General PvE Mesmer Builds

As seen here I play that build a bit differently. Over [[power drain] and [[you move like a dwarf] I chose [[overload] and [[shatter delusions]. When you played with the overload combo once you grow to love it! Roughly 160 AoE with a recharge of 4 seconds; you just have to be able to hit skills with it. But isn't that part of the point of playing mesmer? I also chose [[empathy] over [[cry of pain] for a slightly more flexible build. [[Panic] + [[arcane conundrum] may shut down the majority of spells in well-balled groups, but against e.g. warriors you may feel a bit useless as they simply use their stances and attack skills, so you aren't able to do much against them. One could of course combine the advantages of both skills by simply bringing both of them, replacing the overload combo. Last skill's free to chose, one may want some help with the energy like [[drain enchantment] or [[guilt] for truly mindless wastrels spamming or [[cry of frustration] for a nice AoE rupt with proper damage.

But if you want to really make sure that wastrels uses its full potential, you'll have to bring [[psychic instability]. At 12 fast cast it knocks those nasty foes down for 4 seconds while recharging within 8 (or 7 with 13 fast cast). Combined with the other rupts it's a safe source of damage as well as shutdown. Other than the [[lyssa's aura] spam build this one is not to be used as mindlessly, rather gets hurt by more sources of shutdown (because that may make you miss your elite rupt!) but can get some help from a [[blood is power] support to use its potential completely. Last skill could be [[cry of pain] or [[mistrust], may bring both and replace [[power spike] for it. Depends on preferance, the probability of successfully hitting [[power drain] and the available of energy support.

In normal mode you can usually just run as many copies of esurge and invoke as possible and drop all healing. I thought about stolen speed for discord style teambuilds, but never thought it could be useful enough to justify chosing it over e.g. fevered dreams or a damage elite skill.

I'd be interested in seeing some viable Stolen Speed builds. It doesn't have to be optimal, just fun to play. However, not sure on what team to build around that skill.

I guess it would shine with Meteor Shower at 2.5s, Meteor/Deep freeze/Lightning Hammer/Rodgort's Invocation/Spirit Rift/Barbs/ at 1s.

Except for [[Rodgort's Invocation] none of these skills are actually that good, though. [[Lightning Strike] is basically [[Lightning Hammer] for 5 energy and half the casting time, [[deep freeze] lies in a no damage attribute line, [[meteor shower] is wasted time and energy, [[spirit rift] would still take 4 seconds until it finally deals damage; melee players might have driven the foes away by then or simply killed them.

I'd expect the best synergy in [[Stone Daggers]/[[flare] + [[Ebon Battle Standard of Honor]. I guess I won't have to say that this won't be that good. There's a reason people run armor ignoring damage, mostly. As a buff for mesmers, who have fast cast anyway, and necromancers, which don't even target foes with some of their most powerful skills ([[putrid explosion]), that elite skill simply doesn't sound as good as the other options.