Panic takes on E-surge? A different take on denial

I have been using various forms of energy denial in everything from PvE to all aspects of PvP (RA, TA, HoH). From my personal experience, the 3 core skills that seem to be a must with energy denial are:

1) Energy Burn
2) Signet of Weariness
3) Mind Wrack

The rest is anyone's guess but here is my 50c on it.

E-denial, much like any build really, requires adjustments. There isn't any cure-for-all 8 skill set-up. What is important to understand, however, is that e-denial IS a cure-for-all strategy- everyone uses energy, and everyone can suffer tremendously from denial (yes, even warriors, or should I say, especially warriors ). In other words creating a working e-denial build can be extremely potent in any situation- from countering mass heal to countering IWAY. In a way, e-denial is a mesmer's most potent weapon.

-=- The way I see it, there is two components to energy a mesmer needs to deal with: energy pool (amount of energy an enemy has) and energy regen (pips). Most denial builds are geared towards destroying an enemy's energy pool. In a classic e-pool destruction build the elite is E-surge. It goes something like that:

1) E-surge [E]
2) Power Leak
3-5) 3 core skills
6-7) 2 personal choices (Mantra of Inscr./Sigs, Tap, EL, Ether Feast, etc.)
8) Rez

-=- The other kind of builds are geared towards getting rid of regen and burning as much of the e-pool as possible. These anti-regen-burn builds generally go like this:

1) Wither [E]
2) Malaise
3-5) 3 core skills
6-7) 2 personal choices
8) Rez

Both approaches are very effective but creating a combined build that destroys both e-regen and e-pool could be very tough, mainly because you can only take so many skills off each build without impairing it.

E-surge still dominates denial builds. Mainly because it is fast, has an AoE component to it, and is cheap energy-wise. I think, however, that Panic is much more effecient mainly because it addresses 2 issues E-Surge does not: Signets (Blessed, Devo, Heal, etc.) and IWAY. Of course Panic has it's drawbacks- it costs a lot (25 nrg) and is a hex and can be removed. The build I suggest combines degen with denial and has in my experience proven very effective versus just about anything.

Skill points:
6+ 1 Fast cast
11+ 1+ 3 Domination
10+ 2 Inspiration (3pips EL)
5 Curses (Malaise is quite effective at low levels and this gives me flexibility if the health degen is bothering me)

Skill set:
1) Panic [E]
2) Malaise
3-5) 3 core skills
6) Ether Lord
7) Energy Tap
8) Rez

The basic idea to counter the fact that Panic is a hex is that you can cover it up with a total of 3 hexes: Malaise, Mind Wrack, Ether Lord. To counter the high energy cost, I use EL and Tap. After unloading my skills, I'm left with little energy to work with and depending on the situation I either use Tap, or EL, or combine the two to get a high nrg boost and be able to unload another round when the 1st expires. The fact that Panic punishes Monks for using Devo/Blessed sigs is a blessing, esp. vs bonders.

I used to Panic + dual SoW as well (Mantra of Sigs) which was the anti-IWAY approach. Wars have 0 energy management for the most part and 2pips, Panic destroys the regen and makes their healing sigs useles, dual Sow gets rid of their 20 energy and the rest is a matter of spamming Malaise, Burns, EL and whatever it is you have and just Wracking them, and they won't even have energy to cast IWAY! Surge cannot do that. It's a single target denial skill, the AoE is not all that great.

Bottom line is: e-denial is whatever you make out of it but focusing on only one side of it: the e-regen or the e-pool isn't really efficient. Trying to devise a build that combines both, on the other hand, creates what might as well be a mesmer's strongest point.

Seems a little fragile to me...but I'm gonna give it a try.

Good points, but I still prefer Surge over Panic. Panic has a simply rediculous energy cost that I feel is just as well fulfilled by Lord or continous burning, on a single target. The only place where panic really shines is versus a balled up group, in which case it can essentially demolish their entire energy recovery.

When you slap a monk with surge, you've dealt 80 damage to at least one person. That damage is going to be healed sooner or later, which essentially drains energy from SOMEONE.

They're too viable in different situations to really compare, it's all preference in opposition to a team. Good job detailing the uses.

This is the build I used in CA.

14 domination (mask + major)
14 inspiration (major)
rest into curse then fast csting

halves inspiration recharge cane
halves inspiration recharge offhand
or
inspiration staff +60 health (why? to fight off degen with my -100 hp, running solve alot of direct damage problem)

energy burn
ether feast
panic
ether lord
malaise
backfire
rend enchantments
ress signet (why are we caught up in the re"z"? I am trying to break that flow)

This build worked quite/very decently in the arena.
-Rend and backfire is a must, as I understand that a monk will divine boon, holy veil, CoP almost always. Therefore, I will rend and slap backfire on them before i send in panic malaise ether lord within the next 10 sec of their disability.
-Use energy burn to burn another chunk off and ether feast to drain the rest (ether feast can drain 9 energy in the next 30 sec when energy tap only take 7 at 16 inspiration, this means to me... superior).
-It is very possible for energy tap to over drain, but ether feast can drain as the opponent recharge a bit if he ever or somehow.
-Panic will not be needed the rest of the time as the ether feast will maintain the opponents energy to 0 with the help of malaise.
-Ether lord will be used again as soon as possible.
-Panic will be used again depending on the situation (such as using on a new target or the old target get ress)
-Running from the battle = a must, if the opponent ever target you first... run the hell out before you die, and if you must die... die near your team mates, usually opponent won't bother to go after you again once you die the first time (until their new target just died). Although if I do see you, I will camp near your corpse until you get ress (if I happen to run a damage dealing class).
-Made into team arena with only 3 people on my team got ress sig (no monk) and we also killed a team of 3 monks healing/protecting each other (it didnt last long because they were out of energy quite fast, while another got backfire). Made into team arena again with the next decent team (actually got a monk!) soon after (this time we got hammered by a korean guild team).
edit
-also, use the health degen to monitor the opponent's energy
-if you can, count their energy as they are using skills. Sometimes it is better to use burn first before rend.

Panic is more efficient than E-Surge, but E-Surge is much more versatile.

I'm (personally) sick of seeing Energy Burn/ Surge in energy denial. My greatest problem with it is the fact that that in an energy denial build your burning 1:1 energy (caost 10 energy, steals 10 energy) Granted you deny the energy of someone else that has something more important to do with his energy than go 1 for 1 with you.

I have nothing against people doing it, its just that the interupt & E Denial builds are so similar because there are not alot of skills to complement and go with it. I am looking foward to Ch2 2 see what new skills it brings. And i hope we see alot more signets in the future as well for that matter. And i hope we see alot more signets in the future as well for that matter.

Panic however is a great under used skill, and would be awesome against a Blessed signet Bonder.

Panic + Malaise + Ether Lord (@ 12+ insp.) = -7 energy regen.

That drains 1 energy per second off any caster, while otherwise shutting down their energy regeneration.

Add on the core skills and Ether Tap (hey, you need energy to fuel that Panic, right?), and you've got a solid build.

Can it do a whole lot of damage? Not really, as Mind Wrack will be your biggest source of damage. Does it turn you into a gigantic bullseye? You bet. Does it piss off any who become your target? Oh yeah.

So if I was going strictly for energy denial, then yeah, I take Panic. But if I'm in CA, I'll probably need the damage Surge is guaranteed to give, and I won't always be able to predict the competance of my teammates to protect me from the inevitable angry mob.

On another note... does anyone else miss the days in which Energy Tap and especially Energy Drain were major sources of e-denial? It's too bad they were so horribly nerfed while E-Surge got to sit around without a scratch.

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The thing about Ether Lord is that you should only use it when it's worthwhile- when you are really low on energy and you wouldn't mind sacrificing what's left anyway. Plus you can follow up EL with ETap. That is a really nice nrg management skill combo esp. when you use spells like Panic- spells that cost 25nrg. If you do Panic + Malaise + EBurn + Wrack, that's like 40 energy right there, so you will probably be left with about 15 and you can just ETap after that to kick your nrg up a tag. For the next series you might find yourself lower on nrg, and then EL/ETap might be more acceptable. I love the thing where Panic hits a warrior using Healing Sig or someone who is low on health and uses a Res sig.

another option with panic that you dont see all that often, mainly because the skill isnt used is glyph of lesser energy, sure you dont get malaise to spam around to help kill the regen even more, but you get 10 energy for panic which usually costs 25. combine that with ether lord and you have a pretty competent energy denial build.

i did a E-Denial after reading this thread and didnt loose, just went out for a run and had 5 consecutive in RA. I used panic, ether lord, malaise, burn, weariness,drain enchant, spirit schackles, and res sig. Was VERY effective at degening them quick causing them to stop casting. You can sub drain enchant for power drain, probably work either way. I just thought id share it cause it was real effective taking a toll on the blue bar with -7 energy degen.

cast Panis>malaise>burn>weariness>*drain enchant if using*>ether lord. Then regen with +7 to spirit shackles and cast that and youve got them down and disabled.

Using Malaise or Wither on monks is only going to work in RA. In any kind of decent level GvG or possibly HA they will just swap down to a negative energy set, and remove it before you can blink. Malaise is still fairly viable against Rangers though, and to an extent warriors and offensive casters that tend not to have negative energy sets. Wither is trash beyond salvation, due to taking up your elite slot for minimal shut down.

Why do people take Surge over Panic? Because in anything other than RA you will fighting teams with multiple hex removals on the whole. To build to make Panic viable you need a build based on hexes to cover it.

Surge makes most Monks panic.

Monks : ZOMFAGS, Heal Party !!! ENERGY..NOOO

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Personally, instead of Energy Tap, take Drain Enchantment. Every team uses enchantments (if they don't, you'll blow them over easily anyway).

This thread is actually pretty old. I know I haven't been using Malaise on my Mesmer for quite awhile. I play Panic mostly in hex heavy builds. I like the way Suffering covers Panic. In fact I love the Panic Mes, Hex Necro combo. The Panic Mes does something sort of like I posted originally- either Glyph of Lesser Energy/Panic/Burn, etc. or like Panic/Sigs (SoW/SoH under MoI, and maybe MoS, depends); the Necro does the classic Life Siphon, Faint, Malaise, PB, Suffering, OoB combo. I also take Mindwrack to quick cover Panic on prime target.

I still do prefer Panic to E-surge... because E-surge is more of damage than e-denial skill, Panic is a large-scale e-denial plus sig punishing skill. I know I played Panic in HoH for awhile. Used to work great on IWAY and Ranger Spike- you hit them all with Panic then use SoW a few times and that's it- no more spiking, no nrg for IWAY. Takes awhile to get used to tho.

Anyways, when I play e-denial I mostly play E-surge now. Wrack/Surge type of thing. I do it mostly because I'm too bored from GW atm to actually think when using skills. But yea, now that I read this I might just go make a Panic Mes and mess around a bit in RA. Heck, I can take it to GvG as well. Hex heavy builds are still quite fun in 8v8.

E surge is clearly the best choice.

Surge has a lower energy cost. Nearby aoe so hits multiple targets consistantly for armor ignoring dmg. Can deal dmg and trigger mind wrack at the same time. Can be used for a spike.

Panics energy cost is too high. It only hits adjacent foes very small aoe. Is a hex and can be removed. If reduced to 0 energy mind wrack will not trigger. Mind wrack only triggers when you hit 0 energy if you are already at 0 it does nothing.

The choice is clear.

If you want to comment on something, you sure are free to do so... but lets be fair... Panic hits NEARBY, not adjacent foes; it's purpose is e-denial, not damage, and it does a better job at e-denial than E-surge due to the collateral effect; and... Mindwrack trigger has nothing to do with this...

Panic is 2 nrg degen, that shuts down the nrg regen of a War... and that's about it... on all other chars it's like making them maintain 2 chants... I don't think I need to explain how straining this is on nrg... and that's the purpose of the spell- it cuts the nrg flow, so that you can use nrg destruction skills like Burn and SoW to more effectively get rid of nrg. Malaise will end at 0 nrg. EL is there to serve as nrg management and nrg denial to some extent...

Again, if we are going to compare damage people take... I think a different thread would better address this... No one is discussing damage output of Panic... (reminds me to point out it punishes for use of heals such as Heal Sig and Sig of Devotion) It's the nrg denial we are talking about.

Other things equal, in 20s (the recharge on E-Surge), E-surge destroys 10 nrg on one target; Panic denies about 13-14 nrg on ALL foes who are NEARBY the target. I think clearly Panic is superior nrg-denial wise. As for it being a hex... we might as well just stop using hexes because they are all removable... and while we're at it Monks might as well forget about chants... cause they are removable too... Heck, even stances are removable, !$#% those as well then... You get the point.

I was wrong about aoe range but doesn't change much.

Won't dispute that panic is the e-denial winner if its not removed but that's all it can do. While surge can deal huge amounts of armor ignoring dmg and e-denial. The dmg when they use a sig is not reliable. The target may not a have a sig at all. If they do and they are smart they will call for a removal. Panic being a hex is really want gimps it.

While you spend 25e hitting 2-3 (majority of the time) it only takes 10-15e to remove it (less if inspired hex is used). Since it hits multiple targets you are spending even more energy trying to cover it to make it last. Using your example of Suffering as a cover you are spending 40e for a 2 hex stack on 2-3 targets. Its energy cost makes it not affective. As long as it cost them less to remove the hex than for you to cast its not going to be affective e denial. You are really only e denying yourself.

Panic on 3 targets will deny 19.8 energy over 10 seconds. On 1 target its only 6.6. On 2 targets its 13.2. On 2 targets it will take you over 20 seconds to deny 25+ energy. It will be removed long before that. That is why its not effective e denial it simply cost too much to cast, cover, and takes too much time to justify the cost.

I don't see any problem with the cost really. You just use stuff like Glyph of Energy to mellow it down, or you run your nrg to 0 and then EL/ETap, or you compensate it by using sigs. It being a hex is a drawback that is being countered by it being implemented in a hex heavy build. That was the point I was making earlier. Not that you need the other hexes just for the sake of Panic, instead the sum of it all is enough to ensure it will stay where you want it.

Again, the damage of Surge is nice... but this isn't about doing damage... it's about destroying nrg. I still use a lot of direct nrg destruction skills but it just makes it so much easier to manage your targets nrg when it has -2 regen. That and hitting with dual SoW.

I am not completely dismissing Surge here. I am just pointing out that nrg-wise it is inferior. I still play Surge most of the time out of convinience and laziness. Plus Panic- much like Migraine- isn't good unless the team build is hex heavy.

I will take Panic as an Iway counter; not many other uses for it though. Too easy to counter with hex removal; which is something iway lacks.
(Sig x3=-30 energy,Panic= -2 regen, Panic+Sigs=warriors can no longer cast iway)

Running Panic would require /N or /E secondary to cover hex it. Backfire has no purpose being anywhere near a Panic build unless you can afford to fart out 35 energy. Here are some builds that may offer versatality but lack something:Me/N ~ Denial ~ DegenPanic (E)
Shadow of Fear/Suffering (or both)
Signet of Weariness
Energy Burn
Res Signet
Ether Lord
Ether Feast/Tap
~Open Slot~ (Not Backfire) So what does that give us? Well solid denial and some degen. Its effectiveness is questionable but the degen/shadow doesn't exactly hurt. Point Allocation:
Domination: 14
Inspiration: 12
FC and Curses: Balanced Spread.
Me/E ~ Denial ~ SlowPanic (E)
Deep Freeze/Spikes
Signet of Weariness
Ether Feast/Tap/Glyph of Minor Energy
Energy Burn
Res Signet
Ether Lord
~Open Slot~ Much like the last, Attribute point allocation is the same.

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I've been using Panic in a Hex-Heavy build with my guild. I don't think I'd use it without a lot of cover hexes, and the Panic Mesmer needs to use most of his energy for Panic instead of covering.

I normally go something like: 12 dom, 11 insp, 6 FC. Panic, Drain Enchant, Inspired Hex, Power Drain, rez sig, 3 other skills...some domination, sometimes energy tap.

Together with a necro running malaise gives some fairly nice shutdown.

Again...I would only use Panic in a build that will overload your opponant with hexes. Otherwise, it is just removed too fast. But in a hex-heavy build it is an awesome hex. Besides crippling monks, it effectively slows necro spikers, rangers, and can inconvenience warriors. It's AoE is big enough to catch a number of people...and that makes up for it's 25 energy cost.

You can by no means shut down those two wars completly with that skill alone. This stops all their energy skills, however they still have access to evisricate, and quite a few other adrenal skills + their pet which does somewhat significant damage when you include that they are only investing skill points and a slot to get it (no energy, no adren). Include that they have a necro effectivly doubling their damage output-the warriors are far from being countered or shut down. In the current metagame, there is nothing to shut down basic attacks besides killing the person attempting them; we can highly discourage it (empathy, ineptitude, SS) but we can not stop them-like we can skills/spells via backfire or diversion. So this simply stops iway-it does not by any means stop the warrior.

Er... you can use Soothing Images you know... and SV. If the adrenaline is the problem. The point of what I was saying is to drain the wars dry of nrg so that they can't heal themselves with IWAY. I wasn't talking about shutting down their damage. Necros are more than awesome at doing that. Again, do not ignore Soothing Images... It's a great underused skill.

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They can stop, wait for 2x3 seconds per 2 energy, which comes out to 7.5 seconds to cast Iway against your "protected" foe, and then tap themselves out. Thats why.

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SV doesn't have quite a big enough area of effect to degen a warrior waiting for some energy. Hit a group of them with Panic while they stand together and you've just screwed over half there energy supply. Stick an SS/Malaise necro on the tail of the order/tainted and onto the trappers and they have no energy. No energy means no power boosts, no traps, no Martyr, no chance

I played with a friends guild who ran a build with Panic in it. Can't really remember what else they used.... i was the SB/Infuse and the Bonder on occasions so i never relaly noticed.

I have considered taking this into FoW once, it'd be a nice solution to monk, and warriors. Mass degen on the whole lot while the warriors kill things with Healing Signet.

Which leads me to the question, does Panic trigger AoE cowardice? Is it actually AoE.... the description is a badly worded.

It's like Suffering. Suffering 2 health degen on all nearby to ur target; Panic 2 nrg degen on all nearly to ur target + the sig damage. Suffering and Panic behave exactly the same way. The sig damage is nice, there is a lot of Heal Sigs, Devo Sig, Blessed Sig, SoWeariness in large teams. Looks like it's gonna be even more so in Factions.

As SV is adjacent, I don't think the aoe of it will be a problem. Besides; the pet will kill you if not dealt with ^_^;; and even if the warrior has 0 energy he is still going to kill you ^_~ (40 damage a hit+pet damage=60~dps) If you run, he gets the energy for iway...not a good place to be.

Here you are boys and girls, my old Panic build that works wonders. Switch out E-Tap for Drain Enchant or any other skill you want (E-Tap got nerfed), but the basic idea is still solid. You can constantly spam Panic due to +10 energy pips while keeping at least two enemies at -5 energy pips (unless they remove the hex with something other than CoP, which you Power Leak). This was back in the days when people here dismissed skills like Energy Surge, Energy Burn, Mind Wrack, as poor skills etc.

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