mattdude148
New member
I have been playing Paradox on and off since I started playing Deadlock, and while she has her problems, I actually find her really fun!
Still, its obvious she is a weaker hero than most of the cast, I think this comes down to her abilities, a lot of them require set up, or just way more work than other heroes, while having lower payouts as well.
I also think they don't properly mesh well with her lore. For a "Time Thief" she does very little actual stealing, some of my suggestions will hopefully remedy these issues and maintain her high skill requirement. Being a hard hero is good, being a hard hero that is way less effective than others is bad.
I also need to preface I am far from a pro player, I'm also not a game programmer so I have no idea how difficult it would be to implement all of this.
I should also add I think Paradox mainly shines as a "set up" hero. None of my changes involve higher damage or whatever, I just think she should be tweaked a little to better assist her teammates.
Her 3 ability. Kinetic Carbine which I'll just be calling her railgun is the bread and butter of her kit, but sadly I find it's effect to be a little disappointing at times. The slow effect it currently does is really cool, and I don't actually want it changed at all. A recent update made it so her railgun deals bonus damage on headshot, with this in mind, I was thinking harder CC could follow a headshot as well. Maybe instead of slowing down the opponent is "frozen" in place for a moment, any active abilities are canceled. This means that Paradox will be rewarded for headshots even more, allowing her to shut down a flying Gray Talon or Vindicta, who will actually need to respect her harass instead of ignoring it.
Some of you may be thinking "But if Paradox can essentially stun me across the map, what is the counterplay supposed to be?" And I agree that would really suck, so I have some other ideas as to how this could work.
1) "Freeze effect" will only be applied at close range. Let's say her basic weapon's effective range. Outside of that it will function like normal. Many of Paradox's abilities thrive in close combat, so this will reward her for hitting close range and fast railgun shots.
2) Her other abilities "mark" enemies for a little while, if an enemy is shot with the railgun they are "frozen in time" and the mark is consumed. This encourages synergy with her abilities, and once again, stops her from stunning people at super long ranges. At least without proper set up. Perhaps with a low cooldown on her railgun thanks to items she can even double tap people for a stun. This is a big one and is far from perfect, but it allows for more diverse combos depending on what Paradox needs, or allows the grenade to shine even if she hasn't built around it at all.
Alternatively, ANY spirt damage could apply the mark, so all of her abilities OR items that let her shoot spirit bullets or deal damage.
3) Her railgun shots will only "freeze" enemies if she fires it through her wall. This means that enemies will have clear sightlines to avoid whenever Paradox puts a wall up.
With all of these I also think that, upon hitting an enemy with railgun, Paradox "Steals" the movement speed of the enemy briefly, gaining a short burst of speed and maybe even dash refills. Hard CC would really put her on the map and make her great at getting picks, a lot like Bebop.
The other idea I have is pretty wacky but please bear with me here.
Cooldowns are an essential part of the game. Paradox is all about being a thief. Perhaps her ultimate could possibly play with these two ideas.
Think about this: When Paradox ults someone, they swap. However Paradox also sets all their ready abilities on a 5~ second cooldown. Meanwhile all of Paradox's abilities refresh based on how much time she "stole" from the target. So if a Seven with his stun and his ultimate ready is ulted by Paradox, his stun and his ultimate go on a 5 second cooldown. Paradox meanwhile gets 10 seconds reduced from all of her cooldowns, including her ult when the swap is finished.
This gives Paradox a lot more uptime in the early and midgame where her cooldowns are really long, it makes her better at skirmishing. It also means you need to track who has used abilities and your enemies can counter this by using up all their stuff if they're at risk of being ulted.
I also wanted to propose the ultimate maybe stealing dash stamina from the target too, or perhaps after the swap the target loses movement speed and Paradox gains the percentage or flat amount they lose.
These features make it feel like she's really stealing something from the enemy and gives her a lot more survivability by making sure she's in a position to run when she swaps. Swapping is still a commitment but less so.
Other tiny suggestion I have is that wall should help allies in some way. A speed boost if they pass through or maybe it ups their bullet velocity if they shoot through, i'm not sure. I'm personally in love with the idea of Paradox being a setup god for her team and I'd like her to have more clear support tools.
This is really all I have to suggest for now, just some ideas my friend and I cooked up together. I'd like to keep this discussion going with anyone else who's interested to see where this idea could end up.
Still, its obvious she is a weaker hero than most of the cast, I think this comes down to her abilities, a lot of them require set up, or just way more work than other heroes, while having lower payouts as well.
I also think they don't properly mesh well with her lore. For a "Time Thief" she does very little actual stealing, some of my suggestions will hopefully remedy these issues and maintain her high skill requirement. Being a hard hero is good, being a hard hero that is way less effective than others is bad.
I also need to preface I am far from a pro player, I'm also not a game programmer so I have no idea how difficult it would be to implement all of this.
I should also add I think Paradox mainly shines as a "set up" hero. None of my changes involve higher damage or whatever, I just think she should be tweaked a little to better assist her teammates.
Her 3 ability. Kinetic Carbine which I'll just be calling her railgun is the bread and butter of her kit, but sadly I find it's effect to be a little disappointing at times. The slow effect it currently does is really cool, and I don't actually want it changed at all. A recent update made it so her railgun deals bonus damage on headshot, with this in mind, I was thinking harder CC could follow a headshot as well. Maybe instead of slowing down the opponent is "frozen" in place for a moment, any active abilities are canceled. This means that Paradox will be rewarded for headshots even more, allowing her to shut down a flying Gray Talon or Vindicta, who will actually need to respect her harass instead of ignoring it.
Some of you may be thinking "But if Paradox can essentially stun me across the map, what is the counterplay supposed to be?" And I agree that would really suck, so I have some other ideas as to how this could work.
1) "Freeze effect" will only be applied at close range. Let's say her basic weapon's effective range. Outside of that it will function like normal. Many of Paradox's abilities thrive in close combat, so this will reward her for hitting close range and fast railgun shots.
2) Her other abilities "mark" enemies for a little while, if an enemy is shot with the railgun they are "frozen in time" and the mark is consumed. This encourages synergy with her abilities, and once again, stops her from stunning people at super long ranges. At least without proper set up. Perhaps with a low cooldown on her railgun thanks to items she can even double tap people for a stun. This is a big one and is far from perfect, but it allows for more diverse combos depending on what Paradox needs, or allows the grenade to shine even if she hasn't built around it at all.
Alternatively, ANY spirt damage could apply the mark, so all of her abilities OR items that let her shoot spirit bullets or deal damage.
3) Her railgun shots will only "freeze" enemies if she fires it through her wall. This means that enemies will have clear sightlines to avoid whenever Paradox puts a wall up.
With all of these I also think that, upon hitting an enemy with railgun, Paradox "Steals" the movement speed of the enemy briefly, gaining a short burst of speed and maybe even dash refills. Hard CC would really put her on the map and make her great at getting picks, a lot like Bebop.
The other idea I have is pretty wacky but please bear with me here.
Cooldowns are an essential part of the game. Paradox is all about being a thief. Perhaps her ultimate could possibly play with these two ideas.
Think about this: When Paradox ults someone, they swap. However Paradox also sets all their ready abilities on a 5~ second cooldown. Meanwhile all of Paradox's abilities refresh based on how much time she "stole" from the target. So if a Seven with his stun and his ultimate ready is ulted by Paradox, his stun and his ultimate go on a 5 second cooldown. Paradox meanwhile gets 10 seconds reduced from all of her cooldowns, including her ult when the swap is finished.
This gives Paradox a lot more uptime in the early and midgame where her cooldowns are really long, it makes her better at skirmishing. It also means you need to track who has used abilities and your enemies can counter this by using up all their stuff if they're at risk of being ulted.
I also wanted to propose the ultimate maybe stealing dash stamina from the target too, or perhaps after the swap the target loses movement speed and Paradox gains the percentage or flat amount they lose.
These features make it feel like she's really stealing something from the enemy and gives her a lot more survivability by making sure she's in a position to run when she swaps. Swapping is still a commitment but less so.
Other tiny suggestion I have is that wall should help allies in some way. A speed boost if they pass through or maybe it ups their bullet velocity if they shoot through, i'm not sure. I'm personally in love with the idea of Paradox being a setup god for her team and I'd like her to have more clear support tools.
This is really all I have to suggest for now, just some ideas my friend and I cooked up together. I'd like to keep this discussion going with anyone else who's interested to see where this idea could end up.
