Please help with my Mesmer/Necro build

[Jimbodan]

Ok, I need some help with my current build. My primary is Mesmer and secondarty is Necro. I find this build to be fairly difficult to deal enough damage to survive, ESPECIALLY against mobs. Against 1 or 2 enemies I do ok, but with mobs I'm toast. I'm thinking I'm probably just not using the right skills? I've found about 1 skill from the entire Necro tree so far that I use (Vampiric Gaze). I really need advice on how to make this combo work.

I'd prefer to use it mainly for PvE to solo right now, but I'd also like some advice for PvP builds (although I realize this changes depending on who I'm fighting)

I'm currently lvl 13 and just got to Yak's Bend. Right now the skill set I'm using is this: Empathy, Ether Feast, Conjure Phantasm, Shatter Delusions, Vampiric Gaze, Backfire, Mark of Pain, and Energy Burn.

Basically if I'm fighting melee characters I start with Empathy (Backfire if it's a magic user) then follow it with Energy Burn, then Conjure Phantasm, and then right before Phantasm runs out I use Shatter Delusions. I use Vampiric Gaze and Ether Feast to heal and I've found Mark of Pain to be pretty useless.

By that point I'm just about out of energy and then I usually go with a combo of Conjure Phantasm and Shatter Delusions until I kill whatever I'm attacking.

Here's how I have my attribute points right now. I also have all my refund points available and I'm sure I'll have to use a lot of them to fix this build.

Fast casting - 4
Illusion Magic- 6
Domination Magic- 6
Inspiration Magic- 3
Blood Magic - 2
Death Magic- 0
Curses - 3

I'd really like advice as to some good skill combo's from the Mesmer and Necro trees to deal some damage, preferably against crowds.

[eventhorizen]

Well if you are having trouble with energy and direct damage the first thing you want to do is lower your fast casting and spend the points raising the damage of your direct damage spells.

What I have found also is that if you put on certain hexes in a certain order you will get the effects of all your hex spells, as well as doing direct damage.

You say you start out by throwing hexes onto the enemy, well if that is what you are doing use soul barbs first, and the enemy will take a certain amount of a damage for each hex. This means you spend 10 energy and you get 2-3 high damage hits, at level 13 probably around 20-30 each hit.

The bad news is that if you went Necro primary, instead of fast casting which uses energy quicker, you would have got the skill Soul Reaping, which gives you energy every time something dies.

Also if you dont have a lot of energy to begin with, and a slow recharge/high use rate, then dont cast all your spells within the first 5 seconds, cos that will deplete your pool completely. If you use a spell and wait until half of its energy has recharged before you use another spell then you put spells on slowly, but it takes a lot longer before your pool gets depleted.

What I do is put on soul barbs followed by 3 hexes. Siphon Life, empathy or backfire, conjure fantasim. Then drain his energy pool with Ether feast if he is a caster as well as heal a bit, and if I have the energy and I need some powerful direct damage, or I need to heal then I use vampiric gaze and touch.

So by putting all those on slowly im handing out painful solid damage as well hexes to drain health fast for a whle and deal more direct damage, and can drain energy or add more direct damage if i have the energy

[Jimbodan]

Thanks for advice! I had actually just started experimenting with adding Siphon Life and Soul Bards late last night but didn't have time to test it too much. One thing that is still a problem though that I did notice are mobs. For single enemies this strategy works well and I can easily take out single enemies. Where I run into big problems though is with mobs, since by the time I cast 3 or 4 spells I'm close to being out of energy and I've only really hurt 1 enemy.

Any advice on how to handle mobs with this build? Or with Me/N in general?