Book of Agora.

Here we will be delving into the world of Agora, Paragon's MOBA map. We will be looking
at lore, lay out and everything related to Paragon. I'm going to start this as a small
project and just see how far we can get.
Agora, meaning "Assembly" in Greek is a rather fitting name for this MOBA map. I like to
think of Agora as an alternate place where heroe's of all walks test their skills in battle
against another team.
I'd like to try and progress on some lore a bit later on. Each hero is from a certain warrior
faction and to find new talent, they are sent out to fight with other factions to test
teamwork, skill and strategy. Fantasy space moba, anyone?

Map

Above is a very basic rendition of the map. It may be silly to post this for the more
advanced players, but I really think it helps new players in game to have a general idea
of what mid/bot/top lane is aswell as knowing where friendly jungle ends.
Below i'll post a much more detailed version, but the above is solely for new players.

Right! Before we start properly it's worth reading this paragraph from their wiki.
"Verticality
Unlike traditional MOBAs, Paragon is 3rd person which allows for a certain amount of
verticality, which can lead to greater strategic gameplay and surprise elements, such as
being attacked from a higher or lower altitude. The map is shaped like a "bowl", where
the spawn points are higher than the rest of the map and look down onto the battlefield.
Top lane is also vertically higher than bottom lane, so it's possible to look down from one
end of the map to the other. "
Honestly, reading and understand this will very much help anyone to understand how the
map actually works. Think about the way you can position yourself above targets over the
map, one example could be Murdochs ult. If he's positioned correctly, he can hit you from
the opposite side of the map.

Let's get to the map basics. Below you will see a layout of the map which is color coded,
each one of these is relative to the color below and will tell you what is their and explain
how to use or what it is.

We'll start from top to bottom in order for this, so first up.
Green: This is your core & the enemy core on alternate side of maps. Ofcourse, the aim
of the game is to destroy the enemies core and defend your own, this decides the
winning team. The core itself also has a pulsating damage effect and one enemy or team
inhibitor has to be down to attack the relative core.
Orange: These are your Inhibitors, they are the 3 largest towers infront of your core/1 in
each lane. When these are destroyed they will create super minions in that lane.
Inhibitors are different looking from towers, although they do have the same stats as
inner towers.

Attribute

Statistics

Maximum Health 3500

Base Attack Time 1.5

Attack Speed Rating

100

Amber Coins Dropped

Team Card Points 0

XP Bounty

52

These are stats for the Inhibs & Towers. It's important to note that losing or taking an
Inhibitor is a huge part of the game as it put's pressure on any lane that has super
minions, allowing your team to split push or full push the remaining lane/s.
Yellow: These are your common towers in each lane. Each lane will have 2x enemy
towers and 2x friendly towers. One tower is an "outer" and one is an "inner". The
difference between these is stats. The inner tower has the same stats as Inhibitors
(above), while the outer tower has 1500hp less, making it 2k total.
Towers will attack the nearest unit within it's circle (2000 units) and will then mark the
next target with a blue beam. There is a chance to get away from the beam and not get
hit if you react quickly enough and jump away from the tower.
It's also important to note that towers have a defensive ability called backdoor protection.
This means if you are hitting an enemy tower and your minions all die, you will deal very
LITTLE damage. It's not worth tower diving without minions as you will take alot of
damage while doing very little of your own.

Blue: The blue markers on the map are Harvesters. Harvesters are machines on the map
that have to be activated by a player. The player can do so by standing on the center of
the circles near a harvester, this will take 30 seconds but can be greatly sped up by
having a harvester key or a unique key with a harvester effect, doing so will reduce it to
either or 3 seconds.
After activating a harvester, there's a short build time after. Again this can be affected by
having a key with more than 1 charge (1 for activating, 1 for building) with similar times
to above.
There are 3 types of harvester. Inner harvesters which are the two on your side of the
map. These can both be activated at 3 minutes into the game.
Outer harvester. These are the on left and right lane, centered to the map. These are
generally a free for all as they are not on either side of the map but rather the middle
point of each lane. These harvesters can be activated after 6 minutes.
Prime harvester. The name says it all really, these harvesters are located at the Jungle
boss, where you get the prime orb drop. These are the latest harvesters to be activated in
game, coming in at 9 minutes.
Friendly harvesters will give you a 2000 unit vision in it's area - so these can be used
quite strategically if you capture enough around the map, it gives you a good bit of
vision. It's worth noting that attacking an enemy harvester will give you amber on each
hit until destroyed. After destruction, a harvester cannot be placed for 30 seconds.

Red,Blue & Grey: Each team has these jungle minions each side of the map. There are 4
camps of normal grey/white minions and 1 camp of both blue and red. The Blue and Red
camps will give a buff when the larger minion is killed.
The grey/white camps consist of two small minions that provide your Hero with
Experience Points and Card Experience Points when killed. These have 345hp each and
the respawn time is 2 minutes.
Blue and Red camp consists of two smallester minions and 1 larger. The two smaller are
the same as above at 345 hp, however the larger one that drops the buff has 1012hp.
The buffs differ between these two camps. Red buff will give you 25% extra damage and
slight movement speed when hitting an enemy. Blue buff will give increased Mana
regeneration and a skill cooldown of 20%.

There is another camp not shown on the map above, but it is directly to the left
of middle right lane near the shadow pool. The info for these are as follows
from Wiki.
"The Black Camp, like the Red and Blue has two small monsters and one powerful
monster that grants you a buff when killed. The Black buff gives your Hero increase
structure damage and attack speed. The health of the powerful monster increases every
time it is killed, starting at 3,500 before moving to 7000, 10000, 13000, 17700, and
finally 22,500. Likewise, its attack rating also increases, starting at 40 before moving up
to 60, then 75, then 90, then 105, and finally 120. After dying, it will respawn in seven
minutes. "
This camp buff increases attack speed and damage against enemy structures.

Purple: The large purple dot is the big boss, king of the jungle 'n' all that. He is known as
the Prime Helix Guardian, as if being a jungle boss wasn't cool enough, he's got a pretty
bad ass name.
This guy will generally take your whole team to take him down, unless you've got a high
hitting murdoch and a tank. But the last thing you want is to get ganked by the entire
enemy team and lose your prime, so I'd recommend going with a team AFTER you wipe
most of the enemy team.
From Wiki:
"He has several abilities, including slowing attackers in front of him and forming a
protective shield. Once killed, he will drop the Orb Prime, which must then be deposited
into an area highlighted on the opposite side of the map. Once this happens, the whole
team will be granted the Orb Prime buff, which activates the Prime Helix card within a
player's deck. This buff will initially last for 150 seconds but will increase in duration
every time it is achieved and will disappear for a hero if that hero dies with the buff. "
When the orb prime drops, you'll have to take it into enemy territory, so the team play
doesn't stop at just killing the big boss. You will want to band together, protecting the
player with the orb. If a player dies with the orb, it will simply drop to the floor with a first

come, first served pick up rule.

If you are successful in activing the prime orb, you're entire team will get a buff aslong as
they have a prime helix card in their deck.
The 3 prime helix card buffs are as follows..

The Archmagus:
Energy Damage: 75.8
Damage Bonus: 100%
Unique Passive: +300% Damage Vs Structures to Minions

The Centurion:
Max Health: 1000
Damage Bonus: 100%
Unique Passive: +500 Max Health to Minions

The Warlord:

Physical Damage: 75.8

Damage Bonus: 100%
Unique Passive: +100% Damage Vs Minion to Minions

As you can see, different prime cards are better for different characters.
For example, Gideon would never truelly benefit from a prime other than Archmagus.
Centurion best suits tanks like Steel and rampage, while the Warlord is perfect for
Twinblast/grux/feng.

The only other part of the map before wrapping this up is something that's again, not
shown on the color coded one above which is shadow planes.
I'm very sorry about my amazing MS Paint skills, but i've crudely drawn where the points
our. This is not 100%, it's just a general guide as I cannot find a color coded map for
these points.

So i'm hoping this pretty much sums it up. As you can see it's based on the opposite of
the teams placement wise, while left and right lane share a single one. This is especially
good for ganking early after deathball, just hide in a pool and wait for the enemy team to
get onto your side of the lane, alert your team mate in said lane and go from behind. If
the hero in question doesn't have an escape ability, it's pretty much a guaranteed kill.
From Wiki to sum up what they do:
"Throughout the Jungles in Paragon there are multiple "Shadow Planes" in which entering
it grants Heroes invisibility to enemy players and on their Mini-map. While in the Shadow
Plane you will remain in stealth mode as long as you do not cast your abilities and there
are no enemy Scout's Ward within the Shadow Plane. Heroes can place Scout's Ward
inside the Shadow Planes to give them vision as to when opposing Heroes enter it. Note
that other Heroes in the Shadow Plane can see you if you are also in the shadow plane."

And just in case you are wondering, above is the card needed to place in a shadow plane
if you'd like a bit of defence against the enemy in your lane. It costs 1 deck point and will
recharge at base.

Right. That's all for now. I'll see how it does and start jumping into either early game
tactics or deck building. Thanks if anyone bothers to read this essay!