Stroke of Genius

The name of this build comes from the fact that this build is mainly based around Inspiration Magic. It also comes from a certain M:tG card named Stroke of Genius. Without further ado, here's the build!

Me/Mo
12+1+2 Fast Casting
12+2 Inspiration Magic
3 Healing Prayers

[skill]Mantra of Recovery[/skill][skill]Ether Phantom[/skill][skill]Drain Delusions[/skill][skill]Power Drain[/skill][skill]Drain Enchantment[/skill][skill]Feedback[/skill][skill]Ether Feast[/skill][skill]Resurrection Chant[/skill]

A Defensive Staff of Defense is nice, with a +5 energy while HP>50% inscription. As most of these skills pay for themselves or more, energy is not a huge concern, and as this is currently made for RA, survivability is valuable. In the same token, Survivor's Armor would be a good choice. Full Survivor's Armor with runes of Vitae on every peice except for the two Mesmer runes and a Vigor rune will leave you with 520 health. A Hale staff of Fortitude would increase that to 580, so having one on weapon-switch is good for resisting armor-ignoring spikes.

The breakpoints for Ether Phantom, Drain Delusions, and Feedback are all at 14 Inspiration Magic. Use of this build runs something like this:

Choose a target, preferably a caster. Use Mantra of Recovery, then cast Ether Phantom on them. Once its five-second recharge is done, Drain Delusions it and immediately reapply the hex. The combination of Ether Phantom and Drain Delusions will remove ten energy from them while giving you ten energy, making the chain self-sustaining. As this can be repeated every five seconds, that's the equivalent of a hefty -6 pips of energy degeneration! Also, as Ether Phantom will be on them all the time, that's another pip of energy degeneration, for a total of -7! Only a character under Ether Prodigy or Blood is Power could possibly hope to withstand that, and those enchantments can simply be removed with Feedback for further energy denial, or Drain Enchantment if Feedback is recharging. With this skill setup, Ether Feast actually becomes a respectable self-heal: 5 energy for 135 health with a 1 second casting time and 4 second recharge, and it removes a small amount of energy from the enemy. Resurrection Chant is mainly to take advantage of the build's high level of Fast Casting, and could be replaced with Resurrect or another resurrection skill if you wish. Draw Conditions could also be used instead of Ether Feast to make this build more suitable for planned team play outside of the Random Arenas, where you will be certain to have a healer.

Once your Drain Delusions begins to give less than ten energy back, slow the pace of your energy denial. Draining once every five seconds would prevent them from casting anything further, while draining once every ten would allow for the maximal energy gain. Ether Feast could also be used to "check" the amount of energy they have left.

If use of this build becomes common, Inspired or Revealed Hex could replace Power Drain, allowing you to steal an opposing Genius's Ether Phantom and use it against them.

Not bad...

A bit of everything while keeping energy up. But I disagree with your equipment choice. This build base a lot on energy, and all the effective energy management comes from conditional gain (Drain Enchantment need enchantment, and Power Drain need a casting spell). There's just no predicting when these things gonna come, so keeping a good supply of energy is going to come in handy.

Weapon:
Insightful (Staff) of Defense ("Hale and Hearty")

Armor:
No change

Runes:
Vitae to Energy

Survivibility isn't a big problem, you have Mantra of Recovery with Ether Feast. That's 4 second recharge of healing 123+, while denying enemy energy. Enemy will do much damage to you and you're still getting healed.

ADD:
Oh yea...and you get a B+

First Off Topic: *Respons 2 Stroke; uses Force of Will!*


Nice idea but in ur skill list u listed only 6 skills and the most important ones for the build or left out U might wanna add the pics of Ether Phantom and Drain Delusions 2 ur list just for clarity because people who didn't read the text will start flaming

I used to like playing the inspiration line and working on e-denial. The only problem that I sometimes faced was that I would over-deny my targets, so when I needed to heal, because they had no energy, I got no health^^.

@Terra: Yeah, that is one problem with Ether Feast- you could run your target out of energy! Using it on someone other than your primary target could help with that, though.

@Lightblade: I don't mind if you use an Insightful staff. It's just my personal choice to use a Defensive staff head. IMO, the main energy management comes from the fact that your primary combo- EP+DD- doesn't really cost any energy. Insightful staves aren't a bad choice, and I often use them on other builds.

@Sertu: Sorry about the pictures. I used the GWG skill tags, which worked on all the other skills, but the "monster skill" image for the Nightfall skills didn't seem to load. Weird. If you hover over them, it does show you which skill it is and what it does, it just doesn't show the picture on the icon. Someone might have to look into that.

I really really like this build. After seeing this build, i have decided to resurrect my Mesmer... for the armor and for its raw power. Thanks for motivating me again!

just a question... what do you do with conditions like burning and stuff
i find myself being burned to death by searing flames ele

Power Drain him and then start in on the rest of his energy. Eles are remarkably vulnerable to any really serious e-denial and save for ether prodigy, which is another great power drain/feedback target, they don't really have ways to get it back. The drain enchantment -> Feedback combo screws over dual attunement eles as well. I'd be more worried about dealing with melee presure, such as RaO thumpers as they will rack up severe amounts of damage before you have a chance to really cement the energy pressure.