Way Too Obvious Mesmer PvP RA build

[Nessaja]

I haven't been playing my mesmer for so long! Too busy with factions, so today, I decided to try a new build, didn't really like my old build anymore with teleporting Assasins that can kill you ridiculously fast. Also, I wanted to be able to annoy monks with it. Even though this build is designed to last and be able to annoy casters in their death.

So here we go... note, this build is REALLY obvious.. not gonna claim the title of originality here we go

Fast Casting 9+1
Illusion 8+1+3
Inspiration 12+1

Skills:

Phantom Pain
Conjure Phatasm
Energy Tap
Energy Drain {E}
Ether Feast
Distortion
Illusion of Weakness
Res Signet

So.. the point of this build, mass drain energy, be unkillable (only thing that effectively managed to kill me was Hammer warriors (irresistable blow) and Degen Necros when I dont have monk support). And when you drained them from their energy, put some degen on there for an easy kill.

Seriously, try it out, you might like the effects :)

edit:: forgot to mention, get a 20/20 wand and a 20/20 offhand for best results.

[Hella Good]

Phantom Pain is quickly becoming a 2nd hand skill with IoR for degen/spike damage (with lower recharge, mind you) and Cume Pain that gives the DW along with some spike damage (a one skill- one attribute alternative to PP/SD) on the table.

Also, this build seems to be quite capable of lasting but doesn't seem to do much in terms of damage, and it seems to have excess of nrg (a lot of nrg is just as bad as none at all). Maybe keep the main idea of heavy nrg drain, good survival potential, but toss in some different damage dealers? I hate to suggest Conjure Nightmare but with so much nrg on your hands you better have something to use it for. And def consider Cume Pain on top of 2 other hexes. You also have some att points you dont need, can put em in a nice hard res like Res Chant- you got Dist and all. Maybe like....

1- IoR
2- Conjure Phantasm
3- Cume Pain
4- E-Tap
5- E-Drain
6- Ether Feast
7- Distortion
8- Res Chant

[Nessaja]

Hey Hella Good, thanks for your suggestions, I like them a lot. As you could probably see, my Mesmer wasn't in the factions campaign yet. And I didn't know of either Accumelated Pain, nor IoR. Lovely skills and they fit in perfectly! My spike damage is a lot higher with that.

I can still be my tank when I'm not under attack, and do a lot of damage (tested it out, nearly kills a dummy unit if you do IoR Conjure and Cume) when I'm not the target AND drain a lot of mana. Seems perfect ^_^

And Res Chant over res signet is pretty obvious yeah, can't believe I forgot about that. Thanks for the comments, even though I'll miss my IoW, it seems like that will improve it greatly, even though it was working really well before.

On another note.. I found out 20/20 inspiriation wands don't exsist, bummer.. using 10/10 for now.

[Hella Good]

Oh, no prob. I was actually planning on playing it earlier, it sounded like a nice idea. It's like the Necro Hex Spammer- Siphon/Faint/OoB, but a Mesmer version, with better degen and some DW spike. Wonder if Mantra of Persistance will be good with this, but then that will cancel Distortion and vise versa.

[Nessaja]

Oh yeah, I love it! Especially those boon prots that think they can get rid of me with a simple contemplation of purity, or inspired hex. No problem, just keep casting those hexes and draining their mana, we'll see who wins in the long run ^_^

Warriors, Rangers and Assassins? Disortion on, tank a couple of them and keep draining that monk of his energy, eventually they'll get bored and if they don't, you can keep that on pretty much forever anyway.

Hard opponents are definatly the necros, you can't degen them, however if you have a monk on your side he or she can pretty much neglect a bloodspike anyway.

I'm playing it now and got 3 gladiator points in a row, really feel like this could become the new cookie-cutter, it sure has the power for it.

[Tensai]

why is this build unkillable? im a bit confused, only ether feast..?

[Nessaja]

It's not unkillable, however against Ranger/Necros/Warriors, turn on distortion and you are really hard to hit 75% evasion. Every time you evade this way you lose 1 energy at 13 illusion, but, because of edrain and etap you won't ever run out of energy.

Ether Feast is your only defense against necros and elementalists, but on the one hand, you can't expect that it works against everything and alos, Ether Feast still works pretty decent (IoW works good against these 2).

[LightningHell]

Ether Feast is your only defense against necros and elementalists, but on the one hand, you can't expect that it works against everything and alos, Ether Feast still works pretty decent (IoW works good against these 2).

Don't need to worry about ellys anyway. In general, excluding spikers. :P

[SnipiousMax]

Don't need to worry about ellys anyway. In general, excluding spikers. :P

Alot of the time, you don't even need to worry about spikers! :(

[Sab]

1- IoR
2- Conjure Phantasm
3- Cume Pain
4- E-Tap
5- E-Drain
6- Ether Feast
7- Distortion
8- Res Chant

That's more or less what I was going to suggest. Consider Drain Enchantment instead of Energy Tap, and Imagined Burden instead of Accumulated Pain.

[Themis]

Very nice IoR/CoPh/CumP alternative build. Beware though: Backfire=death ;)

EDIT: /agree with LuxA. I would suggest Drain Enchantment instead of e-Tap : Although it doesn't directly drains energy, it forces target to re-apply the enchantment.

[Nessaja]

I tried Drain Enchantment the other day, it's alright, not very suited for RA though I'd say. Mainly because I often have to rely on myself, and when I'm under attack by 2 melees or 3, I need to be able to just blindly steal energy of anyone, not search for a target first. And on the other hand, purely mechanics wise, I normally start draining the monk after he casted MoR, in general, against Monks where I need the Edenial the most, I think Etap will be better.

I like accumulated pain. I do run Ethereal Burden in alliance battles instead of my hard res though, and it definatly works really well.

~~

[LightningHell]

Very nice IoR/CoPh/CumP alternative build. Beware though: Backfire=death ;)

Eww, Backfire. Repulsive. :P

[Hella Good]

Yea, some anti-hex is always good. As is an interrupt. But sadly you can't fit everything into one package.

[Numa Pompilius]

Tested this out.
Well, it sortof works. An application of phantom + accumulated + images does roughly 240 points damage over 9 seconds unless it's removed, reapplying phantom + accumulated gets the target down to about single-digit health (and kills an enemy with a superior rune) unless he gets healing.

Energy management works, you can pretty much spam those three skills the second they recharge without running out of energy. Pulling 16 energy from an enemy every 25 seconds probably doesn't really count as energy denial, though.

Tankability is, as always for mesmers, pretty low, which, together with the fact that mesmers are targeted first or second, means that survivability is on the low side. If a warrior, ranger, necro or mesmer decides he wants you dead, you better have a monk around to support you.

The main problem I found with the build was that it simply doesn't do much damage. Or rather, it does degen damage which the enemy team can pretty easily outheal. Even a warrior with healsig can outheal -9 degen.

To me: a nice addition to a pressure team, as you can keep two enemies at -9 degen & deep-wounded forever, but it can't spike worth a damn.

[Hella Good]

I think the idea is like Siphon/Faint Necro- just spread the degen around and be able to maintain full nrg at all times. The Siphon/Faint Necro has regen, which over 3 targets is near max, which does help, but this build does more degen damage. I dont think you're supposed to stay on one target that would be counterproductive. Siphon/Faint wont do much to one target but to 4 it is deadly.

[Numa Pompilius]

With mantra of persistence you could probably keep three, maybe even four, enemies at -9 degen, but that's provided you don't have to spam ether feast and distortion, and as a mesmer you're guaranteed to be targeted immediately.

The necro has the advantage that he is healed by doing damage, while a mesmer is completely neutralized while tanking. Plus the necro is a lower priority target and doesn't get bashed as hard, as quickly.

Note that I'm not saying this is a bad build, only that it really needs support to do well, and is probably better in a degen team than a random team.

*considers* Maybe a modified version of this build with a necro or ranger primary could pass under the enemy radar?

[Hella Good]

Necro primary will be silly. What will u do with Soul Reaping and 2 nrg management skills. That would be overkill. Better bring some 25nrg skill along.

[Wacky]

Hey! You stole my build!
(well, not really. It is, after all, really obvious, and my build is somewhat different)

Personally I use:
6+1 Fast casting
11+1+3 Illusion
12+1 Inspiration

E-Drain
E-Tap
Distortion
Ether Feast
Conjure Phantasm
Clumsiness
Images of Remorse
Res Sig

Armor: +10 Armor in Stance
Weapon Defensive Hypnotic Staff of Defense

Usually if you go Me/W they won't go straight for you. But even if they do, you have 80 armor and 75% evade, so you can tank reasonably well. Enough to laugh at one warrior but not enough to tank 3 without monk support (but then again, who can?) Obviously you should still kite to minimize energy consumption, but I would say survivability is actually pretty high.

I find in RA E-Tap is more consistant and has better synergy with E-Drain, and it also only requires 5 energy to cast which is good to use while spamming distortion.

I used Clumsiness instead of deep wound, because there is almost always a War and even when there isn't, many casters wand people - why take off 20% of max health temporarily when you can take off 20% max health for real? It spikes pretty well when used with images of remorse (clumsiness -> [they attack] + images) - if you do that, they often don't get the heal sig in before they die.

Cons: The only shutdown is e-denial. Can only tank for about 20 seconds if all 3 warriors on the opposing team make a beeline for you.

[Nessaja]

Numa Pompilius, there's some things you say that I disagree with. First of all, you pull a lot more energy then 16 energy every 25 seconds. You forget to factor in ether feast, with ether feast it's closer to 25 energy every 25 seconds, that's 3 pips instead of 2 pips, also you totally neglect that there's a 40% chance of faster recharge making it a average of 35 energy every 25 seconds, and that's 4 pips right there. Not saying these are the greatest numbers you've ever seen, but it's not something you can just scoff away like that.

Also, when you need to spam distortion, all you are doing is energy denial, you're not rendered useless, you could also cast IoR in between as it's low mana cost anyway. I know for a fact that I'm not tanking better with my Blood necro, a bloodspiker, even though you steal health, you also get interrupted the whole time and knocked down and whatnot, you don't have that problem with distortion.

Yeah... it's not meant to do damage, if you got a warrior to the point where he's spamming heal signet he's not doing damage, all the better. Just continue spamming your hexes around and make the job of your allies a lot easier to do, because, even though 9 degen and a deep wound doesn't kill, it sure makes it a whole lot easier for that ranger/assasin/necro/warrior/other mesmer/ele to get the kill in. You can't do it all.

[holden]

I tried Drain Enchantment the other day, it's alright, not very suited for RA though I'd say.

with all the dual enchantment ele's in ra, all the wammos with mending, all the monks not covering boon? come on. just stealing the monks mantra before he wanted you to makes it a worthy skill.


Mainly because I often have to rely on myself, and when I'm under attack by 2 melees or 3, I need to be able to just blindly steal energy of anyone

if you're doing this just to fuel distortion you've already lost. standing there, spamming distortion and waiting for your team to kill everyone is no way to be imo.


I normally start draining the monk after he casted MoR, in general, against Monks where I need the Edenial the most, I think Etap will be better.

luxa and themis are right as rain. drain enchantment is a far superior spell to energy tap. you will be a finer mesmer with drain enchantment on your bar.

[Nessaja]

holden - there's no right or wrong on this, drain enchantment is a more situational spell where as etap works for everything everywhere. The only reason to even get it (for more energy) is a null point according to you, that is, tanking with distortion. Because you certainly don't need the energy when you're not tanking with distortion. Even more so, it doesn't accomplish what i want it to do, that is them running out of energy and pressure.

We just simply disagree.

[holden]

you're gonna pay 5 energy for your foe to lose 7. to me that's a bad skill.

you'll gain back 9 but only every 25 seconds. and a nice 3 second cast time.
yes yes...fastcasting.

with drain enchantment you have the 25 second cooldown but you remove an enchantment from a foe and gain 10 energy. 1 more energy and 1 second cast time.

i realize you're all about energy denial and staying alive. so i guess it's a good fit for your build.

[Gigashadow]

Drain enchantment is vastly better than Energy Tap. Energy Tap is absolute trash unless you are using a fastcasting build with Mantra of Recovery.

[Kai Nui]

A good combo with Distortion is Spirit of Failure, they have an even higher chance of missing, and when they miss you actually GAIN more than you lose. I'd suggest putting that in there instead of E Drain and get a different elite like Lyssa's Aura to combat against Elementalists and Necros.

[Wacky]

Spirit of Failure doesn't work too well because the warrior often attacks some other squishy.

And E-Tap is better than Drain Enchant in RA because sometimes you will find enemy groups without enchants, or that you've already killed mending warrior.

[Sab]

Spirit of Failure doesn't work too well because the warrior often attacks some other squishy.

And E-Tap is better than Drain Enchant in RA because sometimes you will find enemy groups without enchants, or that you've already killed mending warrior.

Spirit of Failure works well even if the Warrior attacks another target, as the 25% chance of missing can screw up an adren spike. Speaking of which, SoF will mess up an Assassin bad as one miss will mess up their entire combo.

And how the heck did you kill the Mending Wammo without removing his Mending? :p

[Hella Good]

Spirit of Failure works well even if the Warrior attacks another target, as the 25% chance of missing can screw up an adren spike. Speaking of which, SoF will mess up an Assassin bad as one miss will mess up their entire combo.
SoF is a very good skill to combine with Blindness. It works alright with Necro hexes like PoF and Wreckless Haste but I mostly use it when I FC Air in combo with Blinding Flash, it's some great nrg management. And what really screws up Sins is not SoF but it's "sister" hex Spirit Shacks. Now that they don't like at all, cause it murders their nrg so fast, they can't get their comboes even halfway through.