just an idea...

Interesting except the build is worthless vs a nonmelee team; is very situationable, and can be rendered useless by them simply not attacking. Not to mention if one monk is packing spellbreaker-your just screwed.

-further note; where is distortion? most teams in the random / team / heroes acsension have a warrior or a ranger. distortion was not included, because thye build already has enough energy strain.

most teams in the random / team / heroes acsension have a warrior or a ranger. Which is exactly why you should run distortion. Due to the number of physical characters, and the fact that you are usally a primary target-it is basically a must have skill, like res sig.

ineptitude
clumsiness
spirit of failure
power drain
conjure phantasm/arcane conundrum
drain enchantment
leech signet
res

illusion 16
inspiration at least 10
everything else in fast cast.
Which is pretty much what it boils down to every time I go Illusion in Arenas. I've tried making new builds, but you really need some form of energy management as you splurge 40 energy right off the bat, and what holden suggested is what you end up with. I agree it's a good idea to take some form of caster irritation as if the team has no Warriors / Rangers it's not quite as strong, however they often chip in with their wands...the fools.

From personal experience Phantom pain works quite nicely instead of CP, (optional - you can shatter it to get a quick Deep Wound but skill slot needed for other things IMHO) then hit them with Inept / Clumsiness which leaves them with a sliver of health. Leech signet as holden says for their Healing Sig.

I still think Distortion fits in nicely - as long as you've Spirit of Failure'd said warrior before he reaches you, Distortion will result in a net gain of energy. From personal experience Ineptitude's recharge at 20 seconds can leave you in a bit of a fix if you rely on the blinding to keep you safe / for energy management. I know I've been banging on about it in another post on this forum about E-Surge, so apologies...but how about trading Ineptitude for Echo, then you can echo Clumsiness and get off 4 copies in just over 10 seconds, working out at more damage. It's more energy intensive and you don't have the lovely blind but more and more W's are bringing Plague Touch / Mend Ailment and the like these days. I like Echo as it gives you more flexibility, lets say if you ran up against a caster team you'd be able to focus more on Conundrum / interrupts instead as you can copy whichever skill best fits the situation. Just an idea.

From personal experience Ineptitude's recharge at 20 seconds can leave you in a bit of a fix if you rely on the blinding to keep you safe i totally agree. it's expensive and spirit of failure alone won't keep warriors off of you when blind runs out. in random i almost always bring signet of midnight. blind duration is 15 seconds and the cooldown is the same. i haven't found a better way to keep them out of your face.

Spirit of failure+distortion...
*dies laughing for all of the obvious reasons* spirit of failure will cost you 10 energy pretty much every 10 seconds. distortion will cost you at least 5 energy every 5 seconds if you're under pressure. even if you have SoF on 2 or more melee foes distortion will drain you if you're under pressure.

signet of midnight costs nothing for a 15 second blind and a 15 second cool down.

signet of midnight costs nothing for a 15 second blind and a 15 second cool down. but SoF works longer, for Midnight, you can really only blind '1' person permanently.

but SoF works longer, for Midnight, you can really only blind '1' person permanently.
spirit of failure is almost always on my bar. but not because of the 25% chance to miss. everytime he misses i get 4 energy. if he's blind he's gonna miss 9 out of 10 swings.

signet of midnight puts blind on yourself as well as your target. since he's necro secondary he can bring plague touch and for 5 energy put blind on another warrior/ranger. mantra of inscriptions would quicken the cooldown for signets and allow you to keep blind on at least 2 melee foes the whole match. but sig of midnight recharges in 15 seconds and the blind last 15 seconds. without any help from other skills it's a pretty freakin good elite.