Archive talk:Team - 7 Hero Quintuple Energy Surge

Build Name
Feel free to suggest a name people would be expecting. I usually don't have to give sounding names to builds (I store them with names like "329E"), so that's certainly not my strength. --Krschkr (talk) 14:17, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Is there anything about this team that specifically makes it for Paragons? It looks like a pretty generic ST+N/Rt Resto+Mesmers team. Toraen (talk) 13:17, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Without the paragon player you'd need a bunch of extra midline defense or a third backliner. --Krschkr (talk) 13:48, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Aneurysm
I always forget to test whether heroes use this skill well. Using 5 instances of energy surge it might be a powerful skill if used properly and frequently, especially when adding two instances of mind wrack and signet of weariness. Could drop some copies of spiritual pain, mistrust, cry of frustration. Would probably combine well with guilt/shame over inspiration magic. --Krschkr (talk) 14:26, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have the impression that heroes use aneurysm pretty well: Whenever a foe hits 0 energy. One instance is mainbar now. Probably not worth it in areas with many low energy targets, but great against casters and especially healers. Excellent against elementalists which pump out a lot of energy without energy management, e.g. in Defend Droknar's Forge [Hard Mode Only]. --Krschkr (talk) 10:37, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Keystone
Could 2 Keystone Mesmers replace 2 of the Esurges? How about a Panic Mes? Talking DoA HM here.--&#32;Saxazaxx - IGN: Saxazax I (capital i) or Saxazax I I - (talk) 16:07, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Keystone's worth a try. But Panic is overkill. Used it for very few defense quests. In DoA foes use so damn many skills that I found it more advantageous to go for visions of regret. But of course panic would be safer and keystone mesmers would help against the touchers if you decide to bring no panic mes. --Krschkr (talk) 14:37, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Re: DoA: Why not give 3 heroes CTT? Complicate would also work very well on a few heroes. Also, Arcane Conundrum will increase activation time of the touch skills that are spells. And snare + increase party movement speed will help as well.
 * VoR is hard because they take half damage if under another Mes hex.
 * I think my comments are only really relevant if the build is designed for DoA. You're right that Panic+Keystone in all areas is overly defensive and will make things slower than, say, 2x Esurge.--&#32;Saxazaxx - IGN: Saxazax I (capital i) or Saxazax I I - (talk) 16:25, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Wandering Eye
Reminder to myself: I still need to test those odd wandering eye energy surge mesmers in this team build. But I doubt that the increased effectivity will suffice to make these heroes energy sufficient without inspiration magic, no matter how many people claim BiP only would suffice. I will first have to see it. --Krschkr (talk) 23:40, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I forgot to report my results! I compared the (inspiration magic) mesmers using A little help from above in hard mode. There you fight peacekeepers, white mantle troops and rarely jade constructs. (A) Result with spiritual pain: Reaching the main gate after 19 minutes, managing to make it through after 21 minutes, surviving some back aggro from peacekeepers. Time for the entire mission: 27 minutes. Team was quite stable, few deaths in total. (B) Result with wandering eye: Reaching the main gate after 23 minutes, fullwipe after 24 minutes (no back aggro). Overwhelmed by a bunch of melees, ironically. Thought wandering eye was supposed to help with that. Anyway, the team was about 20% slower, took deaths more frequently and finally failed entirely. I tried to make the builds as similar as possible, taking the same amount of [[shame] and [[shatter hex] in both teams even though that meant to have fewer [[power drain]s for energy management. This should've kept the results somewhat more meaningful in terms of testing wandering eye vs. spiritual pain than running entirely different bars.


 * Whether or not this decisive difference in performance is mainly based on wandering eye or plenty vs. no enchantment removal, my results make me vouch for the spiritual pain + inspiration magic version instead of the only in theory better wandering eye. Adding a little anecdote: A guild mate of mine recently wanted to switch to a more aggressive build featuring a triple energy surge midline, which he tested in vloxen excavations. He failed miserably, not making it past the first stone summit group with rezzes. That was odd to me, so I asked for his builds and he ran them as found there. I told him to switch to the spiritual pain + inspiration magic solution instead and he was able to easily clear the dungeon next try. So this isn't just me, mixing illusion and domination magic seems to simply yield for worse results – at least in triple and quintuple energy surge setups. But who'd question the meta? --Krschkr (talk) 22:18, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I also found that inspiration magic + spiritual is a very viable (maybe even better) alternative to the esurge + illusion bar, so that's something we can agree on. I don't agree however, with how fast you jump to conclussions. 1 test of a certain mission/quest/route is definitely not representative, and 1 guy wanting to test a "more aggresive build with triple esurge" (since when does bip melee support have 3x esurge tho) and failing doesnt make the entire team bad (this seems to be more a L2P issue for him/her). The "inspiration bar" definitely has more flexability (which is a big +), and it's very much possible that its better than the esurge+illusion one, but that will require a lot of testing (since from what ive seen/tested, the difference in damage output is really small). Also, I dont think people will dissagree with you when you say that esurge+inspiration is better when you run with 5x mesmers.
 * Anyway, something about this team:
 * I never really understood why people want to take Aneurysm, the argument I often see is that "too many esurge will drain every enemy leaving you with 0 damage", 1) which is simply not true unless you fight small groups/mostly melee groups and 2) Aneurysm drains the energy of all adjacent foes leaving you with less energy for Esurging. It's obviously great for spiking a single foe but is that worth losing the damage of your esurge?
 * 5x Drain ench seems to be a bit too much, but guess the reduced cooldown because of FC makes it worth it to take it over Leech signet? Same goes for 5x Mistrust, but I dont have mercs so I can only guess its a bit too much.
 * There is no inept cause melees arent a danger with the paragon + ST and cause other stuff dies too fast?
 * No fall back :/ Guess you just pop a BU when you run this team?
 * Anyway, this is most likely the best team you can run if you have the mercs. Yeah, who wouldve thought, more mesmers = better ^^ ?  ZStepmother (talk) 23:07, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, he didn't play the linked team, he just took energy surge mesmers like those found there! Might've been a bit imprecise here, that anecdote was just about wandering eye vs. spiritual pain as he didn't change the rest of his team. Anyway, you're right that this quest is not representative and I should've went to more areas to test this. However, I had picked a quest which was supposed to give wandering eye an advantage as war in kryta features a lot of physicals and melees. The pretty noticeable difference in effectivity seemed to be significant to me. But I'll give it more tries, I just need some proper areas for tests. (wtb testing route for party size 8 for general teams and for endgame teams. :D Suggestions welcome!) But now for your general points:
 * Heroes use energy surge well enough, never on 0 energy targets. Perhaps against 6+ energy? However, that's not my reason to run aneurysm. I had that skill when I did when kappa attack and observed that the hero would use it against targets which then received a large hit, especially ritualists which had just before cast into shame. That made me assume that heroes usually use aneurysm on targets which have no or very few energy left, either finishing them off or re-enabling energy surge to do it. (That's also about how am fah mesmers use it.) That makes it a good skill against longer living foes and acceptable for general purposes, but whether the build has 5 spiritual pain or 4 and 1 aneurysm? Insignificant.
 * I love enchantment removal. Wherever protection prayers or healing prayers enchantments pop up it's just nice to have them removed quickly. The energy gain and selfheal aren't too bad either. In longer fights the mesmers need energy management rather than another damage skill in this slot. 5 mistrust is viable, at least with my usual playing style. I never call, that's bad in mesmer teams as they're less likely to spread their rupts. Instead, I tab through foes and tag them by throwing a spear at them. Makes the mesmers spread their mistrust better. At least it feels like that.
 * I'm very unhappy with the AI usage of ineptitude mesmers. We've fiddled a few times with ineptitude in my guild and always came to the conclusion that stacking domination magic was better overall as quite too often the ineptitude won't target the dangerous physicals anyway or use its anti physical skills on casters, kiting or passive foes. A panic + dual ineptitude combo is still great for people who run into two groups of foes mindlessly as all that extra defense allows to fight, depending on the area, three or four groups easily, even without minions. But else domination magic had better results.
 * I never use consumables, unless I want to show how overpowered they are. You'll never find me designing a build with consumables in mind. This team has no "fall back!" because I'm fast casting addicted and just don't want to drop it below 13. People who need their speed boost could try fall back on a dual superior ST prot and on two mesmers over drain enchantment, lowering fast casting to 11 and inspiration magic to 8 or 9.
 * More mesmers isn't always better. Mesmers can't prot well, so you should at least have an ST prot. And BiP is just too nice, too. But when you have BiP, you need some healing, so the BiP healer is already in the team aswell. Whether you have 5 or 6 mesmers is just a matter of your primary profession, then, but I'd say that 5 mesmers + paragon is the most stable version overall... I should re-tweak my 8 mesmer team some day, it actually was fun to play. --Krschkr (talk) 15:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * For aneurysm, my point was more about draining every adjacent foe of his energy and not about aneurysm vs Spiritual Pain, I know you can spike stuff really hard with Aneurysm. I also know that heroes are good with picking esurge targets, I was just wondering if the Aneurysm prevents ESurge usage because of the energy drain it has.
 * I also know that more mesmers is not always better, but for damage it's safe to state that.
 * As for testing routes, I like to go into City of Tor'qua and just clean the outer city (can also do inner city, but I think outer city shows enough). It's slightly biased because of all the high armor mobs and because of QZ, but its nicely balanced imo. If you're not careful you get overwhelmed by melee, the casters deal a lot of damage and it has some ench removal. And unless you play really really safe, your team also has to be fast with killing stuff because otherwise you will overaggro. ZStepmother (talk) 16:13, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Torc'qua normal or hard mode? I'd guess that hard mode isn't that representative because of the energy drain which is nowhere near as prominent as in that specific area due to the environment effect. --Krschkr (talk) 17:48, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I always just test it in NM, because the environment effect in HM like you said. The enemies still pose a threat in NM to teams that are not good. ZStepmother (talk) 11:00, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Those teambuilds both look very strange - is anyone actually advocating that you use them? When I bring 5 mesmers, only one of them is a hybrid. 2 is fine, but any more is excessive. 5 is an absolute joke. Maybe try bringing 5 BiPs or 5 STs to prove that they're inferior. Houroftheowl (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I recommend that paragon players with mercenary heroes give quintuple energy surge a try because it's a powerful build which doesn't require sophisticated tactics, much player skill or a highly developed account. Your analogy with BiPs and STs doesn't work at all: You know that, and I'm surprised that you'd go for such a laughable point against this team – you can do better. --Krschkr (talk) 17:27, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * This was a comparison of two variants of the same build, both with the same purpose, which means that it makes sense to compare these builds to see what works better. I've explained how I chose the skills to make both test teams as similar as possible to extrapolate the difference of spiritual pain + inspiration magic vs. hybrids as well as possible.
 * Energy surge mesmers are "stackable". You can bring multiple of them without losing much individual effectivity. There are inefficiencies whenever using multiple mesmers, but in case of energy surge mesmers they're actually quite low.
 * BiP can be applied only once at a time on each character. Usually a single BiP is sufficient. Sometimes a second BiP makes things very smooth (like the final confrontation). But there is no point in more than two BiPs. With two of them they can quickly provide the entire team and each other with BiP. A third or nth BiP wouldn't give any advantage.
 * Only one ST prot's spirits can be effective simultaneously.
 * ...yeah my suggestion of using multiple BiPs or STs was intended to be absurd. 5 of any build is too many. Replacing 1 or 2 of your pure dom mesmers with a hybrid should be an improvement (although I would also make some other big changes to the team). More than that is too much strain on the BiP, so the mesmers won't be getting enough energy to do full damage. This is almost certainly why you are seeing poor results. Houroftheowl (talk) 04:54, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, but I'm not seeing poor results with spiritual pain. Just with wandering eye. ;) --Krschkr (talk) 13:41, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Interested
But no "Fallback!"? Where would I squeeze that in? Sonofthort (talk) 18:42, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You could try this: ST dual superior @9 command, mes -1 inspiration magic @4 command; 1x over union, 1x over empathy, 1x over shatter hex. --Krschkr (talk) 19:21, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

For "Fallback!", I usually replace Spirit's Gift with Flesh of my Flesh on BiP, and add Fallback to ST Rit in place of rez. One copy of Fallback seems like enough to get from group to group in dungeons. If vanquishing, you can drop one of the empathies as well. Grokwell (talk) 02:31, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Has the meta gone too far?
I'm starting to feel like soon you'll find a way to play 9 mesmer comps. 2019 scares me --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 20:28, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDZBhs0qtzk. Not an optimal setup in this video, but entertaining nonetheless Sonofthort (talk) 20:53, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * So far I only went for 8 mesmers. If ANet allows 11 heroes for Urgoz's/Deep, however, I'll make a team with 9 mesmers. You should be more scared of the PvP meta, though: dual gust/star burst in both semi finals. Disgusting. --Krschkr (talk) 21:15, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Expanding for non-paragon players?
I feel like this team would function well with any healer/prot player build. Might it be useful to expand the player build to include more than just an imbagon/soldier's fury paragon? --Xanshiz (talk) 21:54, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Right now the only listed player build variant is a mesmer as I haven't tested anything else. The quadruple mesmer variant with MM would probably be suitable for backline players aswell. Do you play healer/prot with heroes yourself? It's not just like replacing a hero who'd otherwise do that. You have to deal with all sorts of nasty AI inconveniences and I think that backline players are better off with defensive team builds that feature panic and minions. --Krschkr (talk) 01:27, 21 October 2019 (UTC)