Me/W IW skills

Personally I never use Tactics for my IW Mesmer, since I prefer to max out my Domination in favour of Blackout. Blackout and use a stance before your skills are disable is a good combo

recharge is too long. I think not. If you are running with 20% enchant mod on your sword, you have to wait only 4 seconds for IW to recharge. I'm sure it works fine and dandy when no one strips the enchantment. All of your damage is HINGING on an enchantment with a very long recharge. That's a very very bad idea. Or were you counting on the fact that your opponent would be bad?

wheel, I agree with lots of what you said, especially that IW is a bad skill to build around for competitive use (implied). I do think that for soloing in PvE it is very tough to beat (it can't take on many at a time but can kill even the strongest bosses quite easily).

The recharge is only to long if it gets stripped (again the need for a cover - Illusion of haste will serve as cover and speed boost), it will last or about 36 seconds with a +20 enchant weapon and that leaves only a 4 second window where it is down. Also a lowered recharge off hand would help. For soloing in PvE, I'm sure it's a great skill. Then again, PvE is completely different form PvP. At any rate, the whole cover enchantment argument doesn't work for the most part because if someone really wants to, they can watch for IW to be cast on you every 30-40s or so, and when it starts casting, they start to cast Drain Enchant or whatever else. You won't have enough time to put up a cover enchantment, even with 16 Fast Casting.

Obviously that argument is slightly flawed because obviously enchantment removal is a direct counter to IW, but that's not the point. The point is, it takes a significantly lower investment on the enemy's part to completely disable your damage output. All they have to invest in is one spot enchantment removal every 40s or so. You're investing 75 Health, 97 attribute points, and your elite slot for a skill whose damage is merely on par with a Warrior who is much more durable, versatile, and who has spike potential. You may utilize your points in illusion further by having more skills to absorb the cost of 75 HP and 97 attribute points, but you're still wasting your elite slot. It's just not a good idea 99% of the time.

Which is why we don't see IW in anything other than Arenas, mmhm? Seeing an IW Mesmer in HoH is very useless..... and a good target to kill too

Personally I never use Tactics for my IW Mesmer, since I prefer to max out my Domination in favour of Blackout. I usually do 16 illus and 10-ish dom, so that i can get a 6 sec blackout. I also have phantom/shatter for a 150 dmg spike. Illus of haste is a cover enchant. Usually I cast phantom and then run in, hit 1-2 times, then flurry and blackout. Once my skills recharge, i cast shatter and they usually die f=before blackout runs off. This is all asuming they aren't running away, which is probably not a safe assupmtion unless they are crippled or slow hexed.

If you're not bringing Blackout, there's no reason to even try bothering with IW. The whole point is that you can spam Blackout on a monk while still doing something useful. Without Blackout, you're just a wannabe warrior with no attack skills, no spike, no armor, and a huge vulnerability to a simple enchantment removal. Oh, but you can ignore Guardian. Woo! 0MG m1 1337 1w3R (4n pwnz j00 b1g 4mm4r d00d!

Also, playing IW is just...constant damage that a Warrior w/out Attack skills can do.

Also, playing IW is just...constant damage that a Warrior w/out Attack skills can do. It's a little bit more than a Warrior can output, but with attack skills, it loses out. Plus, there's the obvious reason that Warriors can spike. IW mesmers can't.

It's a little bit more than a Warrior can output, but with attack skills, it loses out. Plus, there's the obvious reason that Warriors can spike. IW mesmers can't. It is?

OMG!