Curse

kawaii_bat · Sep 28, 2005, 06:41 PM // 18:41

It's decided...

The next fad will be mesmers after the batter/minion master necro fad fades away.

Order of fads:
Warrior/Mo,
Monk/W, Smiting
Ranger/mo, Trapper
Elementalist/mo, Smiting
necromancer/mo, Battery/minion master

next is the mesmer for sure! (I'll do a premptive strike and make one myself!)

lol

Arcanis the Omnipotent · Sep 28, 2005, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Nah, the Frag Mesmers already had their week in the light.

I almost got into it too, just decided against it.

Saerden · Sep 28, 2005, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanis the Omnipotent

More like 10% is junk and you dont know shit?

What did you really leave? The anti-warrior skills, backfire, a few other shut downs and the Inspiration Defensive skills. That's what makes a good mesmer to you? Wow, no wonder you never take any along.

If this is the case, in your mind a Mesmer's only job is to protect you while you do the killing. And that's so much bullshit I dont even know where to begin.

So I wont even bother. After that long winded and completely clueless speech, anyone who actually knows a damn thing will just think you as big of a moron as I do.

I actually felt that i did not include enough mesmer skills in the list. If anyone feels that even one of them is worth taking without A VERY SPECIAL REASON (thats the "combo" clause i put in there), please tell so. I also would like to hear your special reasons for taking any of the skills in combos.
Note that the benchmark is just another e/XXX with 1. shower 2. firestorm 3. fireball 4. anything else.
If the resulting character is NOT better then the e/XXX, dont bother. Of course, there are lots of other very good chars that could take the place, but nukers are common and dont require too many player skills.

I dont see a reason to take a mesmer without shatter [email protected] into SF right now. Over good options, that is. No, Lord SuXXor r/w with Sword is not a good option.

***
Something entirely different. Did anyone of those godly mesmers actually test wether the skills work as they are advertised? I heared that fire djinns ignore diversion, and that hex duration may be halved on (some) bosses... any REAL info on this?

*edit: Note that this post was made BEFOR the potential skill changes later today. I will remove mind wrack from the list when it suddenly instakills someone who reaches 0 energy. if it works on bosses. maybe.

edit2: i am ONLY talking about PvE. Thoug most of the stuff is worthless in PvP as well (or even moreso)

Arcanis the Omnipotent · Sep 28, 2005, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Ok, combine Conjure Phantasm, Phantom Pain and Crippling Anguish on one foe, then cast any number of shutdowns on the monk in the area.

Lets see how long the guy lasts at -10 Health and people nailing him for damage. Including the Mesmer who just used a high level energy Surge or Burn for 80 Damage.

Huh, didnt think of that one, did ya?

Seriously the fact that you dont know how to use any of those skills effectively shows you have never played a mesmer, or were one of those ones you complained about who dont know how.

Red Aideen · Sep 28, 2005, 09:09 PM // 21:09

It is simple, there are people that know how to play and people that don't. Anyone can be a Mesmer some people will just be better at it than others. One bad one ruines it for us all. Now I have a Me/Ele and she rocks but no one thinks so. Yes, she has less energy than a Ele but, thanks to fast casting she can get off two nukes before an Ele can get off one, with energy to spare. So why am I useless because, there are RUDE people in this game. Everyone has a mind set and no one will let it go. I took all the unwanted into SF (Rangers,Mesmers,Necros) I was there forever. We had a great time. Everyone should play at least one class once if just for awhile to see how it feels. Maybe some of them would step down off there high horses and get a grip. It's a game and we are suposed to be haveing fun!

Phades · Sep 28, 2005, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanis the Omnipotent

Ok, combine Conjure Phantasm, Phantom Pain and Crippling Anguish on one foe, then cast any number of shutdowns on the monk in the area.

Lets see how long the guy lasts at -10 Health and people nailing him for damage. Including the Mesmer who just used a high level energy Surge or Burn for 80 Damage.

Huh, didnt think of that one, did ya?

Seriously the fact that you dont know how to use any of those skills effectively shows you have never played a mesmer, or were one of those ones you complained about who dont know how.

No caster lasts long under a malestorm or meteor shower with other people beating on him and can affect more than one at a time. There isnt a need to waste 35+e on a character that has an average of 46 total on one enemy. 20 damage per second is not impressive either, in addition to them only lasting half as long on any boss monster. Sure you can waste another slot on mantra of persistance, in order to put the duration back to nearly normal against those boss targets, but then you have also devoted half of your build to only give 10 degen, a snare, and eventually deepwound that could be applied easily fom an axe warrior.

Single layer enchantment removal tends to be useful in pve though, which gives some play to the inspired, drain, and shatter enchantments. Dont need to interupt the mark of protection, when you can just make it explode, yours, or extra energy. The hex removal can be useful, but the damage effect is not that large leaving it to be used similar to a smiter on a warrior. It doesnt refresh fast enough to really help the group as a whole. It basically leaves you with your classic stall manuvers such as soothing images, diversion, and others in adidtion to the retribution for taking action skills. They arent rangers, so they really cant interupt many opponents in a long chain of events, only one every so often, which is mimiced in other ways.

Arcanis the Omnipotent · Sep 29, 2005, 02:39 AM // 02:39

That was just an example, and no where near what my build is like.

But its not an impossible build, nor is it a stupid one. However, I would say Conjure usually comes in handy more when you have a ranger (poison,bleeding) or a warrior (bleeding) and add to the degeneration. At most you should probably only have 2 DoT's in your bar, and which depends on the rest of your build.

Anti Hex or Enchantment spells most times a waste of a spot in PVE, due to the cool down times of most of them. When I do carry Shatter Hex, I only usually use it on the warrior or Monk, who usually has the most enemies around them. Anti Enchants are fine, but Eles and Monk classes are really the only ones with them, so if you dont run into one for a good ammount of time, you just have a slot that's going to waste. They work better in PVP, because you have singular targets that you know will be using Enchants.

Its a spread rumor that Dom Mesmers dont last long in PVE by themselves, and that rumor comes from the fact that no group will take a mesmer who doesnt have shutdown and spam hexes. Which, cant be used as high attacks to take down targets who are attacking you. The problem lies in groups making a Mesmer switch out their own build for what the group wants. Which is usually Anti Caster or Anti Warrior. And when a Mesmer builds against one, they become completely vulnerable to the other.

And that's when we die,
And that's why monks dont heal us. Because we arent doing something against everyone, we're only doing one side, because no one will take us if we dont.

KaPe · Sep 29, 2005, 03:16 AM // 03:16

"And that's why monks dont heal us"

Yeah yeah, blame your suckiness on monks

I heal everyone, but if someone, be it mesmer, ranger or even another monk blames something on me, I might delay my healing for one crucial second, letting them die.(well, not really, unless they *really* piss me off) Don't make yourself sound like poor child, abused by evil monks, any half-decent healer monk will try to keep entire party at full health, prioritizing monks over everyone else - but that's it, there's nothing sayins "Mesmer=don't heal".

lg5000 · Sep 29, 2005, 04:22 AM // 04:22

To monks not healing mesmers, and people not liking them in groups.., I believe it's because a mesmer doesn't show anything for his/her work.

A warrior, EVERYONE sees doing something, you can see the effects of a ele casting whatever nasty fire spell they're currently using, the monk, the blue numbers indicate that they're doing something. Necros have minions and make life bars of enemies turn green. Rangers have the same ability, and besides, they get to carry a cool bow. Mesmers.. make life bars turn pink.

My mesmer is currently domination orientated, and doesn't make life bars turn pink. But he can make sure the enemy monk can't heal. That's not something anyone sees, and I'm glad we had a good monk in sf, cause my mesmer ended up within meele range due to the priest of sorrow standing that far back.

As for the not getting any healing/resing that depends entirly on the monk. I've been in one or two teams where ressing the mesmer (who has resurect/restore live and fast casting) was last on their priority list, even though only 2 out of 8 people were still standing. And teams like last night, where the monk makes sure that everyone is healed and rezzed.

Coming from a monk though, if things went badly and I'm the last one standing, I'll rebirth the team, either from top down or bottom up, depending on how I feel.. not according to what profession you are or aren't. Healing happens to whoever needs it, those that die, are those who I wasn't able to get to fast enough, or, given a choice of 2, they were currently the less important one.

Thomasuwoo · Sep 29, 2005, 05:47 AM // 05:47

You mean people don't want shatter hex in there? Backfire and blackout for the healers? Heh I know the feeling, it's why I alsoways form my own groups whereever I go.

The Purple Pants Guy · Sep 29, 2005, 05:53 AM // 05:53

I was looking through this thread and saw...

Quote:

Originally Posted by asd123

i love counterstrike

Ew.

Saerden · Sep 29, 2005, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanis the Omnipotent

Ok, combine Conjure Phantasm, Phantom Pain and Crippling Anguish on one foe, then cast any number of shutdowns on the monk in the area.

Lets see how long the guy lasts at -10 Health and people nailing him for damage. Including the Mesmer who just used a high level energy Surge or Burn for 80 Damage.

Huh, didnt think of that one, did ya?

Seriously the fact that you dont know how to use any of those skills effectively shows you have never played a mesmer, or were one of those ones you complained about who dont know how.

Are you seriouss?? Thats exactly what i ment when i said pathetic mesmers. Mesmers that do stuff like conjure, phantom and crippling on one foe, then boast about 20 dps (single-target) out of 3 skills, one being elite.

Phades has a great explanation imho. I would post more on the other skills, but right now, the new skill changes are not in effect. There is no point discussing skills right now, as they will be changed in a couple days.

coolsti · Sep 29, 2005, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Went out in a group last night to do that really long quest from Ventari (evesdropping and the followup quest) with a group of 3 Me, 1 E, Alesia as Mo and Stefan as pet Warrior. Ok, admittedly two of us Me's were a bit too high level for this quest, but man, did we have a good time. I got a chance to try out some skill combinations that I never tried before (know that shackles + mind wrack that the Mergoyles always throw at you? Works great!). A Mesmer + a good combination of Me skills is such boon to a team. Currently I am playing Illusion+Inspiration with no domination, and equipping skills mostly against warriors (as opposed to stopping spellcasting) and its great!

Ashley Twig · Sep 29, 2005, 07:11 AM // 07:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saerden

Good ways to recognize bad mesmers:
...Conjure Phantasm...

Bad mesmer: here!
Guilty as charged.

Unfortunately it was the bad mesmer who killed the JadeBows with that crappy spell singlehandedly on the "kill markis"-mission, while everybody else on the team was dead.

cooljelly · Sep 29, 2005, 08:13 AM // 08:13

Ahh... After finishing all the quests in SF, I quit playing my mesmer in PVE.
Not much left to do with the henchies, and it's not very enjoyable to play with other players.
Finding a party is just a pain in the butt. So I decided just to play my monk.
Surprisely, when my monk was in warcamp looking for party, somebody was calling out glf a domination mesmer for farming.

I was curious about this group, so I changed to my mesmer and joined the group. As soon as I joined, 8 skills were thrown out at me by the party leader. Basically, all 8 skills were about removing hex/enchantment(shatter hex, echo, arcane echo, inspired hex, inspired enchantment, shatter enchantment, Rez, and something I do not remember).

I told him that my skill bar has shatter hex, and I would like to bring backfire, empathy, and cry of frustration to be more flexible. The party leader told me that I would either change to the skills he listed or get kicked. Well, I eventually got kicked because I simply do not agree with this skill setup.

Although it was his right to kick me as a party leader, that was rather unpleasant to get kicked even before I got to show them what I can do...

I have been playing PVE in SF extensively with my mesmer and the henchie team. I am pretty familair with the skills monsters use, and there are many places which do not have a lot of hex spells going on. And I seriously doubt using echo/arcane echo+shatter hex will out damage the empathy and backfire combination overally since in a lot of situations, you just don't get a continuous supply of hex(the condition supply is somehow fairly continuous I think), and what do I do at those situations? wand them to death?

Ahh... anyways, it's too troublesome to play my mesmer with a group of players in PVE; I decide to quit and play my monk.

coolsti · Sep 29, 2005, 09:57 AM // 09:57

I don't think using phantasm means a bad Mesmer. It is a good hex, especially combined with mantra of persistence and either phantom pain or crippling anguish. What marks perhaps a poor mesmer is one that only brings damaging skills and ignores all the other neat things.

Last night I played around with some combinations, like shackles + mind wrack, and had a real lot of fun seeing what they all can do.

What people don't realize is that there are so many things a mesmer can do. Ineptitude and clumsiness are two of my current favorites, they won't kill a warrior but certainly help one of my warriors kill them!

I would like to go out with a party of all mesmers + 1 warrior + 1 healer. Now that would really be a fun party!!!

Arcanis the Omnipotent · Sep 29, 2005, 07:36 PM // 19:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saerden

Are you seriouss?? Thats exactly what i ment when i said pathetic mesmers. Mesmers that do stuff like conjure, phantom and crippling on one foe, then boast about 20 dps (single-target) out of 3 skills, one being elite.

And apparently you've never actually done that, because if you had, you would know that by the time you cast Conjure, then Phantom, you can cast Conjure again on someone else. Its usually a 10-12 second length on most Mesmers with a 5 second cool down. If you cast it, then something else... do the math, genius.

And coolsti is right, bringing just damage skills is wrong. Any damage skills I bring along all have some other effect with them. Energy Burn a monk, then Energy Surge and Chaos Storm the mob around the monk, usually having Conjure and Phantom on at least 2 people in the Mob. Hurting and stealing energy at the same time. My lightning side casts uses Envenerating to cast weakness on the tanks who go after the monks in my party. A great thing about that is being able to use Frag if I really need to.

Saerden · Sep 30, 2005, 01:42 PM // 13:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanis the Omnipotent

And apparently you've never actually done that, because if you had, you would know that by the time you cast Conjure, then Phantom, you can cast Conjure again on someone else. Its usually a 10-12 second length on most Mesmers with a 5 second cool down. If you cast it, then something else... do the math, genius.

Conjure Phantasm (CP): 1s cast - 5s recharge; 10 energy for ~ 12s duration. 10 dmg each second for 120 dmg max*

Phantom Pain (PP) : 2s cast - 15s recharge; 10 energy for 10s duration. 6dmg each second for 60dmg max*. Deep wound for another potential 100dmg after 10s or when removed

[Crippling Anguish (CA)]: 1s cast - 20s recharge; 15 energy for ~18s duration. 6dmg each second for 108dmg max*.
(max dmg calculated @12 illusion)

You seem to indicate CP PP CA casting sequence. 10+10+15=35 energy, 4s total unmodded cast time +2.25 unreducable aftercast result in:
assuming 9 fast cast:

~0,7s cast - 10dps for the next 12s - 0,75 aftercast -> 120 dmg total
~ 1,4s cast - 6dps for the next 10s - 0,75 aftercast -> 60dmg + 100 dmg deep wound
~0,7 cast - 4 dps for the next 9 seconds and 6 dps for another 9s - 0,75 aftercast -> 36+ 54
total: ~ 5s "casting + aftercast" + 18s duration; ~ 390dmg; ~18dps; ~ 11,1 dpe

skills: 2 slots, 1 elite

no recasts included.

Analysis: you need ca. 23s and 35 energy to deliver 390 dmg (including deep wound) to one enemy who will be slowed after ca. 4s for the reminding duration of this "combo". At 12 illusion and 9 fast cast, taking 2slots + 1 elite.

conjure phantasm alone does a dps of 10 for a maximum of 120dmg over 12s with an illusion of 12 and without mantra of persistance, costing 10 energy.

coolsti · Sep 30, 2005, 02:08 PM // 14:08

If you want to analyze the usefullness of CP PP CA casting in the manner of the previous posts, then you can easilly come to the conclusion that the Mesmer class is worthless, that you should instead choose something else like Warrior or Elementalist.

But don't forget that the neat thing about the Mesmer is its diversity and how selecting the proper skills for the proper occasion can do many different tasks. And remember this: this is a game, it is not real life. And as a game, it is supposed to bring all of us entertainment and enjoyment and a relief from boredom. And as such, the diversity of what a Mesmer can do fits this bill greatly. I enjoy playing my Mesmer because I can select different sets of skills for different purposes. And I play my other characters because playing my Mesmer all the time would be boring.

I did the game's final mission with a friend playing his Mesmer character, and I just watched while he single handedly killed all the Wraiths guarding the three portals at the end of the mission, one at a time, by running in, casting Mantra of Persistence, then the CP PP CA combination, then run out again out of their range. Did this for each wraith. I thought that was neat.

Another thing to remember: its much much easier to kill a foe as, for example, a warrior, when that foe also has -5 to -10 health degeneration because of the Mesmer hexes. Or when a hex is removed from the Warrior by the Mesmer (causing significant damage to surrounding foes at the same time). Teamwork. Maybe the Mesmer alone is not strong enough to clobber a lot of enemies at a time, but the Mesmer can sure make it easier for the team to do so.

octaviancmb · Sep 30, 2005, 03:29 PM // 15:29

After much anguish attempting to group with PUGs as my Mesmer (in both PvP and PvE), I've come to understand the following great truths with regard to the profession:

A bad PUG + a bad Mesmer = disaster
A bad PUG + a good Mesmer = disaster
A good PUG + a bad Mesmer = disaster
A good PUG + a good Mesmer = fantastic

Considering most PUGs are bad PUGs, it's no wonder Mesmers are unwanted. These truths are as equally applicable to Sorrows Furnace as anywhere else in Guild Wars. It doesn't matter how good you are, if you're playing a Mesmer, you'll never save a bad group. This also explains why Mesmers are so very, very good with the henchmen in PvE and why people target Mesmers for death after the first few moments of PvP (assuming the Mesmer is any good...).

cmb