Input on mesmer builds please

GO fig... PURE MESMER DOESN'T WORK IN PVE... Wrong...look around at the other threads Yukito, Pure Mesmers are amazing in PvE. 98% of the time my builds are pure Mesmer. I won't waste my breath any further.

I do have a question though, Avarre. The "lose 1 energy for every evade" makes me hestitant to really rely on Distortion, so I usually go for the PhysResist+Feast combo for def+heal. Does Distortion every really make a significant drain in your energy? Not in the slightest. In PvE, you're not going to be hit much. The only times I use distortion is when there is a serious aggro break, such as Abyssals (they can kill you faster than any other mob in fow), shadow rangers (sometimes I kill them with empathy while evading their shots), Aatxes (distort will save you where phy res wont here) and other situations. It doesn't mean you'll stop and face any attacker, renewing the stance like Dunahm does. If under attack, kite like hell, using distort if the situation calls for it.

Depending on the capabilities of my tank, I somtimes swap distortion on my usual build for SV. I have never relied on distort to stay alive, but when 4 shadow rangers target you, or 2 abyssals hit you at once, it will save your life. When PuGing, I almost always bring distort to stay alive in the face of aggro loss.

For soloing, it depends on my build. A normal hp build will often use phy res, whereas my 55hp builds sometimes uses distortion (for mobs that have physical and magical attacks, so I don't lose any energy )

Mesmers have issues in PvE for a number of reasons.

First, the henchmen AI is complete and total crap. If you target hop rapidly (to spread hexes ect.) the henchmen all start attacking random things. Since they have have very poor damage output (the cultist is really the best one) nothing dies unless they focus fire. Thus with an all henchmen group you have to babysit the henchmen and function at a fraction of what you could normally do. A lot of other classes can just attack one target until it dies on move on to the next fairly well.

Second, mesmers can't carry teams very well. You can delay the inevitable by disabling some big enemy monsters. However if you have a bad monk you are still going to die and if you bad damage output you are still going to have trouble killing things. You can do an awesome job shutting down enemy healing, diverting half their skills, interrupting their attacks, ect. If the rest of your team is gimp all your effort is wasted.

Third, PvE design is very anti-mesmer for most of the game. They just create 50 trolls and have you swing at them until they are dead. For a majority of the game brute force far is the easiest and probably best way to go about things. A mesmers abilities don't really shine until you hit the desert area. Even past there mob design is downright pathetic at points.

Fourth, Mesmers are the worst understood class in the game on the PvE side of things. The mesmer class is complex. A lot of people will think "What good does shutting down 1 skill for 60 seconds do?" In addition mesmer abilities are very subtle and unless you know what to look for you won't see what the mesmer is actually doing. To add to this, there are a lot of horrible PvE players. They have given mesmers a bad name in PvE. Most of the other classes have some generic build where you can still be of some use, even if you are braindead (Generic 5 energy spam heal monk, stance tank warrior with a sword, fire nuker, minion master.) Players who run these builds aren't necessarily good, but can do something. A bad mesmer isn't going to contribute much at all. Mesmers are not so straight forward, you actually have to think about the 8 skills on your bar.

Through the early part of the game I suggest pumping illusion and just spamming conjur phantasm for the most part. It does 10dmg for each second it lasts. If you put it on as many targets as possible when your team finishes working over one enemy the rest should be under half health and easily mopped up. You can take backfire for casters, but really just brute forcing it with conjur works very well. Use some inspiration skills to fuel your conjur spam. You will notice a lot of pure attacking enemies early game. Conjur is quite effective vs anything early on.

Given a good mesmer and good teammates who can actually take advantage of your abilities, the enemy crumble with easy. Damn warskull >_>

Conjure is terrible skill anywhere late into the game btw, especially in places like FoW (and every other mesmer I see brings that skill... Anywhere later in the game, I don't There's many skills in a Mesmer's arsenal that are more effective than simple HP degen. Enemies simply have too high of HP for the -5 degen to do much. But for newer Mesmers out there, seriously give consideration to using the combo of Domination and Illusion, they work together amazingly.

I've seen this complaint in another mesmer build. Saying "I dont' feel like I'm doing much for my team".

GO fig... PURE MESMER DOESN'T WORK IN PVE...

Use Necro curses. They're AoE and can pretty much nullify any and all mobs that surround a single teammate [aka a smart warrior...]

There isn't a single set of mesmer magic skills in any of their lines that can take out several slammer non-caster enemies at once. Soothing Images doesn't cut it if the enemy hits for 200+ to begin with [Aataxe anyone?]

Shadow of Fear + Enfeebling Blood = a mob that a monk could tank...

Bringing in Insidious Parasite with Empathy and maybe Spiteful Spirit can help bring the mob to its knees... You've never tried ineptitude + epidemic have you?
Oni of the deep really hate me because of that combo

Oni of the deep hate you for casting Ressurect Thread too.

><!

Though I'm sure some post-faction insight could be added now. I searched for something and this thread was on the second page, I don't know why but I thought this was on the second page of the mesmer forums lol!

Arcane Thievery & Diversion work great later on when you start fighting the tougher enemies (especially monk bosses) I thought this too, but PvE enemies cheat. I use diversion on them and they cast the same spell again. They have 2 or 3 copies of it on their skill bar.