Another choice

Which of these builds is more practical, the mesmer/warrior, or the warrior/elementalist (specifically the clay soldier build)? I like the idea of the Mesmer/Warrior but all the builds I see don't include swordsmanship skills. Because of this, the Clay Soldier seems like a better idea. Any thoughts?

Quick check, going to bed.

Someone has yet to make a mesmer/warrior that uses sword skills as opposed to IW, and have it work any better than a warrior/mesmer. It'd be a VERY specialized build. Then again, Mesmers have the most spells dealing with a single target, so a non-IW mes/war may work ok.

Instead of using the IW mes/wa, I started using an IW w/me, and I did much better in pvp... but i am not sure what to do about pve.

Illusion 12
Tatics 12 + 2
Axe Mastery (put the rest into axe)

Flurry
Illusionary Weaponry {E}
Arcane Conundrum
Imagined Burden
Illusion of Weakness
Boninetties (sp) defense
Healing Signet
Res Sig

I never really saw the point of running IW on a warrior. You can do more damage to soft targets without it. I suppose it's nice for avoiding Aegis and blind and whatnot, but those can be taken away by a few strips/hexes/removals. That build is also going to run into severe energy problems, as your running an energy heavy build with energy only coming back if another warrior/ranger/guy with wand attacks you.