Curse

Kaleban · Jun 18, 2005, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

Mes/El is a far stronger fire nuker than an El primary can ever be, and fire is IMO the best pve line elementalist has. If you have mantra of recovery, they can go good as primaries with any of the other elementalist lines as well.

Why? [the bold]

Morganas · Jun 18, 2005, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaleban

Why? [the bold]

Because fire spells cast very slowly, meaning a mesmer can have far higher dps then an elementalist, and if you use fire attunement and inspiration drains (which have offensive benefits beyond just restoring your own energy), you can regen your energy faster then you lose it. Flare spamming with channeling helps too. If you have the right set of mesmer skills for any mesmer primary or secondary build, you'll never run out of energy, making energy storage pointless for anything but eating exhaustion penalties.

Kaleban · Jun 18, 2005, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Would you mind posting the build you use, or is it secret? I'm interested in going the Me/E, simply for style, but I was not sure how viable it is, especially since I've heard that with Channeling for example, you need to be within like 5 feet of the enemy or something.

Morganas · Jun 18, 2005, 11:33 PM // 23:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaleban

Would you mind posting the build you use, or is it secret? I'm interested in going the Me/E, simply for style, but I was not sure how viable it is, especially since I've heard that with Channeling for example, you need to be within like 5 feet of the enemy or something.

Channeling's range has never been a problem for me, as I'm always standing in aoe range for lava font anyways. Just make sure to do a little run around the tanks if you get aggro.

Here ya go:
Spread your points into fast casting, inspiration, and fire, focusing mostly on fire. Use only minor runes and vigor runes, as your health is very important for grouping monsters for aoe, and you won't have the armor buffs an E primary will have.

For skills, basically, any combination of fire nukes and inspiration drains will work, as long as you NEVER use exhaustion spells, mesmers can't handle it.

Suggested Skills:
-Fire Attunement, necessary
-Ether feast if you don't have a healer, skip it if you can
-One of the following if you took ether feast, else take two(two is recommended): Channeling, energy tap/drain, ether lord, power drain, drain enchantment.
-Flare if you have channeling, otherwise just take conjure fire and make sure to cast it before attunement.
-Rodgort's Invocation, once you get enchanter's gear, but at first use something like fire storm.
-Lava font
-Phoenix
-Res signet/capture signet

Note the large number of slow cast spells, they take greater advantage of fast casting. You can add mantra of recovery later, unless you take energy drain, you'll have a free elite slot. Mind burn is not feasible.

Kaleban · Jun 19, 2005, 12:09 AM // 00:09

So how does your Me/E do in PvP/E? Is it dissappointing to be unable to use the big spells like Meteor shower and such? And do you find yourself spending more time worrying about energy than you do actually playing?

I'm just wondering if playing the Me/E is less fun and/or effective than the E/Me. Would the loss of fast casting really hurt you in PvP/E?

Morganas · Jun 19, 2005, 01:50 AM // 01:50

The fire build does extremely poorly in pvp (very good in pve though) due to the lack of an ability to do anything BUT dps, like knockdowns and such from meteor.

However, for pvp, I do either one of the usual domination builds, or I use the following build: lightening, inspiration, and fast casting
skills:
lightening strike
lightening javelin - interrupt attacks
spirit of failure - get energy when foes misses
blind - makes the enemy miss 90% of the time
power drain - in case there's a short supply of warriors to screw over
ether feast - drain enemies energy and heal.
mantra of recovery
rez signet

Using mantra of recovery will allow you to sustain blind and spirit of failure on 3 or 4 warriors at a time, effectively shutting them down, and you'll have more energy then you know what to do with (use it to nuke casters). Warriors are very popular in pvp, so this build is very effective and fun.

BTW, having tried both, a PURE mesmer is the most fun, a fast casting nuker is the least fun, but most effective of the 3, and an elementalist is a fair nuker, but has some utility the mesmer nuker doesn't. Really, I prefer going mesmer primary so I can respect to domination/inspiration/fast casting when I wanna be tricksy, but using your elemental skills with fast casting is very effective even without exhaustion skills.

Aranarth · Jun 19, 2005, 02:34 AM // 02:34

Fast casting is nice, but energy storage is better. You aren't using firestorm or meteor shower, and you can't go to 16 in the fire line. This makes makes a huge difference in DPS. I don't see how the mesmer keeps up with his limited energy pool. He has no tools for energy production that the El/Me doesn't have.

El/Me can get the benefit of power drain, or you can simply use Glyph of Energy.You can also use Aura of Restoration to heal yourself over Ether Feast.

Anyway, it's still generally accepted that a mesmer is the least suited to PvE. Any class can do it, but the mesmer will require some patience if you've already gone through with a more offensive primary.

And to the poster who asked why no one mentioned smiting monks - look two posts above yours please.

Morganas · Jun 19, 2005, 03:00 AM // 03:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aranarth

Fast casting is nice, but energy storage is better. You aren't using firestorm or meteor shower, and you can't go to 16 in the fire line. This makes makes a huge difference in DPS. I don't see how the mesmer keeps up with his limited energy pool. He has no tools for energy production that the El/Me doesn't have.

El/Me can get the benefit of power drain, or you can simply use Glyph of Energy.You can also use Aura of Restoration to heal yourself over Ether Feast.

Anyway, it's still generally accepted that a mesmer is the least suited to PvE. Any class can do it, but the mesmer will require some patience if you've already gone through with a more offensive primary.

And to the poster who asked why no one mentioned smiting monks - look two posts above yours please.

Having a bigger energy pool is highly overrated if a battle lasts a significant length of time. Using attunements and the inspiration line you can gain more energy than you use.

Additionally, if you go elementalist primary you're missing out on mantra of recovery, one of the most powerful elites in the game, IMO the best. It goes with any build.

Your argument about runes is sorta valid, but look at it this way: any rune boosting fast casting is a direct boost to your DPS, note that the fact that you're using energy faster is offset by the fact that you're draining it faster too, using your inspiration abilities.

The cost of all of this really is the fact that you're skillbar will be full up with the few nukes you have and all the support skills you'll need, so you won'thave room for earth armors and such like elementalist will have. But you WILL be a better nuker.

Also, yes, pure mesmers are hard to level, but a mesmer elementalist will level just as well as a primary elementalist.

Casonetto · Jun 19, 2005, 03:18 AM // 03:18

Do you have to use fire? And is Me/Mo as neat?

Also, is the 'minion swarm' necro useful when soloing with henchmen? I was pondering Necromancer/Ranger.

I Am A Sasquatch · Jun 19, 2005, 03:33 AM // 03:33

*cough* smiting *cough*

Morganas · Jun 19, 2005, 06:02 AM // 06:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casonetto

Do you have to use fire? And is Me/Mo as neat?

Also, is the 'minion swarm' necro useful when soloing with henchmen? I was pondering Necromancer/Ranger.

The reason fire seems like an obvious choice is because it's full of slow casting powerful spells that don't cause exhaustion.

Earth is too much of a support line to use as your main offensive line, and you can only take one elemental attribute as a mes/el. Water might work, never tried it.

Lightening doesn't benefit from fast casting, but it DOES benefit from mantra of recovery, see build above.

Monk's not a good secondary to mesmer, their only long casts are rez spells. You don't even get the pvp benefit of not being targeted as aggressively as say a nec/monk, as mesmers are often targeted before even monks are, at least by the other team's shutdown mesmers.

Mesmer, on the other hand, is a very good second to monk, mainly for the inspiration line as a support to a pure healer, and illusion adds some useful spells to keep away from warriors.

Desperado1G · Jun 19, 2005, 01:24 PM // 13:24

It's about what you find fun.

I have a 20 Mo/E that I beat the game with. And TBH, I think staring at health bars the entire time is boring.

Aranarth · Jun 19, 2005, 09:07 PM // 21:07

Having a large energy pool is a great help when you want to use powerful spells that have exhaustion. Your mesmer build is lacking there, and as we have already said, the Me/E and E/Me have the same ways to regain energy. You will still run out before the elementalist primary. The logic that having a larger pool is worthless during a long battle makes no sense. It means he can cast longer than you can.

Mantra of Recovery is an ok elite, but the elementalist will almost always use an offensive elite. Having a bar with 5 attack spells means he won't need to worry much about recharges, and having the energy to keep chain casting means he doesn't need to stop blasting and drain energy as soon.

Also, Flare is just poor DPS past the early levels. Don't use it.

Any rune boosting fast casting will let you cast a small amount faster, but it won't do near as much for your DPS as having 16 in fire rather than 12. Casting a fraction of a second sooner compared to hitting for 30 per tick of fire storm instead of 24, or hitting for 119 with Rodgort's instead of 91? We're talking a 25-30% damage increase on some of your major spells without increased energy cost over time. Fast Casting falls far short of this.

Edit: grammar

Morganas · Jun 19, 2005, 10:40 PM // 22:40

I only advocated taking flare if you have channeling as a spammable spell that's practically free in large pve battles (the only time you'd use this fire build is pve).

Fast casting is a direct boost to your dps not only because of faster cast times, but because of faster cooldowns due to mantra of recovery. You'll be sucking your enemies energy more often, and nuking more often. With fire, the cast is huge, also, many spells in the inspiration line are practically unusable without fast casting, very slow, and the interrupts are much easier to land if you can fast cast (power drain being my energy sapping skill of choice).

Energy storage's passive effect is only good for using exhaustion spells and resisting energy denial mesmers. Neither the mes/E or the e/mes will run out of energy on their own in a proper nuking build.

An elementalist with his bar stacked with nukes will have no energy management ability, and won't have the ability to sustain his nuking over a long battle. On the other hand, the ability to take along an elemental elite is probably the biggest argument in the el/mes's favor, as the mind X spells aren't all that reliable without energy storage, and if you don't take mantra of recovery, you're missing out on the mes/e's advantage.

What it boils down to is, the mesmer will have higher dps over both the very short term, due to fast casting, and the longer term, due to mantra of recovery and faster energy saps. The "middle term" advantage would certainly go to the elementalist who's stacked with nukes, systematically unloading them until he runs dry.