What do you shutdown mesmers (PvP) use for your skills?

Personally I'm quite torn between what skills to use as an Anti-caster/shutdown Mesmer.

This is how I have it so far.

Energy Surge - For mass damage (72 if I get all 8 energy from the caster) on the caster + energy sappage and potential damage to all enemies around.

Ether Feast - Because sometimes the monks aren't enough. Also it drains energy.

Conjure Phantasm - 8 seconds of 5 Health degen? That's uh...quite a bit of damage.

Wastrels Worry - Just intermediate damage so I'm not useless while other skills are recharging.

Energy Tap - Straight forward. I need energy and they have it.

Shatter Enchantment - removes Healing Breeze, seeds, etc while doing 83 damage.

Spirit Shackles - So they have no energy for a while.

Backfire - Shuts them down for 10 seconds unless they remove it but they still incure 119 damage doing so.




Now I can't decide if I should use Inspired Enchantment (takes 10 energy, gives me a 'new' spell to use, and recharges 5 seconds quicker (20 seconds), and gains me 2 energy but does no damage) over Shatter Enchantment.

The other problem is I can't do anything to actually disrupt a caster. I was thinking either power spike or leak (spiek deos 86 damage, leak takes 22 energy) but not sure what to replace it with.

Any ideas?

First of all, ditch spirit shackles. It's doesn't work against any decent caster, since he will almost always notice it. Anyone who doesn't notice shackles, won't notice backfire and will kill himself in 3 or so casts, anyways. Plus, you want them to have energy in the single digits so that you can steal/burn it.
I would also avoid taking shatter enchantment. Enchantments are simply too easy to replace, and with your 25 second regens, you're basically taking an 83dmg spell that costs 15 energy and recharges hellishly slow. Not worth it.

I would take arcane conundrum and 2 interrupts. The idea is to use backfire and energy drains to disable the caster. When backfire is down, throw arcane conundrum and start interrupting him. He won't be able to get anything off, and even if he does, it's gonna take him a long time to do it. When conundrum runs out, your backfire should be back up, so recast it and repeat. Always try to cover backfire with conjure phantasm to prevent it from getting removed.

Ok I took off spirit shackles and you're right, now that I think about it I do rarely use it.

I also replaced Energy Tap with Power Leak because not only does Power Leak interrupt them but it also drains almost twice as much power (22 vs 12).

Not sure bout taking Arcane Conundrum though. REason being it only lasts 10 seconds (with 7 illusion magic).

And I like shatter enchantment not just to strip their enchantment, that's certainly a benefit, but it's also to do a good deal of damage very quickly. I have man times finished off a monk with shatter because they often have a bond, or healing breeze, or some other enchantment and they'll be low on health about to heal and then BAM, they're dead.


Does Fast Casting really do all that much, make that big of a difference in casting speed? I have 11 ranks in it but thinking some of the points could be better used in Illusion magic.

I'd say balance it out, lose one or 2 points in your fast casting and make up for it with a minor rune. 10+1rune fast casting should give u ample extra points to use vs. 11 fast casting. Or heck, go 9+1 or 8+1. I love runes ^_^

Diversion
Backfire
Arcane Thievery
Inspired Enchantment (for speed, like you said) or Desecrate Enchantments

The rest is pretty much for being a nuisanse to warriors if I'm a necro secondary, otherwise I'm packing healing breeze, resurrect, and signet of midnight.

You don't have to do damage to shut down a player. I personally think diversion is better in long fights than Power Spike/Power Block. Your target can continue to cast even if you interrupt them with your long recharging skills, but you've knocked their health down a bit (or not if their healers are awake). If you make it so they've got most of their healing spells waiting to recharge in 40 seconds thanks to the faster recharging Diversion, you've pretty much made that player worthless to their group.

Diversion, Blackout, Power Block are good disruption spells.

I find that diversion and arcane thievery rely a little too much on luck, since a good monk can easily spot diversion and cast something he doesn't need (it happens more often than you'd think). But if you catch him off guard, diversion can be really useful.

As for fast casting, I'm really undecided as to its value. Mine is currently at 8, and while it is wonderful to be able to shave a second off of 3 second casts, most of my skills are tied to domination and have quite quick cast times. I'm really finding it hard to decide between pumping up fast casting or a secondary profession attribute like smiting or curses. It seems fast casting is only marginally useful, since mesmers don't often rely on stacking tons of hexes in as little time as possible.

I had a thought the other day... what about using Life transfer + epidemic.. in theory if you had even 2 people grouped close this would destroy them and give yourself mass regen in the process

Assuming your part necro you could switch surge out with life transfer and shackles with epidemic and then you may not need ether feast and could possibly put an interupt or something else there

Life Transfer is a hex, Epidemics only work with conditions.

So Life Transfer + Epidemics = nothing.

What's the difference between Guilt and Shame?

Guilt: For 4-9 seconds, if target foe casts an offensive spell, the spell fails, you steal 5-12 Energy from that foe, and Guilt ends.

Shame: For 4-9 seconds, the next time target foe casts a spell on an ally, the spell fails and you steal 5-12 Energy from that foe, and Shame ends.

I thought shame would work vs. monks since they themselves would be considered "an ally", but I swear I've had shame cast on me and interrupt a hex I was casting on an enemy, so it seems like shame is doing the same thing guilt is. Does it have to be my ally or the target's ally?

One is for allies, one is when they cast on foes. So a monk would be better off (or worse considering) with shame, but an ele would be better off with guilt, since they are more likely to fulfil the criteria of the skill.

Here's what I use...

Power Spike, Power Drain (Leak?), Shatter Enchantment, Energy Burn, Backfire, Blackout, Ether Feast, Energy Drain

I concentrate on monks and other spellcasters. If a warrior is chasing me, I typically use Blackout on him, run and wait for my team to help. Obviously my skills are geared toward spellcaster shutdown.

My mesmer/monk setup is - Migraine, Power Spike, Power Leak, Diversion, Arcane Thievery, Illusion of Weakness, Energy Tap, Vengeance


I run 11/10/10 in the three major mesmer lines, with one point of fast cast ( plus runes).

I throw a Migraine on monks so that they want to heal themself/remove the hex, then use my two interrupts. If I land the Power Leak I follow up with an Energy Tap to keep them low on energy, before dropping a diversion. I usually save Arcane Thievery for a) monks who are under heavy fire, to disable one of thier heals (hopefully Healing touch); b) enemy domination mesmers in the hopes of snagging their Backfire, or other central skill. Basically anything I steal from mesmers is useful, given that I'm specced in all three lines.

I love Diversion.