Degen or Dom Me/N?

I just recently passed the Academy thing, and degen skills like [skill]Conjure Phantasm[/skill] and that Necro Syphon one (the -2/+2 De-Regen) is working pretty good since I drain from multiple foes in the Ascalon area, but I'm not sure if the whole Degen play will work well as I continue on in the game. Should I switch to Empathy/Backfire (which is boring imo) and Interrupts and use the Curse line, or continue with Illusion/Blood? [Only got Prophecies at the moment if that helps.]

Degeneration is pretty strong early on, where you can really see the effects of a foe losing 10hp a second.

However, as you progress, foes get more health, and hit harder.
I'd rather be running Domination to shut down and interrupt enemies than a piddly degen mes.
Btw - Domination effects really start to hurt at higher levels, Backfire doing over 100 damage a spell and Empathy on roughly 50 damage an attack is a helluva a lot harder hitting than degen.

I'd probably move over to Domination around Yak's Bend time in Prophecies. Plenty of practise interrupting Frost Golems, Dalyak Rider monks that need killing fast, and stuff.

Degen can work pretty well when you're fighting low lvl foe because their health bar is short
Domination can be really powerful in later stage of the game, and also pvp

Okay, cool. Does Degen and Energy Denial work fairly well?

Save your 2 second cast hexes until the mobs get to level 24 or something, before that, by the time your hexes go on, the mob has 1/4 health left.

E-denial does not work quite well in PvE because mobs have high energy regen.

Quote: E-denial does not work quite well in PvE because mobs have high energy regen. I can confirm this.
Yesterday I completely drained a monk in HM Regent Valley (E-surge+E-burn) and a few seconds later it cast Heal Area.
Degen has value, but there are better alternatives to use against high-end foes.

Edenial isnt really needed in PvE, people just want to kill things, not shut them down (cept some bosses). Go Dom with a basic damage bar:

[skill]Energy Surge[/skill][skill]Energy Burn[/skill][skill]Power Drain[/skill][skill]Mistrust[/skill][skill]Empathy[/skill][skill]Backfire[/skill][skill]Arcane Echo[/skill][skill]Cry of Pain[/skill]

for more e-management, lose Backfire, and add in [skill]Auspicious Incantation[/skill], or just add in [skill]Power Spike[/skill] instead of CoP, and [skill]Shame[/skill] instead of Arcane Echo

Actually I would advise you to stay illusion. Inneptitude and clumsiness are excellent skills during your whole mesmer PvE carreer. However it isn't health draining.

However if you want to go domination I would always add Assasins Promise to your bar as elite since both your energy management and recharge time are worse when using domination. This way you can make a pretty decent PvE dom bar.

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