Curse

Gerbill · Jul 04, 2005, 01:21 AM // 01:21

for a Mesmer no matter what second job..

is it best to go all out against 1 type of opponent ?

as in..

all out vs Casters.

or

all out vs Warriors

because the now I have a build mainly vs casters, but I put Empathy in to throw of some nasty warriors, some just stop attacking me when they have it, so I have kept it in so far.

exploding flowers · Jul 04, 2005, 04:37 AM // 04:37

it really depends. depends on what kind of team you have, depends if it's pve/pvp and depends on what enemies will be out there on the field.

as a mesmer, i'm constantly changing my skills around for best performance... as long as i know what i'll be encountering. if i don't know, then i bring a little of everything.

but being an all-around mesmer all the time gets kind of boring and a waste, considering there's loads of other mesmer skills you can have builds based around on.

arredondo · Jul 04, 2005, 07:36 AM // 07:36

I'm assuming we're talking about arenas.

For me, I like to have one strong combo (aggressively offensive or subvertive) that is neutral to class, then enhance it with specific, unrelated skills that will fit itself well in many common situations. Depending on how many slots my main "combo" takes, I like to fill in the remaining slots with pure defensive skills (anti melee and/or hex, conditions, etc.).

Well-rounded builds can work well and not be watered down if the central focus of your abilities is very effective in what it was made to do.

Enigmatics · Jul 04, 2005, 02:00 PM // 14:00

My mesmer's skills revolve around Illusionary weaponry. So i'm an IW fanboy; It's pretty versatile, and I bring skills able to be applied to all sorts of opponents, and shatter enchantment. I seldom equip empathy, but find backfire is always helpful.

Epinephrine · Jul 04, 2005, 03:03 PM // 15:03

I have mostly anti casting as I hope that my team can deal with the melee. I do carry empathy though, as it is just too good a skill not to have if you already have the domination at 14.

Gerbill · Jul 04, 2005, 03:15 PM // 15:15

yeah my Domination is at 15.
And I use Backfire.. seriously.. people say it's to costly and slow.. but that's all talk apparantly.. in battle.. most people keep casting even in the team arena's.. I saw monks dropping in front of my eyes.. don't really get it.

Warriors can annoy me though, but afterall I am an anti caster build, I don't mind them they often don't even kill me, just annoy me.
Energy Drain, Shatter Enchantmet (W/Mo's) and Empathy often makes them turn round.
I don't use them.. to deal with the Warriors/Rangers I use the skills to make them bugger off

Though still.. Empathy is the only skill I use which is truly vs warrior/ranger since they use lots of regular attacks, if I could replace it with 1 extra anti caster would be even better... because backfire doesn't work in the tombs... most of the time neways.

FrogDevourer · Jul 04, 2005, 04:52 PM // 16:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gerbill

yeah my Domination is at 15.
And I use Backfire.. seriously.. people say it's to costly and slow.. but that's all talk apparantly.. in battle.. most people keep casting even in the team arena's.. I saw monks dropping in front of my eyes.. don't really get it.

No offense intended but may be you shouldn't base your judgement on unskilled/stupid players. BF is a good skill but not because it's able to kill your target. It's a good skill to shutdown a monk for a few seconds while the rest of your team is killing his ally. Quickly cover BF with another hex to protect it from removal, and you get 6/7s of shutdown at the cost of 2 hexes.

Mercury Angel · Jul 04, 2005, 05:31 PM // 17:31

Protection Monks will mostly ignore backfire if they brought Protective Spirit. 40-50 damage from backfire isn't scary.

Morganas · Jul 04, 2005, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Backfire's purpose is not shutdown. If you cast it on a monk who's not being focus fired, he will remove it and eat the damage, or someone else will, or as someone pointed out above, he'll have the skills needed to cast through it without completely destroying himself.

What backfire is for is use on the monk, el, or any other caster, who's become your teams primary target. Such a target is probably loaded with hexes, so backfire won't get removed immediately, and it adds helpful damage to a monk trying to outheal focus fire or anyone trying to cast a defensive ability.

A true shutdown mesmer can completely negate a monk who's not being focus fired, so your team can attack elementalists, other monks, or mesmers before going after a monk who's likely prepared to be the first target. You do this with skills like power block, diversion, and conundrum with an interrupt or two. You still take backfire of course, but not to use on your shutdown target, you use it on your teams focus fire target (who will ideally not be the monk you just shutdown, more important to go after a target who hasn't just been denied all usefulness).

In response to the first post, I have yet to make a good mesmer build that doesn't use every slot for my anti-x combo and a res signet. Really, you should always go anti-caster. Warriors are more for specialty builds in pvp, and other combos then pure mesmer are more ideal for dealing with them (like mes/e or mes/nec). If you're going pure mesmer, just go anti-caster.

Epinephrine · Jul 04, 2005, 06:57 PM // 18:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morganas

Backfire's purpose is not shutdown.

I disagree, it's about the only use it has against a good team. (read:in organised PvP; random arena doesn't count)

The way backfire works is

a) stupid people cast through it and die. This is no help as you would probably beat the stupid player anyway.

b) you catch the smarter guy casting a spell and hit him once for damage perhaps before he stops casting.

or

c)You catch a guy with it and he stops casting;then one of the following happens:

i) They wait out the spell (10 seconds)

ii) The spell is stripped (<10 seconds)

So no matter what, the end result is pretty much eliminating a dumb player with damage,which while efficient isn't necessary as you could eliminate him other ways, or shutting a player down for <=10 seconds; you may get a nice sized hit on him with it, but unless he is pretty lousy he'll notice 126+ health disappearing.

The worst thing with backfire is how at odds it is with nearly all the mesmer skills - energy denial, interrupts and the various other things a mesmer does tend to stop the opponent from doing things, while with backfire you actually want them to cast spells for it to have an effect; a bit paradoxical that way. If used as a shutdown it isn't bad, but a bit pricy for the effect - I'd prefer to hit a caster with a powerleak, knock out a pricy spell and 26 energy and see how he does after that.

Morganas · Jul 04, 2005, 07:58 PM // 19:58

I was talking about its use on smart players, of course it can shutdown a foolish team. I presented the possibilities for its use on a smart team, it WILL get stripped, no doubt, if you use as a lone hex on the teams healer.

If you use it on the teams mesmer or el, who is your primary target instead of the monk you've just shut down, it won't likely get stripped as it the poor sap will have other hexs on them as well. This will make them think twice before casting illusion of haste, earthquake, or whatever while your team can kill him.

The reason I said it wasn't shutdown is because shutdown is what you do to keep a player from contributing to his team, so that you can go after secondary targets first. Backfire cannot do that, and as you said it's incompatible with other mesmer shutdowns. But still, it's nice to have along, because if all you do is shutdown one monk, you're not pulling your weight at all, you've just made each team effectively smaller (this is why blackout is dumb on a non-illusionary weapon mesmer). It's great for tossing out there in between shutting down the monk though.

Gerbill · Jul 04, 2005, 08:48 PM // 20:48

I agree, as soon as a player knows what to do against Backfire, thus by all means NOT continueing casting or stop casting at all.
then it's nothing more than a mere annoyance.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 05, 2005, 08:53 PM // 20:53

I'd say go mixed. That way, you become harder to counter and you minimize your weaknesses. [aka melee]

It's NOT hard to stuff melee or ranged non-spell casters. One or two skills out of your 8 on your skill bar is easily enough. I'd say go nec. curses and use Faintheartedness and Spirit of Failure/Price of Failure. Or maybe just Faintheartedness + enfeeble.

Just 2 skills is enough to at least neuter them and make life better for ur healers.

6 skills to anti-cast is plenty.