Mesmer confusion

(yes, I have read the topic regarding mesmer builds first)

Can someone clarify exactly what's meant by 'shut down mesmer' and 'energy denial mesmer' please for someone who's lost with names?

And while I have a fair idea what energy denial is... how would you set up your attribute points for both?

Shut-down generally refers to disabling a target. Skills designed to do this include Backfire, Diversion, Blackout, etc. Energy Denial refers to depleting an energy pool and thereby rendering them unable to cast.

I personally would probably run the same attribute setup for either one:

7+1 Fast-Cast
12+2 Inspiration
10+1 Domination

Leftover points in whatever you want as a secondary. I recommend Curses since the entire line is better on a primary Mesmer in my opinion.

Actually, for energy denial, I believe inspiration should be higher than domination, and for shutdown, domination should be higher than inspiration, but since I'm lazy, I usally use a similar setup to what white designs posted, except I use a hat and a sup rune for inspiration.

I usually play energy denial, but for blackout mesmer, I always put my dom at 14.

And I've been using a Dom/Illusion set up for an Energy Denial build. After you rape them of their energy with the Dom Skills it they really cant fight your hexes too much.

Cool.. thanks for that info... next question... why is everyones fast casting set so low? Having started out with a monk where it's relatively important to have divine favour sitting high (I'm a healer) it suprises me that fast casting isn't viewed the same.

Really? I'd like to see that build, I'm interested in seeing all kinds of builds, and a dom/illusion energy denial build is most definitely cookie cutter.

I seriously only dump my spare points into fast casting, netting me a 7-9 fast casting, it's not bad, but I don't want it to be the focus of my build.