Curse

Tyla · Sep 03, 2008, 05:23 PM // 17:23

Okay, so I'm just wondering why people would use this as a Cry of Pain trigger over a random Mesmer hex, or one that deals damage through enemy casting, attacking or whatever.

Degen is weak in PvE, and you're using roughly 2.5 seconds for getting Cry of Pain on attack. One advantage is that it's AoE, but what's the point in that when Cry of Pain shares the exact same radius as Ether Nightmare?

Also, taking away Ether Nightmare and replacing it with Mind Wrack (for instance) will save you a PvE skillslot you can use on something far, far more useful.

One bar I would look at is the following:

[shrinking armor][cry of pain][ebon vanguard assassin support]["finish him!"][cry of frustration][no skill][no skill][no skill]

It has it's elite free, a powerful AoE radius interrupt with the capability to kill a target without any immense support. It also has two free normal skill slots which can be used on a res skill or another form of shutdown. The best thing is that it takes absolutely no attribute points to fuel, which can be used on certain skills such as Assassin's Promise (<3 Upier), Power Block if you want shutdown, Signet of Illusions (Although I wouldn't consider this myself, it's just giving you a small amount of extra damage), Arcane Conundrum and whatnot. If you are in need of energy management, GoLE isn't far off and Arcane Echo / Echo are good and viable skills for use on the bar. Far superior to your common CoP / Ether Nightmare / *X PvE skill* bar if you ask me.

Oh, and in the case of Cryway the Mesmer hex shouldn't matter at all. Why? Because by the time everyone's casted CoP, everything will be dead. No degeneration or damage through attacks will be required at all either.

Oh, and to finish off...

Discuss!

JDRyder · Sep 03, 2008, 05:39 PM // 17:39

cant say ive every been a fan of ether nightmare, not sure myself why people use it.

ive been using this over the last few days
[build=OQNDAowjSuNcAaAyAoRZA2gEBA]

i like wastrels worry for Cop cause its always ready and goes good with the build imo

zelgadissan · Sep 03, 2008, 05:41 PM // 17:41

The only reason I know of is because it's AoE so they don't have to recast the Mesmer hex. And that's not a very good reason.

Sindy · Sep 03, 2008, 05:46 PM // 17:46

I'm 100% with you on this Tyla. [mind wrack] has a low E cost, low recharge, and a long duration (if for some reason they aren't dead *very* quickly) and the AoE of CoP is enough to wreck havok with the groups anyway. So you have to "prime" a new target every now and then, an AoE hex (as you mentioned) hits the same people. I use it when I'm the only CoP'er...a faster cast, shorter duration hex swings it when I have a few guildies doing the same.

Never got the ether nightmare choice...

SmokingHotImolation · Sep 03, 2008, 06:13 PM // 18:13

The only reason i take Ether Nightmare is to save the attribute points. But i've never given it alot of thoughts tbh

uzumaki · Sep 03, 2008, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

gw is srs bsns

srsly.

Yeah.. Ether nightmare is pretty bad in group pve but great for solo builds. Mind Wrack is definetly a nice CoP trigger hex. The build looks ok, nothing new though, echo cry spams + ap with overpowered pve skills

ajc2123 · Sep 03, 2008, 06:28 PM // 18:28

I never use people groups really, so I bring it as another AoE help since ONE person casting CoP is slightly energy heavy and every little bit of damage helps imo.

In a party with more then one CoP though, I prolly wouldnt bring it.

But on a side question about degen. Is it REALLY that bad? I know single target degen is weak but like..AoE burning. Take Incendary arrows for example. Thats +42 damage for 3 seconds of damage which is armor ignoring and slightly AoE. High AoE degen isnt THAT bad is it ......Strictly from a H/H point of view.

eximiis · Sep 03, 2008, 06:46 PM // 18:46

the things is 5 CoP with arcane if they have is = 1000 armor ignoring damage.

the tiny little +42 damage over 3 secs . is useless

ajc2123 · Sep 03, 2008, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by eximiis

the things is 5 CoP with arcane if they have is = 1000 armor ignoring damage.

the tiny little +42 damage over 3 secs . is useless

I said strictly from H/H point of view, where there is only ONE CoP if any and doing the echo chain thingie is energy blasting.

JDRyder · Sep 03, 2008, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by eximiis

the things is 5 CoP with arcane if they have is = 1000 armor ignoring damage.

the tiny little +42 damage over 3 secs . is useless

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajc2123

I never use people groups really

and yea degen is bad

Tyla · Sep 03, 2008, 06:51 PM // 18:51

Even with H/H.

20 DPS doesn't really mean much at all, or 16 DPS providing you have max K/L.

The only reason I'd take Incendiary is for the ability to shoot multiple arrows at multiple enemies cheaply and spammy, with a preperation.

@Uzumaki: Yeah, I thought it'd be nothing new. The PvE skills EVVS and FH are often used in conjunction with each other, Cry of Pain is an incredibly awesome skill and Cry of Frustration is also an incredibly awesome skill in my opinion, especially in PvE.

Akolo · Sep 03, 2008, 07:10 PM // 19:10

ether nightmare is good since if target gets stripped off hex, you can just switch target and be (almost) sure they have a hex on them. Also single target hexes is annoying since you have to press t instead of c :P

Tyla · Sep 03, 2008, 07:29 PM // 19:29

Well if there's heavy hex removal in an area I can only agree. However, you can always take two copies of it and Mind Wrack just encase, although I'm not sure how it would work in The Deep at the Leviathons. Perhaps you could test different amount of copies in a Cryway team for The Deep and see how it goes?

upier · Sep 03, 2008, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

Assassin's Promise (<3 Upier)

*waves*

On-topic:
I think we shouldn't be asking ourselves WHY EN - but rather WHO is using it.
Look at CoP for instance. Despite it being out for quite some time now - the people who play mesmers still haven't "owned" it. When CoP is discussed there is pretty much never a time that the sentence "but anyone can use it" doesn't drop. Also all other skills are pretty much looked at as "but anyone can use them - just pump up 12 into the selected secondary mesmer attribute and you are done with". I mean that is true for pretty much everything in this game - yet when we talk about SS - it's a necro skill. Nobody even considers running it on a mesmer - despite it not really making a difference.
And this is what I mean by "owning" it. Taking ownership of it.
My guess is that people who play the mesmer just do not care so some run EN. The class just offers so much, despite things actually not working, that the best option isn't what people strive for.
The freedom that comes from being this wild child that is quite different to pretty much everything we have seen - not only in GW but also in other games - just attracts a certain profile of people that cherish this freedom more then anything else.
People use it because they like it.

(Well that would be the nice explanation. The more simple one though is that they just don't know better.
I like the first one better.

)

Rhamia Darigaz · Sep 03, 2008, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDRyder

i like wastrels worry for Cop cause its always ready and goes good with the build imo

unless they use a skill between wastrel's worry and cop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zelgadissan

The only reason I know of is because it's AoE so they don't have to recast the Mesmer hex. And that's not a very good reason.

the point is that it being aoe doesn't matter, because everything that had ether nightmare on it would die after the first CoPs anyway

zelgadissan · Sep 03, 2008, 08:53 PM // 20:53

^ You're kinda proving my point.

DarkSpirit · Sep 03, 2008, 10:53 PM // 22:53

I never liked Ether Nightmare but for some reason many mesmers like to use it along with CoP. EN gives alittle energy denial and we know how useless that is in PvE and some degen which is not that great in PvE either. The price is, it takes up a PvE skill slot, and doesn't even last the full 15s of its recharge.

My favorite hex for CoP+AP build is actually Shrinking Armor. Only 5e, lasting for 10s over a 8s recharge with a degen of 4 with at least 13 illusion. I can also shatter it for extra damage+immediate cracked armor, after I have used it to trigger CoP. Since it is cheap and has a short recharge, I usually do not have a problem to recast it, if it is removed. Also removing it would cause cracked armor immediately so I get something in return too.

My PvE skills are CoP, Pain Inverter (or FH), and EVAS.

Mind Wrack is cheaper but you would be using it purely as a hex and doesn't have much use in PvE unless you have strong e-denial.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akolo

ether nightmare is good since if target gets stripped off hex, you can just switch target and be (almost) sure they have a hex on them. Also single target hexes is annoying since you have to press t instead of c :P

The problem with that is, target switching may not work well in an AP build and furthermore, by the time the hex is removed, your target's life maybe already be halved or a quarter down. Switching target would allow it to heal it back, wasting your time. I prefer to use a cheaper hex with a much shorter recharge and simply re-apply the hex when removed.

You can also bring more than one hex so you can do more shatter and also protect against hex removal. I bring Phantom Pain also. It is more costly, but deep wound is always nice.

JDRyder · Sep 04, 2008, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhamia Darigaz

unless they use a skill between wastrel's worry and cop.

i dont only use Wastrels Worry for CoP its part of the build as well, but it is nice imo cause its always rdy, and Ive not had that happen yet. cause they are 2 1/4 casts.

Cebe · Sep 04, 2008, 09:39 AM // 09:39

Ether Nightmare has a few aspects which appeal to players:

It's AoE
At Rank 1, it's an AoE Conjure Phantasm - and as unpopular as Conjure Phantasm should be, how often do you see an R/Me using it? >.<
It requires no attribute points (a great draw for secondary Mesmers)
If it gets stripped off one foe, an adjacent foe will still be hexed with it.
Similarly, if target foe dies fast, an adjacent foe will still be hexed with it.

That, compounded by the fact that Domination (the traditional favourite Mesmer attribute) has few useful hexes, under the effects of which you'd want to interrupt toe foe...and you can easily see why it's popular.

Shrinking Armor is a good alternative. I personally quite like Wastrel's Worry + CoP, if you can make it work.

JDRyder · Sep 04, 2008, 12:58 PM // 12:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

[*]It requires no attribute points (a great draw for secondary Mesmers)

[mind wrack] also does not req any point for it to work btw