Gameplay Guide (from the Official Paragon Community Kit)

This text is taken from the Official Paragon Community Kit located here. The main idea of this article is to remove some mapping to the raw data and make a focused gameplay guide highlighting lots of gotchas revealed within this guide.

Gameplay Guide

This guide provides a basic overview of the game including the environment, systems, and mechanics players will encounter. 

Overview

Paragon is a MOBA, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, in which two teams of five players are pitted against each other in a contest of strategy and action. The players on each team start at opposite ends of the world and must fight their way to the other side to destroy their opponents’ Core.

Hero Selection

As a player in Paragon, you take on the persona of a Hero. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, have their own strengths and weaknesses, and benefit from different styles of gameplay. You choose your hero before the match and play as that hero until the match ends.

Hero Progression

Heroes grow stronger as the match progresses, through increasing both Hero Level and Card Power.

Hero Level

Hero level is used to track the player’s increase in power and skill as they gain Hero experience (XP). Hero experience is gained when killing enemy Minions, Structures, Heroes, and Harvesters. As a Hero levels up, their base stats are increased and they are given the choice to level an Ability. This allows the Hero to unlock new abilities, or even level their existing abilities.

Leveling an ability increases its effectiveness; making the move stronger, usable more often, but at the cost of more resources. At level five, a Hero can unlock their Ultimate ability. Ultimate abilities are a hero’s most powerful skill, and can be used to change the course of a team fight, or even an entire game.

Card Power

Cards are another way that a Hero can increase their efficiency. Your Card Power gives you the ability to purchase cards as it increases, which is done by collecting Card Power (CP) in the form of Amber, the small glowing orbs that are dropped when killing enemy Minions, Structures, and Heroes. These Amber orbs persist for a certain time before fading away. You can also earn Amber by visiting an allied Harvester and collecting from it directly.

Dropped Amber that is collected is shared by all nearby allied Heroes at full value, so there is no grief attributed to “stealing” of dropped Amber. 

Players can earn even more Card Power from killing minions by getting a “last hit” multiplier. This effect is triggered when a Hero gets the killing blow on an enemy minion.

The Hero is rewarded with FIVE times the Amber passively dropped by killed minions and this Amber is instantly drawn into the given Hero.

Collecting enough Amber will level your Card Power and unlock more Card Points with which to purchase Cards. With Card Points, not only can you purchase new Cards, but you can also purchase upgrades for most existing Cards. Once purchased, a Card’s abilities are instantly added to your Hero for use.

Gameplay Basics

Agora

Agora is the playing field for the game where the battle takes place. It consists of three main areas: a base for each team, three lanes connecting these bases, and the jungle between those lanes.

Base

The Base for each team is located at either end of the world.

The Fountain is where you spawn in at the beginning of the game, and where you will return to when you die or recall. The Fountain is a “safe zone” of sorts where you will regenerate Health and Mana very quickly and are also granted the ability to open the Card Shop for purchases or upgrades. You start the game with three card points, so this is a great opportunity to spend them on some starting cards.

Lanes

Once leaving your base you will have the option of proceeding down one of the three “lanes” - Right, Middle, and Left - connecting the two bases to each other.

Each lane is protected by two structures known as towers and an inhibitor. To advance in a lane, Heroes must destroy their enemies’ towers and the inhibitor.

Towers

Towers are powerful structures that must be destroyed in succession to progress to the enemy’s Core.

The first tower in a given lane (the Outer Tower) must be destroyed before the second tower (the Inner Tower) will sustain any damage, and so on. Towers have powerful defenses that make them formidable obstacles.

Tower Defenses

Towers can withstand a good deal of damage from enemy Heroes and will target them if there are no minions in range, dealing a considerable amount of damage to even the most powerful Heroes.

Dealing damage to an enemy hero while within their tower range will cause the tower to target the aggressive hero, so be wary of dealing damage to enemy heroes while near their tower.

Towers have a targeting beam that selects its current target. If the targeting beam is active, the tower is active, firing shots every few seconds. The targeting beam will instantly switch from target to target to show players and give them ample time to react, should it land on them. Towers also cause enemy Heroes within a certain distance to become visible on the mini-map, alerting allies to the location of members of the other team.

Destroying Towers

Destroying a Tower pays out Experience to all nearby Heroes, drops Amber coins, and gives a Card Power bonus to the entire team. When minion waves reach an enemy’s tower, you will have time to deal damage to it because the Tower will target your minions as long as they are in range.

Towers, Inhibitors, and the Core have very handy built in indicators below their health bars that display how many enemy minions are within their attack radius. Timing and pushing lanes with your minions is the key to taking down towers and winning the game!

Inhibitors

Inhibitors are the last line of defense before reaching the enemy’s Core.

They are much like towers in the way they function, only they also have an added ability to “protect” the Core, dictate when to spawn Super Minions, and they re-spawn over time if destroyed. While all three inhibitors are active, the Core is invulnerable. This means that to even damage the Core, at least one of the enemy inhibitors must be destroyed.

Inhibitor Defenses

Like Towers, Inhibitors can withstand quite a bit of damage and target Heroes when there are no minions in range or when the Hero does damage to an enemy Hero, dealing considerable damage every few seconds to the targeted Hero within its range of attack. The targeting beam will instantly switch from target to target to show players and give them ample time to react, should it land on them. Inhibitors also cause enemy Heroes within a certain distance to become visible on the mini-map, alerting allies to the location of members of the other team.

Destroying Inhibitors

Destroying an Inhibitor pays out Experience to all ally Heroes in the area. As an added “bonus”, when an inhibitor is destroyed, the team that destroys the inhibitor begins to spawn Super Minions down that particular lane for added pressure on that lane. Super Minions are much more powerful minions with more health and damage, but only have melee attacks.

Re-spawning

Inhibitors will re-spawn over time after being destroyed. This time lengthens each consecutive time an individual inhibitor is destroyed.

The Core

The Core is the main structure, in Paragon, that must be destroyed in order to win the match.

Core Defenses

The Core can withstand a large amount of damage and does regular pulsing waves of damage to all enemies in range around it.

The damage done by this pulse is divided up equally over all targets within a radius, meaning the more targets within range, the less damage an individual will take.

With each of a Core’s Inhibitors that is destroyed, the frequency at which it pulses its damaging wave decreases.

Destroying the Core

You cannot damage the Core until both of the towers and inhibitor in at least one lane has been destroyed, and it takes more damage to destroy than any other structure. The enemy will protect it at all costs so battles at the Core can be quite intense. Super Minions are a good resource when attacking the Core, either as damage dealers or a distraction.

Minions

Minions are AI controlled units that spawn on a regular timer and advance up the three lanes engaging any enemy that gets in their way. Each team has its own minions which serve as the primary source of experience (XP) and Amber.

Types of Minions

There are several different types of Minions you may encounter during the game:

1. Melee Minions - Melee Minions are one of the two basic minions. These minions are indicated by the axe-like weapons they carry and must be within melee range to deal any damage.
2. Ranged Minions - Ranged minions are the second basic minion. The minions are identifiable by the rifle-like weapon they carry and attack their targets from a distance.
3. Siege Minions - Siege Minions are an assault minion added to every 3rd wave of minions spawned. This minion’s intent is to aid their lesser minions by drawing the fire of enemy towers, taking advantage of their higher Health pool, and allowing for the smaller minions to deal greater damage.
4. Super Minions - Super Minions are larger, much more powerful minions spawned by a team down a lane where they have destroyed an enemy’s Inhibitor. They are physically larger and deal significantly more damage, but are limited to dealing damage within melee range.

Destroying Minions

Being in the vicinity of enemy minions that die will grant your Hero experience (XP), and as they die they will drop Amber that awards Card Power (CP). As a bonus, when a Hero lands the killing blow on a minion, they are rewarded with bonus Amber right away that does not need to be picked up. This is a crucial bonus for skilled players looking to get an advantage, so look to time your attacks carefully.

Amber collected is granted equally to all nearby ally Heroes, so players do not need to worry about “stealing” Card Power from each other.

The Jungle

The Jungle is the area between the three lanes that houses camps of creatures that can be killed for experience and some pretty powerful Hero buffs, including the Prime Guardian. Additionally, the Jungle contains the Harvester locations which can be  captured to gather collectable Card Power for the entire team.

Locomotion

Travel Mode

To help heroes traverse the beautiful landscape of Agora (Paragon’s Main Map), they can enter what is known as “Travel Mode”. In travel mode, Heroes receive a speed boost causing them to move much more quickly; however, they are unable to use their abilities or attack without forcing themselves out of travel mode. Heroes cannot simply enter travel mode instantaneously; there is a delay between initiating it and entering it. While this speed boost is significant, if a hero is hit by an enemy hero’s attack or by a tower while in travel mode, they are temporarily "rooted" in place, making them unable to move for a short period of time.

Travel mode isn't sensitive to attacks by minions.

Travel mode is automatically activated whenever a hero re-spawns or recalls back to their base.

Recall

Recalling is a skill given to all players that allows them to quickly teleport back to base to recoup or purchase new cards. This skill is activated by pressing the B key (L2 + X on PlayStation 4) and will freeze the hero in place for a short time before taking them back. Any damage taken or use of abilities will break the casting of recall and force a hero to start again.

Hero Encounters

Throughout the course of a match, your hero will have many different encounters including hero vs. hero, hero vs. minion, and hero vs. structure. Your hero has two main ways of dealing with the entities it encounters: basic attacks and abilities.

Basic Attacks

Basic attacks are the main form of attack for most all of the heroes and are accessed through the Left Mouse Button (R2 on PlayStation 4). This can be either a ranged or melee attack, the effectiveness of which will vary depending on the role of the hero. This attack will not consume any mana and is affected by Attack Speed, but not Cooldown Reduction.

Abilities

Abilities are special skills given to Heroes that supplement their given roles. These skills are mapped to the Q, E, R, and Right Mouse Button (Square, Circle, Triangle, and R1 on PlayStation 4). Some skills require target confirmation by pressing its hot-key then confirming a location with Left Mouse Button. Other skills are activated buffing skills that are triggered purely through pressing their respective hot-key. Using an ability costs a certain portion of a hero’s finite Mana pool and has a cool-down time between when it will be usable again. The time it takes between being able to use these skills is affected by Cool-down Reduction.

Kill Streaks and Death Streaks

Streaks are a multiplier on the Card Power a Hero is worth, when a particular Hero has gotten a certain number of kills or deaths in a row. This multiplier starts at nothing and increases for each kill a Hero get without dying, or decreases with each death they take without getting a kill. Getting killed resets a Hero’s Kill Streak multiplier, while getting a kill will reset a Hero’s Death Streak multiplier. This way Heroes who are dominating in kills are worth more, and Heroes who are doing poorly are worth less.

Death and Re-spawning

Death, it happens, but it is not necessarily the end of the game. When a Hero dies, they are forced to wait for a period of time until they re-spawn back at their home base. This time to re-spawn increases as the game continues and your Hero levels. This places an emphasis on players playing with increasing care as the game progresses. While death is not the end, it can be a game changer. Not only is the Hero knocked out of the game for a time, but Hero kills are worth a significant amount of experience and Amber. So play and have fun, but always remember that attempting that one extra kill or tower take-down may not be worth it in the long run. Staying alive is key to winning!

Gameplay Advanced

Backdoor Protection

Backdoor Protection is a mechanic that gives Towers, Inhibitors, and the Core, increased armor when no enemy minions are within their attack radius. This prevents teams from “diving” a tower early, by rushing five Heroes down one lane early in the game and trying to take a tower very quickly. Because of how the armor and resistances formulas work however, this armor is worth less and less as the game progresses and the structures level up.

This armor is only active on the structures after a duration, once no enemy minions are within it’s firing range.

Vision - Wards and the Shadow Plane

Vision

Vision is what allows the player to see other Heroes, minions, and all other objects on Agora both in close proximity and on the mini-map. Vision is given to Heroes and objects in a radius around them, and is a key aspect of Paragon when it comes to information gathering and positional awareness. Many different objects on Agora provide vision, including: Heroes, Minions, Towers, Inhibitors, the Cores, and Wards. Vision is only provided to the player by them, their teammates, their team’s structures, and objects placed by them or their team (i.e. wards and harvesters). A player’s teammates and all of their structures and minions are visible at all times, but to have vision of any of the opposing team’s heroes, minions, or harvesters; they must have an allied object within vision range of that object.

Wards

Wards are cards that can be purchased and then placed around Agora that give players and their teammates vision within the ward’s radius for its duration. A special version of these types of cards are called Shadow Ward cards, as they give the player that placed it, and their team, the ability to see anyone within the Shadow Plane within its vision radius in addition to the standard vision provided by a ward. These Shadow Wards can only be destroyed by enemy heroes who also have vision within the Shadow Plane. Wards do not take damage as most things do, and instead take a certain number of hits before being destroyed.

Shadow Plane

The Shadow Plane is a separate “field” of vision that players can only get to by stepping on a Shadow Pad, entering stealth (Kallari is currently the only hero with this ability), or placing a Shadow ward. A hero within the Shadow Plane can see as normal (standard vision in addition to vision within the Shadow Plane), but cannot be seen by anyone else besides someone else within the Shadow Plane, or if they are within range of a Shadow Ward.

Shadow Pads

Throughout the world, you may encounter platforms called Shadow Pads that are small, blueish, circular platforms on the map which allow you to hide from your enemies.

While standing on a Shadow Pad you are invisible to all enemies. Attacking, using an ability, or taking damage will remove the effect making all allied heroes standing within the Shadow Pad, visible to the other team. In addition, enemy vision wards placed within the Shadow Pad will neutralize its effect.

WARNING: Shadow Pads are considered part of the Shadow Plane, and as such, will give vision of other characters within the Shadow Plane as well being visible by other characters within the Shadow Plane. (i.e. Kallari can be seen while stealthed by someone standing in a Shadow Pad, but she can also see them.)

Jungle Camps

Jungle Camps are small groups of AI controlled units that only attack the player if attacked. About half of the camps have buffs that spawn when the largest creature in the camp is killed. The Black Buff and Orb Prime are the only camps that increase in difficulty each time they are killed. Buffs are visualized by colored orbs that fall to the ground when their carrier is killed, which allows anyone nearby to acquire them. Buff orbs remain active for three minutes before deactivating themselves. If a player carrying one is killed, the colored orb will fall to the ground where any Hero can pick it up, giving the new owner of the buff another full duration with the advantage. Timing when best to enter the jungle and compete for its buffs can make all the difference.

Orb Prime

The Orb Prime Buff (OP Buff!) is an extremely powerful team-wide buff that is protected by the Prime Guardian camp within the heart of the jungle. Once activated, the Orb Prime gives all living Heroes the skills attributed to their Prime card. These Prime cards give large boosts to Heroes and emit auras that super charge minions in close proximity to heroes with this buff. The auras given by the Prime cards stack, meaning players who travel together in larger groups with their minions have very powerful lane pushing power.

To activate this buff, heroes must first kill the Prime Guardian. The hero who gets the killing blow will receive the Orb Prime. Once a hero has this orb, they must take the orb to the Altar: a turn in location within enemy territory on the opposite end of the map. Taking the orb to the Altar will give all living players the OP Buff. Each successful turn in of the Orb Prime will increase its duration for that team.

BE WARNED! The Orb Prime carrier is visible to the entire enemy team as a large beacon on their mini-map! The enemy team will move to intercept and can steal the orb by killing the orb carrier and picking up the Orb Prime to deliver it to their Altar.

Tip: The hero carrying the Orb Prime can begin a Recall to drop the orb, allowing another nearby ally to pick it up instead.

Harvesters

Harvesters are ancient structures located at seven key locations across the Agora map. Once activated, they provide a team the opportunity to collect Amber that is shared equally to the entire team. To activate or collect from harvesters, a hero must stand on the glowing pedestal for a period of time. Activating a new Harvester takes a large amount of time2, but with a Key card in their inventory, a Hero can reduce this placement time significantly. These Key cards have a limited number of uses before needing to return to base to recharge.

The Harvester’s Key card reduces the time required to place a Harvester

The Brawler’s Key card provides an even greater reduction in the time required to place a Harvester

Harvesters can also be destroyed by opposing teams. Attacking an enemy Harvester will force the Harvester to drop a portion of its stored Amber. This also gives the enemy team the chance to steal that location, or it can be reacquired by the initial team, once the location becomes available again after a short time4. Harvesters collect Amber at a consistent rate over time5 can only carry so much Amber6 before forcing any additional Amber to fall to the ground which can be collected by either team. This makes it very advantageous to collect from them occasionally as to not allow them to cap out and lose the chance for even more Amber.

Heroes

Heroes are the playable characters in Paragon. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, have their own strengths and weaknesses, and benefit from different styles of gameplay.

Roles

Heroes can be categorized into roles based on their particular set of attributes, skills, and abilities. Different roles lend themselves better to certain styles of play, though some heroes blur the lines between roles and can be successful using multiple play styles.

• Assassin - Assassins specialize in isolating key targets and dealing huge bursts of damage to take them out of the fight.

• Fighter - Fighters love to engage in close melee combat where they can corner and defeat their foes with brutal attacks.

• Caster - Casters are heroes who use their spells and abilities to dominate the field using their large area of effect spells to wipe out hordes of minions or other unsuspecting heroes.

• Ranger - Rangers tend to stick to the back of the pack dealing large amounts of basic attack damage very quickly from relative safe distances.

• Support - Support characters specialize in controlling the battlefield with powerful utility skills, enabling their allies to come out on top in any engagement.

• Tank - Tanks are the damage takers. Their role is to disorient and disable their foes, allowing their allies to swoop in and get those game-changing kills.

Affinity

An affinity is a Hero’s theme or personality. Affinities dictate which cards are available to them, while also hinting at their style of play and abilities. Some heroes are pure and only have a single Affinity, but most are blended and have two Affinities.

When Deck building, a hero’s affinity will limit them to those classifications of cards, but universal cards can also be used by any and all heroes. This gives meaningful choices to the players in terms of deck-building and card collecting. An example being, Kallari is a pure Black/Black affinity, meaning she is only allowed to use Black or Universal type cards when building personal decks for her; while a hero such as Gideon would have access to Blue, Black, and Universal cards.

• Corruption (Black) - Darkness, Ambition, Death: Examples of black abilities would be de-buffing enemies, life draining, manipulation of the shadow plane, damage over time abilities, or spending life to gain a resource advantage.
• Fury (Red) - Passion, Impulse, Zeal: Examples of red abilities would be attack and movement speed buffs, critical strikes on wounded foes, powerful long range damage abilities, or bypassing an individual's defences.
• Growth (Green) - Growth, Instinct, Nature: Examples of green abilities would be healing buffs, resource manipulation, regeneration, point blank area damage, or increased structure damage.
• Intellect (Blue) - Knowledge, Manipulation, Illusion: Examples of blue abilities would be cloning units, buffing structures, revealing enemies locations, disabling enemies, fast escapes from combat, or time manipulation.
• Order (White) - Order, Protection, and Light: Examples of white abilities would be removing de-buffs, preventing damage, healing allies, strengthening defences, or even self sacrifice.

Cards

Cards are Paragon’s version of equipment similar to other MOBA type games. You can use cards to improve most aspects of your Hero.

Card Types

There are three types of cards: Equipment, Upgrade, and Prime.

Equipment Cards

Equipment cards are the basic cards that players can use which provide stat boosts when assigned to card slots. These cards can be either Passive or Active. Passive cards do not require input from the player, while Active cards require the player to “activate” them in order to enjoy the cards’ benefits. Cards which have active abilities tend to have limited number of uses or charges, which can be refilled by returning to the allied base. Cards also have an Affinity that matches up with the Hero’s Affinity.

Equipment cards have three upgrade slots, each of which can hold a single Upgrade Card. When all three upgrade slots are filled, the Equipment Card is considered fully upgraded, or “Maxed”. Many Equipment cards have a bonus effect which unlocks when Maxed.

Upgrade Cards

Upgrade cards are pure stat boosts and can only be placed in the Upgrade Slots of Equipment cards. Upgrades can only be placed in equipment cards with matching stat categories. For example, an Equipment card with Health and Mana stats can accept Health or Mana Upgrades, but not other stats such as Physical Damage Upgrades.

Prime Cards

Prime cards are a special type of card that only affect the player when they are in possession of the Orb Prime Buff. Each hero is only ever allowed one Prime card per deck.

Card Decks

Card Decks determine the cards available to the player during the match. Since each deck is associated with a specific hero, the player chooses from the available decks for the Hero they have selected. Players can use pre-made starter decks or create their own decks filled with cards of their choosing.

Card Decks are built in the Decks section of the Profile tab in the Lobby.

Card Packs

Additional cards can be earned in the form of Card Packs by playing more games to level up your Account and Heroes. The more cards you earn, the more you can customize your Hero to your play style by adding the new cards to custom Card Decks.

When you earn a Card Pack, you can open it from the Profile tab in the Lobby. Once opened and accepted, the cards from the pack are available when building decks.

Card Shop

The Card Shop enables you to purchase cards from your deck to use during the match.
Heroes can access the Card Shop when at their Fountain by pressing the G key (press the touchpad on PlayStation 4). Cards range from one (1) to ten (10) card points in cost, and players will have a set amount of points to spend in the shop determined by their current Card Power.

Card Slots

Heroes have Card Slots which hold the Cards currently in use. There are a total of seven Card Slots consisting of four Active, two Passive, and one Prime.

Active Card Slots can hold Active Cards that can be activated to give the Hero a special effect like increased health or mana regeneration for a period, and they can also hold Passive Cards. These slots can be activated with the 1, 2, 3, 4 keys (Up, Right, Down, Left buttons of the D-Pad on PlayStation 4). A Passive Card can be placed in an Active Card Slot, but activating it will have no additional effect.

Passive Card Slots can only hold Passive Cards that instantly add stats to a Hero, requiring no action from the player once they are placed in the slot.

The Prime Card Slot can only hold Prime Cards. The Prime Card is automatically added to this slot at the start of each game so you will never interact with this slot during play.