Me/Ne, any thoughts?

[ChaoticAnomaly]

I'm pretty new at this, been looking around at some of the skills (so many to choose from!) and I've been trying to decide what role I'd like to play.

I enjoy playing the classes that require a little more finess, the classes that few people can do well with and are mostly misunderstood. I figure either Mesmer or Necromancer would be the way to go.

Currently I'm thinking Me/Ne, but may swap the two once I get to playing the game and get the feel of it.

Anyways, the whole idea for this build is kind of a protective shutdown character. I want to be supporting whoever the enemy decides to focus on. I'm trying to take a couple caster shutdowns, a couple melee shutdowns, and a couple of restorative skills, but I fear that I am trying to spread myself out to thin.

Say for instance, a monk, of course it's likely to be target #1 and I want to try to help keep him alive. If a melee decides to rush him I want to slow him down and cause him to take damage for doing damage. If a caster decides to attack, I want to burn their energy away, so on and so forth. I also want to be able to shut them down faster, hence being a mesmer as primary.

Here's my build currently, this is my first version so be gentle

Mesmer/Necromancer

Attributes
Fast Casting - 5
Domination Magic - 10
Inspriation Magic - 10
Curses - 10
198/200

Skills
Ether Feast
Drain Enchantment
Power Spike
Energy Burn
Empathy
Spirit of Failure
Price of Failure
Faintheartedness

So I have ether feast to restore some health if I start getting beat on.

I have Drain Enchantment for a hopeful energy restorative while at the same time taking away a potential advantage of a foe. My real issue with this ability is do I have some way to tell if they have an enchantment on? Or do I have to guess and possibly waste energy on it?

Power spike is a semi-damage spell interuptor. The main choice for taking this is to interupt nukers on my ally I'm trying to assist, the damage is simply a nice side effect.

Energy Burn is under the same idea as power spike, shutting down the casters while still doing some damage.

Empathy will damage any melee targets attacking my ally, hopefully dropping them quicker.

Spirit of failure and Price of failure are kind of the same thing. I'm wondering if they stack or not? I'm assuming not, and if not then I'm struggling on which would be better to take. Spirit of failure would be another option to help me regain energy along with drain enchantment, but at the same time Price of failure would help drop the target slightly quicker. I suppose I *could* keep both depending on the situation, but that goes in with the problem of potentially spreading myself out to thin. Also taking either of these in conjunction with empathy kind of contradicts itself. On one hand the target gets penalized regardless of whether he hits or not, sounds nice, but one of the abilities may be switched up for something better.

Faintheartedness suffers the same contradiction with my spirit/price of failure. If they are attacking slower, then I would get less effect from this, but at the same time I am trying to protect an ally so all of these in conjunction might be quit a saver on a single foe.

Any thoughts, modifications, critiques? Tell me if I'm on to something or if I'm going down the wrong path.

[Tarew]

Woohoo, we Mesmers have our own forum now! Mesmers rule! :surprise: :happy14:

Sorry, just needed to get that out of my system :)
Anyway, I think you're right about your build being too spread out. While being allround is definitely not a bad thing in general, I think a lot of the skills in your build are too situational and just don't accomplish enough in general since they do't have any particular synergy with your other skills.

Now I have to say Necromancers are not at all my specialty so don't expect a lot of input from me there but I think I can help you with the Mesmer part.
First of all, as a general guideline I like to split up the Mesmer skill trees in 3 general "purposes". There are exceptions but for the most part this is fairly accurate:

Domination = anti-caster
Illusion = anti-melee/Warrior
Inspiration = health/energy replenishment, protection

Now my own Mesmer is a pure Mesmer who spreads his attribute points around all 3 of these which makes for a very allround character but since you want to play Necromancer as a secundary class we'll have to improvise a little.
I have to admit the Curses branch is somewhat of a mystery to me in terms of what it's purpose is but in general it seems to focus on debuffing and hexes which are effective on Warriors so it seems your current skill layout is quite good with Domination against casters, Curses against warriors and inspiration to replenish life and energy.

Your skills choices however don't really match up. Since you want a character able to protect the targeted character from pretty much anything and fulfill an overall support role, you'll want skills that last for a decent while once you cast them. If not you'll be using interrupt type skills all over the place which is very bad for your energy.
Therefore I'd start by removing Power Spike.

Next I think you should make sure you keep the attribute lines limited to what they do best. Since Domination is your anti-caster tree, Empathy really doesn't have a place in it, nor does Spirit of Failure have a place in your Inspiration tree.
Instead we should probably get Backfire as your primary anti caster spell. It lasts a good amount of time, has a reasonable recharge time and does a lot of damage. It's fairly easy to get rid off but in general most opponents take the damage at least once.
I don't really like Energy Burn but that's just my personal experience with it. Try and and if you like it, use it.
Another skill you can consider using is Diversion which is very effective is your enemy focuses on a single skill to sustain themselves.

Like I said I'm not really into curses but as anti-warrior skills, Insidious Parasite seems very good, as does Faintheartedness.
One unique advantage a Mes/Nec has over a pure Mesmer is that a Necromancer can debuff very well (something the ever-so-popular Warrior/Monks hate) and we might as well take advantage of that.
Since we don't have an elite skill yet we can use the best debuff skill in the game which is Lingering Curse.
This can instantly take all protection away from some characters so your party can focus fire and kill them. Seems good here.

For your Inspiration Magic, Ether Feast is definitely a good choice, even if you already decide to use Insidious Parasite.
For Energy replenishment, Power Drain works very well in general as does Ether Lord if you manage to get your Inspiration to 12 by using runes.
I'd suggest testing both of them and see which one you like best.

Overall that should amount to a build which is good against a wide variety of enemies :) Hope this helps a little

[Tsume]

Mesmer/Necromancer

Attributes
Fast Casting - 5
Domination Magic - 10
Inspriation Magic - 10
Curses - 10
198/200

Skills
Ether Feast
Drain Enchantment
Power Spike
Energy Burn
Empathy
Spirit of Failure
Price of Failure
Faintheartedness

So I have ether feast to restore some health if I start getting beat on.

I have Drain Enchantment for a hopeful energy restorative while at the same time taking away a potential advantage of a foe. My real issue with this ability is do I have some way to tell if they have an enchantment on? Or do I have to guess and possibly waste energy on it?

Power spike is a semi-damage spell interuptor. The main choice for taking this is to interupt nukers on my ally I'm trying to assist, the damage is simply a nice side effect.

Energy Burn is under the same idea as power spike, shutting down the casters while still doing some damage.

Empathy will damage any melee targets attacking my ally, hopefully dropping them quicker.

Spirit of failure and Price of failure are kind of the same thing. I'm wondering if they stack or not? I'm assuming not, and if not then I'm struggling on which would be better to take. Spirit of failure would be another option to help me regain energy along with drain enchantment, but at the same time Price of failure would help drop the target slightly quicker. I suppose I *could* keep both depending on the situation, but that goes in with the problem of potentially spreading myself out to thin. Also taking either of these in conjunction with empathy kind of contradicts itself. On one hand the target gets penalized regardless of whether he hits or not, sounds nice, but one of the abilities may be switched up for something better.

Faintheartedness suffers the same contradiction with my spirit/price of failure. If they are attacking slower, then I would get less effect from this, but at the same time I am trying to protect an ally so all of these in conjunction might be quit a saver on a single foe.

Any thoughts, modifications, critiques? Tell me if I'm on to something or if I'm going down the wrong path.

Its a good build for your first venture out. Tarew is right in that your build is spread out a little, and I see no real focus of it. Its kinda inbetween being an all around distracting build which hinders multiple opponents, and an attempt at a slayer build built to take down one opponent.

If you really wanna make it interesting, try using Illusion Magic instead of Inspiration or Domination, and combine Illusion Magic hexes and Curse hexes. I've seen some great enemy hindering builds using this. Something like Faintheartedness and Shadow of Fear on a Warrior makes his attacks almost a crawl. Keep enough degeneerative skills on your list to get atleast 10 degen, so that the Warrior will think twice about just sitting there attacking your healer. Any Mesmers that go after should be met with a combo like Migraine and Arcane Connundrum. It wont stop them, but it darn sure slows them down, and the duration on the two is pretty good. If you still have Domination around Backfire or Wastrals can tear into them. Alternatively, a lengthy Malaise can do the trick on any caster.

If you really must have Price of Failure or Spirit of Failure, dont feel bad about taking them...both are very good against Warriors and Rangers.

The build has some nice touches, but you just need a little fine tuning.

The last two skills are good for the /Necro part of things, I might consider Shadow of Fear, and leaving either Spirit of Failure or Price of Failure behind for some other subversive skill like Soothign Images. Perhaps Spirit Shackles would fit well. Spirt Shackles is great for anti Ranger, especially dazers.

Id like to see you stick with the main theme of this build but look at the first 4 skills first, when your looking at changes, since you wanna be a protection remember that you dont neccesarily need direct damage inducing skills.

[metal never dies]

"Domination = anti-caster" - Tarew
I don't know about that one...
There are some skills that would lay down pain on warriors.
Empathy
Sig of Midnight
Mind wrack(if you have good twitch skills you could interupt /mo's with power leak + energy burn to screw their energy, easy spam)
Cry of frustration
diversion(once again for /mo)
Ignorance(healing sigs)
Panic(E)
Signet of Weariness(for energy)
Wastrels worry(spam w Shatter Delusions)
I will admit I'm still a noob. But just like everything else for the almighty mesmer :love19: you can use "odd" combos and get sweet results.

[laugm]

one man army anti-iway should work wonders

Mr.Epidemic

Mesmer/Necromancer
Level: 20

Fast Casting: 9 (8+1)
Inspiration Magic: 11 (10+1)
Illusion Magic: 14 (10+4)
Death Magic: 8

- Chilblains (Curses)
You become Poisoned for 3..13 seconds. Nearby foes are struck for 10..37 cold damage and lose one Enchantment.
Energy:25 Cast:0.53 Recharge:15

- Plague Sending (Curses)
Sacrifice 10% max Health. Transfer one negative Condition and its remaining duration from yourself to target foe and all adjacent foes.
Energy:10 Cast:1.42 Recharge:0

- Virulence [Elite] (Death Magic)
If target foe was already suffering from a Condition, that foe suffers from disease, Poison and Weakness for 9 seconds.
Energy:5 Cast:0.71 Recharge:10

- Epidemic (Mesmer other)
Transfer all negative Conditions and their remaining durations from target foe to all foes adjacent to your target.
Energy:15 Cast:0.18 Recharge:15

- Distortion (Illusion Magic)
For 5 Seconds, you have a 75% chance to "evade" attacks. Whenever you evade an attack this way, you lose 1 Energy or Distortion ends.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:5

- Drain Enchantment (Inspiration Magic)
Remove an Enchantment from target foe. If an Enchantment is removed, you gain 19 Energy.
Energy:10 Cast:0.71 Recharge:25

- Ethereal Burden (Illusion Magic)
For 10 seconds, target foe moves 50% slower. When Ethereal Burden ends, you gain 22 Energy.
Energy:15 Cast:2.13 Recharge:45

- Resurrection Signet ()
Resurrect target party member. That party member is returned to life with 100% Health and 25% Energy. You may use this Signet only once per mission.
Energy:0 Cast:3 Recharge:0

Drain tainted from 1 guy and pull off the combo :happy34: