DoA Spiking Guide

Before the run

Be prepared! On a mesmer, you should have the following:

• Ranks: Pain Inverter, You Move Like a Dwarf! and Finish Him should obviously be maxed (r5), but even Ebon Escape's heal can make a difference.
• Armors: have a normal energy armor AND a high hp armor. No, removing your headpiece doesn't count as having a high hp set.
• Equipment: 40/40, longbow, high energy set, shield set.
• Stones: Ghastly stones for second room in Foundry, Tengus for Gloom, stones for breaking aggro (one of Legionaire, Zaishen, Mysterious, etc) and Gakis for IAU.
• Pcons: cupcake, apple, corn, egg, pies, war supplies, cookies, res scrolls. Don't be cheap, pcons make the run smoother and faster so you make more money.

For more details, check Mesmer Equipment

General Usage

Be Proactive

• Before every spike select your own target and use preparations (Arcane Echo, Air of Superiority) early.
• While you're waiting for a ball, try to get as close as you can (without taking aggro or getting in the tank's way, of course) so you can spike immediately when it's ready.
• Spike when the ball is ready! A good spiker will cast their skills when the ball is ready. A great spiker will finish casting their first skill just after it's ready.

Communicate

It is important to be in VOIP and have a microphone. Don't expect people to read your chat messages, especially in critical situations, where you need to communicate the most.

• If you are VoR and you need to delay the spike, say so!
• Call your targets. Before a lot of spikes, say your Mistrust or Pain Inverter target. For example in foundry say "I'll Mistrust Dabi / Su / Despair / etc", that informs other spikers not to Mistrust the same target before your Mistrust triggers.
• Follow the calls, especially in critical moments. If the team decides to spike a group just do it even if you don't agree with the choice. By arguing against it or doing something else you will make the call automatically fail. Save your criticism for after the crisis has been resolved.

Optimize skill order

This might sound obvious, but understand what your skills do and how enemies trigger them. You want to do as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time, so for example when using Mistrust and Energy Surge, use Mistrust first, and then ESurge, because Mistrust takes time to trigger, so they will trigger at about the same time. This spreadsheet shows optimal skill orders, but be prepared to improvise because every run is a bit different.

Targeting

Understand the range of your skills and use them accordingly. Hit as many enemies as possible with AoE and save your single-target skills for single targets.

Understand the goal of each spike: in small spikes like in foundry the goal is do damage and kill, but in bigger spikes like city, 6-0, or cave, killing is easy; the hard part is killing everything cleanly. Because of that, in small spikes try to maximize your damage even at the cost of damage on targets on the side. On big messy balls try to ensure that all enemies will be hit by some damage while also hitting main ball. To do this, select targets slightly off the center in such a way that your skills will still hit most of them, but you also cover a bit of one side.

Cast from outside aggro

Move to cast range and then cast your skill, as opposed to queuing your skill usage from away. This will ensure that you are not yet in aggro while casting your skill, so enemies won't try to interrupt you. It will also let you spike from further away from the ball, which can be important if you have to run back after the spike.

Picking up drops

Sometimes you'll get a valuable drop somewhere you'd have to go out of your way to pick it up. If you're going to be delayed to get to the next task, leave the drop on the floor. Remember you're part of a team, so any time added to the run is 8 people's time wasted, not just yours. Any money lost by not picking up a drop will be recompensed by completing the run faster and starting another one, getting more chests. When taking chests, don't rush; let the emo take it first, and at the Stygian Chest, kill some of the Torment Claws so they don't slash you. At the end of the run, unassigned drops are usually considered free-for-all: whoever gets to them first can take them. The exception is chest drops: if someone had to skip their chest after opening it, those gems still belong to them, and should not be taken by anyone else.

Aggro

The first rule of DoA is: "If you have aggro, don't drag it onto the team." You can lose aggro by dying, preferably somewhere you're easy to res. If you're not sharing aggro with a tank, you may be able to break by running away, but if you're not sure, just die.

Skills Usage

	Arcane Echo Use it to copy a powerful spell, typically Energy Surge. Always use Echo before a spike, and never during one.
	Arcane Mimicry When Arcane Echo is unavailable, but you want an extra copy of Energy Surge, cast Arcane Mimicry on one of the other mesmers with ESurge. The most useful places to use this are: 3rd wave of 360 clover (can also AEcho here for THREE copies of ESurge) 6-0 spike if you get Power Blocked in foundry any large spike where you have time to cast mimic
	Backfire Backfire is mostly brought to deal with powerful healers: Ki's in foundry and Monk Lord in veil. It is also used to speed up the wall, always use one backfire on each Su. It can sometimes also be used for off-damage or on any spellcasters. Remember that it's also very powerful against dervishes such as Ruks, Stygian Golems and the Derv Lord.
	Cry of Pain CoP is a simple AoE damaging spell. Try to use it earlier rather than later to use the degeneration part. Keep in mind CoP's range is huge, but its damage is relatively low, not enough to trigger Edge of Extinction. Keep in mind the hex requirement and that it can be used as an interrupt.
	Empathy Empathy is extremely strong (and energy efficient!) in taking down single-targets in prolonged fights. Keep in mind some targets will not trigger it at all, such as hungers and some spellcasters, so prioritize physical attackers.
	Energy Surge E-surge deals AoE damage based on draining energy from the target. It can only drain as much energy as the target has, so if its energy is low, ESurge may not do maximum damage. For this reason, you should avoid casting it on warriors or paragons, or at least switch targets before casting again. It's generally safe to cast it repeatedly on high energy targets, though.
	"Finish Him!" This is excellent for finishing off single targets after everyone's spent their skills on the spike, so don't waste it on triggering EoE early unless you're sure it won't be needed for clean-up.
	Mistrust Prioritize Mistrust on foes whose spells you want to shut down, and balls of enemies you need to damage. Try to pick a target that doesn't already have Mistrust on it, and will cast an offensive spell in the next 6 seconds. If the target is on its own and has Backfire or PI on it, it's often better to just let it cast its spells, since those hexes can do more single target damage.
	Overload This is mostly useful as a feeder hex for Shatter Delusions. Target foes with long cast times, so you can more reliably catch them casting a skill, so Overload itself does damage.
	Pain Inverter Pain Inverter (PI for short) is taken for very specific tasks such as killing tendrils and ele lord, but it can also be very effective as a single-target damaging spell. Use it on enemies outside the ball who can trigger it with either AoE spells (golems, rage titans, dryders, water tormentors) or physical attacks (runds, tuks, fiends).
	Shatter Delusions Unless you provide your own feeder hex, you will be shattering VoR. Obviously this reduces the damage that target will take from VoR, so make sure it will either finish off that one foe, or finish a ball of enemies more quickly, triggering EoE to kill the Shatter target.
	Spiritual Pain The conditional AoE damage is useless; This skill is a simple single target damaging spell. With full pcons it is strictly better than Necrosis (same recharge, more damage, faster cast, unconditional, benefits from 40/40), while not taking up a PvE skill slot and secondary profession. Use for foes outside the ball or cleanup. Take care not to use on city wall if there are spirits in range.
	Unnatural Signet Always keep in mind Unnatural Signet's AoE damage requirement: a hex or enchantment, which luckily can be checked easily. If the enemy does not have a hex, consider using one of yours just to feed Unnatural, even if it won't have an effect. For example, it is common for TKs to use Mistrust on Fiends just for Unnatural. On the other hand, remember that the primary target damage is not affected by the hex/enchantment and the AoE is actually less, so prioritize Unnatural Signet on single-targets.
	Visions of Regret This skill is probably the most important spiking tool of the whole team. Make sure it doesn't get interrupted. Missing VoR can fail a spike, cause a team wipe, and lead to a run fail. Always hit as many foes as possible. Pick a good target: don't just select the closest one. Use VoR first. It requires time to do damage, and everybody is dependent on it for Unnatural Signet. The only exception to this rule is if you need to wait for more enemies to run into the ball, typically in Veil spikes. In that case, wait until you can hit most of them. This is especially relevant in the 6-0 spike, where an early VoR can ruin the spike.
	Wastrel's Demise Unless you can rely on your target to not use skills, Wastrel's will do very little damage. Since most enemies in DoA use Enraged (which cannot be disabled or interrupted), Wastrel's is not effective in a quick spike, except possibly as an improvised feeder for Shatter Delusions. Outside of the glitch spot, it is mostly used to damage groups of melee being pulled into a walling teammate, such as 360.
	"You Move Like a Dwarf!" YMLaD is typically used either as an interrupt or as a snare. Use it to interrupt the Black Beast's touch of aargh, knockdown dreamriders to prevent them from casting and keeping them in the ball, and snare foes to either break or kite them, such as hungers after ranger lord. Do not use it against enemies who are being killed by punishing hexes (Backfire, Empathy, Pain Inverter). If you have spare energy and no other use for it, you can also cast YMLaD with or as your last skill for a bit of extra damage.