I've noticed a relative paucity of mesmer primary builds floating about, and that fact has got me thinking:
It seems that one of the apparent benefits of going with a mesmer primary character would be for their inherrent skill - fast casting. However, of all the builds I have ever seen with mesmer primaries, not one seems to take clear advantage of that ability. Why is that?
If there is one out there, and somebody could direct me towards it, I'd be very much appreciative.
Best,
Joy Division
Mesmers
Joy Division
Virtuoso
I don't know, at first I didn't really understand why someone would pick Mesmer primary. I, like you, didn't really understand the purpose of Fast Casting. Then, I found this little gem. Manta of Recovery {Elite}. Right there, right then, it clicked. With a combonation of this skill and the actual property of "casting faster", I would be able to pretty much spam all my energy taps and interupts. It gives you the ability to outcast and out play any other caster out there.
Is it better than Energy Storage? That's completely debatable, and in my opinion comes down to the build. There is one thing I do know, though, and that's that I will definately have a Mesmer primary in my lineup.
-Virt
Is it better than Energy Storage? That's completely debatable, and in my opinion comes down to the build. There is one thing I do know, though, and that's that I will definately have a Mesmer primary in my lineup.
-Virt
Insomnia
I like mesmers and mostly i use them as a primary for the runes... I like disrupting things so i always put emphasis on the mesmer lines, so the runes will fit in nicely... A high fast casting attribute owns i think, but except the elementalist, most professions have relatively short casting times for most of the spells, let's say 1 a 2 secs. If i have then have to chose between fast casting and another line, heck i'll pick the other line, it all depends on what you're using or trying to do... But that's just my opinion...
Badenstein
I like the Mesmer. I haven't played one up to Lvl 20. In fact, I got kind of frustrated around lvl 10. I must admit I don't quite have the concept of where a Mesmer build should look like. When I read THX's overview, however, I got a really good focus on where a Mes should go in respects to a general build philosophy. You can read his overview here http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/mesmer-id240.php
I believe, for now, that a Mesmer is sort of a character that has a mixed bag of tricks. While a Warrior has adrenaline and physical attacks and an Elementalist is a nuker, and the monk is a M.A.S.H. unit, the Mesmer is a character that has a mixed bag of weapons. I don't think a Mesmer will ever have one type of attack as their philosopy of skills, for example energy stealing, but I believe that a Mesmer would have some energy stealing, some interruption and some hex/enchantement removal.
A Mesmer might just be a character type that really needs to build the skills based on what opponents they face.
I believe, for now, that a Mesmer is sort of a character that has a mixed bag of tricks. While a Warrior has adrenaline and physical attacks and an Elementalist is a nuker, and the monk is a M.A.S.H. unit, the Mesmer is a character that has a mixed bag of weapons. I don't think a Mesmer will ever have one type of attack as their philosopy of skills, for example energy stealing, but I believe that a Mesmer would have some energy stealing, some interruption and some hex/enchantement removal.
A Mesmer might just be a character type that really needs to build the skills based on what opponents they face.
Cain
I recently starting playing Mesmers and they're so much fun to play. There's so much a Mesmer can do and there's a lot of micro-management involved. I started out playing an interrupter/shutdown then tried energy denial and now I'm making a combination of the two. Mesmers when played properly can make or break the battle, especially against the top alpha teams. I think the best part of playing Mesmers are the "Mesmer Duals". These usually involve two Mesmers "in a stare down trading wand attacks back and forth until one of you make the first move" as quoted by Freyas. It's usually the one that makes the first move that loses, but I've come back a few times and have had people come back on me. It's really hard to explain but a lot of fun. You'll encounter these battles in the arenas because the teams are smaller. There are a lot of well respected and feared Mesmers in the alpha test and they truly can turn the tide of the battle. I'm not one of them, but I'm working on it. 
mostro
This thread has quite a bit of discussion regarding fast casting towards the middle of the first page and onwards.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...p?t=738&page=1
I think the general consensus was that fast casting offers a diminishing returns so 8 or so seems like the balance point for the attribute.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...p?t=738&page=1
I think the general consensus was that fast casting offers a diminishing returns so 8 or so seems like the balance point for the attribute.
Badenstein
Thanks for the link mostro. I think the aspect of Fast Casting that is overlooked is that the Mesmer appears to be a "Riposte" style of character. That is, I am responding to someone else's actions and I am trying to stop what your doing. So the speeding up of a spell is so that the Mesmer can beat you to the punch. That is how I take it. I know there are many Alpha players at this site, so what they say bears some significant weight. On the other hand, many of the Mesmer's skills are 1 second cast and most people don't see the need for Fast Casting. What I'd like to see is a comparison of the skills of other professions. What percentage of skills in the other professions are 1 second? Taken that way, is the genius of Fast Casting in that I can beat even a one second cast to the punch?
mostro
You're welcome Badenstein. I am guessing if your build has a lot of 3+ second cast spells then it may be worth it to crank FC a little higher. Otherwise keep it around 8 or so. The problem with FC is that it does not affect aftercast, so faster spells do not get affected as much as the slower ones.
Now, FC would be extremely beneficial (and probably unbalanced) if you can sneak in spells like backfire or diversion when you see the enemy casters starting to cast their spells. However these spells are only triggered on activation, not completion. So FC does not help in this case.
Now, FC would be extremely beneficial (and probably unbalanced) if you can sneak in spells like backfire or diversion when you see the enemy casters starting to cast their spells. However these spells are only triggered on activation, not completion. So FC does not help in this case.
Cain
Quote:
Originally Posted by Badenstein
Thanks for the link mostro. I think the aspect of Fast Casting that is overlooked is that the Mesmer appears to be a "Riposte" style of character. That is, I am responding to someone else's actions and I am trying to stop what your doing. So the speeding up of a spell is so that the Mesmer can beat you to the punch. That is how I take it. I know there are many Alpha players at this site, so what they say bears some significant weight. On the other hand, many of the Mesmer's skills are 1 second cast and most people don't see the need for Fast Casting. What I'd like to see is a comparison of the skills of other professions. What percentage of skills in the other professions are 1 second? Taken that way, is the genius of Fast Casting in that I can beat even a one second cast to the punch?
There's actually a number of skills that take less than a second to cast with the latest updates. Reversal of Fortune for instance, I believe takes 1/4 of a second to cast. It's almost impossible to interrupt this spell unless A) You can forsee the future or B) you got lucky. It's hard to interrupt a spell if your interrupt spell takes longer to cast than the spell you're trying to interrupt. Mesmers eat Elementalists for lunch, while Monks and espeically other Mesmers can be difficult to interrupt.
mostro
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cain
There's actually a number of skills that take less than a second to cast with the latest updates. Reversal of Fortune for instance, I believe takes 1/4 of a second to cast. It's almost impossible to interrupt this spell unless A) You can forsee the future or B) you got lucky. It's hard to interrupt a spell if your interrupt spell takes longer to cast than the spell you're trying to interrupt. Mesmers eat Elementalists for lunch, while Monks and espeically other Mesmers can be difficult to interrupt.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the latest update only enable fractional cast time to be displayed. I don't think they changed the actual cast time of these spells. Previously RoF may already be at 1/4 sec cast time; it's just that the game round of the display to 1 sec.
Yeah, elementalist spells are usually a lot easier to interrupt than monk spells. With practice I can interrupt orison pretty reliably now, but RoF is a different story.
Yeah, elementalist spells are usually a lot easier to interrupt than monk spells. With practice I can interrupt orison pretty reliably now, but RoF is a different story.
Badenstein
Quote:
Originally Posted by mostro
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the latest update only enable fractional cast time to be displayed. I don't think they changed the actual cast time of these spells.
I am confused. Are you saying that cast time that are under one second, be they from Fast Casting or not, are rounded to one second? I am confused.
Dovi the Monk
*cough* arcane conundrum *cough*
this little speel helps any interupting mesmer and is even pretty good at lower lvls of illusion magic. all there skills take twice as long to cast, this little beauty makes interupting mesmer interupts much easier. plus with my lvl of fast casting my interupts are .17 casters, lol.
this little speel helps any interupting mesmer and is even pretty good at lower lvls of illusion magic. all there skills take twice as long to cast, this little beauty makes interupting mesmer interupts much easier. plus with my lvl of fast casting my interupts are .17 casters, lol.
mostro
Quote:
Originally Posted by Badenstein
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Dovi the Monk
*cough* arcane conundrum *cough*
The only problem with arcane conundrum is that it requires you to invest in Illusion, which people may not want to do (my mesmer/necro was domination/inspiration/curses).
And we all know that a real man does not need help from Arcane Conundrum anyway 
Badenstein
After the discussion here:http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=896
It appears that interruption isn't as easy as I first thought it would be. I have always looked at Fast Casting as a way to make interruption more of a threat. After reading the link though it appears Fast Casting is best for getting spells off faster. If you add the Matra of Recovery, which speed up the recast at the cost of energy, then Fast Casting gets more potent. For now I'll just make a Ranger to do the interrupting. The Mesmer will just do a little of this, and a little of that.
mostro
Well, mesmer interrupts are not bad. Most of the time when you use power spike, power block, power drain, or power leak you are really aiming for the secondary effects anyway, not the actual spell interruption. The fact that secondary effects still work during an aftercast definitely helps because it give you a .75 sec buffer to work with. And like Dovi said, you can always use conundrum/migraine to help with your interrupt timing.
Fast casting does not really make you interrupt better. Practice does though. With enough practice you can have a decent reaction time and also recognize that most monks have rhythm when they spam heals. I think mesmers actually interrupt spells better than rangers, but that's just me... Insomnia
Quote:
Originally Posted by mostro
I think mesmers actually interrupt spells better than rangers, but that's just me...
Well i agree on that one, having a 0.25 sec interrupt owns i think. I think ranger's fastest interrupt is 0.75? (correct me if i'm wrong plz), and you have to calculate the time the arrow needs to hit target as well. So in general, i think its easier to interrupt spells with a mesmer.
Cain
Quote:
Originally Posted by mostro
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the latest update only enable fractional cast time to be displayed. I don't think they changed the actual cast time of these spells. Previously RoF may already be at 1/4 sec cast time; it's just that the game round of the display to 1 sec.
Yeah, elementalist spells are usually a lot easier to interrupt than monk spells. With practice I can interrupt orison pretty reliably now, but RoF is a different story. It's possible. Healing Hands had a fractional casting time for quite a long time now and only recently shows it. I stand corrected. ~Allknowing1~
whats a beta and u know i was at best buy lst week and guild wars was on the shelf!
mariano
In my view, Mesmers are not good at interruptions, the best are rangers, with a single skill "Distraction shot" which in my view is the best interruption skill of the game at present.
If Distracting Shot hits, it interrupts target foe's action but deals only 1-13 damage. If the interrupted action was a skill, that skill is disabled for an additional 20 seconds. energy 5, cast time 1/2s, recharge 10s. Double take: that skill is disabled for an additional 20 seconds! and DS interrupts any type skill, and has 10 seconds of recharge time only. DS does interruption + diversion. Non of the mesmer's interruption skills are intended just to interrupt, but to cause damage, to drain energy or to get energy, and most of them are specific for spells, have long recharge times and are energy costly; if a mesmer wishes to be an interrupter then she needs to put several skills in her bar. I think the mesmer shares some characteristics with monk and some with necromancer. Their more specific hability is energy deniyng and their rol is as debuffers; weakening attacks, weakening defenses, dissuading from doing something on time and inducing to do something off time.  I do not know for sure how much usefull is Fast Casting, but, I have not found yet a build based on Fast Casting other than a build of only Blood Magic + FC or a build of only Air Magic + FC, else Fire Magic + Fast Casting (a japanese guild was using these two). I am not yet sure of the following, for example, if starting to cast Backfire, after an Elementalist started to cast some long casting time spell, to end casting Backfire before the elementalist ends, does this elementalist casting trigger Backfire, or does not. what do you think? |