/parag/ FAQ

ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is version of the FAQ has been written before the 8th of August. Patch V_42 brought some massive changes, and therefore most of the information below are no longer up to date. Everything relating to the card system, progression and rewards is mostly outdated. Map information and general info about the game should mostly be still relevant. I'll try to update the FAQ soon™.



1.WHAT IS PARAGON?
Paragon is a free MOBA in a futuristic setting developed by Epic Games(known best for their Unreal Tournament series and development of Unreal Engine), available for PC and PS4. Unlike most other MOBAs it uses a behind-the-back view(with WSAD keys for movement and mouse for aiming on PC) for more action game like feel. Paragon's environment is fully three dimensional, with many elevated platforms which you can use for tactical advantage or to traverse the map quicker.

2.WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF THE GAME? IS THE COMMUNITY LARGE?
Paragon is currently in open beta stage, which means that much stuff is still being changed and new content is added all the time, such as a new playable hero every 3 weeks. The game is however perfectly playable. As the game is still relatively young, its community is smaller than most other MOBA's, but it has a fair number of players which steadily grows. Queuing times are almost never an issue. A large increase in playerbase is expected at the end of the year, since Epic is planning to increase the game's marketing then.

3.IS THE GAME PAY TO WIN?
No, the only items for which you have to pay with real money are purely cosmetic ones, such as skins and taunts. Everything that actually affects gameplay can be bought ONLY with ingame currency called reputation, which you gain by playing the game.(see questions 7 and 8)

4.ARE THE HEROES UNLOCKED FROM THE START?
Currently the heroes are split into few groups according to their mechanical complexity and skill required to play them well. When you start the game you only have access to the heroes with "easy" playing difficulty. You can unlock more complex heroes by logging into the game a specific number of days. Overall you can unlock all the heroes in less than a month by just opening the game daily. You can also unlock a hero early by buying his master challenge with either reputation(awarded for playing the game) or coins(purchased with real
money).

5.HOW DO I PROGRESS? WHAT ARE MASTER CHALLENGES?
By playing games you gain experience points(exp) for both your account and the particular hero you played with. The better you did, the more exp you get. For reaching new account levels you can get various rewards, such as decks slots and chests which can drop reputation, card packs, crafting materials or more rarely coins, keys and loot crates. You can also be randomly awarded chests at the end of the match. Maximum account level is 50. Heroes have separate levels and maximum hero level is 10. To gain rewards for levelling a hero(such as chests, card packs and special skins and emotes) you have to buy his/hers master challenge. You and your teammates also gain a small bonus to exp gained at the end of the match when you play a hero for whom you have a bought a master challenge.

6.HOW DOES THE CARD SYSTEM WORK? HOW DO I BUILD DECKS?
The card system is really simple and intuitive, but many new players have trouble understanding the it so I'll explain it in detail, step by step. Before we start, TURN OFF AUTO BUYING CARDS! It won't allow you to pick your cards depending on the ingame situation and will make it harder for you to understand how do things actually work.

Cards are pretty much the same thing as items in other MOBAs. There are two major differences between them though: First thing is, in Paragon instead of buying your items from the big inmatch shop you select the cards you're going to use in the match before it starts, by building a deck through the profile menu. Basically you're preparing a "build" for selected character before the game. That doesn't mean that your build is set in stone after the match begins though, the decks are big enough to put some alternative and situational cards in them, so you can still adapt to your enemies and situation. You also choose the deck you're going to use after the draft ends, so you can have few decks for one character for different positions and/or enemy composition, and pick a suitable one depending on the match. This makes buying items quicker and removes the need of browsing through hundreds of items in the middle of match. Every hero has a default deck, so you don't have to build your own decks immediately(see question 9). The second difference is, that unlike with items in other MOBAs, most of the cards in Paragon are unavailable when you just begin and have to be unlocked. Or rather collected since they're cards(see questions 7,8 and 10).

Now, to start off, most cards belong to one of 5 affinities. All heroes have two affinities they can use cards from. Cards from other affinities are unavailable for them. There are also universal cards, which can be used by everyone. For example, Feng Mao's affinities are Order and Fury, therefore he can use Order cards, Fury cards, and Universal cards. There are 3 types of cards: active cards, passive cards and upgrade cards(note that almost all active cards, except for potions, have a passive bonus in them as well). You have 6 slots to put cards in: 4 active cards slots and 2 passive cards slots. YOU CAN put passive cards into active cards slots, but you cannot put active cards into passive cards slots. Upgrade cards, instead of being placed standalone, are "attached" to an active or passive card(also called base cards) Only cards you cannot attach upgrades to are potions, tokens and cards with 10cp cost(We'll get to that in a moment). You can attach up to 3 upgrades to every base card and most of them give a special bonus for activating all 3 of them. Therefore during a match, you should almost always buy a base card, then buy all upgrades for it(accessed by clicking on a bought card in store) to get completion bonus and only then buy another base card. Note: By "buying cards", I mean buying them DURING THE MATCH, not unlocking new ones to use in your decks.

Every card has a cost(clearly visible on its picture) which shows how much card points(cp) you have to spend during the match to buy it from your deck. The maximum number of cp you can get during a match is 60, so while building the deck you have to make sure that the total cost of your end game cards and all their upgrades equals 60. A simplest way to do that is to build every card to be worth 10cp along with its upgrades. However, you may want to give some cards cheaper upgrades to get their completion bonus more quickly and compensate by giving other late game cards more expensive upgrades. As long as the total equals 60 it's all right. Selling a card refunds its full cost, so you can also put some early game cards which you will later sell to buy more expensive late game ones. Few items you should remember about regardless of character when building a deck are:
-potions, obviously. They cost only 1cp each and unlike in other MOBAs they "recharge" when you return to the base
-tokens: these are small stat bonuses worth 1cp each. They're useful when you're leaving the base with too little cp to buy anything more powerful: buy a token now for a small bonus and sell it later for a refund when you can afford something better.
-wards: buy and use them! Seriously, a vision of the battlefield is a key to not getting your ass ambushed. Basic 1cp wards kind of suck, because unlike more expensive ones they are visible to the enemy, but are better than nothing. More expensive wards are not only invisible, but also give you various stat bonuses, so they are a perfect early game item.

From other important information: effects marked as "unique" do not stack with each other(for example putting 2 cards with "unique crit dmg bonus" in your deck doesn't make sense, since they're unique and only one may work at the time). Power increases damage from both your basic attacks and abilities, physical armour decreases the dmg you take from basic attacks, while energy armour decreases the dmg you take from abilities. Physical and Energy penetration decreases the effectiveness of enemy's corresponding armour type. All heroes have some "base" armour of both types, so if you want to maximize your dmg it might be worth to build some penetration even if your enemies don't have any armour cards. I'm not going to go into detail about which cards and effects are good and which aren't since meta changes. If you're not sure whether putting something in a deck is a good idea, ask in the thread or just experiment.

7.DOES THE CARD SYSTEM MEAN THAT PLAYERS WHO HAVE PLAYED FOR LONGER AND UNLOCKED MORE CARDS WILL HAVE AN ADVANTAGE OVER ME?
Not exactly. The cards you have to unlock aren't really "better" than the starting ones, they just have different bonuses combinations and different passives and actives. You can still make viable decks with starter cards, but unlocking more of them gives you more possibilities. Therefore, getting as much cards as you can should be your priority, but at the end of the day fancier cards in deck are much less important than player skill.(if your non-fancy deck still makes sense that is)

8.HOW DO I GET MORE CARDS?
You can get card packs from chests - which you get for levelling up and simply playing the game. You can also buy additional ones for reputation. Early in the game you should really get rains of cards, so don't worry about it too much. If you need a specific card you can also craft them(see question 10).

9.ARE THE DEFAULT DECKS GOOD? WHEN SHOULD I START MAKING CUSTOM DECKS?
Default decks vary in quality from okayish to rather shitty. They're okay for trying out a new hero, but as soon as you decide you want to play with someone at least from time to time and have enough cards you should make a custom deck for him/her. Although obviously don't worry about it yet if you're still in very low account levels.

10.HOW DOES CRAFTING WORK?
While browsing your card list in game menu, you can click on any card(owned or unowned) to either craft a copy of it or dismantle any copies of it you own to get raw materials, specific to this card's affinity(there are 6 types of materials, 1 for each affinity). To craft a card you need a set amount of corresponding materials and reputation. Rarer cards cost more to craft, but also drop more materials from dismantling them. Crafting is a great way of getting this one card you really need for your deck.

11.WHAT ARE STARS AND STAR CHESTS?
Every few days you can take a free star chest. Normally it is a bronze chest, but you can upgrade it by gaining enough stars before the time to collect the chest expires. You can gain stars by simply playing matches(you gain more for wins) and by completing special challenges which you can check in the main menu. These can also award you with crafting materials. There are also special weekly rewards, for gathering enough stars through the course of a week.

12.WHAT GAME MODES ARE THERE IN PARAGON?
Right now there is only a "classic" MOBA 5vs5 mode, played on a typical 3 lane map called Monolith. Epic promised new game modes to be introduced by the end of the year. The game can be played in pvp, player controlled team versus bots or with bots only.

13.HOW DOES THE GAMEPLAY AND MAP IN PARAGON DIFFERS FROM OTHER MOBAS?
Two big major differences are the card system(explained in questions 6-10) and the completely three-dimensional environment. Almost all main MOBA principles still apply, so I'm going to now describe the main features of the map and things that stand out. I'm going to assume you know the basics of MOBAs, and if you don't, there are honestly probably better places online to read about it than me describing them. I will however probably still include some basic info, noob tips and explanations where they are needed.

The lanes on Monolith differ from each other. We have the Offlane(left), Midlane, Safelane(right) and the jungle inbetween them. Map halves are mirror images of each other, so your Safelane is your enemy's Offlane and vice versa.

13.1.SAFELANE
Safelane is located on the right side of the map. It is designed as a safe place for carries(characters who have potential for becoming very powerful late in the game but need lots of card points to achieve it, mostly ranged damage dealers)to farm(focus on last hitting enemy minions to get as much card points as possible). Your right tower is the closest one to enemy part of the map, which makes this lane theoretically the safest. What's more, it's the closest lane to the main part of your jungle, which makes it easier for your Jungler to help you and gank(see the jungle section). Carry is usually accompanied by a support hero, who helps him to stay safe. Near your outer Safelane tower, there is a neutral golden creep which gives a large amount of cp to whoever kills him. Therefore try to get him whenever he respawns!

13.2.MIDLANE
Midlane, as the name suggests, is located in the middle of the map. Because of that, both midlaners are susceptible to ganks and should be even more cautious than other players. Wards are an absolute necessity here. Casters work especially well on Midlane due to their ability to clear effectively clear minions from a safe range. Due to their location in the centre of the map, midlaners can quickly traverse to other lanes(especially the Offlane) and help their teammates in fights. Remember though, that Midlane is the shortest of all lanes, so before leaving it make sure it's safe to do so without having your tower besieged in a second. On the river to the left and right of the Midlane you can find flying insect-like creatures known as the river buffs. They can be killed in few hits and give a random buff for a short time. You can tell which bonus you will receive by the colour of the creature:
blue-faster move speed
black-additional damage over time from your attacks
purple-invisibility
red-additional damage from your abilities
All of them also give you large mana regeneration bonus, which helps in sustaining yourself without having to return to your base. These buffs can give you an edge against the enemy midlaner(and other enemies as well), so you should keep an eye on their respawn times and try to always take them before the enemy does. Placing a ward near them is usually a good idea.

13.3.OFFLANE
Offlane, located on the left side of the map, is theoretically the hardest lane to be on(since it's your enemy's Safelane). You will often be forced to play 1vs2 here. Play defensively and try to hold your tower, but be prepared to loose it quickly. Tanky characters which can sustain themselves work best here. Also remember that as the Offlaner you're supposed to make farming as hard as possible for enemy carry, so characters which can poke and attack them from safe distance work well too. Offlane has its benefits as well. You tend to gain experience points faster here, so it's a good position for heroes which rely on quickly unlocking and upgrading their abilities, rather than farming for card points. Finally, there is a jungle camp just next to the offlane which can help you catch up on cp should you fall behind.

13.4.JUNGLE
As the Jungler, you grow stronger by clearing jungle camps and ganking(ambushing unsuspecting enemies on lanes), rather than farming on lanes. Jungle camps in Paragon work quite different than in other MOBAs. They fill up gradually, up to 5 creeps, so you have to clear them regularly or they will become hard to deal with early game. While clearing the camps don't just stand and let yourself get hit, but move trying to stay out of creeps' range while hitting them yourself to minimise damage(this is known as kiting). The Green Buff located in the jungle is a very useful tool for clearing overcrowded camps, since it gives you armour and damages enemies hitting you. There are also special cards for Junglers, known as scythes and syphons, which give you additional dmg or lifesteal against jungle creeps, making them a great early game item for Junglers. Killing jungle creeps not only gives you exp and cp, but also fills up a thing known as Amber Link. It looks like a big orb filling up with blue liquid and is located near the Green Buff. Every few minutes the Amber Link empties itself and distributes accumulated energy among your team, in form of exp and cp. This means that your whole team benefits from you clearing up the jungle regularly. Your enemy obviously also has an Amber Link located in their jungle which can be attacked to steal the energy accumulated in it for your team. Of course the enemy team can do the same with your Amber Link, so keep an eye on it!

However, all of this doesn't mean you should sit in the jungle for the whole match, quite the contrary. You should maintain communication with your team members, help them in fights, defend their lane for them when they have to recall and always look for an opportunity to gank.

13.5.OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST
There are 2 other points of interest on the map. First is the Raptor Pit. It is located near the centre of the map on the side and spawns powerful neutral creeps known as Raptors. They're hard to take down and usually require a help of your teammates, but give big cp reward to whoever kills them(similar to Golden Fury in Smite). Opposite to the Raptors, there is a powerful boss known as the Prime Guardian(marked with a purple dot on the minimap). Killing him activates the Prime cards of all the team members of player who last hit it, which give you powerful combat and pushing bonuses. Keep his area warded at all times and don't let your enemies kill him, since taking him down can be a real gamechanger.

14.OTHER USEFUL TIPS FOR NOVICES AND MISCELLANEOUS INFO
-This is such a basic thing I feel dumb even writing it, but some people still seem no to get it, so: YOU HAVE TO LAST HIT MINIONS TO GET CARD POINTS FROM THEM! It doesn't matter how many attacks have you put into minion, what matters is whether you struck the killing blow. Therefore you should let your minions take care of enemy ones and just finish them when they are one hit from dying. This way you get more cp and grow more powerful. The only exception is, when you play a support, you SHOULD NOT last hit minions unless you're alone at the moment(which you shouldn't be as a support) because you want to leave the cp for other players, mainly your carry. Furthermore, when you go to someone else lane to help them, leave the last hits on minions for them, do not steal their farm on their own lane! The same goes for jungle camps, their your Jungler's main cp source so don't steal them from him unless he has clearly lost interest in clearing them himself.(see also setting a lane and lane freezing)
-Ward! Seriously, ward a lot, especially on jungle exits since their obstructed by the fog. Warding helps you to avoid ganks and ambushes and to set them up yourself.
-Dying makes your enemy stronger(this is known as "feeding" them). Therefore always play it safe. Do not rush into enemy part of map without wards and support from your teammates, do not push too far if you don't know where the enemies are, do not chase after kills if you're not absolutely sure you can finish them AND escape, do not get into fights on low health. If you're not sure whether something will end up well, it probably won't. Also have I already mentioned wards?
-Watch where the enemies are and what your team members are doing. If your teammate is in a fight nearby don't just stand around, go help him! If there is a teamfight going on, chances are they could use your help. MOBAs are teamgames, so work with your team!
-Kills are great and all, but pushing is what wins the game. If you have to choose between pursuing a low health enemy and defending your tower(or especially inhibitor), always go for the second option! Enemy will respawn anyway, your structure won't.
-Communicate with your teammates. The ping system(accessed by "c" key on PC) is kind of shitty, but definitely better than nothing.
-Hero roles exist for a reason. If someone in your team all ready picked a ranged ADC you SHOULD NOT pick another one, regardless of how good you think you are with them. Drafting order also exist for a reason and whoever picks first has the right to pick whatever he/she wants. No reason to get salty over it.
-Watch out for Raptors and Prime Guardian, a well timed take out of those can really shift the outcome of the match! Keep them warded at all times, so you can see if your enemies aren't attempting to attack them(you can always try to steal the last hit from them). Also remember that whenever your team attempts to take them down, you can expect the whole enemy team to rush and try to stop you, so trying it when all the enemies are alive is rather unwise.
-You can press B on PC to quickly recover to your base from anywhere on the map. This takes a moment though, so make sure you're safe
-Inhibitors slowly repair themselves when not attacked(but don't respawn while destroyed). Towers and Cores do not.
-Towers and Inhibitors target you if you attack an enemy hero while in their range. If your tower/inhib is attacked you can try to bodyblock enemy hero's attacks to make it target them.

15.WHAT DO HERO TAGS MEAN?
Every hero has a few tags which are supposed to describe his/her role and preferred playstyle. The first tag is always the most important and defining one, while the last one relates to character the least out of those given. Here are the tags and their meanings:
Assassin-Heroes which can hunt and quickly kill out of position and vulnerable enemies
Attacker-Heroes with strong basic attacks
Burst-Heroes which can deal lots of damage very quickly, usually with abilities
Controller-Heroes with crowd control abilities(used to move, slow or immobilize enemies)
Durable-Tanks, heroes who can take lots of damage and survive
Elusive-Heroes with escape mechanics
Ganker-Heroes which excel at quick ambushes and surprise attacks
Guardians-Supports, heroes with abilities to keep their allies safe and/or set up kills for them
Initiator-Heroes which excel at starting teamfights, usually with abilities that let their team gain an early advantage in them
Marauders-Carries, heroes who can grow very powerful late game, but need lots of cp to achieve that, mostly ranged damage dealers
Sieger-Heroes which can destroy minion waves quickly
Wild-Junglers, heroes who can easily clear jungle camps early in the game
Zoner-Heroes with abilities that allow them to control enemy positioning with various area of effect abilities

16.SETTING UP A LANE
When pushing a lane, most players tend to just clear enemy minions as quickly as possible, to get their own minions to enemy tower faster. Although this kind of works, there is also a much more effective method of pushing, known as setting up a lane. How do you do it? When pushing, destroy ONLY the ranged enemy minions, and let your own take care of the melee ones(you can still last hit them for cp). This way, your minions will still have an advantage and win, but it will take them a longer period of time. Why would you want it to take longer? Because this way, another minion waves have time to catch up with your first one, creating a large army of minions which will be much harder to stop and will destroy the enemy tower in seconds. If you can gather them for long enough without the enemy heroes intervening, even they will probably have trouble with defending a nicely set up lane.

17.FREEZING A LANE
A common mistake made even by more experienced players is pushing as hard as you can from the beginning of the game and sometimes destroying the enemy tower very early. Why is this a mistake, you might ask? After all, the main objective of the game is pushing? Yeah, but that is your long term goal. Early game you mainly want to farm and get as much cp as you can, to gain an early advantage over the enemy team and then destroy them thrice as easily. And you can't farm effectively if the enemy tower is destroyed and the minion waves meet somewhere far on the enemy side of the map. Furthermore, this forces you to overextend which makes you more susceptible to ganking. Instead, you want the minions to meet on your side of the lane, close to your tower, but not under it. This lets you farm relatively safely and comfortably, still keeps your tower safe as long as you can control the situation and forces the enemy to overextend, which provides an opportunity for your jungler to gank them. Freezing the lane is an art of making the minions waves crash in this sweet spot and keeping them there.

So, how do you do it? You have to control the position in which the waves clash. Not attacking minions and just last hitting them should make it go backwards towards your tower, while actively attacking enemy minions should push it further down the lane. When the waves clash where you want them to, you have to keep them in there by controlling the minion count. Try to only last hit minions, but make sure that for each of your minions which falls, a single enemy minion falls as well. A perfect situation is when your entire wave gets destroyed while the enemy one has only a single minion left, which you can then quickly finish. Of course, most of the time you will also have an enemy on your lane, so you will have to observe his actions and react to them accordingly. If he/she pushes hard, push back. If he/she only last hits, do the same. Do everything to make the waves remain in this perfect farming place. The most important thing is to not let them reach your tower(if they're about to, you should try to tank them and lead them astray, away from it). If they get under it, the tower will destroy them too quickly, which will possibly "reset" the lane, making the minions clash in the middle of it again. Accordingly, this is what you should try to do when the enemy freezes your lane: push hard to get your minions under their tower and reset it.