Just how much Energy does Willem the Demeaning have?

Ok, I don't usually complain about bosses but this is absolutely stupid.

I'm doing Riverside Assassination in normal mode with my Elementalist (Fire). I brought Sousuke (Fire), Olias (MM / Interrupter), Dunkoro (Healing), Orion, and Alesia.

Everything was simple until I got to Willem. I can't kill him with this group! He sits there and spams and spams and spams and spams his skills (Ether Feast fills a quarter of his bar). I fought him for 5 straight minutes watching him spam without stopping. I know he's a boss but this is ridiculous. He has no energy management skills and he never ran out of energy. Even if he had 100 energy to start with, after 5 minutes of spamming skills he has to run out of energy eventually.

If only there were a skill that countered skill spamming, or other viable ways to stop casting.

Enemies in Guild Wars often do not obey the rules of the game. Casters may have insane armour levels and have huge amounts of energy regeneration (it's been known for a target to be completely drained of energy, only to have loads back seconds later). This overcomes a problem the AI often has with energy - unless half their bar is stacked with energy management skills, they're quickly going to run out of energy.

The answer is to bring better damage. 3 Fire Nukers are clearly insufficient. Try bringing a Panic Mesmer with Mistrust, a more spike oriented build (use PvE skills like You Move Like a Dwarf and Finish Him). Going in Hard Mode would also increase the level and power of your Henchmen (very important since it affects the damage done by the Ele by both increasing his attribute level and lowering the effective armour of the target).

I myself had no problem killing him in Hard Mode with a more disruption heavy setup.


Diversion is a waste of time really. It's only marginally effective against the mobs before the boss and there are better skills to take on your heroes.

Our AI doesn't get heavy energy regen like the enemy AI does. I heard that bosses and even regular monsters have like 5-10 regen on their energy so that they rarely run out and if they do they get it back right away. A good way to test it on that boss would be to bring skills that drain energy and do damage like Mind Wrack and then energy draining skills. Then you can prove what I heard wrong.

Plenty of skills do what he's talking about besides diversion...why did you bring that up specifically?

Also bring a Mesmer...then you're golden.

curses necro does a good job against him too

Fire magic is weak in hard mode; don't use it. With the increased armor of your foes and the level difference reducing skill damage, choose armor ignoring damage if you want to kill things in a timely fashion.

Enemies in PvE don't follow the same rules as players, especially bosses.

Powerblock and Power Lock do similar things but are weaker and require you to interrupt a 1 second spell being cast under Fast Casting. DShot and Magebane have the same problem but also necessitate bringing a Ranger hero (or at least a hero with a bow and ranger secondary).
Plus heroes waste them - at least you can micro Diversion.

Alternatively; bring a skill that steals a random spell, but that's not likely to succeed in hitting the right skill so really you're better off just killing him outright and bringing some generic disruption if you can't push through his Ether Feast.

Fire is weak everywhere.

Earth does the damage, as well as so much more utility it hurts. Fire has one good spell, and that's Meteor Shower...and no, not because it does a lot of damage, but because it is the only Fire magic spell that does something besides damage.

Arcane Languor is your friend.

I don't think they were talking about hard mode...


Anyways TC, I did it with my elementalist in nm but didn't find that I had any real problems with willem. This is probably because I brought a spirit spammer with me and they just overloaded him. From your post, I'm guessing you still beat him anyways but if you didn't, or want to go again, perhaps trying out new team builds would help like incorporating knockdowns.

What about backfire? That doesn't necessarily stop the skill from going off but it should at least counteract the healing.

Most of the mesmer profession could really be used effectively against Willem.

The only really difficult Mursaat boss in the WiK content in my opinion is Koril the Malignant and that's only because he likes to overwhelm you with foes.

barbs, ss, reckless haste.. esp if you bring a minion master- barbs take him down quick

try spiteful spirit, pain inverter, visions of regret, backfire, either of those to punish spamming or broad head arrow + ebon vanguard sin to stop the skill spamming

I had no issues with this...I hit him with a scythe for about 30 seconds and he died. Moral of the story:Scythes are better than most primary professions.

replace Sousuke with Xandra or Razah and run SoS

this guy speaks the truth

ummm.. try using a melee hero? lol.. sometimes direct damage (ie a whack over the head) will do more than any spell and i see you only have casters in your party.

Further - he could have a high natural energy regeneration

You have a MM, so let him bring barbs or you bring it see him die within seconds. Oh and the skill finish him is pretty good too.
Strange enough you could do enemies untill willem, I'd rather fight 10 willem than those damn cloaks.

I had some trouble with the rest of the mission but the boss passed so quickly that I didn't even remember him and I think I had random heores (maybe mm + curses necro or koss + standard healer).

Anyway I agree that
casters are the foes whi make me love mesmers most (intending backfire, vor, and something else).