E-denial revisited, please

All the e-denial builds that I find seem to be posted from last year. Things have dramatically changed since then. I have been playing my Mesmer as a IW tank in PvE, but am trying E-denial in the Alliance PvP battles. I just kind of threw this build together based on some research, and it seems to work very, very well if used with an organized team that is doing damage at the same time. Doesn't do well 1v1with pretty much anything, since it is more caster hate, rather than big time damage dealer, though does do some nice damage. Well, that being said, here it is. Please, please feel free to pick it apart and make suggestions to make it better.

F.C. 12 (11+1)
Dom. 14 (10+3+1)
Ill. 2 (1+1)
Insp. 11 (10+1)

pts left 0

Diversion
Energy Burn
Energy Surge {E}
Shame (for Monks)
Guilt (for dmg casters)
Energy Tap
Ether Feast
Blackout

In my experience in the Alliance Arena no one carries a Rez Sig since you are rezed anyway fairly quickly. In other Arenas I would replace Blackout for the Rez sig.

This is fairly typical E-surger build. I would switch Ether Feast for Drain Enchantment and Guilt for Res Signet (even in alliance battles and DEFINITELY for GvG)

Diversion
Shame
E-Tap
Blackout
E-Burn
E-Surge
Drain Enchantment
Res

This is totally usual, standard E-Surge/shutdown build and is known to work by many a mesmer.
Drop inspiration down to 9 (8+1)
FC at 12 (11+1)
Domination at 16 (12+1+3) and you should be good to go. If you need anti caster by all means use guilt but use instead of E-Tap.

Enjoy

Thx, I'll give that a shot. But 1 question. I actually added in Ether Feast. Sure it only takes 3 energy from your opponent, but I was having a tough time staying alive without some type of self heal, since as is the case in all PvP Monks are set-upon immediately. I had much better success staying in the fray with it on. But, I'll give your build a shot, and see how it goes. Also, the attribute distribution doesn't work that you posted. I can only get 15 in Dom unless I drop F.C. to 11.

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lol, Power Leak is my favourite skill as you probably know but its an interrupt and if Dr. Fire is new to e-denial I thought he might not make good enough use of it. Otherwise I would post an e-denial build with just 3 skills
MoR {E}
Power Leak
Shame

Thank you very much.

I recommend the following for classic e-denial:

1- E-surge
2- E-burn
3- Sig of Weariness
4- Mindwrack
5- Spirit Shackles
6- Energy Tap - Drain Enchantment
7- Well of Weariness
Res

Shackwrack vs Rangers, Warriors, and Assassins (!!!), rest for casters. Well is great corpse control, cheap and low cast/recharge, and it's like making every enemy in the area maintain an enchantment. There is very little point in putting over 14 points in Domination, although I know for my part I go with 15. Rest should be in Inspiration and FC, with very little in Curses (WoW is an extremely long lasting spell, I believe at max Curses it lasts about 45s, so... you won't need more than like 20-ish I think)

Blackout for res sig? More like diversion for res sig -.-
Drain enchantment+New factions skill:Feedback would be nifty

Most importantly; where is the mind wrack?

Dr. Fire
16 Domination 12 dom + mask + superior rune (use+30hp staff to balance out)
9 Inspiration 8 Insp. + minor rune
11/12 FC (can't remember) 10 FC + minor rune

You get the idea. Eaimirth would you rather have mind wrack than blackout ??? The old shackles/mind wrack combo is soo old and well known, any half decent team will have it removed in seconds. This is why I think blackout is better, diversion perhaps not equally as good but certainly as useful. If you can disable enemies elite attack with diversion (e.g. Eviscerate) they will run away crying for their mummies

Shackwrack owns, are u kidding me? So what if they remove it? You can't recast it? Come on now. Expell hexes isn't THAT popular and if they remove the Wrack, heck... it's a cover hex, re-cover the Shacks. Remove the Shacks, too? Well... it's got 5s recharge, it's really not a big deal. So now, 2 5s recharge hexes are removed and we gonna cry over spilled milk? No. Reapply. I'm curious how a Monk is gonna come even close to winning a hex battle vs Shackwrack. And Shackwrack MURDERs Assassins (!!!) and Rangers and severely disables Warriors (they rarely go full adrenaline).

Mehh, alright its 'quite' good. But only against attackers, and I never play anti ranger/warrior/assassin builds. I'm strictly an energy sucking punk.

Could you argue Shackwrack is better than blackout ?? Its doubtful you could use both of them in build and still be affective. For strict energy denial shackwrack is hands down winner + a nice 90 dmg spike. For general enemy annoyance blackout wins in my books. Monks can't do squat for 7 seconds, warriors lose adrenaline etc etc.

Would you rather own casters and be totally helpless versus anything that does attack damage or would you rather have an ace in the pocket for either?

I could care less about shack-wrack
I'm talking focus swapping here.

Wow! All outstanding suggestions. One other question. How much have you guys played in the new Alliance arenas? We are talking 12v12. Seven cap points. Lot's of action. And, I am telling you guys, no one, and I mean NO ONE is doing any rezing, because you respawn pretty darn quick. After a day of battling there I would say that Hella Good's build might be the best all around. You definately need lot's of melee hate there. Monk ownage is nice, but you need something for the melee folks as well.

I would maybe spread your skills out a bit. Its unlikely to come up against a decent interrupter mesmer in alliance battles so drop fast casting and get some illusion. Then take images of remorse and conjure phantasm as well as spirit of failure. Skills might look like this

images of remorse
conjure phantasm
spirit of failure
E-Surge
E-Burn
Signet of Weariness
Drain Enchantment
Res

I realise thats spreading out a bit too much but its just an idea. If I had it my way you'd only need 2 skills for energy denial (monk ownage as you call it) Shame and power leak but they are tricky skills and you really need MoR for them. I think its a bad idea to split up your skills too much and the shackwrack idea should stop warriors at least attacking if they know what they are doing. Otherwise they'll take a big spike from mind wrack.

Yea, that might not be a bad idea. I haven't bumped into to many int Mesmers there, mostly e-denial, or lot's of Illusion DoT's and spikes (Ineptitude, Clumsiness). IW Mesmers seem to have fallen onto hard times, cause you don't see em much anymore. The biggest problem with low FC is the Rangers, and there are generally lot's of em. You see lot's of Rangers, Ele's, Warriors there with the MM, or SS, or both Necro's added in. Mesmers are generally few and far between. Monks are usually around, and generally running for their lives. There are some good ones around, though, that can make life difficult.

Sigh... here we go again... Shackwrack solves all Ranger and Assassin (and to some extent Warrior) problems for the following reasons:

1) Shackwrack is spammable (10/3/5, 5/1/5, enuf said)

2) Shackwrack is highly effective- 5 nrg lost per attack means- other things equal- 6-7 normal attacks will completely destroy the nrg pool of a R or A. Granted this doesn't include regen, zealous nrg gain, nrg benefits of Expertise and Criticals, use of nrg management skills; it also doesn't include use of skills, which (doh) cost nrg. In practice, and based on my humble experience (I have played every single PvP format to death rly), Shackwrack totally kills the nrg pool of a R/A in no more than 10s.

3) Shackwrack doesn't require ANY points in Illusion for a combination that is clearly apar Illusion War Hate, and it only requires 1 skill on your skillbar you might not normally take in an e-denial build (Spirit Shacks).

Spammable, highly effective, fits right in- I am amazed people refuse to accept these obvious- it seems- truths about Shackwrack.

Plus, E-denial is so ridiculously easy that you need to worry about which skills NOT to take, so that you don't overdo it and end up wasting slots on your skill bar. In fact, e-denial just recently recieved a BUFF of the damage component and a nice adjustments to the nrg drain component, which provides for higher damage and more efficiency of e-denial skills. Before, you would end up getting your target's nrg to 0 so fast, you would waste the damage part of the skills to keep em at 0. Now, it works perfectly, with less waste and more damage.

Diversion and Blackout are NOT e-denial skills. If you want to mix and match, fine. I like to keep my e-denial and shutdown separate with rare cross-overs in GvG and HA only. Perhaps that is why my e-denial doesn't require Diversion or Blackout- it's pure massive e-drain. Lemme see you using skills I need to Divert/Black out with no nrg... I mean seriously... Plus, my e-drain is universal- geared towards both casters and fighters, and handling both parties extremely efficiently.

Well, anyways, you guys got me typing too much.

So now warriors carry CoP which just enhances my theory that it should have been nerfed harder than it was the last time it was nerfed...

Just to counter shackwrack; 'sins are doing the same as well. (especially with all their cheap cost enchantments)

CoP-> 10s recharge, costs them 5 nrg for CoP, MIN 5ngr for removed chant (or if some1 else is chanting them this can be neglected)

Shackwrack-> 5s recharge spammable. You can quickly reapply and rape them in a few seconds with it anyway.

Let them use CoP- they are doing themselves in with it by wasting their nrg.

Hella is right (not that he is ever wrong is seems), you only need a few skills to be efficient at energy denial. (power leak me baby) So you have a few slots (rest used for energy mangement + res) to totally disable rangers/assassins and some energy using warriors (you could at least stop shock warriors using frenzy/sprint) with spirit shackles. Mind wrack not only covers spirit shackles but providies a nice damage spike for the inevitable 0 energy.

Dunno why I even bothered arguing against him, he's mind powers are too strong. I was just simply saying I like blackout because its a universal piss off and kills warriors adrenaline (personally I love the blackout warrior W/Me and my guild plan to use 2 of them from now on, after I've finished perfecting the build)

Cop is too good but if warriors are W/Mo I wouldn't be too worried personally. Probably just use blackout on them or use shame if they tried to use CoP and deplete their pitiful energy supply.

Shame does not stop CoP by any means.
2 ways to stop CoP; 1 energy denial, 2 disabling the skill (diversion, BO, etc)

Deplete an assassin's energy supply...yea right.
I would like to point out a few things.
1. They have the same energy regen as you do
2. They get more due to critical strikes.

So theoretically unless you use a skill; they have a higher regen rate than the mesmer (which...blows imo) So theoretically; if you Shackles them; they can put up an enc, then cop it. You used 10 energy; they used 10 energy. Even ground. If you put up mind wrack; they can spend another 5 energy for another enchantment; even ground. However while you wait for recharge; they are going to beat the living hell out of you (which will suck as assassins are quite good at it)

Assassins have only 25 energy, like Rangers (not 30, like casters), regen has nothing to do. Moreover, Assassins have often combos including skills that require 10 energy. Their skill bar is useless without combos. And Shackles empties their energy. So, no combos, no Assassins. Even without Mindwrack.

Each critical strike gets them 1 energy, but shackles takes away 4 or 5. They're empty within seconds. They merely manage to activate a 2-3 skill combo and they're empty.And i still have a full 40 energy pool. I tried it often (as for Rangers) it works fine. No point in discussing this, really.

And, yes, Diversion and Blackout are shutdown skills, not e-Denial. They fit different types of game. I don't like mixing eDenial and shutdown skills, cause i think that eDenial is the best shutdown, for all except Warriors.

Diversion is great for assassins if you catch their lead attack, and if they use chain combos requiring a lead attack. They're basically useless for 50+ seconds

Diversion is a 6 second (at best)shutdown imo; nothing more.

its 2 energy per crit.

Eaimirth, I wonder how much experience do you have with Shackwrack? Because I have yet to see a single Assassin, or Ranger, that doesn't get totally anihilated by it. This isn't me bragging about some distant concept, this is me speaking from experience. Shackwrack was one of the 1st things I used against Assassins (way back preview event 1) and it has become an integral part of my e-denial build ever since. Which part of how devastating this combo is on anything that attacks are you missing?

Let me give you some Maths to think about:

Shacks -> 5 nrg lost per attack (not hit, attack!)
Assassins:
-> 4 pips natural regen
-> 3 pips factual regen (seriously, if you are not using Zealous Tangs, you should think of switching professions) +1 nrg gain per hit
-> nrg gain on critical 1/2/3 ~ 3/8/13 in Critical Strikes
-> chance for critical 1% per lvl of Critical Strikes
-> doublestrike chance up to 32% ~ 16 in Dagger Mastery
-> Dagger Mastery effect on criticals is (to the best of my knowledge) unknown
Now pay special attention here:
-> Dagger attack rate - once every 1.25s, avg. about once every 1.05s (with double-strikes factored in) ~ 16 Dagger Mastery.

The very best nrg-wise that an Assassin can do is 13 in Critical, about 15 in Dagger, rest in whatever, Zealous Tangs, 5 nrg weapon (altho it is questionable who would choose 5nrg over 15^50). Attack rate is roughly 1hit per second and critical chance is 13%. This results in about 2.4 nrg gain per second (1 from 3 pips, 1 from zeal, 3 from 13% chance of criticals, all factored in and calculated). It also results in 5 nrg loss per second due to Shacks. This means that every second they will lose 2.6 nrg. In about 11 seconds they will have destroyed ALL of their nrg.

This calculation does NOT include:
- nrg cost incurred from the use of ANY skills
- nrg management skills
- +critical chance skills, including the possible + critical from Dagger Mastery (which Wiki is contradictive about, and I wasn't able to find any confimation that it exists)

But, what the hell, lets make it more interesting and say it takes Shacks 15s to destroy their nrg with any possible additional nrg gain. What if they use 1 skill? What if they use 2? This automatically brings us to my previous statement that it barely ever takes more than 10s to completely destroy their nrg pool and render them totally useless.

If this doesn't clarify things for you, I think I have exhausted my ability to help.

I would do the Maths for Rangers and Warriors but I'm too tired from long posts and I see the argument is swinging around Assassins mostly, so I guess we can skip that, unless some1 wishes to argue the case (in which case, I WILL do the Math and I WILL prove the point)

EDIT: Adjusted some calculations.

I was almost about to say that Dagger Mastery increases double strike by 4%.... but then I use locusts fury alot... I love that skill...

OK, my maths might be wrong as well, but I think I have some corrections

1.25/100 = 0.0125 -> 0.0125 x 32 = 0.4 -> 1.25 - 0.4 = 0.85

Question. Does it take .10 seconds to doublestrike? From experience, it looks like it takes much longer than that.

Shackwrack is cool, annoying for me, I'd rather stand there than lose my energy to mind wrack. But then you have your other e-denial skills at your disposal.

Problem is though, you can only focus on one target.

I took that off Wiki. Lets see:

Attack rate with double strike: (32% chance ~ 16 Dagger)
1 hit per 0.625s

Attack rate with single strike: (68% chance - the remaining strikes ~ 16 Dagger)
1hit per 1.25s

So it's:

0.32x0.625 + 0.68x1.25= 0.2 + 0.85= 1.05

Well that didn't help much did it.

And yea, your Maths is wrong.

And again, Shackwrack is spammable- 5s recharge on both skills. You'll see the Wrack trigger pretty shortly after you use the combo. You rarely need to spend more time e-denying that target (aside from occasional Wrack for some damage). You can just go back to torturing a Monk or whatever else gets you going.

You have yet to factor in if the assassin does not use any skills; he is still ahead of you in terms of winning

Him=damage
You=no damage

Er... Hello, my name is Wrack, I do ~ 90 damage every 5 seconds. Hello, my name is Wand, I do somewhere between 11-22 dam every 1.75s. You actually do damage.

Since we are going in Mesmer Wonderland again, we might as well bring evasion skills, evasion evaders, self-heals, other party members, positioning, etc., etc. Or we can go out there and try it and then comment on it, perhaps?

If we are going to go into other party members; you have no debate.
Best to keep it 1-1 or its an insta loss for your side. ( in .5 seconds 2 hexes go bye bye! wooo~)

We can assume 1 of our enchantments will be fox; so so much for evasion.

Your wand never reaches that damage; the assassin has +15 armor whilist attacking.

Wrack only does damage if you get the assassin out of energy; which is somewhat difficult to do. Fist you have to wrack; then use a energy burning skill of your choice and hope that it drains all his energy for wrack (if it is still on)

Sure shackwrack will do some damage if the assassin plays into it; however will they? Doubtfully. They couldn't care less about wrack as they CoP shackles every time its placed on them. Considering that shackles have a cast time of 1.6~ this gives you a .4 margin where he won't be able to deal with it (assuming you cover in that time...gives you what? wastrels worry? wrack is too long a cast). Again the sin could interrupt it; as it is a long cast spell; and he know about when you will cast it.

Positioning we will give the sin (due to multiple cripples); unless you are packing illusion of haste or some silly skill like that.

Just a few counter points.

I was merely making a point that you get hooked up on theory wars when- it seems- you have no experience with the combo. I don't think wasting time in a "what if" argument benefits anyone. It certainly doesn't benefit you more than trying it out and then giving feedback.

What do you mean "what if"
This build that you have been fighting against is a viable build. I have seen people use it; it is a very good one in fact.

I have tried it out; thats how I found the counter.

Peace

Mehh, you crazy kids are going on field trip with this... can I come ??
Hella if you were still gonna e-deny monks + use shackwrack and use drain enchantment for energy, would you use burn, surge, power leak and energy tap as the rest of your skill bar ???

Eaimirth, in fact a Shackrack Mesmer has 5 more skills to kill an Assassin with While an Assassin, has nothing more than his daggers and self-confidence. No point in trying to compare just Shackrack and a full Assassin skill bar.

Compare Shackles+Mindwrack+Images of Remorse+Ineptitude+Conjure+two-more and see what happens.

Crippling you say ? With which energy ? Within 6-7 seconds (as they continue attacking) there is NO MORE ENERGY. Not even for CoP. Nothing.
Staying away, waiting for your energy pool to come back ? With -8-9 life degen ? You are not serious.

In fact, there is one solution, for the Assassin : the Runaway-as-far-as-possible-and-Hide Elite skill...

Since when do mesmers use 4 different attributes?

I think themis wussed out of fast casting. That is a mistake from my point of view because I could just power leak that mesmer till the cows come home and he would cry and cry. A mesmer without fast casting is naked in my opinion. I think Hella mentioned that you don't actually need much inspiration for shackles to work for a decent amount of time, dunno for sure though.

I tried Shackwrack after being raped by an assassin in TA on my blackout warrior (tis a flippin sweet build, how many warriors do you know that use power leak ???) I used empathy + shackles + mind wrack. Empathy seriously screws assassin and they can kill themselves in seconds. But the good old 85 dmg mind wrack spike did its part too and after shackles I didn't notice the assassin doing anything fly. I wonder if spirit of failure + shackwrack might work better because I was still taking damage from assassin/warriors etc.

You'll need 4 attributes if you plan of making a mix between anti-caster and anti-W/A/R. In fact you need 8 on inspiration, 9 perhaps, no more. Same for FC. A dozen on domination and illusion, it's enough. In my opinion, of course.
Or, you can put fewer in Domination to boost inspi and/or illusion. Mindwrack is not absolutely necessary, after all. A good degen is also enough.
The main skill is Shackles, not Mindwrack.

But without at least 10~ or so fast casting CoP will always be waiting for you when you try to cast it; and after the second casting they will most likely be in your face ='( Not to mention it is now a super easy target for temple strike with its casting time of 3.

I will stand by an old saying which someone on this board said (frankly I don't remember who; but is was true none the less) mesmers are only truely effective when they specialize, and focus on only bringing one type of character to their knees. There is no fix-all mesmer.

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