Skill Focus: Wastrel's Worry
Introduction
Skill Location
Skill Description
Using the Skill
Basic Synergy
Threats
Slowed
Interrupts
Disabled
Other Specific Combos
Potential Conflicts
Summary
Introduction
This is the first in a new special series of Gamer's Mantra articles. Each will examine a single skill. Beyond explaining where to obtain the skill and how it works, the main focus of these articles will explore strategies and tactics to better utilize these skills. Skill combos and synergies will be discussed as will potential effects that may interfere with it's function.
For the first article, I've decided to cover Wastrel's Worry. The skill's name seems a bit odd. Who is this wastrel* and just why is he so worried? Reading the skill description may lead to some confusion, and even after understanding how it works, this skill may initially seem rather weak. From what I've gleaned in visiting various other forums, more than a few players have doubted its usefulness. Hopefully, this article will reveal why this skill is well worth packing in your mesmer's skill bar. Many players refer to this skill by its initials, WW, which I will do as well at various points within the article.
Skill Location
To obtain Wastrel's Worry, you can either undertake the Ascalon Settlement quest in North Kryta Province or visit the skill trainer in Quarrel Falls. I recommend doing the quest to save gold and a skill point.
Skill Description
Skill Name: Wastrel's Worry
Description: After 3 seconds target foe takes 8...64 damage. Wastrel's Worry ends prematurely if that foe uses a skill.
Activation: 1/4 second
Energy Cost: 5
Recharge time: 1 second
Linked Attribute: Domination. Increases damage dealt.
Skill Type: Hex
How it Works
After you cast this hex on an enemy, that foe has 3 seconds to successfully complete activating a skill or that foe will suffer the damage. If they do manage to successfully complete activating a skill before the 3 seconds are up, the hex ends and no damage occurs. The part about "successfully activating a skill" is not clearly explained in the skill's description, but that is how it works. Merely attempting to activate a skill does not end WW. If the skill being activated takes too long to complete, the WW damage will occur. Likewise, if the skill being activated is interrupted, it doesn't complete and the WW damage still occurs. If the initial skill activation was interrupted, it is possible for the target to try activating another skill to escape the WW damage before the 3 second limit expires.
If you re-cast WW on the same foe before the 3 seconds is up, it will reset the 3 second counter. This is almost never desirable, so you should learn to be patient and wait 3 full seconds before recasting WW on the same foe. The exception to this occurs when facing bosses in PvE. A hex cast on a boss has it's duration cut in half. For most hexes, that weakens the effect, but for Wastrel's Worry, it actually makes it even stronger. Not only can you spam this spell much faster at a boss, but the boss has an even smaller window to successfully complete a skill and escape the damage. I've managed to drop many bosses in near-record time using just this skill as the primary source of damage. For this reason, I've nick-named this skill "Boss Killer". Interestingly, the durations of hexes cast at Ether Seals are also cut in half and as a result WW works very well against them. In GvG, the hexes cast at the Guild Lord have their duration cut, making them an attractive target for Wastrel's Worry as well.
The damage dealt by WW bypasses armor. With 16 ranks in Domination (12 ranks, +1 headgear, +3 superior rune), the damage reaches 68 points.
Using the Skill
Wastrel's Worry may not seem to do that much on its own, but even used alone it can play some mind games on your opponents. When a player notices they are hexed by WW, there is a definite motivation for them to quickly activate a skill to avoid the damage. This in turn can be used to your advantage. By hexing an opponent with WW, you can coax them into using a skill too early or too often, potentially losing out on maximal effectiveness of the skills they are using while simultaneously depleting their energy pool much more rapidly than they would normally. These two aspects lead to WW working well for a couple of mesmer styles. WW works well in interrupt builds, luring foes into casting a spell and possibly giving you a better shot at timing your own interrupts. It also lends itself well to energy denial builds by tempting the foe to cast more frequently and emptying their energy pool that much faster.
In addition, as a hex, it may draw out anti-hex spells from the opponent's team. This is desirable for you. Even though it means WW will be dispelled early and not trigger, you have tricked them into wasting one of their anti-hex spells on a minor hex that was only going to last 3 seconds and only cost you 5 energy. Long before their anti-hex spell is recharged and they've recovered the energy they lost, you can fire off multiple more copies of Wastrels Worry or other useful skills. With proper timing, you can use WW to "cover" other hexes from anti-hex spells. That way, when the anti-hex spell hits the target, it removes the WW instead of the hex you were trying to protect. If your build uses other hexes, you may want to include WW as a way to fool those anti-hex casters into removing WW instead of your other hexes.
When facing a foe that uses Hex Breaker, you can use WW to end it's effect quickly and cheaply, thus allowing yourself or a teammate an opportunity to land other hexes on that foe.
Certain foes tend to use skills more quickly than others. In PvE for example, monsters tend to have fewer skills, and in many cases the long recharge times on those skills translate into long periods of no skill use. This makes these foes easy prey for Wastrel's Worry. After facing the monsters a few times, you'll begin to see definite patterns in their skill use and can easily time your casting of WW to ensure it will deal damage.
Since WW bypasses armor, it can be a useful hex to use against heavily armored foes like warriors or rangers. Though these characters may be able to avoid the damage by activating skills, if you continue to spam WW at them every 3 seconds, they may run out of energy or adrenaline or need to wait for skills to recharge. When using WW in PvE, you'll quickly see how useful it can be against many warrior or archer type enemies.
You may also find that casting WW on a foe using certain stances may lead that foe to end their stance prematurely. The foe may decide the potential WW damage is worse than maintaining the stance, or you may even manage to trick them into using a skill to unwittingly break out of their stance far earlier than they intended.
Basic Synergy
Despite it's usefulness as a stand-alone skill, Wastrel's Worry shines even more in combination with various types of skills and effects. I'm going to break these into 4 broad categories**: Threats, Slowed, Interrupts and Disabled.
Threats
If the foe knows that they will suffer some kind of negative effect by activating a skill, they may decide to wait the full 3 seconds and take the WW damage. One of the semi-obvious combos here is Backfire. If the target is hexed with Backfire and then hexed with WW, it's very likely they may elect to not cast a spell since doing so would be more painful. One weakness of this tactic is that the enemy can still act, and may be able to do something nasty to you or your teammates despite the fact they may suffer some negative consequences from these other threats. If this happens, your 5 energy spent on WW may go for naught.
Mind Wrack is an example of another hanging threat that can combo with Wastrel's Worry, but unlike Backfire, the mesmer can include other methods in his arsenal to cause the Mind Wrack damage to trigger.
Slowed
If the opponent's spell casting is slowed down, it can be difficult or even impossible for them to successfully launch a spell before the 3 seconds ends. Arcane Conundrum and Migraine cause spells to take twice as long to cast. Casters with long spellcasting times (especially elementalists) are especially vulnerable to this combo. There is no guarantee that the damage from WW will occur, but it does make it more likely that the 5 energy spent on WW will result in damage being dealt. The slowing strategy also works well with the next option, interrupts.
Interrupts
Since the foe can only escape WW damage by successfully completing a skill activation, backing up WW with interrupts works quite well. Mesmers have multiple spells that work well here, including such skills as Cry of Frustration, Power Drain or Power Leak. Other classes have some nifty options that can help as well. Warriors have a large variety of interrupt methods like Disrupting Chop, Savage Strike and several hammer knockdown attacks. Rangers have a variety of interrupt skills to consider like Concussion Shot, Savage Shot or Choking Gas. Elementalists can interrupt foes using knockdown skills like Earthquake, Gale or Meteor. Monks have some knockdown skills like Bane Signet, Shield of Judgment or Signet of Judgment. Necromancers have few interrupt options besides Spinal Shivers.
With an interrupt (or two) in your skill bar, you may find that using WW is a great way to bait the foe and set them up to walk directly into your interrupt. The result is a triple whammy:
1 ) The foe's skill is interrupted, losing its use and energy until it recharges again
2 ) The foe suffers damage from your interrupt attack (assuming it deals damage)
3 ) The foe still suffers the damage from Wastrel's Worry that he was trying to avoid in the first place
Learning to use interrupts effectively does take some practice. Once you become adept at using interrupts, you may find that Wastrel's Worry is a nifty skill to include to help setup the opponents. It doesn't work quite as well against the PvE AI in this regard, but even there you can still try using it in a similar fashion and often make good use of it. Once mastered, Interrupts tend to be a very effective way of getting WW to deal damage.
Disabled
The best way to prevent an opponent from using a skill is to remove that option entirely. There are a few different ways to do this. One of the most obvious is to use long duration knockdowns that last 3 or more seconds. For example, if you use backbreaker on a foe, they will be down for 4 seconds and you can follow it with Wastrel's Worry and nearly guarantee them to take the damage, unless one of his teammates decides to use an anti-hex spell. Another way to disable foes is thru energy denial. Mesmers may use skills like Energy Burn, Power Drain or Spirit Shackles to quickly empty their target's energy pool, leaving them helpless. If a caster has no energy, they likely can't activate a skill to avoid suffering WW damage.
When facing warriors, skills like Soothing Images or Sympathetic Visage can potentially shutdown their adrenaline skills. Meanwhile, a skill like the Monk's Pacifism may shutdown much of their skillbar. In these cases, it may be very difficult for the warrior to avoid suffering WW damage.
There are other ways to entirely disable several skills for lengths of time. Mesmer skills like Blackout or Powerblock are examples of this. Powerblock works amazingly well in PvE where most enemies have just one line of skills. With 16 ranks in domination it lasts 16 seconds, long enough to unleash up to 5 uncontested volleys of Wastrel's Worry intermixed with anything else you may decide to use.
When you have a disabled a foe, Wastrel's Worry serves as a handy finisher. With high ranks in domination, Energy Burn and Energy Surge are certainly viable alternatives, but those have higher energy requirements and longer recharge times. By the time you can cast Energy Burn a 2nd time (80 damage max per use), you can strike a disabled foe with 3 volleys of Wastrel's Worry for a total of 204 damage. It should be noted that tossing in another hex like Mind Wrack quickly turns the math back in favor of the Energy Burn. Or you can try using all three options together for a wickedly fast kill.
Other Specific Combos
Diversion fits into the threat category. Wastrel's Worry combos with it very effectively, forcing the opponent to make a quick decision of whether to cast and risk losing access to that skill for a considerable length of time, or take the WW damage. In a heated PvP battle, your opponent may easily make a critical mistake.
Soul Barbs is a necromancer hex that deals damage whenever a hex or enchantment is cast upon the target. The ability to rapidly spam WW makes it a very attractive method to trigger Soul Barbs damage.
If you're using Shatter Delusions, WW is a very cheap hex to use as a target for that spell. SD + WW is not a great combo by any means, but it is one of the cheapest ways to setup Shatter Delusions.
Quickening Zephyr is a skill that can initially cause some issues for Wastrel's Worry. Since QZ causes spells to recharge twice as fast, it may allow your target an easier opportunity to escape suffering WW damage in the early stages of the battle. However, QZ also tends to run enemies out of energy faster, so this energy exhausting aspect of QZ can wind up helping WW in the long run. In a battle under the effects of QZ, early uses of WW may do no damage, but help burnout the opponents' energy pools, and then later in the battle, you will have an easier time dealing WW damage.
It's possible to use cast WW at two different targets, then use Cry of Frustration to interrupt both of their attempts to escape the damage. In combination with other spike damage, this could be a devastating combination to unleash on an opposing team in PvP.
Finally, WW tends to be a good skill to mix in between many other skills. You may find it can work wonders by occasionally using it in-between some other skill uses. With it needing only 5 energy, and only requiring a 1/4 second casting time, this is very easy to do without causing signficant changes in your playstyle.
Potential conflicts
When using Wastrel's Worry, the first skill to be concerned about is another memser in your group also using Wastrel's Worry. The danger here is that if you both target the same character, one of those castings will be entirely wasted. By coordinating your attacks during battle you may be able to avoid this. If you have trouble coordinating to avoid this problem, one of you should probably consider packing a different skill.
Depending on your build and what you are facing, the ranger spirit Nature's Renewal may be problematic.
Summary
Wastrel's Worry is an extremely useful hex. It can fool enemies into removing the wrong hex, coax foes into using skills prematurely and set them up for your interrupts. It works well in denial and shutdown builds, and serves as a handy finisher against disabled foes. Its damage ignores armor, and the skill becomes even stronger when facing special foes that shorten hex duration. Quite amazing for a quickly cast, quick recharging skill that only costs 5 energy.
* - According to Webster's Online Dictionary, a wastrel is "one who dissipates resources foolishly and self-indulgently"
** - The division here is not perfect as some skills fit into multiple categories. Shame and Guilt for example serve as both Threats and Interrupts while Gale serves as both an Interrupt and a means of making the opponent Disabled.
Special thanks go to Godslayer, Redgren, Karn Jazzik and Theosebes for their contributions and feedback.
