Best AP caller?

In short, I've been messing around with AP lately. Testing a few different builds on a few different characters. Trying to figure out which one does the best overall job as an AP caller. And perhaps making a list of all classes with pros and cons after.

Hoping some others will chip in here with some pros and cons lists for their professions. Since they exist in almost infinite variety. Might burn myself here but only including the ones that I concider actual contenders. And I also concider alternative builds and variety a factor since having a character that is effectively tied up to a single type of build in order to stay effective is no fun. Alternative builds must be hero friendly, meaning that it must be a build you would want to play as a player character in a hero team.

And though I have not mentioned it in the pros and cons, effectiveness when AP gets stripped should also be a factor. Aka are you just standing there doing nothing if you mess up or are you still going to be contributing to the teams efforts?

Fully aware the lists of pros and cons is incomplete ATM but i will edit the main post later.


Assassin
Pros:
Variety of builds and higher level Deathly Arts, AL 70.
Can run any secondary effectively.
Can effectively run melee builds as well, even AP ones.

Cons:
Using secondary professions for damage can often be subpar to using primaries.

Elementalist
Pros:
Large energy pool
Allows for both strong single target and strong AOE, helping to finish off targets.
Can bring utility such as KDs
Can use several different builds (Air, Fire, Earth and Water are all viable)
Several other viable builds for variation

Cons:
Lack of effective cover hexes
Needs attunement and GOLE for energy management

Mesmer
Pros:
Fast casting
Double EVAS build
Easy and effective cover hexes
Several other viable builds for variation
Can remove protective enchantments

Cons:
Active Energy management (presuming you use aspicious incantation)


Monk
Pros:
Access to both offensive and defensive AP builds, such as Aegis Chaining, AP bonding
Low energy recuirement
Signets penetrate spell immunity

Cons:
No effective cover hexes

Necromancer
Pros:
Several viable AP builds
Soul Reaping
Easy cover hexes
Can bring Necrosis over YMLAD or FH
Can do good AOE damage
Can remove protective enchantments

Cons:
Slow casts

Ritualist
Pros:
Explosive Growth, Boon of Creation and Spirits gift works with AP
Very good when stuff dies fast

Cons:
Vulnerable to enchantment removal (slow recasts)
Massive lack of single target damage to help spike

Probably either Mes or Nec for best. Eles ran it because they had shit all else (not sure if thats even changed), and likewise for Monks. Can't say I would ever feel to the need to even run the Rit or Sin varient.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gabs88
Assassin
Pros:
Variety of builds and higher level Deathly Arts, AL 70.
Can run any secondary effectively.
Can effectively run melee builds as well, even AP ones.

Cons:
Using secondary professions for damage can often be subpar to using primaries.


Necromancer
Pros:
Several viable AP builds
Soul Reaping
Easy cover hexes
Can bring Necrosis over YMLAD or FH
Can do good AOE damage
Can remove protective enchantments

Cons:
Slow casts
When i was getting GWAMM on my dervish, i ran AP bars with discord hero's almost everywhere, wasnt exactly the greatest option for a dervish.

Lately ive been title hunting on my sin, and when i have run AP bars on him, it seems really underpowered in terms of outside damage, I feel people make this one out to be something that it is not, Necro on the otherhand i think is one of the best AP callers in the game and has been the most effective in my experiences. But hey, everyone has their opinion xD

Power-wise it boils down to Necromancer Vs Mesmer, MoP vs 2x EVAS. Which is better is very situationally dependant. MoP is useless against low numbers of strong enemies, but balls to the wall awesome against large groups. Would give the edge to Necromancer for most of PvE myself, since I feel the loss of 2x EVAS isn't too much of a burden even in small group areas.

A/Me is just a Me/A without Fast Casting, overall weaker but not significantly so.

Rit is fairly meh. Spirit's Gift/Explosive Growth aren't that reliable with enemies moving all over the place, even when they do work they don't make up for not having what Necro or Mesmer has. The condition removal is cute but conditions aren't important unless its dazed.

Elementalist has nothing useful.

Monk isn't really an AP-spike build, merely a defensive build that utilizes AP. Running AP offensively is impossible without good energy management, which monks do not have.


As far as build variety goes, every class has infinite build variety so long as you are ok with crappy builds. Most of the time you use AP you only use a max of 1 or 2 non-PvE skills anyway, so all AP builds end up playing 95% the same between the classes (other than monk).

Crappy builds are not real options though. Btw, Necro is pretty darn good with AP / Death too. Probably better then AP / Curse cause of bigger AOE

I must be missing the death magic skill that can do 500 AoE damage with a single casting, could you point it out to me?

For the most part, I think the Mesmer variant is inferior to the Elementalist; as good as EVAS is, I don't think the advantages of two copies are that large.

Rit AP builds are nearly hopeless. I can't think of a particularly good reason to run AP on a Monk either.

The Necro bar is something of a special case, since it's effectiveness really depends on outside factors; i.e. your team composition. If you're running with multiple physicals (ideally humans but whatever); it outstrips the others by a mile; in a caster ball (most hero setups), the Ele and Mesmer variants likely outdo it, even with minions.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kunder

I must be missing the death magic skill that can do 500 AoE damage with a single casting, could you point it out to me? It's not about what it can do it's about what it does.

Putrid Bile, Putrid Explosion and Deathly Swarm has huge AOE and when youre calling targets they die fast. Mark of pain on the other hand might do 500 damage, but it's adjacent AOE and it doesnt always work.

Both builds are viable but Death will affect more enemies which help over time.

Quote: For the most part, I think the Mesmer variant is inferior to the Elementalist; as good as EVAS is, I don't think the advantages of two copies are that large. EVAS does 500-600 damage in one cast over the lifetime of the sin. That's flat out insane for a single spammable skill.

Even if we assume that the sin doesn't live 15s, about 300 damage is done in the first 3s due to the combo, and the sin dying means it soaked up at ~600 damage that would have gone to something else. So if we take that it does 300 damage and prots 600 health at the same time with one cast, thats just as enormously impressive.

In actual play its probably even better, with AoE enemies often wasting their attacks that would otherwise do 1000s of damage cast on your hero ball, and the sin living more than 3s on average (other than the first one, more reason to bring a 2nd copy).

So yeah, I rate EVAS pretty high lol.
Quote: The Necro bar is something of a special case, since it's effectiveness really depends on outside factors; i.e. your team composition. If you're running with multiple physicals (ideally humans but whatever); it outstrips the others by a mile; in a caster ball (most hero setups), the Ele and Mesmer variants likely outdo it, even with minions. Simply arming the caster ball with spears gets a pretty good amount of damage, and minions can usually trigger it a good 2/3 times a second, assuming you cast it correctly. And don't forget that the EVAS exists, double striking sins rocks.

Lol, if you can get damage in the 2000's from MoP then sure, go ahead and use it. xD I would too. But II think that's very far from beeing realistic

In either case both options are totally viable with both advantages and disadvantages. I just believe that in most situations a Death Chain will outperform Curse Chain. Actually not even importaint so lets just agree to disagree. Because both chains are good

MoP chain: MoP, Rigor, Barbs, YMLAD, EVAS, AP, FH
Death Chain: YMLAD, Putrid, EVAS, AP, FH, Putrid Explosion. - Add in Deathly Swarm if you gotta wait to finish target.

Other then that your numbers for EVAS and other stuff generally seem somewhat overexaggerated but as long as I get your point it's no big deal.

Necro is definitely the best, with soul reaping and massive AoE damage to compliment the single-target spike.

You're definitely underrating Eles though, you don't need an attune to manage energy unless you're playing very poorly, Maelstrom is hilariously good, and wards against KD / Melee are amazing as well.

Mesmers with CoF / Arcane Echo with their Fast Casting will always be a top contendor, but I still think Necros come out on top by far.

Quote: Originally Posted by Icy The Mage

You're definitely underrating Eles though, you don't need an attune to manage energy unless you're playing very poorly, Maelstrom is hilariously good, and wards against KD / Melee are amazing as well. Is this true for other builds then Water spec though? And do you use GoLE instead then?

Quote: Originally Posted by Gabs88

Is this true for other builds then Water spec though? And do you use GoLE instead then? Every build is pretty much AP --> YMLAD! --> EVAS --> FH! + 4 other skills

On Ele I usually take GoLE, Maelstrom, Aura of Resto + another skill (usually a ward).

No experience with the other builds, but real pros for Elementalists should be high single-target and AoE damage with ability to focus on either if required, GlyphSac Meteor Shower, and GoLE being excellent energy management (especially with the Attunement).

Weaknesses are no cover hex / hex to break Hex Breaker (although you CAN run something like Enduring Toxin if it becomes critical), and you spend a lot of time casting GoLE (as opposed to passive energy management from Soul Reaping).

I've never understood why Necros don't just run Desecrate and Defile Enchantments to mimic AP Air, minus having to use GoLE and the fact that Curses has plenty of hexes to go around. So something like MoP, Defile and Desecrate, and Weaken Armour or something.

I imagine the big drawback with Mesmer AP bars is that they don't have that much single-target burst damage. Where Eles can use Lightning Orb + Chain Lightning, both of which deal fine single-target damage, Mesmers are stuck with stuff like Spiritual Pain and Unnatural Signet, not exactly appealing. The extra EBVAS takes some setting up to field, too.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kunder

Single target burst damage on mesmer aint bad at all, and you get triple KD with it too. And you can spec in to either Illusion or Domination magic to fit the bill.

You also have to account for fast cast. Making the prep time significantly shorter

Necro, easily. I have tried it with many more and necro wins quite simple due to SR.

Necro. Especially when running Markway. The advantages of spamming MoP for impossible AoE damage along with a strong single-target spike is stronger than any other team.

Sry for bring up an old thread. I just got my mes doing AP but I not running with the general AP --> YMLAD! --> EVAS --> FH because PvE title is pretty low for her.

For now I only cast AP on target with HP below 50% marker. Currently running AP|Auspicious incantation|echo|Evas|CoF|LeechSignet|UnaturealSig net|Arcane Mimicry(copy esurge). Its working pretty good can pump out a good number of Evas (even tho my rep isnt even at L5 yet). It about 4-5 on average vs non charr and 6-7 vs charr. Think the best was 9 so far.

Just want to know how fast does YMLAD + FH help with AP? Is it worth it for me to put sometime in to get those two skill.

YMLAD and FH are two of the most powerful PvE skills in the game. You can run without them but they seriously increase the power of AP builds. The power increase is so great that they've completely displaced any alternative PvE skills for me - the teambuilds I use can certainly use EBSoH for example, but I can't use it because YMLAD and FH are stapled onto my bar.

In the case of a Mesmer it's possible Cry of Pain is more powerful than FH, but likely not YMLAD, and in any case you should try out both variants. Go get both. They're too powerful to give up.

Quote: Originally Posted by Xenomortis

For the most part, I think the Mesmer variant is inferior to the Elementalist; as good as EVAS is, I don't think the advantages of two copies are that large. I have tried both and actually find the Mesmer variant to be far superior to the Elementalist due to Arcane Echo. Max EVAS stays around for awhile.

It is easy to get level 20 EVAS with only rank 5, but the Me/A build in gwpvx was discarded due to their usual politics that has "destroyed" (i.e. voted down) several effective builds.

High fast casting and Deadly Arts build (6+1 to inspiration):

AP
Fragility
Arcane Echo
EVAS
Cry of Pain
FH
Auspicious Incantation
<optional>

I have run AP builds of Necro, Mesmer, and Ele for more than a year. So far, the mesmer comes up on top of the rest, even before the mesmer buff. After the mesmer buff, my mesmer gets more DPS from this build than those under current gwpvx.

Even though Auspicious Incantation is an active energy management, the mesmer fast casting makes this workable. If only Eles would cast as fast as a mesmer and the ele doesn't have anything close to CoP. Don't forget that CoP is a mesmer spell so even if AP happens to be removed, fast casting would also recharges it sooner.

As for Necros, I would vote it to second place. MoP damage is great but the problem with MoP is you have to ball your opponents and unless you are playing with another human melee who is good with balling, you are not going to get much balling skills from mere hero AI.