Energy Drain Build

Hello, I've been playing GW since the October BWE and tried out various dmg-based PvP builds. This is the first time I've ventured into disrupting-type build though, so please give me some input.

I got this idea when I was asking my friend who plays Monks a lot. He told me that getting energy drained on the whole is more annoying than getting interrupt to him. (whether or not that's a general concensus...that remains to be seen)

Me/N

Fast Cast - 5+1
Domination - 11+2
Inspiration - 11+1
Curse - 7
3 pts left

Power Leak - 15,1,20 - If target foe is casting a spell, the spell is interrupted and your target loses 10-22 Energy.

Energy Burn - 10,2,20 - Target foe loses 4-9 Energy, and takes 8 damage for each point of Energy lost.

Chaos Storm - 15,2,30 - Create a Chaos Storm at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes near this location suffer 5-12 damage each second. Chaos Storm drains 1-6 Energy whenever it strikes a foe casting a spell.

Energy Drain {E} - 5,2,20 - Steal 8-18 energy from target foe

Energy Tap - 5,3,20 - Steal 8-13 energy from target foe

Ether Feast - 5,2,8 - Target foe loses 5 Energy. You are healed 8-24 for each point of Energy lost.

Arcane Echo - 15,2,30 - If you cast a "spell" in the next 10-26 seconds, Arcane Echo is replaced with that spell for 20 seconds. Arcane Echo ends prematurely if you use a non-spell skill.

Malaise - 5,2,2 - For 5-29 seconds, target foe suffers -2 Energy regeneration you suffer -2 Health regeneration.


So the basic idea is to first catch the target with Power Leak, so that's 22 energy + their spell energy requirement gone. Then hit them with Malaise to give them -2 energy regen. Then spam all the other energy draining spells to lower their energy. Arcane echo is there to reuse spells such as Energy Drain.

Biggest problem with this build is the high casting time and recharge time for all these spells. A lvl 6 fast casting don't improve casting speed by that much I think..but it still helps a bit. I won't run into much energy problem since I drain the opponent's energy. Health is partly offset by Ether Feast...although I would rather rely upon my team's monk.

With this build, I can harass any enemy casters. And spamming Malaise can help spread the pain (although I can't spam too much since health drain would hurt)

Please give me some opinion. Another point of this build...I don't wanna have another cookie cutting Me/xx, R/Me interruption build.

Thx.

Just be carefull that Energy Tap and Energy Drain aren't going to be helpful if you already emptied out the target's energy pool.

If you really want to spam cast energy draining skills consider Mantra of Recovery. This will cut down your recharge times by 50% making Mesmer skills a lot more spammable and also solving any energy issues you may have. You'll also be a tank if you combo Arcane Echo + Ether Feast + Mantra of Recovery... I need that Mantra for this upcoming beta Another skill you should consider is the infamous Energy Drain which is the holy grail of energy recuperation. It needs practicing and a goood internet connection though, lag'll kill ya

so baisically your just keeping the monks energy low so he cant heal. well i sugestion i would make is take out one of those energy drain spells and replace it with a warrior spell, because the only thing that i could see happining to you is someone attacks you and all you can do is lower their energy.but the skill i suggest cant come to mind right know, it is a warrior skill but unlike all the others it runs off energy (anyone know what im talking about there might be many) i would also suggest back fire, since your a mes. its the ultiamte anti-caster. you could have it on there just in case but it wont hurt to throw it in everyonce in a while because all your skills are like stealing energy. this will also make him unable to cast while your skills are recharging. i would also take of malaise, it seems that if you have nothing to protect your self but a small healing thing (eather feast- good spell but takes a long time to cast trust me) so i would replace malaise for the warrior skill.

i have never made one of these builds so all my comments are on what i think, they might not be the best suggestions but i think most of them make sense

I have not worked through a full build but have played the Mesmer a lot. I love the interupt idea! A few skills I would suggest you consider:

Migraine (availability)
Description: For 6-25 seconds, target foe suffers health degeneration of 1-3 and takes 100% longer to cast spells. This is an elite skill.

or

Arcane Conundrum (availability)
Description: For 6-25 seconds, spells cast by target foe take twice as long to cast.

Yes, both of these are Illusion spells, but getting off interupts with them on board should be much eaiser....

Secondly, you can do some serious damage by tossing in:
Mind Wrack (availability)
Description: For 20 seconds, if target foe's energy is zero, that foe takes 20-94 damage and Mind Wrack ends.
Just get their energy down, and then put in mind wrack and keep the energy down, and they die! While just drain them, when you can drain and kill them?

I am not sure Malise is necessary for anyone except a Elementalist that can't find his skills to cast... But I must admit, I have not tried it out in real circumstances. *Yet*

well, the problem with using arcane and or migraine to assist your interupts is that it isnt worth the slots. if youre good enough to interupt without them, you dont need them, allowing for more other skills.

using migraine and or arcane to make different casters take longer would be the right idea.

Looks like a good build may have a problem with recast times but you have malaise which you can spam so it may not be a problem. I prefer something like rend enchantments or over chaos storm but it’s purely a personal preference.

oh and its Me/N im assuming despite your stating its Me/W

Well, getting interrupted is getting drained of energy, too, because you'll lose the energy required to cast the skill that just got blown. The best thing, of course, is when you can combine the two. *cough*PowerLeak*cough*...

Ack! No, no, no, don't echo your Energy Drain. That's 15 energy to echo it plus the 5 to cast it, you'll need that first Drain just to break even. Just cast one Energy Drain and you'll be farther ahead. You have Energy Drain and Energy Tap you don't need to have a third drain (Although, if you do consider Leech Signet which cost no energy to cast. Sure, it has a long recharge time but a quicker casting time than Energy Drain and Tap than you're already putting up with your low Fast Casting. No upfront cost and a lot harder to counter, too.). Ether Feast is probably a bit of a waste, too. I'd consider something like Power Drain in its place. Let your Monks do the healing. You do the energy denial/interrupting.

Agreed. When you're running as much energy tapping as you are the extra cost isn't much of a concern.

Since you have a low fastcasting attribute, I'd consider removing energy tap due to the 3 second casting. I also second Sausaletus' suggestion of not using arcane echo since it works best with spammable spells.

I would use something like this:

Chaos Storm
Shame
Ether Feast
Energy Drain
Power Leak
Power Drain
Malaise
Rend Enchantments

I heard rummor that you can double up hex's with archane echo i.e. you can use malaise twice on a target if you archane echo it because the hex is considered to be archane echo. Can anyone tell me if this is true or not?

If thats true i would keep archane echo...

I agree that Arcane Echo works better with spammable spells. (ahh..the wonders of non-stop Water Trident) But the purposeI added in arcane echo is so I can cast Power Leak OR Energy Drain (ie elite version) two times in a row. Lets say in an ideal situation, I can pull off: Power Leak, Power Leak, Energy Drain on a single target. And that's like 50+ energy gone in about 5 sec. Anyone non-elementalist caster is gonna feel the pain.

Having low Fast Casting does make the build less effective...since timing Power Leak is harder. A Mantra of Recovery would be very nice....but I've never actually seen it in game...so planning for it isn't gonna help.

Shame/Guilt do sound like good. I guess replacing Energy Tap with either of them would be doable and more effective in the long run.

Quite true that I might end up with less energy then before...but the point is to shut down the enemy. So just breaking even in terms of energy usage is serves the purpose of this build. But hey..if you look at the calculation:
1st Energy Drain --> energy = 18 - 5 = 13
Echoed Energy Drain --> energy = 18 - 15 (echo cost) - 5 (spell cost) = -2
Net Energy = 11.

Which means I would gain 11 energy at the end of this, but denied the target 36 energy.

I'm not considering Migraine/Conundrum because it doesn't fit with the theme of this build. Sure, enemy caster is gonna take longer to cast a spell...but I'd rather use a slot to drain more energy.

Can someone please elaborate more on Power Drain? Because from what I understand, power drain only gives me energy but does not affect the target's energy supply. The amount of energy they'd lose only equals enemy spell cost, right?

I'll disagree with Saus and say that I actually like echoing Energy Drain. It doesn't net you energy, granted, but that doesn't change the fact that it destroys someone's energy at virtually no cost.

You're spending, what, 2 energy at level 12 to destroy 18 energy on your target? That's a perfectly reasonable skill. I wouldn't take Arcane Echo just to do that, but there are certainly worse things you can do with an echo.

Peace,
-CxE

Echoing Power Leak = good. Echoing Energy Drain = bad. Power Leak lets you interrupt two spells and drain a ton of energy. In fact, by the second Leak they probably won't have any energy left - you'd be better off with another target. But Eenrgy Drain is slow to cast and it's not goign to be as effective if you don't actually need that 30+ energy...

Actually, low FC is most harmful with things like Energy Drain. There you'll really notice the difference between a 2 second and 3 second casting time. But it's not so much important to things like Power Leak where you won't see much of a shift between 1 second and .66 seconds casting time. Those interrupts are already fast enough, you don't need them much faster.

Right. That's how it works. Interrupt a spell, get a lot of energy. You don't actually take any away from the target, not that you'll gain, but you do cost them the casting cost of their spell, which is going to be something like 5~15 energy.

Judas.

No, by itself, Echoing Energy Drain isn't that bad an idea. You can do better. But when you're running Energy Burn, Energy Tap, Power Leak, Malaise, and Ether Feast in addition to Energy Drain, do you really need to double it up? Just how much energy are you expecting your target to have? And just how much time do you expect to have to cast all that?

We're already talking about a character drowning himself in redundancy to the point where he can't do anything but attack energy. You could knock 3, 4 skills off of this character and replace 'em with nothing without significantly affecting his presence on the battlefield.

Sure, let's Arcane Echo an Energy Drain. What else are you going to do, cast another skill that does exactly the same thing, only worse?

Peace,
-CxE

Is this build really "drowning in redundancy"? Almost all the skills in the build have looooooong recharge time. So while I am waiting for my main drain spells to recharge, my target would also be recharging her energy too. For example, a monk doesn't really need to wait for that long for 5 energy in order to cast a Orison. So that's why I have all these minor drain spells just to keep my target energy to stay low. It'd be impossible to actually deny my target all the time from casting a low-energy spell like Orison...but if I delay her long enough for my team to kill off opponents, that's good enough for me.

Draken and Zrave's suggestion of Rend Enchantment might be useful. I can see my build not being too effective against a BiPed caster.

oh snap! saus just got credit for something he didn’t do what a jerk . Sorry i just couldn’t help it.

Anyway, The build has the right idea its going to come down to the actual player preference to decide how much energy drain they can handle and if their is to much downtime. My point is the main idea of your build is valid your not trying to be a tank in pvp where their really is no such thing and your not trying to be a jack of too many trades. This will definitely accomplish a valuable task. as to weather its to much energy drain.. i think its going to come down to personal preference and what roles you want to fill. Some of this will be group dependent I don’t think you can do enough damage for that to be worth following but you can definitely interrupt and debuff so you could expand your roll in those areas if necessary.

That’s my 2 cents

Don't forget. I can turn back the Earth's rotation and make it so I actually did. I just choose not to at this moment. So, in essence I am in fact deserving of all credit and all blame for everything...

Hahah...sorry sorry folks. I gave Saus the wrong credit. *kicks* I was reading the posts so fast I just assumed Saus suggested it...since his posts are always long.

So my thanks to Draken and Zrave for the suggestion. (I've edited my prev msg)

Yes, it is. Hit 'em with a Power Leak, follow with an Energy Drain. That puts just about everyone arbitrarily close to zero. Slap on a Malaise and they aren't going to do anything even remotely useful for the next 10-15 seconds.

Everything else is superfluous.

Now, you argue that an opponent can get to 5 energy and cast an Orison or something. So what? Are you going to spent 5-10 energy every 5 seconds to drain away 3 energy from them? That's just stupid - way to shoot yourself in the foot. It's a microcosm of of Ether Lord - you aren't destroying their energy just to destroy it, you're destroying it to give yourself a large energy *advantage* over your opponent. They have no energy, you have a ton, and you use it to smash them. You don't get anywhere if you spend that advantage just to keep 'em wiggling after you've knocked 'em out.

Once you've gotten a Monk to 0 energy and slapped Malaise on them, they're beaten. They'll be able to wiggle and cast an Orison every eight seconds or so, and can use their Signet on occasion - so what? You can pound through that without even trying. They're running at maybe 20-30% effectiveness and there's no way that's going to stand up to a real team. You're going to spend a whole lot more effort trying to stop that last 20% than the entire 80% before that, and for what? You're devoting half of your skill bar to stopping Orison? Please.

Power Leak, Energy Drain, Malaise, with a side order of Chaos Storm. That's basically your build. Energy Tap is slow, and Ether Feast / Energy Burn don't touch their energy at all. Arcane Echo on Leak or Drain is always fun but not strictly neccessary. So I say drop all of that and find something else useful to do with your time besides trying to pick off 3-4 energy at a time. You're in Curses, so grab Rend Enchantments to punch through a focused target while a Monk is in Signet mode. Grab Shadow of Fear to knock off anyone attacking your Warriors. If you really want to dump on a Monk with no energy, learn to time Diversion well to lock out the few spells they can cast, or grab Shame to set them up for some Energy Drain love. Grab Power Drain as another interrupt if you want to play that way. You've already stuck yourself in the narrow, pure utility role so you might as well fill it as well as possible. You only need half of your build to do 90% of your job, so why not replace the other half with something that can do a whole lot more than that 10%?

Peace,
-CxE

Well he could do some energy denial on both healers with that much energy denial so i wouldn't say its a waste. I do agree however that it isnt required that you have all of that energy drain. Their is an option of droping some to pick up skills like defile flesh to make the 1 or 2 heals they do get off worth less.

While I agree with ensign that this character could pin one monk with less slots, the mission here, at least in my vision of the guy, is to single-handedly destroy the enemy healing base.

He can Shame a monk, then Chaos Storm the other monk. Try to get one of the monks on a power leak. Rend the focused target, then ether feast to make up for the life lost. Energy Drain the monk with most energy, then Malaise everyone, using ether feast to keep your life up. Power Drain mostly for refueling, likely on an elementalist since they are easy to catch.

If played well and the interrupts hit, you can reduce three monks to Signet of Devotion bots.