Curse

Avarre · Jun 25, 2006, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Why are people abusing my bishie IW :'(

Ok, look people :

Me/W - 42 damage hits, benefits -> warriors heals, defensive stances, dRiposte. It works, in RA maybe.

Me/R - 42 damage hits, pet attacks and interrupts, arguably superior to Me/W though you lose defence. Probably slightly stronger in TA therefore (not to say it's anything more than gimmick though).

Anything else - 34~ damage hit. Why are you even running it?

Warrior - the highest armor you have to face, generally, is AL80 (glads). Yes, bring an elemental weapon and bypass the physical defence. Any warrior dealing under 34 damage per hit, on average, is a scrub warrior. I don't think this is unfair to say, it's a matter of clear fact. Not to mention you lose all attack skills, the things that made warriors dangerous in the first place (you know, adrenspikes and such?).

Yes, it is viable in RA. However, your energy cannot keep up with casting and covering so well, and in the end you are reducing your power and stat balance horrifically.

Ranger - Running pets, you could have an extremely feeble thumper, only without the thump. You'd have some pet power but your damage has gone from kd-hammer combos, or (interrupt ranger) the upper 2-digits of things like punishing to 34 melee, and you lose the majority of your interrupt, snare, and degen skills.

I've done practically everything that can be done with IW, run it in PvE group, PvE solo, RA, TA, GvG...

Anything other than a mesmer running IW is a BAD waste of stats and skills. A mesmer running it is a gimmick, but possible in the two forms of Me/W and Me/R. I suppose you could run /E with shock or gale as well, but without the attackspeed boost it's really not worth it.

arredondo · Jun 25, 2006, 09:54 PM // 21:54

^^^ Wrong. Because of double strikes, a Me/As is definitely capable of high IW damage. With L16 Illu and L12 Dagger Mastery (as an example) you get 34 damage per IW attack, BUT you get 72 damage per attack when it double strikes (actually 2x34). At L12 DM, you have a roughly 25% chance to double strike, or one out of four swings. So with this in mind, a Me/As can average 42.5 damage a swing, bringing it right up there with the per swing average of the othr two popular choices. Now of course the Me/Ra and Me/Wa can swing faster, making the DPS for them higher, but the Me/As is still nothing to just laugh off.

DPS can be made up in several ways, like the multiple Dual Attack spam idea I put up above. And also, it is a LOT easier to keep an enemy snared with a Me/As IW build than it is with Me/Ra or Me/Wa (i.e., a build is more than just how much it can hurt at max stats). Staying close to the target is just as important for DPS than raw damage, so when I use something like Dancing Daggers->Mantis Touch, or just Crippling Dagger (cheap, 5s recharge spammable), I worry less about chasing around and more on swinging the weapon. Sure, the Mesmer has Imaginary Burden/Ethereal Burden, but they are expensive and are not recharge friendly if removed early.

So I'm not in any way saying a Me/As is the best version out there. It's just wrong to say that an IW can ONLY be Me/Wa or Me/Ra to be successful.

Symbol · Jun 25, 2006, 10:00 PM // 22:00

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Warrior - the highest armor you have to face, generally, is AL80 (glads). Yes, bring an elemental weapon and bypass the physical defence. Any warrior dealing under 34 damage per hit, on average, is a scrub warrior. I don't think this is unfair to say, it's a matter of clear fact.

Lol, that's odd. A sword warrior does an average of 34 damage per hit. An axe a bit higher. Both are with 16 in their respective attributes.

IW with 12 illusion compares quite well to a warrior's basic attack. It's the loss of attack skills that hurts.

snikerz · Jun 25, 2006, 11:45 PM // 23:45

was playing around with the me/a idea, decided it wasnt worth putting my points into dagger mastery, so decided i'ld put my points into deadly arts(12), and ran dancing daggers(spell, counts as lead attack), mantis touch(spell, counts as offhand, also cripples for 17 seconds

), and 4 lots dual attacks, because dual attacks are 100% garenteed forms of..well double hits lol, once u perform the first 2 spells, u just pump out your entire dual attacks, dealing tremendous dmg, note u cannot use dual attacks straight away as it'll result in a miss regardless if you are enchanted with IW

.

however with this build you are sure sacrificing alot of defense than when you were a me/w.

Blkout · Jun 26, 2006, 09:14 AM // 09:14

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Originally Posted by LuxA

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.

In RA or organized play you may be right, however you will never see a good guild using IW. But in PvE, my build will whip a Me/W anyday of the week.

Blkout · Jun 26, 2006, 09:19 AM // 09:19

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Originally Posted by Avarre

Why are people abusing my bishie IW :'(

Ok, look people :

Me/W - 42 damage hits, benefits -> warriors heals, defensive stances, dRiposte. It works, in RA maybe.

Me/R - 42 damage hits, pet attacks and interrupts, arguably superior to Me/W though you lose defence. Probably slightly stronger in TA therefore (not to say it's anything more than gimmick though).

Anything else - 34~ damage hit. Why are you even running it?

Warrior - the highest armor you have to face, generally, is AL80 (glads). Yes, bring an elemental weapon and bypass the physical defence. Any warrior dealing under 34 damage per hit, on average, is a scrub warrior. I don't think this is unfair to say, it's a matter of clear fact. Not to mention you lose all attack skills, the things that made warriors dangerous in the first place (you know, adrenspikes and such?).

Yes, it is viable in RA. However, your energy cannot keep up with casting and covering so well, and in the end you are reducing your power and stat balance horrifically.

Ranger - Running pets, you could have an extremely feeble thumper, only without the thump. You'd have some pet power but your damage has gone from kd-hammer combos, or (interrupt ranger) the upper 2-digits of things like punishing to 34 melee, and you lose the majority of your interrupt, snare, and degen skills.

I've done practically everything that can be done with IW, run it in PvE group, PvE solo, RA, TA, GvG...

Anything other than a mesmer running IW is a BAD waste of stats and skills. A mesmer running it is a gimmick, but possible in the two forms of Me/W and Me/R. I suppose you could run /E with shock or gale as well, but without the attackspeed boost it's really not worth it.

Dude, go to the isle of the nameless and bump your axe attribute up to 16 and use any axe you want, then hit the 60AL target and time how long it takes until it's destroyed, then do the same with 12 in Illusion and watch how long it takes to destroy the target. I bet you the the 12 in Illusioon wins by a few seconds every time. And this is only a 60AL target. Now, do the same with the 80AL and 100AL target and be amazed at just how quick IW takes down the higher AL targets. You will completely destroy the 16 axe attribute damage everytime.

Understand, this is without any axe skills, just pure damage, now, add in any of your favorite axe skills and you will notice that against the 80 and 100AL targets, you won't do any better than 12 Illusion IW. You may equal it, you may come close to it. But the beauty of it is this, I only need to take ONE attack skill for IW to be effective, where you would need 16 in axe mastery, plus 3-4 or more axe attacks skills to equal the same damage, not to mention you need to wait for Adrenaline to build where I can cast IW and be ready in one second. Don't believe me, go try it, I've done the research.

You don't know my build so don't speak about it, and to be honest, if you did know, you wouldn't go back to a standard axe build for PvE. It simply doesn't make sense to.

It sounds like you are more interested in defending your Me/W IW build than understanding the mechanics of what I'm saying.

Blkout · Jun 26, 2006, 09:32 AM // 09:32

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Originally Posted by Symbol

Lol, that's odd. A sword warrior does an average of 34 damage per hit. An axe a bit higher. Both are with 16 in their respective attributes.

IW with 12 illusion compares quite well to a warrior's basic attack. It's the loss of attack skills that hurts.

Go play with the 80 and 100 AL targets in the Isle and your opinion will change about that +34 per hit with a sword.

And for the record, I don't have a loss of attack skills, I carry ONE axe attack skill for when I'm not using IW. Dismember for the deep wound. You have to remember that I also said I use a standard attack against most casters, then switch to IW for the high armor class warriors and rangers where it's most effective.

Against a 60AL target, if you bring enough attack skills, you will outdamage IW everytime, but at the expense of how many attack skill slots? And against, 80-100AL targets, IW wins everytime.

It's silly to argue this since it's CLEARLY obvious most people have not done their research. Instead they are acting like they exeperts about something, they know nothing about. Message me sometime and we'll arrange to go to a high level mission together and you'll be amazed at how quickly I cut through targets like butter, and again, I do it with weakness, blind, and standing in the middle of a ward against melee. Try that with your melee build. In PvE, this isn't a straight up gunfight where you get to unload all your ammo in one big shot and hope your target is dead, there are mulptiple targets and all of them are doing something different to keep your from attacking. While you are standing there whiffing air not hitting your target, I'm eating them alive.

You can say what you want, but if you spend some time playing with IW I think you will find its a VERY efficient killer in PvE, more so than any pure melee build. And before you speak, this is coming from someone that has been playing an Eviscerate axe build for over a year now. I thought it was great, but it doesn't compare to this build. Sure I could have taken ONE target out quicker with a pure melee build, but then you are forced to wait for Ad to build again to do the same. Meanwhile, my IW build is taking down targets quicker than you can shake a stick at.

Avarre · Jun 26, 2006, 10:11 AM // 10:11

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Originally Posted by Blkout

But the beauty of it is this, I only need to take ONE attack skill for IW to be effective, where you would need 16 in axe mastery, plus 3-4 or more axe attacks skills to equal the same damage, not to mention you need to wait for Adrenaline to build where I can cast IW and be ready in one second. Don't believe me, go try it, I've done the research.

I'm sorry to have to inform you... but you're simply wrong.

There is a reason people who play, in your example, axe, bring skills. The stat question is irrelevant (you use the same number of points). However by using IW you sacrifice interrupts, knockdowns, adrenspike, condition application - everything that makes the axe warrior what it is.

By following a set damage of 34 per hit, you need to attack someone approximately 15 times to kill them, more if they use +hp armor. This is assuming they are not healed at any point, or kite at all. By comparison, a charged adren spike can deal in the vicinity of 300-350 damage counting the deep wound, from a single character.

You may recall the debate about touch rangers, that deal some 60~ damage, ignoring, per attack. You may also recall that serious players consider them laughable against the majority of organized teams. You, however, are proposing something that does half as much damage, with weaker speed buffs, selfheal, and energy management, as well as being based on a shatterable enchantment.

Warriors are not so much build for dealing x/damage per second, forever, attacking 1 target. They are (in case of hammer and axe, even sword to an extent) for quick bursts of damage in PvP. There is little purpose in simply hitting a feeble amount of damage on a target, especially in such an unstable way as a warrior with Iw.

In PvE, IW is critically poor as it suffers from the enchant hate of targets. It is still somewhat viable, possibly from the fact that people don't expect the warriors to do the killing. Just for the sake of example, go run IW on a FoW spider run, and compare the time to one with warrior attacks.

In PvP, a warrior with IW bears no comment. No effective Kd or interrupting, no conditions or adrenal spiking.. you might succeed in RA.

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^^^ Wrong. Because of double strikes, a Me/As is definitely capable of high IW damage. With L16 Illu and L12 Dagger Mastery (as an example) you get 34 damage per IW attack, BUT you get 72 damage per attack when it double strikes (actually 2x34). At L12 DM, you have a roughly 25% chance to double strike, or one out of four swings. So with this in mind, a Me/As can average 42.5 damage a swing, bringing it right up there with the per swing average of the othr two popular choices. Now of course the Me/Ra and Me/Wa can swing faster, making the DPS for them higher, but the Me/As is still nothing to just laugh off.

Touch rangers do 60+ per hit, and those can be laughed off. A mesmer with no selfheal, no speed boost (IoH maybe), and no ias mod running IW is... well... weak pressure. Very weak pressure.

arredondo · Jun 26, 2006, 03:03 PM // 15:03

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Originally Posted by snikerz

was playing around with the me/a idea, decided it wasnt worth putting my points into dagger mastery, so decided i'ld put my points into deadly arts(12), and ran dancing daggers(spell, counts as lead attack), mantis touch(spell, counts as offhand, also cripples for 17 seconds

), and 4 lots dual attacks, because dual attacks are 100% garenteed forms of..well double hits lol, once u perform the first 2 spells, u just pump out your entire dual attacks, dealing tremendous dmg, note u cannot use dual attacks straight away as it'll result in a miss regardless if you are enchanted with IW

.

however with this build you are sure sacrificing alot of defense than when you were a me/w.

I put that up just a page or two earlier. I pared down the number of my Duals to have two quick recharging ones so that I could add defense.

arredondo · Jun 26, 2006, 03:19 PM // 15:19

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Originally Posted by Avarre

Touch rangers do 60+ per hit, and those can be laughed off. A mesmer with no selfheal, no speed boost (IoH maybe), and no ias mod running IW is... well... weak pressure. Very weak pressure.

Way to change the topic. I responded only and specifically to how other IW builds (namely my Me/As variants) compare to the standard Me/Wa and Me/Ra setups - it holds up just fine. How IW as a whole holds up to any other offensive build with other classes is a completely different topic.

To your other points....

- Instead of self-heal my Me/As can get by with Hex Breaker+Distortion since I don't need Flurry or Tiger's Flurry. Sympathetic Visage also aids in this strat of damage mitigation besides being an IW protector from removal. I simply keep HB up to ward off two hexes, and if I need a little melee/arrow protection I kite+Distortion. I've used those two stances for almost a year as my main Mesmer defense in probably thousands of matches - no one can even try to tell me that it doesn't work.

- No, I don't use a speed boost with my Me/As IW but Dancing Daggers->Mantis Touch is a permanent snare on a foe if he can't remove the Cripple. As soon as his old Cripple is nearly done, you've recharged your skills to apply it again. A Me/Wa and Me/Ra speed boosts are stances that conflict with IAS. Mesmer snares are expensive and aren't re-application friendly for permanent lock-down.

As far as IW builds go, pressure is just fine for those that know what they are doing.

Symbol · Jun 26, 2006, 03:40 PM // 15:40

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Go play with the 80 and 100 AL targets in the Isle and your opinion will change about that +34 per hit with a sword.

Why would I do that? My numbers were for 60 AL targets. I know that IW is better on hard targets, the whole point of my post was to show that 34 damage per hit is actually quite good.

Phoenix Arrows · Jun 26, 2006, 05:43 PM // 17:43

IIRC, Daggers are 1.25 seconds per swing, and every point in Dagger Mastery gives you a 2% chance to double strike, so with 16 Dagger Mastery, you would average an attack speed of 1 second per swing.

Dragannia · Jun 27, 2006, 08:34 AM // 08:34

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Originally Posted by arredondo

Way to change the topic. I responded only and specifically to how other IW builds (namely my Me/As variants) compare to the standard Me/Wa and Me/Ra setups - it holds up just fine. How IW as a whole holds up to any other offensive build with other classes is a completely different topic.

To your other points....

- Instead of self-heal my Me/As can get by with Hex Breaker+Distortion since I don't need Flurry or Tiger's Flurry. Sympathetic Visage also aids in this strat of damage mitigation besides being an IW protector from removal. I simply keep HB up to ward off two hexes, and if I need a little melee/arrow protection I kite+Distortion. I've used those two stances for almost a year as my main Mesmer defense in probably thousands of matches - no one can even try to tell me that it doesn't work.

- No, I don't use a speed boost with my Me/As IW but Dancing Daggers->Mantis Touch is a permanent snare on a foe if he can't remove the Cripple. As soon as his old Cripple is nearly done, you've recharged your skills to apply it again. A Me/Wa and Me/Ra speed boosts are stances that conflict with IAS. Mesmer snares are expensive and aren't re-application friendly for permanent lock-down.

As far as IW builds go, pressure is just fine for those that know what they are doing.

The fact that you can't split attributes into Domination makes the IW Mesmer you're proposing far lower pressure than one with Blackout.

Silk Weaver · Jun 29, 2006, 12:33 PM // 12:33

Quick intro: I'm new, have been watching discussion on the forum for a while, an old member here has been helping me get to the laugh-at-mend-wars stage, so I'm no complete noob, but, spare me if I say something stupid.

Anyway, I've been experimenting with IW a lot (something my friend frowns upon), so I've got something to add to the discussion, please forgive the length. First off with the thing about Dom IWers.

Blackout is godly, and after I tried a blackout warrior build in RA, I noticed that blackout can get people killed on any build. Stick it on a warrior with no skill set and you can still ruin someone's day, but the point is whether or not it works with an IW, and my personal belief is no. An IW is good for damage dealing and tank warriors/rangers/assasins. Against anything from gale, ele spells (which could kill without a healer in sight, ie RA/AB, the places you're mostly likely to use this build), degen, diversion, empathy, enchant removal, your use is vastly decreased. You have enough protection probably to continue when faced with one or even several of the listed above, but the only reason you should exist, but you'd be no better than a mediocre warrior. In RA, you try to solo out assasins and warriors, and maybe rangers if you can and then kill them quick, or help apply pressure on others. In GvG, you get removed, you're useless, so you can either find situations where that doesn't happen (gank), find ways past it (spell breaker, interrupt from teamates) or just face the realities and not use it. In Alliance, you can pretty much kill every stray opponent you will meet.

Basically the thing is that Blackout doesn't do anything for you good. With blackouts you can finally kill touch rangers, but aside from that, it doesn't allow you to do what you do any better, nor does it allow you to do anything you can't already. Blackout can stop self healing and speed up to process, but so can any random interrupt you want. Distracting blow still deals damage, so you can think about that. You're still useless when disenchanted, and half the warrior skills can be evaded, so it doesn't really help you against them. The lack of a good heal (heal sig covered by Deadly Riposte and Distortion) and good means for speeding up kills/blocking (Deadly Riposte) makes black out not worth it. If you want to stop a caster, go for KD. Besides, a caster already has weak armor, so a normal warrior with Judge's Insight and blackout probably can deal more damage after the blackout than an IW, or at least less prone to disenchantment.

Which goes to my next experiment, me/a. I'm not sure about the speed, I've been told it's 1.25, as well as 1.33, but the idea is that at level 12 you get a 26% chance for double strike, assuming 1.33, it's 1.05 attack speed averaged. You have a decent attack speed without use of a skill, can still spam distortion, and can use Assasin KD skills for interrupts. Shadow stepping is an option too, of course. Sounds good to me.

Of course, I'd rather not use IAS instead. Really, flurry? It's not worth it. Look at the maths, people. With flurry you deal 42/44 more damage every 5 seconds, so you get an advantage of 8.4 dps which does not work while getting attacked with as an IW, which is a great thing about an IW me/w. In fact, you can probably kill three warriors at one go depending on build. Galrath's Slash? Eviscerate? Backbreaker? Evaded/blocked. If you use conjure phantasm, however, you deal 150 damage in 15 seconds. The cast speed is around .7 seconds, not sure about after cast, but I assume that you attack once less by casting it. So in 15 seconds, you deal around 592 damage, whereas with a Flurry user, you deal 630. Is 40 damage worth the extra 5 energy and lack of protection? If so, read on. Conjure Phantasm can be casted at a range, so that cast time is reduced (meaning that if you cast it first, your damage in 15 seconds is around 623), and also finally you can kill someone who is running away. I personally use Phantom Pain and Phantasm together, so the damage is enough to kill most anyone running away. Flurry simply does not add enough to the damage. Due to the energy and use of distortion, I expect that would would be using IAS less than half the time, which means that Phantasm, some interrupt, or shatter enchantment would make you far more useful, and actually make you useful even when your enchantment shattered. You can still evade and heal 130 every sig, still give deep wound and -8 degen to people, and other things that are better than dealing 1 damage per second.

W/Me is just pointless, why is this even discussed? You deal 20% less damage than an IW, and deal even less than a normal warrior when disenchanted. Also, that means no heals for you because 12 in swordsmanship and Illusions means low healsig. No riposte. No distortion, because it takes 2 energy per hit now. You know, if you loaded yourself with degen skills, maybe Images of Remorse, Conjure Phantasm, and Phantom Pain, you'd be more useful as a disenchanted mesmer (20dps + deepwound+remorse damage) than a disenchanted warrior, and infinetly better while enchanted.

Wow, that was TLDR deluxe, wasn't it? Anyway, in short, Blackout doesn't match the attributes, usage, strength, and weaknesses of the IW, W/Me is stupid, and Me/A is more fragile but can Shadow Step, KD, and also deal damage faster. Flurry is also stupid, so that means R/me sucks too unless you really like Troll Unguent. Hey, how about trap IW? Distortion to cover while using traps and then use IW to kill with Tiger's Fury for speed because you REALLY think the IAS could change your world. So, I may be nameless, but Avarre, IAS is not worth it. One last statistic:

DRiposte+Distortion+IW+PP+CP= 50.4 Melee DPS + Deepwound + ranged hex, protection, pleeding+ 63 if attacked, room for Interrupt hex/enchant removal.

That's pretty good.

Why IW > Normal Warriors (in some situations): Cannot be blocked, energy regeneration/ability to spam hexes/interrupts, protection, looks less fat and ugly.

Please don't kill me.

Silk Weaver · Jun 29, 2006, 12:57 PM // 12:57

Hey, do you get banned for making long posts? Too late for that.

Thought I'd add something about me/a. I'd use Iron Palm for lead attack, because you know we love knock down. You can trigger the hex with Conjure Phantasm because we also love degen, Phantom Pain because we also love deepwound too, and finally Siphon Speed, because then you don't even need to cripple. Seriously, Speed Siphoning ftw. Dark Escape sounds like a good idea, but is not =( I've learnt my lesson. You have enough energy (using enchanters) to fill your bar with low recharge skills. I used power return, don't ask why.

Blackout? Seriously. You have almost no self heal, and your cast time isn't that fast. This build isn't made for situations where your teamates can be counted on for healing you. With aftercast considered, and that you also have to time flurry immediatly after blackout, cannot switch to distortion during blackout, etc, you're lowering your dps. DISTRACTING BLOW/IRON PALM FTW, in other words.

Avarre · Jun 29, 2006, 01:02 PM // 13:02

IAS is worth mentioning because in many games, huge amounts of damage is sent across. However effective damage can be noted as damage dealt/time.

Flurry increases attack speed from 1/1.33 seconds to 1/0.87 (1.33x0.67, increase of 33%). This means over 5 seconds, damage is 158 without, 241 with. (158 is 2/3 of 241, approximately). That's not the 40 difference over 5 you mentioned.

You don't need perma distort, or perma flurry. They are cyclable. You do need to deal damage quickly, or it's easier to kite, kill you first, heal, etcetera.

Armor is not a factor in energy levels during a battle. Once battle is continuing, either your regen is keeping up or it isn't.

LightningHell · Jun 29, 2006, 01:06 PM // 13:06

I haven't played IW since...the Mesozoic era, so don't kill me I'm somewhat wrong. I doubt it anyways because the comments below are mostly opinions. It is also this that prevents me from really entering discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of the IW.

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