Paragon is an exceptional game and despite its infancy, is already boasting brilliant gameplay and a selection of Heroes that are fun and original. There are also enough differences in the game for it to feel unique in comparison to SMITE and other popular MOBAs. Despite that and considering how early on it is in development, there’s plenty of room for improvement. With that in mind, here are a list of five issues I've encountered that I think Paragon needs to address in the near future.

A Lack Of Card Crafting

For anyone unaware, Paragon uses a card system instead of items. This means players can build a deck for their Hero before a match starts and then equip them as they level up. Unlike other MOBAs where everyone has access to the same items and you simply have to buy them during a match, Paragon bucks this trend. Unfortunately and predictably, this can often result in the best cards (of which there are several) being elusive if RNG isn’t on your side. For a considerable amount of time I’ve been after one particular card called Micro Nuke. It’s arguably the best available for Murdock and for over a month I’ve lost track at the amount of packs I’ve opened in attempt to obtain one. Finally and late on Friday the Gods were looking down on me and at long last I got one.

At this point you might be thinking that waiting a month for one card isn’t too bad and that there are other cards just as useful. You’d be right, it’s not too bad. Unfortunately such cards do provide a noticeable difference in your damage output at key moments in the game. That’s a problem, especially for a game that needs to find some form of balance across its card system. By eventually implementing Card Crafting (and Card Deconstruction for components), similar to Hearthstone, not only would players know they could gain a specific card but there would be certaining in it. At the moment every pack you open is a lottery and unless you land lucky, there are - potentially - cards you may never get. Hopefully it'll arrive sooner rather than later.

Hero Balance

This is going to be an eternal struggle for Epic and one that’s subjective and filled with variables. Unfortunately there are some glaring balance issues right now but what I find odd is the pace at reacting to them. I appreciate the game is in early development and balancing Heroes - especially after a new movement speed patch - likely isn’t a priority. However, both Muriel and Rampage continue to plague the game. Partly due to the fact Muriel is the only true Support, but partly because combined they’re an unstoppable Tower diving combo that is far too strong. Considering the speed at which Feng Mao and Grux were neutered, I find it fascinating that two of the games Heroes are still running amok with the Meta.

In part, the issue is linked to Rampage and his Ultimate providing a get-out-of-jail free card, alongside Muriel’s shielding being too strong and Towers being too squishy. Even so, I think the imbalance these two Heroes cause is incredibly clear and they still go untouched. Reducing the power of Muriel’s shields, increasing the cooldown on Rampage’s Ultimate and Leap whilst also limiting his health pool upon Ultimate use would go a long way in addressing the issues they cause.

ADC’s And The Late Game Carry

This undoubtedly builds on the above and it’s unquestionably going to cause a quandary for Epic: ADCs always ramp up in power late game. Early and mid they aren’t great but by the time they reach level cap they should always be dealing the highest damage. While I’ve no issue with that, the disparity between every other Hero and ADCs is so enormous that others need not apply. A major part of the problem is critical hit damage and the fact it starts at 200%. When combined with a critical hit chance of 60% or higher (which most ADC’s have) and further modifiers (bringing it to 250%) damage reaches frightening levels.

Why play anything else?

Hitting enemy players for over 1200 damage per shot is stupid, especially when you consider the basic attacks of anyone other than ADC rarely reaches over 150. Starting critical hit damage at 150% of a basic attack and limiting critical hit chance to 50% would go some way in addressing the issue. What annoys me the most about their damage output is the fact it's just not fun. It's so easy to carry an entire team as Murdock or Sparrow once you hit level 15 it sucks all life out of the game. Every fight revolves around them and even if you're a Tank and have huge amounts of HP and Resistances, you can still be killed in a matter of seconds.

Mage Scaling

At the moment, Mages (Gideon, Howitzer, Iggy & Scorch) are reasonably strong early game. Their damage is comparable to other ADCs if not higher due to their spells/skills. However, as the game progresses their damage plummets and they are of little use for anything other than wave clear (even then an ADC can comfortably clear waves late game). To make matters worse, many of the games cards don’t actually help Mages:

Scaling on their basic attacks is so low that taking Critical Hit Chance is pointless.

Mage skills cannot critically hit.

Life Steal cards are directly linked to the damage you deal on your basic attack, dictating that a Mage's value from them is incredibly minor compared to ADCs and melee Heroes.

Many Mage skills do very little to a Tower/Inhibitor.

When you factor in cooldown time on skills, it harms their damage output even more.

By late game their damage is so pitiful (due to the above) that they can barely tickle other Heroes (notably tanks, Muriel and ADC’s if they build resistances and/or Life Steal).

It’s a major problem and one I struggle to understand. I’m not suggesting you can’t kill, say, Murdock on Iggy & Scorch - because you can. Unfortunately the prospect of doing so is incredibly slim simply because you need to land dozens of attacks whereas they only need 2-4 to finish you off (even if you build Resistances). In a team fight any time after level 10, Mages and their value in comparison to an ADC is incredibly poor.

I appreciate that Epic don’t want Mages to be dealing high basic attack damage and instead supplement this over their skills, but even both combined are still pitiful. When I can deal 1200 damage per second on Murdock just by hitting LMB, yet to achieve the same on Gideon I’d have to use every skill and still not even come close, something has gone very wrong. Bringing a Mage to a team is massively detrimental because your value mid and late game is so poor and unless Epic drastically improve the scaling on their abilities - including Basic Attacks - it’ll be like this for a long time.

Team Queuing

Almost all my losses in Paragon are attributed to five man premades. It’s not particularly fun to queue against five coordinated players when the team you’re with only has limited access to basic communication tools. It’s also near impossible to play against such teams and it baffles me to think that it’s allowed. Paragon is in its infancy, it needs players to have fun in matches and to allow groups to steamroll as a five is bizarre. Even games such as Heroes of the Storm don’t permit players to queue as a five in Hero League and instead they have to go to Team League or queue only as a pair. As far as I’m concerned and due to the detrimental impact it has on the game, removing five man queuing would be a very good thing at this point in development. I suspect complaints of poor matchmaking would significantly reduce and the quality of games would increase. At the very least matches would be a damn sight fairer.

Think there are other issues that Paragon needs to address? Disagree with this list? Let me know.

