Curse

ShadowStorm · Sep 28, 2006, 11:58 AM // 11:58

The Character: Mesmer/Dervish

The Attribute Lineup:

16 Illusion Magic - 12 + 1 for Costume Mask + 3 for Superior Rune
10 Earth Prayers - 10
8 Wind Prayers - 8

The Skills:

Illusionary Weaponry - For 30 seconds, you deal no damage in melee (all attacks miss), but whenever you attack in melee, target foe takes 42 damage.

Illusion of Weakness - You lose 253 health. Illusion of Weakness ends if damage drops your health below 25% of your maximum. When Illusion of Weakness ends, you gain 253 health.

Sand Shards - For 30 seconds, whenever you fail to hit with a scythe attack, all nearby foes take 18 damage.

Vital Boon - For 20 seconds, you have +80 maximum Health. When this Enchantment ends, you are healed for 158 Health. (I'm just using this skill because it's a cheap enchantment that recharges fairly quickly. It can be replaced if you'd prefer to use something else.)

Mystic Regeneration - For 20 seconds, you have +3 Health regeneration for each Enchantment on you. When this Enchantment ends, you lose 1 Enchantment. (Most of the time, this will give you +12 - +15 regen. It takes quite a bit of work to make you actually lose health while this is up, especially if you have monk support)

Whirling Charge - For 9 seconds, you move and attack 33% faster than normal. This Stance ends if you are not under the effect of any Enchantments. (Unfortunately, since this build doesn't have access to Flurry, this is the best Increased Attack Speed skill you'll have access to. On the brightside, it also includes a speed buff to help you catch your fleeing targets.)

Resurrection Signet. Nuff Said.

Optional skill. You could take something to snare your targets for the downtime on Whirling Charge, you could take one of the many enchantment removal skills available to Dervishes to help your team out, you could take some extra damage in the form of Illusion hexes or AoE enchantments, or you could take some energy management, although I don't think that last option is really needed.

The Equipment:

I recommend Rogue armor, not only because it is the best looking, but also because you'll be mixing it up in melee combat and extra armor vs physical is a blessing.

You'll need to be weilding a scythe so that the extra damage from Sand Shards will trigger. I'd recommend a +5 energy Scythe with a crippling mod and a 20% enchanting mod.

Also, having an offhand focus with +1 Illusion Magic(20%) is good for an extra few damage (from IW) or health (from Illusion of Weakness)

How to play the Build:

Start every match with Illusion of Weakness right off the bat. That enchantment doesn't have a duration, and you'll have 30 seconds to regenerate the lost health before the match actually starts.

When you're ready to fight, throw up Illusionary Weaponry, then immediately bury it with Sand Shards and then Vital Boon. If someone saw you put up the Weaponry, they'll likely toss an enchantment removal spell your way, but depending on how fast they are, they'll either strip the shards or the boon. I've never had them strip the IW unless they used Rend Enchantments or Gaze of Contempt, but hardly anyone takes those skills into RA.

Anyway, whether or not they stripped an enchantment off of you, start attacking and use Whirling Charge. If they did strip one off, be sure to get them all up asap. Anytime IW or Shards goes down, toss it back up and immediately cover it with Boon again, even if Boon is still enchanting you. Keep Whirling Charge up as much as you can and hack away for 60 armor ignoring damage a hit.

If you start to take damage and you feel like you're in danger, use Mystic Regeneration. It will mitigate a lot of damage.

Weaknesses of the Build:

If your opponents have any skill that can strip all enchantments at once, you're screwed. But then again, what's new. If you've ever played IW before, you'll be used to this scenario. Just count the match as a loss and wait for it to end.

Compared to other IW builds, it's a powerhouse.

On offense, you do more damage. You lose Flurry, so you won't be able to have +33% attack speed all the time, and you'll be using a slightly slower weapon (1 attack every 1.75 seconds instead of 1 attack every 1.33 seconds). However, you'll be using Sand Shards for an additional 18 damage per hit and you have the possibility to hit more than one target at a time. The calculations are at the bottom. If calculations bore you, here's the stats: Sword/Axe IW = 47.25 DPS, This build = 51.45 DPS

On defense, you have more survivability. Mystic Regeneration usually provides 15 pips of regeneration. This is far superior to what has been used in the past. Usually people took Distortion and some sort of self heal like Healing Signet or Ether Feast. Well, Mystic Regeneration can't be interrupted because it's 1/4 of a second to cast unlike the 2 second castings for Healing Signet and Ether Feast, it heals for longer (20 seconds), and it doesn't come with any downsides like reduced armor or the chance that your opponent won't have any energy. On top of that, Mystic Regen only takes one slot on your skillbar instead of 2. And on top of that, you also have a heal whenever Vital Boon ends.

Here's those calculations I mentioned above:

Swords/Axes/Daggers attack once every 1.33 seconds. They all do 42 damage while under IW. So, under IW they all do 31.5 damage per second.

Scythes attack once every 1.75 seconds. Scythes do 42 damage each second while under IW. So, under IW, scythes do 24 damage per second. Now add the 18 damage from Sand Shards for a grand total of 42 damage per second.

According to Guildwiki, a 33% Increased Attack Speed buff like Frenzy or Tiger's Fury increase the actual damage output to about 150%. Since Sword/Axe IW users can keep Flurry up all the time, this increases their damage per second to 47.25 (31.5 x 150%). Now, the build I have posted above uses Whirling Charge for 9 seconds and then has 11 seconds downtime. So, we can use this formula:
[(1.5 x 42 x 9seconds) + (42 x 11seconds)] / 20seconds
This gives us a total of 51.45 Damage per second. And this doesn't even count the off-chance that you hit multiple targets with your scythe in one swing.

Sab · Sep 28, 2006, 12:21 PM // 12:21

Someone had to say this...Sand Shards doesn't trigger if you are using IW.

Avarre · Sep 28, 2006, 12:24 PM // 12:24

Sabby, you are the devourer of dreams.

ShadowStorm · Sep 29, 2006, 08:02 AM // 08:02

Why wouldn't Sand Shards trigger if you were using IW?

Sand Shards triggers whenever you fail to hit with a scythe. IW makes it impossible to hit with any weapon.

Now you have me second-guessing myself. That's not right...

ShadowStorm · Sep 29, 2006, 08:22 AM // 08:22

Hmmmmm.... Now you've really got me thinking.

I re-read the discription of IW on GuildWiki and it says that IW does not trigger "On Hit" or "On Miss" conditions. I knew it didn't trigger "On Hit" conditions and that's what got me thinking that it caused all your attacks to miss. But if it doesn't trigger "On Miss" conditions either, then it may not work.

However, Sand Shards doesn't trigger when you miss. It triggers when you fail to hit.

When you miss because of blindness or some hex like Spirit of Failure, it actually has yellow text above your head that says "Miss". But when you use IW, no such thing appears over your head. And since it's confirmed that you don't actually hit your target with IW active (Warriors gain no adrenaline), this leads me to believe that an IW swing is completely unique.

That being said, we'll have to wait for Nightfall to come out to test this. If IW is unique in that you don't miss and you don't hit, there is a chance that it'll trigger Sand Shards.

Faer · Sep 29, 2006, 08:24 AM // 08:24

I tried a similar build during the PvP Weekend. I can confirm that, at that time, at least, this build worked as intended.

ShadowStorm · Sep 29, 2006, 08:31 AM // 08:31

Thank you. We have confirmation!! Or at least tenative confirmation! If this build actually does work at the time of Nightfall release, I will feel vindicated against the naysayers!

Sab · Sep 29, 2006, 09:05 AM // 09:05

Strange, I remember that the Sand Shards + IW combo did not work during the PvP preview weekend:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10013238
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10012759

Ermac · Sep 29, 2006, 09:20 AM // 09:20

IW +Feigned Neutrality +Deadly Paradox > this build'

Its not like everyones gona go "zomg look iw with scythe, lets ball up". >.>

Anryla · Sep 29, 2006, 09:38 AM // 09:38

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Illusionary_Weaponry

[qoute]For 30 seconds, you deal no damage in melee, but whenever you attack in melee, target foe takes 8...34 damage.[/quote]

You hit the target with the weapon in hand but deal NO damage if it hits, instead IW deals the damage (hit or no hit)

This is what I understand of the skill atleast

Faer · Sep 29, 2006, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuxA

Strange, I remember that the Sand Shards + IW combo did not work during the PvP preview weekend:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10013238
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10012759

Odd. I suppose my memory could be a bit clouded, or perhaps I was doing something different... But, I could almost have sworn it worked. Ah, well. C'est la vie.

Dragannia · Sep 29, 2006, 11:31 AM // 11:31

I'm definately sure Sand Shards + IW did not work. 100%.

Ray · Sep 30, 2006, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Failure.

Terra Xin · Sep 30, 2006, 11:05 PM // 23:05

No. there is nothing in the description that says IW 'fails' to hit nor does it say that your attacks miss. When IW says it deals NO damage, it says that it will deal 0 damage. You can confirm this by testing it with Price of Failure and you will notice that IW will not trigger the effect that that skill has.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anryla

You hit the target with the weapon in hand but deal NO damage if it hits, instead IW deals the damage (hit or no hit)

Anryla is right, and to expand on that, the properties that lie within hit and miss are completely removed by IW, instead, those properties are replaced by magical 'hitting'. That's why you can't say that IW always misses, because that entire mechanic is removed altogether, so IW is neither hitting or missing, but is replaced with a magical attack, which never misses, but doesn't trigger hits just like any other spell.

The attack process of IW remains the same, it's just the end part that is converted to magical damage. That's why it will trigger Empathy and Vigorous Spirit.

Shuuda · Oct 08, 2006, 02:23 PM // 14:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ermac

IW +Feigned Neutrality +Deadly Paradox > this build'

Its not like everyones gona go "zomg look iw with scythe, lets ball up". >.>

Too true, in fact the minute I get nightfall, I'll take my Mesmer and get them skill. Looks like an awsome build

Hella Good · Oct 08, 2006, 03:30 PM // 15:30

Yes, time for some Illusionary Dagger action.

Ermac · Oct 08, 2006, 04:52 PM // 16:52

err, why dagger ?

Lt.Crumpet · Oct 08, 2006, 08:35 PM // 20:35

me n my guildie tested this for like an hour on the preview...it dun work work.

Hella Good · Oct 08, 2006, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ermac

err, why dagger ?

Feigned Neutrality gives you all the armor in the world you might need, so the use of a shield becomes pointless, and if you pump up Dagger Mastery a bit you get the added change of double striking. Daggers also attack faster than any other weapon, triggering IW more rapidly and resulting in higher DPS.

Terra Xin · Oct 08, 2006, 11:35 PM // 23:35

I just wish assassins had an IAS skill other than Locust's Fury...