(Overview) Mesmer hero AI - general tips and opinionated comments.
Outerworld
Quote:
Originally Posted by LexTalionis
They get better if you use BiP... oh well. >_>
Eh? How so exactly?
LexTalionis
Vampiric Swarm and Unholy Feast get assigned very high priorities when you're not at max life. I just use Swarm as a 150ish selfheal and feast as a very fast 200ish selfheal mainly because there aren't many better alternatives (and I don't want to pressure the healers). I'd use Taste of Pain if it wasn't completely bugged (heroes don't cast it at all).
It kinda works though - he's self-healing quite often compared to having to be healed by other people. When not using a melee class to bodyblock, Enemy AI tends to gun straight for the BiP necromancer since they like hitting low health stuff. Swarm and Feast help him survive.
The nice thing is they have very short CDs, but yeah, the energy cost is a bit blegh and the damage could be better.
It kinda works though - he's self-healing quite often compared to having to be healed by other people. When not using a melee class to bodyblock, Enemy AI tends to gun straight for the BiP necromancer since they like hitting low health stuff. Swarm and Feast help him survive.
The nice thing is they have very short CDs, but yeah, the energy cost is a bit blegh and the damage could be better.
HigherMinion
No. Self-heal or not, the monk will waste energy trying to heal you.
Consider the dual-ER hero backline for a sort of modern example. Infuse Wars. And BY taking a useless self-heal removes the POINT in taking BiP to "save slots". Bah.
Consider the dual-ER hero backline for a sort of modern example. Infuse Wars. And BY taking a useless self-heal removes the POINT in taking BiP to "save slots". Bah.
The Josip
Quote:
Originally Posted by LexTalionis
Putrid is awesome, I stopped using it for a while but just reconfigured my BiP to use Putrid again (since, as I said, I don't use minions anyway). Was actually testing Consume, but noticed that hero doesn't make much use of that spell (sadly).Still not sure of the best way to build BiP.. doesn't even have to be necro. Could use some suggestions. I'd also would like to make more use of channeling Rt and put splinter on him, but I none of the physicals seem to fit into my caster team.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HigherMinion
@Outerworld: None at all. If you want to keep your bars like that, don't bother with BiP. I was just answering the question about how to fit BiP on the build, and not why.
Simple Keybind also for PS isn't so hot when Necromancer is perpetually casting Death Nova. That's my problem with it. I usually want PS now, not 2.25 seconds later. He would cancel DN and use PS is how I always observe it.
No. Self-heal or not, the monk will waste energy trying to heal you.
This seems to be true from my observations, which is why I was building a way around it. For example, having EMo as a main healer means that BiP puts minimum strain on healers. Another way around it would be party-wide heals such as those from Dwayna healers or those two monk Divine Favor skills, or Rt skills such as Rejuvenation and PwK. But in general HM Dwayna healer + EMo is simply overkill so I'm looking at other options.
But putting attribute points in Inspiration for Power Drain would not achieve anything as that necro doesn't seem to have energy problems. Before I switched him to Death to test it, he was actually domination with CoF and some other stuff. Is Power Strike going to be better than Vampiric Swarm? Maybe, and then again maybe not. I was not satisfied even with CoF which was rarely being cast, so regardless of the flaws of Vampiric Swarm at least the skill was being regularly cast.
Hope this explains a bit
Quote:
@BiP fans.
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6...merheroway.jpg
What should I remove PD/WNWN on 4 bars for? LexTalionis already pointed most of it up.
So in short, either remove Chaos Storms or micro them (heroes rarely cast them on their own). The problem with your build, IMO, is that the heals are enough for the build as is, but I've doubts they will be enough if you introduce BiP. There is no healer such as E/Mo who can easily spam Infuse/Heal Other without energy concern. Hero sometimes sacrifices to 50 health and the only thing that keeps her from dying is spike-heal.
Oh, and you may want to remove Mind Wrack, I'd bet that your targets will be usually dead before your mesmer casts 3 mesmer non-hex skills on the same target he mind wracked.
Quote:
Ah. Nah that's something totally else. I was having in mind a situation where your BiP is, for example, Blood/Death Magic hybrid, with attributes already pretty much spread, and then you have to fill the rest of the skillbar with something. In that situation Vampiric Swarm is certainly not stellar skill, but it's a self-heal spike-assist skills that serves as a filler. I dislike Blood Magic aside of BiP/Blood Ritual since it offers nothing else for caster team, which is why I said that I'm open for suggestions. When I consider any heals, first I compare them to Spirit Light (150 heal, 5e), which excludes pretty much all self-heals. But the point of Vampiric Swarm isn't just heal but also damage. It does cca 160 damage if it hits three targets, and then as a bonus heals up to 160 health. If you have better suggestions, shoot.|
And BY taking a useless self-heal removes the POINT in taking BiP to "save slots". Bah.
Not at all. First, they are not useless self-heals, just not as good. Second, my BiP gives +6 regen while a single party member has +4 regen that he can use for "action". Third, and this is important, BiP and Blood Ritual are energy distribution skills. Necros have energy, EMo's have energy, Dwayna D/Ne (with say, Blood Ritual) is going to have plenty of energy. But Mesmers are able to burn tons of energy fast, and make good use of it. And even the others, such as Rt, or e-drained members, do at times need energy infusion. Even if BiPer was not doing anything else but infusing others with +6 energy, I'd consider using her. And what you said goes the other way too: if your mesmers use WNWN, Power Drain and others mediocre (at best) skills, then you're trading off as well. I've even observed the Spirit Siphon hero usage, and it's far from stellar than some want to portray it as. Sometimes the hero was not gaining any energy from the spell at all. LexTalionis
Well, there's the issue then - I don't use monks nor ritualists nor elementalists to heal. -_-
My spot healing (what little of it I use) generally comes from 2 skills with either a 5 or a 10 second cooldown, so I find the blood spells useful. LexTalionis
Well, I can't speak for him, but as a primary Mesmer, if Korshek the Burning Flames got off 2 Searing Flames and I wasn't keeping him permanently locked down with offtarget Technobabble/Mistrust/Guilt chaining, my party probably deserved to die.
I don't fear Searing Flames. Never have. I fear Churning Earth. (This is why I sideboard in Complicate)
HigherMinion
HigherMinion
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Josip
I assume you wanted to ask LexTalionis not me.
You did also mention the better payoff using self-heals than rupts.
@BiP fans. http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6...merheroway.jpg What should I remove PD/WNWN on 4 bars for?
The Josip
HigherMinion
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Josip
Can you quote it, because I can't find where. It would be easier to comment on it if I knew what I said.
The first line I quoted you on, Josip...
LexTalionis
Sure you interrupt it, I just meant it's more difficult for my team to recover from a missed Churning than from a Searing Flames. Churning is around the level of Meteor Swarm in "If you don't interrupt this, you're dead". SF not so much.
As for your build, well... I've done something similar to it before, so these are my opinions (but feel free to dismiss them, I play differently) If you want BiP, you can stick it on that Mesmer without the assigned elite, you only need 8 Blood Magic. I'd rather put it on the Necromancer because I'm not a big fan of AotL (If I really needed 1 minion in areas with no corpses, I'd frankly use a pet). Once you put BiP on, you can get rid of Castigation Signet and stick Aegis and Prot Spi there instead. Are you manually microing all your chaos storms? Remember that that spell has... issues. With that build, two your mesmers (the non paragon ones) are highly unlikely to run out of Energy even if you don't use PD. Your FC isn't particularly high (only a 24% recharge bonus) and all your spells are 5 energy except Mistrust. Why not just swap a few out for useful interrupts like Guilt, Cry of Frustration or Complicate? One trick you can use to help counter interrupt stacking problems is just to disable the interrupt and bind it to a hotkey and treat it like a 9th skill. Works if you need Complicate/Cry of Frustration (i.e. if you're trying to kill 3 terrorwebs at once). Right now you have no way of interrupting non-spell skills whatsoever, this may be a problem. Consider using 1 copy of Overload. I'm not sure Weakness alone is worth siding off into 7 Curses for, have you tried Signet of Weariness? You're using Mind Wrack after all. I'm kinda biased against Mind wrack, so I can't give an objective or reasonable viewpoint on it, so feel free to disregard this: My general opinion is that if it's lasting long enough for you to get any significant amount of damage out of it, your spike probably needs work. I guess it might be useful on really high life special enemies. Swap your Monk and Necromancer secondaries. Your monk can use runes and cover Protective spirit, your Necromancer is time intensive, so he works better with Fall Back! and other shouts on him (Since you can do 2 things at once). It also helps your minions catch up. Consider "Never Surrender!", it's pretty nice since you can use it even when everyone is knocked down or whatever. With only 3 pips of E regen, I highly doubt you want your UA monk to be running around spamming a 10e shout anyway.
The Josip
Quote:
Originally Posted by HigherMinion
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But putting attribute points in Inspiration for Power Drain would not achieve anything as that necro doesn't seem to have energy problems. Before I switched him to Death to test it, he was actually domination with CoF and some other stuff. Is Power Strike going to be better than Vampiric Swarm? Maybe, and then again maybe not. I was not satisfied even with CoF which was rarely being cast, so regardless of the flaws of Vampiric Swarm at least the skill was being regularly cast.
Hope this explains a bit
Quote:
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/6...merheroway.jpg
What should I remove PD/WNWN on 4 bars for? LexTalionis already pointed most of it up.
So in short, either remove Chaos Storms or micro them (heroes rarely cast them on their own). The problem with your build, IMO, is that the heals are enough for the build as is, but I've doubts they will be enough if you introduce BiP. There is no healer such as E/Mo who can easily spam Infuse/Heal Other without energy concern. Hero sometimes sacrifices to 50 health and the only thing that keeps her from dying is spike-heal.
Oh, and you may want to remove Mind Wrack, I'd bet that your targets will be usually dead before your mesmer casts 3 mesmer non-hex skills on the same target he mind wracked.
Quote:
I think this is going slightly off-topic but w/e;I'm aware its not for the minions and thats exactly my point; it's not worth bringing it.
A simple keybind means you can make the Nec use PS/Aegis when you want (Heroes aren't very intelligent with them anyway). The +1 rune for prot is largely irrelevant except for SoA breakpoints.
If all the above bars function without BiP, it still has to be asked why bother bringing it? Theres not alot to replace the e-manage skills that you wouldn't need.
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Originally Posted by Lex Talionis
One trick you can use to help counter interrupt stacking problems is just to disable the interrupt and bind it to a hotkey and treat it like a 9th skill
I dislike micromanagement but I think I'll still do this, since CoF is often not getting used as much as I'd like it to, and it can be painful to watch dangerous long-casting spells in front of your eyes while hero just idles instead of interrupting it.
LexTalionis
It's not for the minions, silly. Who cares about minion health? You're using Death Nova.
I'm not contradicting myself at all. If you swapped BiP into the Necromancer, you could definitely keep the monk as a secondary paragon, if you REALLY wanted; but I feel it's a complete waste of a good opportunity, since you're trying to get your necromancer to do monk duties and your monk can actually use +1 runes; and has the time to cast Prot Spi in combat (as opposed to death nova all the freaking time). Not to mention "Fall Back!" has great synergy with minions which are more likely to be in range of a lagging Necromancer than a UA monk. @TheJosip: I don't know. Infuse with minions is kinda... well. Normally I just run my BiP MM like this: BiP/Bone Minions/Putrid Bile/Dark Bond/SoLS/Fall Back/StandYourGround/ Never Surrender (don't have to use that, "We shall return" also works). I don't really care so much about him saccing down to 33% life when he has 75% damage reduction. Outerworld
Quote:
Originally Posted by LexTalionis
I'm not contradicting myself at all. If you swapped BiP into the Necromancer, you could definitely keep the monk as a secondary paragon, if you REALLY wanted; but I feel it's a complete waste of a good opportunity, since you're trying to get your necromancer to do monk duties and your monk can actually use +1 runes; and has the time to cast Prot Spi in combat (as opposed to death nova all the freaking time). |
LexTalionis
@Outerworld: None at all. If you want to keep your bars like that, don't bother with BiP. I was just answering the question about how to fit BiP on the build, and not why.
Simple Keybind also for PS isn't so hot when Necromancer is perpetually casting Death Nova. That's my problem with it. I usually want PS now, not 2.25 seconds later.
But you're right, this has nothing to do with mesmers, so I'll stop here for the night. Good hunting, folks!
Simple Keybind also for PS isn't so hot when Necromancer is perpetually casting Death Nova. That's my problem with it. I usually want PS now, not 2.25 seconds later.
But you're right, this has nothing to do with mesmers, so I'll stop here for the night. Good hunting, folks!
Outerworld
Quote:
Originally Posted by LexTalionis
Simple Keybind also for PS isn't so hot when Necromancer is perpetually casting Death Nova. That's my problem with it. I usually want PS now, not 2.25 seconds later. He would cancel DN and use PS is how I always observe it.
Plutoman
You should consider that mesmer e-management is inefficient. Regardless of having power drain and WNWN, I consistently see the mesmers run out of energy. At times they pop back up, but I do see them running dry quite often. Particularly with the more copies of the interrupts you get, and again, when calling targets, they focus on one target - there's only so many interrupts to go off. BiP is guaranteed energy when you need it, the AI is pretty smart in using it. In addition, when he drops in health, the AI of other healers/protectors immediately protect him, and then heal him, so the health sacrifice is rarely an issue. The healers (I typically use UA) never run out of energy, either, so a single heal isn't a stretch.
The Josip
Aneurysm seems promising in a team with multiple copies of E-Surge. And it's probably the only way a mesmer can see nice 200+ numbers. Unfortunately it seems that hero waits till enemy energy goes down near minimum, which means he will miss many opportunities for good damage and not use the skill frequently.
HigherMinion
Aneurysm is a very nice skill in this team. I had actually replaced Spiritual Pain with it just after posting. If you're afraid something is going to run out of energy and esurge deal pitiful damage; Aneurysm to the rescue, or a Finish Him! style single-target damage. It's just Discord with an easier condition to meet.
@Lex; I'm not sure if I was clear enough about the suggestions I was after:
Imagine I have BiP instead of AotL. Same Minion Bomber bar, but with BiP in the elite slot. Right. Now we have infinite energy accross the whole team; remove PD/WNWN and what 8 skills would you replace them with?
@Lex; I'm not sure if I was clear enough about the suggestions I was after:
Imagine I have BiP instead of AotL. Same Minion Bomber bar, but with BiP in the elite slot. Right. Now we have infinite energy accross the whole team; remove PD/WNWN and what 8 skills would you replace them with?
LexTalionis
@HigherMinion:
Um, well, you're asking me for my opinion so be warned that it's not necessarily going to be the same as what you might like but -
If you're not a Mesmer and doing interrupts yourself, you might need a bit more disruption in that party, so I'd reserve one slot for the following: Cry of Frustration, Power Spike, Guilt or Complicate (usually inferior to Cry but better against mass casters). It's true that interrupts don't stack particularly well, but they're still very useful especially if you lock different targets. Power Spike is a favourite of mine. Cry/Complicate can also deal with Giant Stomp, but you pretty much have to force it since for some reason, heroes don't like to interrupt this skill. If you have Guilt and Mistrust and about 10+ FC, you can usually completely lock down any caster boss in HM with heroes since Guilt steals rather a lot of energy (though your 2 Mistrusts can handle it). Might have synergy if you use Aneurysm.
As for the other slot, this is completely a cop-out answer, but I usually assign some slots on my charas to "meta slots", and change skills out as needed.
Like um, some areas will be hex-heavy, so I'd put in Shatter Hex, some areas have lots of Dervishes or Orot monks, so Shatter Enchantment would be good spike dps (it doesn't look great, but it has a practical recast of around 15 seconds with 8 FC). Some areas would have barrage rangers and tons of non VoS Dervishes, so Empathy would kill those instantly... at this point in GW's lifespan, I'm pretty damn familiar with Guild Wars' areas and enemy types; so I tend to cheese things by going with counter skills, which mesmers have rather a lot of. Even Diversion or Backfire can be occasionally useful.
BiP definitely has its drawbacks though, the BiP user is really an incredibly high priority target, which is why I'm so addicted to Dark Bond. I can see the appeal of having energy management on all Mesmers instead.
My reason for BiP is not because of SKILLS though. The primary reason I use BiP is so I don't have to go into inspiration at all and can pump FC higher - Thanks to the nature of additive percentages, the higher the value of FC, the greater the effect you're going to get from it per point of increase. At 8 FC, you have a 24% recharge, so Esurge is going to be up around every 11.25 seconds. At 11 FC, 33% recharge would make it up every 10 seconds. At 16 FC, you'd have 48% recharge and that means one surge around every 7.5 seconds (and Guilt will recharge in about 12-13 seconds instead of 20ish at 8 FC. It's kind of a drastic change in gameplay.)
I'm perfectly aware dual superiors isn't usually a great idea, so I usually settle on a happy medium of 2 majors - 14 FC and 15 Domination give pretty good results and less of a HP hit than 1 superior would, though if I was using E-surge I'd probably go 16 Dom 13 FC instead.
Sorry, it's probably not the answer you wanted.
Um, well, you're asking me for my opinion so be warned that it's not necessarily going to be the same as what you might like but -
If you're not a Mesmer and doing interrupts yourself, you might need a bit more disruption in that party, so I'd reserve one slot for the following: Cry of Frustration, Power Spike, Guilt or Complicate (usually inferior to Cry but better against mass casters). It's true that interrupts don't stack particularly well, but they're still very useful especially if you lock different targets. Power Spike is a favourite of mine. Cry/Complicate can also deal with Giant Stomp, but you pretty much have to force it since for some reason, heroes don't like to interrupt this skill. If you have Guilt and Mistrust and about 10+ FC, you can usually completely lock down any caster boss in HM with heroes since Guilt steals rather a lot of energy (though your 2 Mistrusts can handle it). Might have synergy if you use Aneurysm.
As for the other slot, this is completely a cop-out answer, but I usually assign some slots on my charas to "meta slots", and change skills out as needed.
Like um, some areas will be hex-heavy, so I'd put in Shatter Hex, some areas have lots of Dervishes or Orot monks, so Shatter Enchantment would be good spike dps (it doesn't look great, but it has a practical recast of around 15 seconds with 8 FC). Some areas would have barrage rangers and tons of non VoS Dervishes, so Empathy would kill those instantly... at this point in GW's lifespan, I'm pretty damn familiar with Guild Wars' areas and enemy types; so I tend to cheese things by going with counter skills, which mesmers have rather a lot of. Even Diversion or Backfire can be occasionally useful.
BiP definitely has its drawbacks though, the BiP user is really an incredibly high priority target, which is why I'm so addicted to Dark Bond. I can see the appeal of having energy management on all Mesmers instead.
My reason for BiP is not because of SKILLS though. The primary reason I use BiP is so I don't have to go into inspiration at all and can pump FC higher - Thanks to the nature of additive percentages, the higher the value of FC, the greater the effect you're going to get from it per point of increase. At 8 FC, you have a 24% recharge, so Esurge is going to be up around every 11.25 seconds. At 11 FC, 33% recharge would make it up every 10 seconds. At 16 FC, you'd have 48% recharge and that means one surge around every 7.5 seconds (and Guilt will recharge in about 12-13 seconds instead of 20ish at 8 FC. It's kind of a drastic change in gameplay.)
I'm perfectly aware dual superiors isn't usually a great idea, so I usually settle on a happy medium of 2 majors - 14 FC and 15 Domination give pretty good results and less of a HP hit than 1 superior would, though if I was using E-surge I'd probably go 16 Dom 13 FC instead.
Sorry, it's probably not the answer you wanted.
The Josip
Blitzkrieg setup:
9 Command instead of Inspiration. x3 Fallback, x3 Signet rez.
Defensive setup:
9 Prot. x3 Aegis chain. x3 Renew Life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LexTalionis
9 Command instead of Inspiration. x3 Fallback, x3 Signet rez.
Defensive setup:
9 Prot. x3 Aegis chain. x3 Renew Life.
Quote:
At 11 FC, 33% recharge would make it up every 10 seconds
10FC, 40/40 set. Recharges half of stated. (Shatter Enchantment more like 11sec on average, E-Surge more like 8sec, etc). Don't know what sets others use.
If Wisdom used, cca 80% cases - the recharge is halved (someone do the math pls).
If Wisdom used, cca 80% cases - the recharge is halved (someone do the math pls).
LexTalionis
The guide currently isn't comprehensive enough, so I've updated the first post with the following information:
Further notes on the nature of interrupts
Mesmers are for interrupting. This is one of their fortes - however, have you ever wondered why your heroes love letting random Meteor Showers slip through the cracks?
There are two default settings for AI. "In combat" and "Out of combat". It's easy to tell when you're in combat as heroes will start autocasting skills that aren't usually maintained, such as Dervish Avatars and glyphs.
When a hero is out of combat, it will interrupt skills when set on Defensive mode, only provided the caster is in range of the Mesmer and the skill in question targets an ally. This means it will not interrupt preparations, enchantments, forms and so on.
When in combat, the hero will attempt to interrupt most skills that the enemy uses (with occasional random lapses) provided the enemy is the mesmer's current target. In combat, your mesmer always has a current target, even if it is not locked. If Enemy A and Enemy B are casting meteor shower on a mesmer who is currently nuking or wanding enemy C, the mesmer will NOT interrupt enemy A nor enemy B. Note that calling targets will lock every nonassigned mesmer onto the called target.
Interrupt choice: Similiar to nuking, when presented a choice between multiple options, Heroes will use viable interrupts completely at random.
Special cases for AI Interrupts:Power Return: Very short recharge time, the only reason I mention this is because it makes for a good choice if you're worried about the diminishing returns from interrupt stacking harming your ability to interrupt. Leech Signet: Heroes will only use this to interrupt spells and will never use it to interrupt non-spell skills. Signet of Disruption: Heroes will use this correctly if target is hexed Web of Disruption and Power Flux: Heroes use these as if they were normal hexes and will not attempt to interrupt foes with them. Mistrust and Friends: In addition to what has been said about Mistrust-type spells, please note that these cause skill failure and do not constitute interruption. This means that they will not cause the failed spell to initiate its normal cooldown and that they will get around anti-interrupt effects such as Mantra or Glyph of Concentration. Complicate: Note that due to the above behaviour, if your heroes do not blow Complicate simultaneously on the same skill, Complicate stacking tends to severely maim enemy groups when you call targets, since a single Complicate-ed monster will rotate through its available skills. Most enemy skillbars are partially or completely nonfunctional when 1 or 2 of their skills have been locked. (This is usually a good time to hit them with Wastrel's Demise) Many thanks to the groups of Hydras in the Ring of Fire and the silly elementalists outside Fort Ranik which made testing these observations easy.
Edit: This is kind of random and extra (I didn't want to make a new topic nor bump this thread gratuitously) but if you're using an Illusion mesmer, it's kind of possible not to make Assassin Heroes kinda cool (but not very). Generally, you want a Crit Barrage build something like this:
Bring in a 15-16 point Frustration, Splinter and possibly Fragility and call targets. If the targetted enemy drops below 50% health, it's usually dead in about 3 seconds (unless it's standing or running around and not doing anything).
update: Poisonous Bite and Scavenger Strike (or even Dshot) seem to work better, but the main idea is that Frustration and Disrupting Needling churn out ridiculous dps (about 75 damage per needling shot on attackers and 125 damage if it interrupts skills).
Further notes on the nature of interrupts
Mesmers are for interrupting. This is one of their fortes - however, have you ever wondered why your heroes love letting random Meteor Showers slip through the cracks?
There are two default settings for AI. "In combat" and "Out of combat". It's easy to tell when you're in combat as heroes will start autocasting skills that aren't usually maintained, such as Dervish Avatars and glyphs.
When a hero is out of combat, it will interrupt skills when set on Defensive mode, only provided the caster is in range of the Mesmer and the skill in question targets an ally. This means it will not interrupt preparations, enchantments, forms and so on.
When in combat, the hero will attempt to interrupt most skills that the enemy uses (with occasional random lapses) provided the enemy is the mesmer's current target. In combat, your mesmer always has a current target, even if it is not locked. If Enemy A and Enemy B are casting meteor shower on a mesmer who is currently nuking or wanding enemy C, the mesmer will NOT interrupt enemy A nor enemy B. Note that calling targets will lock every nonassigned mesmer onto the called target.
Interrupt choice: Similiar to nuking, when presented a choice between multiple options, Heroes will use viable interrupts completely at random.
Special cases for AI Interrupts:Power Return: Very short recharge time, the only reason I mention this is because it makes for a good choice if you're worried about the diminishing returns from interrupt stacking harming your ability to interrupt. Leech Signet: Heroes will only use this to interrupt spells and will never use it to interrupt non-spell skills. Signet of Disruption: Heroes will use this correctly if target is hexed Web of Disruption and Power Flux: Heroes use these as if they were normal hexes and will not attempt to interrupt foes with them. Mistrust and Friends: In addition to what has been said about Mistrust-type spells, please note that these cause skill failure and do not constitute interruption. This means that they will not cause the failed spell to initiate its normal cooldown and that they will get around anti-interrupt effects such as Mantra or Glyph of Concentration. Complicate: Note that due to the above behaviour, if your heroes do not blow Complicate simultaneously on the same skill, Complicate stacking tends to severely maim enemy groups when you call targets, since a single Complicate-ed monster will rotate through its available skills. Most enemy skillbars are partially or completely nonfunctional when 1 or 2 of their skills have been locked. (This is usually a good time to hit them with Wastrel's Demise) Many thanks to the groups of Hydras in the Ring of Fire and the silly elementalists outside Fort Ranik which made testing these observations easy.
Edit: This is kind of random and extra (I didn't want to make a new topic nor bump this thread gratuitously) but if you're using an Illusion mesmer, it's kind of possible not to make Assassin Heroes kinda cool (but not very). Generally, you want a Crit Barrage build something like this:
Bring in a 15-16 point Frustration, Splinter and possibly Fragility and call targets. If the targetted enemy drops below 50% health, it's usually dead in about 3 seconds (unless it's standing or running around and not doing anything).
update: Poisonous Bite and Scavenger Strike (or even Dshot) seem to work better, but the main idea is that Frustration and Disrupting Needling churn out ridiculous dps (about 75 damage per needling shot on attackers and 125 damage if it interrupts skills).
Aria Frost
How about this solution regarding e-management?
Channelling is optionally there as a cover enchantment to avoid Symbolic Celerity stripping.
Has the drawbacks to being forced /N as secondary prof and may be subject to enchantment removal, but SoLS it's a stackable (and quite reliable) source of energy/healing and also allows for a full 12-12 FC-Dom/Ill spec.
Channelling is optionally there as a cover enchantment to avoid Symbolic Celerity stripping.
Has the drawbacks to being forced /N as secondary prof and may be subject to enchantment removal, but SoLS it's a stackable (and quite reliable) source of energy/healing and also allows for a full 12-12 FC-Dom/Ill spec.
LexTalionis
I've tried it. It's not too great primarily because Symbolic Celerity is a 15 energy skill and isn't maintained out of combat - you're only seeing a 9 energy return per activation, meaning you need to wait at least 16 seconds before you get any meaningful use out of it. BiP is a lot faster.
LexTalionis
I'm quite well aware of the limitations of BiP. What I meant when I said "faster" is that BiP returns 20 or 24 energy over a 12 second period while SoLS would return 9 energy over an 8 second period. One is more than the other.
Also, note that BiP's higher target priority can be abused.
Also, note that BiP's higher target priority can be abused.
bhavv
I've been running a few variations of this triple mesmer setup, and it seems to be working great for me:
I put all my main interrupts on the Domination bar. The elite can be either PI or Panic, both are just as useful to have.
Micromanaging the Domination and Keystone mesmers is easy - You simply target and lock whatever you want interrupting onto the Domination mes, and then you call a different target for the keystone sig mes.
I dont think that the hero AI prioritizes using keystone signet to interrupt, it just spams the signets for the damage, and if stuff gets interrupted then thats just an added bonus, so you just micro and lock the domination mesmer.
The Illusion Mesmer doesnt have any problems with energy management using Arcane Conundrum and WNWN.
These builds are just a general guideline and can be changed however you like. One thing I like to do is to put Prot Spirit, or even Prot bond on the keystone sig mes instead of hex eater signet. Also some people might want the Domination bar to have a res skill, in which case I would drop Power Spike.
Having Complicate, CoF + PI or Panic should be hugely powerful shut down for AI casters, and the Illusion mesmer also helps slow them down with Arcane Conundrum, and ofc eats melee and ranged mobs alive for breakfast.
I tried adding a fourth mesmer mercenary and played around with trying to make something with both Panic + PI plus Ineptitude and Keystone Sig, but I quickly found it very unfavorable without even trying it - damage output and interrupts from two domination mesmers would be very diminishing, and also we all know that hero AI sucks with the wastrels spells.
So I think that Mesmers are just like Necros, 3 of them is the magic number, but then anymore than that creates diminishing results.
I've been running the triple mesmers with two spritway rits, an Invoke elly with Enfeebling Blood + Weaken Armor, and Intensity / Invoke / EBSOH on my skill bar:
Healing is put onto half of the SoS rits bar, and then on the last hero for which I've currently been using UA as I am grinding FoW. One and a half healer, plus prot spirit on the Keystone Sig mesmer is completely adequate for healing with this setup.
I put all my main interrupts on the Domination bar. The elite can be either PI or Panic, both are just as useful to have.
Micromanaging the Domination and Keystone mesmers is easy - You simply target and lock whatever you want interrupting onto the Domination mes, and then you call a different target for the keystone sig mes.
I dont think that the hero AI prioritizes using keystone signet to interrupt, it just spams the signets for the damage, and if stuff gets interrupted then thats just an added bonus, so you just micro and lock the domination mesmer.
The Illusion Mesmer doesnt have any problems with energy management using Arcane Conundrum and WNWN.
These builds are just a general guideline and can be changed however you like. One thing I like to do is to put Prot Spirit, or even Prot bond on the keystone sig mes instead of hex eater signet. Also some people might want the Domination bar to have a res skill, in which case I would drop Power Spike.
Having Complicate, CoF + PI or Panic should be hugely powerful shut down for AI casters, and the Illusion mesmer also helps slow them down with Arcane Conundrum, and ofc eats melee and ranged mobs alive for breakfast.
I tried adding a fourth mesmer mercenary and played around with trying to make something with both Panic + PI plus Ineptitude and Keystone Sig, but I quickly found it very unfavorable without even trying it - damage output and interrupts from two domination mesmers would be very diminishing, and also we all know that hero AI sucks with the wastrels spells.
So I think that Mesmers are just like Necros, 3 of them is the magic number, but then anymore than that creates diminishing results.
I've been running the triple mesmers with two spritway rits, an Invoke elly with Enfeebling Blood + Weaken Armor, and Intensity / Invoke / EBSOH on my skill bar:
Healing is put onto half of the SoS rits bar, and then on the last hero for which I've currently been using UA as I am grinding FoW. One and a half healer, plus prot spirit on the Keystone Sig mesmer is completely adequate for healing with this setup.
Plutoman
How does the ele hero use weaken armor? I've been running into AI issues where the AI prioritizes the other damage skills over weaken armor.
bhavv
I dont think he uses it well at all tbh, it might be better to manually click it.
I would prefer to have Spirit Rift instead for the cracked armor, plus Ancestors Rage + Painful Bond, but I need one of the rits to heal as well since I'm not running heals.
It tears through stuff a lot faster than I can manage when I'm E/Mo protting.
I would prefer to have Spirit Rift instead for the cracked armor, plus Ancestors Rage + Painful Bond, but I need one of the rits to heal as well since I'm not running heals.
It tears through stuff a lot faster than I can manage when I'm E/Mo protting.
Aria Frost
Quote:
Originally Posted by LexTalionis
I've tried it. It's not too great primarily because Symbolic Celerity is a 15 energy skill and isn't maintained out of combat - you're only seeing a 9 energy return per activation, meaning you need to wait at least 16 seconds before you get any meaningful use out of it. BiP is a lot faster.
Please note that with [email protected] SoLS returns 10e per activation. However I should say that I've only briefly tested it having also Channelling and a BiP hero in the party too.
About BiP: it has probably the best energy gain per second. But I think it's too stressful for a single BiP to serve up to 7 mates even though using Unholy Feast with it helps a lot. I'm figuring how turns out using 2 BiPs to split their effort. I'll probably go to test it in the next few days.
About BiP: it has probably the best energy gain per second. But I think it's too stressful for a single BiP to serve up to 7 mates even though using Unholy Feast with it helps a lot. I'm figuring how turns out using 2 BiPs to split their effort. I'll probably go to test it in the next few days.
LexTalionis
@Aria: Unfortunately, I don't usually find going up to 15 FC too practical unless I'm using a Keystone build, which usually has few to no energy problems.
The easiest way to ease the burden on your BiPper (who doesn't really have to be a necromancer) is simply to give him fewer targets that need his attention. My most recent build, for example, runs with a Dwayna Dervish (Never needs BiP), an Assassin (Won't get hit by BiP) 1 SoS ritualist (Rarely ever needs BiP) and thus he only really has to take care of 4 people, which is quite reasonable given that Soul Twisting has decent energy management. Instead of Soul Twisting, I could use an ER elementalist, which has no trouble with energy at all too.
The easiest way to ease the burden on your BiPper (who doesn't really have to be a necromancer) is simply to give him fewer targets that need his attention. My most recent build, for example, runs with a Dwayna Dervish (Never needs BiP), an Assassin (Won't get hit by BiP) 1 SoS ritualist (Rarely ever needs BiP) and thus he only really has to take care of 4 people, which is quite reasonable given that Soul Twisting has decent energy management. Instead of Soul Twisting, I could use an ER elementalist, which has no trouble with energy at all too.