Curse

AlphaWolfMaster · Nov 01, 2010, 12:23 PM // 12:23

Currently Making a New Illusion Mesmer, does anyone have any tips in term of Second profession, and all that? I always loved having pet animals in games ^-^;; so I was thinking Ranger and getting a Wolf companion when I am able to, lol xD

But as for skill set ups, I was more of a DoT an inflicting status problems while keeping myself alive. Ethernia Feast is a nice one, but it is an Inspiration Magic...

Any Skills I should try to get for my Illusions? Here were the ones I were thinking off.

Accumulated Pain
Clumsiness
Conjure Nightmare/Conjure Phantasm
Fragility
Arcane Echo
Blinding Snow
Celestial Haste

(Epic)
Illusionary Weaponry/Recurring Insecurity

Mainly, a DoT set. I will be playing Factions, and Phantasm will be replaced when I get Nightmare. Also, I am hoping there is a way to get Illusionary Weaponry in Factions? It is a GREAT skill that I plan to be using when I have the chance. If not, I shall stay back and use my Hexs with a Staff/Wand

Thanks for reading this, I shall be on later if you wish to talk.

~Edit~
This is mainly for PvE, as I find it harder to read computer movements and abilities then I do Players, and I have yet to play PvP ^^

RedDog91 · Nov 01, 2010, 01:07 PM // 13:07

First off, before you get your hopes up:
Celestial Haste is not a skill you can bring with you where ever you go. It is only usable during the last 2 missions of the Factions campaign.
Blinding Snow is not a skill you can bring with you everywhere. It is only usable during snow ball fights during the Wintersday festivities.

Illusionary Weaponry isn't much of a great skill. Its mainly used for a handful of farms and griefing the other team in PvP ("haha! your block and blind skills are useless on me!"). And neither of the 2 options are that great becuz of the mesmer's low armor and lack of any defensive skills (yes I realize that they have maybe 3, but all 3 are terrible).

Mesmers are more of a Shut-Down class. They aren't designed to be the major damage dealer (though there are some high dmg meta builds). They are designed to prevent the other team from defending itself. Mesmer hexes can either cover more important necro hexes or be used to stop the monk from healing / the melee from attacking or else they be heavily punished (Backfire and Empathy, respectively)

DeanBB · Nov 01, 2010, 01:31 PM // 13:31

Degen is okay and on some opponents is good, but in PvE things can die pretty fast - the faster the better. So direct damage is generally preferred. Of course, inflicting a whole group with degen is nice and will keep the monks busy.

Another point is that you don't have to set out with a goal of making an "illusion mesmer". Make a mesmer, collect skills and gear, and change your build as desired: domination, illusions, etc. When I say gear I mean an armor set with a good mix of runes and then hats with the bonuses for the focus of your build - domination, illusion, etc.

All of that being said, this is PvE and you can play what you enjoy, especially when you're running with heroes and henchies and guildies.

Smarty · Nov 01, 2010, 01:34 PM // 13:34

Two things you should know as a prospective mesmer: (a) energy management is your biggest enemy; (b) DoT doesn't work very well in PvE.

To overcome (a), at lvl 20 your attributes should usually be split between illusion (12), fast casting (8-10) and inspiration (8-10), unless for some reason you're relying heavily on your secondary profession for energy management. (There are ofc exceptions, but this is the general rule of thumb to follow when building a mesmer bar.) Note that if you decide to change from illusion to domination at a later date, the 12 would be in dom instead. Mixing dom and illusion on the same bar generally doesn't work because of the need for both fc and insp.

One if not two, or maybe even three if it's a really heavy energy bar, out of the eight skills on your bar will need to be devoted to energy management. Suggestions: mesmer skills: Power Drain, Drain Enchantment, Drain Delusions, Auspicious Incantation, Leech Signet, Energy Tap, Waste Not Want Not, Arcane Conundrum, Channeling, Ether Signet; elementalist skill: Glyph Of Lesser Energy; assassin skill (elite and requires attribute investment in deadly arts): Assassin's Promise. There are other skills as well, check wiki for further ideas. The good thing about many of the mesmer skills is that they double up energy management with another useful function, eg interrupting, or removing an enemy enchantment, or slowing down their movement or casting speed.

Without points and skills in insp you're going to find you run out of energy extremely quickly, and you'll spend at least half of every combat wanding the enemy while you wait for your energy bar to crawl back up high enough to start casting again.

Regarding (b), skills like Clumsiness work very well in PvE. Try combining that with an elite such as Ineptitude and other skills such as Wandering Eye and Signet of Clumsiness. Alternatively your idea to spread conditions around with Fragility is a good one. There's at least two threads on guru which have builds along those lines, imitating the mandragor dreamroots in Eye of the North - try a search for Mandragor In A Can and Mandragor In A Box, iirc.

Painbringer · Nov 01, 2010, 08:41 PM // 20:41

2nd profession I guess for PVE would be Necro (spam conditions – Blood line conditions from the necro and Fevered Dreams fragility Illusion line) better in my opinion to hit a large group not a single target.

Monk is good choice if you are going to do so FA or Jade quarry condition removal is key

Look at ether Kurzick/Luxon ether nightmare (when you have higher rank it starts getting nasty)

Don’t forget about these nightfall skills

Cry of Pain (crazy interrupt with damage and degen)

Necrosis (necro skill)

Illusion is harder to play in pve especially the harder areas the quick damage is not there and that needs to happen or the AI will destroy you.

Domination is king in that situation

Good luck to you

AlphaWolfMaster · Nov 02, 2010, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Sorry, but I do not have the Nightfall

I might be getting it for Christmas, but that's 2 months away D:

As for Illusionary Weapons: In PvE it gives +5 AR per Illusion I have, so that's +40 AR just with that skill alone. And it makes it so I don't have to train Swordsmanship ir Scythe Mastery or Dagger Mastery. So, in the end, if I upgrade everything to it's fullest, how much would that be? (It would also be nice damage per hit, and I could use touch illusions much easier)

I was also looking at Domination, and it seems nice. D: Cry of Pain is awesome! I need Nightfall and Eye of the North now >.<

So, if I were to play fractions campaign, is there a way to get these skills from nightfall and proficients? Really wanting to be able to... if not, oh well

The Drunkard · Nov 02, 2010, 04:01 AM // 04:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlphaWolfMaster

Sorry, but I do not have the Nightfall

I might be getting it for Christmas, but that's 2 months away D:

As for Illusionary Weapons: In PvE it gives +5 AR per Illusion I have, so that's +40 AR just with that skill alone. And it makes it so I don't have to train Swordsmanship ir Scythe Mastery or Dagger Mastery. So, in the end, if I upgrade everything to it's fullest, how much would that be? (It would also be nice damage per hit, and I could use touch illusions much easier)

I was also looking at Domination, and it seems nice. D: Cry of Pain is awesome! I need Nightfall and Eye of the North now >.<

So, if I were to play fractions campaign, is there a way to get these skills from nightfall and proficients? Really wanting to be able to... if not, oh well

IW is one of the worst elites in the game because it contradicts almost everything a mesmer is designed for. For each melee strike you do 40(ish?) damage, which is easily eclipsed by bringing aura of holy might and a scythe. The armor bonus is nice, but the small amount of cover enchants means as soon as IW is stripped you loost most of your dps and armor. Unless you are going to be using EoTN and NF to pump up damage for scythe spam, going melee on a mesmer is a wasted slot on a team. Stay far away from relying too much on your secondary until you get the hang of playing a mesmer, there are too many attractions from different profs that will actually gimp your bar.

I HIGHLY reccomend trying out domination magic with either esurge or echo as your elite. Illusion is nice but most of the good skills are from EoTN or NF.

Use these pages as a stepping stones in trying to learn how to mesmer; you really need NF to have access to most of the mesmer's meta builds.

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Me/E...ination_Mesmer

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Me/a...llusion_Mesmer

Best of luck to you.