Illusionary Weaponry Build, any thoughts?

Xyonmonkey

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Mar 2006

Army of the Fallen

Me/W

Xyon's Illusionary Weaponry Build
Illusionary Weaponry Build

Mesmer/Warrior
Level: 20

Fast Casting: 9 (8+1)
Illusion Magic: 13 (11+2)
Tactics: 11

Illusionary Weaponry [Elite] (Illusion Magic)
For 30 seconds, you deal no damage in melee, but whenever you attack in melee your target foe takes 36 damage.
Energy:15 Cast:0.71 Recharge:40

Clumsiness (Illusion Magic)
For 7 seconds, the next time target foe attempts to attack, the attack is interrupted and target foe suffers 81 damage.
Energy:10 Cast:0.71 Recharge:10

Phantom Pain (Illusion Magic)
For 10 seconds, target foe suffers Health degeneration of 3. When Phantom Pain ends, that foe suffers a Deep Wound, lowering that foe's maximum Health by 20% for 18 seconds.
Energy:10 Cast:1.42 Recharge:15

Defensive Stance (Tactics)
For 9 seconds, you have +24 armor and you have a 75% chance to "evade" melee attacks and arrows. Defensive Stance ends if you use a skill.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:45

Deadly Riposte (Tactics)
For 8 seconds, while you have a sword equipped, you "block" the next attack against you, and your attacker takes 20 damage and begins Bleeding for 38 seconds.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:10

Disciplined Stance (Tactics)
For 9 seconds, you gain +24 armor and have a 75% chance to "block" attacks. Disciplined Stance ends if you use an adrenal skill.
Energy:10 Cast:0 Recharge:60

Healing Signet (Tactics)
You gain 122 Health. You have -40 armor while using this skill.
Energy:0 Cast:2 Recharge:4

Flurry (Warrior other)
For 5 seconds, your attack rate is increased by 33%, but you deal 25% less damage.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:5


This build is a bit different than many of the other illusionary weaponry builds, and I wanted some input to see if you guys think it'd be good.

I'll just go over the skills one by one. Illusionary Weaponry is there because, well, its an illusionary weaponry build. For those who don't know, it deals no melee damage but 34 damage for each time it hits.

I included clumsiness because I thought, being on the front lines, you would be fighting warriors quite often, and 81 damage is awesome.

Phantom pain is a good opening move, if you use it and dps the person down to below 20%, when the deep wound effect goes off their health goes to one.

Defensive stance is included for melee survivability. Without it and disciplined stance, you would die far to fast on the front lines.

Deadly ripste is included to help you do a bit of damage while you wait for your IW to recharge. I've found it to be quite a nice way to keep healers healing your target, and soon those monks run out of mana. Does nice damage too if the other person isn't being healed.

Healing signet is included for a way of survivability. With the amount of tactics you have it heals you for a nice amount. Reduces your dependence on healers.

Flurry is one of the most important moves on there. You should be using flurry every chance you get while your ilussionary weaponry is up. Because the damage decrease is only effective on melee damage, it has no effect on your damage you're doing. You can be using a lvl 1 sword and still be doing major dps.

Fallbacks to this build include having your IW being taken off mid fight. That is when you need to fall back from the front lines and start using clumsiness or phantom pain on people. Deadly riposte helps too if you stay in the melee fray.

Another fall back is that mesmers don't have a lot of armor. You must be careful and pop the 2 defensive stances in order to keep yourself alive. The rogues set is generally best for the build, I advise everyone using this build to get it for the physical damage decrease.

Feel free to post your thoughts and questions

fear my warrior

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Feb 2006

W/E

Completely useless... no res sig.

glountz

glountz

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Nov 2005

W/Mo

No movement control skill or speed buff. Kiting will own you.

Xyonmonkey

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Mar 2006

Army of the Fallen

Me/W

So i should add sprint into the mix somewhere? Oh, and the res sig can be subbed in for deadly riposte in HoH

glountz

glountz

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Nov 2005

W/Mo

Not sprint. You have no point in Strenght.
You are high in Illusion. Illusion of Haste would be fine but you can't remove crippling. Try to slow your ennemy with Ethereal or Imagined Burden or both (even better). Covered by a easy spammable hex, of course (like Conjure phantasm, a lot better than Phantom pain).
Forget all your stances and take Distortion. Mana loss doesn't hit that much.
And finally, you have no cover enchant. If someone drain/shatter/inspire your IW, you're dead meat.

Xyonmonkey

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Mar 2006

Army of the Fallen

Me/W

Quote:
Originally Posted by glountz
Not sprint. You have no point in Strenght.
You are high in Illusion. Illusion of Haste would be fine but you can't remove crippling. Try to slow your ennemy with Ethereal or Imagined Burden or both (even better). Covered by a easy spammable hex, of course (like Conjure phantasm, a lot better than Phantom pain).
Forget all your stances and take Distortion. Mana loss doesn't hit that much.
And finally, you have no cover enchant. If someone drain/shatter/inspire your IW, you're dead meat. Thanks for the info, I'll rework my build

tuperwho

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

Tenacious Knights of Doom [TKD]

Illusion of Weakness and distortion are all you need for survivability and "healing". This will free up all those stance and heal spots, as well as letting you put the attribute points in illusion instead of tactics. Personally, I was using backfire and empathy in my IW build, but I like the idea of clumsiness even more.

Dragannia

Dragannia

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2006

Venatio Illuminata [VEIL]

Me/N

Sympathetic Visage. You NEED it as a cover enchantment. How come no one ever remembers this? Also, it's an Illusion attribute skill, so it synergises nicely.

Take Flurry and Distortion, and ditch Deadly Riposte. Use Distortion when you're being wailed upon by Warriors, and use Flurry when you solo against a single enemy.

mortalis doleo

mortalis doleo

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2005

my house

The Cutting Edge [TCE]

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xyonmonkey
So i should add sprint into the mix somewhere? Oh, and the res sig can be subbed in for deadly riposte in HoH i cant find a good reason to bring IW mesmers into HoH, but regardless, do you plan on not bringing res sig into RA/TA?

Xyonmonkey

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Mar 2006

Army of the Fallen

Me/W

Thanks for the help people, but now I have a bunch of attribute points. Should I do inspiration? Possibly some swordsmanship to allow me to at least do some damage?

Avarre

Avarre

Bubblegum Patrol

Join Date: Dec 2005

Singapore Armed Forces

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragannia

Take Flurry and Distortion, and ditch Deadly Riposte. Use Distortion when you're being wailed upon by Warriors, and use Flurry when you solo against a single enemy. DR + flurry + clumsiness + IW = better anti-warrior setup than distortion... you block the first 2 attacks, by they time they actually hit you you've done 98 + 50~ + 2(42) = 200+ damage. And DR has nice recharge (plus it just got buffed! yeeeha!)

Dragannia

Dragannia

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2006

Venatio Illuminata [VEIL]

Me/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avarre
DR + flurry + clumsiness + IW = better anti-warrior setup than distortion... you block the first 2 attacks, by they time they actually hit you you've done 98 + 50~ + 2(42) = 200+ damage. And DR has nice recharge (plus it just got buffed! yeeeha!) But then you're wasting an extra skill slot. Personally, I prefer just to use Distortion, take Shatter Enchantment, wail on the enemy Monk for a while with Distortion on, dodging enemy attacks and Blacking-out the Monk, and when the Warriors finally give up in disgust at the lack of hitting (and when they DO hit, their adrenaline goes POOF), activate Flurry and continue wailing on their Monk. Since both have 5 second recharges, this strategy works well.

Avarre

Avarre

Bubblegum Patrol

Join Date: Dec 2005

Singapore Armed Forces

Clumsiness is not a waste, it can be used for 97 damage against ANY enemy. Yes, casters attack too. Distortion is better versus rangers, but DR will kill warriors faster. Your choice...

Xyonmonkey

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Mar 2006

Army of the Fallen

Me/W

Avarre and Dragannia made good points. I'll look into it

Mordakai

Mordakai

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Aug 2005

Kyhlo

W/

I've never tried a IW build, but was thinking Blackout might be a good back-up skill. I mean, you're doing 34 dam. regardless of skills, but blocking out Warrior skill bar for 6 seconds would be fun.

Plus, any enchants or stances you have up stay (of course, you can't recast them for 5 seconds...)

EDIT: Doh, Dragannia already suggested Blackout. I missed it.

How's This Sound:

ILL: 16
Dom: 13

IW (E) (what's dam. at 16?)
Clumsiness
Distortion
Illusion of Haste or Etheral Burden

Dom:
Blackout
Shatter Enchantment

Flurry
Rez Sig

Avarre

Avarre

Bubblegum Patrol

Join Date: Dec 2005

Singapore Armed Forces

42 damage at 16 illu.

You'd be better going with a major rune for 14 dom, that's the breakpoint to 7s blackout which is a little more useful now that the recharge time was increased.

Dragannia

Dragannia

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2006

Venatio Illuminata [VEIL]

Me/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avarre
42 damage at 16 illu.

You'd be better going with a major rune for 14 dom, that's the breakpoint to 7s blackout which is a little more useful now that the recharge time was increased. Wait, why is it more useful now that the recharge is increased?

I for one HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE the new update, simply because of the Blackout nerf. At 12 seconds, my Blackout build (with Serpent's Quickness) gives them a 2 second gap instead of the previous one second, though Echoing still works reasonably well (barely).

Murder In China

Murder In China

Banned

Join Date: Sep 2005

/B/Chan

Looking for one

W/

Because shutting down a monk for 7 seconds is deadly.

Dragannia

Dragannia

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2006

Venatio Illuminata [VEIL]

Me/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by Murder In China
Because shutting down a monk for 7 seconds is deadly. I mean, he said that Blackout, with a twelve second recharge is better than before at 10 seconds. Or have I misunderstood something...?

LouAl

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

The update killed Black out for me...
I used to be able to Black out someone for 30 seconds (no gaps at all) and now it is only 21 seconds continuous oh well. That 2 sec increase in recharge really screwed it over. Oh, wait maybe it is still possible...yup, but just barely

Klmpee

Klmpee

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jul 2005

Florida USA :)

[Anti]

W/E

looks fugly... theirs just to much things that can go wrong.. i made a iw build along time ago.. that my guilde did once.. it had 6 mes, and 2 monks.. then switched a monk for a mes.. battle were won... very very very... slowly...

Mesmer/Warrior x4: IW, illusion of weakness, ----, ----, ----, "shields up", Flurry, res sig

::How to run this build::
The 4 mes/wars will be chaining the "shields up" skill and will always be spamming Flurry. In the begining, right before the doors open at around 3 sec, we will but up IW then illusion of weakness. One target caller will be assigned and everyone must follow targets... or the build may not have enough power to take them down. 3 blanks r in this build, and will be discussed when forming the party at the tombs.

::Atribute spread::
I(illusion): 12 +1+3
FC(fastcast): 9+1
Tac(tactics): 9
--------------------------------
Mesmer/ Ranger x1:
IW, IOW, ----, ----, TF, EOE, res sig

::How to run this build::
This player will be dropping the spirit eoe, and any other i decide to put in. This character may also be the primary relic runner.In the begining, right before the doors open at around 3 sec, we will but up IW then illusion of weakness. U will be spamming TF for ur atk speed. Will follow any target called by the mes/war.2 blanks r in this build, and will be discussed when forming the party at the tombs.

::Atribute spread::
I: 12+1+3
FC:6+1
BM(beast master): 11
----------------------------------
Mesmer/Necro x1:
IW, IOW, ----, ----, rend enchant, defile flesh, strip enchantment, res sig

::How to run this build::
This player will have the toughest job (IMO). He will have to rend the targets if we call for it over the TS channel. He will also be using defile flesh when the final target is called.In the begining, right before the doors open at around 3 sec, we will but up IW then illusion of weakness.2 blanks r in this build, and will be discussed when forming the party at the tombs .Will follow any target called by the mes/war.

::Atribute spread::
I: 12+1+3
FC: 7+1
C(curse): 10

all the blanks were for different illusion skills like.. conjure phant, slowdowns(cant recall the name right now), and that one the leave deep wound after x amount of seconds.., also had arcane miciry on all the mesmers just incase they got stripped.. they could get iw back.
one match took i thnk 10 mins... yea
then a guy on r guild stole it form us to try and win a sigil.... memories...
~Klmpee

Avarre

Avarre

Bubblegum Patrol

Join Date: Dec 2005

Singapore Armed Forces

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragannia
I mean, he said that Blackout, with a twelve second recharge is better than before at 10 seconds. Or have I misunderstood something...? Murder got my point, I meant that it was more useful to lose a little HP in exchange for the extra second (good!), especially since the recharge time had been increased (bad!).