Have you tried Me/R lately?

[MaximumSquid]

I've been messing with Meladru's resiliance on the classes lately and all i can say is WOW to the Mesmer / Ranger builds.

I rolled a mesmer with 11 faster casting, 15 domination, and 10 wilderness survival.

I've been pretty disapointed with the elite skills in domination magic so taking a secondary class elite wasn't that hard of a choice for me.

The only thing that takes more aggression than a monk is the mesmer. I usually find myself with backfire and other nasty things on myself while playing in Arenas.

The look on peoples faces when you cast Melandru and Troll is priceless. I had some people waste counter spells on me since they thought I was going to cast something. Probably the funniest thing that happend to me was when a ranger tried hitting me with concussion shot.

When people do jump all over you you'll be able to tank a good deal of it. The energy regen on Melandru will also let you take all the nasty domination spells without worrying about running out.

Pretty much anything works, but i'd take Empathy and Blackout for sure. Blackout drains addrenaline. I found myself using it more on warriors than monks while playing around in Ra.

[Dark Emissary]

Thanks for sharing! :)

[Echo Darkwynd]

There's a lot of fun things you can do with Me/R, and usually groups see you as a less of a threat compared to Me/N or Me/Mo. I think people see Me/R and automatically expect IW+Tiger Fury, when there are much deadly skill sets available.

Serpent's Quickness goes great with E-Denial. If you use SQ+Arcane Echo+Energy Surge, you can use the echo'd surge twice before the echo ends since SQ drops the recast from 20s to 14s. If you have a lot of energy stealing skills, add Quickening Zephyr to the mix and you can really screw up someone's energy supply.

My other favorite is Frozen Soil. Nothing's more satisfying than spiking someone to death and preventing their teammates from rezzing.

[Tsume]

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*makes sure there are no Rangers around to hear him talk semi-positively about them*

I too have a fondness for Me/R, as it allows me to take Serpents Quickness and a decent anti degen device/heal when there is no degen in Troll Unguent.

I in particular have one build that I dubbed the 'Pressurupter' (a play on words of 'Pressure' and...well you get it...if you don't *hits you with a newspaper*)

I called it the Pressurupter because.....well....honestly it just sounded good at the time, but the premiss is very much to apply pressure based off of the interupt Power Block, and 1-2 other interrupts to bring of your choice.

The final skill set I ended up useing most frequently with the build was:

Backfire
Powerblock
Wastrel's Worry
Shatter Enchantment
Power Drain
Serpent's Quickness
Troll Unguent
Res sig

Both Troll and Shatter are replaceable, but I used both heavily and will admit that Troll saved my skin quite a bit....mainly because of its cancling out of degen. Mesmers are very prone to attacks, as MaximumSquid said, and I have never used Melandru's Resiliance on a Mesmer primary, i may well have to try it out now.

The premiss of my above build is pretty simple...use Serpents to reduce recharges, and go to town with Backfire and Powerblock as your primary shutdowns, and apply the Pressure with Wastrels. 16 domination = 16 seconds of Power Block and high damage across the boards, with a 68 damage Wastrels. I sometimes Power Block offensive casters right away, since it can't be removed and then head to Backfire the monk and interrupt Remove Hex/Holyveil with the secondary or tetrirary interrupts I bring. Other noteable subs I made were Diversion, Power Leak/Spike, and Drain Enchantment...(got really mad at boon monks at one point...decided to put an end to any I saw..heh). Yah i know. The build up with the name and all, and I just sorta throw the build out there. Well I can't be dramatic all the time.

Wastrel's...man...am I the only one who just loves that skill? I know most depend on Illusion for anti Warrior, but Wastrel's can mow down Frenzy Warriors like a hot knife through butter....all you have to do is kite and cast...kite and cast...kite and cast....do your customary I just killed you, ya big oaf dance on their......ok.....you don't have to do the dance. I also love it for picking off Runners...see someone running? *plop a Wastrel's* Wastrel's is honeslty one of the best offensive skills vs Warriors, due to the ability to kite them and cast very quickly. You can easily get off near 200 damage before they have an adrenal skill charged up, excluding Battle Rage or Berserker Stance and most probably, Sprint weilders....which in turn forces them to heal...which lets you get away and launch your own heals.

Ok I'll stop now, but to contribute back to the thread, yes there is definatley some very nice combinations with Ranger as a secondary, and I consider Serpent's Quickness to be among one of them. But the self heal is definatley vital if you go that route, so that you can keep the benefit of Serpents Quickness.

[Vallen Frostweaver]

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*makes sure there are no Rangers around to hear him talk semi-positively about them*

I saw that! There's NO escaping! I'm telling all the Rangers now!

[Laerdon]

Wastrel's...man...am I the only one who just loves that skill?

Not the only one, I'm sure! I love it too. It's great for taking casting mobs and bosses. Put backfire on them and spam WW as a cover enchant and they usually go down in just a few seconds (PvE). For warriors, I use Empathy and spam WW.

In fact, I just finally removed my last Necro skill from my skillbar last night after running through the Desert missions. Now my Me/N is using all Mesmer skills.

The thing I'm discovering about Mesmer's is that so many of their skills are situational. The Hydra's were so easy to take out with just 2 interrupts on my skillbar. Right now 'm using a Domination/Inspiration build which works pretty well:


Backfire
Empathy
Wastrel's Worry
Cry of Frustation
Power Drain
Inspired Hex
Ether Feast
Rez Sig

The only power I'm a little iffy on is Power Drain. I get a lot of energy back but it's useless against non-casting mobs. Used Leech Signet for a while but the cooldown time is really awful.

[Green_Opiate]

I've posted my Me/R build before, an IW that doesnt use Tigers. Blackout+Serpents just jumped out at me. and someone thats blackedout and getting IW'd wont like it, I assure you. And Troll Unguent is a dandy self heal, especially when covered with distortion. I may have to experiment with non IW Me/R though... this is all pretty thought provoking....

[Echo Darkwynd]

Blackout+Serpents just jumped out at me. and someone thats blackedout and getting IW'd wont like it, I assure you.

Blackout+SQ works very nicely as long as a Monk is keeping you above 50% HP. A 7s blackout can be reapplied before the first one ends.

About SQ:

Did any else get the impression that SQ reduces the amount of time that all your skills are blacked out for (from 5s to 3.33s), in addition to it reducing the recharge time of Blackout (from 10 to 6.67)? SQ also seems to reduce the effect of Diversion, Power Block, and Signet of Humility when they are used on you. Has anyone tested this?

[MaximumSquid]

dude i love Wastle's . . .I don't care what people say. . .that skill is the bread and butter of most of my builds!

I usually do a combination of wastle's > blackout > backfire > wastle's repeated, but i'll definitly have to try Wastle's with Power block.

Much like Temple Strike it's going to be me and the monk for 16 seconds of "Play Time"

[Korusef]

My current build:

Diversion
Wastrel's
Cry of Frustration
Power Drain
Empathy
Energy Drain
Energy Tap
Res.sig.

, but the backout version is worth a try.