Illusion of Weakness...

The skill description says that it takes off some of your health, "stores" it as an enchantment and gives it back when you reach under 25% of your health. As long as the enchanment is not removed, does this basically mean that I have some extra health, as it (I think) will not touch the maximum health, and I suddenly take "damage", get healed by a spell or health regeneration and end up with full health again and some extra health in the enchantment?

I'm rambling on a bit, but you know what I mean. Am i right?

Its not so much that you have extra health, its more of an insurance policy on the health you already have.

Once you go below 25% health, the enchantment ends and you gain however much you lost when you casted it.

Basically, you take x damage (around 120) when you cast it. You can then be healed by a monk. You're max health will be the same as it was before you cast it, but when your health is droped below 25% through damage, you will be healed automatically.

Note though, it DOES heal you if it is removed. It also will only be removed if your health drops below 25% through damage (thus health stealing and degen won't activate it I think). Also, casting it won't count as damage and trigger it (for example, if you have 30% health and cast it on yourself, your health will drop to below 25% but the enchantment will not end until you are healed up to over 25% and then go below it again).

It is a fairly confusing skill description.

it does trigger on lifsteal and degen, much like with divine intervention. if your health drops below 25% when you first use it, it will not heal you until you go above this amount and back under. However if you do cast it, get below 25% this way, and git hit, it might trigger, but im not sure.
Edit: wiki says lifesteal/ degen does not trigger this.
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Illusion_of_Weakness

It's not really so confusing , it does exactly what it states.

You lose an amount of healt based on your current illusion magic attribute and when damage get your healt to 25% illusion of weakness ends and you gain the same amount of healt you lost activating this skill.

Keep in mind that life stealing , loss and degeneration don't trigger illusion of weakness because they are not considered as damage , and I put "lose" in bold because it's NOT damage and so can not be mitigated.

The healing effect is an all or nothing deal. If you go below the 25% mark, the enchanment ends and you receive the full amount of health provided by the spell (which, as others here have stated, is equal to the amount lost at the time the spell is cast), even if additional healing from third party sources cast at or around the same time would put you at or above 100% of your health.

It's basically like Faithful Intervention but with a sacrifice.

[skill]Faithful Intervention[/skill][skill]Illusion of Weakness[/skill]

If you cast Illusion of Weakness and have the enchantment stripped by Necro and incur damage which doesnt drop your life below 25% does that mean you dont get the life back? Also what happens if you cast Illusion of Weakness and the life it takes reduces you below 25% health - it just gives you the life back straight away? with NRG loss of the cost of the speel?

Ive never understood this skill and I havent gotten past lvl 8 with my mesmer yet... (too much on the backburner to do in this game)

I just tested one thing on the isle of the nameless.

Even tought illusion of weakness states that the health you get is gain as opposed to healing it's still reduced by deep wound and that's misleading.

Not really. All things that say "health gain" are reduced by deep wound and scurge healing and lingering curse, so its still consistant.

@BSSuperman like I said earlier, if the enchantment is just striped (or say, if you remove it with CoP or something) you DO get the healing.

Scourge healing doesn't reduce healing and do damage only if the healing is direct =P.

And read this http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Deep_wound for more clarification.

On a side note, IoW is the only enchantment with unlimited time but without upkeep energy cost. Nice for any bonus "while enchanted".

OK, thanks guys and girls