Mesmer/Warrior IW succesfull build tips

[Tarew]

Than would would be the proper build with Mes/ Warrior?

I honestly have no idea. As most people probably know by now the Warrior is by far my worst class and I really can't work them at all (it's totally humilating but I actually died to a Broodcaller, a River Skale and a Worm within the first 5 minutes of the game while trying to play a Warrior...my sister, who is a LOT better with them, almost died laughing).
All I know if that Illusionary Weaponry in PvP gets removed and rendered useless, usually before getting a second swing with it.
I'm sure there are Mesmer/Warrior builds that could work in PvP but they won't involve Illusionary Weaponry.

[Tsume]

Tarew, again I'm shocked at your statements about the playability of this build.

The IW build is by no means futile. Tarew is right that good teams will strip your enchantment. As for the recharge time is definatley wrong, the enchantment lasts a potential 30 seconds and with an enchantment sword you can extend it the full 40 seconds giving it no down time at all.

As for the enchantments, the only single skill weakness is Rend Enchantments. Any others that remove only one enchantment are no worry, unless you are facing a Team Build heavily equipped to remove countless Enchantments.

Why? Because you allways layer enchantments on your IW build.

You cannot say it is an unviable build simply becuase you chose not to try and find counters to the situations you were in.

Yes there are situations in which you can be shutdown...but the same is true for any build. You yourself play shutdown builds, and so when you are shutting down other targets, does that mean that healer builds or fire elementalist builds are futile? Simply because they can be shut down and have no effective counter against it?

The answer is an astounding, "No!". Simply because you can be shut down does not mean you are a horrible build. It simply means you have a weakness...and I'd hate to let you all in on this secret, but there is no perfect character in Guild Wars, that has absolutely no weakness.

It seems guys that we find it easier to lable a build as ill advised or untangible simply because we cannot elevate ourselves or the build with our own abilities, and it is in our nature to simply abandon it and think that it is futile to continue. Whoever thinks that, well thats fine I cant change that, but I cant sit idle buy and watch such conclusions take grasp on the mind of all new players to Guild Wars.

So for anyone that is early in his Guild Wars career and has been viewing this thread, please understand that you cannot except the answers of others until you try them yourself to explore any fallacies. No ones voice is absolute and I encourage anyone interested in an IW build to dive in and figure out how to survive and counter your weaknesses. There are some situations when you wll be shutdown, when specialized anti enchantment builds are pitted against you. But what did you expect? Its like a Warrior going down to an Anti mellee build. For every build, there is an effective counter.....but dont dismiss your build for meeting up with that counter.

[Tarew]

Well I agree with you on some level but in this case my personal experiences tell me that enchantment removal is just too common in PvP for Illusionary Weaponry to work.
It's true that every build has weaknesses but some are more easily exploited than others and this one is quite glaringly obvious to be honest.
It's true you can layer enchantments but in this case that too becomes tricky.
The only enchantment you provide in your own build for instance is Sympathetic Visage, which is definitely a good skill but it lasts quite a bit shorter than IW and there will undoubtably be situations where you want to (re)cast Illusionary Weaponry when you already have Visage on you.
And even if not, most teams gladly pay the price of using 2 enchantment removal spells on a character (btw Lingering Curse also removes everything at once and that skill is very common on debuffers/target callers) if it means that that character is going to be doing next to nothing for the next 35 seconds.
And while you could potentially layer more enchantments, good enchantments are not that common for mesmer/warriors (or mesmer/rangers for that matter) since the secundary classes don't provide ANY.
That means you're pretty much restricted to using Mesmer enchantments of which there aren't many and most of which are entirely useless to this build.
Trust me, I'm all for finding ways around weaknesses and I'd be more than impressed if someone could figure out a good, reliable way to use Illusionary Weaponry in PvP. These builds just have holes in them which are simply too large to cover up.

[Stephen Hawking]

Its not that bad though... you can still spam conjure even if you get disabled for your damage portion of this build. Like anything, there's weaknesses, but nothing too drastic I feel.

Anyway, it seems pretty cool that way, and warrior stuff does provide good defensive potential for any caster, and if you use something like the dilentie's armor, along with a secondary weapon swap for wand/held item instead of shield, its pretty easy to switch to caster as your main damage from this build is just flurry/illusionary weapon which is only 2 skills, and you'd want the other stuff like distortion as a panic button, and sympathetic visage as the focus fire debuff deterrant (i.e. your monk is getting attacked, slap this spell on him as you may not be targetted much).

You could swap one of them for arcane mimicry as well and team with another mesmer to basically prevent the supposedly large hole of the illusionary weapon build as well.

Its counterable, but I just don't see it as drastic as that as long as you keep somewhat focused on the illusion side of things. (and being a slower with imagined burden is valuable for any team, and conjure phant/phantom pain are good focus fire spells).

Another thing, healing signet while nice along with distortion, since you're building up so much adrenaline, things like bonetti's or shield stance maybe a little more useful especially in a group setting in PvP since you're mostly just trying to buy some time for yourself not to mention some warriors carry irresistable blow which is much more painful with trying to activate the signet.

[psibim]

Happy to see alot of good ideas being tossed across.

Thanks for the great comments/ideas so far :)

[Tsume]

Well Tarews got valid points again, especially how I forgot to mention Lingering Curse :P.

But I sitll disagree. Tarew, you are right theres not an extreme ammount of Mesmer produced enchantments to layer on yourself that will be useful to you. But you put the guy in PvP situations, and when I think PvP I dont think 1 guy against 8. Your part of a team, and part of being a team means relying on yoru team mates. You use their strenghts to help counter your weaknesss.

You have that W/Mo spare a Mending on you, and make sure that Protection monk keeps up Aiegis as much as possible. I usually speak on terms of single character production but when you bring PvP into it your really not a single unit anymore, your part of a team. And yes you can be torn into, but you can also tear into someone else.

As far as Arena PvP is concerned I've ran a few IW builds through it and it was a great experience. I had to constantly adapt, as opponents that were tired of being killed by me would counter me, so I would start being killed....so I would then counter them...and that was great fun.

But when you think Tombs or GvG, if you fit the IW guy into the team build your gonna have to have your team mates abilities serve him.

If all else fails look at it this way...no team brings along Rend or Lingering to exclusively counter IW, they bring it to encounter enchantment layering. And I can tell you its not meant for that unexpected IW guy they see....but then they use it on him instead of their preferred target, and atleast your doing something...even if it is just takin one for the team :P.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Since several people have suggested alternatives to Hamstring as far as chasing goes, I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on an axe-wielding version of this build. Cyclone Axe is no Hundred Blades -- just reading the description of Hundred Blades makes my eyes cross, in fact -- but it does duplicate its effects to a smaller degree. Would it be worth the investment, or is there something about Hundred Blades that I'm missing (it seems to target differently) besides twice as many attacks as Cyclone?

Someone mentioned swords being the fastest (obviously important), but I seem to remember reading somewhere else that axes & swords were equally fast.

This would also give you access to Disrupting Chop, which seems more than a little useful -- and has the added benefit of being just as useful with 1 Axe Mastery as with 12, which seems important since this build has no points available for weapon skills.

[Tsume]

Well Ice Cream, the actual fact is that in these builds the weapon skills typically arnt really looked at becuase they arent of extreme use. Cyclone could be useful in a PvE setting for sure, and might be worth considering, but for PvP, rarely will your enemies group up for you.

Hundred Blades used to be a staple in any IW build, simply becuase it provided 2 swipes at the target. Which was 60+ damage every 8 seconds I think, at 5 energy a swipe. Thats an extremely powerful skill when used in conjunction with IW. In a strictly physical damage sense, it was just an area of effect attack like Cyclone Axe, that didnt do much damage on any one target, but did a cummulative sum of damage.

But yah, thats why Hundred Blades was so useful to the build.

As for Disrupting Chop, well its Adrenaline based, and with IW your attack never actually hits the target. The attack is an 'Illusion' so to speak, as if you werent really useing a weapon. The damage triggers on attack, though the actual attack doesnt matter becuase its not where the damage is comeing from.

Its a rather hard concept to understand, so many people are confused by it. I realize your not failing to grasp it Ice Cream, so I only go into it for the benefit of anyone who needs it and might see this.

So anyhow...becuase you never hit the enemy, you never gain adrenaline, and any attack skills you use whether based on Adrenaline or Energy will never trigger, whether they are damage or disruption, becuase while you have IW on you, you never touch the target, and you never truely attack the target.

Hundred Blades allowed you to activate your attack twice....which triggered damage twice, and is why it was a useful skill. Cyclone Axe only activates one attack and so wont have the same effect (double damage).

I hope that explains it a bit.

[Kane Of Shayden]

Well, here goes:

This is my first time posting here. I've been playing GW since the pre-order release. I was looking for a good warrior/mesmer build, using IW because my W/N got owned by a warrior with IW. Also, my warrior could survivea TON of punishment, and dispatch enemies with ease, assuming he could hit them. I found that in the late game PvP battles, people favored evade/block skills against warriors. I couldn't find anything in the warrior forums related to this build, so I checked here, and this is what I find. Well, allow me to put in my two cents here. Bear in mind that I have not tested this build, it is mearly theoretical.

I think that the best way to utilize IW is by using a W/Me build instead of a Me/W. The utility of illusionary weaponry here is to counteract those pesky character builds that focus on using evade/blocking skills when warriors run up to them. So what we're looking at is basically a complete bar of warrior skills, with only IW from the mesmer field.

Equipment should be fairly specific with this build. You'll want to use a full set of gladiator armor for the energy enhancements, with the exception of the helm. For the helm, go with wyvern. No shield on this warrior build either. You'll need the added energy of a jeweled chakram(+12). I like using a sword with a shocking or ebon hilt as my main weapon, with an armor penetrating weapon as backup. Switch to the secondary weapon when attacking rangers or elementalists with the same type of armor as your elemental weapon. You'll want to use a couple minor runes, and the best rune of vigor you have. Using the items outlined above, your warrior should have between 510-550 base hitpoints, and about 39 energy.

The attribute's would be something like this:

Strength: 12(With wyvern Helm & rune)
Swordsmanship: 11(With rune)
Illusion: 10

SKILLS:

Sprint
Bull's Strike
Power Attack
Savage Slash
Final Thrust
Endure Pain
Flurry
Illusionary Weaponry

Thw way this build is played is simple. You're a brute, so you act like one, until the time comes when being a brute simply isn't enough. Untill that time comes, you just unleash wave after wave of powerful attacks on anyone who comes near you. They try to run? Use sprint and bulls strike to chase them down and knock them to the ground, pounding them more. Finish them off with final thrust. If you get in trouble, enrue the pain. As long as you have a competent healer around you should make it through quite a bit of punishment.

So what happens when you're brutish ways just aren't enough, or a bigger brute comes along? Well, if overmatched by another warrior, or outclassed by someone evading your attacks, thats when you bust out the illusionary weaponry. In conjunction with flurry, IW will melt the evading monks/rangers/etc, as well as putting a hurting on other warriors, since with IW, it would be chaos damage, which warriors don't defend well against. Also, your IW attacks are higher damage than you could otherwise inflict with your weapon.

It has been pointed out that with this build, it is easily countered by someone who can destroy enchantments. Well, that is correct with the Me/W build because that build can't dish out much damage without IW. It isn't so much true with this build, so you pick your spots. There will be a time and a place to use IW, and if used properly you'll soon find yourself standing over the piled corpses of your fallen foes....at least theorhetically. :boxer:

Anyhow, please feel free to respond. I look forward to feedback on this. And if anyone tries this out, let me know how it works out for ya.

- Kane of Shayden ~Mother Nature's Finest~

P.S. If you don't like how I dramatize my writing....don't read it. :howdy:

[Corka]

My opinion on the matter is that a Me/W using IW should in fact put absolutly no skill points into anything warrior. Go full mesmer, with the single warrior ability being flurry. Play the rest of the build as you would a normal mesmer, and use ether feast instead of healing signet. Seeing as the sword damage really does not matter, you can pull out a starter sword and use it only when you have IW up and instead swap to a wand the rest of the time.

The reason should be obvious- even if you get your enchantment stripped you're still a good addition to the party. If they don't strip it (and don't overestimate the opposition, I've had many good runs when they simply havn't stripped the enchant. Especially in the arenas) then you can make them feel the pain of IW.

If you're really paranoid about losing IW you could use arcane echo everytime you use it.