With this change some skills would probably have to be adjusted to not become too powerful("IJaFW"). In the end this would open up a whole lot more viable builds for the profession.--85.225.131.12 02:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

What bothers me
Leadership should accentuate the strength of the Paragon, chants/echoes and subsidize its shouts (not warriors') akin to Expertise. When you think about it, shouts should never have been given to Paragons, since they are noninterruptible and nonremovable. It just breeds imbalance that way, given that it is a party buffer. Save Yourselves is a good example of why Paragons shouldn't be given energy on warrior shouts, since it was meant for Warriors but ended up on Paragons mostly. The majority of warrior shouts aren't party based (and don't benefit from Leadership for the most part)other than Watch Yourself!, Charge!, Retreat!, and Shields Up!. In the latest update, Watch Yourself was hit indirectly in terms of the duration and Shields Up! had unremovable 50% blocking of projectiles taken off and +24 armor against everything rolled back to the oldest version from Prophecies, with armor against projectiles and a tradeoff of 10 armor for the 50% block. The rest of partywide shouts are Paragon skills that could have been Chants. In general, shouts should have been kept to instant-effects that don't have a duration (Coward, On Your Knees, You're All Alone). Now we have unremovable buffs instead. Paragon shouts either don't get enough subsidy from Leadership or simply end up in net energy gain (Go for the eyes). Lead the way (10 energy), Make your time(10 energy), Find their weakness (10 energy), Make Haste (5 energy), Brace Yourself (5 energy...with other problems), Can't Touch this (epitome of niche), The Power is Yours (completely decimating energy), Stand Your Ground (15 energy) suffer from the poor design of Leadership. They're on Fire! feels like it could've been a chant instead and Never Surrender is sort of broken since it relieves pressure at almost no cost other than a skillslot. Most of these things cannot be changed now, which is why you have things like nerfing Watch Yourself to oblivion. --Life Infusion &laquo;T&raquo; 19:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

On Paragons
Leadership is fine. Paragons don't have "less builds than other classes." They have "Less overpowered builds than other classes." There is a very fine difference. Paragons are currently in a state of balance that makes most people want to cry. They are only good for one thing - everything, and that is why they're broken. The "average joe" paragon bar provides constant DPS, occasional spikes, and fully effective heal parties, on top of having 116 armor (most of the time). In short, they are too good at everything. They're like rits, but with armor.

Paragons should have to choose "damage or support," not both. Leadership is a decent attribute, and it works exactly as it should (except in smaller teams, where it's useless). The problem is not that there aren't other builds to run. The problem is that having the "i do everything" bar always beats having an "I specialize in party support" bar or an "i specialize in spiking and DPS" bar. ~Shard (talk / Nerf List) 00:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Paragons should have to choose "damage or support," not both, I agree but how is that to be done if we dont change leadership, one thing I could go with is to change their current e-man skills that is not based upon allies within earshot.--81.230.179.25 21:32, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * That is simply not true. There actually aren't other builds to run. That Average Joe build as you call it, with a bit of variation, is the only viable paragon build. And even that doesn't have 8 good skills. Anthem of Flame, for instance, is a crap skill. If Aggressive refrain didn't exist, NOBODY would run Anthem of Flame. It is just bad. They are like 2 good support skills in whole profession right now. --Spura 08:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you tried Anthem of Flame? First of all, it's free (usually nets you energy in fact), and it does up to 42 damage whenever an ally uses an attack skill within 10 seconds (in a team with 3 physicals, Anthem of Flame can do 100+ damage).
 * Idk if you got what I tried to say in my post, but "There actually aren't other builds to run" is pretty much exactly what I said. I can cut down the number of unique paragon builds to 2, and only because one is specifically for HA paralameway teams and one is specifically for GvG.  Leadership is fine, the skills just need to be changed. ~Shard (talk / Nerf List) 05:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * 100 dmg spread slowly isnt much, it doesnt matter if its free or not, its still useless. its not consistant enough for it to be pressure and happens too slow for it to be spike. statistic wise it might show that its the godliest skill that was ever made, in actual gameplay it only serves to keep up AR when out of combat. many paragon skills are like that 76.26.189.65 19:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree Anthem of Flame isnt the best skill out there it can be good for keeping refrains up though. Still I would find it more fun if they made a change to leadership since the way leadership works now its too limited to only use partywide support skills not saying that other ways of balancing are wrong. I just wish Anet would enable more viable builds but I get the feeling they wont since they hated Paragons from the start--85.225.131.244 13:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
 * If there was no AR, I would never waste a slot on Anthem of Flame, neither would anyone else IMO. If you assume physicals hit same person, then you only get 42 dmg. If you assume physicals are hitting separate targets, then it's heal party(or similar skill) fodder. In any case it is a bad skill. Changes in leadership attribute are needed because right now, I've yet to see much use of single target shouts, paragons in splits, RA, TA, AB. Because of retarded way Leadership works, Anthem of Flame brings max of 4 energy in AB. Thanks for nothing. In any case, don't see any other profession having primary attribute effect limited in such a large way. --Spura 16:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

comment on suggestion
That change does nothing but make the energy managing in Paragons harder. Adrenal shouts and chants are where I get almost all my energy management from. As it is nearly every build I use has a "just for the energy" chant or shout.Miss Innocent 01:46, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well the change will make more shouts usable for the paragon as I removed the affected allies part, doing that I had to make somechange to adrenaline based shouts/chants else it would make paras too much more powerful than they allready are. The suggestion was mainly to make paragons able to use more skills without need of changing every shout and chant while nerfing the current meta build for paragons slightly--85.225.130.132 00:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The term "Imbagon" only applies to PvE. Although popular, not every GvG and HA team has a paragon because it's not an automatic choice. As for, "It should support or damage, not both", it's best non-elite support skills got nerfed (Watch Yourself and Shields Up), so now the only support it really leads anymore is through its elite. Also, Magebane Rangers can support and damage (support from interrupts, damage from Sloth Hunter's Shot), so why can the Paragon not do that exactly? 76.89.81.150 16:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * paragons are pretty lame in pvp --Blood Anthem [[Image:User Blood Anthem Sig.jpg|19px]] 02:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Then you're doing it wrong. CoF Cruel Spear para says hi.  76.89.81.150 23:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Reduction instead of gain
How about making Leadership reduce the energy cost of shouts/chants instead of making them gain energy? That would stop the energy gain problem with adrenaline shouts. 145.94.74.23 08:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a great idea IMO. Especially if they made it so it wasn't linked to number of allies present. Just on ranks. So paragon would be better in RA, TA, AB, splits, farming. It would also make single target shouts better. Right now "Make your time!", "Find their weakness!" cost 10 energy on a 2 pip profession even with leadership. Which makes them suck. Of course "It's just a flesh wound" would have to be repriced to 10.
 * In fact if they did this, stopped gain from adren shouts, they would need to reprice a LOT of paragon skills. --Spura 09:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)