Ranger-Mesmers have a pretty cool deal, as the Fast Casting primary attribute
of the Mesmer class is not nearly as useful as Expertise (or other Primary
attributes, for that matter) and while a Ranger-Mesmer may run into more Energy
problems than a Primary Mesmer, by careful selection of spells a Ranger can
often retain all of his/her Ranger skills and still effectively toss out Mesmer
Hexes.

Mesmer skills in Domination augment the Ranger’s already powerful lineup of
anti-caster attacks.  The staple standards of the Domination line, such as
Backfire, Power Leak, and Empathy, work well to shut down casters, allowing the
Ranger more options in terms of disruption.  The Inspiration line is less
useful as it typically deals with ways to manipulate other Mesmer spells, but
it provides the Ranger some more methods to reclaim energy.  Illusion magic has
several interesting spells that benefit a Ranger.

For example:

Conjure Phantasm
================
The most well-known damaging spell in the Mesmer line is Conjure Phantasm, and
thus Mesmers are known for their Damage over Time capabilities.  Rangers also
can apply Damage over Time through the Bleeding and Poison conditions.  You can
combine both of these concepts to create an effective Damage over Time Ranger.

Sample Build:
Main Attributes are Illusion Magic and Wilderness Survival.
1. Conjure Phantasm - For -5 Health Degen
2. Kindle Arrow - For more damage
3. Poison Arrow (Elite) - For Poison
4. Hunter’s Shot - For Bleeding
5. Dual Shot - For doubling the Kindle Arrow effect
6. Dryder’s Defenses - Defensive Skill
7. Troll Unguent - Healing
8. Free Slot (Res Signet or Signet of Capture)

Other useful skills: Melandru’s Arrows (Elite), Barbed Trap, Flame Trap,
Maiming Strike, Apply Poison, Incindiary Arrows, Phantom Pain

Echo (Elite)
============
Echo is a great Elite from the Mesmer line.  It works especially well with
skills that have a long cooldown time, as it allows you to use a skill twice
in rapid succession.  What’s better than one Dual Shot? That’s right, two Dual
Shots.

Echo costs only 5 Energy, and is not linked to any attribute, thus it does not
need any point investment.  It does take up your Elite slot, however.

Several skills that work well with Echo are the long cooldown stances, traps,
and the following theme:

Energy Thief
============
This theme utilizes the Elite skill Echo to copy Debilitating Shot and a high
Expertise to reduce the cost of Debilitating Shot.  With Echo, you can lay down
multiple Debilitating Shots, quickly depriving your enemy of the Energy they
need to cast spells.  You can pour salt on the wound, so to speak, by adding
Mind Wrack and Spirit Shackles, a classic combination used by Mergoyles to
damage and nullify spellcasters and warriors alike. Any spells that they DO end
up casting can be interrupted by Distracting Shot.

Sample Build:
1. Echo (Elite)
2. Debilitating Shot
3. Distracting Shot
4. Mind Wrack
5. Spirit Shackles
6. Whirling Defense
7. Troll Unguent/Illusion of Weakness
8. Free Slot (Res Signet or Signet of Capture)

Another skill to try is the low cost Wastrel’s Worry.  If they can’t cast
spells, then they probably won’t be doing anything for the 3 second duration it
takes to damage them with this unusual skill.  You can also use Signet of
Weariness for a bit of Energy-free Energy stealing.

Fragility
=========
Fragility is a Mesmer hex that applies damage to a creature if they gain or
lose a status condition, like Bleeding, Poison, Cripple, etc.  Since one of the
strengths of a primary ranger is applying Status conditions, Fragility combined
with, say, Pin Down or Apply Poison can potentially cause a world of hurt for
a single targeted enemy.  Ironically, you may want to actually have a low
Wilderness Survival for this build, as it shortens the durations of your
conditions and thus shortens the time between taking the initial Fragility
damage and the later Fragility damage (when the condition is removed).

Some caveats, though: Fragility costs 10 energy, and it isn’t reduced by
Expertise.  Thus, energy management can be a problem. Hex Removal is the bane
of this build, as it removes the Fragility Hex and the main damage-dealing part
of this build.  Finally, you are most effective at taking out a single creature,
and a creature that isn’t being Focused at that  (as typical with playing
Mesmers), as Focus Fire tends to kill a creature far too quickly for your
Fragility combo to truly take effect.

The 9/29/05 update reduced the cooldown time of Fragility to 5 seconds, which
allows a Fragility user to effectively Hex more targets.

Sample Build:
1. Fragility
2. Pin Down - Causes Crippling
3. Hunter’s Shot - Causes Bleeding
4. Incindiary Arrows (Elite) - Causes Burning
5. Throw Dirt - Causes Blindness
6. Whirling Defense - General Ranger defensive skill
7. Troll Unguent/Illusion of Weakness - Healing
8. Free Slot (Res Signet or Signet of Capture)

Other useful skills: Melandru’s Arrows (Elite), Barbed Trap, Spike Trap(Elite),
Flame Trap, Dust Trap, Maiming Strike, Concussion Shot, Crippling Shot (Elite),
Ineptitude (Elite), Phantom Pain

Illusionary Weaponry (Elite)
============================
This interesting Elite does Chaos damage instead of your regular damage on
every swing of a melee attack.  It instantly turns your character into a melee
specialist, as Illusionary Weaponry always hits for a set amount of damage (34
points of damage at Illusion Magic of 12), regardless if you are blinded or
your target is evading/blocking.  Every time you swing, whether or not you hit
or miss, it does 34 points damage.  You’ll never do a critical hit, but you’ll
never have that damage reduced by armor, either.  Because it is an enchantment,
and the duration is slightly less than the cooldown time, you might either want
to bring Serpent’s Quickness/Quickening Zephyr to reduce the cooldown time or
have an “of Enchantment” suffixed weapon to increase the duration of the spell.
Also, you will want to use the fastest weapon you can get your hands on, which
is either a sword or an axe.  Damage range doesn’t matter, as Illusionary
Weaponry substitutes its damage for your weapon’s damage. You can combine this
with Tiger’s Fury or Lightning Reflexes to get even more damage out of your
attacks, by striking faster.

As with other Elites, this skill precludes your use of any other Elite skill in
your skillbar.  However, you should keep it in mind if find yourself in melee
combat often.

Mantra of Concentration/Resolve
===============================
Mesmers have two stances that prevent interrruption, Mantra of Concentration
and Mantra of Resolve.  While Rangers rarely have problems with being
interrupted, except for the occasional Troll Unguent, the Trapper Ranger gains
a huge benefit from using these stances, as they can prevent their easily
interrupted casting animations for laying down traps from being interrupted.
Both of these Mantras last a long time.  Mantra of Concentration is only good
for one hit, but is quite Energy efficient.  Mantra of Resolve is good for
multiple hits as long as you have Energy, with the Energy costs decreasing with
higher levels of Inspiration magic.  In general, it’s better to go with Mantra
of Concentration if you have few points in Inspiration Magic, and Mantra of
Resolve if you have many points in Inspiration Magic.

“You’re a Tank!?”
=================
In this theme, the Ranger takes advantage of two skills to greatly reduce the
physical damage done to him.  Greater Conflagration (Elite) changes all
physical damage into fire damage, which the Ranger can defend against quite
nicely with Drakescale armor.  The Mesmer secondary grants the Ranger a new
stance called Mantra of Flame which can reduce the Fire damage taken by as much
as 45%.  The stance lasts a long time (30-78 seconds), is reduced by Expertise
in cost, and also grants the Ranger 1 Energy every time he takes Fire damage.
With these pair of skills, the Ranger no longer worries about Energy Management
or physical damage from melee/ranged attacks.  The main limitation of this
theme is that Greater Conflagration is an Elite, but it may be a small price to
pay for being able to tank damage easily as a Ranger.  Another option for a
long-lasting Mesmer stance to reduce Fire damage is Elemental Resistance.

Factions:Psychic Instability (Elite)
====================================
This neat little Domination Magic gem is a Hex spell that knocks the targeted
opponent down if they are interrupted.  It has a low Energy cost of 5, and a
cooldown of 20 seconds.  Rangers have a few ways to make this skill even more
effective.  First of all, Rangers have two bow attacks, Distracting Shot and
Savage Shot, that allow them to apply an unconditional interrupt.  Thus, you can
lay down the feather and knockdown the opponent at your leisure.  Second,
Rangers can use Serpent’s Quickness and/or Quickening Zephyr to lower the
cooldown time so that they can keep re-applying the hex without interruption.
As a result, you can “knock-lock” your target fairly easily.