Motigon Mercenary Mesway (M3)

Team Build - M3

Explanation: This is an adjustment to the Heroic Mercenary Mesmerway team build that is commonly suggested, and is tuned to provide significantly more efficient defense and offense.

1. The HR player specs into the Motivation line to provide a combination of healing and battery capabilities, as well as the typical Paragon damage reduction +SY and the attribute buffing of HR. This is an unparalleled package that can completely eliminate the need for a ST hero while also buffing the party and acting as a secondary off-healer. These changes are largely fueled by the significant buff to “Make Your Time!” which allows it to power 60% uptime on SY and Lyric of Zeal by itself. Players can alternate “Make Your Time!” with Mark of Fury from the N/Rt to easily maintain SY and frequently charge Lyric. This package provides:
   1. +100 armor for a damage reduction of 82.3% versus armor-respecting damage.
   2. 61% damage reduction of armor-ignoring damage through the combination of TNTF and TOF (which also brings our reduction of armor-respecting damage to 93%).
   3. 10 energy every ~7 seconds from Lyric of Zeal, equivalent to +4 pips of energy regen (~1.3 e/s) in combat. This increases to +5 pips of energy regen (1.66 e/s) if Aria of Zeal is taken.
   4. Party heals through Ballad of Restoration (95 every ~21s) and TNTF (35 every 20s), and targeted healing on up to two party members averaging ~45hp/s each through Finale of Restoration triggers.
   5. +4 to all attributes from Heroic Refrain on all party members.
      
      Variants for areas with burning/fire immune/resistant foes as well as attribute variations for Cons/Pcons (configured for conset+egg+corn) are available in the tabs.
2. The N/Rt healer brings Well of Power rather than the traditional BiP. This is due to the battery assistance of the Paragon player and the Necromancer mods of the offensive party members reducing the battery requirements, as well as the new buff ensuring that you can start every combat with a Well up on your party. Additionally, it brings Mark of Fury, which is perfect in terms of duration/recharge to ensure the Paragon can get SY and Lyric of Zeal up in between Make Your Time recharges, to ensure maximum coverage, and triggers a little cracked armor on priority targets that helps with chip damage from the Paragon’s spear-chucking as well as nuking from the fire Ele (if brought). This package provides:
   1. +2 pips of energy regen (+0.66 e/s) and +7 health regen (+14 hp/s) for members in the Well. This lasts 22 seconds, can be cast on the party at combat initiation, and cannot be dispelled. It comes at a heavy sac cost that will likely eat ~315 HP from your necro, which will be almost entirely regained with a single cast of Spirit Transfer.
   2. Recuperation adds a further +3 pips of health regen (+6 hp/s) for party members within its significant range while it is up. This allows the party to completely maximize health regeneration (+10 pips: +20 hp/s) from the Necro alone if no other degenerating hexes or conditions are present, so in content with light or no degen it may be useful to use the variant that replaces Recuperation with Rejuvenation for a faster health gain with less uptime that stacks with regen effects beyond the usual cap.
   3. The rest of the package is standard for N/Rt healer builds, bringing Life alongside Recuperation/Rejuvenation to help ensure spirits will always be available to trigger the conditions on the other healing skills (remember that we won’t have ST here in this party!) as well as a party-wide heal. The extremely efficient healing trio of Spirit Light/Mend Body and Soul/Spirit Transfer allows this hero to easily fulfill the primary redbar role. Signet of Lost Souls is even more efficient for energy management than usual, thanks to the Paragon’s Lyric of Zeal, and unlike BiP the Well of Power will also provide its energy regeneration to the N/Rt making them extremely difficult to pressure.
3. The first major diversion from the usual Mesway setups is this Ele replacement where our ST used to be. They are set up to spam Searing Flames and do nothing else. This does respectable wide-AoE damage, degen, and triggers the damage reduction from “They’re On Fire!”. Their enchantments, plus GoLE and Glowing Gaze make them very energy-efficient, and the heals that a HR-boosted Aura of Restoration will provide also make them shockingly resilient, relieving pressure on the N/Rt who can focus on the Mesmers. Antidote Signet will give them an option to generate energy from Lyric, but may be disabled and micro’d on demand. If burning-immune or fire-immune foes are present, this slot should be given to an additional Mesmer (I recommend the Panic build for increased disruption to offset the loss of TOF’s damage reduction) or Minion build of your choice instead.
4. The Ineptitude Mesmer has some hard-hitting skills, but the Illusion line lacks the punch to fill all 8 slots well, which gives us room to slot a couple of utility picks that only cost us a single rank of Fast Casting (which still lets us hit the 17 FC breakpoint; 18 is of little benefit). 6 Motivation will allow HR to boost us past the 8 Moti breakpoint for 3 pips of health regen (6 hp/s) from Mending Refrain, which can be permanently maintained by our Paragon (heroes are pretty good about getting this skill on party members). Finally, since we’re not running any enchants (bye bye BiP), we can slot Signet of Synergy as our final pick to give an additional opportunity to trigger Lyric as well as a decent amount of healing split between a couple of members (80 each for 160hp total).
5. The Esurge builds vary little from the typical Mesway team, but the energy generation of this team allows us to drop the Inspiration investment and skills entirely to focus on offense. For those who think you might have a death in the party (skill issue), FoMF remains a good answer for out-of-combat recovery. Otherwise, a fully-offensive bar is possible (or a one-skill swap for “Fall Back!”, which will still let us hit the 17 FC breakpoint). For those areas where the SF ele is ineffective, I recommend a Panic bar, as the additional disruption will help to compensate for the loss of TOF’s damage reduction. However, you do you. Signet of Disruption gives another chance to trigger Lyric, but if you find that your Mesmers are doing fine on energy or reaping Lyrics fine with Unnatural Signet alone, it can be swapped for something like Power Spike.
   
   Alternatively, the swap slot can go to a Minions build of your choice, which synergizes particularly well with HR builds, not only by allowing for significantly more attribute spread, but also due to the massive disparity in armor rating driving enemy targeting logic to focus on minions, relieving pressure on the party healer.
   
   This build requires significant investment and is best run with cons and a little bit of micro, but rewards the player with steamrolling all content.