Energy management guide (PvP)

A character's energy management usually means the skills a character uses to afford themselves energy on top of natural energy regeneration but more generally is simply a plan for energy usage. This article will briefly discuss the energy management skills often used in PvP. However, skills are not the only ways for a character to manage their energy. A character's overall build in terms of skill costs and recharges (or, how often those skills are used), attributes (in the case of Expertise and Soul Reaping), and equipment (such as zealous upgrades) are important considerations.

Common energy management skills
Although there are many skills which provide energy, not all are suitable for energy management in general. Such skills often have restrictions that make them unhelpful for most characters such as conditions on their effect, like Ether Lord, or need a certain attribute which is otherwise not of use or simply not available. In particular, warrior and ranger skills are not often used for energy management, although skills such as Bonetti's Defense and Storm Chaser can be very effective in specific situations.

The two general criteria for usefulness of an energy management skill are the net gain over time for using the skill and the attribute cost of the skill. The former considers the energy gained minus any costs and how often the skill can be used. The latter is not simply the attribute points invested for a skill but the opportunity cost of spending those points (which may mean picking a certain secondary, making your other skills less effective, or strengthening skills linked to that attribute). A skill might also have secondary considerations specific to itself such as particularly effective combinations of skills or how easily the skill can be countered.

Offering of Blood
Offering of Blood, while once the preeminent elite energy management skill for monks, has since been patched to lower its overall effectiveness by increasing its sacrifice. Offering of Blood is now mainly used in energy intensive primary necromancer builds or other builds that can gain use out of the Blood Magic investment. The strengths of OoB lie in its relatively fast recharge (15s), its fast activation (1/4s), and that it is guaranteed to provide energy without any special external considerations. The downside is the 20% sacrifice, which, besides potentially costing energy to heal, can be hazardous to use (or with low heal, impossible to use).

Consume Corpse
Consume Corpse can also be a viable energy management skill but this facet is usually overshadowed by its use as corpse control. With no recharge, use is limited only by available corpses, which can be both a boon and a curse for energy management. When primarily used for corpse control, usually only enough points are invested to make the energy gain balance the cost. But, on a character with strong Death Magic, Consume Corpse can provide large amounts of energy.

Glyph of Energy
Glyph of Energy is commonly used in builds that occasionally use expensive spells or repeatedly use spells which cause exhaustion (Gale, Obsidian Flame, Earthquake). For expensive elementalist spells, also consider Elemental Attunement While Glyph of Energy works only on spells, it requires no attribute points as an unlinked skill.

Attunements
The elementalist attunements (Air Attunement, Earth Attunement, Fire Attunement, Water Attunement, and the elite Elemental Attunement) are extremely effective for elementalists (and the odd "fast cast elementalist" Me/Es), they are also fairly specialized. An elementalist using only one elemental attribute can reduce costs of his elemental skills by 80% by using attunements. Elementalist using more elements can still save an impressive 50% on all elemental skills by using just Elemental Attunement. However, as enchantments, attunements can be removed by the enemy. It's not uncommon for an elementalist build to rely on dual attunements and their effect can be viewed the other way around: an elementalist with his attunements removed is now 50-80% less effective.

Ether Prodigy
Ether Prodigy is useful for elementalist primaries that bring skills from other professions and so attunements as useful. Prodigy is most commonly seen on E/Mos with both elementalist skills and relatively expensive monk skills such as Heal Party, Aegis, or Convert Hexes. Such monk skills are effective without the monk primary attribute, Divine Favor, and with only a moderate attribute investment. Like attunements, Ether Prodigy is an enchantment and so if consistently removed, Prodigy can be rendered useless. The other drawback to Prodigy is the potential damage it deals. The damage can be reduced by careful use of Prodigy and the energy it provides (or even by use of Heal Party).

Channeling
Channeling is often used in the Heroes' Ascent tournament because of the potentially large number of enemies. Monks very often use Channeling as non-elite energy management. Channeling is particularly discouraged for use in GvG by monks because they are generally supposed to hang back and out of the fight, but in HA, things are more chaotic and hanging back might not even be possible. Such a melee often makes Channeling more effective, not uncommonly to the point of having 5 energy spells actually provide the caster with energy. While Channeling is an enchantment, its low cost and recharge somewhat mitigate the usual drawbacks of enchantment removal.

Power Drain
Power Drain provides a very high energy yield and has a low cost but requires that the user interrupts a spell. For some characters, such as primary mesmers (who might be trying to interrupt the enemy anyway), this is not a problem. But, for monks, this might be distracting and detrimental to their efforts as a monk. Some players also seem to simply not have the knack for interruption, making this a poor choice for them. In some cases, the enemy might be short on casters so successfully using Power Drain might be difficult than usual.

Inspired Hex
Inspired Hex has a dual role as energy management and hex removal. As straight energy management, Inspired Hex does not provide much net energy gain and simply as hex removal, it has a relatively high recharge. But, as a combination, Inspired Hex can be useful to provide modest energy to a character while also benefiting the team as a whole by removing a hex.

Drain Enchantment
Drain Enchantment is similar to Inspired Hex, but with a higher recharge (though, relative to other enchantment removals, it does not have a very high recharge, as opposed to Inspired Hex and other hex removals), higher cost, higher energy yield, and is instead offensive in nature.

Energy Drain
Energy Drain, changed to a lower recharge in the same patch that changed Offering of Blood, is coming back into use, particularly by monks. The energy stealing nature of Energy Drain is doublesided: you deny the enemy energy, but if that enemy has little or no energy, then the user gains no benefit.

Mantra of Recall
Mantra of Recall, similar to Energy Drain, has gained popularity with the change to Offering of Blood. It has a relatively high net energy gain over time. While it is an enchantment, it doesn't follow the general trend of timely removal spelling disaster, but using a +20% enchantment length upgrade is undesirable. Casters having a second set of weapons is common (whether to combat energy denial or simply to have a different set of upgrades and modifiers), so the enchantment length upgrade problem is manageable. With a relatively high energy cost of 10, an early enchantment removal can break a user's "rhythm," so care must be taken to reserve some energy for Mantra when it recharges in such a case. For monks, Mantra of Recall also has a particularly useful combination with Contemplation of Purity.

Note
The mesmer energy management skills are relatively versatile and can be used by either mesmer primaries or secondaries, without particularly regard to the character's role. In addition, they are all Inspiration Magic spells, so a character can make several varied skills available for energy management with investment into only one attribute.

Word of Healing
Word of Healing, while not providing energy, can be an extremely efficient heal. With a 4s recharge, Word can work out to large energy savings for a healing monk. Besides only being useful for healers, the condition for the extra heal to kick in can be inconvenient. It also is not usable on the caster, making it less desirable in 4v4.

Blessed Signet
Blessed Signet is used by monks, such as bonders, that maintain many enchantments. Combined with Balthazar's Spirit on a bonder or Mantra of Inscriptions, Blessed Signet can turn maintained enchantments into a source of energy. The main weakness is Blessed Signet needs to be used often and has a slow activation, making it a prime target for interruption. Distracting Shot or Diversion can potentially shut down Blessed Signet and force all but four of the maintained enchantments to drop.

Signet of Devotion
Signet of Devotion is a no-cost heal, that is particularly efficient against energy denial and opponents without the ability to interrupt. Due to the long casting time, it is often coupled with spells like Guardian, Shield of Deflection, Distortion, Whirling Defense, and Bonetti's Defense. However, it becomes less useful with a Divine Favor level below 13, and is not effective against spikes and high-damage or interrupt builds.

Boon Signet
Boon Signet is another no-cost heal, usable every 5 seconds, which gives energy based on how many enchantments that player is under (2 energy per enchantment, maximum 6 energy). It allows the monk to heal and gain energy at the same time, and it also frees up the monk's secondary -- it can also allow a prot boon monk to have 16 divine favor and 13 protection (or 16 divine and 15 protection with a second superior rune; hp armor can be used to offset the additional hitpoint cost), thereby focusing on two primary monk attributes instead of having to be spread across three. There are some drawbacks, however; because of the one second casting time, and the relatively low healing and energy per use, the monk must constantly use this ability in order to sustain his energy. This can be problematic, especially in situations where the monk must kite to stay alive.