Quality Mesmer secondaries?

I plan on using all 4 Mesmer attributes, but would still like a 5th skill-set from a secondary. Any good advise on worthwhile secondaries?

One's I've tried so far (in old Ascalon mostly):

Necro, Death: for the AoE damage and unholy army of the night, but maintaining the army is very expensive and probably better suited for the reaping skill.

Necro, Blood: reasonable single-target damage and life-stealing, but Mesmer is already pretty single-target focused and I'm looking for more breadth.

Monk, Healing: it's hard to argue against healing. There's no special synnergy with Mesmer, but it works even if it's boring.

Ranger, Beast: the perma-pet is nice in that it doesn't require too much attention so I can keep doing the Mesmer thing. Probably my favorite so far (especially if I can find a really exotic pet like a Moa).

Others I'm considering so far:

Ranger, Marksmanship: I use the bow a lot at this point for damage, but not sure if later on I'll be relying on staves and wands, potentially making this obsolete.

Elementalist, something?: For area-of-effect damage or some other goodie

Any other ideas?

When did Moa's become exotic?

I see them all over the place, and I used to have one as a pet (my beloved Boo Boo), until poor quest design (requiring you to have a melandru's stalker for *several* quests) forced me to give him up and go with a kitty cat.

Just to play devil's advocate, do you really need fast casting that badly? If you're going for a super heavy disruption pvp build then maybe so...but it's definitely one of the more subtle attributes (especially for pve).

You might want to take mesmer second (and still pump up all 3 attribs) and snag another primary attrib from another profession. Elementalist for one is pretty nice (huge energy pool) or Warrior to gain access to the incredible armor. I agree that a ranger pet is a nice addition always, but you could leave that as secondary (unless you want that nice ranger armor).

moved to campfire

Quote:

I play a Mesmer/Ranger and LOVE IT!

The bow damage is just a little bit better, so that's not why.

There are a few reasons. 1. I love having the pet. It doesn't make a huge PvP-difference (at least I don't think it does), but its excellent for missions and what not.

Furthermore, Ranger skills are pretty good if there's a tactic you'd like to combine it with as a mesmer. Furthermore, between Troll Ungeant (ranger regen) and Ether Feast (converts opponents energy into your health), I am VERY hard to take down in just about any situation. It really takes a 3v1 situation for me to die. Otherwise, I can get in some damage while keeping myself healed - especially with my pet.

I really think its well worth it to be a mesmer/ranger combo. I've tried a bunch of them and its really the only one that interests me at this point.

Im a level 9 Me/N, with almost all skills before Yak's Bend. I finally settled on necromantic curses as my little extra toolkit. Originally, I had envisioned a fragility build, using the low duration curses of an untrained curse attribute, but playing around a bit with what I have now curses seem to compliment mesmer skills in many other ways as well. Currently, Im going with this:

Skills:
Soul barbs, Backfire, Empathy, Parasitic Bond, Shatter Dellusions, Chaos Storm, Energy Tap, Ressurection Signet

Attributes:
Max Domination and Curses with extra points in Inspiration and fast casting (mainly because im just trying stuff out). Before I got parasitic bond, I was using conjure phantasm with an even spread in all mesmer attributes, and none in necro. The only real benefit other than me observing the effects of a greater curse attribute to losing conjure phantasm, is that Parasitic Bond is both less energy cost and faster cooldown.

Fights go something like:
Choose the caster mob>Soul barbs (any hex spell cast upon inflicted does dmg)>Backfire(hex spell that causes dmg when inflicted casts)>Empathy(hex that causes dmg when inflicted attacks)>Parasitic Bond(hex that causes health degeneration of 1, and heals for amount after 20 secs or mob death)...by then, theyre around 1/4 health. Ill either parasitic bond again, shoot wand a few times, until theyre fairly close, then finish then with Shatter Delusions. Chaos Storm is there for when I judge its worth it, and energy tap gets used once every 3 fights or so.

Parasitic Bond keeps me fully healed pretty good, only times when it doesnt is on solo boss battles (by that I mean the boss is solo, I usually travel with henchmen) and the aggro is on me. You could replace chaos storm or res signet for ether feast, but I like having both more than I think its necessary.

This works great in PvE, I havent PvPed much with this character other than the initial GvG at the beginning of the acadamy (me and an Ele won 6/2, but meaningless). Basically ive put shutdown secondary to dps, but I think they balance out quite well. I have no doubt ill be changing this as the game goes on, just seems to be working the best with what I have for the time being.

I tried Elementalist secondary first time through, and didnt much care for it. Other than blinds, knockdowns, interrupts, and some buffs pretty much everything is direct damage. The necro cuse line offers much more variety in my opinion. It comes down to play-style though I suppose. I like having the largest toolkit available, always trying to match the tactical variety of a DnD wizard. I think Me/N is the closest to that ideal so far, but hey its only my second character.

That's great! I'm also thinking of making a Necromancer with Mesmer's Domination line. I might explore that in parallel. At first Hexes seemed redundant, but your combinations show that they work very well with Domination.