Are you SURE you want E-Surge with that?

By the way, could you Echo a res signet? Never tried it...if you can, that makes it a strong choice. Echo does work on Res Signet, but you have to know - while you're ressing the first person - that you'll be needing a second res within twenty seconds. It's a more limited use than you might think at first.

there is also another option of using arcane echo instead of echo and than keeping surge or using the glyph. the downside will be that it is limited to spells and you must use the arcane echoed spell BEFORE you use any NON SPELL skill. but it does save you the elite slot... Arcane echo is a waste of a skillslot on a mesmer. There are so many skills that don't waste your energy and can be used much more frequently. With arcane, you're getting an extra couple casts, but at the expense of a lot of energy, and then when it ends you're down for 30 seconds. With the glyph dom build you can totally shut down a smart monk (one who doesn't cast through diversion or shame) forever. Glyph shame, cast diversion just before it ends, and then glyph shame again, eventually his team will either die or he'll start casting, which will screw him over even more

Arcane echo is a waste of a skillslot on a mesmer. There are so many skills that don't waste your energy and can be used much more frequently. With arcane, you're getting an extra couple casts, but at the expense of a lot of energy, and then when it ends you're down for 30 seconds. With the glyph dom build you can totally shut down a smart monk (one who doesn't cast through diversion or shame) forever. Glyph shame, cast diversion just before it ends, and then glyph shame again, eventually his team will either die or he'll start casting, which will screw him over even more I once went 54 in TA with 2 mesmers running an archane echo/surge build, a SS necro and some nub monk...what was his name again?

Hopefully this will start an interesting discussion, being that E-Surge / Burn mesmers are the default choice of people doing PvP at the moment... I'm prepared for someone to completely junk my idea with something I've missed, but I've had such great feedback from my last two posts I'm looking forward to it.

OK, so you're running a Surge Burner. Can I safely assume that your build looks something like this?

(assumes usual 16 Dom, rest between Fast Cast and Inspiration as you like)

1. Signet of Weariness
2. Energy Burn
3. Energy Surge {E}
4. Mind Wrack
5. flexible
6. flexible
7. flexible
8. Res Signet

Choices for flexi slots are depending on taste, but usually some from Diversion, Shatter Enchantment, Drain Enchantment, Power Leak, Power Drain, E-Tap etc. (my build actually included Ether Feast as our guild is very GvG naive, and poor overloaded monks would occasionally leave me to fend for myself...I'm glad I had it but am looking forward to junking it as team experience rises.)

I'd like to question whether E-Surge is really worth the Elite slot. It's identical to Energy Burn in every way, but adds AoE damage to nearby foes...nice, but is an extra 80 damage to (possibly) a few party members every 20s THAT much of a headache to the monks? (Also, not infrequently I get it wrong and burn off less than the full energy, hence less dmg but lets gloss over that) My idea is instead to take Echo which might lead to more flexibility in the heat of battle. It will cause less damage, but bear with me through some scenarios...

1. You're in energy burning mode. Weariness, Echo, Burn, (echoed) Burn...same job has been done as if you had E-Surge only minus AoE. If there's a cluster of casters, maybe copy Weariness instead, causing area energy denial....ouch.

2. Annoying pair of boon prots are protecting each other. Get a ranger on one of them while everyone focuses on the rest....a few spells will undoubtedly slip past the ranger and get applied to his poor colleague under assault. Weary and burn the targetted monk...by this time he'll probably be enchanted to the back teeth...double Shatter Enchantments would cause a major headache.

3. Diversion on your skillbar? What a great skill...a successful double casting of this (ie 2 skills disabled) would cause big problems, but even on the casters who cleverly wait it out...you could copy Diversion and be ready to slap the second one on as soon as the first has expired. Bet they wouldn't expect that!

4. Want to carry only one energy management skill? Echo sorts out that problem nicely. Double Drain Enchantments for example, thank you very much. If you like to carry Energy Tap for use on a wracked, depleted monk...you can do it twice in quick succession (you wouldn't want to use E-Burn or Surge in this situation as it would be a waste)

5. If you like Power Leak in your build, you can cause serious mayhem to a slow-casting necro or elementalist. Double Power Leaks would tap them out of all energy in seconds, leaving one useless member of staff. Don't forget they lose energy of spell they cast, plus another 27 for each cast so even those with the highest levels of Storage would be ruined...Of course you have to be good at interrupts, but if you can't do a necro or ele then you should give up your interrupting career I just laugh when I see a Meteor Shower going off, lets face it you can go take an actual shower at the start and be back in time to interrupt them at the end...I can't believe people still take this with them into GvG.

6. In fact it works great for any interrupt, not just Power Leak, let's face it we all miss sometimes! But if you don't, double Power Spikes are 200+ dmg, Double Crys must be very annoying for the other team...go ahead and ruin their spike all by yourself. You know you want to.

I do realise the big problem with this build...it lacks AoE and just isn't as strong damage wise as a build with E-Surge. Also Echo recharge is 30s and gives you 20s window to use copied spell...you might not get as good skill recycle as with using Burn and Surge together. If you're quick, MAYBE you could get 2 copied Burns off...I'll have to go test this out.

Looking forward to your comments! you could also use archane echo instead of echo/glyph, and keep e-surge anyway.
X2 esurge+X1 e-burn+X1signet of weariness (archane echo+power-block is also a bucketload of fun)

I once went 54 in TA with 2 mesmers running an archane echo/surge build, a SS necro and some nub monk...what was his name again? When we ran that build it was specialized though, surge was used as spike damage, and worked quite well. Sure it has use when it's well-coordinated, but overall I'd say arcane echo can be better replaced by something else

Echo does work on Res Signet, but you have to know - while you're ressing the first person - that you'll be needing a second res within twenty seconds. It's a more limited use than you might think at first. surely you would use up the echoed signet, then save the real one for when you need it?

surely you would use up the echoed signet, then save the real one for when you need it? To get an echoed signet you'd need to have used the original

After extensive testing, I think Glyph does work a bit better. There are instances where Echo is great....against the few casters that don't get the message, 3 or 4 Power Spikes is hilarious. The major drawback to Echo is that it recharges for a further 30s after it reverts; so if you copy a high recharge spell and use it immediately you're out of Echo for about 45s. With the Glyph, it recharges independently of the spell you've "copied", so for most of the time it's a better choice.

But hey, this build is old news anyway...I'm enjoying it far more than E-Surge. I don't tell ppl in TA that I'm not a "proper" Surger, noone has noticed so far!