Inspiration Magic

Inspiration Magic is a Mesmer secondary attribute, meaning that any character with Mesmer as their primary or secondary profession can put points into this attribute.

Guild Wars Description
"No inherent effect. Many Mesmer skills, especially spells which generate energy and reduce damage, become more effective with higher Inspiration Magic."

General Description
Inspiration Magic is a very important skill for Mesmers. Whereas Domination Magic is focused on disrupting foes and dealing damage, Inspiration Magic is focused on disrupting foes while healing either the Mesmer's health or energy, or simply protecting and healing the Mesmer in various ways. A good example of the similarities and differences between Domination and Inspiration Magic is the Domination skill Shatter Enchantment and the Inspiration skill Drain Enchantment. Shatter Enchantment removes an enchantment and deals damage to the target foe, whereas Drain Enchantment removes an enchantment from the target foe while restoring the caster's energy.

Perhaps where Inspiration Magic shines is in gaining energy for the caster. An amazing 15 skills (out of 25) help you gain energy in some way. Energy Drain, and Energy Tap steal energy from your foes, providing the dual benefit of denying your foe energy while giving yourself more. Drain Enchantment, Inspired Enchantment, and Inspired Hex remove hexes and enchantments and give you energy. Power Drain interrupts a spell and gives you energy, while Spirit of Failure gives you energy whenever your foe fails to strike in combat. Several mantras (see next paragraph) give you energy in addition to their myriad effects. Finally, the strange skill Ether Lord gives your foe energy degeneration, which you receive as regeneration.

An important chunk of Inspiration Magic skills is the Mantras. These are stances, meaning you can only have one active at a time. However, they do not reduce your energy regeneration when active, and they last quite a long time. Some Mantras provide protection from different things. An example is Mantra of Flame, which reduces damage dealt to you by fire attacks, and heals 1 energy whenever it does this. Another is Mantra of Concentration, which prevents you from being interrupted. The other type of Mantras is those that increase the effectiveness of certain types of spells. For example, Mantra of Persistence increases the duration of Illusion Magic hexes.

All in all, Inspiration Magic can be a very powerful attribute, but due to its lack of many skills that actually deal damage, you will be forced to utilize other attributes. Inspiration Magic is best suited as a support attribute, keeping the Mesmer alive while other attributes' skills deal the damage. In a party setting, an Inspiration mage can be focused on denying their foes energy with the energy-stealing skills, along with Spirit Shackles, while your party members take out the helpless foes.