Effective mesmer guide

''Note: this article is intended to provide guidance for experienced characters playing a new mesmer or experienced mesmers looking for additional options. If this is your first time playing Guild Wars, please see the Pre-Searing guide for Prophecies or the Getting started in Guild Wars Factions.''

Synopsis
This guide is divided in two primary sections in order to account for the fundamental differences of roles between a PvE mesmer and a PvP mesmer. This does not mean that the advice in the PVE section does not apply to PVP, just that it is more specific to PVE.

General
While it is well known that knowing your enemy as well as yourself is the path to victory, it is particularly true for mesmers, whose primary function is often to mess with their foes' actions.

So you're a Primary Mesmer
As a primary mesmer, you have access to Fast Casting, mesmer armor and mesmer runes.


 * Fast Casting: Enables you to cast spells much quicker than any other profession. This makes your interrupts easier, enemy interrupts on you more difficult, and allows you to cast more spells in a set amount of time.
 * Classic Mistake: Most beginner mesmers forget that Fast Casting applies to any spells, and any spell-oriented profession (monk, elementalist, necromancer and, to a lesser extent, ritualist) will synergize well with it as a second profession.


 * Mesmer runes & headgear: Enables you to have up to 4 more ranks in a mesmer attribute than secondary mesmers. The advantages should be obvious.

Do you really need to be a primary mesmer?
Here are some signs that might indicate that mesmer might be more suited as a secondary profession for you:


 * You're repeatedly using the most expensive mesmer skills (e.g. Conjure Nightmare and Panic).
 * In this case an elementalist's Energy Storage could end up being more useful to you than Fast Casting.


 * None of your mesmer attributes is higher than 12 or you're not using Fast Casting.
 * Any of the other profession could make an interesting alternative.

Managing Energy
The mesmer profession gives you all the tools needed to manage your energy level appropriately.

Conveniently, almost all of these are part of the Inspiration Magic line (minus some exceptions like Shame and Guilt) and will usually give back energy as well as performing another useful task.

Learning to use those skills is one of the things that differentiate normal mesmers and those that perform exceptionally well for long fights.

Four of the five Inspiration Magic elite skills deal with energy management of some sort. In order of popularity:


 * Mantra of Recall
 * Big energy payback every 20s
 * Energy Drain
 * Steals energy and gives you twice the amount
 * Power Leech
 * Interrupts a spell and steals energy when foe casts subsequent spells
 * Lyssa's Aura
 * Steals energy when you are the target of an enemy's spell

Some other popular and effective inspiration skills:


 * Drain Enchantment
 * Remove an enchantment and gives back energy (10..20)
 * Power Drain
 * Interrupts a spell and gives back energy (1..25)
 * Energy Tap
 * Steals energy and gives you twice the amount
 * Channeling
 * Gain 1 energy for each foe in the area when casting spells
 * Inspired/Revealed Hex
 * Remove a hex, gain back energy (3..13) and copy the hex for 20s.
 * Inspired/Revealed Enchantment
 * Remove an enchantment, gain back energy (3..13) and copy the enchantment for 20s.
 * Guilt/Shame
 * Stop enemy spells and steal energy from them. These spells are in the Domination Magic line as opposed to Inspiration, and allow you to put more points into Domination.

PvE
Being a mesmer in PvE is mostly around leveraging the faults of the AI:
 * They ignore self-damaging hexes
 * Always flee DoT AoE
 * Always remove hexes, whenever possible

Domination Magic
Backfire is the crux of a anti-caster PvE Domination mesmer. The AI is not intelligent enough to stop casting when hexed, use that to your advantage. The noted exception is that the monk AI will stop casting (or perhaps cast less frequently) self-heals when hexed with Backfire, but will still heal its other allies.

Empathy applies in the same way to physical attackers: warriors, rangers and, even more so, assassins.

Use Chaos Storm to apply pressure to casters or to disperse melee attackers.

Wastrel's Worry is a disabling dominator's friend. The skill is unique in that it punishes when the target who uses skills infrequently, either because they can't or because you have disabled them. Most of the AI in the game do not specifically activate skills to remove it, making it an invaluable hex to bring along. Timing is everything. Power Block (elite), Arcane Thievery/Larceny, Diversion, Psychic Distraction(elite), and blackout all disable skills. They do not, however interrupt, and sometimes disable your own skills. If you are using such a skill, such as blackout, use it after casting Wastrel's Worry: this prevents the target from ending it prematurely.

Illusion Magic
Use mobs equipped with hex removal skills to your advantage, by casting Phantom Pain on targets with low health, for they will always try to remove it, triggering the Deep Wound.

AI controlled opponents will always attack in-between skills, therefore, Images of Remorse will often do its conditional damage, making it a cheap damage dealer skill and a quickly recharging cover hex.

Distortion is a good defensive stance that can allow a mesmer to survive attacks long enough to shutdown or kill the foe.

There isn't many other Illusion Magic tips that are PvE specific, just apply standard degeneration or anti-physical tactics, as needed.

Inspiration Magic
Most AI controlled enemies will use physical attacks in between skills. Use this to your advantage with Spirit Shackles to shut down energy users. Consider throwing a little Mind Wrack on top. This is extremely effective against Rangers and Assassins.

Often, you'll know what kind of enemies you're going to encounter in advance. When dealing with elemental damage, you should always consider taking the corresponding protection mantra: Earth, Flame, Frost or Lightning. Which to take is often easily predicable by locations: in the Shiverpeaks it is clearly best to take Mantra of Frost, whilst in Charr-heavy areas Mantra of Flame is most useful.

The same applies, to a lesser degree, to Physical and Elemental damage.

Interrupting
Interrupting is a task that mesmers can do very well in different ways, having a lot of skills to do it.

See the generic Interrupt article for more details about interruption in general and/or the Interrupt skills quick reference for a list of interruption skills (not all mesmer-related).

Interruption skills are always coupled with side effects: for example, causing damage, increased recharge, energy gain, and energy denial. Choosing which one you bring with you can be figured out by some questions:
 * 1) What do you want to interrupt (skills or spells)?
 * 2) How often do you want to do it (based on recharge time, do you want to bring more than one interrupt skills)?
 * 3) What side effect do you want to cause (what does your build do)?

Interrupting is really a science in and of itself, you can theoretically learn the basics, but you'll only become good at it with experience.

Here's a couple of tips:
 * When under physical attacks, Boon Protectors will practically always cast Guardian. With its 1s casting time, this is probably the only spell they use you can interrupt while being one they often need for self defense.
 * When a foe dies, quickly scan for the signet usage animation or tab through enemies, watching the skill monitor. You won't have a lot of time, but interrupting a resurrection is always useful and often a turning point.
 * Foes who are enchanted will usually recast their enchantments after you remove them. Remove and Interrupt.
 * Watch out for skills timing and fire your interrupt skill right when your foe will use his.
 * This technique is hard to pull off because it requires you to learn and recognize patterns in your opponents skill usage.
 * For example, a Touch Ranger's life stealing skills have a two second recharge, so when they fire one, count two second and kill them off with Psychic Distraction.

There's basically two interrupting strategies:
 * Shutdown: Concentrate on a foe and prevent him from using any spells/skills.
 * When a single opponent represents a sizable chunk of their strength (often elementalists or monks)
 * Harass: Cycle between foes and interrupt important skills here and there.
 * People are sometimes reluctant to use skills right after being interrupted: harassing opponents uses that fear to reduce their effectively by slowing down their skill usage.

Shutting Down
With any shutdown, Wastrel's Worry can be used to punish a player for not using their skills. Casting every 3 seconds, this can often equal or exceed damage caused by Backfire or Empathy, if the target tries to wait it out.

Casual Casters
Casual casters are primary physical attackers using spells as support. Like the infamous Wammos, most assassins and some rangers (rarely).

Arcane Thievery/Larceny are your best tools against those, as they will rarely carry more than one or two spells.

Slow Casters
Most people think three seconds is a long casting time. Double the pain with Migraine and or Arcane Conundrum. Don't forget to cover those up with quick casting/long lasting hexes.

For fun, you can throw in Overload while they waste an eternity casting their light afternoon shower.

Spammers

 * Diversion is your best friend against spammers of all sorts (Touch Rangers etc.).
 * Blackout is also a viable option.

Melee Attackers

 * Sympathetic Visage/Ancestor's Visage or Soothing Images to deal with Adrenaline-based attackers.
 * Empathy for generic harassment.
 * Spirit Shackles with Mind Wrack.
 * Warriors will often ignore it (until Mind Wrack hits)
 * Assassins will loose a lot of attack power since it effectively cancels the energy gained through Critical Strike and then some.
 * Rangers (using bow attacks) will lose a lot of the energy needed for their attack skills.
 * Use any of the slow down hexes and kite.

Degenerating
Degeneration is a very potent way to deal with enemies for the following reasons:
 * Degeneration is not damage and not affected by damage prevention (the whole Protection Prayers line)
 * Mass degeneration will often cause people to panic:
 * Melee attackers retreat to apparent safety (although will sometimes stay to try to finish off a wounded foe).
 * If confronted with a mass of hexes they can't deal with, healers over-heal, wasting precious energy.

When wanting to deal with life degeneration, Illusion Magic is what you want to have a look at. Builds are usually build around spammable hexes like Conjure Phantasm and Images of Remorse. The rest are picked from various utilitarian skills that cause degeneration with added effects:


 * Crippling Anguish (elite) - Slow down
 * Illusion of Pain - Massive degeneration but heals when the hex ends
 * Recurring Insecurity (elite) - Renewed when foe is hexed
 * Phantom Pain - Cause a deep wound when the hex ends
 * Migraine (elite) - Double spell casting times

Since degeneration is based solely on Illusion Magic hexes, it is a good idea to invest points in Inspiration Magic to be able to use Mantra of Persistence with some efficacy, rendering your hexes a lot more potent.

Energy Denying
Listed here are skills that cause your opponent to lose energy. It doesn't include skills that cause energy degeneration.

Domination

 * Energy Burn
 * Energy Surge elite
 * Guilt
 * Power Leak
 * Shame
 * Signet of Weariness

Fast Casting

 * Arcane Languor

Inspiration

 * Energy Drain elite
 * Energy Tap
 * Ether Feast
 * Feedback
 * Lyssa's Aura elite
 * Power Leech
 * Spirit Shackles
 * Spirit of Failure

Choosing a second Profession
Primary mesmers (especially for its access to Fast Casting) are often combined with other spell-based professions to create wildly different kinds of builds:


 * Me/E Flashfire
 * Me/N Recurring Soul Barbs
 * Me/W Illusion Slasher