My ele/mes build

Heya everyone, this build is the one I've decided on trying first, and it's probably been do before, but here it is.

Class: Elementalist/Mesmer

Energy Storage - 10
Water Magic - 12
Inspiration Magic - 8

Total attribute points used: 195/200

Skills:

Deep Freeze: You cause a deep freeze at target foe's location. All foes near this location are struck for 10-70 cold damage. For 10 seconds, all foes move 50% slower than normal.
Ice Spikes: Target and nearby foes are struck for 20-68 cold damage and are slowed for 2-5 seconds.
Armor of Mist: For 8-18 seconds, you gain +10-34 armor and move 33% faster.
Maelstrom: Create a maelstrom at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes in that area are struck for 10-22 cold damage each second. Maelstrom interrupts spell casting when it hits. This spell causes exhaustion.
Water Trident {E}: Send out a water trident at target foe. Water Trident strikes for 5-53 cold damage if it hits. If it hits a moving foe, that foe is knocked down.
Water Attunement: For 36-55 seconds, you are attuned to water. You gain 30% of the energy cost of the spell each time you use Water Magic.
Energy Tap: Steal 8-13 Energy from target foe.
Channeling: For 8-46 seconds, whenever you cast a spell, you steal 1 Energy from each nearby foe.


Any suggestions on how to make this build more effective would be great. Thanks in advance.

Hmm, first thing that come to my mind is "Very Classic"

Personally, I would take out ice spike for shard storm... As I don't feel needed to have 2 AoE... and ice spike's AoE size is not something to brag about. Also, shard storm have better cost, cast, recharge.

well I'd like to see Rust in there. Very efficient against an enemy monk... they all bring Signet of Devotion, and it bypasses stuff like Backfire. Otherwise, I'm not too good with Water Magic, or elementalists in general, save for Earth... Far as I can tell, sounds like quite a decent build. Maelstrom is the big dada in this build, the rest is mostly slowing down opponents to help your warriors. I like it. But then, I'm a warrior.

Your build is pretty solid as is.
The one spell to drop is Energy Tap. The 3s cast time plus 0.75s after cast is really going to hurt you.

I'd consider dropping Water Trident for Energy Drain, however. Drain is one of the best spells in the game, period.
If you're set on trident, maybe you want to switch to a trident gunner- Arcane Echo + Trident for twice the fun.
If you still need something for energy management, get Power Drain. It's an interrupt with a good effect.

Shard Storm's damage was brought down, and Ice Spikes Auto-Hits. Shard storm is a projectile, it can and will miss. Ice Spikes > Shard Storm.

Armor of Mist is VERY sexy now.
Rust is awful- unless you have something to interrupt signets with. Most signets are not something worth worrying about anyways.

Finally, choose either Maelstrom OR Deep Freeze, it's unlikely you'll be able to afford both for any length of time. On top of high energy costs, they have long cast times, so the more time you spend casting those the less time you spend using the rest of your spells.

hmmm I think Maelstorm + Deep Freeze is a good idea, the poor things get stuck in in the snow and can't get out of it too fast. And you can always trow a cheap water trident so that one of them sits there bit longuer.

E-tap is what you do when you can't cast anything else. I would keep it.

Maybe I would take an other Inpiration spell instead of Channeling, I don't know how much "neerby" you need to be to steal energy form your foes.

Ok, I made a few changes based on the advice given. I swapped energy tap for power drain. Not entirely sure I want to be rid of trident though. But if I was to elminate trident and get energy drain, what would i use for a quick attack spell? Ice lance? If I were to use echo as well, I'd need to invest a few points into illusion magic?

And what about swapping ice prison for deep freeze? Although ice prison doesn't damage the target, just slow it down. I've never actually used that spell during BWE, so not sure how it'd work out. Thanks again.

you can't use echo because its elite...

you can use arcane echo though...and no you don't need to invest in illusion...look carefully at the description...notice how its actually really poorly linked to illusion?

ah...the old arcane echo/water trident combo...what great times they were before it was nerfed.

If you drop Water Trident, you might want to consider picking up Conjure Frost and using conjured wand attacks as your standard attack. You'll be averaging over 35 damage per hit, and attacking once every 1.75s without aftercast, for a DPS of 21 and change (before crits, not sure if wands can crit.)

If you do use conjure frost, make sure to cast it before water attunement, because conjure makes you lose all enchantments on you.

Water just doesn't have a good spammable if you drop trident.
Honestly though, if you drop trident for Energy Drain, you probably wont need Water Attunement at all.

I'd say it's between Trident + Attunement OR Energy Drain + Conjure Frost. You can keep Power Drain on both of them.

As Everous pointed out, Arcane Echo is linked to Illusion Magic in a completely negligible way. Feel free to abuse it.