Curse

tuperwho · Jun 29, 2006, 03:37 PM // 15:37

I think we are reaching a happy medium here. Personally, I've always used both illusion and domination when I IW. Since flurry is unlinked, you can put all your points into mesmer lines. Even with 16 in illusion, there's enough to go around. While I haven't done IW in a while, I would typically use both conjure phantasm and phantom pain, along with empathy/clumsiness, and even backfire. Load up the hexes/degen, then hit IW and move in leaving them hopeless under your preassure with the usual mesmer consequences if they try to fight back.

Prince Zyphr · Jun 29, 2006, 04:17 PM // 16:17

Whenever I IW Mes (which is rare) I will take both flurry and distortion do to the fact that flurry = massive DPS and distortion = occasional life-saver. But to minimize on my distortion use Ill take Sympatheitc Visage/Ancestors (w/e you wanna use -- no diff). Basically its not all necessary to waste neergy on distortion when your only getting hit by normal attacks and all adrenaline based skills are rendered useless for your opposing warrior. And these normal attacks are easily countered with a every once-and-a-while Deadly Riposte. So in the end my build amounts to:

Flurry
Deadly Riposte/Conjure
Heal Sig
Distortion
IW
SV/AV
Drain Enchat
Rez Sig/Inspired Hex (sometimes if im doing TA with a trusted monk)

Thats my usual build for IW -- just thought'd I'd share that-- not like anyone cares

zyar · Jun 30, 2006, 10:16 AM // 10:16

One question... Does IW charge adrenaline? From my interpretation, it does not because you always miss.

Dragannia · Jun 30, 2006, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silk Weaver

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.

Blackout on Warriors is not such a good idea. Their adrenaline is disabled when they cast BO on someone. Besides, BO has always been preparation for a spike; whatever character you are, if you do have a Warrior on your team, you can be sure BO is useful (just pack Evicerate + Exec).

Avarre · Jun 30, 2006, 02:45 PM // 14:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by zyar

One question... Does IW charge adrenaline? From my interpretation, it does not because you always miss.

Correct, you gain no adrenaline.

CoopaTroopa · Jun 30, 2006, 05:01 PM // 17:01

I highly encourage any and all warriors to run IW, maybe we can even find a way to incorporate it into IWAY!!!1 But in all seriousness, IW doesn't pose a huge threat, especially W/Me. The math has been done proving it, but if you want a real test look in observer mode and see how many of the top teams are using it. It's true I have not officially tested this, but I figured that the 40-50 hits I was getting on casters w/ a standard axe warrior build w/o using attack skills and without worrying about being shattered seems to be enough for me. But don't take my word for it. As for attacking warriors... who'd wanna do that? 34 per hit on warriors in random arenas isn't worth my elite slot, 12 in an otherwise worthless attribute, and the wasting of the warrior's primary attribute.

Peewee · Jun 30, 2006, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Not a very good skill imo. Its not that its damage is small, or even that it doesnt have its uses, its becuase your essentially encouraging a mesmer to go into melee range. Its simple raw damage that cant be easily negated, but your putting a soft target very close to enemy lines. In addition if you do use IW you must take a cover enchantment. If you dont the first enchantment removal will render you useless.

Silk Weaver · Jul 02, 2006, 05:32 AM // 05:32

I don't imagine it being used in top level games. Any build so dependent on one skill has, most likely, no place on higher level gameplay.

In terms of RA, the only builds that ever beat me in a 1 to 1 type of situation (as in, teamwork unconsidered) are touch rangers and this running necro with Life siphon and, of all things, LIFE TRANSFER. He casted all those on me and ran around, basically. You are pretty much invincible against hammer warriors (even after knockdown, Riposte and Distoriton works, Backbreaker and other high adren skills can be Riposted, etc, and if they use frenzy there, they are stupid. Only thing you have to watch for is to not riposte an irresistable blow), sword warriors (pretty much the same, they have slow heals too, so if you have distracting blow/savage slash, they are unlikely to be able to heal wheras you simple use distortion and riposte to cover your healing. Oh, and we live degen), axe (blah blah blah). Remember the equation, degen + armor ignore + 75% evade vs warriors= win. Don't expect too much of your opponent's allies either. You don't look for teamwork in RA.

Assassins are even better. Imagine, a squishie. who is dependent on having their lead and offhand attacks hitting so they could land their dual, shadowsteps right in front of you. Really. What more can you ask?

Your healsig heals faster than -10 degen, so that's not a problem. E-deny and clobbering from other warriors could kill you, and so could SS or other combination of hexes/interrupts, but those are all team efforts. Basically, you have something that is highly indendent, more so even than touch, because they'll die if simply degen-ed and left alone. You have something that is almost perfect for RA and even AB. I know not that many people care for RA, but... well I have no excuse, I'm just saying. Seriously though, an IW can easily hold a guild hall from an Assassin or two and maybe a warrior added to a mix. That's not to say it's useful in GvG becuase of that, but I'd like to note the soloing ability anyway. To Peewee, I would definetly agree with the gambling nature of using an enchantment, but it's definetly not fragile in terms of taking damage. Your weakness compared to a warrior is the armor, and since you dodge most attacks, your only weakness in comparison are elementalist attack spells. What? Fireball? Really now.

On a side, unserious note. I've been thinking about running some smurf builds for fun (in defence, Lightninghell inspired me with the idea of running a team of 8 paladins), and one of them includes an IW build. My thinking is that the chance of any guild in the 600-1000 rank having more than 2 rend enchantment/gaze of contempt to be highly unlikely. In fact, I've only seen drain enchantment used twice (our guild is new, been playing lots of noob teams). Since 2 me/mo could always spam Vigarous spirit (5 en 4 recharge), healing breeze, and a random Prot Spirit in case of a spike team on allies as to cover their Illusionary Weaponry, the chance of having more than one player disenchanted is highly unlikely. The fact that each player has a utility role even when disenchanted comes into play too. Brining more than >2 remove-all-enchantment skills isn't THAT common, in any case.

So bascically, you get a team of 8 mesmers, with interupts, hexes, snares, drains and heals mixed into the team. Sounds like a balanced team, yes? Except every single one of your players have distortion and enough healing to tank 3 warriors (and damage to eventually kill them). It's better than our current lineup, in any case, we only have an assasins, a warrior, and an MM as active members in our guild. Saaaad.