Shutdown Mesmer

Definition
A Shutdown Mesmer is a Mesmer who focuses on stopping (shutting down) enemy spell-casters (and, to extend, other classes) through careful use of energy draining skills, interrupts, self-damage spells and skill-denial skills.

So what does it really do?
While a general idea of "shutting down" the enemy seems easy enough to create and execute, life shows that it's much more complicated. A Mesmer isn't a spellcaster in a Elementalist, Necromancer or Ritualist way; he doesn't have an army to fight for him while he hurls curses from afar, neither can he summon balls of fire or encase enemies in an icy prison. Everything that Mesmers do is indirect, but that doesn't mean it's inconsequential. On top of that, the general idea of shutting someone down means that you will be preventing whatever your target wants to do rather than dealing great damage which makes Mesmer dependable on the rest of the team, and on the enemy, since if you want to shutdown/prevent the enemy from doing something, he has to want to do it in the first place. Your actions have to be carefully timed to take full effect while choice of skills is dependent on what types of enemies will you encounter.

Skills
The choice of skills depends on what enemy is expected to be encountered and what kind of "denial" will be used.

Energy drain
Draining your enemy's energy is a simple way of ensuring that he won't be able to use any skills that cost energy. This method, however, will not work so well on elementalists who have a lot of energy or warriors focused on adrenaline skills. It is also useless against any signets, since they cost no energy. You have to choose skills based on what kind of activity you'll expect. On warriors, use Spirit Shackles, Panic, Ether Lord, or direct drain skills like Energy Surge. If you expect casters, you can use skills that interrupt their spells while draining energy on interruption--this ensures that you won't get hit by some nasty spells.


 * Energy Burn - Nice and simple, target the enemy, fire away, see the effects. It deals armor ignoring damage based on the amount of energy lost. Maximum number of burned energy is 7, while the spell's cost is 10 - not very energy efficient.
 * Energy Surge - Elite version of the above, works exactly the same except that deals AoE "in the area" damage, which is great against groups. Energy loss however, occurs on only one foe which makes it exactly effective as Energy Burn in terms of e-denial.
 * Guilt - Useful if you expect fast casting enemies. Guilt is a hex, fails next target's spell and steals 5..12 energy for mere 5 energy cost. It's drawback is that is a hex spell, so it can be removed.
 * Panic & Power Flux - Instead of draining/burning the energy, those spells apply a continuous energy degeneration of 2 (on top of interrupting/damage). It means that casters regain their energy twice as slow, while warrior types may not regenerate it at all. Infuriating when you don't have any energy left at all.
 * Power Leak - this interrupt spell causes the enemy to lose a whopping 10..22 energy, which in most cases means about half of their energy.
 * Price of Pride - Only activates on Elite skill use with energy loss of 4..9 which makes it inferior to Guilt.
 * Shame - Useful on enemy monks since the enemy has to target his ally for the stealing effect. 5..12 energy is comparable to Guilt's effect.
 * Signet of Weariness - AoE e-loss effect costing 0 energy. Great on groups and when you're low on juice. The only drawback is a long recharge time.
 * Energy Drain & Energy Tap - Very good for making your enemy lose energy and gain it by youself. Second one is much less efficient due to horrible casting time.
 * Ether Lord - Works similar to Panic but gives greater degeneration and gives you same regeneration, it should be used when your energy is very low, since you'll be losing it all anyway.
 * Ether Phantom - Low degeneration so it won't affect spellcasters that much, but gets around hex removing problem - when it's removed prematurely, hexed foe loses additional amount of energy.
 * Feedback - Low energy loss but it removes an enchantment, so it's good against protection monks, attunements, the like.
 * Lyssa's Aura - This spell is great when enemy decides to nuke you to death, since it'll steal energy from anyone that'll cast spell on you. If the enemy won't notice this and decide to spam you, you can be sure that his energy will go down VERY quickly.
 * Power Leech - Similar to above, works only on one enemy and you have to interrupt him first. Again, good on spammers.
 * Spirit Shackles - This one works great on unaware warriors, archers and other attacking foes. The faster foe attacks, the quicker he losses energy. Practically ineffective on spellcasters.

Anti-Adrenaline
These spells are best when used against enemy warriors that rely heavily on adrenaline based skills. Since a lot of people see Mesmers as anti-caster professions, those skills may be a bitter surprise.


 * Ancestor's Visage - This skill's effect is triggered when foe is hit with a melee attack, so it'll be useless if someone's not under attack. It has an Adjacent AoE, so it's more effective against tight groups.
 * Sympathetic Visage - Prophecies copy of the above skill.
 * Soothing Images - Instead of draining adrenaline, this skill prevents it from building up, so it's best used just before combat.

Interrupts
Interruption is the another level of a Shutdown Mesmer. While energy draining is pretty much "fire at will" method, interrupting has to be carefully timed to your enemy. Moreover, you have to know which skills you can (and want to) interrupt, and which ones you cannot, like stances or shouts. Interrupts like Power Spike or Power Leak have a casting time of 1/4 second so in theory they could interrupt a 1/2 second cast spell, one has to realize however, that a human's brain reaction time, network "reaction time" and a few other things make it quite impossible. This is very difficult for newbie users, who tend to activate interrupts on every skill the enemy tries to activate, only to waste energy. The other thing worth mentioning is that most of the interrupts work only on spells, and won't work against anything else.


 * Complicate - Interrupts any action and if it was a signet, disables it and all other signets, which makes it quite effective against Warriors and their Healing Signets.
 * Cry of Frustration - skill AoE interrupt with additional AoE damage, great against anything.
 * Power Block - spell interrupt which disables same attribute spells. It gives MASSIVE advantage over anyone that relies on heavy spell usage.
 * Power Flux - While this spell interrupt puts a -2 energy degen on a foe, it makes it a difficult choice since it is an Elite skill.
 * Power Leak - spell interrupt that makes foe lose a massive 10..22 energy.
 * Power Spike - same as above, deals armor ignoring damage instead of energy drain, looks better because of a much faster recharge.
 * Signet of Disruption - free skill interrupt if you manage to hex your enemy, and if you prefer to do that, it's a good idea to use Psychic Instability first. Without hexing, it's a good free spell interrupt.
 * Clumsiness - attack interrupt hex, works wonders if you time it on a Spike-executing attacker. Deals quite a lot of damage.
 * Signet of Clumsiness - Signet version of the above, less damage, but no energy cost.
 * Leech Signet - action interrupt that can be a part of your energy management.
 * Power Drain - spell interrupt that works very similar to the above signet, providing you with much-needed energy. Both of those skills have quite a long recharging time.
 * Power Leech - spell interrupt that makes you drain foe's energy whenever he casts a spell. Good on spammers and unaware players/mob.
 * Web of Disruption - Interrupts twice, although second interrupt is a much like a "spray and pray" weapon.
 * Guilt - spell fail hex, again makes you steal energy, doesn't really work on monks since they rather target allies than enemies.
 * Hex Breaker - hex fail stance which is useful against enemy Mesmers/Necromancers who spam their curses all over the place.
 * Mistrust - Works pretty much like Guilt, but deals AoE dmage instead. Just like Guilt, useless on monks, etc.
 * Shame - anti-monk version of Guilt.

Self Damage
Self Damage skills are not exactly considered as Shutdown skills, since they don't prevent the enemy from executing an action. Instead, they put a great tension on foes, when they have to choose between damaging themselves and, say, healing allies, nuking the enemy and so on. This of course applies to human enemies, while NPC's will blast through them like nothing happened. That makes these skills more of a damage tool than denial methods.


 * Backfire - Probably one of the most known Mesmer skills, on high attribute level deals way above 100 armor ignoring damage to a spell casting foe. It can kill a spamming enemy if he keeps firing through it. It works great on spiking foes.
 * Empathy - anti-warrior version of the above, deals a lot less damage, but it still ignores armor. The faster the enemy attacks, the more effective it becomes.
 * Mistrust - good on group centered around a spell caster, fails next cast spell.
 * Panic - This one deals damage whenever foes use signets (on top of -2 energy degen), so it's good against someone that relies on them (Healing Signet anyone?).
 * Visions of Regret - Very powerful against adrenaline-based enemies, deals a lot of armor ignoring damage.
 * Clumsiness - interrupts next attack on top of dealing self-damage.
 * Frustration - Not exactly a self-damage spell, it makes the enemy cast 50% slower and take damage on interrupts. This makes the enemy think twice before casting a spell. Your interrupts also become much easier.
 * Ineptitude - this is quite possibly the best skill against enemy attackers, deals a lot of armor ignoring damage on attack and makes the enemy blind, which means that he won't be able to hit you. Whether foe attacks through it or not, it makes him "disabled" anyway.

Skill Denial
Instead of interrupting the enemy, these skills make sure that he won't be able to use skills in the first place. Disabling one critical skill on the enemy may well be the key to victory: a monk without his best healing prayers won't be able to heal his team members efficiently, a spell-stripped elementalist becomes much less of a danger.


 * Arcane Larceny & Arcane Thievery - these spells will disable one random spell for up to half a minute and enable you to use it against the enemy. The disabling effect is good on his own, while the spell steal will be usually useless, since you probably won't have any points in the stolen spell's attribute to use it efficiently.
 * Blackout - In PvE, great on a single enemy rather than a group, while the rest of your team focuses on dealing damage. It may be used to shutdown the most dangerous enemy, but leaves you shut down as well.
 * Complicate - this interrupt disables all signets on target foe, so it's good if that enemy focuses on them.
 * Diversion - "Disables" one skill for about 45 seconds, which works great on spammed skills or skills that are critical to the enemy's survival.
 * Ignorance - Another anti-signet skill, this one however doesn't require the user to interrupt a signet.
 * Power Block - This interrupt is devastating against enemies who use spells from just one atribute, like Elementalists focused on one element, healing/protection monks, and so on.
 * Simple Thievery - disables and steals only non-spell skills, so it's good against non-casters like archers, warriors, paragons, assassins etc. Pretty much an anti-warrior version of Arcane Thievery.
 * Signet of Humility - Good against a foe that relies on his elite skill to be effective.

Other Skills
Any skill that will help you disable your enemy can be considered as helpful in your build. Examples may be (but are not limited to) Stolen Speed, Arcane Languor, Mantra of Recovery, Arcane Conundrum, Tease or Echo/Arcane Echo.

The Build
One of the good things about Mesmer skills is that they often do more than one thing at the same time, eg. interrupt and drain energy, deal damage and inflict conditions, and so on. This makes the build more flexible in terms of what kind of "annoyance" the Mesmer will be and provides alternative routes of Shutdown performance. Looking at a simple build below reveals a lot of flexibility.

Basic example
First two skills are self-damage anti-warrior skills. While the first one may be not enough, the second one deals a lot more damage and causes Blindness, which makes the enemy warrior miss with his attacks. The rest of the skills are focused on anti-casting. While Backfire can be cast on one target to discourage him from spamming spells, Thievery and interrupts can be used on another target to shut him down. Interrupts also deal damage, drain energy and provide basic e-management. This build however, while being Jack of All Trades, is a master of none. It will stand against all types of enemies, but it won't shine against any of them. A typical party support.

Anti-spam Mesmer
This build focuses on shutting down enemy spell casters who tend to spam their spells very quickly. The very first skill on the skill is a powerful shutdown interrupt, so while one enemy gets completely disabled, the user can spam Wastrel's Worry for ensuring damage, or switch to another target and use Diversion, Arcane Thievery etc. to disable main enemy's skills. The last two skills are used for energy management, which is much better than in the previous build.

Anti-melee
This build example focuses on melee attackers. Empathy, Ineptitude and Clumsiness discourage the fighter from attacking, while Soothing Images makes sure he doesn't build any adrenaline. If he decides to use a skill, it can be interrupted with Cry of Frustration, while the last skills provide energy management and resurrection capability. These skills can be switched to other ones for better effect, like Leech Signet, Signet of Clumsiness, and the like.

E-Denial
This example can be used on warriors and casters alike to drain their energy. The first three skills work on any class, draining the energy and dealing damage at the same time. Spirit Shackles is best used on warriors, while Power Leak is great on casters. Ether Lord should be used when low on energy, together with Drain Enchantment for energy management.

Please note: Apart from E-Surge build, which was tested and vetted by the GuildWki community, above builds are only examples of a Shutdown Mesmer's capabilities and should not be taken as vetted and viable builds.

Drawbacks
A Shutdown Mesmer can be extremely efficient against certain types of enemies when built and played correctly. However, it must be noted that while killing spell casters, the Mesmer can be easily ripped apart by warriors/rangers, and vice versa. Extending the skill coverage against those classes makes the Mesmer in turn less efficient against any of them or, in the worst case, makes the build useless. It makes the Mesmer highly dependable on the team: tanks, healers, damage dealers, etc. While the Mesmer shuts down the most dangerous character, other party members have to take care of the other foes, protect the Mesmer, and provide healing and defensive capabilities.

Usage of interrupts requires a perfect timing and extended skill knowledge about other classes skills and abilities. Some combinations require lightning reflexes from the player to perform on a satisfactory level. Also, some types of skills, like stances, shouts, and other interrupts, cannot be interrupted almost at all. Some interrupts work against certain skills only and again have to be chosen depending on expected enemies.

Alternatives
Shutdown Mesmers have a wide choice of skills from their secondary professions, which can make them even more efficient and can provide even more specialization.


 * Elementalist: Blinding Surge, Blinding Flash and Gale are effective against enemy warriors, while Glyphs can be used for energy management. Rust can provide an advantage against signet users, same as Icy Prism.
 * Necromancer: Mark of Subversion is a great way of interrupting a foe while healing yourself at the same time. Soul Leech puts on tension just as Backfire does in addition to possible healing. Spoil Victor combines Backfire and Empathy in one skill. Depravity can be used in e-denial build. A few other skills include Insidious Parasite, Malaise, Spiteful Spirit, Vocal Minority, Well of Silence or Wither.
 * Monk: Scourge Sacrifice is effective against enemy necromancers, while Scourge Healing and Scourge Enchantment will put pressure on enemy monks. Pacifism as well as Amity works wonders on enemy warriors as long as you don't attack them.
 * Ranger: If you like fighting with your pet, Bestial Pounce/Savage Pounce may be a good skill for you, just as Disrupting Lunge which goes further and disables a skill. Energizing Wind may be useful in a skill disable build. Primal Echoes is good against signet spammers. Archers have a good amount of interrupt skills, like Distracting Shot, Broad Head Arrow, Concussion Shot or the Disrupting Accuracy preparation.
 * Warrior: If you're wielding a shield, consider using Shield Bash. If you focus on keeping the enemy knocked down, consider using Shove or "Coward!". Distracting Blow is a decent melee-range interrupt, while Skull Crack will inflict Dazed on your foe, making him much more interruptable.
 * Assassin: Disrupting Stab makes for a cheap interrupt which you can follow with Temple Strike and Exhausting Assault. Disrupting Dagger is another cheap interrupt, while Shroud of Silence makes for a spell caster disabling skill. With Beguiling Haze you can interrupt the enemy and inflict Dazed on him for even easier interrupts.
 * Ritualist: Wailing Weapon and Warmonger's Weapon on you or other ally is a good way to continuously interrupt someone. Holding the item from Defiant Was Xinrae is a great way to disable multiple skills on multiple foes, while the Dissonance spirit can help you interrupt foes. Cast Xinrae's Weapon on attacked party member to disable additional spells on foes.
 * Paragon: Leader's Zeal can be used for energy management, or use Awe on knocked down foe for Dazed effect. On burning foes, Glowing Signet provides a good amount of energy.
 * Dervish: Consider using this profession's skills for massive enchantment removal, or better healing capabilities. Veil of Thorns is a good way to kite melee attackers.

Related Articles
(to be added)