ArenaNet:Skill feedback/Paragon/The Problem with Paragons

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[edit] The Problem with Paragons

Issue

OK, paragons get a lot of people saying they're broken, possibly more so than any other profession. The way I see it, though, it that the problem with paragons (as with ritualists and dervishes to a certain extent) is the opposite of The Problem with Assassins.

Unlike assassins, which are OP in small groups but poor in large groups, paragons, thanks to the way Leadership works and the large AoE of shouts and chants, struggle a lot (particularly with energy management) in small groups, with the exception perhaps of one or two sub-par builds (the Focused Justicar springs to mind), but can be incredibly powerful in large ones, especially when there are lots of them (they get almost exponentially more powerful).

Suggestion

The way I see it, Leadership needs something to be done about it. The problem is, what? The whole point of Leadership is that it relies on allies, and to fix it you would have to undermine the whole concept. Well, that's still something of a conundrum, although here'sone idea I'd like to throw up:

• Leadership. "Whenever you use a skill, you gain 1 Energy per ally affected by it (maximum 1 Energy for every 3 ranks)."
• Leadership. "Whenever you use a non-adrenaline skill, you gain 1 Energy per ally affected by it (maximum 1 Energy for every 3 ranks)."

Now these two would mean less energy was gained from each shout or chant, since the cap is lower, but to compensate you would get more energy overall since all skills would give energy. The only worry is that this might lead to some problems with other skills giving too much energy - normally this shouldn't be a problem because most skills would effect only one or two allies at most, but Aegis, Order of the Vampire et c. could cause problems. It might still work, though, because at 15 in PvP, Aegis on a paragon would still cost 10 , would be less powerful than Aegis on a monk, and would lack the Divine Favour bonus. Order of Pain and Order of the Vampire would effectively be free, energy-wise, but most of their cost is made up from the sacrifice, so who knows? If it looks too powerful (more powerful than Leadership is now in big teams?), you could always add a Soul Reaping-like clause like "You can only gain a maximum of 10 energy this way every 6 seconds" or whatever.

The advantage of a change like this, though, would be that since the cap is lower, a paragon in HA or GvG would have only slightly better energy management than a paragon in RA or TA.

OK, Internet Explorer crashed the last time I typed a load of these so I'm not gonna spend too much time explaining them again. If you want to know, say so on the talk page. :-(.

Conditions (suggestion)

OK, a great idea which would really help balance paragons would be to add another condition or two to counter them. I think it's quite unlikely this will actually happen (although Craked Armour was added, so who knows?) but it would definately be a good thing.

Deaf. Condition. While suffering from this condition, you cannot be affected by new Shouts, Chants or Echoes.

This would be really useful because it would prevent shouts, chants and echoes on single targets and would fit in great with the Air Magic line, for example. What's more, teams who didn't communicate could have paragons spamming shouts and chants without realising that their allies weren't being affected by them and that echoes were running out on them.

Silenced/Mute. Condition. While suffering from this condition, you cannot use Shouts or Chants.

The only problem here would be the whole thing with Dazed (it used to be called silenced) and flavour-wise how this doesn't affect spells whereas such things as Shroud of Silence do.

General skills

Some ideas for general changes below:

Soldier's Fury.

OK, it quite a nice skill but needs a buff. However, rather than actually buffing it I suggest indirectly improving it by making more chants and shouts duration-based rather than with only an end-effect.

UPDATE 07/08/08: This has been buffed.

Aggressive Refrain. 25 1 20 .

Echo. For 5...21...25 seconds, you attack 25% faster but have Cracked Armor for 20 seconds. While attacking you have -12...9...8 armour. This Echo is reapplied every time a Chant or Shout ends on you.

OK, in essence Cracked Armour alone was too poor a nerf since it has little effect or can be used to help you. This is better.

"Can't Touch This!". 5 12

Shout. For 15 seconds, all offensive touch Skills used by adjacent foes fail, and melee attack Skills have a 10% chance to fail. Whenever a skill fails in this way, it takes an additional 2...8...10 seconds to recharge. "Can't Touch This!" ends after it has prevented 2...5...6 skills.

The idea here is that this skill could actually be useful if it did something other than simply block touch skills. A small chance to prevent attack skills combined with the extra disable duration, further empowered by the small area, would make it reasonable at relieving pressure from attackers as well as simply negating touch skills. What's more, touchers can't simply carry on spamming at you because their touch attacks will be disabled. Remember that this skill not only stops touchers, it also affects Shock (and Shock Axes are quite common in HA), Plague Touch, Rending Touch (SWay) and so on, and it also fulfils the requirement for Soldier's Fury, Soldier's Defense et c. Since it's a single-target shout, it would also be just as useful in RA, TA and HB as in HA, GvG and large PvE, which (if it actually became useful) would help make paragons decent there without making them even more powerful in large teams.

Spear Attacks

Generally I have few problems with these, but some tweaks might be in order:

Disrupting Throw. 5 1/2 15 .

Spear Attack. If this attack hits, it interrupts target foe's action. If you interrupted that foe, and they were suffering from a Condition, that foe is Dazed for 0...2...3 seconds.

This skill is poorer than both Warrior and Ranger interrupts. Now, Warrior interrupts are melee-ranged and so should be better. Rangers probably ought to have better interrupts too since they are meant to be an interrupting class. However, this skill is just too poor, and buffing it would make Paragons better in 1-on-1 or small-scale battles.

The change here makes the interrupt unconditional and adds a Daze, but the Daze relies on both the interrupting and the condition, and has a very short duration. Many people will probably just wait it out, but if you're lucky you might get an extra interrupt in. Thus, this change shouldn't make the skill OP, but you could always increase the recharge to 12 or 15 to compensate.

Maiming Spear. 5 8 .

Spear Attack. If your attack hits a Bleeding foe, you deal +1...7...9 damage and that foe is Crippled for 1...11...13 seconds.

Currently, this skill is far more used by Pack Hunters in HB than proper Paragons, for it's OP Cripple when combined with Barbed Spear. Nerfing it slightly makes it harder to keep Cripple up on people, and adding a small amount of bonus damage makes up for this. Also, the scaling of the Cripple and bonus damage favours high Spear Mastery slightly, encouraging use on Paragons (though I doubt it will actually have much effect).

Mighty Throw. 2 2 .

Spear Attack. Your spear moves three times faster. If it hits, you deal +10...34...40 damage. If the struck foe is not adjacent to any allies, that foe suffers from Weakness for 3...9...11 seconds.

OK, high damage, faster spear, but it's just not worth it for 3 seconds of activation. Dropping this down to 2 would make it much more worthwhile.

The not idea for the extra "not adjacent" clause is to make it more like a ranged Horns of the Ox, but of course knockdown would be too powerful (though possibly if you made it have to hit a moving foe instead). Flavour-wise, I figured that it wouldn't be unreasonable for a spear flying with that much power ("mighty") to wind or weaken someone, and balance-wise it favours small battles and/or skilled play (although it's tricky enough to use, since your target may have moved by the time you throw this).

Unblockable Throw. 5 2 .

Spear Attack. If this attack hits, you deal +10...34...40 damage. This attack flies twice as fast as normal and cannot be blocked.

This was basically just an unblockable Mighty Throw with a +5 cost, or a skill about as powerful as Wild Throw but with a ridiculous activation time. This was ridiculous because considering how weak Mighty Throw was, this was even worse, especially considering that against foes with lots of blocking, which is when you'd need this, it's going to be nearly impossible to get that 7 .

Decreasing both the cost and the activation time make this skill much more feasible to use. A double flight speed also prevents it from simply being dodged (or pretty much does - spears are hard enough to dodge anyway), which means that without miss chances from Blindness, Blurred Vision et c. you are pretty much guaranteed a hit.

Chants

Yeah, see above for the thinking on these.

Anthem of Fury. 5 1 10 .

Elite Chant. For 8 seconds, all party members within earshot gain 0...2...2 strikes of adrenaline the next 1...3...4 time(s) they hit with an attack Skill.

OK, overall a buff but not too major a one even though the overall potential gain is higher, since it's trickier to use (need to hit more times). Possibly pop up the recharge to 12-15 too.

Anthem of Envy. 6 1 2 .

Chant. For 10 seconds, all attack Skills used by each ally within earshot deal +3...5...6 damage against foes with more than 50% Health.

Yeah, same idea, and more clearly defines it as a pressure skill. Added a slight recharge so it's not up all the time.

Anthem of Guidance. 4 1 4 .

Elite Chant. For 8 seconds, the next attack Skill used by each party member within earshot cannot be blocked and has an extra 5...29...35% chance to critical.

Becomes a great spike skill but needs a lot of co-ordination to use. Also has an activation so a bit less powerful than if it was like "Go for the Eyes!".

Crippling Anthem. 4 1 .

Elite Chant. For 10 seconds, the next 1...2...2 attack Skills used by each ally within earshot causes Crippling for 5...13...15 seconds.

Basically, it's underpowered and needs a buff. I had a great explanation of this before, but lost it, and can't be bothered to write it again.

Zealous Anthem. 10 1 20 .

Chant. For 10 seconds, the next 1...3...4 time(s) each ally within earshot uses an attack Skill, that ally gains 1...3...3 Energy.

Yeah, same idea as Anthem of Fury again. I think this one's been suggested before, too.

Aria of Restoration. 10 1 20 .

Chant. For 10 seconds, the next 2 times each party member within earshot uses a Spell, that party member gains 10...46...55 Health and you lose 1 Energy or Aria of Restoration ends on all affected party members.

The idea here is similar to the above ones, as well as making it more powerful but at the price of the paragon's energy. Though paragons have quite good energy management with Leadership, they still need the energy in the first place to use skills, so being reckless with this could hurt (especially if you get 10 spells out of it).

Hexbreaker Aria. 8 2

Chant. For 10 seconds, the next 1...3...4 time(s) each ally within earshot casts a Spell, that ally loses 1 Hex. Whenever a Hex is lost in this way, you lose 1 Energy or Hexbreaker Aria ends on all affected allies.

This skill is currently underpowered since it's very hard to use (8 adrenaline and 2 activation?), and buffing it shouldn't give rise to any problems since it only affects spells. Thus, paragon-heavy teams will get little benefit from it since they tend not to use spells that often. With the suggested change, it would gain the power to remove a large bulk of hexes, but the paragon would have to be careful with it (as with Aria of Restoration above) to avoid energy loss. Since it's an adrenaline skill, though, you would currently get 8 just from using it and so would get at least 8 hexes off, unless you used another skill.

Alternately, something like:

Hexbreaker Aria. 8 2

Chant. For 10 seconds, the hexes on each ally within earshot expire 5...21...25% faster and 10...50...60% faster while that ally is casting a spell. When Hexbraker Aria ends, each affected ally loses one hex.

A change like this would make the skill much more powerful (it might be too powerful, so a duration decrease might be in order too) and allow it to affect non-casters as well, while keeping some of the benefit to casters. What's more, it would get more and more powerful with more hexes, making it great against the massive hex stacks which are OP, but not quite so great against hexes which aren't. It would also have a nice bonus in that it would mess up hex durations for foes (e.g. Diversion would only shut you down for ~4.5 secs instead giving them less spike time, or whatever).

Ballad of Restoration. 10 1 15 .

Ballad of Restoration (PvP). 10 1 15 .

Chant. For 10 seconds, whenever each party member within earshot takes damage, that party member gains 2...6...7 Health. Ballad of Restoration ends on a party member if it heals that member for more than 60 health.

Currently, Ballad of Restoration will heal everyone for ~75 health unless they don't take damage for 10 whole seconds, which means they don't need it. This means it works like a delayed AoE heal spell (such as Heal Party or Heaven's Delight). These spells shouldn't be powerful anyway, since they require much less skill to use.

A change like this will mean the skill still has a similar effect, but it lasts longer so you can't simple get two or three paragons to spam this (for about 3 energy) as you could before - a lot of the overlap was removed by its early end time. However, the health gain from it would still be limited, stopping it from being OP and also stopping Vocal was Sogolon synergising with it too well. The fact that affected people have to take damage multiple times also makes it less effective, since overall they will be losing health (it now really just slows the rate at which people get hurt, rather than actually healing them). This all makes up for the reduced duration.

Song of Restoration. 10 1 20 .

Song of Restoration (PvP). 10 1 20 .

Elite Chant. For 10 seconds, the next 1...3...3 times each party member within earshot uses a Skill, that party member is healed for 10...28...33 Health.

Same idea as Ballad of Restoration here, making this skill more like Song of Purification should make it better (i.e. less broken, not more powerful) and allow the recharge to be put back to what it was. In terms of using it, this now heals for slightly less overall but recharges faster, making it slightly better than it was previously (so some people might start taking it again). In terms of balance, it's a bit more powerful but, like Ballad of Restoration, is less broken.