help me with a few(two) skill choices for my build (my post-kinda long) :(

[Wizardpsx]

Hi, ive read all the pages on the mesmer forum and its all interesting so i decieded that i should actually post for once. Well the kinda mesmer i was shooting for is an ME/MO its mainly illusion/domination with healing

well ive spent a many (over 100) skill respect points into developing a build i like and although im level 10 with a few skills i find this build most to what i would like out of the mesmer, i have also took the skills i have and started a level 20 with them to test out what it will be like when my main pve character becomes 20 and i found it much to my liking.

well here is my build's goal

*a little bit caster shutdown(backfire)
*mess with warriors
*some kind of dmg that doesnt require i wait for the enemy to do something(i also realize that mesmer primary role is to not do damage and i accept the fact that i dont do a lot...however i like to be a little bit self sufficiant and except that)
*some kind of group support be it little

now here is my build

Class: Mesmer / Monk

Attributes: (cost) '+' indicates Rune attributes
Fast Casting: 8 (37)
Domination Magic: 9 (48)
Illusion Magic: 10+4 (61)
Healing Prayers: 9 (48)

Total attribute points used: 194/200

Skills: [Attribute] (Energy, Cast Time, Recharge TIme)
1) Migraine [Illusion Magic] (10,2,15) Hex: For 19 seconds, target foe suffers health degeneration of 3 and takes 100% longer to cast spells. This is an elite skill.

2) Conjure Phantasm [Illusion Magic] (10,1,5) Hex: For 14 seconds, target foe experiences health degeneration of 5.

3) Imagined Burden [Illusion Magic] (15,1,30) Hex: For 20 seconds, target foe moves 50% slower than normal.

4) Backfire [Domination Magic] (15,3,20) Hex: For 10 seconds, whenever target foe casts a spell, that foe takes 98 damage.

5) Empathy [Domination Magic] (10,2,20) Hex: For 16 seconds, whenever target foe attacks, that foe takes 20 damage.

6) Shatter Hex [Domination Magic] (15,1,10) Spell: Remove a hex from target ally. If a hex is removed, foes near that ally take 92 damage.

7) Healing Breeze [Healing Prayers] (10,1,2) Enchantment: For 10 seconds, target ally gains health regeneration of 7.

8) Resurrect [none] (10,8,0) Spell: Resurrect target party member.

==============================================
note on some spells

i love imaginary burden, at first i was like damn 15 mana for a slow thats a waste, but now when warriors come up to me i use it and run, thats total complete shutdown of warriors and i slap on some dots and kite them

the skill im not sure about are shatter hex and empthy, empthy because i normally burden/dot them

the problem i have with empthy is late game it doesnt seem to scale well with hp warriors have, it barely effects them plus a quick heal negates all dmg, also with empthy i have to or a team mate has to get hit which isnt good. I looked into sympathetic visage and debating on switching empthy out to that but ive never used it and wondering if the dmg done by warriors hitting me would be doing the same.

id drop the domination line but i think i love backfire way to much, so if anyone knows any other anti caster spells say in illusion, that would be a bit of a help, but as of now i guess im split amongst 4 paths



so im open for suggestions on those two spells to change, "Empthy" and "shatter hex"

all ideas are welcomed

[Tarew]

Phew...you certainly want a lot out of your build.
I see one main problem and that is your energy. A lot of those spells are energy intensive and you have absolutely no means of replenishing energy which means a lot of time you're going to be doing nothing in a battle which is obviously not a good thing :)
The problem is that the only way I can think of to fix this would be to add Inspiration which adds yes ANOTHER skill line to the mix and we obviously can't afford that.
I really think you'd need to focus this build more in order for it to work since right now you're pretty much trying to be 4 characters in 1 which I think is simply too ambitious.
The main way for a Mesmer to support his group is to disable to enemy's primary characters IMO while at the same time protecting himself as well as he can.
Mesmer/Monks who fulfill a support role as healers and protectors are certainly very viable but require more focus than just healing breeze to work.

I'd probably make this character a pure Mesmer with attribute points distributed the following way:

10 Domination
10 Illusion
10 Inspiration
5 Fast Casting

That way you can keep Backfire (and Shatter Hex if you want though I'd probably replace that along with Empathy), you keep the Illusion hexes and you gain Ether Feast/Ether Lord/Power Drain with the possibility of adding the always useful Mantra of Persistance to lengthen your Illusion hexes.
You can even keep Resurrect since it doesn't use any attribute points and for most parties that's enough to make them happy to have you.

One last thing I'd seriously consider is to replace Migraine with Crippling Anguish since that essentially saves you a skill slot.
Migraine is certainly a nice skill to have but it doesn't really lock up casters as well as backfire does anyway. Especially now that quite a lot of spells have casting times with fractions, Crippling Anguish seems like the way to go to me especially since you can then drop Imagined Burden as well saving you a skill slot.
This may be just personal preference though (it's my favorite Mesmer elite skill) but I find it to be exceptionally useful to stop Warriors from attacking you or to kill off enemies that are trying to run away. If you play it well you can even lure enemies into a trap with it and trick them into following you.
I've never really found an optimal use for Migraine though so maybe you find it more to your liking :)

[Wizardpsx]

First of all thanks for the reply,

Well the builds I was looking for at first was either a dom/insp or illus/insp
But I couldn’t decide between the two with continually respecing out of each one constantly. So I decided to go dom/illus

Mana has never been a problem, I know there are a lot of high mana spells but im not casting them all, they are situational and I have tested this build for real and ive never had mana issues,

But like you said I think there are better spells than just shatter hex and empthy that could be replaced in this build

For healing I know that 7+ arrow isn’t going to stop someone from dying but it sure helps out the monks, plus I can always add heal other I guess.

I highly was thinking of dropping migraine to get crippling anguish because it’s the same mana cost as imaginary burden and can replace both imaginary burden and migraine, which now gives me one more free slot to fill stuff with.


Should I drop domination all together? And just stick illusion/heal/fastcast?
Cause im only really using domination for backfire? Is there other ways to deal with casters? I know that piling on conjure phantom and crippling anguish will hurt but are there any illusion spells that would hurt as well,

Ps. Im not really good at interrupting, it seems even if I try they get spells of anyways like troll unguent and res sig and stuff.

[Nobleman Azure]

most interrupts interrupt spells with the exception of cry of frustration which interrupts a skill.

A spell is a sub category of a skill. So does signets, attack skills, preparations, etc. There fore if you are using say power spike or power leak on a ressurection signet, it wont work.

Tarew is right, you have no energy replenisher. Once you reach tombs with 8v8 battles you will find yourself using all of these and run out quickly. But as you say probably right now energy does not pose a threat to you.

[Tarew]

Heh well that's the problem really. The Mesmer skills are aligned so that the Domination tree is the anti-caster tree and the Illusion tree is mostly the anti-Warrior tree.
The only strictly anti-caster spells in Illusion are Migraine and Arcane Conundrum, both of which I'm not too fund of myself because they don't really provide much of a lock on casters but merely an inconvenience.
Especially if you're not using interrupts there really isn't too much of a point in using them.
So if you still want to be able to deal with casters as well I strongly advice keeping domination.
If you say you're not running into any energy problems (which I still find a bit hard to believe but it's your character so I'm sure you know best :) ) then there isn't really a need to use Inspiration since you can heal yourself (and others) with your Healing tree.
Your attribute point layout would probably looks like this:

10 Domination
10 Illusion
10 Healing
5 Fast Casting

If your energy is not a problem I see no reason why this wouldn't work :)

[Wizardpsx]

Once again thank you for all the replies and input, VERY HELPFUL!

On a note I can see mana being a problem later on the 8vs 8 and even in some 4 on 4 I do run into energy problems(not everytime, but its slow recharge after im drained), plus if a mesmer energy burns, taps, or ether fest me Im pretty much hurting. With that being said I guess I should try to refine my build a bit more, if I were to change to domination/inspiration what spell can I use as a conjunction with empthy to keep me alive while its doing damage to the warriors. Also would imaginary burden still be good even tho I would have low points (1 or 3) into illusion (left over points) I know that spirt shackles might be good, I don’t have the spell and ive never tried it so I need input on people that have.

I have used energy tap in a few builds and I guess I always take like half my life anyway when someone is beating on me and im trying to tap mana, and sometimes I don’t tap very much mana with energy tap so that’s why I wasn’t thinking going insp, however I have lasted longer when I ether fest/healing breeze when a warrior is on me. But the good ones out damage that!

So I guess if anyone have advice on changing my original build around a bit for a little more domination and replacing the dots with something useful to stop a tank on me like “imaginary burden”

Ps. Ive never tried mind rack (don’t have the spell) but does anyone ever make a energy denial build with mind rack to dmg people, or is that just to much work with not enough result. Anyways im looking to help my team win, not rack up the kills, Ive experienced a warrior chase me the whole fight while I kite them to his death, extremely pissed off he called me a noob and left the match (it was one of those “team with most kills wins”


thanks Tarew and Nobleman Azure for the responses

[Tarew]

Oh yes, energy denying/damage builds are quite popular for a Mesmer really and most certainly viable.
You'd definitely have to drop Healing prayers than though because that just doesn't go with it. You'll probably want maximum Inspiration and Domination if you're looking to make that work.

I'm not a hugh fan of making your build focus exclusively on Domination/Inspiration/Healing by the way though that might have something to do with the fact that I'm a big fan of life drain hexes :)
The only way I can really think of that would allow you to repel warriors then is to use Signet of Midnight as your elite skill.
Obviously you won't be able to use you elite skill slot for more offensive or supporting purposes then which is why that setup might not work so well.

Another approach (though now I'm coming dangerously close to revealing my own IMO very original Mesmer/Monk build ;) ) is to replace Healing prayers with Protection prayers and use Pacifism which is hands down the most efficient Warrior repelling spell in the game if your enemy isn't packing hex removal spells. Protection Prayers obviously also provide means to support your party with Reversal of Fortune and Convert Hexes for example if you were looking to go into that direction...that's all you'll get out of me on this build direction :)

[Wizardpsx]

DANG IT! can you share more with the protection idea. (thats okay you dont have to) l never even thought of that once, sounds good, also my friend plays a monk primary and is healing, so in pve, protection from me and healing from him would work out quite nicley. anyways if you dont want to share thats perfectly fine, ill do some research on the other monk forums looking at protection builds. thanks for the help.

so with protection i should probably go domination for some caster shutdown.

thanks for all your help !

[Tarew]

Heh, well allright I'll share it then. Nobody else seems to be reading this thread anyway ;) I call this the Scepter/Chant build (those who play Magic: The Gathering will know why :) )
I haven't finalized it though since my Mesmer hasn't made it to Droknar's Forge yet which is where quite a lot of my skills are.
Also my build doesn't focus on supporting other party members.
What it does focus on is total shutdown of one (or partial shutdown of multiple) characters.
This is the basic setup:

Blackout
Echo
Pacifism
Backfire
Wastrel's Worry

Then if I can squeeze it in hopefully some Illusion drain hexes as well though if it turns out I use too much energy I might have to include Inspiration.
Anyway the key idea is to get Domination Magic up as high as humanly possible, which is 16.
Then hopefully if I can find one a Staff of Blackout. If I can find one Blackout will disable an enemy's skills for 8 seconds, if not 7 seconds will have to suffice.
It'll be a very adaptable build depending on where I'm playing. In PvP I'll be much more likely to spread the lockdown over multiple characters.
Hurt Warriors where it's most painful, meaning just prevent them from attacking alltogether by using Pacifism.
Meanwhile you can shutdown the enemy's most important/central threat with the Blackout/Echo combination (you'll most likely want to pick an enemy that removes hexes for this) and possibly shutdown a third caster for a decent proportion of time with Backfire. That's the basic idea anyway and so far it's working exceptionally well with the skills I have (and off course if you're up against a warrior heavy group you can always echo Pacifism instead of Blackout).
Hopefully I can fit in Illusion Magic to drain their health as well but I'll have to test if I can afford that.

Obviously if you ever meet someone 1 vs. 1 (which is the best encounter) you can cast both Pacifism AND Blackout on them and prevent them from doing anything at all except move around while you have a 2 or 3 second window to cast hexes on them.
Pacifism is mainly the utility anti-Warrior skill though. Against any of the 4 caster classes Blackout/Echo and Wastrel's Worry will be more than sufficient.

There, now you know :) Not that it helps you at all because this build is very different from your own and doesn't support your allies at all but maybe it'll give you some ideas ;)