Guild Wars: The Paragon

Lately my guild has been running a variation on the NR/Tranq. Which, of course, is just a further development of the whole "bring two each of Warrior, Paragon, Ranger, and Monk" idea although I keep pushing for changing it up a bit from that template. The main weakness of the build is that it doesn't split well (And I'm not exactly sold on having a BA Ranger back as the runner.) and we play on a split friendly map so it leads to problems, but I think with a more flexible character in there in place it could be more easily compartmentalized without losing too much, but what do I know?

Anyhow, it's a good build for us to run, I think, because it's a very aggressive one (2xWPRM is, apparently, "romp" squared phonetically.). Most poor teams focus on building defensively. It's a lot easier to bulk up the defense than it is the other crucial "Ds" - damage and disruption - and by muddying the waters and dragging the game down into the muck, even a mediocre team can stand a chance against a better one. On the other hand, executing an offense takes comparatively greater co-ordination and player skill. It's the same reason why hockey teams will employ a neutral zone trap - scoring goals is hard because everything has to go right to get the puck in the net, but keeping it out means you only have to make the other team do one thing wrong. So weak teams look for builds that have a lot of redundant defenses and skimp on the offense. Good teams, on the other hand, will skimp on the defenses in favor of killing faster - best defense is a good offense and all that.

The NR/Tranq build is anything but defensive. Basically, you either roll the other team or you get crushed. If you're turtling in your base at the 10 minute mark, you've lost, even if you can string it out to VoD. And I think it's good for us to play something where we're forced to go for the throat. We've found it works best, for us, as a distributed pressure build since that way we're spreading around our damage and conditions, rather than a spike build so it's not that hard to pull off, really. And since it's an uptempo build we seem to get in a lot more matches playing it than something like a prototypical balanced build which, for us, seems destined to go to VoD. More matches means we get more exposure to different teams and scenarios and it's just, in general, a good thing, if you ask me.

But, I mention this because it means I've gotten some playing time on a Paragon lately. Warrior, Ranger, and Monk players are all pretty well established but I don't think there are many master Paragons out there. So, I got slotted in there not just because I've been wanting to play one but also because no one else really wanted it. Since I've managed to study up on the class a bit, I've somehow become the guild's Paragon expert - to the point of being largely in charge of tweaking the builds to get a bit more out of them and the like. Which is fun and scary all at the same time.

If you'll remember way back when, I used a trial account to test out the Paragon in PvE. But when it came time to roll up a new character on my actual account, I went with the Dervish. It was, for me, the right choice for me because I wasn't really having a lot of fun with the Paragon.

My initial impression of the profession (And I'm probably betraying my PnP roots here) was that it was something like a Cleric. Decent armor, decent damage, lots of buffs. But, ultimately, a support character and, thus, a lot more boring than something all about running up to people and hitting them in the face. Playing one, I was drawn to comparing them to Warriors thanks to the low energy regeneration and adrenal skills.

A more accurate comparison, though, is, I think, to the Ranger. In fact, it's like a Ranger with training wheels since you don't have to bother with timing interrupts (Because, let's face it, the best bow attacks are Savage Shot and D-Shot) or with the various ranges and RoF of different bows - get your head around line of sight and you're good to go. Both are ranged characters that rest somewhere between the front and midlines who have enough armor that they're not very good targets to beat on. Both are capable of putting out some scary damage but not in the same weight class as the melee types (They make up for this, though, by not having to work so hard to get in range.). And both feature plenty of buffs and conditions to improve their team - Rangers have preps and stances and rituals while Paragons have shouts and chants and echoes. The Paragon has plenty of party-wide defensive support which the Ranger, by and large, lacks in favor of being a better skirmish character. But while a lot of stuff in, say, the Motivation line was ridiculously overpowered at release, I managed to miss out on all that brokenness. At the moment, Paragons are best at being offensive support - spreading things like Burning Flame and Anthem of Flame rather than, say, They're on Fire!.

And that armor is juicy. Since they can carry a shield, Paragons have the second highest armor potential in the game, actually ahead of a Hammer Warrior in most cases. What with Aggressive Refrain and all, you can easily afford to run with the Centurion's insignias rather than Survivor. In general, more armor is better than more health, if you ask me, as that reduction in damage is generally going to give you more over a protracted battle than a larger buffer between you and the zero point. The only case when this isn't the way to go is when there's a lot of armor ignoring damage in the meta like Bloodspike stuff. That's not the case now so you can grab the +10AL when under the effects of a shout and get a base 90AL. Add a shield and you're up to 106AL. Throw in the bonus armor inscriptions (Which long hours of Monking in the Arenas have taught me to switch between readily) and you're talking about a character with 116AL who can deal a significant amount of damage just with an auto-attack. The only characters with more armor (Ignoring any armor boosting skills) are Axe/Sword Warriors against some type of physical damage (Yes, there's Sentinel's but that's some kind of sick joke if you ask me.).

With all the interesting chants and shouts to throw around, the Paragon is really nice to play. I think what I overlooked before is the same thing that makes them hard to practice - the Leadership bonus. A Paragon is really only at their best when they have half a dozen teammates around to gain the benefits of their shouts. Their energy management gets better, the return on the investment gets better with each character affected, and on and on. Since I never got far enough with my Paragon to have eight person teams, I was stuck, like a low level Ranger lacking Expertise, in gimp mode. Same thing happens when you go to the Arenas or even the Isle of the Nameless (unless you bring just a load of henchies and set them to stand around twiddling their thumbs) - you're just not as efficient as you are in other formats. And, so, you end up becoming a spear attacking, condition spammer which isn't indicative of where the class's true strength lay. But, in a NR/Tranq build where you're hitting four or five other attackers with your offensive buffs, then you can really see the potential.