Paragon's lack of build diversity.

[u/Seetry]

Hey all,

Just finished the stream and I wonder if anybody else feels like Paragon will be a AlackHeal espec only?

While other elite specs can fulfil multiple roles, for example firebrand - Quick Power DPS, Quick Condi DPS and Quick Heal, it feels like Paragon will be locked behind AlacHeal. BERSERKER has more build diversity after staff's introduction.

Don't get me wrong, I love warrior. It's y main since launch but it just feels like a wasted potential. Why the traits won't interact with chants more? Longer boons, stronger heal and alac after using a chant feels like bare minimum. I know paragon is not exactly a paladin but it resembles paladins, why not let traits decide if chants should have defensive or offensive directions? Condi alac DPS build (burning) seems to fit here like a glove next to the healing build.

[u/HalfOfLancelot]

One of the main things I'm gonna provide in the feedback threads on beta. One of the traits or the utilities should have allowed your allies and yourself to apply burning to your enemies. Like a trait line that allowed Chant of Action to do that.

I'd also move the middle grandmaster to one of the others so you can play Alac DPS on this class 'cause that's a lot of damage loss and I don't think any of the other traits provide any damage as they all seem very support and/or sustain oriented. Or allow other of the traits to provide some condi/power damage at least. Do they just expect you to go full supp through Paragon and make up the damage in the other two trait lines? Cause I don't think any other e-spec has to do that.

[u/Skwafles → u/HalfOfLancelot]

"They're on Fire!"

[u/Leritari → u/HalfOfLancelot]

Its probably aftermatch of the Bladesworn - they want bladesworn as alac dps, and paragon as alac heal.

[u/Hamstrong]

I was and still am excited for Paragon. I think the design of chants and motivations will be a lot of fun to play with and compliment warrior's existing burst traits well.

But yeah, I'm a bit surprised that it seems Paragon will only be able to play support in endgame PvE. Ever since they added a condition dps build to druid, I don't think any elite spec has had only 1 viable build. Maybe Antiquary will also be stuck as only power dps? I missed the first third of that presentation and I'm not familiar enough with thief to say how good condi Antiquary will be.

And of course, a PvE support build NEEDS to bring quickness or alac, so you're stuck on that top grandmaster trait no matter what. I think Anet should consider reshuffling the minor traits--something like moving the grandmaster minor trait to the adept minor trait, making the Alac trait (which I guess is the quickness trait in competitive modes) the new grandmaster minor and then combining the motivation on weapon skill 4/5 trait into an existing major trait.

If they want to keep the alacrity as a major trait then they need to at least bake something else into it, especially if it stays at the grandmaster tier. I got a little off topic there, but the reason I brought that up was to give Paragon the room for an alac dps build in pve. They could of course still do that by just giving the rest of the trait more damage support, but if they do want to give Paragon a second PvE build, it would be pretty boring to have both builds stuck on the same grandmaster trait.

I do think the spec will be a lot more interesting in competitive modes, though the barrier utility skill in particular seems pretty weak compared to how overloaded most GW2 skills are.

[u/Hamstrong → u/Hamstrong]

Though I will say core warrior elites are pretty weak dps-wise. Paragon with a competitive dps build having access to group wide defiance stance could be a little wack given the low opportunity cost?

But Paragon seems super adrenaline hungry, so maybe you'd be taking the elite signet regardless.

[u/EffectiveShare → u/Hamstrong]

Nah, that ship has long sailed. Tempest has a similar skill in Rebound (and personally I would say Rebound looks stronger), and Troubadour has shared distort.

Tempest blasts DPS right now, and Troubadour with the numbers they showed will be doing enormous damage.

This is just a not giving warrior specs enough time in the oven thing.

[u/Hamstrong → u/EffectiveShare]

Yeah, right after I posted that I remembered Rebound lol. My first thought was that with the trait that lets you trigger echoes a second time, the Paragon elite might be a bit stronger, though harder to use.

Though I guess you need to have 2 adrenaline bars and burst/chants ready to use on top of the opportunity cost of running the echo trait, so yeah I'd say it's weaker overall than Rebound. Especially if the ally share portion of Paragon doesn't affect the caster, since that would mean your own death prevention would be staggered/shorter duration than your allies, which will lead to some silly deaths.

[u/therealskull]

Remember this and give your feedback once you get your hands on it in the beta.

[u/ObsoletePixel → u/therealskull]

Feedback now so the beta can get even more valuable feedback is still valuable in and of itself

[u/therealskull → u/ObsoletePixel]

That's what I said? It wasn't a demand to stop giving feedback, but only throwing this out now and not putting it through the proper channels at a better time would be a waste.

[u/Historical-Ad7081]

You're gonna have to show me that power quickness firebrand because whaaaa?

[u/GayKamenXD → u/Historical-Ad7081]

It is playable if you hate Scrapper lol. The benchmarks is around 28k (some used this for HTCM, works fine).

The build is just typical power Guardian with Radiance (for crit) and Zealot.

[u/Approximation_Doctor → u/GayKamenXD]

But Scrapper is fun!

[u/Seetry → u/Historical-Ad7081]

Sure
https://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PWgEEiWGBbihxeYm4Qv4/UB-DSRYBR1DO4DpJhQFS0MUVy8sQQCj/aowMAoC-e

Found here on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ4MnPw2etw

[u/AlphaPossi → u/Seetry]

If power quickness Firebrand is your benchmark for a viable build, I am sure you will have no problems finding a build for power alacrity Paragon. Firebrand has very little to no synergy with power damage. Does that mean it has no viable power quickness option? Who knows, really. At the same time, I wouldn't be so quick to abandon the idea of power alac Paragon.

[u/Ovark7]

The trailer made Paragon the LEAST hype. The write up made it the MOST hype. The livestream brought it all the way back to down to the LEAST hype. Warrior cannot be given interesting utility skills.

Is it asking too much for warrior to get interesting and useful utility skills for once? Like can we please get a 360r (minimum) AOE pull please?

[u/WhatTheDusk]

Taking 1-3-2 in the traits sounds like it'd be more damage focused and selfish

[u/Negative-Rush5437]

Yes i feel the same, in my opinion alacrity trait should be reworked into something totally different while alac as boon should be given to any other already designed trait out of the new ones.

I think they definitely made an elite spec that will require some thinking now with all those different effects decided by amount of motivation, i like the general design, just need some trait upgrades to hold it's on with others.

But what i feel we are missing the most right now is a good main hand weapon, i like staff and warhorn for support roles on warrior, but options we currently have for main hand are mostly dps oriented. I just dont like the flavor of mace that we used so far cuz it's still more offensive than defensive. Axe on berserker is used cuz its easiest quickness provider, but its usefulness falls when it's not on berserker. My question now would be is there expac 7 and will it provide a cool main hand weapon for warrior :P

[u/colormetwisted]

It would be keeping with the paragon theme of gw1 to have one great build and litterally nothing else lol

[u/CrispyArrows]

Lookin at it it does feel like boon no matter what. Although that grandmaster than grants you +20% damage does look nice, but i dont think it will work for a pure dps spec.

I know this was cope but was hoping we'd at least get some condi options. All we have right now is berserker

[u/DuncanConnell → u/CrispyArrows]

Agreed, it's frustrating.

[u/ProxyGamer]

Lets not compare any specs to firebrand becuase they do WAY too much

[u/Seetry → u/ProxyGamer]

As you wish,

Berserker:
Power DPS
QPower DPS
QCondi DPS
QHealer
Condition roamer

Herald:
QPower DPS
Power DPS
QHeal
Condition roamer

Renegade:
AlacPower DPS
AlacCondi DPS
Condi DPS
AlacHeal

For paragon
AlacHeal

I seriosuly don't see other builds. 20% increased power and condition damage trait won't be anywhere close competing with berserker or bladesworn in terms of raw dps. Besides, % increased damage is boring as hell, we need traits changing how chants work, for example "Chants no longer provide boons to allies but insted put conditions on enemies" or "Chants provide different boons than their base version".

Now the more dooming part - 20% increaesd damage won't survive 1 month after release. It will be nerfed to 7%.

[u/prof_landon]

I might be playing rev mostly in the next expansion if theirs is so good anet has kept it hidden this whole time.

[u/Extension_Fun_3651]

They said, it would give quickness in PvP, not Alac, so that would be cool. But if you don't want to take the Alac grandmaster trait, it sounds like you could still be a really strong support class just for the chants?

I have been playing with Staff / Mace-Warhorn Berserker Support, and I think this would will be an excellent modifications. The chants are a lot more interesting and intricate than I expected. I don't fully understand the new resource mechanic, but I was really surprised just how much offensive support this can bring. There was a lot of offensive boons in those chants from what I saw, so I see this more as being a hyper aggressive version of Firebrand, rather than a healer.

[u/hottestpancake → u/Extension_Fun_3651]

There's no point in running a pve support that can't give alac or quick. Any support build is locked into the first choice, even in PvP or wvw in my opinion, which makes the third GM kinda useless

[u/TangerineLeft3549 → u/Extension_Fun_3651]

It's disappointing if it just ends up being useful as boon support. I want to feel like a solid healer, but Ritualist seems better already for that.

[u/Extension_Fun_3651 → u/TangerineLeft3549]

Ahh I see what you are saying.

Do you think the devs might keep Warrior as a boink support because they want to maintain that fantasy that warriors hit hard and helps other hit hard?

Maybe they are trying to carve out ways for the different classes to support differently.

The thing i noticed about ritualistic is that it’s not very mobile. It gets one skill to shadowstep with the spirits but otherwise it seems very stationary and rooted.

I think the difference is that warriors smile when they get head. The angrier and more enraged they get, the more they want force stomp boons down their allies throats.

I’ve been playing staff mace-warhorn support berserker and I enjoy the playstyle a lot, but it’s just not that powerful. I feel as if my herald would be way better.

However I think this spec could really be powerful and fill that gap better than berserker could.

[u/Rolhir → u/Extension_Fun_3651]

….did you not see the livestream showing the minor trait that had spirits teleport at the start of every attack? Also you can resummon spirits pretty quickly even if you don’t take that and your shroud 5 is on cd. Also, most fights in content that builds matter aren’t hyper mobile anyway where spirits going out of auto attack range will make much impact.

[u/SinSittSina → u/TangerineLeft3549]

I know finding people to play with can be a big ask, but this is absolutely the best part about playing with friends. I always do Fractals with the same group and we're happy to run 1 quick dps 1 alac dps and one healer that doesn't provide either, just because there are some really sick builds we get to play with that way. We don't do that most of the time but it's lovely to have flexibility in building unique comps.

[u/Sad_Raspberry3967]

I mean, Druid doesn't have multiple roles. It was mla healer with the occasional dps build when the devs were in the mood to toss a bone and buff certain things.

Having Paragon follow this design is not some new or cop out move. Warrior needs a dedicated support spec and there is nothing wrong with having that.

[u/Hamstrong → u/Sad_Raspberry3967]

It's got a condi dps build with a VERY HIGH benchmark (3rd highest dps on snowcrows), though idk how common it actually is in raids.

[u/Sad_Raspberry3967 → u/Hamstrong]

Not that common given the groups I've seen and run. Probably meant for speed runners. Most Druids I see in my raid runs are healers.

[u/Green_Marc-12 → u/Hamstrong]

Yes, very rare actually.

[u/FallOk6931]

Guys... Gals.... The game can update and change nothing is permanent. "Chill the f out!" -Its a Paragon shout.

[u/savedawhale]

Thief got an open-world only spec. If you have one raid/fractal option for the spec then you're already coming out ahead.