Curse

Paine · Jun 05, 2005, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Hiya!

What do you think is best?
Mesmer/Monk or Monk/Mesmer.
And why?

Could need some advices, f.e how to kill pure warriors ( paladins )
My current one is a mage/caster killer and she's a ME / MO

1. Backfire
2. Diversion
3. Schatter Enchantment
4. Power Spike / Power Leak
5. Arcane Thievery
6. Blackout
7. Migraine ( Elite )
8. Healing Breeze / Mantra of Recovery ( Elite )

What should I remove/add?
Discuss please!
Thanks in advance!

Gerbill · Jun 05, 2005, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Monk/Mesmer -> better healing if you use Divine Favor

Mesmer/Monk -> fast cast, not really required for most things, unless the warrior is right next to you, but seeing how you're ranged, fight ranged and that is not needed

if YOU are the character fighting them, then Blackout is out of the question, at max you'll have 1 second where you will have the ability to use a skill and the warrior won't, and without skills, well warrior has higher armor and higher damage output.
What might work is change another skill for Empathy, cast Empathy and then Blackout, then if he attacks heal get about 25-30 damage, taken in count your Domination magic is reasonably high.

Arcane thievery.. should get rid of that aswel, get another interrupt there or maybe Ether Feast to heal, or Energy burn, warriormonks without Energy are a lot weaker.

that's all I got so far.

JoDiamonds · Jun 05, 2005, 06:15 PM // 18:15

If you want to be a mage killer, then definitely Mesmer primary.

If you aren't really healing much, there's little reason to be a Monk primary.

Also, consider a relatively short cast ressurection spell, because combined with Fast Casting it can be reasonable to use a non-signet ressurection repeatedly during PVP with a MeMo. (Still questionable, but the best possible besides signet.)

Paine · Jun 05, 2005, 06:24 PM // 18:24

But I don't really get it with fast casting. I've read a lots of guides etc.
Let's say I have 12 attributes in fast casting. Would that mean that all my spells etc would reduce their casting time or what ?

Neo-LD · Jun 05, 2005, 06:33 PM // 18:33

Mes/Mos are REALLY good at resing. They should spend all their time doing normal mesmer things (shatter E/H, backfire, migraine, etc), until someone dies. Fast casting really shines on those 8 second res spells.

Winterclaw · Jun 05, 2005, 07:03 PM // 19:03

Mo/Me is better if you want to get the warrior's attention, Me/Mo is better if you don't.

Kershent · Jun 05, 2005, 08:35 PM // 20:35

I went up to about Ascension as a Me/Mo, and did just fine (I only switched because I had slowly stopped using Monk skills).

As for your build, you need Shame. I'd replace backfire. If you don't know, Shame interrupts the next spell cast by the target on a friendly, which is very handy for near-impossible interrupts like Orison of Healing, not to mention the fact that it steals energy once it goes off. You might want clumsiness, too.

I would also find a replacement for Arcane Thievery. While it's a very fun spell to dink around with, whatever you steal is useless, since unless it's a skill already available to you, you don't have attributes for it, so it does nothing. If you have it to disable one of their skills for the spell's duration, just use Diverson.

Shatter enchantment is good, but an alternative is Inspired Enchantment. Shatter enchantment has a veeeery long recharge, so if you use it and they don't have any enchantments, you're going to be waiting a long time to get the next one off. IE, however, let's you "fish" for enchantments, so if you don't get one, you can just use it again if they put one on. It doesn't do damage, though. It's really a matter of preference.

If you don't have any of the skills I suggested, then I have some bad news: You won't be able to disable warriors for a long time. Most spells you get at the beginning are anti-caster spells. Anti-warrior spells don't show up until much later. Shame I believe (I'm not 100% on this) is at Droknar's Forge. Clumsiness I couldn't find, so I captured it off of a boss along with Illusionary Weaponry on an Infusion run. Inspired Enchantment is given early on.

Good luck!

Cymmina · Jun 05, 2005, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kershent

As for your build, you need Shame. I'd replace backfire.

I wouldn't. Look at the recharge on Shame. In that time, you could get 2 backfires in that last ~15 seconds or 3 diversions that last ~5 seconds. Shame will only fire once.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kershent

I would also find a replacement for Arcane Thievery.

You aren't looking at the big picture. Arcane thievery is (or can be) excellent for a Me/Mo because you go up against so many monks in PvP, a good 70% of the skills you steal will be usable. Plus, you can interrupt with AT if you steal whatever they are currently casting as well as disable skills they havent even used yet, like resurrects. Don't forget that warriors frequently have monk secondary and you generally have a pretty good chance of taking away their mending (especially if you can remove their active mending as well) or their resurrect spells. It's a skill you either love or hate, but it should be up to the individual to decide if it fits their playstyle or not. I personally like the gamble, it keeps things interesting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kershent

Shatter enchantment is good, but an alternative is Inspired Enchantment. Shatter enchantment has a veeeery long recharge

Shatter enchantment is only a 5 second longer recharge than inspired enchantment (inspired has a 20 second duration). You shouldn't need to "fish" for enchantments anyway, because the yellow "up" arrow tells you they have an enchantment on them. Depending on the situation, a big 90~ dmg spike might be more useful than breaking even on the energy cost. Necros (strip enchantment, rend enchantment, chillblains) and rangers (nature's renewal) are better at enchantment removal anyway.

If you want to take out warriors (specifically the W/Mo variety), it would be best to be a N/Me, because the necro has a much wider selection of skills to make a melee character cry. A Me/N is best suited to spending most of their time harassing mages and still get some of those nice melee-crying skills (which sounds like that's what you want to do).

There's other useful skills available that frustrate the hell out of melee targets than what is instantly obvious. Signet of midnight will blind anyone for 10 seconds (20 sec recharge) and let's not ignore monk skills like pacifism, which comes exceptionally early on. With fast casting, the casting time for pacifism isn't such a problem, and mantra of recovery can recharge that skill in half the time.

I started my mesmer as a Me/Mo, but I frequently switch to Me/N for a different kind of pissing-off-the-other-team kind of fun. If you're going to be a Me/Mo, I really have to question why you aren't taking a resurrect skill when you have fast casting available. With a fast casting of 9, you can get resurrect down to ~5.5 seconds (I have 7+2), which puts it slightly faster than rebirth (and casting time is most of the reason people use it in PvP over the slower resurrect and restore life). Every monk secondary should be packing a resurrect, especially in PvP, because I sure as hell don't want my healers to stop healing for 8 seconds to raise someone.

Winterclaw · Jun 05, 2005, 11:07 PM // 23:07

After thinking about it a little, if I were a Me/Mo or Mo/Me focusing on W/Mo's:
1. spirit shackles
2. spirit of failure
3. energy tap
4. empathy
5. backfire
6. mending (or healing breeze)
7. orison of healing (maybe reversal of fortune)
8. some rez spell

But that's just me. I'm planning on making a Me/Mo or Mo/Me but I haven't given it too much thought.

th15 · Jun 06, 2005, 02:08 AM // 02:08

There is an important advantage with inspired enchantment/hex over their drain/shatter counterparts.

You can never miss.

Inspired enchantment/hex when used on a target without a valid enchantment/hex, doesn't do anything. The skill doesn't have to recharge.

Most of the time, the messer is charged with shutting down the monk the rest of the team isn't hitting. Doing damage to this monk is largely pointless since you won't kill him anyways.

JoDiamonds · Jun 06, 2005, 03:08 AM // 03:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paine

But I don't really get it with fast casting. I've read a lots of guides etc.
Let's say I have 12 attributes in fast casting. Would that mean that all my spells etc would reduce their casting time or what ?

Yes. Fast casting affects anything which is a "Spell". This includes spells from secondary professions. It's the best reason to have a Mesmer primary, alongside armor/rune considerations. (i.e. You can't use a Superior Domination Rune unless you are a Mesmer primary.)

Mesmer/E, Mesmer/Ne, and Mesmer/Mo are all popular for the fast casting (especially elementalist and monk, since they have some longer spells and benefit greatly from faster cast times). Of course, Elementalist provides an analogous function with Energy Storage for all Elementalist/Caster combinations.

Kershent · Jun 06, 2005, 03:14 AM // 03:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by th15

Inspired enchantment/hex when used on a target without a valid enchantment/hex, doesn't do anything. The skill doesn't have to recharge.

Quoted for correctness.

As for Shame vs. Backfire, Backfire costs 15 energy. You can do backfire twice, sure, but it'll cost you a ton of your energy. Shame, however, gives you MORE energy if they cast within it's duration.

Okay, for Arcane Thievery, I see your point--But how many monk skills does a W/Mo usually carry? Three? A res, mending, and MAYBE a heal or buff. That means you've got a 3/8 chance of taking away something you can actually use, and something that will actually hurt them. It just isn't worth taking up a slot when Diversion can be used repeatedly, and shuts down skills for 3X longer. Granted, Diversion requires you to actually USE the skill, but if you can manage to interrupt it (with say, shame), you'll do a lot more long-term damage.

I do agree that a Mes/Necro or Necro/Mes is much better suited for taking down melee, but a Mes/Monk is still very capable.

Paine · Jun 06, 2005, 05:44 PM // 17:44

I found out that I could combine these protection prayers:

* Protective Spirit
* Shielding Hands

They should seriously make shielding hands better IMHO!