Curse

LexTalionis · May 13, 2011, 09:43 AM // 09:43

Update: Few notes suggested by TheJosip. Added notes on Fragility and Mind Wrack.

Short intro: Most of these observations were tested empirically (mostly empty skillbars, skillbars with nothing but interrupts on them, etc). For the purpose of this overview, "Stacking" refers to the use of the same skill or same type of skill on more than one hero. Please don't take my opinions too seriously and use your own judgement.

I'm well aware a lot of this isn't news, but it's not covered in the hero AI thread and I get some questions about this stuff from my guildies sometimes, so it might be vaguely helpful to a newer GW player.

Let's start with the basics:

Nuke Priority:
Generally speaking, Mesmers have no set nuke priority for many direct unconditional damage spells. Giving them multiple damage nukes will not make them prioritise AoE nukes when they can hit multiple targets over single targets - especially in the case of Energy Surge. Giving a hero Spiritual Pain, Unnatural Signet, Energy Surge and Mistrust, for example, and leaving them to their own devices will make them cast the nukes in a completely random order (tested with 5 heroes with identical skillbars and statistics). Note that there are special case scenarios (e.g. Accumulated Pain) which I will cover below in an individual skill breakdown.

Interrupt Stacking
Everyone and his mother knows about heroes not prioritising interrupts. What's less often paid attention to is that heroes have absolutely no recognition for other hero behaviour with regards to interruption. What I mean by this can easily be understood if you do the following test: Bring two heroes with the same interrupt to any caster in the Nameless Isles and watch them both try to interrupt the enemy at the same time on the same cast.

The long term significance of this is that stacking interrupts on multiple heroes leads to diminishing returns. Power Drain is not usually effective energy management on 3 or more heroes and can actually be counterproductive (lose 5 energy in return for nothing!). Psychic Instability on a hero is not guaranteed to knock down enemies even if it was used every time the recharge was up. Cry of Frustration and Panic will and do cause problems when stacked unless you take care to lock targets before the battle starts. This is one reason why if you can be bothered to micro (I usually can't), locking each mesmer onto a different interrupt target is very helpful (and obviously doesn't always work so well for Cry of Frustration).

Note that it is NOT possible to circumvent this behaviour by using nonstacking hex behaviour as heroes will use interrupt hexes as hexes (Namely Power Flux and Web of Disruption) and cast them regardless of situation. Your best bet is to have some variance in terms of skill bars so that heroes don't do identical actions (although there's some occasional natural and random delay staggering in AI behaviour for normal-priority skills.)

Conditional Priority Skills:
Heroes are very good at using skills that are AI coded for higher priorities upon certain conditions being fulfilled. This is the foundation of Discordway, but also applies to things such as removal. Note that heroes DO appear to have awareness of other hero skill usage in this instance - Two heroes will not attempt to use Shatter Hex at the same time if you only have one Hex, hence Shatter Hex and Shatter Enchantment stack well.

Now that those basics are out of the way, let's discuss a few other things:

Energy Management
Thanks to the nature of Fast Casting in PvE, it is not uncommon for non-Keystone Mesmers to have Energy problems with a high FC attribute. Fast Casting speeds up the recharge of Mesmer spells, but not Signets, and as a result, spell-based energy management will scale better than Signet solutions (although Signets offer passive energy management). I'm not going to cover the Signets as it's easy to tell what is worthwhile and what isn't, but as for spells:

Generally speaking, Mesmers don't have very strong spell-related stacking-friendly Energy Management, as a lot of it seems to be balanced around the degenerate amount of energy that Power Drain/Leech Signet returns, but there are exceptions to the rule:

Waste Not, Want Not - The most popular solution after Power Drain. Stacks effectively, but provides a low energy return that doesn't scale particularly well. At 8-11 Inspiration, a pretty high value for most builds, this skill will return a net total of 6 energy every 10 or so seconds. This is generally sufficient for Domination builds, provided you can get the condition off. The easiest way to trigger the condition is through Knockdown, although Shared Burden and other snares are also effective, as is Chaos Storm.
Drain Delusions - Possibly the strongest and most reliable energy management solution available to Mesmers, this is usually shunned as it may remove "vital hexes". This argument carries rather less weight if the "vital hex" in question happens to be a Wastrel spell (no damage when removed, but Wastrel spells are very spammable), Panic, Fragility, Arcane Conundrum, one of the Burden spells, Overload or Enchanter's Conundrum. (I believe that very few people will get reasonable use out of Shrinking Armor or Phantom Pain in PvE.) Can be very effective. Do not assume Drain Delusions will remove every single hex on your enemy - Heroes will only use this when they are low on energy and will only use it on their current target.
Energy Tap/Drain: Energy Tap usually ends up returning around 6 energy every 20 seconds, but can improve with HSR procs. Less conditional than Waste Not, Want Not, but still kind of weak - not really recommended. Energy Drain is serviceable, but takes up your elite slot.
Mantra of Recall: Fortunately, Heroes will not maintain this, but it's still somewhat underwhelming without a heavy inspiration investment. Not recommended for longer battles, fine in shorter ones, not worth an elite slot.
Arcane Conundrum: This is only an energy management tool if it manages to hit more than one target. Heroes will use this on any current target of theirs, regardless of class. This is good Shatter or Drain Delusions fodder, but failing to hit more than 1 target will end up costing you energy and provides no other benefit on enemies without spells.
Inspired/Drain Enchantment, Inspired Hex: Drain Enchantment is extremely good energy management that has one big problem: It requires an enchantment to work. If you know the area you're going into has no shortage of them, use it freely. Has great synergy with Enchanter's Conundrum. Inspired Enchantment and Hex are generally not worth using as they return little energy and don't scale properly with fast casting - with the notable exception that they're stellar on Monster enchantments and hexes, but most people know this.
Guilt/Shame: Guilt is somewhat effective energy management with a high investment into Domination and Fast Casting and minimal investment into inspiration. Shame returns too little energy to be viable by itself, but the effect is useful for disrupting enemies. Both suffer from Mistrust targeting issues (see below). Reports say that Guilt is cast on any current target of the hero, not just enemies with skills that can trigger it, so be careful with this skill.
Auspicious Incantation - No, heroes have no special AI for this and are very poor at it without supervision. They will not cast it until relatively low on energy, upon which they probably don't have the energy to cast anything worthwhile. I wouldn't recommend it, YMMV.

Non-mesmer solutions include: Blood is Power/Blood Ritual, Hex Eater Signet (long recharge), Ether Signet, GoLE and Bloodsong/Siphon Spirit (optimally at 8+ Channeling but takes 2 slots and does not stack). Note that these don't scale with Fast Casting, so they're not pertinent to my discussion.

Dealing Damage:
It doesn't take an act of genius to throw Energy Surge into every single Domination Mesmer bar, but thanks to the nature of Mesmer damage your results may actually improve if you understand the nuances of particular skills and how to prepare for areas ahead. Everyone knows that like hexes don't stack, after all.

Domination Magic

Energy Surge - Very popular. Cheap, does 99 damage at 16 Domination magic to a nearby range, but scales rather less well under that as it drops to 81 damage by going to 13-14. It's practically unconditional, stacks well, and is marred only by the fact that the AI assigns it no particular high priority and often won't cast it immediately upon recharge, will not prioritise its use on clumped enemies, and is elite. From a damage viewpoint, this skill is rather mediocre - it is outdone in almost every way by Wandering Eye, which happens to do more damage, has a shorter recharge and prevents an attack. Note that heroes will use this skill even if unable to get the full effect of energy loss and damage from the target.
Spiritual Pain - A personal favourite, but slightly flawed. Does 79 unconditional damage at 16 with a very short recharge, is good for spiking down single targets and works well with Mind Wrack. Unfortunately, appears to have a conditional activation clause that makes it heavily prioritise nuking any spirits or summoned creatures in range - which may not necessarily be your intent. Makes clearing a little faster though, as killing multiple spirits is generally annoying (if you don't just ignore them).
Unnatural Signet - The AI assigns this no special higher priority even if the target does happen to be hexed or enchanted. Useful for spell-immunity.
Wastrel's Worry/Demise - If your target happens to have Natural Resistance, Wastrel's Worry is one of the highest dps nuking spells in the game. Demise does really good DPS, but both require extra effort (usually Panic or PI, but Mistrust/Guilt Chains work too) to get the most out of. More suitable for players, but the damage can be impressive.
Mistrust - Huge damage and flashy, but heroes will only hex their current target with this. If you intend to stack this effectively, micro your heroes by locking separate targets before the battle starts as heroes will cast this on any class with the caster designation regardless of whether it has spells that will trigger this or not. It will not cast this spell on non-casters (Rangers, Warriors, Paragons). Note: Most targets in the Isle of the Nameless, including dummies, are considered casters for some strange reason. You may confirm this on the two Guards of the Isles, which are not considered casters.

Note that Mistrust can stack with Guilt and when the spell fails, both effects will trigger. Also note that Mistrust and similiar spells (Guilt/Shame) will also activate instantly if an enemy begins casting the right type of spell while under the effect of the hex, hence they work properly with Panic.
Aneurysm - Heroes have knowledge of the amount of energy your enemies have and will not cast this unless your enemy is nearly out of energy. Whether you trust them enough to use this skill without Arcane Languor is up to you.
Overload - Due to its nature of being a Hex, this will not stack, therefore multiple copies are not useful without micro. Has a high priority conditional usage similar to that of an interrupt (Heroes will try to get the additional effect), but very low priority otherwise. Great synergy with
Shatter Delusions - Very good AoE damage on a very fast recharge, works incredibly well with Overload, but suffers from the same considerations as Drain Delusions. Stacks excellently if you are not paranoid about hex removal. Note that heroes will only use Shatter Delusions on their current target and will not manically remove every Mesmer hex in range. This may or may not be a good thing.
Enchanter's Conundrum - Extremely underused skill, often overshadowed by Energy Surge. Costs more energy, smaller AoE, conditional damage (target must not be enchanted), not so hot on Dervishes, so some target consideration is required. In return, you get more damage per activation than Energy Surge combined with a very short recharge time.

Since this is a hex, heroes will not overwrite it, and with fast casting, it will recharge faster than its duration. Obviously, this just means you should be combining it with Shatter Delusions and Drain Delusions to counter the higher energy cost and create an even larger rate of damage.
Power Spike - Very strong spike damage on an interrupt with a very short recharge. Problem: It's an interrupt and doesn't stack well.
Shatter Enchantment - Somewhat superior to the necromancer enchantment removals (thanks to having a shorter recharge due to FC), but energy hungry. The main issue is that it has strong competition in the form of Drain Enchantment and Mirror of Disenchantment (which is very strong, but not a damage skill, so I won't discuss that here). Stacks well.
Shatter Hex - Very powerful - almost too powerful now, but is still energy hungry, conditional, and PBAoE on a target ally. Does very high damage in a large radius, while removing a hex and has a short recharge. One of the best damage spells if you're using a tanking approach.
Empathy/Backfire/VoR - Action hate. Not particularly energy friendly, but have the potential to do far more damage than any other Domination spell by themselves. Nearly every single target Domination nuke should to be compared to these spells unless you intend to spike down the enemy (although Empathy on certain creatures constitutes a heavy spike).
Chaos Storm - Very energy friendly, causes scatter. Note that the AI will not use this on anything except casters with wands and staves and will not target packs to AoE with this. As a result, it must be microed. Again, note that this is actually a good way of fulfilling the condition for Waste Not, Want Not.
Mind Wrack - Before putting in Mind Wrack, ask yourself if your team is capable of reducing an enemy's energy to zero (with say, stacked energy surges). Due to this being single target and only adding about 29 damage to each non-hex skill, this is not usually worth the energy otherwise. (87 extra damage and 3 energy loss on using a Energy Surge > Spiritual Pain > Unnatural Signet chain isn't too impressive)

Illusion Magic

Accumulated Pain - Has Conditional behaviour. If the enemy has two hexes on it, this will be assigned a very high priority and has low priority otherwise. Inflicts damage similar to that of Spiritual Pain, but comes with Deep Wound on the conditional, which is very very useful on spikes.
Calculated Risk - The downside of this spell is usually negligible, but the damage effect isn't reliable. Not particularly stellar for damage as it is somewhat pointless on casters. Has a long duration and generally will not drain your Energy as much as
Clumsiness - Mediocre damage hex with a 10 energy cost on a very short cooldown. The rate of damage is in actuality pretty high thanks to this - if you can get it to trigger. Has defensive aspects too, but is the largest cause of running out of energy. Note that due to priority triggers, Heroes give priority on the attack trigger hexes (Clumsiness, Ineptitude, Wandering Eye) to attacking foes, regardless of their actual target. If no foes are attacking, they will cast it on their current target regardless of whether it is actually likely to attack or not.
Signet of Clumsiness - Very small damage on a relatively short recharge with a few side effects. Not really essential, but it helps with the energy passively if you're using Clumsiness. Heroes will not try to get the conditional effect, but will generally use it effectively.
Wandering Eye - Stellar damage and range, cost and recharge. The only real problem with Wandering Eye is that it's reliant on a 4 second window to trigger, which is usually reliable, but not always (Enemy creatures with spammable spells won't attack often). The sine qua non of the Illusion Magic nuker.
Degen Hexes - Since Illusion Magic has no AoE degen hexes and most of these cost 10 or more energy on quite a short recharge, these are usually not a good idea if you value your energy. Shrinking Armor and Phantom Pain are somewhat reasonable in terms of energy cost, but don't do very much damage (80 damage over 10 seconds) - Accumulated Pain would do about twice that damage in the same amount of time.
Images of Remorse - The 2 second cast time makes this a bad joke. Heroes don't specifically aim for the added damage - there are better feeder hexes for Shatter Delusions.
Ineptitude - Popular with a strong effect. Good, but not quintessential, as it competes with other strong Illusion and FC elites. The 10 second Blind doesn't scale, but if you value the Blind that much, a Blinding Surge elementalist would be more efficient.
Frustration - Has a very long duration at high Illusion magic levels and can potentially deal 100+ damage on top of every interrupt you do, making the damage output obscene. Heroes have no particular priority for Frustration and will generally hex their current target with it. Note that the damage will only trigger on actual interruption - despite the description of certain skills, just randomly tossing out Web of Disruption or Leech Signet will not interrupt the target.
Fragility - The problem with Fragility as a damage source is that it needs to be built around (usually with fevered dreams and short duration conditions or enemy condition removal). Heroes don't prioritise targets hexed with Fragility nor Fevered Dreams with conditions, so this works better on players. In any case, Fragility is capable of causing surprising amounts of spike damage, so it should not be completely discounted. Works great as a support skill with Dervishes or Incendiary Arrows.

Further notes on the nature of interrupts

Mesmers are for interrupting. This is one of their fortes - however, have you ever wondered why your heroes love letting random Meteor Showers slip through the cracks?

There are two default settings for AI. "In combat" and "Out of combat". It's easy to tell when you're in combat as heroes will start autocasting skills that aren't usually maintained, such as Dervish Avatars and glyphs.

When a hero is out of combat, it will interrupt skills when set on Defensive mode, only provided the caster is in range of the Mesmer and the skill in question targets an ally. This means it will not interrupt preparations, enchantments, forms and so on.

When in combat, the hero will attempt to interrupt most skills that the enemy uses (with occasional random lapses) provided the enemy is the mesmer's current target. In combat, your mesmer always has a current target, even if it is not locked. If Enemy A and Enemy B are casting meteor shower on a mesmer who is currently nuking or wanding enemy C, the mesmer will NOT interrupt enemy A nor enemy B. Note that calling targets will lock every nonassigned mesmer onto the called target.

Interrupt choice: Similiar to nuking, when presented a choice between multiple options, Heroes will use viable interrupts completely at random.

Special cases for AI Interrupts:

Power Return: Very short recharge time, the only reason I mention this is because it makes for a good choice if you're worried about the diminishing returns from interrupt stacking harming your ability to interrupt.
Leech Signet: Heroes will only use this to interrupt spells and will never use it to interrupt non-spell skills.
Signet of Disruption: Heroes will use this correctly if target is hexed
Web of Disruption and Power Flux: Heroes use these as if they were normal hexes and will not attempt to interrupt foes with them.
Mistrust and friends: In addition to what has been said before, note that Mistrust-type spells constitute skill failure and not interruption. This means they will not put the skill on its natural cooldown, but they can get around interrupt prevention such as Mantra of Concentration.
Complicate: Note that due to the above behaviour, if your heroes do not blow Complicate simultaneously on the same skill, Complicate stacking tends to severely maim enemy groups when you call targets, since a single Complicate-ed monster will rotate through its available skills. Most enemy skillbars are partially or completely nonfunctional when 1 or 2 of their skills have been locked.

distilledwill · May 13, 2011, 11:22 AM // 11:22

Nice one mate, very comprehensive. As a veteran Heroes and AI section poster, I approve.

Dzjudz · May 13, 2011, 11:25 AM // 11:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

Drain Delusions - Possibly the strongest and most reliable energy management solution available to Mesmers, this is usually shunned as it may remove "vital hexes". This argument carries rather less weight if the "vital hex" in question happens to be a Wastrel spell, Cry of Pain, Panic, Fragility, Arcane Conundrum, one of the Burden spells, Overload or Enchanter's Conundrum. (I believe that very few people will get reasonable use out of Shrinking Armor or Phantom Pain in PvE.) Can be very effective.

Just a note. Removing Wastrel spells early will cancel all (Worry) or most (Demise) or their damage, I'd say it's pretty important not to remove them. Cry of Pain is not a hex, the degen can't be removed (so nor can you trigger Drain Delusions from it).

majoho · May 13, 2011, 12:26 PM // 12:26

Nice writeup

AndrewSX · May 13, 2011, 12:48 PM // 12:48

Yup, cool job. Also, this will probably give arguments for some discussions:

1- Active rupts stacking on different heroes has proved that can be counteractive: then is the best option have a single but dedicated Mes carrying most rupts? I'm thinking to bars using PI(or Pblock, elite rupt anyway)+Cop+PSpike+Mistrust and such as backbone, supported maybe by Frustration/AConudrum. And in this case, there's a specific priority list in the use of different skills(e.g PI used as last/first resource or only when balling)? And how this impact on other profs bars relying on rupts as e-management (UA monks for example).

(Panic is another story, cause the bar compression in rupts is so strong to cut the options of combinations, see the Panic+SS nono).

2- Job division: what can be stacked correctly and what not?
Considering 2x Mes setup: 1+1 damage, 1 active rupt+ 1 illusion, 1 Panic + 1 Damage,....you get the idea. Same for 3 or more mes (only using mes as human or mercs).

And i guess ppl will find a lot of more things that deserves to be discussed...

Nice work again.

The Josip · May 13, 2011, 01:00 PM // 13:00

Since mesmer is my only character and I use three mesmer heroes all the time, I wanted to post some observations in the forum (done after a lot of experimentation). But¸in the past I've generally been put off by ungrateful and theorycrafting people so I stopped bothering.

Aside with what you already posted (nice details btw), I'll add this:

1. Mesmer e-management skills are not good. This is shocking to some, but I don't use any mesmer e-gain on heroes. I prefer to use Blood Ritual and BiP. Current mesmer meta regarding e-management is pure theorycrafting by people who don't have a lot of experience with mesmers, or people who only use 1 mesmer in their team. Both WNWN and Power Drain are situational skills that will not trigger instantly on recharge, and will not always be successful. If you divide practical recharge by the number of max e-gain possible, decreased by occasional failures, energy gain will not be impressive at all. It's only theoretically impressive when energy spike from PDrain is seen.

2. Wastrel's is mostly overrated (but insanely good when spammed on some bosses like Abbadon). Yes, theoretical damage is high, but I actually took both of the spells myself and tried to use them the way hero would - mostly just spamming. Results were a disaster, especially if monsters use monster skills with no activation time. Yes, occasionally Worry will trigger, or Wastrel last for a full duration. But when you count in the number of times hero will cast the spell for nothing, the end result is bad.

* Chaos Storm should not 'probably be microed' but must be microed

The skill is not worth a hero bar without micro as heroes will cast it rarely.

* Accumulated Pain is amazing skill, but hero will cast it when target foe has Ineptitude+Conundrum on. Foe will trigger Ineptitude by the time hero casts Pain, and deep wound will not be inflicted. For this reason one must first observe whether his team build has enough backup hexes (practically speaking, not theoretically).

* Wandering has one serious problem - I find it better than Clumsiness (when used with Ineptitude), but hero prioritizes Clumsiness heavily over Wandering Eye. I didnt find the time to test the build without Clumsiness at all. (This also might not be the case in all zones, perhaps it was just where I was testing it, however unlikely.) This means that if hero is under 10e but Clumsiness is recharges, he will just wait till it recharges. He won't cast Wandering. This is why you need to test skill usage when dealing with mesmer heroes, and it's why you think E-Surge is not as good because Eye looks better. It looks, but hero will spam E-Surge while Wandering will.. wander on his skillbar.

* Ineptitude is extremely good. During experimentation, switching it for Shared Burden caused team wipe, while switching back to Ineptitude was enough to make the team survive. But Shared Burden is a strong skill as well - and it has one feature that is not usually mentioned: allows your team to flee. This might not be as important to spirit spammer and minion masters, but if you don't use either of these (I only use channeling spirits, and sometimes Life/Rejuvenation), Shared Burden is what keeps mob from overrunning you. Very useful if you aggro more groups than you're able to chew.

Aria Frost · May 13, 2011, 01:03 PM // 13:03

Nice job!

A little precisation about heroes' Chaos Storm usage: they don't use it against all casters, but probably only on casters having a visible weapon. For example, I've seen that heroes never cast it on Rain or Rock beetles.

About energy management, you've forgot Lyssa's Aura. It's not a great option but may be useful when copied through arcane mimicry and kept up during long fights or in crowded areas where you can aggro mobs within few seconds.

Essence Snow · May 13, 2011, 02:03 PM // 14:03

Conclusions?...12 char

LifeInfusion · May 13, 2011, 02:05 PM // 14:05

Quote:

Mistrust - Huge damage and flashy, but heroes will only hex their current target with this. If you intend to stack this effectively, micro your heroes by locking separate targets before the battle starts as heroes will cast this on any class with the caster designation regardless of whether it has spells that will trigger this or not. It will not cast this spell on non-casters (Rangers, Warriors, Paragons). Note: Most targets in the Isle of the Nameless, including dummies, are considered casters for some strange reason. You may confirm this on the two Guards of the Isles, which are not considered casters.

I knew it. Mistrust doesn't work 100%.

Also Wastrel's Worry/Demise is more or less a micro-ed skill because they like to spam it.

I disagree with your evaluation of shatter enchantment though. Drain enchantment is generally better because you can use your expensive 10 energy spells more often. If enchantments are that much of a problem generally you want a necromancer enchant strip or disenchantment spirit.

majoho · May 13, 2011, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aria Frost

A little precisation about heroes' Chaos Storm usage: they don't use it against all casters, but probably only on casters having a visible weapon. For example, I've seen that heroes never cast it on Rain or Rock beetles.

^ yeah I would recommend against chaos storm for the same reason, unless you go to an area where the wast majority of mobs are humanoid - it's kinda sad since it's otherwise a pretty good skill.

Just to make sure I just went and tested it against various mobs and heroes weren't using it against Krait and other mobs with no visible weapon, while they were eager to use it against White Mantle mobs.

Cors Seel · May 13, 2011, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Very nice job, useful information, thank you for that

What about Drain enchantment in the energy management section? Seems like a good e-management skill to me.

And agree about Bip. When i added a Bip necro to my team my mesmers just go crazy.

HigherMinion · May 13, 2011, 02:47 PM // 14:47

The Wastrel skills are terrible, people need to stop using them. Highest DPS in the game? How so?

@BiP lovers; how will your healers cope when your nec keeps spamming a 33% sac skill? He'll be auto-targeted and squashed.

Gabs88 · May 13, 2011, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Actually very interesting reading, I've long ago realized using Power Drain on more then two heroes didn't seem to work any well at all and that the energy management in many ways seemed flawed but not to this degree. One thing I'm curious about though is whether Frustration triggers off Panic? Been planning to swap out my two RoJ monks with mesmers for a lil while now so this post comes in handy when it comes to testing new builds

Aria Frost · May 13, 2011, 03:18 PM // 15:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

The Wastrel skills are terrible, people need to stop using them. Highest DPS in the game? How so?

throw panic on a large mob + spam wastrel's on as many foes as you can = many yellow numbers

jackinthe · May 13, 2011, 03:23 PM // 15:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Conclusions?...12 char

looking for this myself, also would be nice to throw a few example bars out to show the synergy you have pointed out between a lot of the skills

Cors Seel · May 13, 2011, 03:25 PM // 15:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

@BiP lovers; how will your healers cope when your nec keeps spamming a 33% sac skill? He'll be auto-targeted and squashed.

Well, your (hybrid) healers/protters have near infinite energy problem so i don't find this to be a problem. And even with a bip all my heroes have some kind of e-management so it's not like he is spamming BiP non stop.

It's ofcourse possible he spams himself to death but this never occured (so far). I wasn't a fan of BiP myself until i started using it. It's personal preference but i really like BiP and i never felt that my (both non-dedicated) healers couldn't handle his 33% life sac.

Note: I didn't tried BiP in any elite area yet and i'm definitely not saying you need to use it or something. But I like it for general HM play since my 3 mesmers can spam like crazy.

Jeydra · May 13, 2011, 03:38 PM // 15:38

You're missing a few energy-management skills, most importantly Drain Enchant, but Hex Eater Signet and to a lesser extent Ether Signet deserve mention, too. Shatter and Drain Delusions suffer from the fact that there're very few Mesmer hexes you can afford to lose, and even fewer AoE ones to drain off. I have my doubts that either are worth it.

Also moving the Mesmer discussion from the hero tier thread here, since it's more suited to it ...

Illusion Mesmers don't deal much damage against casters. Casters don't wand. Here's an example from my last Wanted quest. Target monster was a White Mantle Adherent. He did:

Glyph of Restoration -> Discharge Enchantment -> Vapor Blade (KD'ed by YMLAD here) -> Glyph of Restoration -> Shatterstone (died before Shatterstone finished casting)

He did not attack, even though he died rather slower than he should have (I need to run more Invoke Eles ...). Other monsters have died doing something like Glyph of Lesser Energy -> Agony -> KD'ed by YMLAD -> dead before he gets up. This could be because I operate with AP + spiky heroes, although I don't see any reason not to operate with AP + spiky heroes. The KDs make WNWN more reliable, not to mention both Wastrel's spells too.

I don't mean that there are no usable skills in the Mesmer lines; I mean that there are very few outstanding skills in the Mesmer lines. Skills like Spiritual Pain are usable, but you use it because you've run out of other things to use, not because it's a good skill. As for the elite skills in Mesmers, I don't think Shared Burden is bad, but it is a dedicated defensive elite that isn't too spectacular (somewhat overlaps Panic, too). You might as well run Ineptitude. There are so few viable spells in Illusion that running two Illusion Mesmers is out of the question, which leaves no room for Shared Burden.

To be honest I think the only reason to use Mesmers aside from Invoke Eles are the secondary benefits they provide, i.e. interrupts, Mistrust (the only really outstanding spell among Mesmer non-elites), Shatter Hex, physical shutdown vs. physical-heavy areas, etc. These are powerful benefits, but they're also narrow.

I think Mesmers are great heroes, but God tier they aren't.

EDIT: Responding to the Hero tier thread again -

Invoke cooldown 6s >> 15s for ESurge, before or after FC reduction.
Chain Lightning > any other AoE spell Domination Magic has to offer.
These two traits are Air Magic's greatest advantage over Domination Magic. Invoke works without Weaken Armour and EBSoH, it still does ~70 damage per cast. As a means to take down an AP'ed target, I've not found any equals to Invoke Eles except ED Rangers (which are single-target and affected by LoS).

FoC < ESurge, but like with Air Magic, Desecrate Enchants / Defile Enchants > any other AoE spell Domination magic has to offer.

Gabs88 · May 13, 2011, 04:26 PM // 16:26

Personally I just can't make up my mind about Mesmers at all. Especially when it comes to using 3+ mesmers in a build. Because while they without a doubt have stacking issues, there isn't many viable alternatives either. Presuming a rather standard Panic + Ineptitude + SoS + AoTL + SoGM + Player setup, the three most obvious alternatives are 2x RoJ monks for melee, 2x Elementalists or 2x Discord for AP-Caller approaches or similar depending on whether you yourself have armor ignoring damage or not, or 2x Mesmers.

Maybe I should try reroll monk and run 7x Air Eles? xD That could potentially be rather funny ;p Or even 6 eles + imbagon + monk? ^^

The Josip · May 13, 2011, 05:15 PM // 17:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

@BiP lovers; how will your healers cope when your nec keeps spamming a 33% sac skill? He'll be auto-targeted and squashed.

If we're talking about general HM PvE, I vanquished Vahtendi yesterday to test some skills and builds. My only heals were on EMo, and Xandra (channeling/resto hybrid). Not a single death.

That is not to say BiPer isn't fragile. But it's a matter of risk and reward.

One other thing - spells like BiP are rare opportunities to make a caster team stronger through synergy. There are no enchantments that increase spell damage of heroes. To improve damage output of a warrior, are you going to put Signet of Strength on his skillbar, or will another teammate take SoH for him instead?

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Originally Posted by Jeydra

Illusion Mesmers don't deal much damage against casters. Casters don't wand.

1. Casters do wand.
2. Illusion mesmers build that consists of anti-melee skills does not deal much damage to casters. Also, spirits don't deal much AoE damage, and hammer attacks don't spread disease.

Accumulated Pain alone is like 170dmg, and it works just fine on casters. Illusion mesmer will be casting Ineptitude etc on *physicals* while the rest of the team is spiking casters. That's what I want him to do, both for team protection and to avoid excessive damage. Perhaps if you used mesmers to AP spike instead of Invoke eles, you wouldn't need all 8 team members to target the same monster

Ok just kidding here, but you get the point. Illusion mesmer has a role, and it's not spiking targets. It's blocking physicals and in the meantime causing damage (which is high, and AoE, and armor ignoring). Not many PvE areas consist of caster only mobs and even then he has stuff to do.

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I don't mean that there are no usable skills in the Mesmer lines; I mean that there are very few outstanding skills in the Mesmer lines.

Yea, compared to 20dmg Spell Shock will do, 105-AoE dmg Eye will do is really nothing outstanding, or 170 dmg that Accumulated Pain will do.

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Skills like Spiritual Pain are usable, but you use it because you've run out of other things to use, not because it's a good skill.

It's a spike assist and summon-clean skill, cast under a second, on extremely fast recharge that does exactly what it's supposed to do. Overpowered? No, but it's not one of those skills that you have to put because the entire attribute line has 1 decent skill. And it's perfect for AP. What you don't want is a hero to have all conditional skills like Mistrust or CoF, so skills like Spiritual Pain are perfectly nice complement.

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There are so few viable spells in Illusion that running two Illusion Mesmers is out of the question, which leaves no room for Shared Burden.

That's true, but there's enough viable skills for 1 illusion mesmer.

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To be honest I think the only reason to use Mesmers aside from Invoke Eles are the secondary benefits they provide, i.e. interrupts,..

That's like saying Ritualists are bad, and the only reason to use them are spirits (ok and splinter for physicals).

It doesn't say anything except describe what the profession is about.

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I think Mesmers are great heroes, but God tier they aren't.

By definition you posted, they are. And the only reason you're not running them is, IMO, your religious dedication to elementalist class and the fact that you're elementalist primary who has to run EBSoH and Weaken Armor anyway so Invoke heroes are not *as* bad as they would be without all that but they're still not better than mesmers IMHO. If you were a mesmer primary, trust me, you would find more use in just going with mesmers, and probably the same with physical class because Shatter Hex can be amazing along with some other skills.

As for "ps":

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Invoke cooldown 6s >> 15s for ESurge, before or after FC reduction.
Chain Lightning > any other AoE spell Domination Magic has to offer

That's just BS and it shows how unfair and biased some of you people in the forum are, trying to manipulate with the facts. No one interested in unbiased comparison would even mention 15s for ESurge. That's just to make it look worse than it is.

1. Esurge is on a 10sec recharge, vs 6 sec Invoke. Invoke is 2sec cast, vs almost 1 sec cast of ESurge. That's, say, 11 vs 8 now.
However if both use 40/40 (maybe your ele needs 20% enchant mod, so staff, I dunno), and since you're using EBSoH I'll make it fair by dropping Wisdom on my skillbar, which brings us to:

cca 6-7sec recharge for ESurge (depending on the math) on average (in 80% or so cases should be 5 seconds).
vs 5 sec recharge of Invoke.

However, if we put casting times in, it's more like 7-8 ESurge vs 7 Invoke (or close to that, plus aftercasts of course but I'm not going that now).

Let's say 8 vs 7. I mean, come on.

2. Granted, domination doesn't have unconditional AoE-near spell like Chain lightning, but it has Mistrust, it has CoF, it has Unnatural Signet, Overload, even Spiritual Pain for single-target assist. Chain Lightning is 10/2/6, enchantment needed. Chain Lightning probably wins, only if the enemy is not so mobbed that "adjacent" works too (in which case Chain Lightning loses to a mere signet), and if enemy mob isn't spread outside of "near", in which cases Chain Lightning loses to single-target spike spells.

And lastly, what does Air Magic have to offer besides Invoke and Chain Lightning? You cast these two spells and then you have to wait recharge and in the meantime you got 20-damage spells.

Plutoman · May 13, 2011, 05:20 PM // 17:20

Excellent overview by far, you missed a couple skills that Jeydra pointed out, but very good. Busy today so I may give more in-depth comments later.

Also, should've looked here first, but I commented on the invoke in the hero tier thread, too, Jeydra. I agree with you on that count - it's been interesting trying to convince people of it, too, especially in-game, that searing flames is not the only ele elite usable. I did a lot of math involving invoke/chain, turns up pretty well. I like the utility of mesmers though, which is why I would always use 2-3 of them. To make a point, I cleared City HM with 3 invoke's + me, but I'd definitely say that was easier with mesmers (or a combination of invoke's + mesmers) due to the shutdown. And no, you don't need cracked armor nor EBSoH (the latter which is really annoying to use, too) to get good use of invoke/chain.