Boring?

[BobbyEwing]

Hi,

Iv'e been getting back into GW the last couple of weeks and found that there are quite a few things about mesmers that aren't the same. Been going mostly to RA, since I'm not currently in an active guild.

I used to love mesmers becasue of the huge variety of useful builds, but as it is, I have really only found one that really does the trick for me on a regular basis.

Me/W
15 Dom
8 Tactics
Rest Fast cast

Signet of midnight
Blackout
Diversion
Backfire
Empathy
Shame/Guilt
Defensive/Diciplined stance
Res sig

The reasoning is that a) There are alot of toons that do attack damage in ra nowdays. Empathy hurts them or stops them and sig of midnight is a perfect self defense. A defensive stance is almost always needed as well.
b) Backfire, Diversion and shame/guild is enough to give casters a headache. c) Blackout is usefull all around.

Energy is fine since there are no real spamming skills and since people tend to cast through shame/guilt.

This build does usually work fine, but I'm feeling it's a bit of a multi-tool without any real edge. However, when I do try to specialise in for example caster shutdown I always end up dead at the hands of an assasin, warrior, dervish etc. I would like to have viable alternatives, that are not to fragile and that can be more viable in really shutting people down and what not, not just beeing a nuisance.

[Redwinter]

There are alot of toons

FYI, characters in GW are not called 'toons' - that's from WoW and a handful of other games, where characters actually are cartoons.

I think you're trying to do too many things at once - you're trying to shutdown and punish attackers, and while you do that, your anti-caster skills are going unused.

I advise focusing more, or going with broader skills.

[BobbyEwing]

Oh, you mean that's important, what the pixels on the screen are called? In that case, I am sorry. I never played world of warcraft so I have no idea and didn't really think it mattered enough for anyone to point it out as a mistake.

Anyways, I don't have any real problem with the build as posted, I have been trying out some of the later builds posted here as well as some old school stuff from a couple of months ago, and nothing has really proven to be as effective. Empathy and blind works well to make attackers a lot more ineffective. The thing is, that dropping those makes me fail horribly when an attacker decides to go for me. I don't really want to go for a full "anti warrior" build though. Like I said, I'm not really looking for improvements to my build, since it has proven to work out quite fine, I am looking for something more effective against casters, while retaining survivability, given that there are a lot of w/a/p/r/d-kinda characters(?) around that I need to be able to survive.

[call of water]

Where's your E-managment? shame/guilt is not enough in my opinion...

[Manwithtwohands]

Yeah, toons are Everquest and Everquest II.
I had no idea they call em toons in WoW now. lol
The first time I played WoW a couple years back I asked out loud a question using the term 'toon' and a whole whack of people told me 'wrong game *******, that's everquest'.

[mmorpg man]

it seems you are aiming to take down melee characters. I would consentrate on this by getting rid of backfire and adding drain enchantment (useful against dervs) - inspiration as it gives you energy and changing diversion for hex breaker (good against sins) or maybe complicate to stop warriors using healing signet. phisical resistance for defence or channeling for more w-management. here is what I would have

Signet of midnight
Blackout
hex breaker/complicate
channeling/phisical resistance
Empathy
drain enchantment
Defensive/Diciplined stance
Res sig

[Ferdoc]

Who cares if he calls them 'charaters' or 'toons' or 'money pits' seriously?

as for the build, i like it. spread out the casting times of things and you're fine. you don't need to worry about a multitude of people and you can easily remove one or two attacters from the field if they don't respond to what you are casting.

[Archedgar]

Anyone who uses the word "toon" or any derivative to describe a character in GW or EQ causes me to immediately dismiss anything that have to say after(and often before) that.

We're not talking about Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck ....

[Sajittarius]

they call 'em toons in City of Heroes also, which is made by PlayNC as well. I played that game for a little while but switched to GW when i found out it was free.

[Ashe Dalmasca]

While I am not a fan of calling my character a "toon" even the official website has called them toons:

The Guild Wars Second Birthday Celebration

Happy Birthday to you,
Your toon's turning two,
If you've been with us since the beginning,
We have something special for you.