Confusion in the Ownage

I want to kill but i cant make up my mind. i want things to die by slashin them and i want to ignite them and turn them to ash. I took 2 builds i found on this site and smushed em together but i still seem to b havin som problems.

Confusing Ownage
(an ele with a sword looks funny to me and does good damage... confusing)
Ele/Mes

Attributes:
Energey Storage - 11 (10+1)
Fire Magic ------- 12 (10+2)
Illision ----------- 11

Skills:
Illusionary Weaponary
Conjure Phantasm
Phantom Pain
Flare
Incendiary Bonds
Inferno
Fire Attunement
Aura of Restoration

Gear:
Flames eye (headgear)
Minor runes of energy storage and fire magic and best vigor u can get
Focus: Anything that helps the most

dont really matter which armor, less theres armor i dont no about, i jus go off what looks good lol

Weapon of Choice:
The best damn lookin sword u can find since its damage dont matter and they are fast so that 31 or so damage rolls out quick (maybe find one with good stats, that might help too like +energy or somting that will help)


Now u c what i smashed together?
I have half nuker half illusionary warrior in there
Its a fun thing to play start off with the Fire Attunement and Aura of Restoration for health and energy management then shoot em with Conjure Phantasm and Phantom Pain, then run in and start swingin after Illusionary Weaponry. After buffs fall off, after thier minute, back out a sec and put em back on but hopefully crap will b dead b4 u have to do that.

Every once in a while i shoot the ones who try to run with flare and if too many ppl get to close i start lettin off incendiary bonds and inferno and those heal me so i can hit em som more.

I still feel like it could be better, so anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

Ok i read som build reviews and saw one i started to like but found a problem

In build review #2 with the IW being looked at i saw hundred blades and it looked like a cool skill but thats elite

cant have 2 elites and i kinda liked hundred blades

A slight change in plans...

I didnt like that warrior was a secondary cuz it seemed like my guy was more of a rogue, which is nice, but cant take a hit, so i varied the old IW build to suit my needs of armor and damage

War/Mes

Attributes
Strength: 9+ (if u want to add to it)
Illusion: 12
Tactics: 10+ (9+1, then more if u want, works fine without more)

Skills
Illusionary Weaponry
Sprint (to catch the little bastards who run around)
Distracting Blow (to mess with healers/casters)
Defensive Stance (less hurt for you)
Diciplined Stance (more less hurt)
Berserker Stance (Speed hitting, very nice to have)
Flurry
Frenzy (for when they havent figured u out and dont bother u)

Similar build but now we have very nice armor thx to war and some more speed and defense and a fun skill of screwin up monks

i think having 5 stances is a bit excessive, since you could only ever have 1 up at a time..

imo, 2 stances is all you need really. Defensive Stance and bonetti's defense. use defensive stance, go in combat, and when defensive ends, use bonetti's. Of course, you can't use any skills while doing this

k - one note
if a Elem/Mes is going to go into Melee, make damned sure you have some form of armour enchantment with a Ward as well. without those, your elementalist will magically turn into a corpse in no time at all. I would recommend either picking a nuker or a IW - one build is designed to rush in, spam damage then run away (Nuker) and the other is designed to survive in Melee and smash lots of damage out with IW. To get them to work together you would have to remove some of your nuke skills to get armour skills, which would make a nuker pointless because you can't cast 5 high damage spells and fry a group quick.
Also, you are writing a post in a forum, not messaging one of your friends. it's not too much to ask to write "people" and "before" instead of ppl and b4. just easier on my poor eyes after 2 hours of finishing Chemistry Coursework. Cheers

First I went to the war/mes instead of the ele/mes cuz it was nice for damage but after bout 1 kill they dropped me fast and I got mad, so I wanted armor and defense and to still b able to kill, so forget the first build.

The 5 stances is for surviving, cuz they all have long recharges and only last like 10 secs each I need more to stay alive longer... or kill faster

If im not bein attacked I can dish out damage but if attacked in the middle I might have to turn on another stance

Also I like that disruption skill and having the extra stances helps if im already in a stance and I want to stop som 1, then I can jus jump back into another stance

About bonetti's defense... I hate it... since its illusionary weaponry there’s no such thing as a "hit" so I don’t gain adrenaline for them and if im being hit im gonna put up a stance as fast as I can and not wait to die which happens when I try to put it up usually.


And sorry bout the typing, I jus got really used to it, u should see what Microsoft word can do for me lol... it changes practically every word I write, makes essays easier.

EDIT: I stuck it through words spell check jus in case lol

Well that build is kinda strange, but okay!

I liked the Illusionary Warrior Build tho when I saw it.

well the reason that most people tend to only have a couple of stances is the amount of use they will get out of them. Sure, being able to keep a stance on is nice, but most periods when you get focused will peter out after about 20 secs, so two stances covers that. If you therefore got rid of three stances, you then have space for a couple of distance attacks, such as conjure phantasm (seeing as you are using IW), arcane conundrum (halfs a monks healing ability essentially - plus they will generally cast remove hex to get rid of it - a skill with a reasonably long cast so totally open to an interrupt, such as distracting blow) and an energy management skill, maybe power drain (if you can cope with interrupting with spells). Stances are good, but lose their utility after more than 2 stances.

I also wonder why one would go Illusionary weaponry with a primary warrior... wouldn't you be better off... using.... Swordsmanship?

Use W/Me or Me/W and get the hundred blade in... then use arcane mimicry on one of the mesemer in your team that had set it up before the battle... viola... hundred blade illusionary weaponry... RUN SONNY RUN!!

Ok i see you people dont like my 5 stances lol

If you look only 2 of them are for defense and the other three are for keeping damage up high, ill kick in the defense after 30 secs (3 stances makes 30) when Illusionary wears off then the cool downs will catch up by the time i put it back on

I'm more into hitting then casting so the energy i have is for stances and the IW skill only and occasionally a disruption

And I dont like swardsmanship max swords r only like what 22? i do 34 and i do it fast, plus they dont always hit for 22, but i always hit for 34, so no swordsmanship for me

EDIT: Ok in the beta weekends pvp builds that was max i dont no what a real max would be on a really nice sword

If i was gonna play a warrior like they should b played... err well u can play how u want but like how they are thought of id go hammers or axes for damage and swords for tanking not damaging

sure, axes and hammers do a little more damage, but if you want damage you will notice that most high DPS warriors use sword skills. Sever Artery, Gash, final thrust, hundred blades, these are all good skills, and hammers are slower btw. The problem with your stance build for PvP is that people are becoming aware of Illusionary weaponry, so if you get rended / enchant removed, then your build ceases to do much damage at all, and just sits there defensively, which is not a very good thing in PvP tbh. switch out a couple of the stances for some offensive skills, a warrior is not going to die in less than 20 seconds unless he a) gets focused and b) doesnt have support.

I was thinking that too but swords r still reduced by armor

But yea i was thinkin of switchin out strength for swords since strength i think only gives me like 2 skills and i could b fine usin them with out the attribute

O yea i was also thinkin of carrying a cane with me cuz it goes with illusion and i could use that for damage if i do get interupted, but I dont no how that would work even though i no it would do good damage cuz of the attribute

Also I got a sig

If you are still considering playing an Elementalist/Mesmer, consider this:

Every time you cast a spell, that is time spent not attacking with IW.
Elementalist spells have notoriously long cast times, anywhere from 1-5 seconds. On top of every cast time, there is an aftercast animation that lasts 0.75 seconds where you can't do anything.
My point is that casting while using IW will drop your IW effectiveness a ton.

Before I begin to retort is this for PvE or PvP?

This is for both

I'm tryin to build somting versatile thast good at both and its tricky