I must be dreaming...

I think y'all missing the point. Blackout and diversion are both great tatical skills (as is languor kinda). Oppounisitic useage of both can foil an enemies tactic (to spike or whatever). In a straight comparison (which is stupid, they are two very different skills) neither is 'better'. Eaimirth mentioned earlier that you give a monk a choice when they have diversion cast on them, so they can use a skill/spell they are least likely to need straight away in order for them instantly to become functional again, or wait out the 6 second duration without any negative impact. On the other hand, blackout don't give them no luxuries. They're screwed, they can't do swat for 7 seconds, which is a perfect amount of time to coordinate and execute a spike or to kill flag runner etc etc.

I would rarely use diversion except against spikers (not on monks) but blackout is a must against boon prots, who's spells are so difficult to interrupt (doesn't stop me though) . Imo blackout just has more applications of useage than diversion, although diversion is good, its just not as good as blackout for some particular scenarios (e.g. against monks).

Langour, sure they made it better, but I just don't think its worth the elite slot. So what, lessen a monks energy by 10. They'll probably never be near full energy anyway, always around the 20-30 mark as they spam skills and use energy management. Imo langour is just out shadowed by soo many better elites (renewal ftw !!!).

I think the blackout vs diversion arguement could go on for a long time with everyone adding their part, although after awhile patterns of similar builds using each skill in similar scenarios will appear. Fine if you've got a build where diversion works better than blackout, thats great and vice versa. In Gvg teams that use 1 mesmer, you often seen a diversion mesmer and he works very well but only really for support against non monks e.g people who are less likely to be expecting diversion e.g. warriors. For straight up shutdown, blackout is by far more effective.

Langour will stay unlocked for me till Jupiter has a McDonald's on it

why not use both? double the fun. and throw in some shame.

Actually, there is one thing I've found that Diversion is VERY good for: taking down Touch Rangers who use Vampiric Touch and Vampiric Bite to no end. They used to give me so much trouble until I threw in Diversion.

Quote: Originally Posted by fatboyslimerr

I think that languor is decent in its current form in that if it were not elite I would deffinately be trying to fit it into builds. As an elite it still lacks some punch in that it doesn't really do all that much more than black out and diversion. It is nice to have another option though and if you catch them casting aegis or heal party it can really help out as they will take one exhaustion and then still have it on for 7-8 seconds.

The diversion vs blackout debate is really a debate of what is your mesmer doing. blackout is a more attacking skill, attacking a monks ability to cast or attacking a warriors energy. whereas diversion is a long term defense, defending against a monk casting RoF 30 times in a minute or heal party spamming. For a single cast blackout is more effective obviously. BUT you can't chain cast blackout on opposing monks because you are a mesmer and a frontline mesmer is a dead mesmer, where as diversion I can stay at the back and spread the pain arround. Personally I ussually run both as they are really good and can actually complement each other nicely.

But who says they're gonna cast through Langour in the first place. Its the same as diversion, if not a little better. They'll see they're hexed with it (CoP won't be diversioned because they're not stupid) so they'll CoP, at minimal energy loss to them, removing langour before it does damage. If monk doesn't cast through langour, it does nothing. They will learn to treat it like diversion, thus its a waste of an elite slot and you might as well just take diversion.

In coordinated groups, hexes like diversion, shame and langour should be removed by team mates in seconds, not even shutting them down for the duration of the hex. If you wack diversion or langour or even both of them together (or one after the other) on a decent boon prot, he'll just smile and wait for 6-8 seconds or calculate the risk and CoP or whatever and sacrifice a skill to become useful again. Its just not that good imo. If we're talking about shutting down with langour/diversion, I just think blackout does the job better. If you want true shutdown, deny them energy, drain their enchantments and interrupt their E-management. Sure they'll be able to spam RoF but with only 3 energy regen, they can't keep it up for long.

Differences of opinion are usually great, and I'm just arguing that I think langour is a waste of an elite, and your better taking diversion if you wanna take anything, even better take blackout as it is a more flexable skill, with Power Block as your Elite

Okay, now going on what you just said about coordinated groups, how many characters bring hex removal in coordinated GvG? I've counted three total, and even then, you'll maybe find one or two at most on each character. Usually I expect those characters to either be Mesmers or Monks. And Mesmers and Monks are the characters that should be targeted with an Arcane Languor build.

Spamming RoF. hehe. That's the idea, mate. Work with your team for cover hexes, make sure that Monk will be Exhausting themselves with every RoF. Yeah, they've got 3 pips of e-regen. Who cares about that when they only have 5 useable energy? When the entirety of their energy bar is a gray block? It can happen. And against a BoonProt or whatever, it's entirely possible, especially when the rest of your team is going to be pressuring other key enemies.

We've seen Dual Surge, right? Take that and think about Dual Languor instead. Spotting a team's hex removal isn't terribly difficult. What happens after a Dual Languor picks up on hex removal? One of them is going to rip into the hex removal (and combine that with a Warrior or Assassin pressure and that Monk is going down real fast), and the other Dual Languor is going to take down the primary target (and I'd imagine also with a Warrior or Assassin pressure).

There you're looking at characters being unable to cast the entire time. They either cast and Exhaust themselves, or they cast through Diversion, or they don't cast at all, period. No matter what, they're not going to be casting--and the Exhaustion can (rather, does) hurt a lot.

Yeah, I might be completely wrong here, and we might never see Dual Languor being used in place of Dual Surge, but then again, with a regular duration of 7 seconds...we should start expecting Dual Languor. And then things are going to get really interesting once people realize what I've known for a while now.

Regarding Blackout vs Diversion, though I don't really care all that much...I don't think Blackout can touch the shutdown you can find with Diversion (and will find with Arcane Languor). Like others have said, Blackout is more a spike-assist. It's a quick hit. Diversion, on the other hand, can function like an extended cocaine high. In the long run, Diversion has much more versatility. I mean, hell, it can disable a skill for almost an entire minute.

This is for the person who thinks that blackout isnt that good.

Blackout is probably one of the most powerful skills that isnt elite in the game. This skill is so good that I might still bring it if they made it elite. This skill used properly can really make the job of killing monks that much easier. Its as pwerful as gale in a different way.

Diversion is the only hex that can cause a booner real trouble - ie it will divert cop.

Sam

Quote: Originally Posted by Mystic Memory

nice echo nuke combo

Quote: Originally Posted by Themis

Interesting idea Siren but dual langour and all that other stuff you said is too focuses on one kind of shutdown. You would weaken yourself to other aspects of the same. Even if you cover langour or diversion for that matter, they can wait out the duration and then become useful again which may still save the spike victim. Plus with things like spell shield and spell breaker, both of these are useless. Blackout on the other hand isn't a spell its a skill, so when they think they are safe from mesmers.. blackout them then interrupt spell shield/spell breaker on the re cast.

I would also consider blackout if it was an elite (maybe if it had longer duration and shorter disable to you) and I like blackout so much that I spent months trying to make a blackout warrior. Realised it sucked but it was lots of fun still. Its true in a shutdown build you'll probably use both diversion and blackout but I'm sorry langour will not replace power block as the shutdownists elite. Firstly because langour can be avoided by just not casting in its duration (please don't argue 'in certain circumstances blah blah blah, because I'm saying generally, and most of the time it'll be useless) it'll never match the awesomeness of blackout. Secondly it requires points in fast casting which I don't usually have about 10 or 11 where as I have 15-16 domination to use with power block as well as to complement the rest of my domination/shutdown skills.

This could go on for awhile, so...
Summarising imo
* langour sucks in most situations
* diversion sucks in most situations (although less than langour)
* blackout has way more flexibility and its not elite and it doesn't have a long casting time and its not a spell and so can't be blocked by shield or breaker.

But if someone wants to think of some weird and wonderful situation when diversion and langour 'may' possibly be slightly useful on the rare occurance of a total eclipse then sure go for it, I'll just be looking the other way

Quote: Originally Posted by fatboyslimerr

I dont see why so many people think diversion sucks or is very situational. When Im playing anything, and someone puts diversion on me, I panic. Diversion is either long range blackout (if they dont cast), or 57 second shutdown of 1 skill. Not too shabby in my book. It also doesnt blackout yourself, thus keeping you free to use distortion or something.

Quote: Originally Posted by Themis

Quote: Originally Posted by dgb

We're getting too much into people's playing styles. There's no right or wrong way to play mesmer, so by arguing your heart away, its not proving whether diversion/blackout or langour are good or bad. Dual Langour could work in specific circumstances but it would require at least 3 skill slots to effectively use it, langour, cover (diversion or something) and WW (possibly ??)

CoP is an ever daunting prospect and should be considered during all competitive build creation. For example, enemy boon prot becomes hexed with both langour and diversion, but instead of asking his/her team to remove it, he asks them to enchant him with prot spirit etc etc, CoP and your weee combo is gone, no harm done. If you stack diversion and langour and force them to use CoP, this could in theory make it possible for more effective use of langour after CoP is disabled, if its covered well (think of expel hexes).

E-denial is changing but its not so much the skills that makes a build (although they probably help but the player. I like power leaking, and as long as your good at interrupting, power leaking is the e-denial skill of choice. Others might be good at catching a monk with diversion when they don't expect it or force them to cast a spell using WW or something. Others might enjoy getting a bit closer and coordinating with their team to blackout a monk just before a spike. Lots of circumstances, lots of builds, lots of people = hundreds of combinations. I'm starting to think langour is useable but I just think there are better elites for a e-denial mes to use.

Quote: Originally Posted by 9th Requiem

Come on now... no-one actually removes 6sec hexes !!! Simply because in the mid-battle, hex removal is prioritized differently, so by the time they're being removed (by another player, WHEN and IF he has the time to do it), 3 to 4 seconds have already passed So players don't bother asking for removal, they choose the simple (and best imo) solution : pick a spell and cast through.

Quote: Originally Posted by dgb