I am quite experienced with Mesmers, but most of that experience is related to Domination, Inspiration and Fast Casting. My wife is a very casual player, and she has become extremely fond of her Mesmer/Necro due to one skill in particular: Conjure Phantasm. I've tried to offer suggestions for her build, but most of my advice is skewed by my own mesmer playstyle (adaptive, reactive, target switching), while her playstyle is much more fire and forget, and focused on 1 foe at a time. I'm hoping someone out there can help suggest some viable builds.
At this point, she is still on the starter island in Nightfall (up to Blacktide Den), but she does own all 3 campaigns. She has an Elementalist / Mesmer a fair ways into the Factions campaign, and thus she can easily obtain many of the Mesmer skills from the skill trainer in Kaineng. Her necro skills are a bit less diverse. She likes the degen hexes, as well as some of the direct damage skills. The current build she is using features Illusion, Blood Magic and Inspiration skills, and whatever points are leftover tend to go into Fast Casting. In the long term, I think Curses might be a better fit than Blood Magic, but her limited skill selection on the necro side is impacting this somewhat.
Her present build is using these skills: Conjure Phantasm, Necrosis, Siphon Soul, Clumsiness, Vampiric Gaze, Energy Tap, Ether Feast, Unholy Feast (a recent addition she is trying)
One obvious problem she tends to be having is that she exhausts her energy rather quickly. I've suggested that she try using skills like Leech Signet or Power Drain, but she hasn't found them compatible with her play style. She also dislikes skills like Signet of Clumsiness for similar reasons. Essentially she likes spamming hexes and some direct damage skills.
What she's looking for is an easy-to-use Me/N build that heavily features Conjure Phantasm. Does anyone have any good suggestions on how to set that up? (Keep in mind that most elites are still a ways off, and reaching Prophecies-only skills may not be viable in the near-term). Any help would be appreciated.
Me/N Conjure Phantasm build - looking for advice
Kalendraf
Master Mxyzptlk
ether signet/mantra of inscriptions is usually pretty decent with energy
if she can get to MoR, then ethereal burden and kitah's burden also are good. However those two options take a lot of skill slots
Channeling may be her style, and it will mitigate energy loss if she's spamming necrosis or something, drain enchantment may also be useful (haven't tested it post-update) but that might be too conditional for her. perhaps energy drain, despite being weakened?
if she can get to MoR, then ethereal burden and kitah's burden also are good. However those two options take a lot of skill slots
Channeling may be her style, and it will mitigate energy loss if she's spamming necrosis or something, drain enchantment may also be useful (haven't tested it post-update) but that might be too conditional for her. perhaps energy drain, despite being weakened?
kimfromhouston
I really prefer Dom (Power Block is my favorite skill in the game), but here is the Illusion build I use:
Illusion 16
FC and Insp split the rest of the att points
Ineptitude/Crip Anguish (Depends on how I'm feeling)
Conjure Phantasm
Conjure Nightmare
Auspicious Incantation
Accumulated Pain/Kitah's Burden (I generally prefer Kitah's Burden bc of the small energy gain)
Illusion of Pain
Ether Feast/Drain Enchant/Power Drain
Any Rez Available
Illusion 16
FC and Insp split the rest of the att points
Ineptitude/Crip Anguish (Depends on how I'm feeling)
Conjure Phantasm
Conjure Nightmare
Auspicious Incantation
Accumulated Pain/Kitah's Burden (I generally prefer Kitah's Burden bc of the small energy gain)
Illusion of Pain
Ether Feast/Drain Enchant/Power Drain
Any Rez Available
Painbringer
I am going to throw in a different approach. I love Illusion mixed with the Assassin. You will have to wait till you get far enough to change secondary but it is fun to play.
[skill]Assassin's Promise[/skill] mixed with [skill]Kitah's Burden[/skill] Balance your favorite illusions skills.
As long as you can kill it in the time frame needed you will love the combo of skills. You will get a crap load of energy returned to you and skills recharge.
I suggest her being the head of the party if you are only playing alone. That way hench and her heroes follow her commands and you can do your solo target disrupting and causing havoc.
[skill]Assassin's Promise[/skill] mixed with [skill]Kitah's Burden[/skill] Balance your favorite illusions skills.
As long as you can kill it in the time frame needed you will love the combo of skills. You will get a crap load of energy returned to you and skills recharge.
I suggest her being the head of the party if you are only playing alone. That way hench and her heroes follow her commands and you can do your solo target disrupting and causing havoc.
dudeimoncoke
Well for energy Auspicious+Conjure Nightmare you pretty much never run out of energy, plus it gives -8 degen.
Signet of Illusions is probably a good idea if she is going to use skills from the necro line, and it wouldn't require any attribute investment either.
So I guess if I had to put a bar together it would look like,
Conjure Phantasm, Conjure Nightmare, Auspicious Incantation, Phantom Pain, Sig of Illusion, any enchant removal (strip,rend,gaze,shatter,inspired, drain).
For the last two slots I don't really know what else you could take, except a res sig and maybe reckless haste or shadow of fear, only because its a fire and forget hex and you could just use Sig of illusions and max out illusion magic. Plus it really helps the monks if monsters have a 50% chance to miss.
Signet of Illusions is probably a good idea if she is going to use skills from the necro line, and it wouldn't require any attribute investment either.
So I guess if I had to put a bar together it would look like,
Conjure Phantasm, Conjure Nightmare, Auspicious Incantation, Phantom Pain, Sig of Illusion, any enchant removal (strip,rend,gaze,shatter,inspired, drain).
For the last two slots I don't really know what else you could take, except a res sig and maybe reckless haste or shadow of fear, only because its a fire and forget hex and you could just use Sig of illusions and max out illusion magic. Plus it really helps the monks if monsters have a 50% chance to miss.
Kalendraf
Thanks for the fast responses...
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Originally Posted by Master Mxyzptlk
Quote:
Quote: if she can get to MoR MoR would be good if she had any prophecies characters far enough along to help obtain it. She owns that campaign, but has spent all of her limited, casual play-time in Factions and Nightfall so far.
Quote: Channeling may be her style, and it will mitigate energy loss if she's spamming necrosis or something Another prophecies skill, but this one is vastly easier to reach. Just need to hop on the boat and talk to Sergio once she arrives. I hadn't considered this one previously, but given her playstyle it might work pretty well.
Quote: drain enchantment may also be useful (haven't tested it post-update) but that might be too conditional for her. Yeah, the conditional/reactive skills are what she is hoping to avoid. I suggested having her try it before, but she didn't like the skill.
Quote: Originally Posted by kimfromhouston Ineptitude Great skill. Unfortunately, it's in Prophecies, and it's a long ways off for her at this point.
Quote: Crippling Anguish A reachable elite, but I am not sold on the concept of using slowing-hexes in PvE. Kiting is almost never a problem in PvE...at least not in normal mode. Given her playstyle, I fear she'd mis-cast slowing hexes enemies who might never attempt to move.
Quote: Conjure Nightmare So expensive vs. Conjure Phantasm for that extra -3 degen. Seems like this would further compound her energy problems w/o much benefit...
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Accumulated Pain
Now we're talking. I had somehow managed to totally overlook this skill. I think her ele has this unlocked, so she may just need a mesmer tome to learn it. Quote:
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) enough to spam some more conjure. Once you used acumulated pain you can switch targets. About 3-5 seconds later you get the 23 energy (target foe should have died by then) and have quite a nice energy pool.