Build Reviews!

Unik

Academy Page

Join Date: Feb 2005

Great idea, never even crossed my mind to use blinding flash in there. This give me a short defensive addition since I have no points into air, but would at the same time add to fragility, i like this a lot.

Thanks guys

Sarus

Sarus

Ministry of Technology

Join Date: Feb 2005

Washington D.C.

Idiot Savants

Mo/

Hi Everyone,
Sorry to bring up such an old thread but I wanted to see what people have done with their IW builds now that 100 blades has become elite. When I first logged on this BWE and saw that 100 blades was elite I was like then I was like and then I was like .

Due to limited time this BWE and no pre planning I switched over to the following IW build using a PvP only character.


Primary: Mesmer
Secondary: Warrior

Attributes:
Illusion: 11 + 1
Domination: 10
Inspiration: 10

Skills:
Flurry
Power Drain (Interrupt)
Power Leak (Interrupt)
Power Spike (Interrupt)
Arcane Conundrum (Interrupt Helper)
Ether Feast (Healing)
Imagined Burden (basically my pin down)
IW


Right off the bat I wasn't able to give much thought to the build so I apologize if it is totally broken (not in a good way). My old build was great against warriors and good against casters. Without 100 blades though I found the DPS just wasn't enough to go against warriors, and casters could heal themselves up without that extra damage output (and no interrupts).

So I decided to move towards a more interrupt style IW build (more like Saus's original I suppose). The three interrupts are great. With arcane conundrum on a monk/priest you can easily take them down unless they are getting secondary healing. When your IW isn't up you are still effective due to the interrupts and can pretty much nullify any caster from a distance. Imagined Burden was good for when our rangers weren't in range for a pin down.

I didn't use a shield and as such was able to carry an idol so in general I had no energy problems (when I did it was my own fault for not doing my interrupts in the right order).

The biggest problem was I died often and fast. I know this thread had a very long discussion on IW's not being primary targets and hence not needing defense. This might be true when fighting "good" teams in GvG or even tombs but when against your average run of the mill pick up team for some reason warriors just love to come after you. I think they just like killing stuff even if it isn't the most appropriate target.

Just going back and re-reading the posts on IW mes's I'd probably swap out one of my Mes interrupts and go for distracting blow instead. This would allow me to interrupt signets which I wasn't able to do previously. I can tell you from experience that having a monk just heal themselves with signet of devotion and not being able to stop it is maddening.

So in conclusion I'd just wanted to hear from people what they chose to do in regards to the IW build or if they just ditched it all together.

Thanks for reading!

mostro

mostro

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Feb 2005

Me/E

Just want to share my experience fighting an IW build this past weekend. Our guild (La Femme) fought against Agony (I think... sorry it's been a blurry weekend) that had at least 4 me/w running IW builds. It was a pretty nasty surprise for us since our wards could not prevent IW damage.

We had two people in our team that brought Rend Enchanments, but they were not enough to neutralize their IW warriors. Not to mention that they were using blackouts to lock our skills while they were chasing us. In the end, we resorted to kiting tactics and just pure healing. Whoever was forced fired by these IW warriors (most of the time it was one of the monks) would kite around the flag while being healed. This was possible because we had 3 monks (2 healers, one healer/bipper) and we basically outhealed them.

The fight was a stalemate for a while in the flag area until they decided to try to assasinate our guild lord. We managed to defend him on their first attempt, but when they tried the second time we thought that we would do the same thing. So it was a race to kill the guild lords, but in the end they won because their IW build had more firepower than us and managed to kill our lord first. All told it was a pretty good fight though.

So in my opinion IW builds can be pretty nasty if you are not prepared for it. And that enchanment removal in general is still not quite up to par yet.

Twilight Doll

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2005

Quote:
Hi Everyone,
Sorry to bring up such an old thread but I wanted to see what people have done with their IW builds now that 100 blades has become elite. When I first logged on this BWE and saw that 100 blades was elite I was like then I was like and then I was like .
I'm curious about this too. All this time I've been wondering about this.

Since I've bothered to post I'll post my build and I think it works quite effectively...

Fast Cast:10
Illusion Magic:11+1+3=15
Inspiration:10

I probably don't need as many points into inspiration or fast cast and instead put one more point into Illusion Magic.


Distortion and Flurry- I know both of these are stances so I they can't be used together. What's great about this is though depends on whether you are a target or not. If you're one that is being attacked then I tend to use distortion. If I'm one that is attacking and nobody is bothering to attack me, then I'll use flurry. Distortion is such a great stance to use while casting Ether feast or Energy Tap.
Conjure Phantasm-Used for DoT, and also as a teaser. It gets a lot of people panicking.
Illusion of Weakness I like the idea of fake health already taking a hit from using a superior rune.
Illusionary Weaponry
Ether Feast
Energy Tap
--------------------Above: are the ones that I always have on.
--------------------Below: Interchangable... One slot remaining. This last slot tends to make a difference depending what you're up against but these are the skills I use most often.
Sympathetic Visage: This is great to have for fighting against parties that have too many monks/wars. It's been very effecting at nailing parties that have two monks. (although not very mandatory you would see it's effect against any type of party. Just cast it on the person who is getting attacked the most.

Shatter Enchantment or Inspired Enchantment-I believe IE is the better choice because I don't really bother to cause damage other than conjure phantasm and IW and you also get energy when you steal someone's enchantment. It's also inspiration based instead of domination. It also has a shorter recast time and there have been times where I have run into other IW Me/W and ruined their fun.

I haven't really had any energy issues. The only problem sometimes is while you can nail 1 or 2 people very well, gaining back any health is of concern with this build. I haven't tried healing signet as of yet but I should probably try it out. That would mean to put some points into tactics where I might be a bit overkill on fast casting or inspiration.

For armor I wear rogues chest and leg piece. The rest I wear enchanter's set. I use a off hand +energy item instead of shield. Obviously this build is mainly intended for raw damage.

TheBuster

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

I saw the builds with Illusionary Weaponry and Hundrerd Blades, but how can you make that build if both skills are Elite?

baranovan

baranovan

Academy Page

Join Date: Mar 2005

Doom Brigade

These builds are from a past age, when Hundred Blades was not an elite.

TheBuster

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

Ok thx :P