Curse

Mavrik · Jan 24, 2006, 05:00 AM // 05:00

I'm kinda split down the middle... using Illusion and domination. Domination mostly for interupting/backfiring and such, Illusion for health degeneration and so forth. But I PvE only and its a good 50/50 mix. I can cause damage to the melee and the casters when they attack me or anyone else in the group.

Caged Fury · Jan 24, 2006, 12:59 PM // 12:59

I've been concentrating just on Domination since getting to post-searing. Now I'm in the desert, I've been thinking about switching to Illusion for a change in my gameplay and see what that line has to offer.

Siliconwafer · Jan 24, 2006, 01:34 PM // 13:34

As others have said, why settle for one? Mesmers are quite a unique class in that they don't need 15/16 in a single attribute, and that their attribute lines complement each other very well-unlike some other classes where you max one or two lines to make an effective character.
It'd be great to know what aim you have for a mes character- if it's direct damage, you'll probably fin yourself piling points into domination. If it's degen, you'll probably be mixing illusion with a bit of inspiration. If it's shutdown, probably illusion with domination.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Injektilo

It's actually one of the concerning things to me about the Mesmer class, in my eyes we have only one functional attribute as Inspiration is inherently a backup attribute and Illusion doesn't seem deep enough to me and the builds that rely solely on it tend to be gimicky in nature such as Illusionary Weaponry, the old Fragility spike. I'm sure someone will point out many ways in which I'm wrong and that's fine but this is the honest impression I've gotten playing Mesmer as my main ever since I got the game, Domination seems to offer me more options whilst Illusion works well in a subsidiary role (Arcane Conundrum in an interrupt build for example).

Illusion has great potential in a degen build, and in shutdown builds. Migrane or Arcane conundrum, as you said, works so well with dom interrupts. Conjure + Mantra of Persistence (with a nec battery) can place constant degen on an enemy party. I got the feeling by playing and watching other mesmers, that mes skills from different lines complement each other well.

Mavrik · Jan 24, 2006, 09:18 PM // 21:18

I like to start of battles with Empathy, then an interupt if they are not casting anything, then conjure phantasm and what not. Now depending on what I am up against, if its casters then I'll start off with backfire, interupts that drain their health or give me energy. Mesmer is a fun class to build with and try a few things. Its fun shutting down the enemy. I can farm pretty decent with my current set up against lv12-14 enemies that are not to great in numbers.

stargate_sg1sg1 · Jan 25, 2006, 08:15 PM // 20:15

what do you think is the best elite for pvp and pve? and what do you think about the skill illusion of weakness?

rii · Jan 25, 2006, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Illusion of weakness is good in what it does... it can make you a bit buffer in the arena, and in some more organised pvp it can help against spikes. However, its recharge time is a little long tbh.

Illusion is way more than health degen. Soothing images, sympathetic visage, arcane conundrum, migraine, crippling anguish, and to a lesser extent clumsiness and ineptitude are all shutdown skills. The degen on most of them combined with mantra of persistence and conjure phantasm... makes the shutdown hurt more. But both lines have good shutdown for both casters and melee. Overall illusion is probably a bit more balanced. A good illusion/fast casting/inspiration build can shutdown a wider range of foes than a domination/fastcasting/inspiration build. However, if your out to take out casters without much support then domination is far superior.

The best elites are probably
Illusion: Migraine
Domination: Power Block/Energy Surge

But thats just one guys opinion.

EDIT: Domination also has the better direct damage skills (which supports the solo caster theme). Shatter enchantment, shatter hex, Energy Surge/Burn and shatter delusions/phantom pain can be great spike support skills.

Treevore · Jan 26, 2006, 03:01 AM // 03:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ole Man Bourbon

Do you want people to hate you or do you just want to be perceived as an asshole?

I think this the best way to describe mesmer builds.

I use a lot of dom.

Lady Lozza · Jan 26, 2006, 03:38 AM // 03:38

The best elite really depends on what you are going for.

Energy Denial (one of my favourites) = Energy Tap (Insp.)
->Cast Ether Lord then (as soon as you have 5nrg) Energy Tap, Energy Burn etc. Garanteed to deny any energy to any caster (or player) without BiP/BR/EP buff.
Surpisingly not a lot of people use this elite and I honestly don't understand why. It is very effective in this build and honestly should not be substituded for another elite.

Energy Surge = Energy Surge (big surprise!) (dom.)
->This build is suprisingly similar to an e-denial mesmer, except I do not recommend using Ether Lord.

Anti-Warrior illusion 1 = Illusionary Weaponary (ill)
->This build will work great with the new assassin and the skill "mirror stance"

Anti-Warrior illusion 2 = Crippling Anguish (ill)
->Warriors hate this skill

I've been flamed a number of times by IWAY warriors for using it

Anti-Warrior illusion 3 = Ineptitude (ill)
->Another prime hate for warriors.

Anti-Warrior dom. = Panic(dom)/Signet of midnight(no)/Mantra of Recovery(FC)
->IMHO an anti-warrior dom. mesmer is not as effective as an anti-warrior illusion mesmer because the best anti-warrior skills are illusion skills. I disagree that mesmers do not receive a bonus from maxing skills out - they receive less of a bonus than other classes do, but if you are using skills from mainly one area then you should make them as powerful as you can.

Anti-caster Dom. = Power Block (dom)
->I hate having this cast on me as a monk, and it is great to cast on a monk or ele because they tend to stick to skills of a single attribute

Anti-caster illusion = Migrane (ill)
->Another one I hate having cast on me - as any sort of caster.

Note: SoM is an option for any mesmer, it is a skill which is perhaps best with monk/mes, to help shake off that pesky warrior attacking you.

EDIT: I forgot one build

Hexy Mecro = Fevered Dreams (ill)
->Sometimes this build used a necro elite, but it doesn't really matter. I've not seen a lot of people running with this build too much at all. Which is a pity since it can really turn IWAY back in upon itself.

M C H A M M E R · Jan 26, 2006, 05:05 PM // 17:05

life transfer+epedimic=pwnt =P

LightningHell · Jan 27, 2006, 03:48 PM // 15:48

How does that pawn? Life transfer isn't a condition.

M35m3rz 0wnz j00 455.

Personally, I've found Arcane Conundrum + Power Block + Arcane Echo to be quite interesting

Avarre · Jan 27, 2006, 08:18 PM // 20:18

conundrum + powerblock is evil

Especially with pure builds like... most casters

Ok I'm gonna say this ONCE, because I saw someone mention it. Mirror stance is BAD against warriors. Why?

Because warriors usually use one stance. It's called frenzy. Do you LIKE having 300 damage eviscerates from mirror stance? No, I didn't think so.

Migrane is a nice little spell, but it dies against monks (holy veil, CoP..).

Energy Tap isn't an elite, energy drain is

The reason most people don't use it is because it drains... <10 from the enemy (you gain 2x) per 30 seconds, whereas surge / echo (for weariness signet) drains 10/20s.

I'd say Domination is more powerful for pvp, a mix is better for Pve. Because really, I never seem to die to illu mesmers except from the degen of their hexes. And 20dp/s isn't even something you blink at in organized pvp....

Mosgerion · Jan 28, 2006, 04:07 AM // 04:07

Illusion has some great anti-warrior skills. Soothing Images can shut down a Axe Warrior, and Sympathetic Visage can ensure that a foe can't chain up to those big adrenal skills (Also some energy loss from foes around you, so if you're standing next to a Monk, well, all the better for you)

Spirit Shackles and Mantra of Persistence stack nicely too, where Spirit Shackles should quickly zero the energy pool of a Ranger, Warrior, or, in fact, more or less any group that goes toe-to-toe melee (Assassin doubly so, but they're also the ones dying from Empathy and SS)

Avarre · Jan 28, 2006, 06:12 AM // 06:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mosgerion

Spirit Shackles and Mantra of Persistence stack nicely too, where Spirit Shackles should quickly zero the energy pool of a Ranger, Warrior, or, in fact, more or less any group that goes toe-to-toe melee (Assassin doubly so, but they're also the ones dying from Empathy and SS)

Mantra of persist is for illusion hexes, Spirit shackles is an inspiration hex.

Symbol · Jan 28, 2006, 07:02 AM // 07:02

I don't see how higher hp makes degeneration less effective-at least any less so than other forms of damage. In fact in PvE degeneration becomes more valuable as time goes on because lvl 24 enemies have rediculous amounts of armor.

Avarre · Jan 28, 2006, 07:36 AM // 07:36

And most bosses also have natural regen, and enough health to basically blink away your max 20dmg/s. Your entire degen skillbar is thus weaker than a low level empathy, basically.

Symbol · Jan 28, 2006, 08:55 AM // 08:55

You completely missed the point. Is that natural regen suddenly going to disappear if you don't use degen?

No? Then why bring it up?

Avarre · Jan 28, 2006, 09:51 AM // 09:51

Is it worth using an entire skill slot to neutralize natural regen? Versus something with regen, you'll need -13 regen to cap. Thats.. say... conjure (5), phantom pain (3), one of the elites + a diff attrib spell or life transfer. Thats 3-4 skills for 20dmg/s, resulting in each skill doing around... SIX damage per second. Compare to empathy (27 damage per attack attempt, for 15+ seconds at 12 dom), backfire (119 damage per spellcast, usually hitting at least once giving 11.9 dmg/s minimum, often killing highlevel spammy mobs and neutralizing casters), clumsiness (7 dps and an interrupted attack, which can be used to block a killer strike), and many, many others.

Notice something about these skills? They are all conditional damage skills, and mobs do not have the AI to stop doing something that is hurting them (besides moving from AoE). Why do you think SS is one of the most devastating spells now?

Now, the counter to what I said would obviously be, 'but Avarre, then they still have natural regen and gain back 6 hps per second or so!' And this is true. That paladin with +3 mending on it, while under empathy, clumsiness, and only the mesmer knows what else is regenning just too fast!.

Perhaps the only form of degen i found useful was disease and wells of suffering, because of area effect. And those are not illusion (which is what the thread title is about), those are necromancer.

I stand by what I said, illusion degen falls to the side in highlevel areas.

Symbol · Jan 28, 2006, 10:46 PM // 22:46

That doesn't say anything except that domination is more effective than illusion in PvE, because domination does more conditional damage. It's not an indictment of degen. Degen is no more or less effective than other types of damage, regardless of whether the enemy has high HP or low HP.

20 dps of degen isn't magically worth less than 20 dps of damage from another source, which is the point I'm trying (and failing) to make. That's why stacking degen on top of other forms of damage is effective.

And while a pure illusion degen build may not be effective in taking down a single target, you can still spread degen around with mantra of persistence for high aggregate dps.

Avarre · Jan 29, 2006, 02:45 AM // 02:45

Domination being entirely superior to illusion is the point I'VE been trying to make for the entire thread. As I have mentioned, I prefer domination and illusion (15 dom 12 illus 9 fc) for PvE.

When I go to a group for, say, FoW, I think 'how can I have the most effect for the team?' When I see a mesmer that uses 50 energy casting conjure phantasm on all the shadow elementalists, it just makes me sad. With that energy, you could have thrown 2 anticast and 2 antimelee hexes to deal critical damage to 2 enemies, and effectively reducing the capability of the other 2 significantly. Or any combination of that. Would the team rather have 5 enemies taking 10 damage per second, or 1 caster casting slow, 1 caster dying from backfire, a blinded, stumbling warrior that is hitting a caster, a warrior being tanked that is tearing itself apart...?

Speaded degen is excellent, but if you want that, play a necro for WoSuffering and disease. I think I mentioned that too.

DieInBasra · Jan 29, 2006, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Quote:

Migrane is a nice little spell, but it dies against monks (holy veil, CoP..)

Have you ever been out of the random arena?

Quote:

Would the team rather have 5 enemies taking 10 damage per second, or 1 caster casting slow, 1 caster dying from backfire, a blinded, stumbling warrior that is hitting a caster, a warrior being tanked that is tearing itself apart...?

In the same situation we could have two casters casting slow and the warriors without adren with Illusion spells as well, have those hexes last twice as long so you don't have to worry about them until the end, AND have some energy managment.
The dom/ill situation you posted would cost 50 energy and you'd have little way of getting it back. The guy useing conjure has 5 other spells he can use for energy gain that can help the party as well.
All in all I think that it matters where you are and what group you have. But, when you have the choice an illusion mesmer has skills that work well with a team that knows each other, and knows what to do. In a PUG, domination is probably better.