Bit of a quiet week on the Guild Wars front, with RL getting in the way and making us miss a turn, as it were. Annoying, but we're not in any particular hurry, so I don't mind. I still got a few hours of solo questing in though; largely inconsequential side-jobs for cash and xp that don't really count in the grand scheme of the ongoing story that much.
These were mostly in the 'mid-game' regions of Tyria and Cantha, as I play a bit of catch-up, bringing my Mesmer through the Factions story and outposts, only this time via the Kurzick side, which although perhaps not quite as enchanting as the frozen jade seas, does feature a subtly elegant petrified forest adorned with vast gothic cathedral-like structure high in the stone branches - a distinctly different take on the usual 'Fantasy Treehouse Town #3' kind of thing.
Being my chosen 'Main', its the Mesmer's Hall of Monuments I'm working at filling with trophies gained from various titles, including the 'have completed each campaign' ones. This means a lot of revisiting of old places and missions I'd not done in a long time, and as different characters even then. The Heroes help of course, as does my much greater understanding of how it all works, making these retro revisits quite relaxing compared to, say....the Shards of Orr, and making this week's adventuring a bit of a holiday from the hectic dungeon-work so far.
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Still managed to find time to put together a Comedy Mesmer Build this week though! Despite being far too much in love with my own imagined cleverness and the ways of Mesmering, I've always been quite jealous of the Elementalists. While I'm doing all sorts of rather complex and confusing (to both myself AND my target) illusion and whatnot, Cynn, a regular choice for henchman, is basically setting fire to everything, in a very spectacular and apocalyptic manner indeed. Mostly, its the Fire Magic AoE stuff that looks the most fun, and Guild Wars being Guild Wars, there's nothing stopping me from setting everything on fire myself!
The Reign of Fire
Mesmer/Elementalist ('Mentalist', if you will...)
Inspiration 12, Fire Magic 12, Fast Casting 3
Requires: Prophecies (#3, #6), Factions (#5), Nightfall (#7)
Equipment: Inspiration Staff, and/or anything that Halves Recharge or Casting of Fire Magic spells. Inspiration Rune and Masque. Radiant Insignias and Runes of Attunement will help as well - several of the above spells cost 25 energy, and Primary Elementalists get Energy Storage points, which Mesmers don't.
Its a very back row artillery based build, with the two big hitters, #3 - Meteor Storm, and #6 - Rodgort's Invocation. Both do a pretty large amount of AoE Fire damage, with suitably hectic particle effects and monster-murder! The Elite of the piece, is #2 - Echo, an unattributed Mesmer Spell which allows you to duplicate the next skill you use, into it's slot, for 30s. Given that the bigger and more powerful spells available to the Elementalist take quite a long time to recharge, using this skill lets you have two goes at a favourite spell, in this case, either #3 or #6.
(Using this skill in concert with Arcane Echo allows three goes at a favoured spell, using what they call an 'Echo Chain', but what with the energy costs and Exhaustion, probably not ideal for this particular build)
With the 25-cost spells in the build, and not having the Elementalist's native ability to increase their maximum energy via Energy Storage, energy management takes up a large part of the remaining slots. First, #1 - Fire Attunement, a buff that should be cast before engaging, gives back some energy each time a Fire Spell is cast. Then #5 - Auspicious Incantation, pays back energy after then next spell is cast - in this case, about 200% of the preceding spell's cost, making a hefty energy gain and the main energy source here. #7 - Glowing Gaze causes damage on the target, and energy gain if they are on fire - use directly after #6 to ensure this. #8 - Drain Enchantment is a good choice for spare slots in an Inspiration build, offering self-heal and more energy, and strips enemy enchantments. #4 - Meteor, is a cheap one-shot AoE Knockdown blast, for 5-cost.
Definitely a more considered pace than many builds; the spells take comparatively long to cast, and recharge, and with #3 and #4, a new feature I'd not experienced before; Exhaustion. Almost entirely exclusive to Elementalists, some spells are so powerful, that casting them wears the caster out a bit. This manifests as a temporary hit to the caster's Maximum power, a bit like receiving a Deep Wound does to health. This recovers a point at a time, but quite slowly, and particularly with Echo, it becomes quite easy to Exhaust yourself to the point where you no longer have 25 points to play with! A new way to play for me, and you soon learn to balance the types of spell, start with #3 and #4, and when the Exhaustion brings you down to about 30-25 points, switch to #6 and #7 instead.
Its also quite situational - the Meteor knockdowns seem to work best on stationary groups of ranged and casters, who won't have moved out from under the giant space-rocks before they land. The knockdowns work well to interrupt casting too. Melee types on the other hand, rush about a lot, so the Invocation is a better choice - fairly fast to cast, and hits a person, not a patch of ground. The burnination follows them about too!
An Elementalist/Mesmer would actually do better at this build than an Me/E, as Energy Storage would mitigate a lot of the problems of casting lots of 25-cost spells, and the Exhaustion aspect, and possibly even make tripple-cast Echo chians workable. Fast casting helps a fair bit, but Auspicious Incantation would lose a great deal of it's power. Possibly use a Glyph instead.
I don't care though...sometimes, arcane entanglement and phantasmal trickery is no substitute for just setting someone's head on fire and then dropping rocks on it from space!