User:Raine Valen/Learn 2 Play/Mesmer

Non-Author's Note

This one's not by me. As such, the formatting needs to be changed to match, but the content is the content. I'm not changing that; leave that for the author, thanks.
Other than that, enjoy, feedback on the talk pages...
We all know the deal. Raine - talk 01:05, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Playing a Power Block Mesmer

Firstly, what exactly is a Power Block Mesmer? My favorite form of mesmering, a Power Block Mesmer shows the class in its finest form. Mesmers are built for shutdown, and the Power Block elite takes it to a new level of skill. Used correctly, Power Block does nothing more than giving your team a one-man advantage for fourteen seconds. You’ll generally find this bar in GvG, where it is most effective, but it also occasionally appears in HA or TA. For utmost effectiveness, one needs quick reflexes, good timing, a decent ping, and generally a great knowledge of the game and other classes.

The Bar

Power Leak

• This is one of the basic Mesmer interrupts, providing a different form of shutdown than the rest of the bar. At a usual spec of 14 dom, Power Leak will cause 16 energy loss upon interrupt. It may not seem like much, but learning to use this skill correctly can shut an opponent down without wasting your Power Block. The target to choose for this skill is one that is usually short on energy anyway; these include Ritualists, Monks (if they aren’t using Channeling, you’ll generally see this in HA), and even warriors.
• You’ll usually see ritualists carrying a pot or a flag, which negates any energy bonus they would receive from their weapon, generally leaving them at 30-35 max energy. Landing one Power Leak, then, will cut their energy in half. One of the best skills to aim for, and one commonly found on every ritualist bar, is Weapon of Warding. While it is cast often because of its strength, WoW calls for a costly 10 energy. Power Leak on this, then, nets a total of 26 energy lost for the ritualist; ten from the failed cast, and sixteen more from the Leak itself. Two other skills commonly seen on a ritualist, and which hinder your ability to deny energy through Pleak, are Soothing Memories and Caretaker’s Charge. These skills return energy after being cast if carrying an item, which, as noted, rits generally do. Interrupting them, however, will stop the energy from being returned and, if interrupted with pleak, cause another 21 energy loss.
• Monks often run on low energy to keep their health as high as possible to avoid being spiked, which happens to them often. Landing a Power Leak on them will provide a lesser effect energy-wise than it would for a rit, but the less energy a monk has, the less time the monk’s team can survive. Therefore, they should be the primary targets for Power Leak. If a monk has a secondary Mesmer or Elementalist class, however, this changes; Mo/Me’s will use Channeling, providing a fountain of energy, and Mo/E’s like Glyph of Lesser Energy. Power Leaking a Channeling Monk is utterly pointless, because as long as Channeling is up, sixteen lost energy won’t hurt, and will be regained shortly. This is the reason Mesmers in HA won’t bring Power Leak. Glyph of Lesser Energy is a much weaker form of energy management, but still problematic. For five energy, the Glyph will make a monk’s next two spells basically free. Being a Glyph, it can’t be interrupted with Power Leak, so your best bet is to Divert it, which may be difficult. It’s seen play less and less lately, as more monks choose a Warrior secondary in GvG for the defensive stances, but it still shows up. Power Leak will still hurt a monk with GoLE, so don’t ignore them completely, just don’t expect as much shutdown on it.
• Your bar doesn’t have much as far as melee shutdown, but one of the places such shutdown lies is in Power Leak. If a Warrior has an Elementalist secondary, and carrying either a sword or axe, expect to see one or both of these skills: Shock and some form of weapon Conjure. Warriors have a natural two energy regen, and sword or axe warriors have two skills which are very important to their Killing Shit crusade, Bull’s Strike and Frenzy. Landing a Power Leak on either of these spells--more likely Shock, because Conjure only needs to be recast once a minute--will totally deplete the warrior’s energy pool, which usually only has 20 or 25 energy in it, which will take a long time to recharge. The loss of this energy means a loss of Frenzy, as well, which means much weaker spikes, from axe wars especially, who generally pump out most of the team’s damage. You can Power Leak assassins and dervishes as well, but they’re less common in GvG than these wars, and it’ll have less of an effect, given their four regen. Interrupting a dervish’s Heart of Fury or Conjure spell are generally good bets; both have long recharges, and both are major parts of the Derv’s ability to pump out huge damage.

Power Drain

• This is an interrupt spell similar to Power Leak, but gives you energy, instead of causing loss on your target. It’s good to use when you need a basic interrupt, but the amount of energy it returns is large, and you’ll need it if you’re running low. Use it when you need energy, or when you just need to interrupt something, and don’t want to waste your Power Leak or Power Block, or if they’re on recharge. Choosing a prime target or spell isn’t as important here.

Shatter Enchantment

• This is your spike assist skill. It’s costly, but it removes an enchantment from the target, and gives big damage. When your caller calls a spike, use it when applicable; other than that, you shouldn’t just spam it on recharge to remove enchantments, as it’s too costly, and the recharge is long enough that there’d be a good chance you’d have it cooling when you need it for a spike. When using it to assist in a spike, you should try and time it well enough to remove Prot Spirit or Spirit Bond, as this removal will do a lot more to ensure a clean spike than removing, say, Reversal of Fortune. However, because monk prots such as RoF cost so quickly, it may be difficult to time. Shattering on spikes is still very essential, even if you find yourself unable to shatter the big prots, and the damage is big enough to help bring the target down quickly.

Inspired Enchantment

• Removes an enchantment like Shatter, but nets you energy instead of damage. This recharges quicker and costs basically nothing, so it’s your spammable enchant removal. The fun thing about this one, however, is that it is replaced for ten seconds with whatever enchantment you removed; so, using it, you can assist your team with such things as Aegis and Holy Veil. Don’t just use whatever enchantment you get, of course, but these two are generally helpful to cast, and still useful with a zero spec.

Ress Skill- It’ll be there to fill out your bar, usually ress sig, Flesh of My Flesh, Death Pact Signet, or Ressurection Chant, depending on your team. Get the retards who die back up.

Diversion

• Used correctly, this is easily the most powerful skill on your bar, surpassing even Power Block. It can do one of two things: shut the target down for six seconds, or remove one of their skills from the game for a minute. Randomly toss it on anyone and you’ll generally get the first effect. If, however, you time it correctly, you can give the most important skills on their bar a one minute-long recharge, crippling their effectiveness greatly.
• Timing Diversion is mainly a matter of experience and the foresight that comes along with it, though there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of a successful Diversion. First, a number of people spam important skills because they’re strong, or their classes/builds call for the spamming of skills. If you find someone like this, landing a Diversion on them shouldn’t be too difficult. Another point to consider is that the longer someone standing in the middle of battle without using a skill (casting a spell, in particular, especially in the case of monks), the more likely it is that they’ll use a skill soon. They may be lagging or, in the case of a monk, may just not see the need to heal or prot, but the longer they do nothing, the more urgent the need for a heal or prot becomes, thus increasing your ability to Divert said spell. If the monk is taking heavy pressure, or if your team is spiking, they’ll need to cast a strong heal or prot to save their team, which makes it a strong target for your Diversion.
• Diversion is strong enough and has a short enough recharge, though, that you should cast it as often as possible, even if the timing isn’t great. When using Diversion on a monk, you should use Inspired Enchantment on them beforehand, because there’s a good chance they’ll have Holy Veil on them. If you forget to remove the enchantment before casting Diversion, you’ll be standing there casting it for about four seconds, which makes it easily interrupted.
• The hardest part in using Diversion is getting the spell off. Usually, it’ll be the opposing ranger waiting to interrupt your Diversion, as the opposing Mesmer will be busy with your monks, just like you are with theirs. There are a number of ways to avoid being interrupted by the ranger. First, you can put some object between them and yourself, so the arrows get blocked. There isn’t always something around that you can use for this purpose, and this won’t affect an interrupt from the opposing Mesmer if they decide to interrupt you. You can also ask one of your monks to toss Guardian on you to hopefully block the interrupt, but this is a less reliable method, and takes a bit of your monk’s time and energy. Cancel-casting Diversion will draw the interrupt but avoid it. Usually, casting Diversion 1/3 of the way will be enough to draw the interrupt, but not long enough to get hit with it. This method, however, hurts your energy, taking ten each time you cancel, and the other team will most likely know the Diversion is still coming. A more basic way to avoid interrupts is just knowing who’s attacking you. This just takes a quick glance around the battlefield to know where the wanding is coming from, watching to see if you’re getting hit with arrows, or just knowing if a war who could interrupt you is attacking you. Finally, make sure you don’t make the casting obvious; this seems obvious enough, but a number of mesmers I’ve seen barely try to hide the fact that they’re casting, and this makes it miraculously easy to target them and d-shot it. Don’t stand in the open, or run too far forward to get your Diversion on the prime target; instead, hide amongst your midline, which makes it not only harder to target you, but harder to see you casting if you aren’t already being targeted, as well. While this method may not allow you to get the target you want, it’ll make it more likely for you to get the Diversion off.
• Using a set with HCT for dom magic with Diversion is a matter of preference, but I find that it’s nicer to have one consistent casting time which you can rely on, and have a better feel for, instead of a 36% chance of casting it much faster than you expected. The unreliable cast time can throw of your timing, making your Diversion miss; of course, it may be the case that this halved time hits at a more opportune time than you expected, but this is unlikely if you’re timing it well.

Key spells to Divert, and ones that can be easily timed, include:

• Infuse Monk- Patient Spirit, Word of Healing, Protective Spirit
• RC Monk- Restore Condition, Spirit Bond
• Monks- Especially try to Divert stances if they have a warrior secondary.
• WoR Flagger- Weapon of Remedy, Soothing Memories, Dash
• Power Block Mesmer- Power Leak, Power Block, and even Diversion
• Water Snare Midline- Glyph of Immolation, Steam (usually follows the Glyph). Especially use Diversion on FC snarers, as they’re more difficult to straight interrupt.
• Air Magic Midline- Blinding Flash, Blinding Surge
• Mind Blast Midline- Mind Blast, Immolate
• Necro Midline- Wail of Doom, Foul Feast, Plague Sending (usually follows Foul Feast)

And, don’t forget, Diversion can be used to disable skills, even if they aren’t spells:

• Shock Axe- Frenzy
• Warrior’s Endurance Axe- Frenzy, Power Attack, Protector’s Strike
• Rangers- Incendiary Arrows, Burning Arrow, Crippling Shot
• Dervishes- Attacker’s Insight, Wounding Strike
• Assassins- Diverting any part of their attack chain is devastating, especially the lead attack.

-To be continued?-

Shame

• This spell is a mixture of Pleak and Diversion; very similar to Diversion in its monk shutdown factor, but has a shorter cast time and longer recharge. The best way to use this spell, generally, is to cast it on the opposing heal monk right before your team spikes (and, optimally, before you Shatter), so not only is your chance of having them pop it higher, but it interferes with their ability to Infuse or prot your team’s spike, increasing the chance for a clean one. With good timing, another use for this is to cast it so it lands immediately after Diversion on a monk ends, so that they 1) pop it, hoping to get a spell off right after Diversion ends, or 2) shut themselves down for an extra four seconds, and another six shortly after that from the next Diversion. Obviously, the order of this Diversion/Shame chain can be flipped, and either way is very effective.

Power Block

• Finally, Power Block. The disabling effect of this skill, used correctly, is second in target shutdown only to death. When the correct target is interrupted, their bar is disabled for fourteen seconds and, if you roll an HSR, will be done for another fourteen seconds when it recharges. It’s important to know all of the opposing team members’ bars in the situation to decide the prime target for this skill--someone whose bar consists of 6-8 spells from the same line. In GvG, this is the prot monk. While you can pblock the WoH, they’re usually carrying a hybrid bar, and as such will still be effective in protting the rest of their team, and keeping them in reasonable health while their heals recharge. Pblocking a prot monk, however, means that the opposing team is running with a one-monk backline for the next fourteen seconds, equaling easy kills for your frontline. The skills to pblock on the prot’s bar are Guardian, Aegis, and especially Restore Condition. Usually a protter spams Restore Condition often because of the strength of the skill, and the commonality of conditions. This makes the skill easy to Divert, but if you see the chance to do so, why not remove the monk from the game for a while? Guardian gets cast frequently, as well, but not quite as much as RC; Aegis has a thirty-second recharge, and is commonly only found on Mo/E monks, which are being overlapped by Mo/W’s recently. When trying to pblock the prot, however, there are a number of things to watch out for--most importantly, do not be too anxious to send him into another dimension. Power Block has a 20 second recharge, and is far too strong to waste with a missed interrupt. Therefore, never jump the gun if you see Reversal of Fortune or Spirit Bond. You will not interrupt them. This seems an obvious enough thing to know, but it’s important to stay relaxed enough that you aren’t hitting pblock on ¼ second skills. You need to stay away from Holy Veil and, less commonly, Gift of Health, as well. Veil is unlinked, and Gift is in Healing Prayers, and is most likely the only Healing Prayer on the monk’s bar. Pblocking either of these will do absolutely nothing for you; as tempting as they may seem, don’t do it.
• Pblocking the heal monk isn’t a bad idea, but it just won’t do as much as if you pblock the prot. However, making their party go fourteen seconds without heals is a nice thing. The only reasonable way to do this is through WoH, making it a bit more difficult, as well. Usually there’s only two or three Healing Prayers on the bar, but the loss of these still helps your team’s chances of getting a clean spike through.
• Finally, eles can be excellent targets for the skill because of their tendency to pack a bar with skills of only one element. Even when they have more than one element on their bar, usually it’s just the addition of one or two skills for utility, which still makes them susceptible to the large shutdown provided by pblock. The best elementalist targets for this skill are water snare eles and Blinding Surge eles. Pblocking either of these will provide your wars with a good amount of time without having to worry about melee hate, putting pressure on the opposing monks. Along the same line, you can try to pblock a Fast Cast Water Mesmer, but the spells on this bar have about a 0.6 or 0.7 second cast time, and as such will require a good ping and some reflex to interrupt. If you don’t have either of these, you’re better off saving your pblock for another target.
• Pblock, however, should not be freely used on any caster class you come in contact with. Rits, for example, usually have hybrid bars, and will still be able to support their team very well either offensively or defensively should you pblock them. While it isn’t an awful idea to pblock the opposing dom Mesmer, especially if they’re using Energy Surge, the skill can, again, be put to better use elsewhere. Further, you should rely on your ranger to interrupt Energy Surge, Diversion, and Shame, anyway. And never pblock a Dervish, a pleak on their HoF will get them to hate you enough, anyway.

Depending on the situation and your team build, of course, your bar may vary, but generally, you’ll see something similar to this.

• -In progress-

Next on the list, how2interrupt.