Dear Arenanet: Please expedite paragon fixes

my main is a paragon, i love paragons, but sadly they are outclassed by other professions except in their one infamous build - imbagon.

unlike other damage-dealing professions, paragons have no way to deal AoE damage which leaves them inferior to all other damage dealers. Paragons and rangers are also unable to benefit from some common physical-damage buffs such as Strength of Honor which only widens the gap. unlike other support professions, paragons lack the energy to be useful without constantly attacking (and being subject to dodge, miss, block, blind, etc) in order to gain adrenaline, and many of the skills which he would use to support the team have been nerfed into uselessness because of pvp concerns.

I see the paragon as having three major issues:
1) lack of AoE. *ALL* other professions can deliver some form of AoE damage... even the monk. :-\ please fix so that the paragons get a fair chance.
2) motivation. much has been said on this topic. even if the pvp versions of these skills were left alone, fixing the pve versions would help.
3) useless skills. some (many?) paragon skills are so conditional they they will never see use. Mesmer suffered from the same issue and the recent mesmer update was incredible... please give paragons the same treatment.

Dervishes could use some love as well, but at least they can do a decent job at their primary function, dealing damage. In the mesmer update notes you mentioned that paragon and dervish updates were in the works, I would like to encourage publishing such updates sooner rather than later and push a second update if that is deemed necessary. gw2 is on the way and if the updates are delayed too long it will be too late to make any difference.

thanks for listening.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, there are some people on the inside who're Paragon users a lot. I myself am an ex-Paragon main, and I have a lot of hope in ANET to make the appropriate fixes. But don't hold your breath for it to come before WiK is over since I assume it is using a lot of resources. In the meantime, you still got your Sy for high end areas, and daggerspam for more easy areas, right?

I don't think Guild Wars 2's release will matter. There will be people who will want to play a good game than a game where apparently everything dies from the slightest hit.

Because game video previews NEVER manipulate game mechanics for the sake of cinematography.

The problem with para's, as with a few other classes, is that they are never quite in-balance. They are either inferior to other classes or have broken aspects, typically via shout synergy. I built a god-mode para-way a few years back for HA. It literally only lost in one of two ways: people got bored and left their keyboards; or someone got lucky on our ghost in halls. This was post-Incoming nerf, pre-FoR, GftE, WY nerfs.

hi lishy,
i have done every elite area with my paragon, vanquished everywhere, done every mission and dungeon in hardmode, etc... so, not much left to be done. I have plenty of builds that I created to make the profession useful, but sadly most of them make heavy use of secondaries because the primary profession is underpowered. For example I have a Hundred Blades variant that can deliver near 250dps with Strength of Honor from a hero... and I solo farm with a SoS/summoning build... hell I even had a Cryway sort of build! To get the most out of my paragon I'm forced to rely on skills from other professions. Is that the way it should be? It's getting late in the game for major changes but I have high hopes for the upcoming paragon and dervish updates, I really liked what they did with the mesmer update.

They cant really rush this one, tbh. I remember what it was like with Warrior like damage, passive defense, and endless buffs before. Paragons are STILL unbelievable, just outshined by alot of other cheesy stuff. Give it time.

My ex-main is a paragon as well. In fact, I still have more VQed and more titles on my para than i do on my new main (my mesmer). I really would like to see the paragons get their update sooner than later as well. Sadly, it seems as though with the manpower available to Anet, it is necessary for them to take forever with new skill balance updates. If only they would devote a few people from working on GW2 to GW1, but this isn't going to happen.

As for buffing the paragon, I agree on points 2 and 3 in your main post. I remember back a long time ago, motivation was a viable (sub-par, yes, but at least viable) form of healing. Power creep left it behind though, and in some cases, motivation even got unnecessarily nerfed in PvE (SoR and Mending refrain...). In addition to this, I definitely agree that so many of the paragon's support skills are way too conditional to be used in general PvE settings, and some are too specialized to be used in specialized teams. I mean what was Anet thinking when they designed the motivation chants that activate on signets... If a skill is going to be so specialized, then there at least needs to be a way for the paragon using the chant to control when the effect goes off.

As for point 1, I really don't think that is necessary. You can always just apply splinter weapon to a paragon to get some AoE damage and I don't really think that a spear wielder should be able to directly do AoE damage (throwing multiple spears at once doesn't really make since...).

Yeah, and Eles throwing around balls of fire or monks summoning pillars of light from the heavens makes perfect sense of course. If it makes sense for Rangers to have Barrage and Volley, there's no reason a Para shouldn't have something similar (when was the last time you saw a competition archer shoot six arrows at once?).

The Paragon (using the Imba build) is just ok for most PvE. In six-man or four-man areas in HM (or in the current WiK content), the Para's weakness really shows. If you're H/H'ing, every slot in your team build is important, and 99% of the time you can't really afford a mediocre support class like a Para. This especially sucks when the Para in question is your own character, so your team is gimped from the beginning.

I've been doing the WiK content on four characters - my (main) Warrior, my Ranger, my Assassin and my Para. I find that I really notice the difference between the Para and the other classes. Not that mobs don't drop, just that it usually takes longer and my team takes more of a beating. So yeah, I hope something gets done sooner rather than later.

Actually those examples do make sense. Elementalist --> Magic, Monk --> calling on the power of gods / Clerical Magic, Ranger --> Okay, bit of a stretch, I'll give you that, but notching several arrows at once is more feasible than taking 5 spears and chucking them all at once.

Paragons an amazing class that isn't necessarily underpowered in their functionality so much as their choices as a primary class. Their main problems, as you stated, is in the sheer number of conditional/situational, and downright ugly skills, not to mention that they don't have a lot of solid outside synergy (which isn't so much a problem with skill synergy so much as role synergy. Paragons pretty much stand alone in what exactly they do).

AoE is a distant, distant problem, and in fact I wouldn't even list it as a problem. Paragons could use some solid DPS choices (which they already -kind of- do), but it should not be so significant as to give Paragons the same type of power creep that would take emphasis away from what they ACTUALLY do and their role (AKA the same type of skill change/creap that made Dervishes go from enchantment juggling to.. whatever the heck they do now.).


If AoE is to be done, I hope they keep it on a strictly Elite Skill basis. I personally wouldn't mind seeing Cruel Spear be changed into something like a mini-Jadoth's Storm of Judgment. Keeping it to elite skills would ensure that the focus on the build be probably more offensive in nature, and not just a way for imbagon to slap AoE damage. Also keep in mind that the Spear's damage has the largest unmodified DPS of any 1-handed weapon.

I don't think WiK will have any, or at least have little effect on their skill balancing. It seems to me like a lot of WiK was made and planned already, and only implemented until now. In other words, I get the impression they probably finished most of WiK months before this thing ever went live.

I don't play my para much, so I can't say whether or not these are the needed areas to be updated. However, I'd rather they took their time and did it right instead of half-assing Para/Derv fixes that barely change either situation, which would force them to do even more necessary updates later on.

As far as GW2 goes, scythes and spears are gone. They might as well just remove both from GW1 since they don't give a flying fuggut about them (semi kidding). I'm not buying GW2 anyways, so when and what they do won't influence that at all for me.

scythes and spears are gone in GW 2? Are they getting rid of the paragon and dervish professions? If so, then they better have other professions replacing them. I mean I can see why scythes are kind of a wierd weapon to have in a game, but spears were some of the most common Pre-gunpowder weapons, and it really makes sense to have spears be in the game at least as an option for the warrior if the paragon isn't going to be in gw2.

Telling Anet to hurry up with that update is just as effective as telling your dog to shit in the toilet.

Its always weird to me how anet figures on classes and their skills.
Mesmers and paragons always seem to be the only 2 classes who make no sense.
As someone stated about other classes its sort of logical what their skills are but where did anet come up with mesmer and paragon skills - a mesmer in my books is a profession who can mesmerise the foes - hypnotise etc.Paragon seems weird and seems more a paladin but skill wise ...
I think apart from melee classes the paragon has to constantly attack for andren and why they decided paragons like warriors have to have the worse energy regen going i dont know.They have high armor like melee but lets make them spear chuckers .
Why not just make them warrior wannabes and let them use a sword not a toothpick.
A good game requires the classes you give the ability to be of equal use on the battle field - except that anet makes sure some classes are hindered.
An example would be to go on to pvx wiki and in general builds just look at the 10 classes and how many builds there are for each - some have just a few.
If everyone went by that we`d all be warriors/sins/monks/ele mainly and im sure if new players looked there then they do same , why play a profession thats hardly any builds ?
If paras are to be made more usable then they have to be either more offensive with a sword etc and have better skills for that or be support with better support skills and energy - imagine a healing monk who has to get andren just to cast Woh on you lol.

Bad examples FTL. Elementalists throwing a ball of fire makes perfect since. In fact, when I think of the stereotypical fantasy elementalist, a fireball is the first thing that comes to mind. Same with a monk smiting down an opponent. It makes perfect sense for a monk who is smiting an opponent to do so by calling down a god's wrath from heaven. Hell, even the barrage example is a bad one. There are other cases in movies and games where archers have been able to shoot multiple arrows at a time (legolas for example).

Using "what makes sense" in a video game is not valid most of the time. You need an actual balance reason why Para's should not have access to AoE damage skills.

This isn't about making the Para/Derv most desirable, its about making them just as desirable as other classes. Again, my experience with Paras is limited, but I know Wars/Sins/Rangers can all use scythes better than Dervs and that Mysticism does little for Dervs other than some gimmicky forms.

EDIT @ Del: I'm not saying Paras should necessarily have access to AoE. As I have said before and apparently must say again, I do not play my Para enough to say one way or the other. However, I can say that at least the OP is arguing that this would make them just as desirable as other classes for grouping purposes. The other person's counter argument was that it "didn't make sense." Unlike the OP's practical reason, the responder's reason has very little weight in a fantasy game.

Or you could provide balance reasons as to why they do need aoe.

Paras and Dervs, with the release of Nightfall, were a little late to the game. I think with their limited skills and late release, they never really had the opportunity to carve out their niche roles in the way that the other "core" professions did. I doubt they will ever be as prolific or desired as their comrades, but I still enjoy playing them as they are today.

Assassins and Ritualists are meta right now and they came late in the game too (not as late but were not around since the beginning).

Mesmers have been around since day one and they are STILL arguably outclassed by all other classes that came out at the same time.