User:Gelbrekt/Heroic Refrain Team/Mesmer Builds

General Reasoning

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Mesmer - General Stuff that applies to ALL mesmers

Stacking recharge reduction with Fast Casting

• Fast Casting is (as mentioned) disproportionally affected by HR. Since it is also NOT counted for the recharge time reduction cap, it SHOULD be combined with a skill that reduces recharge time. Candidates:
• Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom
• Time Ward - Only 20% and blocks the elite slot, I suppose the wisdom ward is better.
• Serpent's Quickness - Is ALMOST maintainable at high Wilderness Survival.
• Quickening Zephyr - Cool skill, but then the entire team would need to be built around it (see the section dedicated to this skill).

Energy Management

• The fact that Fast Casting makes all energy-management spells Exponential Disprop is HUGE, so list the top-skills here:
• Arcane Conundrum - Must have for any Illusion Magic.
• Tease - With a recharge time reductions, this should have a recharge time of about 5 seconds, with the potential to re-fill the entire energy bar. This sounds too good to be true, but I think it is possible.
• Drain Delusions - 24 energy gain, on top of triggering end effects. Great synergy with Arcane Conondrum EVEN if used on a Domination Magic mesmer since the mesmers can share.
• Drain Enchantment - Massive energy gain, on top of self-healing.
• Auspicious Incantation - Is Disprop because the CD increase from the skill is reduced.
• Power Drain - A whopping FOURTYONE energy, which is easier than usual to strike because of Arcane Conondrum. However, hard to use with Panic.

Other attributes

• Guilt
• Shame
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Skills disproportionally affected by reduced recharge

• Important note that I've not explored very much at the time of writing (due to realizing it recently): While most skills in guild wars are more limited by energy cost than recharge time, this is NOT true for all skills. See examples below.

General - High Prio

• Mirror of Disenchantment - Powerful skill given its cheap cost and reduced recharge time; however it is questionable given that Chilblains and Drain Enchantment are good candidates to use instead [Chilblains can remove most enchantments on its own, and Drain Enchantment is bad if all enchantments are removed by other skills].
• Cry of Pain - PvE

Domination Magic

• Energy Surge
• Shatter Hex
• Shatter Enchantment
• Chaos Storm - EPIC in how much it is affected by the cd reduction; however the skill itself isn't amazing due to how it makes enemies scatter.
• Diversion - Might be useful against bosses.
• Complicate - clearly disprop-affected, but is completely inferior to Panic

Illusion Magic

• Wandering Eye
• Accumulated Pain - Works like an extremely boosted version of Impale.
• Frustration - POTENTIAL EPIC SYNERGY W PANIC [110 dmg per skill rupt!]
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Inspiration Magic

• Most inspiration Magic skills are energy managmenet skills, so these should be listed under the "Energy Management"-section above.
• Ether Signet - While it doesn't stack with Fast Casting, it stacks with two fast casting skills, as well as Keystone Signet
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No attribute

• Arcane Mimicry
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Other

Domination Magic

Disprop skill

• Add from the MAIN DOC here (but no repetition).

General ENERGY DUMPS (not disprop skills)

• Due to the extreme potential for energy management, a suggestion is to simply use a few strong energy management skills, and then spam the s**t out of several strong domination magic spells that have their recharge reduced. Interesting skills here would be:
• Wastrel's Worry + Wastrel's Demise - Epic synergy W Psycic Instability
• Shatter Hex - Great not just because of the heavy AoE damage and spammability, but also because neither the Para, Derv, Ranger or Rit has hex removal.
• Mistrust
• Shatter Delusions - Again, like drain delusions, it has great synergy w Arcane Conondrum, or if needed Fragility.
• Spiritual Pain - I've seen many strong builds use this, but i suspect this might be questionable here due to Malign Intervention.
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Particular skills to use when Mesmer SECONDARY

• I don't know what to put here on this page, but this section is USEFUL to avoid repeating yourself on multiple pages.

BUILDS

Empty Bar

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Optionals

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Mesmer - Domination Magic DPS

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	Elite

Optionals

• Most Skills to use that ARE ALREADY DESCRIBED ELSEWHERE IN THE DOCUMENT (Don't repeat the same discussions about them them here!):

• Flesh of My Flesh - High prio because (1) Very high fast casting = Fast Cast time. (2) The dervish spams AoE heals, quickly healing up the lost health.
• Drain Enchantment - Note that this is QUESTIONABLE; If the necro uses bip, it might be superflorous.
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Other skills

• Serpent's Quickness - Could potentially be used over Ebon Battle Standard; Note that for a HERO team, the player covers Ebon Wisdom Standard.
• Diversion - Completely DEVASTATING vs any boss or boss-like-foe that is not immune to disabled skills; When maxed, it increases CD by 71 seconds, and can be used every 5 seconds, COMPLETELY SHUTTING DOWN ANY SINGLE TARGET affected by it. Notice that this ALSO makes the target extremely vulnerable for wastrel spams, and it isn't significantly affected by Natural Resistance, since it will always last at least 3s.
• Shatter Enchantment - Effective Enchantment removal, though Drain Enchantment might be better.
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Suggestion 1 - To pair with BiP

• NOTE: While this only has a single inspiration skill, it can be assumed to be enough if using BiP.

MINIMUM attribute requirements (after runes)

• 12 Fast Casting -> Needed to bring FC to 19 after +5 from bonuses (causing PI to KD for 5 seconds).
• [As high as possible] Domination Magic
• 9 Inspiration Magic -> At Rank 14, Drain Delusions starts granting 20 energy.
• [Remainder] Restoration Magic
• Remember that Major/Superior runes could be used.

Attribute Suggestions

• 10+2 Fast Casting [Use Major rune]
• 12+2 Domination Magic [Use Domination Mask. Using a Major rune isn't terrible, but not super important]
• 9 Inspiration Magic
• [Remainder] Restoration Magic

Gear

• Radiant runes to increase the time until energy runs out (giving more time for DD and BiP to grant energy); This is important since the mesmer is the main damage dealer.
• Weapon: Modifiers increasing casting time is likely NOT needed due to the extreme fast casting attribute.

	Elite

[PROMISING BUILD] Super Recharge Mesmer

IDEA

• As indicated in the general discussion, many mesmer skills are more limited by their recharge time than their energy cost. This combined with Fast Casting and it's stacking with a recharge-reduction skill, can make this extremely powerful.
• Assumes that the party has BiP since: (1) Bip is very strong, (2) it allows the mesmers to add more skills that are disprop-affected by recharge reduction, as well as removing the requirement for inspiration magic.

• Domination Magic
• Fast Casting
• Wilderness Survival

	Elite

Optionals

• Elite should be either:
  • Panic - The best skill in the game in most circumstances.
  • Psychic Instability - Superior to Panic in that it can completely disable targets, and doesn't prevent skills like Cry of Frustration (where Panic steals the interrupt)
  • Energy Surge - Inferior to Panic, but if another mesmer already has panic, Esurge is viable.
• Spiritual Pain Spiritual Pain - Epic since it basically becomes an unconditional discord (albeit slightly lower damage) while also dealinge HUGE damage to summoned creatures (Very effective vs enemy minion masters or spirits).
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[Promising Build] Alternative bar - Both Illusion and Domination

• NOTE: This is likely an IDEAL build if using QZ, since:
  • (1) It scales much better than serpent's quickness (It is maintainable while also reducing recharge times more).
  • (2) It frees up an additional skill slot, e.g for Mirror of Disenchantment.

Attributes

• Suggestion: 12/9/9/3 3 Wilderness Survival is likely ok, since Serpent's quickness can be kept up 50% of the time then.

	Elite

Optionals

• Already included in the top of the page (general discussion).

Mesmer - Illusion Magic DPS

• [Attributes]

	Elite

MUST-HAVES

• Elite:
  • Ineptitude - An epic damage skill, which also inflics blindness, triggering Fragility and protecting the party.
  • Psychic Instability - Great skill which synergizes with the wastrel skills, and is extremely disprop and powerful on top of costing little energy.
• Arcane Conundrum - Epic energy management skill. The cast increase is also not too bad against many casters, which also synergizes with mesmers using PI due to increasing interruption chance.
• Fragility - Should be STRONGLY considered; Even if the party is not strictly built around applying condition, it only costs 5 energy for an AoE hex, which can be combined with Drain Delusions
• Wandering Eye Cheap and high-damage AoE.
• Drain Delusions - Should be ABSOLUTLEY EPIC for this build for several reasons (1) The ratio of [energy spent / energy returned] is improved due to increased inspiration. (2) It can be used frequently due to Fast Casting and (3) It has great synergy with Arcane Conondrum! ALSO, this SHOULD be EPIC for heroes since one of the strenghts is that they can keep track on what effects are applied on which targets. JUST using Arcane Conondrum together with Drain Delusions (plus max energy increasing GEAR to allow for the large energy spikes when Arcane Conondrum ends) should be enough for crazy energy management.
• Accumulated Pain - Good because it deals high damage while NOT requiring attacks, (which is convenient if the target is disabled with PI. When looking at this, I feel bad for the Assassins; This skill is basically an Impale but with MUCH shorter recharge time (due to FC + Serpent's Quickness).
• Power Drain - Essentially becomes a more powerful version of discord (comparable recharge time, shorter cast time, and non-elite status); however has bad synergy with Panic.
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HIGH PRIO (but not necessarily must-haves)

• Verata's Gaze - As Discussed earlier, this allows for mesmers to take over minions from the Ritualists' Malign Intervention, who are at very high levels and have 80% increased heath.
• Serpent's Quickness - Alternative to Ebon Battle Standard; especially if having the build on a hero!

Optionals

• Clumsiness - Great skill, however be aware that these types of skills actually have BAD synergy with Psycic instability due to disabling their attacks.

• Other elies that could be used:
  • Psychic Instability - Definitely not a bad choice; it might even be better than Ineptitude due to how it is disproportionally affected.
  • Stolen Speed - COULD be interesting due to the increased maintainability due to FC+HR and the fact that it increases casting speed for all allies. Note that the recharge time of skills can still be reduced, and this skill does NOT have the bad synergy with PI which Ineptitude has.
  • Time Ward - Seems completely infeior to Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom, which is non-elite and on average recues recharge of spells by 30% (it cuts it in half, 60% of the time, so 0.6*0.5=0.3). The only advantage i see of Time Ward is the reduction of activation time, but this only applies to spells (which many in the party either don't use, or in the case of the dervish, has instant activation).
  • Arcane Languor - Similarly to DIVERSION, this skill could COMPLETELY bury a boss deep in a grave by taking away all possibility of using skills. However, It would only affect single targets - limited to spellcasters - and Psycic Instability could still accomplish the same thing.

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Lower prio

• Symbolic Celerity + Signet of Lost Souls - Initially seems like a good combo, especially since hero AI is good at using SoLS, however this has many complications: Not affected by Fast Casting CD reduction, nor Ebon Wisdom Standard, and also Vulnerable to having Symbolic Celerity removed.
• Signet of Clumsiness - While this is NORMALLY great due to its lack of cost and high damage, it is LESS STRONG in this case because (1) Not affected by the 20 Fast Casting, (2) The energy management should be less problematic since ALL mesmer energy management skills (except signets) have been disproportionally empowered.

Suggestion - Ineptitude Paired with BiP & Ebon Wisdom Ward

	Elite

[PROMISING] Suggestion - Condition Spreader PI, Paired with BiP & Ebon Wisdom Ward

Attributes

• 12+2 Fast Casting -> At 19 fast casting, PI lasts for 5 seconds.
• 10+2 Illusion Magic -> NOTE: Most skills here don't scale super well with Illusion Magic (although they're powerful, none of the skills are directly disprop, and they scale pretty poorly with the ranks).
• 8 Death Magic

Gear

• Remember RADIANT runes due to the energy spike from Arcane Conondrum.

	Elite

• Advantages over other version (with extend conditions):
  • Psychic Instability is extremely powerful and Epidemic can to a fairly large degree cover for Extend Conditions.

• GREAT: Because of the fact that Arcane Conondrum provides energy (in addition to BiP), Drain Delusions can be dropped for Wandering Eye.

[Likely inferior to PI build] Suggestion 1 - Extend Conditions, Paired with BiP & Ebon Wisdom Ward

• Advantages over other version (with Psycic Instability:
  • Wandering eye becomes useable
  • Extend Conditions has a wider area of effect, and extends the conditions, synergizing very well with Hypochondria and Fragility.

	Elite

Mesmer - Keystone Signet

• Fast Casting
• Inspiration Magic

	Elite

Optionals

• Mantra of Inscriptions - Likely the best choice; With this skill, it should be possible to almost constantly spam signets that trigger KS.
• "On Your Knees!" - Combine with Symbolic Posture for crazy Keystone Signet spam. However, it might be sufficient to simply use Mantra of Inscriptions instead.

• The ASSASSIN profession is most likely best secondary here, since it has multiple interesting options that are far better than many of the mesmer skills, e.g
  • Signet of Deadly Corruption - Since it can be assumed that the rest of the team will inflict conditions, especially if the team uses Fragility and builds on that; Im this case, only THREE conditions are needed for max (130) damage.
  • Signet of Malice - ASSUMING that Keystone signet can be activated frequently enough, this signet could be great for spamming signets to trigger Keystone Signet, due to its short recharge and cast time (despite having no effect).
  • Signet of Toxic Shock - Far better than Signet of Shadows; it deals the SAME amount of damage, but has an easier condition to meet and has half recharge.
  • Signet of Twilight - Convenient since If needed, the target can easily have multiple hexes, so it can remove 3 enchantments every cast, plus it has the cast time reduced by fast casting.
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Lower Prio

• Signet of Distraction / Signet of Disruption - These skills are NORMALLY powerful for the keystone signet build, but highly QUESTIONABLE here since they have very little effect, and other attributes are available.
  • STRONGLY CONSIDER instead putting in skills that actually cost energy, since the build practically has none of that.