Paragon: On Dekk with Monolith

Last week Epic Games “treated” its Paragon community to its v34 Update to Monolith. This updated caused quite a stir with Paragon’s player base with thoughts on the forums ranging from “All hope for Paragon is gone and I won’t be returning” to ” WTF!”. I too expressed expletives as well as doubt and concern. I typically play support type Heroes like Dekker and Narbash, what can I do with a smaller faster map? Does this mean the Match Lobby will be stalled as everyone tries to pick Khaimera? I don’t want to play as Khaimera. Well, the news is in, and today Epic Games treated us to a brighter outlook for Monolith and the v.35 release. Where v.34 was vague and as basic as salt v.35 pulls a Countess Ultimate on you and sends you back to the core to rethink your entire strategy.

General Changes

V.35 is an in-depth read that required several trips back to my own personal core, that’s right, a man’s only true sanctuary, the restroom. There’s a lot of information to process so I’ll highlight a few of the updates that I’m excited for with The Good, The Bad and The Maybe.

The Good

• CP earned by kills and assists are awarded directly
• Buffs now fly towards the last hitter
• Tower range decreased from 2000 units to 1600 units (Hopefully this means no more getting nuked outside of the “Ring of Death”)
• New Buffs added: River buff (frequently available randomized buff), Gold Buff (earn extra CP for last hits) and Jungle Buff (provides a shield, at end of use or destruction shield explodes causing AOE damage)
• Harvesters have been removed (now you don’t have to leave your lane to do the junglers job)

The Bad

• Card points are now awarded in increments of 1, lowered from increments of 3
• Harvesters have been removed (now more responsibility on the Jungler to protect our Amber and Amber Links since the enemy can attack and steal our teams amber)
• Movement penalty added for backpedaling, jumping, strafing and shooting (Monolith is promising a faster gaming experience than Legacy yet our speed is being taken from us?)

The Maybe

• The economy has been rebalanced; XP/CP growth, CP drip, shared CP split, killstreaks/deathstreaks, XP/CP bounties for minions and Hero kills
• All structures have been rebalanced
• Raptors have been added to the Jungle
• Jump pads

All Heroes

All of Agora’s Heroes are getting a major overhaul and rebalancing. As I said earlier I typically play a support type roll as Dekker and Narbash. And for the most part I’m okay with changes made. I don’t understand why the affects of Dekker’s “Stasis Bomb” need to be reduced (1/1.4/1.8/2.2 to 0.7/1.1/1.5/1.9) but I’m excited and nervous to see how she plays on the new map.

What my friends and I are most excited about is that Khaimera is getting a huge nerf. At least we think so. You can call us haters but Khaimera is the equivalent of Kratos in PlayStation All-Stars, all you do is mash the square button and kill. Yes, I know, he’s more than that, blah, blah, blah. His “Spirit Regeneration” is being reduced big time; reduced max stacks to 25, Health Regen adjusted to 1.0/1.75/2.5/3.25 per stack, stack duration reduced from 5 to 2.2 seconds and attacking structures no longer applies stacks.

Monolith

December 6th is right around the corner and it’s shaping up to be one of those “Big Release” type days. I would compare it to the level of excitement and fear I had for the first day of Destiny. I understand that I only covered a fraction of what the V.35 Release covered but if you want the full break down you can visit Epic Games’ Blog. As a Community we’ve made our voices heard and I believe Monolith is a result/consequence of our voices. I’ve been playing since June and while I don’t agree with everything Epic Games has done with Paragon over time I grow to appreciate the game as a whole. Hopefully the same will be true for Monolith.