Curse

fatboyslimerr · Jun 12, 2006, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Right then, I recently decided shutdown mesmers was decidely better at reducing the effectiveness of a boon prot (in GvG) mainly because e-denial can be countered by focus swapping. After playing around, I discovered if you can either observe their focus swapping or just plain guess, at some point they will swap back to having zero energy. Mind wrack therefore seems like a great skill with its spamability and pretty decent damage. Have people found this is an effect counter to focus swapping, or is it too easily removed, not enough damage and so not worth the skill slot or perhaps a good cover to something like shame or diversion, as well as a counter to focus swapping ?
Can you not have effective e-denial without mind wrack ?

Otherwise I'll stick with mass diversion spamming

Zui · Jun 12, 2006, 08:35 AM // 08:35

Search the Gladiator's Arena section. There's an entire article on Energy Denial.

Edit: I'll do one better. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...=141276&page=1

fatboyslimerr · Jun 12, 2006, 09:41 AM // 09:41

So which will win, a pro boon prot who is a master of focus swapping, or a pro e-denial who has enough time and concentration to look at the tiny lil things their target is waving around (foci/wand etc lol). Sure you can drain a boon prots entire energy supply, but then they can focus swap while your burn/surge is recharging and so becoming effective for 10 seconds or so while you recharge. Even if you manage an e-burn (-8 energy) say they swap to 2 +15/-1 sets, so they have apple energy to spam RoF etc just before you burn their energy, which will cause them to quickly swap back to their 0 energy set, making your efforts useless. This is all very well but if you spam mind wrack will that stop them focus swapping or what ??

If you pre-empt a focus swap, could you shame/mind wrack so their spell will fail, steal their focus energy and cause damage. Energy denial has always seemed so shallow to me, with a lot more skill and effectivity coming from playing a decent shutdown mesmer. However I can see a shame/mind wrack e-denial mesmer being able to counter focus swapping. I just haven't play e-denial enough (in decent PvP) to be able to know. I usually just shutdown like a pimp

Evilsod · Jun 12, 2006, 11:06 AM // 11:06

Neither. The moment that boon prot goes to cast Guardian/Mantra of Recall in a serious case of emergancy where he's justbeen drained, hit that with Power Leak and they're stuffed. Its the only downside with Focus swapping imo, if you need emergancy energy and you get that Leaked, your in the minus if you switch back to regen.

Jestah · Jun 12, 2006, 11:51 AM // 11:51

Focus swapping really isn't that effective vs. a reasonably smart Denial Mesmer. You can easily use mind wrack to judge when someone is at 0 energy. After that just recast wrack and spam ether feast, the second he swaps up to heal hit him with a nice combo. Also interupting energy management and diverting signet of devotion work well.

Vs braindead surgers it is however unbeliably easy to counter. Bad surgers almost always just fire off the denial as soon as they recharge in a chain. Just use the game timer to count between chains and make sure you've got youre neg kit on when they hit you. If they get really predicatable you can also burn off the 20 or so energy with your neg kit to prevent the damage too. Mantra of Recall works very good for this because it helps regain the energy but not in a way that allows the surger to remove.

Edit: I find a much more flexible build is Mantra of Recovery with diversion, power leak, shame and maybe even energy burn. Mantra means you don't have to double up on skills to compensate for recharge as much and gives you much more space on your bar to be flexible. Recovery and diversion will have smiters and touchers raging all day. Also you can take Ressurection Chant with the high fast casting :P

fatboyslimerr · Jun 12, 2006, 12:21 PM // 12:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

Neither. The moment that boon prot goes to cast Guardian/Mantra of Recall in a serious case of emergancy where he's justbeen drained, hit that with Power Leak and they're stuffed. Its the only downside with Focus swapping imo, if you need emergancy energy and you get that Leaked, your in the minus if you switch back to regen.

This depends on them using an energy management skill or hex removal (something interruptible) after focus swapping. If they however wisely spam RoF, my only hope is to e-burn while they have their high energy focus set equipped.

This is my problem. I currently run a MoR e-denial mesmer (when he's not diversion spamming) as I also have savants armor so the fact that MoR is a stance is great. I currently use:
1. MoR {E}
2. E-Burn
3. E-Tap -- this is to keep up high energy costs of MoR
4. Drain Enchant
5. Shame
6. Power Leak
7. Feedback
8. Res

As you can see, no space for mind wrack. What I'm saying is, would it be best to perhaps remove feedback (which is great because you can save it for those focus swapping moments to remove divine boon making their healing or RoF suck) or Shame which isn't entirely neccessary but great when it is triggered. Shame is also anti focus swapping because if they try to cast quickly with high energy set they get interrupted and (probably) lose all of their energy.

Decisions, decisions ...

JR · Jun 12, 2006, 01:49 PM // 13:49

You can focus swap back down as soon as the energy from starting the cast has been subtracted. This means you should only ever be in your +energy set for as long as it takes to swap up and down; a fraction of a second.

For example; if you were casting Aegis and swapped back down after the cast had started, a Power Leak would effectively do nothing if you were then sat on 0 energy anyway.

fatboyslimerr · Jun 12, 2006, 03:13 PM // 15:13

This keeps making me think shutdown is just better than e-denial, (for PvP) as JR says, any decent focus swapper can just hide his/her energy too well and swap quick enough for my interrupt or e-burn to have no affect.

I realise at top level PvP, boon prots are going to be focus swapping masters but what about mid level (where the normal people play), how viable is e-denial ?? Otherwise I'll just keep playing wonderful wonderful shutdown.

Eaimirth Etaivella · Jun 12, 2006, 03:41 PM // 15:41

-seems I misread the topic-
-edit-
If you have godly reflexes, 20/20 vision, and the heavens on your side I guess it would be plausible...

Problem is it really isn't. Its plausible for a mesmer to interrupt a 1/4 second spell, but we can't do it. Its plausible for a mesmer to watch a monk every second of his pitiful life, but we can't tell if that sword is a denravi or a -5 energy sword...we can only tell via foci which may or may not be facing us. They could even be behind someone, to make matters worse they the could play tricks etc with their weapons to confuse the mesmer w/o wrack.

Possible, just not plausible.

Themis · Jun 12, 2006, 04:29 PM // 16:29

/agree with Eaimirth.

fatboyslimerr · Jun 12, 2006, 04:51 PM // 16:51

I was suppose to write some more in my previous post but I couldn't be bothered

. Thanks for the knowledge, but I think I'll be keeping diversion on my skill bar, rather than E-Surge/E-Burn.

I'm still gonna try mind wrack though just for fun, but who's to say while your being chased by nasty warriors or something of the kind, that you'll be able to keep an eye on your targets weapon set. Just seems to intensive to me.