Best *type* of shutdown mesmer

Interupts, energy denial, hexes, other?

I like energy denial for shutting down a caster.

As a monk, energy denial is the type I hate the most. Hexes I can take, but not having someone energy drain me with an arcane echo-ed energy drain and then hit me with energy tap/burn.

As for shutting down monks, I'd say Interupts are the worst... they not only ruin the spell you were casting but also make you lose the energy you put into that spell. Backfire (I consider that an interupt instead of a hex.. it doesn't let you cast) is really one of the worst spells I can face when I'm playing my monk. It usually stops me from healing for a few seconds, so I'm completely open to damage (as is the rest of my party if I'm the primary healer).

As for everyone else, I'd say energy denial. You can get away with not casting for a few seconds due to backfire, but if you're out of energy, you're just about screwed. Especially if you use a lot of spells with high energy cost.

My personal favourite anti-caster mesmer runs 11/10/10 domination/illusion/inspiration and uses arcane conundrum, power block/spike/leak, diversion and arcane thievery.

You can always carry another stance to end frenzy prematurely if they catch on.

you forgot to mention

constant blackout. although it is a hex spell, however... it is a hex that you can not remove.

blackout isn't a hex, it's a skill . The best shutdown is diversion in my opinion.

With my War/Mez the 2 spells I am carrying around ATM are Power Leak and Diversion.

However, on my Ele/Mez, Air Wiz I usually lead off with backfire before I DD.

Tsunamii Starshine

Why not mixing them up a bit? And then use different types of shutdown versus different target?

For target 1: Hex

1/ Backfire/Blackout/ Diversion/ Cry of Frustration

For target 2: interrupt/ Mana denial

2/ Power Block/ Power Leak/ Power Spike/ Energy Drain/ Energy Tap/ Power Drain/ Energy Burn

Problem; that's too many elites and too many skills

For target 1; you're looking at fast caster/spammer profile or elementalist with too large a manapool that you got no hope to ever empty...

For target 2; slow caster, protection monks with too many enchantement to maintain.

My choice:

Blackout/ Backfire/ Diversion. Recharge is 10/20/5

Power Block/ Power leak/ Power Drain. Recharge is 30/20/25. Then the main issue for handling the second target is slow recharge time + not that efficient Drain.

So far, it's Domination (mainly) and Inspiration.

For a 7th skill, I'd either go for Arcane Echo (illusion ) to duplicate a slow recharge Power Drain. Or a simple energy Tap. Arcane Echo might be a bit tough with a spell like an interrupt. Hum... Well, Energy Tap just looks better, and it's a drain that does not need a spell to get active. But then energy tap is soooo slow... that it does not feel that good with interrupt build.

Tough choice

I'd go for: Backfire 1st target, the switch to second target, interrupt whatever on the second target (I'd use Power Block first, then Power Drain, Leak is last), after 10 sec, switch back to 1st target, blackout it, waiiiitttt (and anyway you got to wait since your interrupts won't refresh anytime soon).... get some energy back, backfire will refresh again soon, back to second target, etc...

Now that would be sweet, sweet dreams. truth is; enemy mesmer will look at you as a first target and chances are your first backfire will get interrupted... From there it all goes down to drain, then warriors invite themselves for lunch and you're soon dead

Or at least that's how it goes in my limited experience.

Louis,

As a healing monk, I can assure you that nothing makes my life harder than increased recharge times.

With energy denial/backfire, I heal less. A couple of distortions/distracting shots, and I can hardly heal at all. Of course, timing it to hit my spammables isn't easy, but that's half the fun.

Eeek, what am I saying. Ignore all of the above. What you really want to use on me is Empathy. Yep, that's right. Honest.

/whistles

Its been my experience that skills dont matter as much on a Mesmer as timing,target management(selection/prioritization) and positioning.

Here is what I currently carry on my Mesmer/Monk for Tombs/HoH. It changes depending on who I'm running with at the time. I dont play a Mesmer in GvG.

Backfire,Diversion,Shame,Blackout,Chaos Storm,Power Block, ,Leech Signet,Restore Life

You'll know you've invited a bad mesmer when the primary target doesn't go down quick enough or if they dont know what "off,odd or even monk" means.

I disagree. The heals I use most often are fairly short casts, so I would think they would be risky to try to interrupt. If you do, you've cost me 5-10 energy and a second and a half. Of course, if you do hit with a power block, it will be pretty devistating to have no healing prayers spells for a long while.

Energy draining is the best route vs. monk I think. Most times I don't even notice I'm being drained until all my juice is gone, and even if I did notice there's nothing I can do about it unless I carry spell breaker for my elite to give me a brief reprieve.

Elementalists have the high costs and the generally longer cast times, so they'd be the prime interrupt targets I'd think.

what does "off,odd or even monk" mean?

Just so I don't play a bad mesmer

I will have to agree with the monky here. Having experimented, and gotten my timing quite good, at some point, you run out of interrupts and have a few seconds of watching the monk heal him/herself up to ful to start over again.

Power block being the exception. Hitting that on a heal, and you are all good.

I have been experimenting with energy denial. Seems to be working well. Also, I beleive this in the end frustrates the player more and causes them to make more mistakes on a mechanical level since they are spamming waiting got the 5 or 10 energy.

It's all about the mind game baby. =)

CM

Someone else asked, but I'll ask too: What do these mean?

No point in telling people they are bad because they don't know something and then not educating them!

(There are bad mesmers because no one has taught them how to be good!)

This post is a great example of why most guilds won't use pick up mesmers. But hey, keep doing what you are doing. You are just making life easy for me as a monk.

I also play a mesmer when I want a break from being a monk. If you can't get on a target and cause it to cast ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THE ENTIRE BATTLE, and harass a second target at the same time you aren't doing your job.

*sigh*

Do we kneel when worshipping at your feet or just bow our heads and throw money?

Backfire gets removed so fast it's not worth it without a hex cover. Mind Wrack is a good cover.

Why?

Because they suck. I expect a mesmer to get on a monk, or whatever for that matter, and shut it down (ie the topic of this post). If it isn't doing that, then it is worthless.

It is a very simple concept boys and girls. If you are playing a shutdown mesmer and you can't shutdown said monk or whatever 100% (barring outside influences, we all know mesmers are nice squishy targets) then you aren't doing your job, and you are just another weak link to your group..... I mean, is that really too much to ask?

You said this post is an example of why you don't bring pick up mesmers. I then asked you why this post is such a good example and you said because most mesmers suck. That doesn't make sense.

And I think it pretty much goes without saying that a mesmer should be shutting down a caster.