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.

After the June 15 2007 Game Update, fast casting now decreases Signet activation time by 3% for each rank.
 * 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, assassin and dervish) 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. Additionally, this profession being one of the least often chosen, even the most powerful runes and insignias are especially cheap.

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. 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 professions 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 Ethereal Burden) 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 seven Inspiration Magic elite skills deal with energy management of some sort. In order of popularity:


 * Mantra of Recall
 * Gain (10..22) energy if Mantra of Recall ends.
 * Energy Drain
 * Steals (2..8) energy and gives you triple (in PvE)/double (in PvP) the amount of energy stolen.
 * Power Leech
 * Interrupts a spell and steals (1..6) energy when foe casts spells while hexed with Power Leech.
 * Lyssa's Aura
 * Steals (1..6) energy when you are the target of an enemy's spell for a number of seconds.

Some other popular and effective inspiration skills:


 * Drain Enchantment
 * Remove an enchantment and gives back (7..13) energy. You are also healed for 40..104 health.
 * Power Drain
 * Interrupts a spell and gives back (1..25) energy.
 * Energy Tap
 * Steals (4..6) energy and gives you twice the amount of energy stolen.
 * Channeling
 * Gain 1 energy for each foe in the area when casting a spell.
 * Inspired/Revealed Hex
 * Remove a hex, gain (4..9) energy and copy the hex for 20s. Very useful against hexes that are Monster Skill, as it will remove it, give you energy and recharge instantly (not being able to copy it)
 * Inspired/Revealed Enchantment
 * Remove an enchantment, gain (3..13) energy and copy the enchantment for 20s.
 * Auspicious Incantation
 * Use it before an expensive spell to gain more energy than what the spell has cost you. Basically, using a 25 energy spell under Auspicious Incantation will fill your energy bar. This skill is especially useful when combined with the long casting, expensive elementalist or necromancer skills.
 * Spirit of Failure
 * Make 25% of the target's attack miss, giving you some energy each time an attack misses. Useful in combination with other skills causing blindness or misses.

Besides the Inspiration Magic line of the mesmer, there are 5 skills in other attribute lines that provide energy to the caster:


 * Guilt/Shame (Domination Magic)
 * Stop the next spell casted by your enemy and steal (5..12) energy from him.


 * Ethereal Burden/Kitah's Burden (Illusion Magic)
 * Provides a slowdown on the target and returns (10..20) energy when the hex ends.


 * Symbols of Inspiration (Fast Casting)
 * Returns (1..8) energy for each signet used while under this enchantment.

PvE
Being a mesmer in PvE is mostly built 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 won't stop casting until doing so would be fatal.

Empathy applies in the same way to physical attackers: warriors, rangers and, even more so, assassins. Unlike Backfire, however, the monster will not stop attacking while under this hex.

Use Chaos Storm to apply pressure to casters or to disperse monsters due to the AoE damage it does.

Wastrel's Worry is a disabling dominator's friend. The skill is unique in that it punishes the target who uses skills infrequently, either because they are still recharging 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, which prevent the target from ending Wastrel's Worry.

When playing a mesmer in Prophecies, bring Wastrel's Worry along to kill enemy bosses. In this campaign, bosses have Natural resistance, which causes a hex to last only 50% of their indicated duration. This means that instead of getting damage from Wastrel's Worry after 3 seconds, the boss gets the damage after 1.5 seconds. Also, some "special" bosses in all campaigns, such as Kuunavang and Varesh Ossa, have natural resistance.

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. Use Spirit of Failure to increases the chances of a miss as well as compensate for the energy cost of Distortion.

Cry of Pain and Wandering Eye can be used to generate direct AoE damages.

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

Using Signet of Illusions however allows you to create a powerful PvE summons with skills such as Summon (Asuran) and Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support, without needing ranks in the respective races and even at a higher level than that with just the Norn or Asuran Title Track. Also, using Arcane Mimicry on an ally MM with Flesh Golem and using the rest of the slots as an echo nuker with the signet can also increase PvE capabilities.

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 (especially Assassins and Dervishes). Consider throwing a little Mind Wrack on top. This is extremely effective against enemies that use attack skills.

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 predictable by locations: in the Shiverpeaks it is clearly best to take Mantra of Frost, while in Charr-heavy areas Mantra of Flame is most useful. Mantra of Frost is especially useful in combination with the ranger skill Winter. Add another ranger spirit, Greater Conflagration and you have an extra armor against all elemental and physical damage, plus a reliable energy source.

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

PvP
''The tactics expanded upon in this guide are not the only effective ones, there are many, many options. But, out of necessity, only general tactics will be covered''

Introduction
A good mesmer in PvP focuses on disruption. It is important to realize that the primary objective for a mesmer is not to destroy their opponents, but rather render them incapable of achieving their goals. Mesmers have several tools at their disposal to allow for very flexible builds. The various forms and archetypes of mesmers will be covered in order of current popularity.

Anticaster
There are two main methods to render casters incapacitated; Energy denial and Skill denial, with several other techniques branching off of those main tactics. Due to the fact that many of these skills have attributes of both strategies, many mesmer builds hybridize themselves to become a general Shutdown Mesmer

Energy denial is a tactic that attacks the energy pool of the enemy, rather than the health pool (the way a warrior or elementalist might). The general idea revolves around the fact that most PvP caster builds budget their energy very carefully and, even still, often run short.

An energy denial mesmer might bring skills such as Energy Burn and Energy Surge to further strain the energy reserves of a casual caster. Also, one would do well to bring general interrupts to counter the opposing energy management skills. Power Leak is a popular choice, as is Shame.

General Tips for Energy Denial:
 * Prioritize targets based on the current state of the battle. Ease early pressure to your team by draining the team's offensive casters and countermeasures (Elementalists are prime targets). Mount pressure on the opposing team by draining their defensive measures (Monks and other healing classes).
 * Try and save interrupts for their energy management skills.
 * Maintain a general idea of the target's energy levels. As casting slows, space out the denial skills. Remember, without energy management skills, the average player regains 5 energy approximately every 4 seconds.

Skill Denial is a technique that specializes in keeping most, if not all, of a players skills disabled or otherwise unusable. As opposed to the Energy Denial mesmer, a mesmer specializing in this discipline will focus more on skills such as Power Block and Diversion to prevent the casting of targets.

General Tips for Skill Denial:
 * Use the right skill on the right opponent: for example Migraine or Arcane Conundrum are not very effective on a prot monk with many fast spells while they can be devastating on a healing monk.
 * Diversion is a powerful tool, but much of its potency is lost when it is spammed. Count recharges and try to land it just before a player begins casting the spell you'd like to disable.
 * Use discretion when interrupting, don't rely on reflexes to attain your goals. A mediocre mesmer interrupts most spells, a great mesmer interrupts the important ones.

General Disruption
While it is a fairly new variant, it has already gained popularity. The basis around these builds often rely on one or two skills from other professions used to provide a stream of constant disruption, regardless of class. These can be said to be the most flexible, but also the least focused and, consequently, the most susceptible to other mesmers.

A good example of a general disruption mesmer is one that uses Signet of Judgment or Glyph of Energy in combination with Gale to spam knockdowns. Tips for this variety of build are hard to list as they vary wildly from build to build.

Antimelee
These are the least popular mesmers, not from lack of effectiveness, but more because Elementalist counterparts are more versatile because of snares and other utility skills.

Many antimelee mesmers spam skills from the illusion line such as Wandering Eye and Clumsiness. The advantage this has to other antimelee builds is it not only provides a steady stream of disruption, but it also deals considerable armor-ignoring damage to frontliners, forcing monks to expend energy on healing them. Another common component of the antimelee mesmer is the elite skill Ineptitude.

General Tips for Antimelee:
 * Spamming Ineptitude, Wandering Eye, and Clumsiness can run up energy deficits. Consider using Auspicious Incantation in combination with Conjure Nightmare or Glyph of Lesser Energy.
 * When you know the enemy frontliners have enough Adrenaline for a spike, it may be advantageous to back off until they begin it. Many adrenaline spikes begin with Frenzy which will double the damage from your damaging hexes for the duration.
 * You can maintain fair pressure while waiting on recharges by spamming degeneration hexes.

Choosing a second Profession

 * ''Main article: Secondary professions for a Mesmer

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