Curse

Princess Ko · Jul 08, 2012, 03:38 AM // 03:38

So,
I have this idea for a Me/N build based around fast casting and curses. The elite would be signet of suffering, and various other curses like soul barbs, faintheartedness etc. and a few illusory spells like accumulated pain and conjure nightmare. The idea is to dump hexes on opponents and use the fast casting primary to cast slower Necro curses. Is this build worthy of my time or should I just be a panic mes like everyone else?

**Marty Silverblade** · Jul 08, 2012, 03:48 AM // 03:48

I'm not a Mesmer expert, but three things to note.

1) Single target damage is weak. If you're going to build around focusing purely on killing targets one by one, you better be damn good at it or else you're going to be adding pretty much nothing.
2) Degeneration is weak. Each pip of health degen is equal to 2 damage per second. As such, Conjure Phantasm and Faintheartedness aren't good choices for damage.
3) Most importantly, Signet of Suffering got updated a while ago and kills the whole concept. See here: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Signe.../Skill_history

EDIT: Energy will probably be tough too, since you'll need to recast Conjure Phantasm and Faintheartedness (10e each) on each new foe. Recharges would be also be clunky. Attributes are a concern as well (although SoS is forgettable now so you wouldn't need to bother splitting into Blood).

Princess Ko · Jul 08, 2012, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Okay, so I'm fairly good at using this build to pick off targets one by one intelligently. However, you are right that the SOS is no longer relevant, I don't use it very much, and that the energy budgeting is pretty bad. Is there anything you would recommend to fix that?

Sammich · Jul 08, 2012, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Marty is right; the overall damage you're doing is pretty weak, especially to only be doing it to one target. But let's say it somehow works out really well for you (really well meaning, better than almost everything else). Then your best bet to manage energy lies in interrupts like Power Drain or Leech Signet. You could also use something like Channeling if you wanted to, but its energy gain is inferior to Power Drain/Leech Signet. There's also Waste Not, Want Not, but that's bad energy gain for a multitidue of reasons, cheif among them being that you're bareley gaining any energy if you factor in the energy it takes to cast.

Now, all of the aforementioned skills will work, but keep in mind they are in the Inspiration Magic line. Your attribute points already seem spread enough by the investment into Fast Casting, Curses, and Illusion Magic, so you'll be stretching them further by adding points to Inspiration Magic (if you're looking to invest as little points as possible in Inspiration Magic, Power Drain and Leech Signet are your best choices for energy management).

Since this is for PvE, you could get away with running Blood is Power on a hero, but if you want the hero to use it only on you and before you get really low on energy, you'd have to micro its usage. Heroes will use the skill on any caster (they'll also use it on melee characters, but not often) and they don't like to use it until energy gets pretty low.

You could go N/Me instead of Me/N, and you'd get the pretty decent energy gain of Soul Reaping. But, of course, you'd lose your Fast Casting attribute, which was the whole point of the build in the first place.

Hope I helped out a little
-Sammich