Curse

LexTalionis · Apr 14, 2011, 01:59 AM // 01:59

Cry of Frustration is something I rotate with Complicate. It's not something you easily appreciate until you fight things like large mobs of Ether fiends, Hydras, Terrorweb Dryders or Ruby Djinns. It'd be nice if they all clumped for panic, but they don't always have the courtesy to do a group hug.

Even more importantly, both are nonspecific skill interrupts that can stop almost any skill with a cast time and have huge Area of Effects. For example, I can use them to interrupt Troll Unguent unconditionally, where Panic wouldn't (Panic is "nearby", while Cry of Frustration and Complicate hit "In the Area"). Panic is not a suitable replacement for either in my personal experience - the damage is just an added bonus.

Shatter Hex post-update is very very good armour ignoring damage. It's a fairly large nuke and recharges quickly. With Fast Casting 10 (the baseline I run, otherwise I wouldn't bother using a Mesmer), the recharge on it is around six to seven seconds, which is actually a very large energy drain when it's relevant. With Blood is Power, my Mesmer actually has sufficient energy to turn a spell like Suffering into an amazing damage source.

I find Energy Surge slightly overrated because most people use it as an easy 99 damage AoE nuke. Please consider that Cry of Frustration would do 79 damage at the same level, has a larger AoE and has the decency to interrupt skills. It's by no means a terrible skill, but the damage is grossly inferior to things like Mistrust (which I'd much rather heroes open with than a nuke as Mistrust stops an incoming spell) and I don't really think it deserves the elite slot because I'd rather use Mantra of Recovery to chain even more Mistrusts or Wandering Eyes (and making energy management skills recharge more quickly).

I think Foxbat plays in a style very similiar to me. I tend to chain large groups for speed, which is exactly why I find "Ravenheart Gloom" and its first two quests a very good test for how I normally play. Adding Blood is Power lets my Mesmers keep being useful more than 30 seconds into a fight and for example lets me lock down encounters like Fendi Nin for all of the 5 or so minutes it takes to kill him (I can't kill him much faster than that, unfortunately). Before using it, I had this "feeling" that the longer a fight drew out, the lower my odds of actually winning.

Outerworld · Apr 14, 2011, 09:29 AM // 09:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

Cry of Frustration is something I rotate with Complicate. It's not something you easily appreciate until you fight things like large mobs of Ether fiends, Hydras, Terrorweb Dryders or Ruby Djinns. It'd be nice if they all clumped for panic, but they don't always have the courtesy to do a group hug.

Even more importantly, both are nonspecific skill interrupts that can stop almost any skill with a cast time and have huge Area of Effects. For example, I can use them to interrupt Troll Unguent unconditionally, where Panic wouldn't (Panic is "nearby", while Cry of Frustration and Complicate hit "In the Area"). Panic is not a suitable replacement for either in my personal experience - the damage is just an added bonus.

Shatter Hex post-update is very very good armour ignoring damage. It's a fairly large nuke and recharges quickly. With Fast Casting 10 (the baseline I run, otherwise I wouldn't bother using a Mesmer), the recharge on it is around six to seven seconds, which is actually a very large energy drain when it's relevant. With Blood is Power, my Mesmer actually has sufficient energy to turn a spell like Suffering into an amazing damage source.

I find Energy Surge slightly overrated because most people use it as an easy 99 damage AoE nuke. Please consider that Cry of Frustration would do 79 damage at the same level, has a larger AoE and has the decency to interrupt skills. It's by no means a terrible skill, but the damage is grossly inferior to things like Mistrust (which I'd much rather heroes open with than a nuke as Mistrust stops an incoming spell) and I don't really think it deserves the elite slot because I'd rather use Mantra of Recovery to chain even more Mistrusts or Wandering Eyes (and making energy management skills recharge more quickly).

I think Foxbat plays in a style very similiar to me. I tend to chain large groups for speed, which is exactly why I find "Ravenheart Gloom" and its first two quests a very good test for how I normally play. Adding Blood is Power lets my Mesmers keep being useful more than 30 seconds into a fight and for example lets me lock down encounters like Fendi Nin for all of the 5 or so minutes it takes to kill him (I can't kill him much faster than that, unfortunately). Before using it, I had this "feeling" that the longer a fight drew out, the lower my odds of actually winning.

-Lets be honest here E-surge>Cry, one is an uncondition damage skill (a foe having over 9 energy is bassically unconditional) where the other requires you to rupt a foe.
-As for Shatter hex, your assuming a hex is always present and there is always a few enemies to be hit by it which in reality there isn't.
-You may very well chain large groups but that doesn't provide any reason as to why you should run BiP when PD/WNWN are sufficient, even more so with extra enemies available to land the e-manage skills on.

Bassically if you build them right the heroes should have no energy problems unless faced with heavy e-denial.

LexTalionis · Apr 14, 2011, 10:49 AM // 10:49

Waste not, want not is NOT sufficient. With my team build, enemies die before it's used half the time and the energy return (5-7 energy every 11 seconds ASSUMING it even gets off the instant it's up) is enough to cast 1 Clumsiness, given natural regen.

I don't exactly blind-test my builds. I've been monitoring their energy consumption and their AI usage of skills closely under various situations, enough to know that Mesmers in a Mesmer-heavy team given no outside influence and just Power Drain/Waste not Want not run out of energy extremely quickly and sit around doing nothing (which is VERY bad). The alternative is to use passive energy management, which doesn't detract from the fact that they are doing a whole lot of nothing while waiting for energy to return.

The entire point of using Blood is Power is so that you don't have to clog hero bars with too much Energy Management, which lets you take more skills. It's a calculated opportunity cost. Even better, I have the option of dumping the 7-8 point Inspiration Magic investment completely and putting those points into a secondary class (which I find actually works since Guilt at 16 Domination magic is comparable to Waste Not, Want Not at 8 Inspiration, if not better, since it has a useful side effect). It's a nice act of bar compression.

Let me reiterate my stance: Cry of Frustration is not used for the damage. I'm just pointing out its strengths and saying that Energy Surge does not in any way mitigate an alpha strike or have much functionality beyond pure damage, which it is okay at, because not many Mesmer skills are that straight-forward. It has the opportunity cost of taking up an elite slot, which is very bad as far as I'm concerned since Mesmers have so many good elites.

My build has enough damage, I don't need more. I need more ways to stop accidents from happening to my team before they deal all that damage.

LexTalionis · Apr 14, 2011, 12:39 PM // 12:39

I'm really sorry for the double-post, but I have a silly story and I feel the want to brag a little bit!

I was on the way to test my new build in Ravenheart Gloom (with a compromise of Waste Not, Want Not), as usual, but I kind of got lost and I entered this new part of the Domain of Anguish and ended up fighting something that looked like a giant female body part with fangs. It ended up being a pretty good test even though my skills were horribly set for the area (Mistrust was nearly useless and so was Power Drain! Everything was using skills! There were so few corpses to exploit!)

I think Energy Surge would have been fantastic here, if I had the space for it, but I was completely unprepared and in fact, the only resurrection skill I had was on myself! However, almost entirely due to Blood is Power and Soul Twisting, I somehow managed to defeat the entire area without any deaths! Also, Arcane Conundrum and Panic were absolutely fantastic since everything insisted on balling up. This probably wouldn't be the same in Hard Mode though. (sad-face) It wasn't a good test for "Waste Not, Want Not" though, because that particular Mesmer wasn't casting much at all due to Hero 5 taking the priority with Mistrust use and there being nearly no hexes to remove. (He wasn't doing much good either except when I encountered the few actual spellcasters, at least he still had Spiritual Pain and Unnatural Signet DPS)

And the funniest bit is that my connection was its usual state from home: a ping of 713 ms on average!

What I really mean to say is that I don't think I could have done it without the ideas from the people in this thread. Unfortunately, I think I'll always be addicted to Blood is Power. Maybe someday I'll have the guts to try this in Hard Mode.

But seriously speaking, Outerworld, I'm very interested to see your proper Mesmer build which has few energy issues by itself because I think I might be able to learn something from it. It could only make my team better.

Outerworld · Apr 14, 2011, 03:25 PM // 15:25

http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/9...merheroway.png

I honestly have never observed any issues with their energy excluding maybe the Illusion mes (though I think clumsiness is to blame for that). If I were to take this to DoA or something similar then I'd obviously consider a ST rit over the MB.

Haggis of Doom · Apr 14, 2011, 03:55 PM // 15:55

I don't get why people are bashing BiP. It's not like necro elites are all that great in the current state of things for hero teams.

It's similar too prots: if your backline can keep everyone alive, why bring Shroud of Distress (which we could all agree is among the best self-survival skills) on your sin?

On a mesmer-heavy team, if 1x BiP frees up 4+ bar slots (your team, Outerworld, has 9 e-management skills on your mesmers

) on my mesmers and offers a safety blanket against retarded use of Spirit Siphon by the SoS, it's a heck of a great deal imo.

HigherMinion · Apr 14, 2011, 04:00 PM // 16:00

Just thought I'd point out you test builds in NM.

Outerworld · Apr 14, 2011, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haggis of Doom

I don't get why people are bashing BiP. It's not like necro elites are all that great in the current state of things for hero teams.

It's similar too prots: if your backline can keep everyone alive, why bring Shroud of Distress (which we could all agree is among the best self-survival skills) on your sin?

On a mesmer-heavy team, if 1x BiP frees up 4+ bar slots (your team, Outerworld, has 9 e-management skills on your mesmers

) on my mesmers and offers a safety blanket against retarded use of Spirit Siphon by the SoS, it's a heck of a great deal imo.

It also means you have to find the space to spec into blood and swap out was a potentially better elite which in this case is Aotl. I'm not saying BiP doesn't help with energy (it obviously does), I'm saying thats its a waste of an elite when 2 ordinary skills on the mesmer bar is enough.

Haggis of Doom · Apr 14, 2011, 05:49 PM // 17:49

BiP at 3 Blood Magic is good enough imo. Not that big an increase at the next breakpoint of 8.

I'd happily trade AotL for 4+ skills on my mesmer heroes. Remember, you're not fuelling only one hero (in which case BiP would indeed be stupid), but several. 2 regular e-management skills is fine, 8 is not.

Outerworld · Apr 14, 2011, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haggis of Doom

BiP at 3 Blood Magic is good enough imo. Not that big an increase at the next breakpoint of 8.

I'd happily trade AotL for 4+ skills on my mesmer heroes. Remember, you're not fuelling only one hero (in which case BiP would indeed be stupid), but several. 2 regular e-management skills is fine, 8 is not.

Except the 8 skills are divided by 4, 2 e-manage skills on a mesmer is pretty average. I'd be fine with BiP if it were needed or provided any significant benefit, but really it doesn't. If your heroes have poor energy (which they shouldn't as I said before) then fix the bars, don't re-arrange the team to try and counter it.

The Josip · Apr 14, 2011, 07:17 PM // 19:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outerworld

If your heroes have poor energy (which they shouldn't as I said before) then fix the bars, don't re-arrange the team to try and counter it.

Anti-synergy logic.

To be fair, I don't know if BiP is worthwhile (will test it myself - right now am testing Blood Ritual), but using the same logic I could say why bring Splinter, just fix the bar of you-name-it physical character.

I'm not fixing 1 bar by 1 bar, I'm fixing 8 bars at the time.

Right now I'm getting 40/40 weapons (not inspiration attribute) for my heroes and myself (also mesmer), and I'm pretty sure that more energy will increase efficiency. Pdrain isn't really that effective with other interrupts - as noted earlier. And I love Mistrust and CoF - both of which are amazing, especially after the buffs they got. As long as there's a single caster in enemy team, Mistrust is IMO better than Energy Surge. At least on a human. I've been taking Arcane Echo and experimenting both with ESurge and Mistrust, and echoing Mistrust was more fun, and more efficient.

I agree that enemies in average PvE area die very fast so all this might be purely a theoretical debate, and putting in another Fallback might help more than putting BiP, but who cares, this theorycrafting is almost all that's left now that PvE is so easy

Outerworld · Apr 14, 2011, 07:41 PM // 19:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Josip

Anti-synergy logic.

To be fair, I don't know if BiP is worthwhile (will test it myself - right now am testing Blood Ritual), but using the same logic I could say why bring Splinter, just fix the bar of you-name-it physical character.

I'm not fixing 1 bar by 1 bar, I'm fixing 8 bars at the time.

The difference here however is:
-Splinter at 14-15 is a lot better than it is at 9-10.
-A physical should always be attacking during a fight.
-A mesmer hero will have the time to cast its e-manage skills since most of the spells have a cooldown.

I agree with you on the Fall Back thing though.

LexTalionis · Apr 14, 2011, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Just thought I'd point out you test builds in NM.

Sir, I've already explained in my first post why I've been doing Normal Mode in the DoA (under recommendation from a close friend) - Pressurewise, it's comparable (if not more difficult) than most non-elite Hard Mode areas, since many fights are non-stop and it's very accessible. It's not a perfect comparison but I don't always have the free time to run a full Dungeon in Hard Mode.

I appreciate from your other comments, as I have seen in the Heroes and AI forum, that you love offering criticism; but you usually seem to leave out the "constructive" part of it, which is what I'd like. Unless this is a suggestion to try the DoA in Hard Mode, which I understand is a level of difficulty higher than what I normally encounter in Hard Mode outside the DoA. But perhaps I should try.

I've even taken the few remarks you've made (Arcane Conundrum and Waste Not) seriously and done over 6 hours of testing with them and in my personal experience I can safely say that Arcane Conundrum is not a good solution for most areas because I don't have the patience to ball enemies into an adjacent range clump and it has a low priority of casting on a bar filled with Ineptitude/Clumsiness/Wandering Eye where I'd rather get those hexes off. Not to mention the hero's frequent habit of casting Arcane Conundrum on the most stupid things (single rangers with no spells whatsoever). I'd definitely take it to the DoA, where I can almost always depend on it hitting more than one enemy, but it's a meta-skill and not a full-time one.

Also:

Quote:

-A mesmer hero will have the time to cast its e-manage skills since most of the spells have a cooldown.

That's kind of the problem, with fast casting and the GCD, I prefer bars that are active enough not to have a moment where everything viable is cooling down. It's sort of time management. Blood is Power gives me a return of 20ish Energy for 5 on the necromancer (and some healing) over 12 seconds unconditionally, which I find more effective than a light investment into conditional Inspiration.

I like heroes that specialise at functions. I believe outsourcing Energy management to a specialist is worth it in the same way that some people outsource healing to a specialist - why bother taking a healer when you could just put Ether Feast on all your Mesmers? Usually the answer is around the lines of "Ether Feast isn't as good as a pure healer" or various other explanations (too heavy an investment in an attribute, allows other people to heal the Mesmer when he is in deep trouble and can't save himself), each of which I could apply to the idea of heavy energy management on each hero. (You can't use most energy management skills without energy, except the signets)

Thank you for your build. It seems to prioritise large packets of damage at the start of the battle, but I'm not quite sure how it performs in stamina tests. It looks reasonable enough, (As much as I like Fevered Dreams, I hate the setup time for it. Opening with Mistrust/Panic usually lets me avoid an enemy Power Block or Invoke Lightning or other forms of ugh) so I'll give it a go today.

LexTalionis · Apr 15, 2011, 04:06 AM // 04:06

Outerworld: I've spent the last few hours testing your build by doing War in Kryta bounties, Zaishen dailies (Vloxen Excavations and Destruction's Depths) and a Glint's Challenge since I was in the vicinity. (All in Hard Mode)

Player:
-I've had a little experience with Fevered Dreams since I used to use it before 7 heroes were allowed. It still had the same old problems.

-Fragility is still one of the strongest spikes, but the delay between the first and second burst wasn't too good. I found the spike a little faster with glyph of immolation + steam instead of Arcane Conundrum and Ash Blast. I loved how simple Ash Blast was to set up, but Glyph of immolation spiked much much harder, especially with good timing on Burn.

-FD still has setup issues especially versus enemy Mesmers! Wind Riders and Avicara Wilds were pretty awful especially since they would interrupt the initial Esurge spike with Cry of Frustration. Ether Fiends were god-awful because stacked Energy Surge killed the energy-heavy Fevered Dreams spike and I couldn't interrupt Resurrection Signets with only "You move like a Dwarf!" and Cry of Pain. Hex Removal could be problematic, delays the spike as you have to cast Arcane Conundrum to bait it first (most noticeable with Hex Eater Vortex and Expel Hexes). Luckily, I could still kill one Mesmer every 12 or so seconds thanks to the Energy Surge spike.

-Main spike is 10 Fevered Dreams + 5 Fragility + 10 You move like a Dwarf + 5 Ash blast + 10 Finish Him + 10 Cry of Pain = 50 energy. Have to wait for energy to hit 10 before I can use Arcane Conundrum post-spike, any disruption like Mesmer interrupts and Energy loss break the spike. Arcane Conundrum and Drain Delusions slow the spike down too much, works much better with GoLE. Even so, the time between Fragility spikes is pretty large because of the energy issues (especially if the Fevered Dreams target dies prematurely, happens all the time when you call targets). Dual Arcane Conundrums don't usually make for easy energy management either, since identical hexes don't stack. I believe that's partially why your Illusion Mesmer can't get much energy from it.

Necromancer: Schizophrenic with dodgy energy management (a lot of his spells are 10 energy, so he wavers between nearly empty and full in 15 second intervals). Spends too much time between raising minions and casting Death Nova and Putrid Bile to actually use Protective Spirit. When something dies and he gains the energy to use Protective Spirit, will either Death Nova or Raise more minions instead. I ended up taking turns swapping Death Nova and Putrid Bile with Signet of Lost Souls, but I couldn't decide which was better to replace - still, it played a little better after I did so. Maybe swap out Protective Spirit? It's not like he uses it much unless I force him to pre-protect.

Smiter Monk: I'm really not sure why you use Smiter's Boon - it activates on all of two skills: Smite Condition and Smite Hex. The monk doesn't use either as a heal and they have semi-long recharges. I wiped pretty badly on Destruction's Depths the first time, perhaps due to inexperience with the backline, but I had better results once I swapped Reversal of Damage with Enfeebling Blood. I'm not quite sure Unyielding Aura was worth it just for the two party heals. Maybe his function was to make me appreciate how good Life was (Life heals minions too).

Mesmers: I think the reason you don't have energy problems is primarily because your Mesmers aren't very active. They cast Energy Surge once every 12 or so seconds, Chaos Storm (which causes annoying amounts of scatter in HM) every 24 seconds, and are limited to Unnatural Signet in the meanwhile or standing around waiting for Power Drain or Waste Not, Want Not, I estimate around a third of their time is spent doing nothing (well, to be fair they regularly waste 10 energy in the middle of combat with Fall Back!). As a result, their damage tends to be very spiky instead of regular. This is more of a problem when facing fast waves of enemies (such as in Glint's Challenge).

I got far kill speeds once I switched Chaos Storm to Spiritual Pain (Okay, I admit I'm biased to Spiritual Pain, but it's so underestimated!) - I then changed Flesh of my Flesh to Accumulated Pain on your Illusion mesmer and voila! Energy problems. Too much passive energy management for my tastes!

Energy Surge + Chaos Storm also unearthed a few issues - Enemy energy is a limited resource. It's not actually too uncommon to have your damage output severely hampered simply because there isn't any Energy for Energy Surge to remove; I could tell this because Drain Delusions returned very little or no energy. Annoyingly, this doesn't stop them from casting Energy Surge, since heroes will not prioritise getting its full effect. Chaos Storm doesn't help (when it's not scattering everything in Glint's Challenge).

General Party Issues:
-No way of interrupting skills outside of YMLAD! and Cry of Pain (not convenient because it's part of the fragispike). Ooze Division very annoying. Deafening Roar extremely annoying, but fortunately not common.

-Very prone to enemy disruption. Ether Fiends, Devourers of Thoughts, even Krytan Wind Riders gave me a really bad hair day. Wiped horribly when doing the djinn bounty because I just ran in without waiting to pull (Normally, I rely on a Mistrust or Panic opener). Possibly a player issue.

-Quite bad on single targets with lots of HP (last boss in Destruction's Depths which I ran for the Zaishen Mission) since your damage output is linked to the target's energy bar. I think I did more damage with Fragility than the other 3 Mesmers combined.

-It's not quite resilient enough for my tastes, I'm afraid. I keep having to resist the urge to convert the Aura of the Lich to Blood is Power. It also has issues with getting spiked in the first 3 seconds, leaving me pretty annoyed at the necromancer with Protective Spirit.

Party Strengths:
FD is still undeniably one of the nastiest spikes around if you can get it off. It kills most monks reliably and the large area cripple is great for keeping casters alive. Energy Surge stacking is pretty dang neat when it works, I just don't like the "in-between" periods.

Update: I've just added in Aneurysm instead of Signet of Return, it's pretty awesome now because I can call single target pressure reliably! I recommend it highly. The biggest problem is that you shouldn't Fevered Dreams spike the called target because it dies too quickly, I recommend choosing a secondary target to set up on.

HigherMinion · Apr 15, 2011, 06:43 AM // 06:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

Outerworld: I've spent the last few hours testing your build by doing War in Kryta bounties, Zaishen dailies (Vloxen Excavations and Destruction's Depths) and a Glint's Challenge since I was in the vicinity. (All in Hard Mode)

Player:
-I've had a little experience with Fevered Dreams since I used to use it before 7 heroes were allowed. It still had the same old problems.

-Fragility is still one of the strongest spikes, but the delay between the first and second burst wasn't too good. I found the spike a little faster with glyph of immolation + steam instead of Arcane Conundrum and Ash Blast. I loved how simple Ash Blast was to set up, but Glyph of immolation spiked much much harder, especially with good timing on Burn.

-FD still has setup issues especially versus enemy Mesmers! Wind Riders and Avicara Wilds were pretty awful especially since they would interrupt the initial Esurge spike with Cry of Frustration. Ether Fiends were god-awful because stacked Energy Surge killed the energy-heavy Fevered Dreams spike and I couldn't interrupt Resurrection Signets with only "You move like a Dwarf!" and Cry of Pain. Hex Removal could be problematic, delays the spike as you have to cast Arcane Conundrum to bait it first (most noticeable with Hex Eater Vortex and Expel Hexes). Luckily, I could still kill one Mesmer every 12 or so seconds thanks to the Energy Surge spike.

-Main spike is 10 Fevered Dreams + 5 Fragility + 10 You move like a Dwarf + 5 Ash blast + 10 Finish Him + 10 Cry of Pain = 50 energy. Have to wait for energy to hit 10 before I can use Arcane Conundrum post-spike, any disruption like Mesmer interrupts and Energy loss break the spike. Arcane Conundrum and Drain Delusions slow the spike down too much, works much better with GoLE. Even so, the time between Fragility spikes is pretty large because of the energy issues (especially if the Fevered Dreams target dies prematurely, happens all the time when you call targets). Dual Arcane Conundrums don't usually make for easy energy management either, since identical hexes don't stack. I believe that's partially why your Illusion Mesmer can't get much energy from it.

Necromancer: Schizophrenic with dodgy energy management (a lot of his spells are 10 energy, so he wavers between nearly empty and full in 15 second intervals). Spends too much time between raising minions and casting Death Nova and Putrid Bile to actually use Protective Spirit. When something dies and he gains the energy to use Protective Spirit, will either Death Nova or Raise more minions instead. I ended up taking turns swapping Death Nova and Putrid Bile with Signet of Lost Souls, but I couldn't decide which was better to replace - still, it played a little better after I did so. Maybe swap out Protective Spirit? It's not like he uses it much unless I force him to pre-protect.

Smiter Monk: I'm really not sure why you use Smiter's Boon - it activates on all of two skills: Smite Condition and Smite Hex. The monk doesn't use either as a heal and they have semi-long recharges. I wiped pretty badly on Destruction's Depths the first time, perhaps due to inexperience with the backline, but I had better results once I swapped Reversal of Damage with Enfeebling Blood. I'm not quite sure Unyielding Aura was worth it just for the two party heals. Maybe his function was to make me appreciate how good Life was (Life heals minions too).

Mesmers: I think the reason you don't have energy problems is primarily because your Mesmers aren't very active. They cast Energy Surge once every 12 or so seconds, Chaos Storm (which causes annoying amounts of scatter in HM) every 24 seconds, and are limited to Unnatural Signet in the meanwhile or standing around waiting for Power Drain or Waste Not, Want Not, I estimate around a third of their time is spent doing nothing (well, to be fair they regularly waste 10 energy in the middle of combat with Fall Back!). As a result, their damage tends to be very spiky instead of regular. This is more of a problem when facing fast waves of enemies (such as in Glint's Challenge).

I got far kill speeds once I switched Chaos Storm to Spiritual Pain (Okay, I admit I'm biased to Spiritual Pain, but it's so underestimated!) - I then changed Flesh of my Flesh to Accumulated Pain on your Illusion mesmer and voila! Energy problems. Too much passive energy management for my tastes!

Energy Surge + Chaos Storm also unearthed a few issues - Enemy energy is a limited resource. It's not actually too uncommon to have your damage output severely hampered simply because there isn't any Energy for Energy Surge to remove; I could tell this because Drain Delusions returned very little or no energy. Annoyingly, this doesn't stop them from casting Energy Surge, since heroes will not prioritise getting its full effect. Chaos Storm doesn't help (when it's not scattering everything in Glint's Challenge).

General Party Issues:
-No way of interrupting skills outside of YMLAD! and Cry of Pain (not convenient because it's part of the fragispike). Ooze Division very annoying. Deafening Roar extremely annoying, but fortunately not common.

-Very prone to enemy disruption. Ether Fiends, Devourers of Thoughts, even Krytan Wind Riders gave me a really bad hair day. Wiped horribly when doing the djinn bounty because I just ran in without waiting to pull (Normally, I rely on a Mistrust or Panic opener). Possibly a player issue.

-Quite bad on single targets with lots of HP (last boss in Destruction's Depths which I ran for the Zaishen Mission) since your damage output is linked to the target's energy bar. I think I did more damage with Fragility than the other 3 Mesmers combined.

-It's not quite resilient enough for my tastes, I'm afraid. I keep having to resist the urge to convert the Aura of the Lich to Blood is Power. It also has issues with getting spiked in the first 3 seconds, leaving me pretty annoyed at the necromancer with Protective Spirit.

Party Strengths:
FD is still undeniably one of the nastiest spikes around if you can get it off. It kills most monks reliably and the large area cripple is great for keeping casters alive. Energy Surge stacking is pretty dang neat when it works, I just don't like the "in-between" periods.

Ok, a few things you're doing wrong.

Getting off FD is easy and frag spiking with Glyph is so damned slow. Glyphs aren't taken into account with FC, so it hurts alot. You just start casting Ash Blast and hit Ymlad before it activates and there's your "frag spike".

Talking of synergy, I don't know why you bothered with Accumulated Pain. You already have Finish Him! so rather pointless apart from 40 damage, which isn't worth much.

When getting FD off in a mob of mesmers, split from your group, wait a second for them to rupt your team, ymlad the closest Rider and then start casting; simple.

You don't *need* burning, but you could just find somewhere for it on a hero.

Oh by the way; you should really micro Prot Spirit before entering a mob.

LexTalionis · Apr 15, 2011, 07:19 AM // 07:19

Glyph of immolation has a 10 second recast, takes 1 second to cast and is precastable for two uses (I use it at 3 fire magic), the lack of Fast casting doesn't hurt it because it's usually precast. Standard usage is Glyph of immolation > Fevered Dreams > Fragility from the Burden mesmer (I moved it there so the spike would be faster), wait a split-second for burning to wear off > Steam + You Move like a Dwarf!". It doesn't work on burning-immune stuff, of course.

Finish Him is not reliable and has a 15 second recharge, Accumulated Pain fills in the gaps when it's not available. Deep Wound is very helpful and it does 71 damage + Deep Wound, not 40.

I never said his build was a wreck. It works - It just takes -much- more micro-management than my standard build and I wouldn't try it at home where my 700-1000 ping actually becomes an issue because it requires precise timing to get the most out of. Mesmer monsters are manageable, just very annoying, especially Roaring Ethers.

Further edit: Thanks for the tips about riders, by the way. I just wish it didn't cancel the initial Energy Surge spike.

FoxBat · Apr 15, 2011, 07:46 AM // 07:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outerworld

I honestly have never observed any issues with their energy excluding maybe the Illusion mes (though I think clumsiness is to blame for that). If I were to take this to DoA or something similar then I'd obviously consider a ST rit over the MB.

Your Dom mesmers are built to consume little energy, with no cry of frustration/shatter hex, no panic, and a 5e/20r skill. This lower amount of interrupts (and 6x spellcast time?) is also something that likely helps your mesmers hit power drain more reliably. Swap just a few skills around and the situation changes completely.

Now - we can accept more moderate but reliable damage with such a lower energy bar - and this isn't necessarily wrong, it might be the best overall compromise even. But it doesn't immediately rule out trying to push damage higher by running an energy intense bar and seeing if BiP can power it.

For the record, plenty of people are polling for more expensive dom mesmers without external energy support... and still ranking them as good, because they do enough good stuff with what energy they have. But their gasping times show an area that could be improved on.

HigherMinion · Apr 15, 2011, 08:51 AM // 08:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

Finish Him is not reliable and has a 15 second recharge, Accumulated Pain fills in the gaps when it's not available. Deep Wound is very helpful and it does 71 damage + Deep Wound, not 40.

Remember, the Deep Wound *should* have transfered to the whole mob, assuming you cast it on the Fevered target. This is the way to play FD-based teams; longbow/flatbow->lure->cast FD and lay your whole bar on the one foe, in the hopes they're close to their friends and get pwnt by your conditions. It's really a defensive bar, and Fragility helps it be a little more versatile; you don't need it for it's job.

Outerworld · Apr 15, 2011, 09:22 AM // 09:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by LexTalionis

-stuff-

FD:

I think you may be confused as too how I use FD, its primary function as far as I'm concerned is shutdown not spike damage (I have enough of that).
Drain isn't reserved for just Arcane, it's just as effective to use it on Fragility and yes that hurts the damage on that one foe but it makes little difference.
There are certain tricks to deal with hex removal but I won't go into those now, PM if you are truly interested though.
Actually dual Arcanes do stack from what I've observed.

Bomber:

I'm aware that he doesn't use his prots alot hence why I micro PS before a fight and does really need to stay somewhere in the build.
If your having issues with his DN you can disable between encounters though I don't bother with that if im being honest.

UA:

I added Smiters Boon just too add a minor heal to the cleaning skills, not really a major issue.
I keep Enfeebling due to the fact it's another condition for me as the FD to make use of.
You seem to be forgetting that as well as the heal boosting it has the useful quick res function.

Mesmers:

Enemies are reluctant to scatter from Chaos Storm alot of the time.
The lack of enemy energy issue you raised is a very rare and a minor issue.
I seriously doubt spiritual pain will cause any real energy problems on the dom bars.
Why did you even switch FomF out for Acummulated? FH is already a source of dw.
You may have also overlooked Splinter for whenever they aren't casting.

All of this said you did try it so I have to give you credit there.

Edit:I just did DD HM as you did, I can't say I understand what trouble you had with the Disc, it dropped fairly quickly tbh.

LexTalionis · Apr 15, 2011, 10:14 AM // 10:14

Outerworld:

Well, I think I'd prefer to use the Energy Surge Mesmer core if I ran the trenches again, for example. It'd certainly damage a lot better than the build I normally run, which depends perhaps a bit too heavily on Mistrust. Running Spiritual Pain and BiP helps the Mesmer core a lot though, you should try it sometime. Aura of the Lich isn't really a must-have.

I've reverted back to my original team simply because it fits my playstyle better, as FoxBat says - pushing Energy limitations lets Mesway do some really awesome stuff. I'm still keeping a heavily modified version of your build on record (I've ended up replacing Mistrust with Spiritual Pain and kept the Chaos Storms - it's just annoying how Chaos Storm doesn't work well with Panic) and after trying Soul Twisting, I don't think I'll ever go back to Protection prayers

-The damage from Splinter weapon wasn't noticeable, things were scattering too much after the Chaos Storms. Not sure why you say they don't scatter much, the most I usually get out of it was 3 ticks at best. At least the Cripple from Fevered Dreams helped a little with Shared Burden.

HigherMinion+Outerworld: So Fevered Dreams isn't for the damage? I suppose you're right that it's a good shutdown tool, but it just seems like such a huge waste without Fragility. In most cases where it could be used to its full extent to shutdown, Panic works, although Fevered Dreams is certainly better on single targets. It probably would be a lot faster if I didn't wait for Fragility.

I understand what you're saying about the deep wound now - I guess I still appreciate the fact that it's a cheap unconditional nuke, but there certainly are other things that it can be replaced by. I'll take a look at it the next time I try your build (probably next week since this weekend is busy).

Thanks for the help, you gave me a few ideas for expansion on my normal build - but I'm still keeping the Blood is Power necromancer!

edit: The Disc took about 90 seconds of staring at to kill (4 Chaos storms recharges or so). It didn't exactly do much during that time, but it still took forever - main damage was coming from Unnatural Signet and Fragility after it ran out of energy, would have been a lot faster with additional damage on the Domination mesmers. Or if I just took Aneurysm. Could also possibly be because I had all 3 golems on Defensive mode? They were out of range for most of that time. (Force of habit, I like the 100 heal and damage skill the best)