Curse

Nightwish · Aug 01, 2005, 07:55 AM // 07:55

I have a me/w char and I use fast cast and inspiration energy denial skills (e.g. energy tap, enery drain, etc) along with spirit shackles and spirit of failure.

I usually target heavy energy users in pvp. There is one round in comp arena, where my team met a team of 3 eles and 1 monk. So I start my usual stuff when the 3 eles suddenly spike my char with 100+ spells, ignoring my other melee or ranger teamates.

After they win the match, they comment on how bad my mesmer is. Now I'm not being a sore loser, but i would like to know how you guys would have play that round and to survive against 3 ele spikes. One deduction i come up with their comment is that energy denial mesmer is not as effective as other builds.

borkbork · Aug 01, 2005, 08:29 AM // 08:29

An elementalist has such a huge energy tank you can't possibly drain all 3 of them before they spike you to death.

Besides, this was in random? 4 v 4... anything goes. :P

ZD_kusanagi · Aug 01, 2005, 08:32 AM // 08:32

True, in random 4vs4, you need to rely on defense ALOT more. in gvg and hoh, energy denial mesmers are the shit. literally. they TURN their opponents into a big steaming pile of...chocolate ;P. but you cant be JUST energy denial to be an effective mesmer. i whole heartedly suggest you also run diversion, shame, guilt, energy burn, power drain, etc etc. you cant JUST take their energy. you need to nullify them for good. so interupt them, and lock out their spells mixed with the power draining powers is VERY effective.
So in a way, they were right. in 4vs4 arenas, energy denials ARNT as good as other builds. but 3 eles spiking at once, there is no way to stop that unless you have some sort of defense, IE monk on the team, or going second ele of monk yourself.

Xanthar · Aug 01, 2005, 09:31 AM // 09:31

When going up against a team with three elementarists, you may (being a primary mesmer) depend on them to target you or the monk first. After all, you are the greatest threat to their efficiency over the long term.

What to do when you got three air elementarists barreling down on you? Remember that they can't cast on the run. The correct thing to do is to kite them. While they are chasing you, they'll get their behinds peppered with the spells and attacks of your teammates, and eventually they'll break off pursuit. This is when you start doing your mesmer mojo

Kiting casters is tricky, but it can be done. Begin by hanging back. Watch their skills: If none of them start fireing when your teammates get in range, you know who is in their crosshairs. Don't wait for them to get into spell range, start running immediately. When they get a bit spread out, nail the leading one with a snare, and run off again. You'll take a bit of a pounding, but it should be survivable, especially if you take some protection against elemental attacks.

Also, you need to know that a lot of people really hate being kited. Sometimes they will go all irrational on you and you can keep them busy for the main part of the game, slowly killing them with DoTs and snaring them. Great fun

Nightwish · Aug 01, 2005, 09:58 AM // 09:58

Thx for the inputs, guys. I'll keep diversion and kiting in mind (though interrupting job and kiting doesnt work well together :P) And yea, one opponent actually chase me the entire round but its my good fortune that my other teamates did their job well

Sammiel · Aug 01, 2005, 03:14 PM // 15:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightwish

Thx for the inputs, guys. I'll keep diversion and kiting in mind (though interrupting job and kiting doesnt work well together :P) And yea, one opponent actually chase me the entire round but its my good fortune that my other teamates did their job well

You can also pack Mantra of Lightning if you have a spare skill slot (I know I know, not likely). Since you are probably already running heavy inspiration, the mantra will soak up a lot of damage. Once their initial spike is done, energy denial should work well, since their butter spells are 15+ mana, which is hard to regen while being spammed with drains. That leaves them with lightning strike, which isn't all that scary, especially with a mantra up.

rii · Aug 01, 2005, 04:00 PM // 16:00

I would say just go for monks necros and mesmers. In fact, i sometimes go for the warriors before the eles. Standard eles run out of steam after a while, and need to start regening, but the recent surge in renewal smiters means they really dont run out of energy. Wait for a reasonable time into the battle to start draining eles.

yc525 · Aug 01, 2005, 10:29 PM // 22:29

Energy denial mesmer, or mind wracker, is the best mesmer build because your ONLY job is to shutdown the protection monk, I dont know what the rest of you are talking about "shutting down eles" who cares about eles? you have to get rid of the prot monk

rii · Aug 01, 2005, 10:32 PM // 22:32

Mesmers are meant to take down multiple targets, and taking down an ele isnt hard. one backfire every now and again, most of them are still flaring themselves to death in the arena *dies in despair*

Amused Observer · Aug 01, 2005, 10:40 PM // 22:40

A Me/W is usually set up as a melee type warrior relying on Illusionary Weapon, Diversion, and W stances. An energy denial isn't as useful in pvp as a skill denial bar----blackout, power block, arcane thievery (x2 w/ arcane echo).

Energy denial would work for a monk build that use -1 energy maintenance skills; but those are sorta out of vogue due to Nature Renewal.

Also, I would prefer Elemental Resistance over Mantra Flame/lightning/etc.

And speaking as a nuker/me, I normally pack a glyph of energy, mantra of resolve, and a fire attunement. w/ around 70ish energy, and +4 regen energy rate, mes interrupts and energy denial builds won't work on me.

Amused Observer · Aug 01, 2005, 10:42 PM // 22:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by yc525

Energy denial mesmer, or mind wracker, is the best mesmer build because your ONLY job is to shutdown the protection monk, I dont know what the rest of you are talking about "shutting down eles" who cares about eles? you have to get rid of the prot monk

Exactly. Once the protect monk goes down, the rest of the opposing team will to.

rii · Aug 01, 2005, 10:52 PM // 22:52

How many mesmers do you run? and how many monks do they have.

standard answer is 1, and three. two pure healers focused on one guy can keep him going for a long time, so you need more than that matey.

Aug 01, 2005, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Dont use Mind Wrack. And Mesmers have a tough time taking down protection monks these days due to NR and the low cast time on alot of the good prot skills which makes interuppting them non-existant. Hard and direct energy denial will still hurt them though.

Tigris Of Gaul · Aug 02, 2005, 01:20 AM // 01:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

Dont use Mind Wrack.

Quoted for truth. If I'm designing a build, I'd rather have copies of Energy Drain on multiple characters then have a mesmer just designated for energy denial. If I'm going for 1 slot for just energy denial, I'd use a "Fear Me!" W/Me for a large AoE drain of effectively 5-6 pips of energy.

arredondo · Aug 02, 2005, 01:40 AM // 01:40

Like almost any other skill, Mind Wrack can be useful if the supporting ideas behind it are sound. By itself, Mind Wrack can take up to 20% off the enemy's health bar a decent amount for any single skill. Pure energy kill/denial has its place too, and I'm not arguing against it at all, but that is just one approach one can take in making a build.

If you can get some damage out of your efforts in a way that helps your build and the team, then by all means make it work. If it doesn't work for you/your team, then by all means move on to something else. But like many skills that are written off from time to time, Mind Wrack can serve a purpose even if that purpose isn't yet known.

It would be helpful if we put things in the context of "no one's found a good use for skill X yet" instead of just flatly stating it's worthless. I hear a lot of talk about metagames back and forth - if we limit ourselves to only approving/disapproving of a skill or strat because the current fad defeats it, we limit ourselves from having extra tools to work with when the current problem builds are successfully dealt with.

What if the innovative tactic X is posted up (just a few skills that work well together in a cool way) and was instantly dismissed for not dealing with team strat 0. Well out of the blue, team strat 1 comes along with a whole new way (not tactic X) to beat team 0 and the whole community cheers. Now team strat 1 is a beast and we scratch our heads, until one person brings out tactic X from the trash bin. It perfectly deals with team strat 1, and the community cheers again.

Whether it is useful now, later, in a small way on a team build or in a good way in an Arena build, let's keep all of our options open before we instantly drop kick tools that seem to have no current use.

Phades · Aug 02, 2005, 03:02 AM // 03:02

It would be easier to spread around, and consequently more sucessful overal, to create situations of a pause in character actions and have shame cause damage than to try and consistantly energy spike one target to make mind wrack work.

If mind wrack was built into something like ether lord (really long list of stuff that happens in this instance), then it would be more useful in a slot, but still defeatable. Ether lord would still need to not wipe out the users energy pool or be victim to another user's ether lord though. Both of these skills follow the rebirth syndrome within a pvp setting, crippling the overal effectiveness of the character longterm, due to time and energy wasted while using the skills.

Aug 02, 2005, 03:07 AM // 03:07

Ok lets put it simple as possible: There are skills that are clearly good and clearly bad. Mind Wrack goes into the clearly bad pile. We need to stop making this usless excuses of "every skill has a place" and just realize some skills are shit.

Phades · Aug 02, 2005, 03:10 AM // 03:10

It would be nice if they were fixed so that they were all useful, even if there were fewer of them. That would dispell some of the illusions that the skills were created for the pve realm on the npc side specifically.

Yukito Kunisaki · Aug 02, 2005, 08:01 AM // 08:01

I'd have to agree with Blackace on that one.

If you had EVERY SKILL for your characters two classes, you'll EASILY be able to figure out which are hot and which are not.

The way Mind Wrack works, if you had EVERY Mesmer skill, you'll learn quite quickly that it is on the crap pile 'when COMPARED to all the other available skills'.

rii · Aug 02, 2005, 08:23 AM // 08:23

Not as a cover hex. a 20 second duration, and the end trigger, well, the other guy, is trying his hardest more than likely to stop it being the case.... noone likes 0 energy.