User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Overpowered Skills/Paragon/Archive 1

Aggressive Refrain

My friend tested the damage of paragon and warrior vs 60 AL and... It's almost the same. It shouldn't be like that. The problem is that I don't know how to nerf it, maybe make this skill 10% IAS instead of 25% - it won't solve the problem but it would be a good start.

-20 AL while attacking. 138.217.251.67 09:58, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

First of all, Paragons attack slower than warriors (who often use Frenzy, 33% IAS), their projectiles can be dodged and their bonus damage is less than that of a warrior. Second, I fail to see why only certain professions should be allowed to do something. If you want to make your Paragon a damage dealer, then he should be viable compared to other damage dealers. He may do more damage, if he is lacking in another way. It is the same with a Healing Monk and a healing Ritualist, they should be different, but just as powerful.Nicky Silverstar 07:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, since Paragons can easily do just as much damage as Warriors, lets just remove warriors from the game. Oh and let me guess, you compared the Paragon with 2 skills to a Warrior with no skills? Paragons don't do quite as much damage as Warriors. They might if they go pure damage and no support, but if that is the case you may as well go warrior. If you go with support and damage, the Warrior will win. That doesn't even include The time spend using Chants. 10% IAS? Come on. Who is going to spend 25 energy for a 10% attack speed increase? I say we change Frenzy to 6x damage because Warriors do more damage than Paragons when they use it. --Deathwing 07:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

25 energy is nothing to a paragon, that's two or three gtfe's and gg. Throw it up at the beginning of battle and you have an unending IAS with no drawback - not only does it increase your basic DPS, but the rate at which you can spam gtfe, which directly influences the rate at which you can spam mirror of disenchant and shatterstorm and deep freeze and whatever random shit paragons can spam because leadership is broken. Agg Refrain wouldn't be bad if paragons didn't have the best primary attribute in the game atm, but I doubt leadership is going to get nerfed, so might as well knock this off in the meantime. -Auron 15:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I've always been a huge fan of this suggestion. ~Izzy @-'---- 23:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

10%? Who would drop a skill slot for 10%? Done25 03:48, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Noone, obviously goal here is to destroy skill so that it no longer sees gameplay, not to ballance it. Its easier that way and whoever hated paragons would be really happy. Zweistein 07:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

This clearly shows how unbalanced GftE is. Why not make it a chant, and a lot of problems would be solved.Nicky Silverstar 08:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

What suggestion is that Izzy? -20AL while attacking? If that comes to pass, it'd be great tbh. And if people get spiked, well they can obviously just stop attacking, but they wouldn't be a brick wall that just shoots and absolutely ignores whatever's pressuring them like most do now Patccmoi 18:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

As I suggested on Guru: 15/1/20, same duration, but subject to decay: The reapply duration decreases by 4% per second from the last fresh cast, so after at most 25 seconds, it needs to be recast. I also suggested Mending Refrain be 5/1/8, 15 duration, 4%/sec decay. -- Riotgear 10:23, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

What about can only be reapplied x times equal to your attribute for all refrains? 12 leadership, it'll refresh itself 12 times before ending. Then fiddle with the energy cost if need be. --Racthoh 22:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought of that, but it's counter-intuitive and makes the skill LESS useful as you add more shouts and chants to the build. A similar, more-intuitive solution would simply be to make it stop reapplying after some period of TIME. Riotgear 02:59, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Yup, you're right, a paragon with 2 skill slots used does more damage then a warrior with no skill slots used. Any other bright observations? I guess mending is overpowered because a warrior with mending can defeat a warrior with 8 blank skill slots? Sure... -Rakeman 02:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Paragons do NOT attack slower than warriors. Swords, axes, and spears all have a 1.33 attack speed. The OP is right...this skill is hard to change without making it useless. Maybe it can only be renewed a certain amount of times? At least it would slow down the already overpoweredness of paragons. Maybe every time it's renewed, it gets 1 less second duration. I like using this skill but I agree it is overpowered...and every speargon uses it (for a good reason). Shard 04:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The spear article says spears have a 1.5 second attack interval, however it could be outdated, the attack interval was determined during the PvP beta, and I'm not aware of any more recent testing. -- Gordon Ecker 05:13, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Paragons are overpowered? News to me. I must be doing something very wrong, or play a Paragon in a team whithout 7 other paragons...Nicky Silverstar 10:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I've tested it again, the base attack interval for spears is still 1.5 seconds. -- Gordon Ecker 03:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe every spear paragon uses it because it is the ONLY paragon IAS in the game (non-elite) -Rakeman 08:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Paragons are one of the most underpowered classes in the entire game right now. When NF came out, Paragons had serious utility and were a real jack of all trades. A midway point between monks and warriors. Currently, the only thing they are useful for (in PvP) is to spam "Go for the Eyes!" to pop off some higher-energy spells every once in a while. Every other skill a Paragon has been nerfed into oblivion or just plain old sucks from the get go. If you nerf this skill, Paragons go the bottom of the barrel in terms of effectiveness and in terms of picking up a group somewhere. If you nerf this, buff something else. Give Paragons a viable alternative. —ǥȓɩηɔɧ〚₮/ḉ〛 08:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Nerfing doesn't mean making it unusable you know. The most supported nerf idea is to give it -10/20AL while attacking. Does this make Aggressive Refrain unusable? No, i think that every single Paragon would still run it. The only difference is that if they're targetted, maybe they'll bother kiting or at LEAST stop attacking instead of just ignoring it because they're big brick walls. I played Paragon and i stood in AOEs just not caring because you have so much AL that you might as well just keep shooting and know it'll all be healed by the next LoD. Aggressive Refrain would still be very strong, just more balanced. And Paragon's strength in PvP right now is powering high energy utility (like Mirror of Disenchantment, etc.) because of Leadership + GftE! giving tons of energy while providing solid DPS support and spike assist. The most common Paragons are usually P/Me with like Expel Hexes, Power Return and Mirror of Disenchantment, throwing spears while trying to break down a team's defense by interrupting/stripping Aegis and Wards, and keeping your melee clean with Expel. They're actually very solid characters in PvP. But i fully agree that a BIG part of their skills suck. But considering how bad it would be if it didn't suck (Motivation as a whole is such a bad, bad idea if it's functional), i'm sadly not really interested in seeing that utility buffed. Paragons are a good design for PvE but aweful for PvP, and sadly the fact that they can't be too strong in PvP makes them weak in PvE. So i expect most of their skills to stay badly subpar and make it up with very strong PvE skills (which they actually have now). Patccmoi 19:12, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for reinforcing what I just said- Paragons have only one truely viable build to use right now. -10AL while attacking wouldn't be so bad for this skill though. —ǥȓɩηɔɧ〚₮/ḉ〛 19:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to disagree, Paragon armor is NOT so ridiculous that you can just go around ramboing everything as you make it out to be. Unless you are on an 8 man paragon team... -20 armor is WAY too much... that gives the paragon a base armor of 60, which is caster level. -10 armor would be okay I suppose (or hey, why not -16, essentially canceling out your shield, or -8, cutting it in half), but in exchange, I think Paragons need their crap skills made useful! It's only fair, because right now, Paragons have... what? One or two viable builds? So many paragon skills are useless. Also, please remember that many paragon players use warrior weapons... a -20 al while attacking would ruin the fun for those people, and unfortunately, those builds are extremely popular given the general mediocrity of most paragon builds.-Rakeman 08:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Paragons ruin "fun" for pretty much everyone as they are. PvErs think they suck (lol, hard mode mallyx was gg with the imba para pve only skills), PvPers think they're overpowered - that doesn't sound like a great class either way. They already have powerful, spammable attack skills and unlimited energy - nerfing how fast they can autoattack isn't going to ruin the fun of it for anyone. Also... using warrior weapons on a paragon? Wth? Paragons are gimped if you stick them on a melee weapon, that defeats the entire point. -Auron 08:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) I'll tell you who it ruins the fun for... people who enjoy playing Paragon. Using warrior weapons does NOT gimp the paragon at all. Check out the ToF tank, http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:P/W_ToF_Tank, the parathumper, http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:P/W_Aggressive_Knockdown, and there is a rather popular sword paragon build that isn't up on the wiki yet. Your logic makes no sense... I guess Bunny Thumpers are gimped because they use warrior weapons instead of bows? I guess Axeassins are gimped because they use warrior weapons instead of daggers? So gimped that EOTN is making a skill just for them! -Rakeman 17:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Too many people keep underestimating how good paragons are. Looking at skills, you don't think that while they're standing still, they're contributing about as much damage as a sword warrior. When you think about it, they're ranged frontliners. Shard

There's a reason people use hammers, axes, and scythes instead of swords in serious PvP. —ǥȓɩηɔɧ〚₮/ḉ〛 05:51, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

"Cripslash." -Auron 08:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

That's the exception rather than the rule. —ǥȓɩηɔɧ〚₮/ḉ〛 19:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Dragon Slash? Since Prophecies, there was a solid stapple Sword build for competitive PvP in every patch. Sword was never 'underused'. Before Dragon Slash it lacked an elite and so was used for weapon when you required another utility elite (Charge and Bull's Charge were pretty popular) because it was the BEST weapon without an elite attack skill while Axe totally relied on Eviscerate and Hammers on their elite knockdowns. Dragon Slash turned sword into the highest DPS weapon. Cripslash turned it into a great utility weapon for a good mix of condition + damage pressure, on top of having the very powerful synergy of Sun and Moon with Conjures (although that's dead until Rending Touch is brought back to a less ridiculous level). So forget that 'Swords aren't used in serious PvP' nonsense. It doesn't actually bring anything to the argument and it's totally wrong Patccmoi 18:34, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Dragon Slash isn't very good because of the heavy blocking metagame. Pop an SoD on a character, that warrior uses Dragon Slash, GG DPS for quite a while. —ǥȓɩηşɧ〚₮/ḉ〛 08:02, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

-20 armor while attacking on Aggressive Refrain is such a good idea that I'd really like to hear the counterpoint be made. It's easily the best attack speed boost in the game, in many matches you put it up once, before you even begin fighting, and never touch it again. It stacks with absolutely everything, use whatever stances you want. It turns Paragons into these awesome, ranged damage machines, that you can't chase off because they have so much armor. Seriously, no one kites with a Paragon. You move to attack one and he just looks at you funny. People haven't branched out too much with weapon selection largely because spears are so good on the class, but when they do, it's apparently how crazy Aggressive Refrain is. Whatever weapon you use is supercharged, for free, because you put Aggressive Refrain on your bar.

The -armor drawback is ideal for the skill because it directly addresses multiple problems, and does so in a way that promotes player skill. Paragons gain increased incentive to kite and not just attack through spikes, and they become more vulnerable to AoE and other positioning-sensitive damage. If you're aware and quick, the only drawback is that you now have to care about being spiked or standing in AoE. At the same time the skill is sufficiently powerful that I don't think that anyone would flinch and take Aggressive Refrain off of their bar - it's that good. But the skill will have some real tradeoffs, which is exactly what it needs. As I said, it's such a perfect idea for the skill that I'm surprised it isn't in yet. -Ensign 11:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds indeed like an excellent solution. -Void 14:15, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

What if the armor penalty scaled with how many chants and shouts you had on you? Say like -20 base and -5 per shout or chant while attacking? The whole paraspike thing is pretty crazy I don't know if -20 AL while attacking would do it. I think those teams should be punished for stacking so much of the same profession. Also then maybe Motivation can be buffed so it's useful outside those teams. --TimeToGetIntense 07:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I really don't like the idea of a skill which rewards you for having one chant on you but punishes you for having two. -- Gordon Ecker 07:47, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, but -20 armor might not even be enough. Paragons start at 106 armor (since they'll have a shield and armor insignia), and will likely get another +10 from their shield against many things hitting them. --72.211.155.160 18:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

In all reality, Paragons are very weak. All of there elites, were overpowered, and then nerfed to the state of Jagged Bones. They have sunk so low as to be nothing but a utility class. Their one advantage is AR + GftE. They have a moderately low damage output in comparison to that of a frontliner, and also have lesser defensive capabilities to that of a Monk or E/Mo. They have no place in PvE, and if they get nerfed sufficiently they shall never see play. Rather then just nerf AR, buff Incoming/Angelic Bond. Make it so they no longer must run MoD/Expel or BiP, make the class be self-sufficient in general. Readem (talk*gwwcontribs) 06:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

What about TNtF? It's like a cheaper, unstrippable 2/3 power Life Barrier and a 2/3 power Heal Party every 10 seconds. Right now it's pretty much the only really good thing Paragons have going for them, but it's still pretty good. Anthem of Weariness looks like it has some potential, and there could be a nice party buff shout, although, based on the names, it looks like most or all of the Norn shouts will be self-only or target foes. -- Gordon Ecker 07:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

That's exacly the problem: what Paragon will take Command or Motivation when he can have just Leadership to not help the party out defensively, but help it out better than if he would have taken either Motivation or Command. Seriously, if some Leadership skills were distributed over Command and Motivation, the balance issue would be a lot less, but for now, all the best skills are in just 2 attribute lines, including the one that gives super energy management. TNtF is spitting in the face of every Paragon player who thought Motivation would be a cool support line. Nicky Silverstar 15:02, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Please don't pollute an honest discussion of paragon balance with pve talk. Paragons *do* do damage only somewhat less than that of a frontliner, especially since kiting is less effective against them. They *are* a utility + damage class, quite effective at both. Is this a problem? Most classes are. You don't see mesmers complaining that they're just a utility class, do you? --72.211.155.160 00:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we're drifting off topic, but I don't see why discussing PvE would "pollute" an honest discussion of Paragon balance. -- Gordon Ecker 09:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Because balance in PvE is determined more by the choice of monsters, their AI, and their bars, than finetuned skill function. --72.211.155.160 21:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how paragons are "very weak" when 50%+ of all competitive 8v8 teams run 2 or more. That's utter bullshit. Yes, their skills need serious help. No, they are not "very weak." If anything the paragon is a fucking supercharged ranged dps machine with 80AL.

You mean 96 AL against all targets, 106 AL against a single element of their choice, plus whatever they get from the inevitable Watch Yourself spam? --72.211.155.160 21:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

(reset)I would gladly trade in some damage for more support, if only the support you got back for the damage would be an equal trade. More Motivation is simply less useful than more Spear Mastery, especially when considering that most Leadership skills can preform the same function as Motivation. TNtF is the ultimate: IGNORE MOTIVATION BECAUSE THIS IS SO GOOD! skill. And I disagree with the previous statement, PvE is just as important as PvP. If you ever played Hard Mode then you would understand. Nicky Silverstar 06:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

PvE balance is a much smaller concern than PvP balance for two reasons. First, because individual PvE zones are tweaked for different expected player skill levels, and in general the skill level required is fairly low. PvP on the other hand has a scaling difficulty depending on the skill level of the opposition. Differences in skill power become more significant as the skill level of the players and the difficulty of their game increases, as the players do a better job picking out the best skills and need to maximize their advantages. Similarly, while PvP has players on both sides and the imbalanced stuff rubs the imbalances in everyone's face, PvE is static. No matter how powerful an enemy is, he will always do the same thing, and it is your task as a PvE player to figure out how to overcome that obstacle.

Hence not only are PvE balance issues of less importance than PvP issues, on difficulty alone, but they're not even the same type of issues. PvP balance is really concerned about the fine tuning of skills and abilities, while PvE balance is really just making sure that every class is valuable for something.

It is somewhat saddening to me that this is being discussed in the Paragon section, as the Paragon was one of the strongest PvE professions even before the addition of PvE-only skills. With the PvE skills, Paragon is unquestionably the best PvE player profession. On top of that it's also perhaps the easiest profession to use. The number of complaints about PvE Paragon power have done nothing but convince me that most of the complainers are very, very bad at Guild Wars. -Ensign 20:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Easiest profession to use? Try an assassin... -Rakeman 03:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

If you're talking about Random Arena or some other situation devoid of tactics I'll agree with you. In GvG the tactical burden on an Assassin is enormous while the burden on the Paragons is virtually nonexistent. That difference overshadows the simplicity of using your skills as an Assassin - there's no way I'd let a pickup player get on an Assassin for GvG but I'd be more than happy to put him on Paragon. -Ensign 08:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. However, I must ask, in your opinion, what separates the Paragon in skill required from the Warrior and Ranger? To me, it seems that it is just that Rangers have interrupts and warrior is melee, which is inherently more difficult (requires more kiting and such)? -Rakeman 15:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm a stupid huge fan of the -10 armor on this skill, and it's something I'll probably try and push for. Until then keep up the feedback on this thing. ~Izzy @-'---- 23:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I really hope you meant -20 armour, as -10 armour on a class that easily hits 106 armour isn't going to be felt all that much. ;P All that'll really do is make PvE'ers whine about more Paragon nerfs, but no one in PvP would care. TLLOTS 00:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that this skill is NOT overpowered. It is used a lot because it is the only non-elite paragon IAS... if Paragons had more then one option, the others would see use too. It costs 25 energy, which is expensive as it gets, on a character with 2 pips of regen. An IAS that costs 25 energy better be damn good, especially if it is the only IAS that profession has! It only gives a 25% IAS at the price of 25 energy. Yes, it has the potential to be permanent. That is why it costs 25 energy to use. -20 armor would be such overkill it wouldn't even be funny... that would give the paragon caster armor+a shield! Paragons are made for combat. At least Izzy's idea of -10 keeps it at ranger armor+shield, which is reasonable. The bottom line is, when you give a profession ONE non-elite IAS, that IAS is going to see a lot of use, and that does not make it or the profession overpowered. If the goal is to make a Paragon better as a support not attacker, then sure, give it a little less armor, but right now a single paragon sucks for support while multiple paragons are incredibly imba (which is why, as someone said about, many teams use 2 paragons- because on paragon is essentially worthless and 2 are good- then again, every team uses 2 or 3 monks, and I don't see people screaming NERF MONKS! But if they are, please link me). This is because of broken game mechanics, not a nerf/buff issue. So basically, a -20 armor would make a paragon a crap attacker, a crap supporter, but still great at running paraway teams. Doesn't look like it will solve ANYTHING, Paraway will still be overpowered and single-paragons will suck more. How about instead of nerfing Aggressive Refrain, make Centurion's Insignias only effect chants and shouts? Echos can be kept up constantly with no problem, so Centurion's essentially becomes a constant armor boost. Removing the functionality so echos don't count (similar to how that elite IAS works, forget the name)would essentially be the same as a -10 armor nerf, but a little more delicate as it wouldn't just effect one skill, but the profession as a whole (it would no longer have a constant base armor of 90 with a refrain kept up, but 80 for most of the time), which would effect paragons with or without the skill... -Rakeman 03:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

-20 armour would not reduce them to 76 armour, it would reduce them to 86 armour thanks to centurions insignia. 86 armour is still a heck of a lot, especially when you consider that the Paragon is perhaps the best class for buffing armour levels even further, so even with the armour cap they could still hit 110 armour without a problem.

Regarding your suggestion to alter centurions insignia, I have thought of the same thing and suggested it before, however if your aim is to weaken Paragon teams more than you weaken singular Paragons then I'm afraid you're kidding yourself, as Paragon teams will all too easily meet the shout/chant condition if the echo condition is removed while the same cannot be said for a singular Paragon.

Lastly, the intent of the -20 armour suggestion is not to nerf an overpowered skill, the intent is to nerf an overpowered class. You could of course just do that directly by cutting Paragon base armour to 60, but I suspect a nerf like this would be far more palatable to many. Paragons never should have had 80 armour in the first place, this is just the means to rectify that mistake while minimising the resulting whining.TLLOTS 07:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The suggestion for Aggressive Refrain isn't -20 armor. It's either -10 armor, or -20 armor while attacking. Either one will do a lot to fix the overly heavy defense of the profession, without tweaking armor after the fact...since Aggressive Refrain is easily the best IAS in the game, it is very unlikely to affect its usage at all. -Ensign 08:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. How many Paragons, in PvP, use centurion's insignia? Is it the clear majority? I don't know, I still think Centurion's armor is a bit of the problem... it easily raises the base armor to 90, not 80. Chants, shouts, and echoes can be upkept permanently with no trouble... I definitely realize (looking back) how removing the echo portion would keep paraway imba. I think, if from the get go paragons had a base level armor of 70, plus a shield, and no centurion's, they would have been pretty fine. I guess giving Aggressive Refrain a permanent -10 armor penalty (which is my preferred of the two situations, although certainly -20 armor while attacking would be interesting!) begins to remedy it... but Centurion's insignia is still pretty broken IMO. -Rakeman 15:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem with AR as I see it is that you can easily maintain it, and there isn't really a whole lot your opponent can do about stopping you from doing so. All the other IAS's are either stances or enchants, which can be stripped or removed in multiple ways..... At the moment this can only be effected by a few hexes that can easily be removed. As a radical, off the top of my head idea, why not make it a stance? (Agressive Stance maybe?) At least it can be stopped. You might want to consider reducing the times and costs a little to compensate.

I agree that it is a bot more powerful. But how about giving it a -20 while active, and boosting a few underused skills to compensate instead? I mean, even with -20, you would still have 68 armor at least, and with insignia and shield, 86, which is still quite high. Nicky Silverstar 15:43, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Weapon of Aggression is unstrippable, and Rapid Fire is unstrippable and ridiculously easy to maintain. I think the best solution would be to give all Refrains a duration cap and tweak Finales so that their power doesn't scale linearly with the number of Paragons in the party. -- Gordon Ecker 01:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Duration caps seem overly complicated, -10 or -20 while attacking intuitively feels like a much cleaner solution. I can easily understand the while attacking mechanic whereas it's strange to work steadily to keep the buff active only to have it fall off at an arbitrary time. --Tankity Tank 12:40, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

possible solution: Change the functionality of echoes so that they do not exist. Change current refrains or echos to chants and give them a reasonable duration, not to exceed 30s. update the pve skil "there is nothing to fear" so that if you cast a chant while it's active, it lasts 0...10 times as long based on leadership att. love, Aran 21:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and kill one of the last few VIABLE paragon build...OOh OOh lets change the whole class to have 40AL 1 energy regen and max of 100 health!!! That way you can kill off the ENTIRE class instaed of nerfing them to death....Do you WANT para-gones to be utterly useless??

Excessive hyperbole and excessive pve discussion (namely: any) don't help here. --128.196.188.23 17:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

And excessive PvP fixation doesn't help here either, PvE is also a major part of GW because, belive it or not there are people in the game who could not care less about PvP, this is one of the last few untouched paragon skills left and if u can't deal with one paragon then you need to play smarter, there is no need to nerf EVERYTHING that you can't kill in one hit.-PissedOfPara

It's not one paragon that people are concerned about, it's 2-5 of them on the same team. You have no idea how strong that is. --Tankity Tank 10:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This is the ONLY IAS that paragon's have for them , warrior's no one gives a damn about bescause they have 2 or 3 of them, this is our only non-elite IAS , instead of nerfing everything that paragon's can do why no buff the counters? because, quite frankly if you are going to nerf this class for what they can do , then there is no point to having it in the game AT ALL.-PissedOfPara

It's the only IAS and it also happens to be broken. I guess life is hard sometimes. --Tankity Tank 11:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Aran, a few lines up has the solution to 85% of all problems related to paragons: "Change the functionality of echoes so that they do not exist. Change current refrains or echos to chants and give them a reasonable duration".

A skill mechanic that scales more than proportionally with the number of characters of that class in the party makes for a horrible class: No matter how you try to balance it, you will always ever have one of the two: Paragonways that are overpowered, or single paragons that are underpowered. The -10/-20 while attacking idea is a solid proposal for a singular problem, but it wont help the paragon predicament as a whole. Noone in PvE wants to play the class, because all interesting builds where nerfed (and the remaining TNTF spam requires the skill of a toddler), they were nerfed because they stack so horribly well when you add several paragons to one team. Introducing -armor might solve AR, but to solve paragons as a whole, echos need to go away. --Xeeron 11:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Or maybe Paragons as a viable class need to go away...Rest in Peace AR, I knew thee well. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:122.167.18.3 .

You have mastered hyperbole sir. --Tankity Tank 14:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Lol , thanks for the laugh but I'm not kidding , this class has become useless in just about everything.

Useless in everything except everything that matters - Paragons are beasts in GvG, in HA, in PvE. I'm still unable to really grasp how bad you have to be at Guild Wars to declare the Paragon to be a useless profession. -Ensign 10:33, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm fed up with the constant Nerfs to all the paragons best skills with almost no attention paid to all those super-crappy skill they are saddled with. Lets face it there are only a handful decent Paragon builds being played at the moment. This is because they have so few skills worth taking, more Nerfs are just more nails in the Paragons coffin. It doesn't help they are relying only on skills from Nightfall, the EotN skill aren't even worth talking about they are so poor. Nerfing their PvE skill in to nothingness? Why didn't you just link the duration to leadership fully, 2 secs per point in leadership + 15sec recharge that would have stopped abuse by other classes. Stop the Para hate and fix their crappy skills first! Ajax Baby Eater 20:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Some skills do probably need to be nerfed, this being one of them. Could you please have a look at some of the rather crappy skills that the Paragon has? The Paragon has the smallest skill pool, along with the Dervish, and more than half of these skills are unusable. Nerfing the current Warrior build will not effect anything, they will just go to the next best build, which is still overpowered. Nerfing the Paragon's current build is drastic, because there is no next best build. If you are going to nerf the above average skills, at least give the horribly below average skills some love? Such as Angelic Protection, "Help Me!", "Incoming!", Inspirational Speech, "Can't Touch This!", and "Brace Yourself!". --Deathwing 04:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Every profession has lots of godawful skills that never get used. Paragons are in no way unique in this respect. The only thing that really stands out to me about Paragon skills is how much the Paragon community dislikes using their good skills. -Ensign 00:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This is true. However, other professions have a larger skill pool than the Paragon, and all of their useless skills are generally pooled into one attribute, Smiting Prayers for example. Paragons have the smallest number of skills, and have horrible skills spread throughout all attributes. Every attribute does have a few good skills, a few mediocre skills, then a large amount of awful skills. I'd be much happier with mostly mediocre skills than with 3 overpowered, 3 mediocre, and 12 shit skills. --Deathwing 22:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I feel that -20 Armor while attacking would be the best change to aggressive refrain because as Ensign said, it would force Paragons to kite more, which is really the problem with the paragon in the first place. Paragons have 106 Armor (including Insignia), thats armor against every type of damage that doesn't ignore armor. Another reason it should be -20 while attacking is because Warriors have to cancel their IAS, to receive less damage, why should basically a ranged warrior not have to as well? --(Problem. 01:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC))

No they don't!! Warriors do not hae to cancel their IAS to avoid taking more damage, its not a consistent thiang across IAS, only Frenzy, and Warriors have plenty of thse sorts of skills to choose from. Besides Agressive Refrain isn't a stance, its an echo, therefore the is no canceling it. These proposed changes would leave a Paragon no choice but to stop attacking when under pressure when using this skill, that effectively makes it useless for a class which is basically a Warrior with a Spear. Any Warrior using Frenzy has the option of using another Stance to cancel Frenzy when under pressure not just stop attacking all together. Please think through these changes rather than just comparing it a completely different skill type, which works so differently. Ajax Baby Eater 06:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

-20 Armor while attacking isn't a very strong way to nerf this skill. If you want to nerf this a -10 armor while the skill is active would be a much more effective nerf. Even still, people would run it without a second thought. -Warskull 21:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this is another one of those disfunctional skills. Trying to justify a great effect with a massive cost and than having too much power and too much cost to negotiate. The paragon weapon is slower, and the IAS is less than many others, so the speed definetly should not be reduced. I think the Echo duration, recharge and cost should all go down. This is an Echo, and effective shout counters should knock this, among most paragon functions, down into the dirt. With lower cost, duration and recharge, it is more likely to miss it's rechage, and more likely to require another application. And if the shout counters are developed to where they should be, the benifit of shouts and energy supply offered by them will be much more risky than before.

I would suggest 15 energy cost, 5-13...16 duration, 15 second recharge. This alone may make it easier to maintian for some builds, and putting -10 armor may be acceptable along with it. But by no means should an unremovable trade off have a high duration and high cost, your paying for it with defense and if you need your armor back, the only option is to evade the use of shouts and chants, as well as not use your own. Personally I think a trade off you can't remove isn't appropriate, and focus on shout counters and shutdowns should be focused on. No shouts, no reapplication.--BahamutKaiser 17:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

← moved to User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Update20071012

R.I.P ?

So it would seem that the.... I dunno an impartial way to say it.. "change"... to AR will remain intact. I guess there is still stuff I can do with a Paragon, but it really is not much fun and really, unless I am with a full team of Paragons, not even remotely as effective as the other (now most certainly better) classes are. I no longer have any interest in my Paragon and I haven't played him for a total of 5 minutes since putting him thru his paces Post-Nerf. If I didn't hold onto some hope that things will eventually be set right I would just delete him. The whole thing reminds me of an old saying:

Dear Developers, I find that paper is overpowered. I think scissors is fine. Thanks, Rock.

66.189.105.127 02:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Evenhands

Wow that is....sad. One skill is nerfed so OMFG the class is dead? Come on now, you attack a little slower so the profession is dead? Wow? My only suggestion is maybe learn to play. My Paragon has always been, and continues to be the best PvE character I have, and I never have really used AR. I know....I'm sure people will call me a noob for not using it, but I just couldn't be bothered maintaining it between battles for a slight attack speed buff. --Deathwing 22:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I would call myself more of a noob, I use Soldier's Fury rather! Much better to chuck +dmg spears that recharge quickly at highspeed than actually use one of the rather lame and conditional spear elites. Great fun seeing 115 dmg pop out of a sin :)--Shaia 15:34, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

It's more like one of the final nails in the coffin. Spear attacks were the only line that hadn't got consitently torn apart, and now the only non-elite IAS is screwed out of usefulness. Cracked armor is a trigger for so many nasty effects, and a constant cover for anything thrown at an offensive para.

Additionally, the skill wasn't even made cheaper or a lower cast time to compensate. -20 armour as a skill effect is fine. A constant seed condition for a load of attacks is not. 81.2.90.239 23:34, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

One of the most problematic parts of the constant condition is the fact that it buries any conditions you're suffering from, making it very difficult and costly to remove conditions on the paragon without an RC monk to do it every time... 76.102.172.202 22:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

ANet knows all this. They don't care. Stop wasting time moaning about it and rather spend more time reminiscing on the good old days :) Or no, let's pick a class that we don't like, and play it so well that ANet will nerf it as badly as they nerfed the paragon! But seriously, 29million more useful methods of dealing with AR/CA have already been mentioned/suggested and summarily ignored by ANet. So, don't bother, have a tankard of ale and sing merrily in the tavern with the other chanters ;) --Shaia 15:34, 16 November 2007 (UTC)