Curse

tastegw · Mar 31, 2005, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Assumed items:
+1 to Fast Casting
+1 to Domination Magic
+2 to Inspiration Magic

Attributes: (cost)
Fast Casting: 0+1 (0)
Domination Magic: 10+1 (61)
Inspiration Magic: 11+2 (77)
Smiting Prayers: 10 (61)

Total attribute points used: 199/200

Skills:
1) Channeling (availability) - (5,1,15) For 49 seconds, whenever you cast a spell, you steal 1 energy from each nearby foe.
2) Scourge Healing (availability) - (10,2,5) For 30 seconds, every time target foe is healed, the healer takes 58 holy damage.
3) Backfire (availability) - (15,3,20) For 10 seconds, whenever target foe casts a spell, that foe takes 112 damage.
4) Ether Feast (availability) - (5,2,8) Target foe loses 5 energy. You are healed 25 for each point of energy lost.
5) Mind Wrack (availability) - (5,1,5) For 20 seconds, if target foe's energy is zero, that foe takes 88 damage and Mind Wrack ends.
6) Spirit of Failure (availability) - (10,3,10) For 30 seconds, target foe has a 25% chance to miss with attacks. You gain 4 energy whenever that foe misses in combat.
7) Spirit Shackles (availability) - (10,3,5) For 25 seconds, target foe loses 5 energy whenever that foe attacks.
8) Ether Lord (availability) - (5,2,20) You lose all energy. For 9 seconds, target foe suffers energy degeneration of 3 and you experience energy regeneration of 3.

walder · Mar 31, 2005, 02:03 AM // 02:03

Not bad. Your probably going to want to go with more direct energy kill spells. I would take out Channeling, Spirit of Failure, and Spirit Shackles and definitely get Energy Tap, Energy Burn, and Power Leak in there. Those skills will help you keep your opponent at 0 energy to get the most out of Mind Wrack.

Bgnome · Mar 31, 2005, 02:15 AM // 02:15

ether lord?? that has got to be one of the most useless skills ever..

tastegw · Mar 31, 2005, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bgnome

ether lord?? that has got to be one of the most useless skills ever..

this is a great skill......dont know where your coming form.

say im down to less than 10 energy. i cast this on my target, he looses energy and i gain more energy then i started with.

thats why its in the last spot, only to be used when im low on energy.
3 pips would get me alot of energy over 9 seconds, and it would make the target loose alot of energy.

tastegw · Mar 31, 2005, 03:42 AM // 03:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by walder

Not bad. Your probably going to want to go with more direct energy kill spells. I would take out Channeling, Spirit of Failure, and Spirit Shackles and definitely get Energy Tap, Energy Burn, and Power Leak in there. Those skills will help you keep your opponent at 0 energy to get the most out of Mind Wrack.

your right, but this build is mostly to counter the warriors.

i cast scourge healing on them as they approach a target, this should get the monk thinking about healing that warrior too much.

then i cast skills 5-7 on him,
this would make him miss 25% of the time, loose 5 energy on every swing. make me gain 4 energy when he misses, and im sure with only 20 e to start with, he will be taking some added damage from wind wreck.

backfire is in this build for the monks and the casters. i predict that this skill will be nerfed by the time guildwars goes gold. its far too powerful right now.

Guildenstern · Mar 31, 2005, 08:12 AM // 08:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperJ24

this is a great skill......dont know where your coming form.

Bgnome's assessment is correct, although a little explanation for neophytes might be in order:

To understand how much energy ether lord will net you, you must realize that one pip of energy regeneration translates into one point of energy every three seconds. This means that the three pips over nine seconds gained from the hex will give you 3x9/3=9 energy. Assuming you were to use this spell at exactly five energy, you would be out of that energy, plus the 2-3 points of energy you regenerate during the two second casting time when the spell resolves, leaving you with a net gain of 1-2 energy.

So, eleven seconds after you began casting ether lord you have only gained 1-2 energy over not using it at all, and your opponent has lost nine. And that's under optimal conditions. Does this sound like a worthwhile skill to you? Especially considering other skills like energy tap and energy drain are in the same attribute line?

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperJ24

but this build is mostly to counter the warriors.

I've noticed a couple of character designs revolving around warrior hate in the campfire lately, so I'll toss out some general thoughts on the matter:

Trying to use energy denial on the game's least energy dependent profession is not going to be a very successful road to travel down. Sure, you've kept him from using skills that require energy, but he will still be happily wailing away on his target using adrenal skills and inherent weapon damage. Taking out an opposing caster's energy (a healer, ideally), or an opposing ranger's energy even, is simply going to have a much greater effect on the enemy team.

Attempting to outright kill a warrior is not a very good idea either, if his defensive support is still alive and well. High armor levels and a good healing base will quickly turn any focused attack on him into a giant waste of time and energy. A skill like scourge healing will not be enough of a deterrent to stop a healing team from using several direct heals to keep a warrior alive, let alone a fire and forget healing enchantment like healing breeze or vigorous spirit that would keep healing the target after the initial cast, thus bypassing the hex.

You best bet to hurt a warrior is to sabotage his hit rate, which is the base which supports his entire ability to dish out damage. The effectiveness of every buff on him, every adrenal skill on his bar, and any energy based skills he chooses to use (off of energy gained from his zealous weapon mod) is determined by this one quantity, which in turn is dependent on how often he makes an attack, how often he hits with those attacks, and how often he is in contact with his target. You will want to inflict conditions on your target like blindness to make him biff attacks or crippled to not let him close in to engage, and use hexes to slow down the his movement speed, decrease his attack speed, and increase his miss rate. Skills that affect an entire area are generally superior to those that affect a single target, because a squad of warriors will have to group in order to focus fire one of your allies. Look for skills like shadow of fear from necromancer curses, blurred vision and ice spikes from the elementalist's water magic, or many of the ranger trapping skills as examples when you are designing.

And once you've made several warriors ponder the reason why they ever dropped out of caster college to pursue an illustrious career in beating things to death? Go about the rest of your business, whatever you've chosen that to be, because they won't be much of a bother until their team gets around to cleaning them up.

In regards to your build, my advice would be to take a new secondary that would allow you to pick up a few anti-hit-rate skills to supplement the rest of your bar. Your idea of shutting down enemies using energy denial is not a bad one, it is just not a good option for shutting down warriors in particular, so take a look at some of the mesmer's excellent skills in that area if you'd like to help your team out that way in addition to nerfing the enemy's warriors.

tastegw · Mar 31, 2005, 12:03 PM // 12:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guildenstern

Bgnome's assessment is correct, although a little explanation for neophytes might be in order:

To understand how much energy ether lord will net you, you must realize that one pip of energy regeneration translates into one point of energy every three seconds. This means that the three pips over nine seconds gained from the hex will give you 3x9/3=9 energy. Assuming you were to use this spell at exactly five energy, you would be out of that energy, plus the 2-3 points of energy you regenerate during the two second casting time when the spell resolves, leaving you with a net gain of 1-2 energy.

So, eleven seconds after you began casting ether lord you have only gained 1-2 energy over not using it at all, and your opponent has lost nine. And that's under optimal conditions. Does this sound like a worthwhile skill to you? Especially considering other skills like energy tap and energy drain are in the same attribute line?

I've noticed a couple of character designs revolving around warrior hate in the campfire lately, so I'll toss out some general thoughts on the matter:

Trying to use energy denial on the game's least energy dependent profession is not going to be a very successful road to travel down. Sure, you've kept him from using skills that require energy, but he will still be happily wailing away on his target using adrenal skills and inherent weapon damage. Taking out an opposing caster's energy (a healer, ideally), or an opposing ranger's energy even, is simply going to have a much greater effect on the enemy team.

Attempting to outright kill a warrior is not a very good idea either, if his defensive support is still alive and well. High armor levels and a good healing base will quickly turn any focused attack on him into a giant waste of time and energy. A skill like scourge healing will not be enough of a deterrent to stop a healing team from using several direct heals to keep a warrior alive, let alone a fire and forget healing enchantment like healing breeze or vigorous spirit that would keep healing the target after the initial cast, thus bypassing the hex.

You best bet to hurt a warrior is to sabotage his hit rate, which is the base which supports his entire ability to dish out damage. The effectiveness of every buff on him, every adrenal skill on his bar, and any energy based skills he chooses to use (off of energy gained from his zealous weapon mod) is determined by this one quantity, which in turn is dependent on how often he makes an attack, how often he hits with those attacks, and how often he is in contact with his target. You will want to inflict conditions on your target like blindness to make him biff attacks or crippled to not let him close in to engage, and use hexes to slow down the his movement speed, decrease his attack speed, and increase his miss rate. Skills that affect an entire area are generally superior to those that affect a single target, because a squad of warriors will have to group in order to focus fire one of your allies. Look for skills like shadow of fear from necromancer curses, blurred vision and ice spikes from the elementalist's water magic, or many of the ranger trapping skills as examples when you are designing.

And once you've made several warriors ponder the reason why they ever dropped out of caster college to pursue an illustrious career in beating things to death? Go about the rest of your business, whatever you've chosen that to be, because they won't be much of a bother until their team gets around to cleaning them up.

In regards to your build, my advice would be to take a new secondary that would allow you to pick up a few anti-hit-rate skills to supplement the rest of your bar. Your idea of shutting down enemies using energy denial is not a bad one, it is just not a good option for shutting down warriors in particular, so take a look at some of the mesmer's excellent skills in that area if you'd like to help your team out that way in addition to nerfing the enemy's warriors.

have you play a warrior much in pvp?

if you become the target and you loose all your energy from enemy spells, your gonna die. there is nothing you can do but keep attacking with adn skills. this is where backfire comes in, cast it on the monk(s) healing this warrior, and he might get taken out as well.

Pharalon · Mar 31, 2005, 01:58 PM // 13:58

Guildenstern's assesment of Ether Lord is pretty spot on, and he's being generous and looking at optimal conditions. It's a hex, which means it'll often be gone after 4-5 seconds. In that case, you've actually lost more energy than you've caused the target to loose, as well as the loss of the cast time during which you could have being doing something that may have made an impact on the battle. You're helping the other team by casting it.

Channeling really isn't going to work too well for this build either. It's highly unlikely that anyone is going to be in your face, so the chances of getting substantial returns from it are pretty low. I'd say a better option would be go for energy drain/tap, or power drain.

I wouldn't take Ether Feast into PvP unless you think you'll be lacking healing support.

Now, if you bump your domination right up, Spirit Shackles + Mind Wrack can work, it is in fact one of the very few viable ways to use mind wrack. It's a lot more effective vs Rangers than Warriors though, due to the fact that Rangers are actually one of the most energy dependant classes (if you lock them at 0 energy, their DPS goes through the floor), and they're generally running a few Major/Sup runes, making them slightly softer targets. You won't kill them, but you'll be doing enough damage/energy drain to supress them until the hex comes off. How long that will be depends on the quality of the opposition. Both are spammable and fire-and-forget, so you can keep several targets down with them.

Because you don't actually have to spend much time on the warriors and rangers, I'd ditch scourge healing, and probably backfire as well, and take a couple of the Power x spells. Much more effective and proactive way to surpress healing.

I'd also take Arcane Echo as well as utility. If you find someone is silly enough to attack through Spirit Shackles, you can get a steady 60DPS out of an echoed Mind Wrack alone (with a decent Domination). If not, you can just use it to increase your effectiveness at caster shutdown.

Or leave the build as is, and just swap Scourge Healing for Arcane Echo, and you've got a nice PvE build.

Siren · Mar 31, 2005, 04:02 PM // 16:02

I've had some experience using Backfire, because I've played at least two Mesmer-primary character builds each Beta, and I don't think Backfire is going to be all that useful, honestly. Actually, I don't think it's terribly useful to begin with, and here's why.

In order to get the damage of it to a reasonably effective level (i.e., 80s+), you're going to pump-up Domination Magic to around 6 or 7. But even then, the damage it inflicts will be dwarfed by the healing power of Monks.

You're talking about casting it on the healers, so I'm figuring that means primary Monks. I don't have the spell list in front of me right now, but there are quite a few Monk heal spells that heal the monk himself/herself and the party, and the heal strength is around 180 health. Even at its max level, Backfire will only be inflicting some 130-140 damage. That's a net gain of 40-50 health for the Monk, which isn't a huge deterrent in and of itself if you ask me, because they're still getting healed.

Energy deterrent, on the other hand, I feel is more of a benefit from using Backfire. The Monk isn't getting the full heal (but still getting an amount that's reasonable for a character on the fringes of combat), so the energy spent will be largely wasted. This makes Backfire more energy deterrent, and there are better e. deterrent skills/spells in the Mesmer profession. I'm looking at Arcane Conundrum, Migraine, etc.

Clumsiness has some potential to annoy warriors, as well. Combine that with Ineptitude and it's a pretty nice combo.