A few months ago a few guildies, friends and I did a couple of all mesmer FoW runs. After the success of these, the intention was to go and try an all mesmer UW team.
The Team composition was
2Xheal/prot hybrid monks with prot spirit and aegis
1X prot monk, but not bonds
1x air snare ele, with a small amount of nuking
1X domination and denial Me/E with nuking
1X Me/N with SS and energy drain and interupts
1X Me/W with IW and stances(not a 55)
Freed Labrynth reaper
Freed vale reaper and did spider quest.
Did Escort of souls
Cleared Smites
Freed twin serpent reaper and did slayer quest
We also patrtially cleared Chaos plains with 5 but as it was getting late we decided to do univited guests for the easy XP
I really, honestly expected us to just be able to clear the chamber given the rules we set down of no 55 and trapper builds. But as can be seen below we did pretty well, only not completing 4 quests(free all reapers(we did'nt do 3), ice King, 4 horsemen and imprisoned spirits. The greatest enemy was time, as people had to leave before we could do all of them. The chaos plains were fun with 5 mesmers, but in truth it was pretty easy as so long as the monks could out heal the degen, the mindblades could lured into small groups and wanded to death.
In short I have been with many good balanced teams that were harder work than this.
A few things would need to be tweaked in the build but basicially the theory was to use conditions and snares to deny melee damage to the team, interupts and denial to stop the largest damage spikes and finally Aoe to ensure we could kill them faster then they could us.
Huge Thanks to all those who took part, it was the most fun I've had for ages
All Mesmer Underworld Expedition #1
Shanaeri Rynale
BlackRecluse
i guess this proves it once and for all. mesmers are the best ever. PM me at Lady Paradon next time you do it, im always up for this kind of stuff
sh4ft3d
Lol. Nice job.
Rayne Nightfyre
That is downright awesome. If you ever need another Mesmer, definitely send me a whisper! 
Edit: oh yes...
Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackRecluse
Edit: oh yes...
Quote:
i guess this proves it once and for all. mesmers are the best ever.
/quoted for truth. 
sno
I'm willing to bet Avarre could do it with 2
edit: is that firestorm in your bar? >.<
edit: is that firestorm in your bar? >.<
Rayne Nightfyre
Quote:
Originally Posted by sno
I'm willing to bet Avarre could do it with 2
Of course, but where's the fun in that?
Mesmer x8 parties ftw!
Of course, but where's the fun in that? Mesmer x8 parties ftw!
Two April Mornings
that is one of the coolest gw things
mesmers ftw
mesmers ftw
Sentao Nugra
Quote:
Originally Posted by sno
I'm willing to bet Avarre could do it with 2
dont expose our secret plan!
i mean *insert dodgy emote here* ........
dont expose our secret plan!i mean *insert dodgy emote here* ........
Alberic
Quote:
Originally Posted by sno
edit: is that firestorm in your bar? >.<
/me sees no Firestorm...
Nicely done!
Nicely done!
jonnybegood
Just how many of u have Fow armor?
Dav85
Quote:
Originally Posted by jonnybegood
Just how many of u have Fow armor?
i see 2 fow armors in the pic
pm me if u want to do a full mesmer thing again
pm me if u want to do a full mesmer thing again
Veneficus
There is 3 full FoW's, and 2 Semi
Il post more pictures later
Il post more pictures later
Avarre
Quote:
Originally Posted by sno
I'm willing to bet Avarre could do it with 2
Me and Sentao are testing to 2-man mindblades, if what we're planning works, we'll be able to video the UW challenge
Only worried about collateral degen while gathering them, if I can stay alive till then it shouldn't be a prob.
Nice job anyhow, but your skillbar is... *cry* Domination, fire, water, illusion, and fast casting?
Question... why is one of the mesmers enchanted and wearing normal armor in the first pic with the party bar hidden, and later wearing FoW armor?
Me and Sentao are testing to 2-man mindblades, if what we're planning works, we'll be able to video the UW challenge
Only worried about collateral degen while gathering them, if I can stay alive till then it shouldn't be a prob.Nice job anyhow, but your skillbar is... *cry* Domination, fire, water, illusion, and fast casting?
Question... why is one of the mesmers enchanted and wearing normal armor in the first pic with the party bar hidden, and later wearing FoW armor?
Jiao Yang
Nice job guys.. I wont say I can play mesmer for you because im on European servers, but that looks really fun.
Shanaeri Rynale
Sounds good Avarre. We were tempted to go low health, or trapping builds, but wanted to try and replicate a full balanced team as possible. If we had gone a 55/trapping or a 'trick build' route then it would have kinda lost the spirit of what we were trying personally to do.
Yeah it's a hella weird skill bar, but in an all mes team you have to expect it - lol. It's also important that everyone's build dovetails in, so individually people would go what the hell is that there for, in the context of the team buld tho it makes some degree of sense.
Tbh in later runs I would remove distortion and replace with mantra of resolve, and swap frozen burst for blinding flash
So yes a very wide spread, but my purpose here was'nt outright damage tho it had to learn towards that, but to provide enough time via blinds and snares for the damage dealers and monks to keep everyone alive.
I'd mentally worked out the amount of time we'd need stuff blinded and snared so arranged my attrs accordingly. There no point in snaring something for 10 seconds if they are dead in 6 for example.
As for changing armors, Only a mesmer can appreciate the answer. Her armor was dirty(smite goo gets everywhere) and she needed a clean set...
P.S we are on euro servers.
Yeah it's a hella weird skill bar, but in an all mes team you have to expect it - lol. It's also important that everyone's build dovetails in, so individually people would go what the hell is that there for, in the context of the team buld tho it makes some degree of sense.
Tbh in later runs I would remove distortion and replace with mantra of resolve, and swap frozen burst for blinding flash
So yes a very wide spread, but my purpose here was'nt outright damage tho it had to learn towards that, but to provide enough time via blinds and snares for the damage dealers and monks to keep everyone alive.
I'd mentally worked out the amount of time we'd need stuff blinded and snared so arranged my attrs accordingly. There no point in snaring something for 10 seconds if they are dead in 6 for example.
As for changing armors, Only a mesmer can appreciate the answer. Her armor was dirty(smite goo gets everywhere) and she needed a clean set...
P.S we are on euro servers.
Avarre
Not sure what you needed blind for though... a stance mesmer with ripostes can solo aatxes, so if say, you had a mesmer with bonds to put on tank you could probably trim your skillbars slightly.
Asplode
Wow, that's... domination, illusion, fire, air, AND water in your bar, and I imagine you didn't neglect fast casting either :O
Shanaeri Rynale
Yup we could certainly change things about.
Blind's were'nt for the stance mesmer really, they were for everyone else. We knew aggro would be weird so blinds and snares were a fail safe in case Me/W died and the melee mobs bunny hopped to the casters
We had multiple redundancies built in, which may not be the optimum in efficiency, but in an experimental set up, with the potential of err 7's etc happening(we had one) it's often better to go for overlaps than be short in a critical area.
Avarre, If you are on the Euro servers i'd love to team sometime
Blind's were'nt for the stance mesmer really, they were for everyone else. We knew aggro would be weird so blinds and snares were a fail safe in case Me/W died and the melee mobs bunny hopped to the casters
We had multiple redundancies built in, which may not be the optimum in efficiency, but in an experimental set up, with the potential of err 7's etc happening(we had one) it's often better to go for overlaps than be short in a critical area.
Avarre, If you are on the Euro servers i'd love to team sometime
Avarre
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale
Yup we could certainly change things about.
Blind's were'nt for the stance mesmer really, they were for everyone else. We knew aggro would be weird so blinds and snares were a fail safe in case Me/W died and the melee mobs bunny hopped to the casters
We had multiple redundancies built in, which may not be the optimum in efficiency, but in an experimental set up, with the potential of err 7's etc happening(we had one) it's often better to go for overlaps than be short in a critical area.
Avarre, If you are on the Euro servers i'd love to team sometime
Ugh, I'm on USA
In terms of fail safes... generally an illusion mesmer can stand against any melee single-mob aggro breach (Distortion ftw). As for a larger split... switch something for ice spikes, so that if the tank looks like they are in dire straights, they can slow the whole mob pack in case the tank goes down. Frozen burst isnt great for the proximity of it..
If I was running a tank, I'd set to something like:
16 illu, 12 tactics
Ineptitude {e}, shield stance, defensive stance, distortion, deadly riposte, riposte, healing signet, watch yourself.
Killed aatxes with that... basically it's the same rules as Racthoh's solo aatxe build, only you use ineptitude and distortion to cover more.
Definitely a bonder to support that, as well as 2 healers (err7 redundancy).
From there, i'd add 2 dom/illu mesmers (shatter hex, ineptitude, distortion, backfire, empathy..) and 2 insp/fire (meteor shower + glyph of energy, rodgort invoc, spirit of failure, inspired hex, etc).
That would be my plan, would probably work. Only way is to test..
Blind's were'nt for the stance mesmer really, they were for everyone else. We knew aggro would be weird so blinds and snares were a fail safe in case Me/W died and the melee mobs bunny hopped to the casters
We had multiple redundancies built in, which may not be the optimum in efficiency, but in an experimental set up, with the potential of err 7's etc happening(we had one) it's often better to go for overlaps than be short in a critical area.
Avarre, If you are on the Euro servers i'd love to team sometime
Ugh, I'm on USA In terms of fail safes... generally an illusion mesmer can stand against any melee single-mob aggro breach (Distortion ftw). As for a larger split... switch something for ice spikes, so that if the tank looks like they are in dire straights, they can slow the whole mob pack in case the tank goes down. Frozen burst isnt great for the proximity of it..
If I was running a tank, I'd set to something like:
16 illu, 12 tactics
Ineptitude {e}, shield stance, defensive stance, distortion, deadly riposte, riposte, healing signet, watch yourself.
Killed aatxes with that... basically it's the same rules as Racthoh's solo aatxe build, only you use ineptitude and distortion to cover more.
Definitely a bonder to support that, as well as 2 healers (err7 redundancy).
From there, i'd add 2 dom/illu mesmers (shatter hex, ineptitude, distortion, backfire, empathy..) and 2 insp/fire (meteor shower + glyph of energy, rodgort invoc, spirit of failure, inspired hex, etc).
That would be my plan, would probably work. Only way is to test..
Vermilion Okeanos
Now kids, say it with teacher... "Mesemer-pwn-j00-all!"
^Above is the kid version^
Real version is...
"Thou shoult fall before the might of Lyssa!" (say it with an accent)
^Above is the kid version^
Real version is...
"Thou shoult fall before the might of Lyssa!" (say it with an accent)
Shanaeri Rynale
Sounds a great Build Avarre, we'll steal it and test it next time
poohbeargotstung
mmm mesmer goodness :P
Veneficus
As for the changing armour sets, and being enchanted...when the photo was taken, i was wearing collectors top (male), and had just cast Prot Spirit on myself :P, then i changed to my FoW top after the picture was taken
Few more pictures:
I had alot more, but they didnt seem to come out well
Few more pictures:
I had alot more, but they didnt seem to come out well
Maxiemonster
You can 3-man the whole UW with 3 Memsers if you'd like, it's just quite slow, but possible
Veneficus
Probably using a 55hp build
sno
Interesting build Avarre, but what about bonettis? Bonettis might be needed to keep your energy up, with all the loss from casting distortion over and over, plus the -1 per hit. Just a thought
Avarre
I didn't have much trouble (besides the 200 damage hits) when I tried soloing, using this order :
Ineptitude, shield stance, wanding... 2x ripostes, ineptitude, defensive stance, wanding... 2x ripostes, repeat.
crimson carapace stance shield, collector customized max illusion wand (20% illu recharge), collector stance sword.
The purpose of distortion was mainly if i got hit during def stance, and needed to use healing signet (which cancels it), I could use that as a buffer evade stance. Since shield stance was buffed, both last more than long enough to maintain such a cycle indefinitely. However while soloing, you... er... die in 2 hits... which means there is a low but noticeable chance of dying without a chance. I prefer to avoid bonetti's because of the adren cost and the weakness of mesmers - just after you fire 2x ripostes, you're down 1 adren from what you were before, so there's a high chance of dying while wanding for that last strike.
Of course, with a bonder using 2x bonds, damage would be reduced to around... 60-70. Not a concern from aatxes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maxiemonster
Ineptitude, shield stance, wanding... 2x ripostes, ineptitude, defensive stance, wanding... 2x ripostes, repeat.
crimson carapace stance shield, collector customized max illusion wand (20% illu recharge), collector stance sword.
The purpose of distortion was mainly if i got hit during def stance, and needed to use healing signet (which cancels it), I could use that as a buffer evade stance. Since shield stance was buffed, both last more than long enough to maintain such a cycle indefinitely. However while soloing, you... er... die in 2 hits... which means there is a low but noticeable chance of dying without a chance. I prefer to avoid bonetti's because of the adren cost and the weakness of mesmers - just after you fire 2x ripostes, you're down 1 adren from what you were before, so there's a high chance of dying while wanding for that last strike.
Of course, with a bonder using 2x bonds, damage would be reduced to around... 60-70. Not a concern from aatxes.
Quote:
You can 3-man the whole UW with 3 Memsers if you'd like, it's just quite slow, but possible
Calling BS on that till I have proof... it took 7 hours and was painfully difficult for Sno/Jerry/Gwen to 3man it using 55monk + backup SB + SS necro. With 3 primary mesmers you wouldn't last on the chaos planes, regardless of 55 or fullhp, or be able to survive Feasts of Corruption from dead threshers.
Tip for veneficus : I'd drop eDrain and ether tap for Mantra of Recall and Inspired Hex. I play healer mesmer for friends occasionally, and I found those usually hold my energy in good levels continuously, as well as giving you some hex removal.
Calling BS on that till I have proof... it took 7 hours and was painfully difficult for Sno/Jerry/Gwen to 3man it using 55monk + backup SB + SS necro. With 3 primary mesmers you wouldn't last on the chaos planes, regardless of 55 or fullhp, or be able to survive Feasts of Corruption from dead threshers.Tip for veneficus : I'd drop eDrain and ether tap for Mantra of Recall and Inspired Hex. I play healer mesmer for friends occasionally, and I found those usually hold my energy in good levels continuously, as well as giving you some hex removal.
Ajantis
I see lots of familiar names in that screenie
Looks more impressive then the 8-mesmer fissure team
Nice work
Looks more impressive then the 8-mesmer fissure team
Nice work
Veneficus
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avarre
Tip for veneficus : I'd drop eDrain and ether tap for Mantra of Recall and Inspired Hex. I play healer mesmer for friends occasionally, and I found those usually hold my energy in good levels continuously, as well as giving you some hex removal.
I havnt ever played Protection Mes before, so i wasnt sure what skills to take , next time we go (*hint shan*) Il try a different build, with your suggestions, plus mend condition i think.
, next time we go (*hint shan*) Il try a different build, with your suggestions, plus mend condition i think.
striderkaaru
sorry... did you guys go to uw or a dinner party?
=P
j/k. nice job.
=P
j/k. nice job.
Veneficus
Quote:
Originally Posted by striderkaaru
sorry... did you guys go to uw or a dinner party?
=P
j/k. nice job.
Bit of both tbh, we stopped for a cookie / doughnut break a few times
=P
j/k. nice job.
Bit of both tbh, we stopped for a cookie / doughnut break a few times
Lord Mendes
so this is what u crazy kids were doin that night we couldnt get a guild HA team together.
Nice job anyway... Nice to see so many familiar faces.
Mendes
Nice job anyway... Nice to see so many familiar faces.
Mendes
boxterduke
Nice as always Shan, I would have loved to join but real life chores prevented that.
Anyway Mesmers are FTW
GJ everyone
Anyway Mesmers are FTW
GJ everyone
BlackRecluse
im on european servers, im still up for it
Leijah
Was great I must say. As easy as with some balanced guild group. I'm absolutely in when we are going next time.
While in UW we noticed that some builds might need some minor changes, but now that we know better what skills we need, next trip will be even more easier. This trip supposed to be just experimental anyways... It just kinda got out of hands (and the build worked a lot better than we had expected)
We had also one illusion mesmer with us. I dont know if she used any secondary skills, but her secondary was necromancer...
(Shan! How could you forget Lij from that list?!)
While in UW we noticed that some builds might need some minor changes, but now that we know better what skills we need, next trip will be even more easier. This trip supposed to be just experimental anyways... It just kinda got out of hands (and the build worked a lot better than we had expected)
We had also one illusion mesmer with us. I dont know if she used any secondary skills, but her secondary was necromancer...
(Shan! How could you forget Lij from that list?!)