PvE Me/E.....too much E, not enough Me??

[Qwib]

Hey all, I just wanted to share my PvE Mesmer with you guys...I'm currently in the desert, right before ascending and my Mesmer is beginning to look more like a Fast-casting Fire Elementalist than a Mesmer. I don't have a problem with being more of a elemental caster, but was wondering what you all think.


lvl 18

7 fast cast
8 domination
7 inspiration
9 fire skills

1- Power Drain
2- Chaos Storm
3- Fireball
4- Meteor Shower
5- Fire Storm
6- Energy Tap
7- Wastrel's Worry
8- Arcane Echo

My comments:

-sometimes I feel like I need another interrupt, but I can never really get off Power Drain so I dont put in a second interrupt
-is wastrel's worry even useful? cause have to cast it all the time
-should I put ether feast back? if theres a tank and a healer i dont ever get touched, and if i am attacked, i run and wait for a heal
-how is my attribute distribution? anything need to be changed?
-what spells would you add/delete?
-other teammates generally like playing with me cause i dont need much healing and i do a bunch of damage

Well, that's my PvE Me/E, looking more like a AoE fire elementalist. Any comments/flames/blah are welcome. Thanks!

Qwib

ps: anyone see the lack of primary Mesmers out there?

[Qwib]

any comments?

[Jijimuge]

Well, one of my characters is a mes/ele (but more mes than ele).

Firstly, the skills you have *do* seem more set up to do damage, which is usually the province of an elementalist. You can clearly do that very well with this character. You might also find your energy management works out better if you take fire attunement, as you would mostly (as far as I can see) be casting fire spells during a fight.

Also, I notice that you have 3 AoE DoT spells (Firestorm, Chaos Storm, Meteor Shower), an instant effect small area AoE (fireball) as well as Arcane Echo.

Do you find yourself using AoEs that much? And, given the energy cost of them, do you find it works out for you? I'm guessing that you copy an AoE? I'm saying that because ArcEchoing an energy tap isn't energy efficient.

'Cause I'm wondering whether or not you need Chaos Storm in there. Sure, it's nice (esp vs casters) but its area of effect seems smaller than that of spells like firestorm. It also does less DPS than the other AoEs, too. Ele spells (esp fire) are great for AoE damage.

If you're also having second thoughts about Wastrel's then you might want to drop the domination line or examine some different skills. Wastrel's is very good when layered on top of another spell like backfire. Cast backfire, then wastrels. If they cast, backfire hurts em. If they don't, wastrel's will. It also protects the backfire from hex removal.

I'd say either ditch domination entirely, or switch chaos storm for backfire or shatter hex. Another good skill in domination that you might find useful is hex breaker, but that is as situational as shatter hex.

Another good combo for wastrels is things like either diversion (depends on the skill one spikes) or spirit shackles on warriors or rangers (especially).

As for energy tap, you gain 11 energy with a casting cost of 5 (net gain 6 energy). Casting time 3 seconds. Recharge 20 seconds.

You could switch for glyph of lesser energy. Reduces cost of next spell by 15. Cost 5 (net gain 10 energy). Casting time 1 second. Recharge 30 seconds.

Over the course of a minute, you're gaining 20 energy (effectively) with glyph as compared to energy tap giving 18. Glyph is quicker too, although the difference becomes less than you might imagine because of your fast casting.

However (!) energy tap does reduce the enemies' energy, but this kind of energy denial strategy works better when you're casting other energy-stripping spells such as energy drain, energy burn, ether feast, power leak or spirit shackles. Chaos storm too, so that would be a valid use of chaos storm (e.g. on top of the bosses in thirsty river to drain their energy). I haven't yet tried this strategy in PvE, though.

As most of your spells seem pretty chunky in cost, I'd consider going for Glyph of Lesser Energy instead. That way, in PvE, you could cast that before the fight on your arcane echo (reducing its cost to zero) and then cast your AoE spells or whatever. It depends on your intention - are you simply trying to get more energy for yourself, or are you trying to reduce your opponents' energy too?

If you take fire attument, try to keep the glyph of energy for your arcane echo as much as possible, as the glyph would negate some of your energy refund from the attunement. Perhaps glyph and attune may be overkill on the energy management, to be honest, but you'd need to check that out yourself.

If you were using any element but fire, I'd recommend the combo of "Spirit of Failure" and spells such as ward vs melee, blurred vision, blinding flash etc for both self-defence and energy management.

Power Drain is a *nice* skill. It takes some time to get used to interrupting spells, but a case in point would be the hydras in the desert. Their meteor spell is well worth interrupting! However, interrupts do require that you be watching your enemies and then interrupting as necessary with quick reactions, something that your slowish ele spells may not give you the chance to do.

You may find that your time is taken up by casting all the damaging spells, so despite the usefulness of an interrupt, you may simply find that you don't have the opportunity to cast it.

As for the specific fire skills, I don't have much of an idea of them, really, as I don't use fire but, given your lack of self-defence, I'd say that you're on the right track by using spells that can all be cast from a distance. Firestorm is a great spell too!

Hopefully I haven't rambled too much! :D

[Qwib]

Wow! Quite the reply, and no, I like the rambling :). Thanks for all of that useful info! Im gonna try and answer but my replies will probably be scattered.

I recently added backfire to use along with wastrel's because of all the nasty casters in the desert.

I find myself waiting for spells to recharge more than waiting for energy. Im gonna try out using Glyph of Lesser Energy rather than energy tap and test out how I like Fire Attunement.

As you said, I don't use my AOE spells as much, so I took out Archane Echo (for the reason you mentioned-lack of use and high energy cost) and took out Meteor storm. I now only use 2 fire spells - Fireball and Fire Storm.

I do like Power Drain a lot, esp for those longer AoE spells that can just devastate a party, but the longer recharge time makes me think about using an interrupt with a shorter recharge time.

Also, I'm going to try out some of the other self-defense spells you mentioned and other combinations in your great post.

Thanks again!!!

[Jijimuge]

Well, if you have other energy management abilities in place, and you're waiting for spells to recharge more than anything, then I'd go for the interrupt "Power Spike". Many Mesmers don't like it as the secondary effect, of dealing damage, is not what they're about...they're more into energy denial, skill blocking etc.

However, for you, it should be perfect, as you are trying to do damage, rather than simply disabling your foes.

It's in domination as well, meaning that, if you're dropping energy tap, you could drop the inspiration line and raise other skills. Here are the stats for a level 8 power spike

Power Spike (Spell)
If target foe is casting a spell, the spell is interrupted and target foe takes 64 damage.
Casting cost: 10 energy
Casting time: 1 sec
Recharge time: 15 sec
Relevant attribute: Domination Magic

What's also quite sweet about this one is the 15 second recharge. This is the fastest recharging mesmer interrupt, and looks like it might fit your build.

[Pyro Gl]

in pve, the mesmer seems to have an entirely different role. PvP is about energy denial and controling people. in PvE, there are usually more monsters, which don't get healed, and go down pretty fast. the mesmer energy draining seems like a waste and everything seems to be concentrated on damage and healing.

having said that, unless if your fighting a boss, i can't imagine energy draining actually helping your team, making power spike superior to power leak.

for similar reasons i think you should drop chaos storm. i think that spell is the pure mesmers "emergency" AoE spell. playing a Me/E defeats the purpose to this spell imo.

for domination i like empathy, since no monster will react differently and you will be able to do massive damage to that target.

i recommend somethin like this:

Power Spike
Empathy
Energy tap
Fireball
Meteor shower
Firestorm
Arcane Echo
Fire attunement

you could also drop domination entirely for more energy gaining inspiration spells, or switch to illusion for DoT spells