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When running a character with degen at a distance (like Life Siphon or poison arrow), do you target an enemy and just let 'em have it until they're dead (like a warrior), or do you cycle through with one spell each to "soften up the crowd"? Also, Has anyone tried a ranger/dervish with Ebon Dust Aura and choking gas? With blind melee and interrupted casters, it seems you can shut a group down all by yourself....

if you have degen, spread it on as many as you can, and then reapply on the high priority targets.

If with H&H, call your target first, that might keep them from trying to follow your targets. Have not tried R/d but serpent's quickness might help keep choking gas available more often. Expert's Dexterity would be better, but you seem to have your elite selected all ready. If you are counting on bunching up the baddies for a scythe, keep in mind the H&H tend to do everything they can to draw aggro.

Depends entirely on the build you're running. Spike builds I'd single target, degen I'd spread around. Shut-down sorta depends on how fast you are a) with the shutdown you're using (interrupt vs e-denial), b) how coordinated you are in being able to keep track of who on the other side is doing what, c) how fast you are on that trigger finger for interrupts, and d) how devastating to your party and/or party's goals Target A vs Target B is (ie can you afford to miss a few of Target A's actions to take a swipe at Target B once in a while). If you can keep up with it all (and are far more coordinated than I am), it's possible to keep multiple targets very irritated with you. If not, play it like a spike and sit on one priority target.

If with H&H, call your target first... Great Idea! I worry those healers are slipping between the cracks. If you are counting on bunching up the baddies for a scythe, keep in mind the H&H tend to do everything they can to draw aggro. No, I think the bow is best, because you can hit every bad guy from one spot. One of my pet peeves is the "body block dance" when my warrior targets , say, the healer, then spends several seconds doing the Hokey Pokey because the AI can't figure out how to walk around the melee...

Canmore, Yeah, interrupting is hard. You see only one bad guy's spells at a time, and you can waste a lot of recharge time trying to hit the fast spells. I'm thinking Choking Gas can help with that since you can hit several casters at once. Of course, there's no lasting effect (dazed) but you do make them wait through a recharge cycle... Is there a good blinding/dazing attack out there? I guess that's what I'm trying to do here. Even with degeneration, it's tempting to stay on one target because, a) you're already there and it's easy to just hit all of your other attack buttons, and b) reducing health across the opposing team doesn't really affect their strength, while eliminating members does. I'm not saying it's a good idea - just tempting.

If you can bring a hero with a mesmer secondary, and epidemic, you may be able to accomplish single target and mass degen.....

...a hero with a mesmer secondary, and epidemic..... I like it - especially after Concussion Shot, which is too e-expensive to spam.

And to be even more nasty to the casters, daze them, interrupt all their spells as a consequence and when you feel they have little energy left, use Aneurysm. :twisted: I've hit eles for 250-300 when I time it right.

Not sure what elite you're running, but if you're liking Concussion Shot, you might really feel great about Broad Head Arrow, though to be fair, with a 15s recharge it's a little hard to spam, exactly. BHA happens to be one of my favorite skills in the game. True, BHA can't be spammed, but with silencing bow string you can keep one caster dazed, and therefore interrupted, continuously provided that they are not cured of this condition by a healer. I usually tend to focus fire on the monk first and then sick my pet on him/her to keep interrupting them. Keep in mind that dazed simply makes spells easily interruptible - like traps for a ranger - such that a physical attack is needed to trigger the interruption. So, with a pet attacking and me focusing fire on the monk, it makes it very hard for them to cast spells (especially ones with a cast time longer than 1/4 sec). Add minions into the mix and spell casting becomes very very hard for the dazed enemy. The nice thing is that unlike typical interruption spells/skills, you don't need to time the hit perfectly, and your ability to interrupt is not thwarted by spells such as Spellbreaker, Obsidian Flesh or Vow of Silence. My personal favorite mix in zones with lots of spellcasters is to take my ranger and use BHA and bring along (1) a MM with a few anti-caster domination skills (so they can interrupt with the skills and have the minions trigger dazed), (2) a water ele with Water Trident and Maelstrom (providing knock downs and area wide interruption) and (3) a rit with Dissonance (for more knock downs) and other spirits (doing physical damage to trigger dazed). Using this combo really punishes casters of all types, making it very very hard for them to effectively cast. :twisted:

Technobabble can fill the role of BHA, although BHA is still the better skill. Technobabble has the same cost (expertise does not apply though), but has a little longer recharge, does not benefit from a silencing mod (or does it?) and you can't apply it to bosses. It is AoE (Adjacent) and you can apply it to something standing next to a boss, to get the boss. A high Asuran rank sure helps. I like Technobabble with Fevered Dreams, but fevered Dreams and any degen are a decent combination.

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