Curse

Moonstruck Muse · Jan 25, 2009, 01:41 AM // 01:41

Hello!

So I've been tagging along with my friend on her 600 monk a bit, and I thought, if a 55 can work on a mes, why not a 600? (Sorry if this has been done before, btw. I'm sure it has but I wanted feedback on what skills I should swap.)

So I made a couple 600 builds with what skills I had. I did an Illusion IW because, hey, it's silly & fun, and a Domination Visions of Regret one. Domi seems to do more damage faster than the Illusion (no surprise, right?) but I figured I'd throw in the IW for those folks who like it. I've been doing the standard 600 runs, Nebo & thereabouts.

The Domi especially has worked nicely, the baddies go down fast even with low Domi due to the two monk skills & VoR. IW is a bit slower, but it has the advantage of keeping doing dmg constantly (such as if monk dies & you want to finish group to clear a spot for him/her), where as VoR has a wait between attacks. Anyway I haven't timed it with a stopwatch, but I am not going much slower or perhaps the same pace as my friend's 600 (standard smiting on her), just eyeballing it all.

Hero:
[build prof=Mo/N name="Bonder" blood=3 heal=12 prot=12][Blessed Signet][Purge Signet][Blood is Power][Rebirth][Vital Blessing][Life Attunement][Holy Wrath][Retribution][/build]

Domi:
[build prof=Me/Mo name="600 Domi" fast=8 domi=12+1 prot=10][Spirit Bond][Protective Spirit][Shield of Absorption][Visions of Regret][Optional][Optional][Essence Bond][Balthazar's Spirit][/build]

I tend to bring along [Unnatural Signet] or [Spiritual Pain] or [Empathy], then [Purge Signet] or [Blessed Signet].

Illus:
[build prof=Me/Mo name="600 IW" illu=8 domi=12+1 prot=10][Spirit Bond][Protective Spirit][Shield of Absorption][Illusionary Weaponry][Optional][Optional][Essence Bond][Balthazar's Spirit][/build]

I tend to bring along [Wandering Eye], then [Purge Signet] or [Blessed Signet].

So, any ideas of elites that would be better, esp in the Illusion & what skills should be swapped?

Zidane Ortef · Jan 25, 2009, 02:43 AM // 02:43

Vision looks fine and the IW one looks decent one thing I have to note on is that on both builds that your attributes are wrong idk if that just a mistake on when you made the build or if its something you had for a reason

on both builds you have

3+1 on attribute dom or illu
and then
12 smite
12 protection

drop the 12 in smiting its not needed and go

12 Protection
12+1+3 Dom or Illu
and your 3 extra points can go wherever.

Pony Slaystation · Jan 25, 2009, 03:00 AM // 03:00

I wouldn't go with the IW version...
*two attacks, cast spirit bond, two attacks, cast spirit bond*
Seems like too much confusion imo, but if it works for you, then go for it.

Ariena Najea · Jan 25, 2009, 03:05 AM // 03:05

I played around with this idea about a year ago when I was getting started on my Mesmer. I found the without [[Blessed Aura], I was having a little trouble maintaining [[Shield of Absorption], so I used [[Mantra of Recovery] to speed it along. This is safer than what you have listed, but requires point allocation into Fast Casting (which does also helps vs interrupts) which does hurt your offensive capability.

Note that you can do some decent attribute splitting even if you run high Fast Casting for MoR. [[Protective Spirit] and [[Spirit Bond] don't require 12 Protection Prayers to sufficiently heal you. Something to note is that SoA's break point is at 10 Protection Prayers, so speccing up to 12 doesn't do much other than increase the length of PS. This lets you run 11/10/10 effectively, so you can still get a decent Illusion Magic level. Running [[Wandering Eye], [[Ether Nightmare], and [[Cry of Pain] would help to make things go faster. MoR helps the recharge times here, so you may actually deal comparable damage to using [[Visions of Regret] because so few of the monsters there spam skills and prefer to auto-attack.

I also suggest bringing [[Power Return] or something else for pesky Dying Nightmares. Saves a lot of time.

Moonstruck Muse · Jan 25, 2009, 03:14 AM // 03:14

Thank you for the feedback everyone!

Wow you're right. I was working from a Mo Smiter template, & I thought some of the enchants used it.

A silly mistake, I'll fix that in game and here.

As for en, I haven't had any trouble with it on either of the builds. If I spam the 3 prots without letting them run their decent course length I will cut energy close yes, but if I watch them I have no trouble, typically 15 en minimum.

I didn't have SoA up all the time, I alternated that with SB, so I don't worry about maintaining it. SoA is actually a back up; I only needed it if I forgot SB at one point, then I had to have all 3 up to compensate for attack damage and health degen from poisoning.

For IW, I guess it didn't confuse me at all, your toon just goes back to auto attacking or a simple space bar press fixes that. Then again, I'm an IW fan, so I'm used to it.

[Wandering Eye] & [Cry of Pain] can be a very painful combo, I'll try that, thank you.

Finally, if energy management & length is a trouble without some of those monk skills, then I suppose bringing [Signet of Illusions] and [Blessed Aura] would work as opposed to [Mantra of Recovery], but then it also takes up more space. But it'd be slow since then the dmg is just from the monk rebounding spells then. I also found tossing in [Lyssa's Aura] worked, if you didn't mind turning your elite slot into a passive.

Captain Bulldozer · Jan 25, 2009, 03:42 AM // 03:42

Looks like they should work reasonably well. You may want to consider bringing [Ether Nightmare] and [Cry of Pain] for extras.

One BIG weakness, however, is the lack of Spellbreaker, which means you'll get entirely pwned if you try to do anything where 600s are most useful, such as dungeons, DoA, etc. You CAN perhaps put SB on the bonder, similar to how a rit 600 works, but its still more limited than what a Monk can do, though it should allow you to do things like Oola's lab fairly easily.

I personally like VoR one quite a bit, as long as your Domination attribute is nice and high... As was mentioned make sure you fix the attributes you listed. Only the Bonder needs to have anything in Smiting prayers for the skills you listed.

Also, you mentioned that you're not using [Shield of Absorption] much.... this is a classic rookie mistake when 600ing. That skill, even though its not stated well, works cummulatively, reducing dmg by 5 for EACH hit after its cast. Together with prot spirit it makes you take no damage after just a few hits. Use it as often as possible, spirit bond is really just to keep you alive between SoA casts. But nice thinking, for whatever reason, mesmer 600s have not taken off much, but there's plenty of potential. Good hunting!

Moonstruck Muse · Jan 25, 2009, 03:47 AM // 03:47

Yeah, the lack of spell breaker is quite a problem... limiting areas. I'll look at a 600 rit and see how that works.

Oh you're right... I guess SoA is far better than SB, especially since SB can help majorly if you lose PS later in the game, you'll be taking little or no dmg until you can get it back up.

This would take a bit of work & pausing, but what about hero taking [Spell Breaker], then I take [Arcane Mimicry] so I have a copy of it for a few seconds? Or taking [Spell Shield]; I'm not sure if maintaining the enchants counts as casting though, plus then the mesmers FC would likely work again me.

Thanks for the information. Back to a bit of research & testing then.

OoO Rift OoO · Jan 25, 2009, 05:09 AM // 05:09

This isnt buildwise, but when you use IW your using a scythe, right? ^_^

Moonstruck Muse · Jan 25, 2009, 06:11 AM // 06:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by OoO Rift OoO

This isnt buildwise, but when you use IW your using a scythe, right? ^_^

Shield with a sword actually.

The problem with a scythe is that it attacks slower. But then again, it'd be best for mobs.. I didn't think about it. I'll definitely bring both from now on. Maybe daggers too.

But I was using a sword n shield for en + hp... but scythe would be better. I think I'll bring both along, sword for solo & scythe for mobs.

OoO Rift OoO · Jan 25, 2009, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moonstruck Muse

Shield with a sword actually.

The problem with a scythe is that it attacks slower. But then again, it'd be best for mobs.. I didn't think about it. I'll definitely bring both from now on. Maybe daggers too.

But I was using a sword n shield for en + hp... but scythe would be better. I think I'll bring both along, sword for solo & scythe for mobs.

Ya, that makes sense, but i asumed that when you ment 600, you ment it like agroing more than one monster :S

Captain Bulldozer · Jan 25, 2009, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moonstruck Muse

This would take a bit of work & pausing, but what about hero taking [Spell Breaker], then I take [Arcane Mimicry] so I have a copy of it for a few seconds? Or taking [Spell Shield]; I'm not sure if maintaining the enchants counts as casting though, plus then the mesmers FC would likely work again me.

Basically what you'll want to do is have your bonder hero have a sup rune of Divine favor and a staff with 20% enchanting mod. That way the bonder can run Spellbreaker. This is, in essence, how the rit 600 works. The problem with that is that you only get 1 use of spellbreaker, so any mob you can't kill in 30 or so seconds is one you could have problems with.

Taking Arcane mimicry wouldn't really do much for you, as you'd still only have 1 use of SB.

As for [Spell Shield], well I have often wanted to actually find a way to use that skill. Sorry to say it has few uses in guild wars. The only time it could be conceivably useful is if you had a lot of LONG cast time skills on your bar. But a 600 (or pretty much any other farmer) needs to be casting a bunch of short cast spells frequently, leaving plenty of room for spell shiled to be worthless. I suppose it would prevent mesmer interrupts, but the disabling at the end would probably result in your death. So all in all, go with Spellbreaker.

Even with only one use, this opens a lot of options for you, such as CoF, Ooze Pit, etc. Also, I have found that you can 600 the majority of Catacombs of Kathandrax without the use of Spellbreaker (if you know what you're doing that is). Anyway good luck getting it all to work!

Moonstruck Muse · Jan 25, 2009, 09:33 PM // 21:33

My thinking is that if I use [Arcane Mimicry], I have have SB for twice the length, roughly. Where as using the [Blessed Aura] extends [Spell Breaker], I'd have to cast then before it was up, because AM only lasts for 20 seconds.

But the advantage of this is that after 18 seconds, I can cast SB on myself giving me a couple more seconds.

But the main problem is that then I have to sacrifice my elite skill for [Signet of Illusions], so that I'd have roughly a 30 second Spell breaker. (I'm not sure how long monk 600s keep their SB up.)

Hmm. It looks like having Tahl run the 600 Rit Bonder build is the way to go though. SB is quite useful.

Captain Bulldozer · Jan 26, 2009, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Yeah having your bonder run Spellbreaker should work fine for most situations. You'll need to practice a little bit more to get the hang of where to flag your bonder to make it work right, but its not too bad. I'd recommend Cathedral of Flames (HM of course) as a good place to practice.

When it really comes down to it, having a bonder run spellbreaker works almost everywhere you'd want to 600. The only exceptins I can think of would be places where you need to have spellbreaker continually, like DoA or maybe Shards of Orr, though I have been able to do SoO on my rit 600 as rits tend to kill things much faster than monks do. Still, its much less stable then a monk with SB.

Really it seems like a mesmer 55/600 could work quite well, as [Visions of Regret] is so much better now. Plus the added perk of fast casting means you're less likely to get interupted while casting [Shield of Absorption] and I'm all for that. Try out the builds in places like CoF and let us know how it goes. If you need a bonder or observer, feel free to PM me in game

Age · Jan 27, 2009, 08:10 AM // 08:10

It doesn't look to bad but I wouldn't go to the UW with it.