Skills - Illusionary Weaponry

The Me/A can do far more damage in the same peroid of time as the Me/W. However, in comparison of solo, the Me/W would be far better off in killing others.

Basically, it was the same thing people discussed a while back on "Warrior vs Assassin".

The Me/A is alot more fragile, trading in the higher ability to get a kill in before target is healed up.

While all these... IW remain a gimmick IW is no gimmick. It has it's place. I've found it to be VERY effective in my W/Me build. The beauty of the build I'm running is that I don't depend on IW for only means of damage like an IW Me/W. I use my axe to do the damage to casters first, then after they have been elimintated, I switch to IW to kill off the high armor warriors and rangers. What's nice about the build is that if by some chance, IW gets stripped, I can still fall back on my axe and 12 in axe mastery to still do major damage. And since I'm running a W/Me setup, I have the all the benefits of much higher armor.

IW is no gimmick. It has it's place. I've found it to be VERY effective in my W/Me build. The beauty of the build I'm running is that I don't depend on IW for only means of damage like an IW Me/W. I use my axe to do the damage to casters first, then after they have been elimintated, I switch to IW to kill off the high armor warriors and rangers. What's nice about the build is that if by some chance, IW gets stripped, I can still fall back on my axe and 12 in axe mastery to still do major damage. And since I'm running a W/Me setup, I have the all the benefits of much higher armor. If you're running Warrior primary, why use IW instead of your weapon? The only real advantage of W/Me over Me/W is higher armor, which Me/W can imitate with Distortion, Shields Up and the like. In other respects, Me/W is certainly better - IW will do more damage, you can maintain a constant IAS (Flurry), you have the option to use energy-intensive skills, etc.

Using IW as a W/Me just seems gimped, you're not quite an Axe warrior as you arguably *need* Eviscerate as your elite, nor are you a fully fledged IW, doing less than maximum damage without constant IAS and 16 specced in Illusion.

If you're running Warrior primary, why use IW instead of your weapon? The only real advantage of W/Me over Me/W is higher armor, which Me/W can imitate with Distortion, Shields Up and the like. In other respects, Me/W is certainly better - IW will do more damage, you can maintain a constant IAS (Flurry), you have the option to use energy-intensive skills, etc.

Using IW as a W/Me just seems gimped, you're not quite an Axe warrior as you arguably *need* Eviscerate as your elite, nor are you a fully fledged IW, doing less than maximum damage without constant IAS and 16 specced in Illusion. I have a run a full axe warrior build and in PvE this build is simply better. If you're speaking of PvP, that may be a different story. Eviscerate is very nice and in my full axe build, I used it for months, but the truth is, against high armor targets like warriors and rangers, IW does more damage. And couple that to the fact that I can still do the same amount of damage when blind or when warriors or rangers are using evasive stances and the advantages become VERY clear.

I don't want this to sound rude, but don't knock the build until you try it, I think you would be VERY surprised if you play it in the fashion I listed above. Take casters out first, especially the mesmers and necros since those are most likely to strip IW, after that you can run IW almost infintitely. And I got news for you, even with only 12 points in IW, it does 34 armor ignoring damage which is more than an axe warrior will do with 16 in axe mastery against a high armor target, and again, I can do this with weakness and blind on me, as well as sitting in the middle of a ward against melee. Try that with a standard axe/sword build.

Everyone tries to act like an expert here, and no one actually tries the builds that people post, before someone chimes in and tries to break it down to act like they know more than the person who posted the build. Every build has SOME weakness somewhere, you can't perfect it all. You simply try to minimize your weaknesses.

And for the record, an Me/W will NEVER have the defense of a W/Me even if you use Distortion and Shields Up. You seem to forget that the warrior armor alone is a HUGE defensive upgrade, and I can use Watch Yourself, Dolyak Signet, or any other armor buff I want which only makes me even tougher. Why do you think Me/W's are such a joke to hardcore players, because they are easy to kill because of the low defense and because without IW, they lost their main attack. My Me/W build doesn't suffer from those problems. In fact, I see a Me/W as "gimped", you're not really a warrior because you can't tank and you're not really a mesmer because you aren't using domination for interrupts.

I have a run a full axe warrior build and in PvE this build is simply better. If you're speaking of PvP, that may be a different story. Eviscerate is very nice and in my full axe build, I used it for months, but the truth is, against high armor targets like warriors and rangers, IW does more damage. And couple that to the fact that I can still do the same amount of damage when blind or when warriors or rangers are using evasive stances and the advantages become VERY clear.

I don't want this to sound rude, but don't knock the build until you try it, I think you would be VERY surprised if you play it in the fashion I listed above. Take casters out first, especially the mesmers and necros since those are most likely to strip IW, after that you can run IW almost infintitely. And I got news for you, even with only 12 points in IW, it does 34 armor ignoring damage which is more than an axe warrior will do with 16 in axe mastery against a high armor target, and again, I can do this with weakness and blind on me, as well as sitting in the middle of a ward against melee. Try that with a standard axe/sword build.

Everyone tries to act like an expert here, and no one actually tries the builds that people post, before someone chimes in and tries to break it down to act like they know more than the person who posted the build. Every build has SOME weakness somewhere, you can't perfect it all. You simply try to minimize your weaknesses.

And for the record, an Me/W will NEVER have the defense of a W/Me even if you use Distortion and Shields Up. You seem to forget that the warrior armor alone is a HUGE defensive upgrade, and I can use Watch Yourself, Dolyak Signet, or any other armor buff I want which only makes me even tougher. Why do you think Me/W's are such a joke to hardcore players, because they are easy to kill because of the low defense and because without IW, they lost their main attack. My Me/W build doesn't suffer from those problems. In fact, I see a Me/W as "gimped", you're not really a warrior because you can't tank and you're not really a mesmer because you aren't using domination for interrupts. I fully understand that IW is constant armor ignoring damage, unaffected by Blind, Weakness, Evasion stances etc., indeed those are the strengths of IW over traditional attacks. I'm simply arguing that, for IW, Me/W > W/Me.

As a Me/W, your job is similar to an Assassin's - that is to get in, deal damage and get out, leaving tanking to the Warrior. Ideally, all the aggro should be on the tank, but accidents happen, so Distortion provide a means of escaping should some aggro leak onto you (rather than a substitute for more armor). Of course a higher AL would be nice, but in a situation where you won't be taking much damage in the first place (the aggro's on the tank), additional damage from 16 in Illusion and constant IAS would be more beneficial.

And for the record, hardcore players consider IW itself to be a joke, regardless of whatever profession uses it. You'll never see IW used in any sort of organized team play, for example.