Mesmer Basics

Why channeling? Air spells are best used at a distance, and channeling won't help that. You might want to replace it with drain enchantment, power drain, energy tap or leech signet. you aren't thinking, how many times have you ever been able to stay way from your opposing w's mo's and other classes, once the fight starts, noone thinks of keeping distance therefore making channeling useful. to proove my point ill use one of my battles as an example: with channleing i ussually stay at 25-30 energy, without it the battle is the same as experiencing energy degen of 0.75 thats a 4vs4 battle, in 8vs channeling is a lot more useful

I was all set to try and make an Illusionary Weaponry build before a guildmate gave me some helpful insight. As a monk, she says casters make the worst tanks because of their armor, requiring any monks to pay more attention to them and less to the party as a whole.

As much as I liked the look of Rogue's armor on a female Mesmer, I thought about the Ranger I've been playing. Rangers get pretty good armor, and have good defensive skills like whirling defense, throw dirt and dryder's defense. Also, they only have 5 points and one arrow of regen less than a Mesmer primary, and that much more than a Warrior primary. Therefore, I propose the following build:

Ranger/Mesmer

Illusionary Weaponry
Sympathetic Visage
Phantom Pain
Tiger's Fury
Troll Unguent
Throw Dirt
Whirling Defense
(open slot)


Also, anyone know where to get Illusionary Weaponry? It's not bad, but you end up dealing less damage as you are limited to 12 Illusion. You have no snare and no speed buff at present, which could make it tough when people run from you. Rend Enchantments neuters you for an extend time. You have a period of low damage between uses of Illusionary weaponry. There are only a few possible enchantments to cover your IW, I think you've chosen the best of them honestly; illusion of weakness is dangerous/pointless once you are in combat, so isn't a good choice and illusion of haste is short duration, and would involve repeated castings - you'll want a Wa/Mo or someone to put a little covering enchantment on you most likely.

Warrior gets sword special skills which allow cripples and such; I suspect (I don't know though) that you could deliver poison with your enchanted weapon (it depends on whether they are struck for no damage or whther they aren't actually struck) rather than use phantom pain - since you'll have points in WS anyway for your Troll's Unguent you can try Apply Poison and see whther you can deliver a condition with your weapon - it'd be more damage than a phantom pain really, you could spread it around if needed - including using a no requirement bow to deliver some poison before engaging.

There are more and more ranger/mesmers being made, but playing IW mesmers involve being very single-minded; running up and using blackout on your target, and attacking. Mesmers are better at casting debuffs/hexes before they charge in, but rangers take hits better and have a constant 12TF (bringing me back to my previous question). I really don't know the answer to that question, I'm afraid. My strategy would be more like, run up and blind my target, so I can still use my skills if need be. What's 12TF, anyway? I don't know this lingo.

Yeah, I know. I just thought it'd be funny to grab something like Barrage from a passing Ranger and spray my enemies with poison arrows Barrage removes all preps, including apply poison.

Ende you'll eventually be able to switch secondaries -for the moment, play to your secondary. mesmer/monks are great rezbots, mesmer/eles can nuke somewhat, and mesmer necros can use some aoe.

yea, pre-searing is a breeze with a mesmer. two points in illusion and you get a 4 sec phantasm which does it for the most parts. but for me the problem starts later. i'm a lvl 15 me/n with points in domination, inspiration and blood (some fast cast as well) and i'm having a hard time being effective in pve. in arenas i do well, shut down, energy and life stealing. but when i get to the wilderness i'm just hopeless. i don't deal enough damage, enemies don't care about backfire and fire anyway (dying in the process but when there are 4 skeleton sorcerers, one less is hardly noticable), my energy stealing is nice but it's not real damage, and hitting that one lightning orb or whatever with power leak/spike/whatever, doesn't matter, they cast again and i'm waiting on the cooldown... while my fellow teammates kick ass on the battlefield i feel that wiping out the enemy instead of hindering his whatever, will hinder him better.

now i love it in pvp, but i do want to finish the game with this guy. i want to be somewhat effective fighting monsters. right now i feel like i'm the weak link in the party, easily and preferrably replaced with an all bashing w/mo, or an all nuking 3 button pyromancer.

please help me out, i can change skills, i can change attributes, hell, i can even start again with a new secondary (even though i like this character). any advice would help, as long as it involves skills i can get (can't do much with the power drain/virulence builds).

thanks in advance. I play a Mesmer/Monk as my second main character (Ranger/Ele the other). My Mesmer is almost totally Domination. My stats at level 19 are something like this:
Fast Cast: 9+1 Rune = (10)
Domination: 11+1 Hat +2 Rune = (14)
Healing: 4
And a few points in Illusion/Inspiration because they won't go anywhere else.

My skill bar for PvE usually looks something like this:
Power Spike (Interrupt + Damage)
Power Drain (Interrupt)
Energy Burn (Damage)
BackFire (Anti-Caster)
Chaos Storm (AoE damage)
Empathy (Anti-Warrior)
Shame (Anti-Offensive Caster)
Resurrection (Monk rez)

I find that with this build, I can run missions (with a group) fairly easily. Yes, I don't deal a lot of damage, but as you mention, using two interrupts plus Backfire plus Shame on those Chain Lightning whatever-they-ares, can really help keep the damage down so the monk can do their job and keep everyone alive. Interrupt one Chain Lightning, target next, interrupt Chain Lightning, target next, Shame, target next, BackFire, then back to the original one and beat on him and wait for energy recharge.

Using Energy Burn at Dom.14, I can deliver around 100 points of spike damage instantly if the need arises to get finish something quickly. Chaos Storm is also good for all those critters grouped up around the tank or monk.

Empathy is good against Minotaurs and such that have very high rates of attack. My empathy does around 30+ damage per attack I think.

One skill I switch out every now and then is Power Drain. I'll go for a Leech Signet (even with no points) or Cry of Frustration sometimes. That allows me to interrupt Troll Unguent or Healing Signet to help out against those warrior/ranger bosses, Jungle Trolls, etc. It really helps bring them down fast if you keep them from healing themselves.

Or, if we're going through some necro/mesmer monster areas, I'll bring along "Remove Hex" or "Shatter Hex" (Shatter is good, it does around 120 points of damage to all enemies around your ally).

Don't bother doing energy-denial builds in PvE in my opinion. Monsters seem to have near unlimited energy in my experience.

Maybe some of these ideas will help you. I really think that when Mesmers get really high up (Level 15+) you should be focusing on one attribute (like elementalists) and making sure you have at least 12 in that attribute.

These are just my observations though. "Your mileage may vary."