Favorite Mesmer Elites

Which do you prefer?

Ineptitude
Panic
Energy Surge
Shared Burden
Stolen Speed
Psychic Instability
Visions of Regret
Keystone Signet

I can't decide, I feel like bringing e-surge should be replaced for Shared Burden for better crowd control in the harder areas. I've been using Panic, Ineptitude, and Energy Surge heroes for the longest time.
Can anyone recommend the best three Mesmer hero team builds I should use? I know skill placement is important to prevent hex and interrupt stacking.

Panic no question. It's down right evil.

Do you think Panic, Ineptitude, and Shared Burden would be better in Slavers' Exile and HM or Energy Surge in place of the Shared Burden?

Quote: Originally Posted by Green Sscythe

Panic no question. It's down right evil. Panic is only really effective with large mobs, it should be not be used everywhere.

Sadly all the skill police wannabee nubs seem to always call for the PvX build du jour, irrespective of area.

* Slavers I normally take 4x mesmers, panic a few esurges for damage and perhaps keystone or something interesting to back them up.

I understand where you're coming from with Panic is why I think a Keystone might be a better replacement in some areas.

Huge E-Surge fan, Shared Burden is a close second.

Energy Surge is the default elite for all Dom Mesmers. It's not exceptional, but it's solid.
Stolen Speed has too long a recharge.
Psychic Instability is unreliable.
Shared Burden is in Illusion, which is a very barren line. Doesn't help either that it's a debuff that doesn't deal damage.
Panic is OK against really large mobs, mostly weak otherwise.
Ineptitude is weak against anything except primarily physical mobs. There are a few of those around, but not many, and I typically do not use it.

With 3 Mesmers, I'd simply take 3 ESurges, exceptions allowed in certain areas (e.g. Foundry HM, I'd take at least one Ineptitude).

Why don't I see Visions of Regret on that list?

Quote: Originally Posted by Jeydra Energy Surge is the default elite for all Dom Mesmers. It's not exceptional, but it's solid.
Stolen Speed has too long a recharge.
Psychic Instability is unreliable.
Shared Burden is in Illusion, which is a very barren line. Doesn't help either that it's a debuff that doesn't deal damage.
Panic is OK against really large mobs, mostly weak otherwise.
Ineptitude is weak against anything except primarily physical mobs. There are a few of those around, but not many, and I typically do not use it.

With 3 Mesmers, I'd simply take 3 ESurges, exceptions allowed in certain areas (e.g. Foundry HM, I'd take at least one Ineptitude). I think Shared Burden is not a bad choice besides the fact that two illusions mesmers are hard to make use of.

vor is best!

Psychic Instability is by far the most fun.

Shared burden has a pretty obnoxious duration, you can stick it + wander eye on an otherwise dom bar with 6 or 8 points investment.

Depends if you are talking Pve or PvP. PvP i love powerblock, or PD.

In PvE i'm a little old school and like the flexibility echo gives me. I never really liked E-surge. Recharge seems to be a little too high to be useful and does'nt really synagise with much. As someone said above, it's a solid skill but for some reason never really made it onto my bar much.

Panic is nice, as people say for large mobs and is the only skill that gets mesmers into DoA teams..

Truth be told there is no one 'must have' mesmer elite. It's all situational which is for me part of the skill and the attraction as the class. I.e knowing what to use,where to use it and when.

The absence of Fevered Dreams is just unacceptable under the question "Which are teh best Mesmers elites?".

But if you're restricting to those which works best on Heroes, than FD falls down respect most of the others. KSignet isn't that good in AI too tbh.

On player:
Esurge for general use
Stolen Speed when I get the mobs balled =)

On heroes (in this order):
Panic
Ineptitude
KSS
Esurge

Panic. There are a lot of haters for it but frankly it's the best way to deal with OP HardMode mobs, where they just number gank you into the ground.

Shared burden is a favourite too, in areas where there isn't enough melee to justify Ineptitude. Illusion is most definitely not a 'barren line', that's plain wrong. You can still pack wandering eye, clumsiness and signet of clumsiness for melee control whilst slowing down the dps of entire mobs. Furthermore seeing as ALL enemies auto attack (even healers) Ineptitude is useful for aoe, armour ignoring damage in every situation (along with its other anti melee counter parts). It deals damage on par with e-surge and has the ability to render melee mobs useless. All e-surge does is damage, which may work when you're splashing out for mercenary's but pure damage is weak.

Fevered red engine Dreams, Holmes. That elite is just sick.

I remember playing my ranger with Apply Poison + Incendiary Arrows. My mesmer brought Fragility and Fevered Dreams. Six million damage and six million conditions and six million angry mages that can't cast spells anymore.

Then they nerfed Asuran Scan and Glass Arrows and I haven't logged on to my ranger since.

Psychic Instability and Fevered Dreams. Knock downs, daze, and rupts are fun. They're a bit challenging but they're what mesmers could have been from the start. I'd like Stolen Speed, but I don't think people follow my calls.

I tend to just run Panic or Inept for heroes, but I don't really care as much what they run.

^Stolen Speed isn't bad itself, but to get real benefit of cutted cast time you're going to have to rely on spells to do dmg. Mes have alredy FC, Nec don't use those to direct dmg (apart FoC maybe), Rits are better use spirits. Only Eles could benefit really a LOT from SSpeed (due to long cast times) but their dmg is really gimped in HM, so no point using them. Which means no point using SSpeed in most situations.

Quote: Originally Posted by Xsiriss Shared burden is a favourite too, in areas where there isn't enough melee to justify Ineptitude. Illusion is most definitely not a 'barren line', that's plain wrong. You can still pack wandering eye, clumsiness and signet of clumsiness for melee control whilst slowing down the dps of entire mobs. Furthermore seeing as ALL enemies auto attack (even healers) Ineptitude is useful for aoe, armour ignoring damage in every situation (along with its other anti melee counter parts). It deals damage on par with e-surge and has the ability to render melee mobs useless. All e-surge does is damage, which may work when you're splashing out for mercenary's but pure damage is weak. Illusion is a very barren line. Try listing down all the skills which are actually useful in Illusion, and you'll have:

Elite slot
Clumsiness
Wandering Eye
Signet of Clumsiness
Accumulated Pain
Fragility
Arcane Conundrum

And that's it. Six skills, not counting the elite, of which three are dedicated to countering melee and so useless for everything else (remember, Aegis is a superb antimelee skill and you usually do not need more than a copy of Aegis). All enemies do indeed attack, but try using Ineptitude on caster mobs and you'll see how often they actually do attack. Using Illusion Mesmers is typically sinking 12 points into Illusion Magic and then wondering which of the not-very-useful skills you're going to use, completely unlike Domination Magic for example where there are plenty of skills to use and not enough space. How is that not barren?

Also since OP added a couple more elites:

Keystone Signet is too unreliable for damage, not to mention it forces the use of signets and so gives up on the other powerful Mesmer skills (like Cry of Frustration, Mistrust, Shatter Hex, etc).
Visions of Regret is reactive, which makes is rather weak, not to mention its long cooldown and how it stacks with other Mesmer skills in the party.

Shared Burden would be a lot more interesting if it were in Domination Magic, where you can actually back the skill up with good non-elite spells. Since it's in Illusion, I don't think it's worth a second look.

The Hall of Knowledge > The Campfire > Heroes & AI

This is what works best with heroes. I usually run three mesmers and have Panic, Ineptitude, and Energy Surge, but was considering to swap one for Shared Burden for extra shutdown. However, two domination mesmers seem more useful than two illusion mesmers since the only thing I can find that would be a real game changer is Shared Burden on the illusion. Wouldn't skills like Clumsiness, Wandering Eye, Signet of Clumsiness work on casters too? Remember, against AI.