User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Overpowered Skills/Paragon/Archvie 2

Enduring Harmony

makes shouts/chants harder to balance (such as Defensive Anthem). It should probably only affect echoes (refrains are already reapplied so that means only finales/Soldier's Fury are affected). --Life Infusion «T» 19:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Song of Concentration

For 10 seconds, the next skill used by each ally within earshot cannot be interrupted.

This skill in HA is just broken when used on the ghostly hero in king of the hill maps, the only counter to it is PD thus forcing all holding builds to bring a mesmer.

it should be changed to

For 10 seconds, the next skill used by each party member within earshot cannot be interrupted.--The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:130.245.244.211 .

The only way? What about Distracting Shot? What about knockdown? -- Gordon Ecker 02:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It really should only stop one interrupt. This skill makes it too easy for teams to give themselves a failsafe vs interrupts. 72.235.48.41 09:10, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I made a mistake, according to the description, Distracting Shot shouldn't disable if the interrupt is prevented, however Disrupting Chop and Disrupting Lunge should work. -- Gordon Ecker 09:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

And the 2 second cast on this skill and high adrenaline cost should make it pretty easy to stop...I don't think I've ever seen an HA team bring two people with this. RitualDoll 17:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

My team has, but that was just because we fucked up lulz. This skill is not overpowered, if anything it wastes a skill slot :/. --Readem 00:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Synergy with Claim Resource in Hall of Heroes is retarded. Claim Resource can't be disabled, so Song of Conc. and Aura of Stability make capping inevitable for very low cost and not much skill intensive. On the other hand, even a fast recharge interrupt like PD has a tough time interrupting both song and Claim Resource. The only other things it really synergizes with well are long-cast hard-resses and easily-interruptable skills like traps. I suggest making the skill only work on party members, eliminating the whole Ghostly Hero cap issue.Samcobra 20:07, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Overpowered as a class but not as One

Ok. I play a paragon, only in PVE, cos I don't have the chance to do organised PVP - AB is disorganised PVP. I was one of the whiners when TNtF was nerfed to 20 sec recharge for PVE. Truly irritated me. And I didn't understand how everyone kept saying that paragons were so overpowered. Then I dropped my monk and my other hero. Added Hayda and General Morghan to my combo build with Motivation/Leadership and Command/Leadership, both using AR on their builds with some adrenaline echoes/chants/shouts.

Instant god-build! Even with the many nerfs that has hit the paragon, when you have more than one in a party - heaven forbid four - it does certainly become a problem. BUT only in PVP because it is only in PVP that you will find more than one paragon in a team! Everyone I play with is amazed at my PVE combo build, and I always joke and say there are only 5 paragons in the PVE world and two of them are my heroes, lol.

ANet messed up. When the paragon was first introduced, it took some getting used to. Then suddenly it became obvious how superbly crafted and overpowered the shouts were. ANet had in fact created a 'god' character. Then they nerfed him. First Motivation, then Command, Leadership got some as well. Then the PVE-only skill which was being abused by the 2ndry paragons. For PVE the paragon is very badly nerfed. There is no reason to take one paragon into a party anymore - easily replaced by a warrior or a monk or a ranger and now even by the insanely overpowered PVE skills that GWEN has introduced! Imagine that, a whole class being able to be replaced by a few PVE skills. It doesn't mean that he is useless, just that there is no reason to have him there. You want an ele because of AOE damage, you want warriors for their spike damage and tanking facilities, you want monks for healing and protection, etc. The paragon can do those roles as well, but why take one when the other class will do it far better? Let alone those new PVE skills. The paragon on his own in PVE, unless partnered with another paragon, is not a consideration. And the little I hear of good paragons in PVE also doesn't help the cause.

In PVP it is a problem, but, good grief, are you people too lazy to take a neccie to use vocal minority? Is it such an unwieldy thing for a neccie to do? There are enough neccies in PVP to counter paragons surely. And if there aren't, then why is that? Surely new skills are introduced to make people use them, I mean if they are complaining about how paragons are so powerful, there are still ways to shut them down. Plenty of curses from the neccie and mesmer to go around. Sure, the monks can take em off, but there are enough ways to still pressure the monk and handle 2 paragons in a PVP battle.

ANet should perhaps consider limiting the amount of same-class players per party. It would certainly make things more interesting - for a while I suppose, before another new metagame team build emerges.

I sit here wondering whether there will even be paragons in Guild Wars 2, because ANet made a huge mistake with the Paragon class. For PVP there is no real solution, unless ANet introduce a method of shout/chant/echo removal, which would be an odd mechanic to implement I think. To a point Ulcerous Lungs does work, ontop of soothing images, throw in some Vocal Minorty, and yes it is not hard to shut down the paragon. Having two would be more difficult, but heck, shutting down two good monks is not the easiest thing in the world either.

It just means that the metagame has to evolve to counter the threat from the Paragon. That's what makes GW's so good, there is a counter to everything. Adapt to it. The paragon has had to adapt to the nerfing it has received from ANet, and that is perhaps more difficult to do than figuring out how to shut em down in PVP. --Shaia 17:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Paragons aren't nerfed in PvE. Passive defense still rocks. I know many people that play HM with two paragon heroes. As for suggesting that one of the 64 available slots gets wasted on a useless hex like Vocal Minority, that's just moronic. Not trying to attack you with that statement, but nobody packs incredibly specific counters like that because it simply doesn't pay off. It's basic game theory - sure, it might work really well versus a few builds, but it does nothing versus many. It's far better to take skills that are good versus basically anything (like distracting shot, blindness, diversion, energy denial) than to take single function skills "in case". That's why skills like Ignorance and "Can't Touch This!" don't see any use. For a specific counter to be used it also has to be of moderate usefulness when the specific situation isn't present - a skill like Complicate is almost there - I've used it before, but it's not strong enough. It has a somewhat strong specific-to-signet function while also providing some decent general usefulness - change it to a faster recharge and it might be a valid option; sure, the specific effect is weaker on average than a Power Leak or Power Spike, but it interrupts action (broader effect) and has a bonus specific anti-signet function. A better recharge could put it on a skill bar as a flexible interrupt with a bonus function. Vocal Minority simply lacks that - bump the cost of Vocal Minority and add some degen like Suffering, you might have something - but it's got to have usefulness on its own to even be considered. A dead spot on a skill bar is too big a weakness. --Epinephrine 18:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, isn't the whole point about this that there are too many paragons in PVP? How can the neccie skill be a dead spot then? If it doesn't warrant using it, then your argument about paragons goes out the window! Don't you see that these counters were introduced for a reason? Perhaps these counters need to be revisited for PVP play. --Shaia 10:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Just face it: Paragons are the one class where ANet did mess up. No matter how long you nerf individual skills, the class is broken, not single skills. Shaia describes that very well. The bigger question is how to unbreak it... --Xeeron 19:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

There is another side to the neccie anti-shout skill....because warriors also do shouts: be it WY, Fear me, etc....added degen via bleeding from Ulcerous lungs is added pressure on the monk to remove a condition and a hex, yes there's purge signet, but he's going to lose a lot of energy doing that. So, Ulcerous lungs and Vocal Minority are not only for paragons. (And rangers also have one or two in their skills not sure how often they are used though) The other thing with the passive defense skills that a paragon carries, is that it is only for party memebes, not pets, not allies, not co-operative teams. And a prot monk can provide much better defense skills and partnered with a tactics warrior, why bother with the paragon. From that point of view, the single paragon in a PVE party is not really a common feature of the PVE game anymore, heck you hardly see any paragons anywhere. The solo or single paragon player has been severly nerfed in PVE. This is a fact. Yes, one can still get by as a single paragon...in a party that he/she creates themselves from guildies or heroes and henchies. This is the only way that a solo/single paragon finds a party in PVE. I am in the same boat, my parties are generally always H&H or H&Guildie. Lucky for me, my wife plays this game too, so we are often forming a strong PVE combo party. In truth, AR does need to be...not nerfed, not rebalanced (we all know what that means, eh)...but rather made more conditional, or perhaps it should not be an echo but rather a shout. ANet can only really 'fix' individual skills now on the paragon class. Any other option is to redesign the paragon class completely and that would probably only be a consideration for GW 2. --Shaia 21:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Are we too lazy to take Vocal Minority to counter Paragons? Are you kidding me? Vocal Minority is a steaming pile of donkey shit. Do you know what sticky hexes (hexes that need to remain on a foe for a long time to be effective) do in any build that doesn't feature multiple dedicated hex spammers? Nothing! Purple arrow goes on, purple arrow comes off, team laughs and wonders WTF you think you're doing. In a hex build, Vocal is pointless; Spirit Shackles and miss chance hexes, besides being a whole lot more flexible, do more to neuter a Paragon than Vocal Minority.

Honestly I'm tired of having these discussions. Anyone talking about how bad their Paragon is in PvE is shit. Their inability to copy good bars or learn anything about playing their profession gives some insight into the scrub experience with Guild Wars, but as far as discussions about what is good or not are concerned they're New Earth Fundamentalists at a physics convention.

Paragons are a support class. They are *not* heavy lifters. If you put them on a team that doesn't do anything, that team will be very well supported while doing nothing. If you put them on a team with good characters, those characters go into overdrive and walk all over everything. Good players love Paragons because they buff up their good teams and let them rip through the game with ease. Bad players hate Paragons because they need someone else to carry the team for them, and Paragons can never do that. It's quite simple really. -Ensign 00:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

That should be put on the front page, and added as a note to every other page on this wiki. --Deathwing 00:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I always wondered why iQ was the best; I just found my answer. Readem Hate Mail Goes Here 02:38, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I've already gotten into this topic a little, so I'm mostly just pasting, but the basics of Paragons lopsided advantage is this, design. Much of it's effectiveness is designed around synergy, almost totally reliant on synergy, and if the team doesn't have synergy, most of the build fail to benifit.

Some key features to consider are these. Firstly when designing a specific counter to a specific build, it needs to totally crush that one build. No if's ands or buts about it, the foe has to either counter that counter with shutdowns and interrupts, or bring enough utility to still offer something when this enevitable counter to an enevitable feature is used. In Vocal Minorities case, it should simply crush shout and chant use. Shouts and Chants are unremovable, so completely preventing them should be alot stronger than skills manufactured to counter other skill types which can be blocked, miss, interrupted, stripped and overcome. And simply put, Vocal Minority needs to have the frequency to deny shout use constantly, no matter how much they try to remove the hex, and even on a larger area so it is hard to avoid.

Secondly, Paragon shout and chant synergy, as well as leaderships energy management totally relies on location, specifically, tight locations. People take this requirement for granted because the natural counters are totally denied. AoE damage. It isn't any wonder Dervish originaly had an AoE attack, it came in the same package as the profession which benifited heavily with tight group synergy. This is really a no brainer. Players have always overlooked the function of AoE damage as an advantage rather than a situation, this simply doesn't work. Foes have to maneuver to avoid AoE punishement, and staying in a tight group is a serious liability if the counters are effective. Never mind that a select few spells have been improved, the use of all shouts and paragon builds offers powerful unremovable benifit if a group is packed together, and the power of AoE damage needs to make it a liability, and that means all AoE. When the frequency and radius of AoE damage is returned to area effects and repeatition, we will have the natural opposition to make paragons scramble for distance. DoT damage should naturally offer moderate damage on a single unit for a high cost, but devestating damage on a large group. This does not mean every now and than, or on adjacent foes, this means in an area of "you cannot stand here", and "you can never stand together" or my AoE will create more damage than your defense can handle.

This natural opposition always belonged in the game, because of remote situations and prejudice exclusion of AoE effects as a counter they should be instead of a benifit that has to be limited, we cannot use them enough and they do not effect enough area to naturally counter the opposite side of the spectrum, benifits from powerful local support. Elemental damage also needs some more effective widespread defensive counters as well, since Anet has been going the route of suppression, elemental damage survival has been mitigated to utility defensive measures instead of adding some powerful elemental cut downs. When AoE Damage and AoE support are recognized as opposite sides of the same technique, and balanced to oppose eachother directly in battle so players learn to utilize the benifit and fear the risk of local effects, than both will be enjoyable to use, and their opposition will create a balance with eachother. As long as one is ignored and the other is suppressed, the problem will never be solved, because stacking local buffs will either always be too powerful, or slowly shut down til it is too weak.

We can just take this into context. Incoming was totally broken because, along with all the other benifits a group of paragons gained from sharing echos and spamming other shouts, you could half the damage delt on an entire group in a cycle. What would happen to that same group if you could bring meteor shower down every 30 seconds on nearby opponents, put down firestorm in a continous cycle of 10 seconds from 2 elementist, and spam vocal minority every 5 seconds along with Suffering. Oh yeah, there's alot of room for circumstance, but wouldn't it be difficult? I'm not saying how those effects would be balanced, I'm just saying, when natural opposition exists, and end all specialized counters offer their worth, AoE location support is simply a tactic, with advantages and liablities, like all tactics should be, instead of an uncontestable function which has to be suppressed and whined about with no effective solutions which allow the abilities to remain fun but balanced.--BahamutKaiser 18:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with a lot written there, but let me state this right away: NO buffs to AoE damage range. --Xeeron 19:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

So what's your other option? Decrease Shout range? It is about time players learned to flank, sting and maneuver with cluster offense in mind. As well, some skills need to be fitted or added with some functional elemental pressure release.--BahamutKaiser 19:47, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You can choose any of the 100s of paragon nerf suggestions around (my personal favorite being lowering their armor), but do not create a meta where everyone runs 4 AoE eles. --Xeeron 22:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

They can't run 4 AoE elementist, because it woln't do enough damage against effectively positioned foes. AoE can be provided by Dervish as well if it is also adjusted, and skills to defend against these techniques will also become more popular and developed in kind, but nerfing will just suppress paragons advantage along with AoE advantage. It really comes down to improving everything or suppressing everything, suppression doesn't make the game fun to play, and nerfing is why we here at this point.--BahamutKaiser 02:36, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Once again the PvE Paragon community (which is on its knees) is going to suffer becuase PvP players use whatever it takes to win a game (and who can blame them?). Paragons will become even more unwanted, unloved and unplayed by even more while the general pve guild wars populace will think less of them. As this thread has pointed out, it isn't a single paragon that is the problem, but a group of them. You should always treat the cause, never the effect. Treating effects is pure firefighting and the problem will reemerge locking you into a viscious circle. The cause is the grouping in PvP, not just purely Paragons. The same is true for N/Rt teams and Ritualist Spike teams... infact any pure class spike team. A limit of 3 or 4 of each type of character is the best way to control this. Without this limit, then you are always going to get a balancing problem with pure class spike teams. Whichever skill is buffed or gained a marginal advantage over others will be used in a spike team. Look at the ritualist buffs as an example of this. All you will do is cycle skills or classes around this concept, and whichever gives the best results will be used, until, you nerf that incarnation and buff something else instead. The perception of the paragon to the general pve guild wars populace is in the bottom three, along with assassin and mesmer, do we need to condem them to the bottom place? Reality Impaired 17:36 GMT, 11 October 2007

Pretty much every Flavor of The Month idiot build has been class stacking. They should have made a cap ages ago and pay attention to where the root of problems are. 11 October 2007

You can't solve a problem with an unacceptable solution, working within functional guidelines is a must. Widespread simularity build teams are an obvious reason why specific counters with irrefutable potency need to be available to shut down groups using the same skill type. As long as a counter is strong enough to totally shut down the use in part or even in widespread use, it will offer a reliable means to protect against the use of highly simular builds wile providing efficient means to obstruct remote use. Suppression is the source of the majority of skill flaws, neglect and imbalance, promoting it on an entirely disfunctional level isn't going to solve the problem, it isn't an option.--BahamutKaiser 04:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Ideas to fix above problems with the class

I had one of these flashes of inspiration about how to make the paragon become the individual in a group rather than the majority, let me put this to you, Bear in mind all numbers I state are merely for example, It's the concept I'm trying to get accross here. (Feel free to post your comments about particular ideas inbetween my writing): --Ckal Ktak 11:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Shout/Chant Mechanic.

Add a maximum number of shouts or chants a given play may be affected by at any given time (say 3). Also, realistically you don't expect to be able to follow several different orders being shouted at you at once. --Ckal Ktak 11:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Refrains

Add a maximum number of times a refrain may be refreshed (say 12). For a single paragon, this probably won't be much of an issue when it comes to maintaining them, however, when you have 6 paragons all shouting and inadvertently refreshing the Refrain it will quickly use up the number of times it can be refreshed, and as a result last a shorter length of time and have to be recast from scratch more often. --Ckal Ktak 11:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Finales

Kinda Ripped from the soul reaping idea, but if finales were to only trigger say, once every three seconds. --Ckal Ktak 11:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Spears

Decrease the range of these things, at the moment they really are just a souped up shortbow with better attack skills. Keep the damage the same, but take an edge off the range somewhat to force the paragon forward more, after all, they have the armour to do it. --Ckal Ktak 11:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Counterbuff

I appreciate that I've just listed what are a bunch of nerfs, even for the lone paragon in a group, so what's needed next is some benefit from being the only paragon in the group. To do this, I suggest a buff on skills which benefit non-paragon classes more that paragons by nature. Arias in particular, since paragons don't generally carry spells (although some do). Examples such as Hexbreaker Aria (Make it remove 1..2 hexes or trigger 1..3 times would be nice), Aria of Zeal giving more energy. Also buffing some of the skills that would be nerfed from these ideas would balance out that. --Ckal Ktak 11:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Many of the ideas above are similar to the "White Noise", "Ringing Ears" and "Deafness" effects that I suggested on the Agressive Refrain Discussion page ( http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Talk:Aggressive_Refrain#Strength_In_Numbers ) and I think any and all of these ideas are considerably better than the current thinking, which seems to be that the multi-Paragon teams can best be brought to blance by weakening individual skills. I am glad to see that other intelligent people are thinking as I do.

I do not agree with the lessened range for spears, I would prefer to see the damage lessened instead of the range. It seems to me that one of the problems with Paragons in general ( but again far more evident on a multi-Paragon team ) is that Paragons can kind of do it all. They can output very high-dps and still buff the party to an extreme. Better IMO to make them choose between putting out high DPS OR stacking Party buffs. Attack speed is necessary to adrenaline gain, which is in turn necessary to energy management. Forcing the individual Paragon to use builds that lean more towards DPS OR Support would allow skills from either pool to be buffed without allowing the single Paragon to be overpowered. Those that prefer to play the hybrid role could still do so, but both the damage and support that was contributed would be reasonably dimmed.

Your ideas for Aria's are interesting also, but I must disagree. Many of the best monk spells will not work on the monk who is casting them. This is done for a reason, if monks were able spam huge heals on themselves they would be too difficult to take down. Hexes and conditions can be removed more easily these days than ever before, and with the inherent "unstoppability" of shouts and chants I think a req to benefit from the more powerful Arias is fair. If a buff was needed i would rather see a health or energy gain tied to the removal when the req was met.

While I do not agree with every point that you made, I do agree wholeheartedly and emphatically with your thinking. Trying to balance multi-Paragon TEAMS by nerfing/breaking individual Paragon skills is far to detrimental to the individual Paragon. Any skill nerf potent enough to have a real weakening impact on a multi-Paragon team will be far, far more debilitating to the individual Paragon.

Lets fix the problem, not create more........ 68.186.244.60 20:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Evenhands

Been reading what both you guys have been suggesting, in particular suggestions on conditions etc. Would this not be more suited to Dazed? For example whilst you are dazed you cannot gain benfit from or use shouts or chants. It would add another counter to shout heavy teams without needing to re-invent anything, just an update to an existing condition with the skills to already apply that condition. I know there aren't masses of ways to apply daxed to a target but it would seem more suited to this more than any other and would probably be the easier way of trying get a handle on this type of effect. Ajax Baby Eater 21:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Causing Chants and Shouts to be vulnerable to daze has been suggested before, and it does make sense, and have a certain elegance to it, however I do not think on it's own it is enough of a nerf to break a multi-Paragon teams synergy, nor do I think it is fair to expose the individual Paragon to such weaknes. In effect the condition Blind will halt a Paragons DPS as well as limit thier adrenaline gain and that will limit thier energy management. The problem with something like that is, of course, that a condition can be too easily removed. Also the dynamic of shouts and chants, IMO should not be made to work too similarly to spells, elsewise Paragons become nothing more than another caster class with unique energy management and high armor. It is a good idea, but I do not personally think it would have a great enough effect on multi-Paragon TEAMS to make either side of the argument happy. 68.186.244.60 21:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Evenhands

Most of these are bad suggestions. 209.189.130.127 21:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I feel my refrain idea was the most inspired, the rest is just filler to my suggestions. I'm also of the opinion that the "Chorus" batch of skills should never have been made, for obvious reasons regarding what it encourages. --Ckal Ktak 21:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the refrain idea is excellent. It is one of the only "complete" suggestions offered as yet that is a MORE impactful to a multi-Paragon TEAM than to the Paragon proffession. It is a great idea and IMO much better than the current, very inelegant, overbalance to AR.

I have actually been thinking a lot about the suggestion that Daze have an effect on Shouts and Chants. I still maintain that a susceptibility to Daze would not be a great enough detriment to have a significant effect on multi-Paragon teams, however maybe reworking Daze to have properties that directly affected shouts and chants in addition to it's anti-spell effects could be at least a partial solution to the problem.

Daze has a very wide function as it is, however Paragons generally need no spells and it is, in it's current form, wasted on them. Perhaps if upon being dazed a player was caused to "forget" the recent serenade and lose all the chants and shouts OR Echo's currently on them. It could also prevent them from using more. If you fell off a ladder and smacked your head you would not likely be singing any songs for a few seconds. In addition to the fact that it ould be effective, it would also uphold a standard of elegance.

The skills exist to shut down Paragons, the problem is not that they are not effective, it is that they are too narrow to be used in todays meta-game driven PvP. Perhaps buffing a more widely used, already existing hex, condition or attribute line to have direct counters to shouts and chants could have the desired effect. Creating specific hexes and conditions to directly effect chants would likely only change the problem, that line of thining has proven to be too narrow to function adequately.

It is worth a try certainly, maybe this problem is as complicated as it is because we have complicated it. I don't know that this would be an end all solution, but Izzy, please consider it...... 68.186.244.60 22:09, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Evenhands

These are alot more creative than most suggestions, but not fair for single use and disfunctional. One of the primary issues with addressing party builds and synergy which rely on several of the same skill or skill type is that you cannot nerf them based on their synergized value, it has to be a counter or nerf that addresses the issue on a single unit or multiple, and most nerfs arn't adequit. Counters on the other hand can be broken in effectiveness for alot of reasons, if a counter only offers an advantage to a remote effect, it can be used on a large group and only have a moderate value as long as the foe isn't over relying on that remote effect. Whereas, if the foe is over relying on that effect, the same counter can afford to crush those foes at the same cost and ease as it's singular application, this acts as a deturant from over relying on a single ability or skill type. The other option is easy multipurpose counters, like spirit of failure, which can crush a paragons energy supply and attack effectiveness, as well as apply well to many attackers. It isn't effective because of cost, but some reevaluation of hex value and needs assesment can bring alot of existing abilities into the meta with effective uses, hexes like this were designed when hexes were alot harder to remove, and missing wasn't as easy to apply. With the current need and value, the price and casting time can be drastically dropped, adding valuable abilities to mesmer and mesmer combinations, providing effective counter alternatives against melee, and providing an effective hex to oppose Paragon in multiple ways.

At this stage in the game, there are alot of skills which do not fit their purpose or compete in the meta well enough, and could greatly rectify failures and inconsistencies if redeveloped for todays GW, often it just takes some more studying of all the available options to find the best solution, not todays solution.--BahamutKaiser 22:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

If the majority of the problem is coming from an overpowered synergy; I think it is totally fair and entirely reasonable to address the synergy. The suggestion of capping the refresh on Echo's would certainly do that. If an Echo can be refreshed only 12 times before it fades and must be re-applied this would cause overpowered Echo's to be weakened in synergy, but would have less of an effect, if any at all, on the individual. This is the exact opposite of what has been done so far. To date all of the nerfs levied against the Paragon in an effort to bring the multi-Paragon teams into balance have been amplified for the individual Paragon. Chants, Shouts and Echos that are reasonably powered, or underpowered when used by a single Paragon in a group can manifest as very overpowered when chained. Having multiple Paragons in a group refreshes Echo's that would fall more easily when used by a single Paragon and also provides a limitless amount of energy regen. The "White Noise and "Ringing Ears" effects would also hamper the multi-Paragon teams without great detriment to the individual. Lone Paragons just do not have the same kind of power as they do when they are teamed with other Paragons.

Why not address the synergy?

I agree that specific counters are not getting the job done, as I stated above, and feel that widening some skills, conditions, hexes may help with the problem. Much of what you said about certain counters and skills no longer having a place in todays meta-game certainly makes sense, but that is a larger problem, and not inseperably tied to the Paragons dynamic synergy. With the meta-game replacing tradtional skill in PvP there will not always be a final solution to things. Unless all skills are made to do exactly the same thing, some will always be in greater favor than others. Today's solution will always open a door to some of tomorrows problems.

I think it is far better to address and deal with the very powerful Paragon synergy than to continue to weaken the proffession.68.186.244.60 23:32, 17 October 2007 (UTC) Evenhands

True statements, but your looking at it the wrong way. If todays solutions open the doors to tomarrows problems than what is the point in balancing skills just to fit the meta? When your focus is on enabling more abilities, indroducing a wealth of counters and opposition, even if new problems arise, something was accomplished, there are more skills to play making the game play more diverse and rich, if you simply nerf skills, the game loses abilities and the game becomes more mundain and monotinous. The best path is obvious, stray away from monotany and counter productive nerfing which inevitably leaves skills worthless and reduces the diversity of the game.

In the end, you cannot address synergy with suppression, it doesn't work, because skills need to be effective in singular use. Elaborate mechanics to disable synergy that don't fit into the game, how is that a better than renovating old skills and allowing more skills to compete instead of neglecting one and handicapping another? Even without the same skills, there are plenty of ways for builds with unusual advantages to arise, so simply trying to nerf synergy doesn't solve as many problems as effective remote counters, and versatile common counters.

You can say it isn't a sound idea, but nerfing and easy alterations has been the path that leads to where we are now, and if you think following it further is going to get what you want, your insane. By definition, repeating the same action expecting different results is insanity.--BahamutKaiser 23:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I question whether or not it would even be possible to overcome the meta-game when so many skills/proffessions exist and only 8 can be carried. Bringing older skills back into play by increasing thier use will cause counters, old or new, to come into greater use as a response. This will only cause the current meta to change. Unless all skills are made equal the meta-game will always thrive. Bringing more skills into the equation only serves to complicate it further. Complication is not a bad thing by any means, however, in the end, the meta-game will, and must prevail. I don't think that anyone would disagree that a total overhaul with all of the new classes and abilities in mind could have a profound effect on the game (for good or ill) but that is a larger problem than the one discussed here.

Paragons as individuals are being nerfed to the point that they are no longer as contributive as the other classes. This is being done less to address a skill or attribute line that is overpowered, and more to address the idea that the multi-Paragon TEAM is overpowered. It is not fair or healthy for the proffesion to be further harmed because of it's excellence in a team dynamic. Addressing the Synergy instead of the individual skills is a better way to deal with this. There is nothing wrong with suppression if suppression is called for.

Also it is worthy of note that broadening a significant amount of skills or creating new skills to include more numerous remote counters and more versatile common counters is in fact a form of suppression. This will of course result in yet another trend or series of trends feeding the meta-game.

An argument can also be made than an "elaborate mechanic" related to multi-Paragon synergy will result in LESS suppression. A method of limiting gains in multi-Paragon parties would cause people playing in multi-Paragon parties to have to think more broadly about thier builds. Without the impentrable "wall-of-songs" Paragons playing in multi-Para teams will be forced to diversify. This may or may not ultimately end in a limiting effect, but I contend it would result in LESS suppression than would the breaking of enough backbone skills that Paragons would find little use outside of a multi-Para team, which is , unfortunately the diection that is currently being taken.

Furthermore on the subject of Paragons, chants and shouts are for the most part the defining aspect of the Paragon and are used with greater efficiency by the Paragon than any other class. This is a very singular construct. Hexes, Spells, and Enchantments are common to many classes. For this reason many counters are commonly carried. The same is true of melee counters, melee characters are very common, so melee counters are as well. This is not true of shouts and chants and echos. While plenty of skills exist to counter them, directly or indirectly, those skills are all but useless when your opposition does not include Paragons.

Trying to break thru the meta-game by revisiting all of the skills contained in Guild Wars is as disfunctional as trying to force a Paragon team into balance by weakening individual skills. IF it does solve ANY problems, it will also create new problems. This is the nature of the meta-game, and it can not be denied unless diversity is sacrificed, which will end in the monotony that you are trying to avoid.

All of this certainly makes for interesting discussion and philosophical thought, but the poor Paragons are still finding themselves to be less and less welcome as individuals, and less and less useful in parties that do accept them. The multi-Paragon synergy is a problem. The exact nature of the problem may be arbitrary as not everyone agrees that multi-Paragon teams are more overpowered than other meta-Teams,( I personally do not) and not everyone agrees that the individual Paragons function have been so drastically impaired that they truly are underpowered.( I persoanlly do !) BUT the present course of trying to weaken the multi-Para team by weakening individual skills is a dangerous one that needs to be addressed sooner than later.

Addressing the multi-Para synergy is a good idea and one that I hope will snowball.

If indeed the entire game is to be overhauled, we can always change it back later ^.^ 68.186.244.60 00:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)Evenhands

I'd prefer a total duration cap on refrains and a maximum triggering cap on finales. As for choruses, I think the only solution would be to convert them to single-target echoes which trigger on Chant and Shout activation. -- Gordon Ecker 01:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Elaborate synergy nerfs are still nerfs, and the ability they weild is actually acceptable, a lack of opposition is the overriding issue. If your trying to make the game better by limiting problematic skills your just going to fail, it has been done over and over, that is all that happens, just look at the track record, it is the result no matter how you deceive yourself. Unless your developing ways for even better gameplay to be added in order to address the situation, it woln't work.--BahamutKaiser 02:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

.....and world hunger could be ended next year if everyone planted an apple tree on thier front lawn........ 68.186.244.60 03:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)Evenhands

Ckal Ktak has some very good ideas there (and indeed similar arguements have been put forward before). I totally agree that the one point about paragons that needs nerfing is the synergy. It needs to be possible to have a single paragon being reasonably useful, without paragon groups being overpowered, nerfing the synergy is the way forward on this. --Xeeron 09:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there are any problems with Paragons except the ones created by nerfing skills. If you PvPers think the class is so broken, then stop playing it and ask that it be banned from PvP. That would make me happy because then I wouldn't have to listen to and read all of you whining about how this skill or that skill is "over-powered" and should be nerfed. Then it DOES get nerfed and my gaming experience with my favorite character is diminished because you resorted to whining and complaining to gain an advantage in your silly little "meta game" instead of using that 3-6 lbs of wrinkly-looking tissue contained in that 10-15 lb lump of bone and flesh on top of your shoulders called a head. It really does work if you use it. I'm sick and tired of your silliness affecting my gaming experience. You couldn't figure out a way to counter certain Paragon bars OR weren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to do so (full team re-adjustment and re-think of all skill bars....I tend to think it's this second option that's really the reason), so you decided to whine about GFtE and Aggressive Refrain. They got nerfed along with "Watch Yourself!" and now I have no viable IAS without an elite and nerfed energy management all because you people seem to think that your meta-game is more important than my PVE gaming experience when PVE is the bulk of ANet's customer base. Now, if I want energy management, I either have to take a crappy Command Elite (Anthem of Guidance, Crippling Anthem) or a non-elite which costs two strikes more and has (a little)more utility than either elite (what's wrong with this picture?). On the Moto side, I can go with another mediocre elite, Song of Purification (mediocre because it doesn't provide a good general buff that is always needed....massive party-wide condition removal isn't always needed...) that isn't really any faster than letting GFtE recharge or I can go with Energizing Chorus, which provides great energy management, but once again doesn't have a party-wide benefit unless you're doing an all Paragon team or a Para/Warrior team. As you can see, I have this worked out. The issue is that there are already few enough effective and balanced bars because of the previous nerfs, and now the number is even smaller. When does it stop? When will you people stop whining and use your heads instead of making the PvE crowd pay for your ineptitude? Un-Nerf my energy management and give me back my IAS! 65.248.178.226 15:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh didums, you mean you actually have to play with skill and thought like the rest of us? That's too bad. And this is coming from the guy who spends his life on a necro and was happy with the soul reaping nerf. --Ckal Ktak 16:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I play a Paragon (in PvE no less!) and I agree that the nerfed skills were in fact too powerful. It should have been evident that non-elite IAS without downsides is simply not done in this game, and the Paragon was the only one in the entire game that had acces to one. I would have liked to see a buff to underpowered skills at the same time as nerfing this one, but I do agree that the Paragon had it all: high armor, high damage and plenty of party support. Especially in PvE, where three extremely strong (as in, bring them with each build, the outshine all the other Paragon skills) PvE-only skills exist. Those skills, combined with Aggressive Refrain, meant a 2-attribute Paragon could deal extreme damage, quickly recharge boh nergy and adrenaline and defend the entire party constantly, and still have skill slots left. With this nerf however, it actually requires thinking to play again. Before, it was just spamming. But that is just me though, I know I haven been on the pro-para team some time ago, but I have realized the need of the nerfs. Now, let's get some boosts on the supportive side of the Paragon! 145.94.74.23 07:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Everyone's just ignoring the fact that in order to benifit from paragon shouts you have to coordinate your movement and position to stay together, and that is a difficulty particularly significant with live players. And if the AoE liabilities where strong enough, it would be naturally balanced instead of trying to suppress universal application based on synergized use. This is why nobody can make any good skill suggestions, everyone comes here to complain about a skill and how they want it to work different instead of looking at the game and thinking of how it can be better as a whole. Your never going to come up with functional remedies by isolating the problem and addressing it out of context.--BahamutKaiser 20:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of the posts here. I have a suggestion, why not make each shout and chant unique for each team by remaking them in that way that when used they disables all other chants/shouts with the same name in that team for the shouts/chants cooldown. That way paragons will be less efficient when there are too many of them, and also make skills like desecrate enchantemnt tirgger agains echos aswell to make counters against them, this way Anet should be able to buff the para again without haveing to worry about them being too powerful in para only teams--85.225.130.20 15:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The only thing that makes paragons good is the fact that they're a ranged frontliner. Either lower armor or lower spear damage. Neither of which will ever happen. There's nothing currently game-breaking about paragons, so why change them? Shard 09:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Change them because they dont have any synergies to other classes than warrior maybe? Meh I can see why they are being nerfed all the time but I think they are nerfing them in the wrong way. The way they nerf them now is only making them less desired in non para only team while only slightly lowering their effectiveness in Zergways. I think finales should have a maximum trigger amount on say 5 - 10 triggers and then end, refrains should be changed the same way if they are made cheaper or have their effects buffed. Leadership should also be fixed I have made a suggestion on how to fix it at talk:Leadership.--85.225.131.129 22:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the problem with Paragons is that they have too much synergy with eachother and not enough synergy with other professions. -- Gordon Ecker 05:40, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Paragons are too good at being able to deal damage and protect the party at the same time. I think the profession needs to be more like Dervishes, where a character can either be strongly offensive or strongly defensive, but not both (healing dervishes are good, i promise). Many skills in motivation (GFTE for example) give way too good of an effect at low spec. The healing chants should have a much larger scale and start much lower (0...80 perhaps) so that tiny spec prevents them from being good. ~Shard (talk / Nerf List) 09:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Change Ingame Mechanics of Chants, Echoes and Shouts

A lot of problems started with the high synergy effects of stacking chants, echoes and shouts of Paragons. Skills were nerfed, some were nerfed to death, but the problem still remains. My suggestion is to buff a lot of the Paragon skills, but to change the ingame mechanic of chants, echoes and shouts! Those shouldn't stack with other chants/echoes and shouts, so you can only have a maximum of one chant or echo + one shout at the same time and - like weapon spells - one shout is automatically replaced by the new one (the same mechanic with chants/echoes), so you can't stack in chain different effects to a too huge one. Doing so, you could probably (for example) remove cracked armor from "Aggressive Refrain", give "Incoming!" a nice buff, etc.! Would be interesting to try that... ^^ A. von Rin 03:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Im abit skeptical to this idea, lets say you use one chant or shout that is vital incoming for instance, then you run out of energy and need to use a shout for eman that would completely ruin the good chant or shout for the entire the team not to mention if there are more than one paragon. Only being allowed to use one shout or chant per team pretty much ruins any biger combos wich will make the game more boring. What I think is needed is to make all echos work as enchantments so they can be easily removed, that would make it easier to counter these effects wich in turn will open ways to buff paragon skills. Also adding a way to remove shout effects from an additional effect on some skills lets say defile enchantments: target takes x additional damage and loses one shout or chant effect for each enchantemnt on that foe.--√iktor(contribs) 13:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Echos/Refrains/Finales

You cannot use a shout or chant under Vocal Minority. Well vocal minority is on 20 cooldown...and very niche also. Chants can only be interrupted by "Power" skills from the mesmer or all-around interrupts like d-shot. I think this is one of the issues that mesmers are facing...they are forced to bring power skills or web of disruption/complicate/etc. if they want to interrupt a paragon's chants. Perhaps a change could be Ignorance (to add refrains/echoes), Guilt?,Signet of Distraction, Disrupting stab, Shroud of Silence (all shouts/refrains/echoes/finales), Mark of Subversion, Shame to be spell, echo, or chant maybe would help. I also believe Vow of Silence should prevent the echoes/refrains/etc. from buffing you. --Life Infusion «T» 15:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

What echo/refrain/finale is good? Which one is even used...besides maybe mending lulz? --Readem 23:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Aggressive Refrain is the only one I can think of...Nicky Silverstar 08:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)