Curse

SnipiousMax · Feb 03, 2006, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Quote:

absolutely, because it is one of the first spells you get, conjure seems like a badass spell at the start. It certainly doesn't stay that way. More discussion on the weaknesses / strengths of degen is in the 'Domination or Illusion' thread.

It's because of mesmers that think conjure is the best spell ever that so many are perceived as weak... if you want degen on foes, play a necromancer.

THANK YOU!

I absolutely agree. Degeneration is just not mesmer's forte. Any Degen build you would do with a mesmer, would include necro skills....so why not just make a necro to take advantage of Runes, etc. With so many other possiblities, degen seems the poor mans mesmer.

Mystic Memory · Feb 03, 2006, 11:57 PM // 23:57

I use degen all the time. People make it out to be much worse than it is. Of course, ONLY degen would be a terrible build. But degen with interruption is quite good. And about this conjure phantasm being weak, i find it one of the best spells in the game

Moderate Degen
Cover Hex
Pressure
Low recharge

Avarre · Feb 04, 2006, 02:33 AM // 02:33

Sure, but there are no foes in FoW / Tombs that use hex removal, and a cover hex without SV is just chaff versus a pack of smite crawlers. Conjure is a fine cover (loses to parasitic bond though, which also gives you a notice when it ends), but thats more of a PvP thing.

Degen with seperate effects isn't too bad in PvP. Crippling anguish + max degen on warriors, Migrane + max degen on casters.

Moving on...

Ether Lord is a pretty interesting skill, combining edenial, energy maintainance, and multiple other things into one little hex. Some things to remember, though;

It doesn't cost five energy, because of the 1-2 energy or so you regen casting it. It only nets you +1 energy per second (with -3/+3, I think thats the amount, someone correct me if I'm wrong), and doesn't last long enough to give you very much. Energy tap with the same stats would net you a much higher bonus. This is why quite alot of players rank Lord along with Mending as an abomination of a skill.

Also to consider is the energy total of mobs... a Mursaat mage of any type has either collosal regen, or about 100 energy base. Because of this, energy degen doesn't really help too much against them. (Neither does energy denial, although it's great how fast Willa goes down once his huge pool of energy is gone). Lord wouldn't be too much help here (I suppose you could launch it after firing your burn/surge or drain/tap).

The only builds I've found that work everywhere happily is a triggered-damage dom/illu build with interrupts, backfire, empathy, ineptitude, other skills... never had any complaints on it (had to solo a rogue aatxe that wiped the rest of the team once, and won

)

Draracle · Feb 04, 2006, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Quote:

Privately I think this is because monks decided they were sick of people being completely unappreciative and refused to do the job when group members started yelling at them.

As a monk player must say the jig is up! I rarely ever get complaints about my monking, but when I do I just stop healing the complainer. Usually because the complainer expects to lean on the monk to leverage out as much dmg as possible -- which means if I keep him alive then the rest of the team will go without healing as all my energy was burn on one noob.

As for they guy that said the mesmer primary sucks in PvE, will you obviously don't play your mesmer as I do. My Fast Casting is always jacked for a very obvious and important reason. Mesmers w/ FC have the initiative, I can do what I want to do faster and with less resistance than any other class. I can layout my hexes, do my interupts, renew my energy.... by the end of I fight I bet I have had an extra 33%-40% more time than you. If we fought for a minute, you would have to fight for another 20 seconds just to catch up to me. FC is one of the chief pwning abilities of a mesmer -- in a fight initiative is everything and w/ FC you always have initiative.

As for ranger interupts, they are nice. I play ranger as well and I never go without interupts. The ability to layout dazed is a caster's worst nightmare. Rangers can tag any skill, and Mesmer primarily focus on spells. However, a ranger can't interupt fast spells, not without blind luck. The air time of arrows seriously hurts the interupt abilities. With a mesmer I can intrupt in 1/8th of a second (ranger has a baseline 1/2 second fire time + air time). If your reflexes suck, Mesmers have hexes which can interupt. Mesmers also have Backfire. So, yeah, a Ranger's interupts are easier to use and they work really really well, but Mesmers have their place too. They just require more inteligence to operate.

Backfire for noobs... lol. I don't even know if should respond to this comment... backfire pwns. I have single-handly killed casters before the other 7 guys could slay the primary target. Backfire is great in PvE, especially against monks, where the fast casting times and fast cool down make intrupts a short lived venture. Give a monk Backfire, Spike his remove hex... and then burn his energy pool.... he will either die saving the primary target or let the primary target die only to find he is the next primary. In PvP, most casters, even Elementalist (whom I don't usually give backfire to in PvE because they just cast through it and do even more dmg to my team) won't cast through. Instead they will wait it out, or look for a hex removal. 10 seconds out of the game = a very good spell. The trick is not to look at the obvious, this is the mesmer's class; duh. Backfire obviously punishes people for casting and if they don't cast then they don't get hurt... I would rather the person choose not to cast than to get hurt, but either way it is win-win for me. Same with diversion, I would rather stop all skills for 6 seconds than one for 50 seconds... but again, win-win. Mesmer are great at giving out loose/loose situations and then making you choose. Worry and Spike... what is it going to be (oh please choose spike... pretty pretty please)? Attack and loose all your energy, or don't attack at all?

Granted, this class isn't for everyone... or even the vast majority. It does work like other classes, it is much harder to control than other classes, it requires more patience than other classes. May people just won't like playing Mesmer because they can't get the same success as with another class. That is fine, I have a warrior and I suck! I am learning, but I suck. That doesn't mean I refuse warriors into my group, I know what good players can do with a Warrior. Granted, now that I have said this, the problem is obvious, there are a lot of crappy mesmers out there... more crappy mesmers than any other class. But trust me, a good mesmer on a team is like a sharp edge on a blade... might not look like much, but the blade goes in much faster and deeper with a sharp edge.

Avarre · Feb 04, 2006, 07:52 AM // 07:52

One thing I have found about interrupting is when stopping the really fast spells, I usually catch them from anticipating rather than from reacting in time to cast. With ranger distracts, it's much the same, fire off a distracting shot (which recharges a good 2 - 3 times faster than mesmer interrupts) into the spamhealing monk, and hope

Overall, the best interrupter would be the warrior... when you're meleeing a single target and not switching to hex, you not only see their casting first, but can get a feel for their casting pattern that a mesmer switching around would not. Skull Crack demolishes in PvE, it needs a buff (reduce adrenaline from 9 ftw) and it would be fun in PvP..

Adding to that, why do no mesmer spells cause Dazed? Surely if you can reach into someone's mind and convince them the dented rinblade you're swinging randomly in the air is ripping their guts apart, you can shake their mind around and daze them? =)

Regarding fast cast;

The problem some people have with PvE fast casting is because the conflicts are usually more drawn out, fast casting quickly loses its power. What really effects your capabilities is recovery time, and look what we have here, Mantra of Recovery. With boosted energy tap and dom spells, the amount of chaos you can cause is uncanny.

Backfire is good in PvE, as one of the 'triggered-damage' spells which the AI does not react to. In PvP it lacks somewhat, because when a critical caster calls that they have backfire, it becomes the primary target for hex removal. 'Course, that's what cover hexes are for...

holden · Feb 04, 2006, 02:23 PM // 14:23

mesmers have arcane conundrum. it's a pretty good dazed.

[/QUOTE]Backfire is good in PvE, as one of the 'triggered-damage' spells which the AI does not react to. In PvP it lacks somewhat, because when a critical caster calls that they have backfire, it becomes the primary target for hex removal. 'Course, that's what cover hexes are for...[/QUOTE]

that's all im saying. you guys see someone bring up backfire without praise and honor and you're ready to fight. It's great in pve but so is meteor. it's strong as hell with high domination in pvp or pve.
but in pvp backfire is slow and expensive, 15 energy, 3 seconds for cast and it recharges in 20. there are other ways to deny his cast or cause him pain.

we've been thru this but i said NOOB because new guys love this skill like they love conjure. it's cool and all but alot of guys will take backfire no matter what the rest of the build looks like. just because you 'gotta have backfire'. it does all that uber damage. sometimes backfire is overkill.

unless, like avarre said, you have dual targets

SnipiousMax · Feb 04, 2006, 09:26 PM // 21:26

At the risk of turning this into backfire discusion....My problem with backfire for PvP is the energy cost. 15 might not seem like much (especially considering that the ranger skill "concusion shot" costs 25!) but when you're hexes are the target of hex removal (even with cover hexes it happens!) then you've got a skill that is gonna leech away energy. Granted, if you can protect it, it is wonderful for shutting down casters, but it requires a lot of baby sitting, and I like at least a little flexibility when I play mesmer. For that same cost you can use Power Block...which I think is a better skill for punishing PvP casters. Much cheaper to use is Shame and Guilt, and while it tends toward a different play style it leads to the same idea...Energy is a caster's life and if you attack that then you're killing them just as effectively. I think Migraine (or arcane conundrum) is a much better anti caster hex for PvP, especially if you're running shutdown. Most people know not to cast a spell while under backfire (which is the arguement for using it as shutdown) but it also doesn't give you any more oppertunity to do further harm to the spell caster, but Migraine (or conundrum) will give you a better chance of hitting them with a damaging interrupt, or of preventing that hex removal.

On another note, I've been playing a little with the skills inspired Enchantment and inspired hex. I'll admit its fun taking an opponents hex and throwing it back in their face, but I've not neccesarily had enough success with it you use it regularly... Anyone else been able to use these skills with some success?

SilenceWeaver · Feb 04, 2006, 10:31 PM // 22:31

inspired hex is an amazing skill. usually as a primary mesmer you will be using domination or illusion, fast casting/secondary attribute, and then inspiration for energy. now chances are when you take off a hex it will be either a necromancer hex or a mesmer hex, if you get the necros hex, it will be unlikely that you can use it, but hey you just removed it from your pal and gained some energy. however, if you get a mesmer hex from an attribute line that you are using, you just got rid of a hex, gained about 5 energy, and got a useful skill, all for 5 energy. plus, nothing peeves a mesmer more than removing his hex and smacking it back on him.

as for the topic at hand, i think mesmers have to accomplish multiple purposes in pve and pvp to be an effective character. maybe its just me, but i simply cannot stand doing one thing and one thing only. if you are a mesmer, you should have anywhere from 2-4 different tasks that you are running simultaneously in your build. if you are running degen, combine it with a team utility or interrupts or something, if you are running interrupts you should be able to strip enchantments or something else, basically you cannot accomplish one goal and be an effective mesmer. this actually goes for all classes, but especially a mesmer. i can actually think of one partial exception, which is a pure e-denialer, but even they should be using something like diversion or inspired hex to do a little more than just shutdown energy. all this reflects back on the comments made on specific builds and their names. the thing is, there are no specific builds, there are common purposes. two builds might be accomplishing the same or similar things, but they are not doing it the same way. any creative person with a mind will play a mesmer differently from everyone else. granted there are a large number of people that play the exact same builds, but they are the ones that fail at being mesmers, because being a good mesmer requires strategy, thought, and creativity (the reason i love this class so much). if all you do is run the same build as someone you saw in observer or someone who posted on a forum, you will not do well, and you will not have fun. i at least do not feel right when using another persons build because it does not fit my style, it fits someone elses. find a niche in a team and stick to it, but make it your own personal niche that does what you want to do.

mesmers are possibly the most versatile class out there (perhaps tied with rangers), and there are many things that you can do in many different ways. its a shame if you do it someone elses way.

animeba · Feb 07, 2006, 12:27 AM // 00:27

I'll just clarify some of the things I said:
IN PVP:
You are expected to fill a role that fits in the group. The group build does not evolve around your favorite/most skilled build. Whatever the group leader/group decides you should play, that's what you play. If you think the group leader is bad, then you are free to find another group. Arguing is a clear sign the person is a not a teamplayer and should be replaced.

IN PVE:
Fast casting is unimportant. There are very few interrupts. You have all the time in the world to cast your spells. What limits your effective is energy & recharge time. If anyone wants to prove me wrong, list a SPECIFIC situation that require a primary mesmer, which a secondary mesmer or another can't fill.

On a comment about the general paladin lacking skill: even if that is so, he will still be able to tank & do damage. A mesmer that doesn't know what he/she is doing is just a liability to the team. Like: backfire on warriors, empathy on caster, missing interrupts, using chaos storm to scatter mob aggro.

Backfire is not a terrible spell but not a good one either. Mobs will stop casting before backfire will kill it. So you will need help to kill anything. Casting it on the monk will only reduce its healing for 10secs. The average dmg is 2-3times x ~140dmg. That's just 280-420dmg. The average damage over 20secs is: 14-21dmg/sec. There are a lot of classes that can do this kind of dmg per sec.

The mesmer class is geared toward shutdown. In pve, people want to just kill, not shutdown.

Some previous poster has questioned my knowledge of the mesmer class, I have taken a mesmer from lv1 to end of the game before deleting it. I am also ranked in pvp.

SnipiousMax · Feb 07, 2006, 06:17 AM // 06:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by animeba

The mesmer class is geared toward shutdown. In pve, people want to just kill, not shutdown.

What about later levels/Underworld/FoW/New Underworld? And don't flash Rank, I agree your an experienced player, but nothing to be gained by saying that.

d3kst3r · Feb 07, 2006, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by animeba

Backfire is not a terrible spell but not a good one either. Mobs will stop casting before backfire will kill it. So you will need help to kill anything. Casting it on the monk will only reduce its healing for 10secs. The average dmg is 2-3times x ~140dmg. That's just 280-420dmg. The average damage over 20secs is: 14-21dmg/sec. There are a lot of classes that can do this kind of dmg per sec.

I find that backfire when used correctly is one of the most efficient killing spells. During PvP I save it in my skillbar like an Ace of Spades and only reveal it during the heat of battle. I find that slipping it in unexpectedly in the middle of a heated battle gets a very quick kill. However casting it at the very start and the opponent quickly wises up and counters it.

Avarre · Feb 07, 2006, 12:03 PM // 12:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

What about later levels/Underworld/FoW/New Underworld? And don't flash Rank, I agree your an experienced player, but nothing to be gained by saying that.

Before someone slaps you, its 'Tombs' not 'New Underworld'.

In later levels, and in all levels, triggered damage is better than shutdown typically. Say you run a shutdown build to tombs, what are you going to do? Use your skillbar to stop a terrorweb? It's an efficient dispersal of your capabilities.

In FoW, my skillbar is always the same. Nobody ever tells me to change it, because it basically does everything it would need to (and if they did tell me, I wouldn't listen anyway, because 98% of people who tell mesmers what to do have no clue). What a single empathy could do, when applied to a melee enemy when your team has a solid tank, is something along the lines of (taking 15 domination), 30dmg x 20 attacks (rounded to account for shadow warrior iway) = 600 damage for 10 energy. A well placed backfire can quickly rip in 200-300 damage, especially on mesmer mobs like Doubter's Dryders.

Some shutdown in these upper-level areas is useful. Arcane conundrum / Migrane can lock one shadow monk to slothness, giving enough time for your team to kill it without it spamming heal. Backfire can mess up the other monk (if it takes damage, it has to heal itself, that is healing not applied to other things being killed). Interrupts combined with conundrum or simply used to mess up opposing unguent/healing signet will augment your empathies that are whittling away at enemy life. However, one should not bother going pure shutdown... as a PvE mesmer, half-shutdowning multiple targets is better than fully shutting down one or two, because you have a whole team to steamroller the weakened opposition.

I will write a response to animeba's primary/secondary mesmer comment and edit it on later...

Draracle · Feb 07, 2006, 12:03 PM // 12:03

Quote:

Fast casting is unimportant. There are very few interrupts. You have all the time in the world to cast your spells. What limits your effective is energy & recharge time. If anyone wants to prove me wrong, list a SPECIFIC situation that require a primary mesmer, which a secondary mesmer or another can't fill.

Fast Casting can be very important. In intertupts, doubling you casting speed means you can catch faster spells. In hexes you can lay down more hexes, faster. In general attack spells you can attack faster, dealing dmg faster, killing faster. You are less exposed to mesmer and ranger interupts. Would you rather a necro primary? If you can't e-manage your mesmer, they you aren't as good as you say you are. Elementalist, once again, there is no need for all that energy, it is a complete waste of skill points for a mesmer. Ranger and Warrior primaries don't apply. So what class would you rather a mesmer play in PvE? One that give energy bonus -- something a good mesmer will never need anyway. Or Fast Casting, something that a mesmer will always use.

As for shutdown in PvE, yeah people want killing but shutdown is part of it. If I give a monk backfire, I hope he doesn't cast. The goal is to shuthim down by punishing him every time he casts. If I interupt, the goal is to stop spells from being used, spells which would alter the play of the game. A griffon is a lot harder to kill with spellbreaker, a monk is much harder to kill with MoP, shutdowns kill. In FoW, a group running at the mesmers and monks will often suffer greating from the elementalists, especially now that the AI times spikes. A mesmer providing shutdown on the Elementalist allows the team to operate without worry.

I obviously play mesmer very differently than animeba, Mesmer is my favoured class, and I didn't delete my character. Damage is a side note in a mesmers arsenal, although I can pound an unsuspecting group with 220+ dmg in 2 seconds, the goal is to distrupt and frustrate the enemy. If you are doing damage calculations on backfire, then you are hoping for the wrong thing. Mesmers can do massive dmg, but it is their ability to disrupt the enemey which really shines. To me, if you are obsessed with damage capability of a mesmer, the you aren't a very good mesmer player. You should be looking at your shutdown effectiveness, your softening effectiveness and you ability to control multiple targets. I warrior may render a monster dead, a mesmer can kill with hexes, shutdown casters, and basically "kill" multiple targets at the same time.

Oh, and in PvE, in any given 2 second window... I am probably doing in excess of 160dmg, on top of my other tricks.

SnipiousMax · Feb 07, 2006, 07:09 PM // 19:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Some shutdown in these upper-level areas is useful. Arcane conundrum / Migrane can lock one shadow monk to slothness, giving enough time for your team to kill it without it spamming heal.

I will write a response to animeba's primary/secondary mesmer comment and edit it on later...

Yes that's what I was talking about. Not devoting your entire skill bar. But SOME shutdown is different than NO shutdown.

holden · Feb 07, 2006, 07:33 PM // 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by animeba

Mesmer in pve & pvp are 2 seperate issues.
In pvp:
When you join a pvp group, you will usually be playing an energy denial build or enchantment stripping build. You should follow the group leaders suggestions and change your skillbar according to the groups needs. This isn't a place to assert the superiority of your own build.

In pve:
Primary mesmer: unfortunately not very useful. Secondary mesmers can accomplish everything that primary mesmers can. Fast casting is really not needed because of few enemy interrupts.

Secondary mesmer: enormously useful. Provides mantra to reduce damage, & distortion to avoid hits.

================================================== ======
I have often tried to give mesmers a chance, but they often fail with great disappointment. The last mesmer in my pug fow group used chaos storm and had no hex removal for warriors. The typical mesmer in pve is interrupt (backfire, power leak/spike) or just simple degen. Rangers will do better interrupt mesmers & warriors will be better then degen mesmers. I really wish mesmers would think of more creative and useful builds.

well, you did say all this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by animeba

Some previous poster has questioned my knowledge of the mesmer class, I have taken a mesmer from lv1 to end of the game before deleting it.

I am also ranked in pvp.

people take ele's thru the entire game and still think fire is great.

a lot of wammos are ranked.

Draracle · Feb 07, 2006, 07:46 PM // 19:46

Quote:

Yes that's what I was talking about. Not devoting your entire skill bar. But SOME shutdown is different than NO shutdown.

Ok, now we are touching on something which I think some of us took for granted. When I as a newb I would do what any other class did, I made a skill bar to do one thing very well. Soon I found that a Mesmer devoted to one goal excels so much in that role that often I can't maximise the use of the character. Then, when my one goal (caster shutdown, for example) was not available (in a group of warriors) I was as useful as a pet without skills. If you are just starting out try to look for at least two functions for your mesmer, then expand as you learn the abilities and synergies of the skills. Try caster shutdown (an obvious choice) and Enchantment/Hex Control, these two are really easy to balance. Or E-denial and anti-weapon. But yeah, don't go all into one, then you will find you are too good one thing and crappy at everything else.

LouAl · Feb 08, 2006, 12:29 AM // 00:29

that is exactly what happened to me when I first started. I made this kickin caster shutdown mesmer for pvp in the random arena and guess what? I ran across groups that were all warriors or rangers. I usually ended up dead right off and telling my team not to waste a res sig on me...

Point is that you have to do more than one thing. Even if you decide that one of those things is something that another class can do better, interupt and degen come to mind. It can really hurt the other team if you are maxing one targets degen and shutting down the monk all at the same time.

Avarre · Feb 08, 2006, 08:03 AM // 08:03

LouAL's situation is one of the reason why 'energy surge builds' are so cherished. Nothing is safe from an e-burn build, not in PvP, not even in PvE, and you can dispatch a myriad selection of targets regardless of their class. On the other hand, you have to focus on a single enemy and can't toss out neutralization on several foes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by animeba

Some previous poster has questioned my knowledge of the mesmer class, I have taken a mesmer from lv1 to end of the game before deleting it.

I am also ranked in pvp.

When I decided to try a ranger, I got it ascended and level 20 at thunderhead within one day. It doesn't mean I know anything about rangers. And you haven't shown you know anything about mesmers.

Playing a mesmer is not just a character class, it is a frame of mind. Didn't you listen to the ghosts of the desert? A mesmer is one who can keep a calm mind during the heated battle, siphoning away their power until the foes vanish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

Yes that's what I was talking about. Not devoting your entire skill bar. But SOME shutdown is different than NO shutdown.

By this point I wasn't speaking to you directly, but more of speaking openly on my opinions of the use of PvE shutdown. My apologies if you felt I was chiding you over something you knew.

Draracle · Feb 08, 2006, 12:58 PM // 12:58

Another thing that I think is hurting the Mesmer rep. is the the anti-mesmer code. If your group does a bad pull (people in the tank's agro circle etc.) you will often find the melee monsters running past the tank and homing in on you. Even in a good group, I have had a caster (usually an Elementalist, those guys are always so trigger happy) creeping up too far, the monster says "forget the tank, I want Ellie". Then when the monster gets to the Ellie he says, "forget the ellie, I SEE A MESMER!!!" And then either you run or you die. I was taking blows up to 195dmg last night -- You don't live long when two monsters start laying beats like that on you. Or, have you ever noticed that if you cast a hex or an interupt, suddenly all the mesmer monsters start hexing and interupting you? This is just part of the fun of being a Mesmer, you out rank Monks on the "to kill list" that every monster carries in his/her back pocket. This means in a crappy group you are going to have more bad agro, more stress on the monks, less coordination, and generally, you will die first and often. Either that or you will be running all the time -- not the most convincing skill of a mesmer's abilities. Therefore, in a PUG (like one I had two days ago), you will get comments like "We need more Monk, Less Mesmer". GAHH. I wanted to punch that kid. Bad groups lead to dead Mesmers lead to poor Mesmer rep. I don't know if there is much to counter this, unless you want to take Mantras, which isn't part of my game. Either that or hang way back, let the agro run through your group then come in. But people won't like you much for that either.

d3kst3r · Feb 08, 2006, 02:15 PM // 14:15

Yeah I find that skilled mesmers pose more of a threat to the enemy team than even a good monk. I mean mesmers are like the single class that you can spec up to kill one type of person. Eg. anti warrior mesmers do the best job at killing warriors in the game and anti caster mesmers... well everyone knows how good they are at killing casters. If you get gang rushed by wars you'd have to hope your specced for that kind of thing I guess.