User:Guild of Deals/IW Guide

Introduction
This guide teaches you how to effectively use the mesmer elite Illusionary Weaponry.

Although not commonly seen anymore, the IW Mesmer can put major pressure on foes and win in almost any 1v1 situation. There are 4 major things that make Illusionary Weaponry powerful.


 * Damage cannot be blocked
 * Damage cannot be missed by blindness
 * Damage does not require a rank in any type of weapon mastery
 * Damage is steady, non changing
 * You do not successfully hit with attacks

These things make a Mesmer able to overcome nearly any obstacle in its wake.

Illusionary Weaponry's Place
Illusionary Weaponry's main use is pressure. It is not a spike, but can take down a target in a relatively quick time. Although designed for PvP, IW Mesmers can be effective in PvE. Here's a list of IW in different types of gameplay:

PvP
 AB 
 * Can solo capture Resurrection and Elite Ranger Shrines (if you have Deflect Arrows)
 * Can produce pressure on Monks
 * Can easily solo kill Assassins, Warriors, Dervishes, and sometimes Rangers.
 * Not good against large mobs, cannot solo capture most other shrines.

 CM 
 * Can sometimes solo a group of Kurzick Elementalists
 * Can sometimes solo a group of Luxon or Kurzick Warriors
 * Effective at guarding

 RA and TA 
 * Versatile, good in most situations
 * Good against popular builds, such as Conjure Cripslash and Shadow Prison Assassin

 GvG and HA 
 * Can apply pressure to targets
 * Cannot sub for running, also cannot snare against flag runners in GvG

PvE

 * Can use a scythe, Cyclone Axe, or Crude Swing to deal AoE damage
 * Versatile, effective in most situations.

Equipment
Since you don't need a particularly large energy pool, almost any weapon will do. You will deal as much damage with a Starter Sword as you will a Forgotten Sword. Still though, you do not successfully hit with attacks, meaning most prefixes are useless. However, the suffix can be useful.

''' Which Weapon? ''' You have a choice of 5 different melee weapons. All can carry caster upgrades (energy +5, enchantments last 20% longer), so all are decent choices. Here are some positives and negatives to each.

 Sword 
 * [[image:Green thumbs up.png|20px]] Ability to use Deadly Riposte, good against melee attackers.
 * [[image:Green thumbs up.png|20px]] Fast attack speed
 * [[image:Green thumbs up.png|20px]] Can be wielded with offhand/shield
 * [[image:red thumbs down.png|20px]] No non-elite AoE attack

 Axe 
 * [[image:Green thumbs up.png|20px]] Ability to use Cyclone Axe for AoE damage.
 * [[image:Green thumbs up.png|20px]] Same attack speed as sword
 * [[image:Green thumbs up.png|20px]] Can be wielded with offhand or shield
 * [[image:red thumbs down.png|20px]] No defensive skills like Deadly Riposte

 Hammer 
 * [[image:Green thumbs up.png|20px]] Ability to use Crude Swing for AoE damage
 * [[image:red thumbs down.png|20px]] Slow attack speed
 * [[image:red thumbs down.png|20px]] Cannot be wielded with offhand/shield

 Daggers 
 * [[image:Green thumbs up.png|20px]] Ability to double strike, giving them the fastest attack speed.
 * [[image:red thumbs down.png|20px]] Must invest a hefty amount of points into Dagger Mastery to achieve heavy amounts of double strikes
 * [[image:red thumbs down.png|20px]] Cannot be wielded with offhand/shield

 Scythe 
 * [[image:Green thumbs up.png|20px]] Can attack up to 2 adjacent foes
 * [[image:red thumbs down.png|20px]] Slow attack speed
 * [[image:red thumbs down.png|20px]] Cannot be wielded with an offhand/shield

''' Offhand or Shield? ''' The answer whether you should have an offhand or shield is: Yes. You can have both, one offhand with a +1 Illusion Magic (Change 20%) for a chance to score even higher damage with IW and a shield set with armor +10 vs. (blank) damage. This way, even without the requirement for a shield you can gain armor bonuses from it. Another alternative is a hybrid. This involves an offhand set with armor +10 vs (blank) damage inscriptions. Or, if your more space efficient, you may consider going with an armor +5/energy -5 set, as you will still get 7 energy along with armor against all types.

''' What Armor? ''' Since you'll be toe-to-toe with melee professions a lot, an armor booster is suggested. Popular Insignias include Blessed, Sentry's, and Survivor's. Since you will need a Rune of Superior Illusion Magic no matter what (PvE or PvP), its suggested you use a Rune of Superior Vigor and Runes of Vitae to counteract the health loss. You should have around 500 health, 35-47 energy, and 70 armor.

 Suggested Greens 
 * Totem Axe
 * Rajazan's Fervor
 * Forgotten Fan
 * The Rockmolder
 * Arius Sai

The Build
The backbone of most IW builds starts with this: [build prof=Mesmer/any IllusionMagic=12+1+3 FastCasting=3][Illusionary Weaponry][Illusion of Weakness][Optional] [Optional][Optional][Optional][Optional][Optional][/build]

This will produce a steady flow of 42 damage per hit (unless reduced by Stoneflesh Aura, Shield of Absorption, etc) with any melee weapon. Note that IW ONLY WORKS WITH MELEE WEAPONS! This means daggers, scythes, axes, swords, and hammers.

You also don't need to invest any points into your weapon mastery. This means you can have any secondary profession. No matter what melee weapon you use, you will be producing 42 damage per hit.

Like most builds, any IW build should have a self heal, a few defensive stances, and an IAS. See Survivability and IAS for more. You can also try to fit condition removal and hex removal if you can.

A Secondary Profession
A tough choice to choose for IW is a secondary profession. You'll probably need an IAS, but Survivability is an issue as well. Some popular choices are these:

Warrior
Warrior is the most commonly used, as it meets all the requirements. is extremely valuable and is usually associated with IW builds. Along with a nice variety of defensive stances and self heals, it meets everything you're looking for.

Assassin
Assassins can meet most requirements for IW builds. They have great survivability through Feigned Neutrality, as well as a lot of evasive skills to get you out of tough battles. However, assassins contain no IAS of their own, persides which is pretty worthless. But, the Assassin can Double Strike with high enough Dagger Mastery, making it sometimes even faster and deadlier than any IAS.

Dervish
The Dervish, much like the Warrior, meets most needs. Containing some of the best survivability skills in the game, as well as the fact you'll be mostly enchanted with IW, you can take on mulitple enemies while dishing out the damage. But, Dervishes only have 2 IAS skills: and. Pious Fury is out of the question, due to its short duration and the fact it's tied to Mysticism, but Whirling Charge can be used, as it resides in Wind Prayers. But, it's only a 25% IAS and cannot be maintained indefinately.

Ranger
Rangers make another nice choice. Having, a nice, long lasting IAS makes it good for dealing damage. You can also be more credible of a solo capper if you bring a pet, as you can deal more damage and survive longer. The Ranger selection of bad self heals leaves this usually neglected, as the only 2 non-elite heals, and  either have an iffy heal or a long casting time.

Elementalist
Elementalists are the best at surviving. Water and Earth Magic contain some of the strongest damage deflectors, and being a Mesmer, you can use the and  combo. However, Elementalists have no IAS of course, making it poor for dealing damage.

Paragon
Paragon is an odd choice but gives a unique support role to a team and are rarely seen outside of eight man HA IW gimmick groups. They utilize -  - and -  to fill in the missing movement boosting abilities for the entire team. and can also add a large helping hand to the teams typically overtaxed monks. No ability to utilize a reliable IAS and a lack of energy based skills in the paragon line diminishes the scope of this support variant.

Fears of an IW Mesmer
The major fear for an IW Mesmer is Enchantment Removal. Removing IW leaves your entire skill bar useless until IW recharges. The best thing you can do it switch to a wand/staff, hit them with that, and keep healing. Some people like to bring along Clumsiness and Signet of Clumsiness. Along with being extremely useful during melee, they both lay in the same attribute as IW and can be used without melee. A cover enchantment can also be used while facing a Mesmer or other single enchantment removal. The most common choice is Ancestor's/Sympathetic Visage. These are extremely useful for rendering Warriors incapacitated, as it will drain their energy down to 0 and destory their adrenaline. You can combine both copies to keep it up indefnately, but it can also slowly hurt your energy pool.

Most melee counters don't work on IW, but commonly used Empathy does. Combined with your IAS, you may go down quite fast. However, Blindness, Reckless Haste, Price/Spirit of Falure, and Insidious Parasite do not work.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)
42 damage may not seem a lot per hit, especially against low AL targets. Most basic Warrior attacks can deal a lot more damage than 42 to a low AL target. But, it also requires an attack skill. IW doesn't, making it effective against casters. Also, 42 damage probably seems like a lot to high AL targets, like warriors. Since the damage is armor ignoring, it makes IW extremely powerful.

However, at regular attack speed, the damage can easily be countered by basic heals. An increased attack speed of 33% makes the build work and allow it to provide pressure.
 * is probably the most popular one. The damage produced by IW is not reduced by the -25% damage penalty, and Flurry can be kept up indefinitely.
 * , although requiring 12 Beast Mastery to keep it up constantly, is another good choice, although it is rarely used. With a long duration, it is more energy efficient than Flurry. The downside is, unlike Flurry, it requires an attribute, making you have to invest points into it.
 * and are another option, although they are not usually suggested because of the 10 energy cost, and the fact that they only yield a +25% speed increase. However, when combined, you can keep them up constantly without any attribute points. However, they disable all of your non-attack skills, which means pretty much every skill you have.  This, combined with the fact that both are needed in order to maintain them infinitely, makes them, for the most part, a poor choice.
 * is great for PvE. This really has no use to classes with usable IAS skills, but on classes that don't (Paragon, Elementalist, etc) it can be great. Even though it's only a 10-15% without being drunk, it's still an IAS, and it's long lasting with a IMS bonus.
 * is perhaps the worst choice of all. While yielding a constant 33% speed increase with no attribute points, it doubles the damage you take, making the already vulnerable Mesmer pretty much an open target. It's usually a very bad idea to use this skill.

Survivability
A Mesmer attacking a powerful Warrior or Assassin in melee may seem like suicide. But, the other good side of IW is that you don't successfully hit with attacks. This makes the Mesmer a lot more likely to live. 3 main skills reap the benefit of this: A lot of other skills can also be used with IW to ward off attackers. These do not end on hit like the above choices, but are still useful in any situation:
 * , although not able to block melee attacks, makes the Mesmer deadly to Rangers. This can be used to solo capture Ranger points in AB battles. Resting in an attribute with defensive stances (ex. Disciplined Stance) and a good self heal (ex. Healing Signet) makes this a reliable choice.
 * , is probably one of the best skills to go with IW, and thus makes an excellent choice. A +7 Health Regeneration along with +80 armor makes the Mesmer more durable than a Warrior. With the Deadly Arts skill Deadly Paradox, it can be kept up nearly indefinitely. However, it cancels whenever you use a skill, so you can't recast IW or use anything else without canceling it. Lying in the same attribute as many powerful self heals, but also in the only melee profession without an IAS usable in PvP, this skill is a decent choice.
 * , Like Feigned Neutrality, can make the Mesmer more durable than a Warrior. Reducing your damage by half is already a great boost, but also the ability to chase fleeing foes makes it great for PvP. But, not being able to keep it up constantly and having no IAS makes this an iffy choice as well.
 * is probably the favorite of IWers. The fact that it can give you infinite blocking and rests in the same attribute as IW itself, this makes it great for any build. However, since you'll be losing 2 energy whenever you block, it can pick away at your energy pool, making it hard to use other skills or recast IW. You may wish to overcome this with Ethereal or Kitah's Burden, since it also rests in Illusion Magic, provides a nice energy gain, and can snare foes. Best choice to add to any IW build.
 * is useful with a sword particularly because it can cause the only condition that an IW Mesmer can produce. Along with its ability to block an attack, deal hefty damage, and cause Bleeding, Deadly Riposte is a good choice. Use in conjunction with a Barbed sword hilt.
 * , along with Deadly Riposte, is great in 1v1. Using these in conjunction can destroy an Assassin's plans as well as be powerful against any other melee professions. However, requires a shield to use so you can't use any offhand with it.
 * is another good choice because it provides an effective blocking skill. Useful for when under pressure from melee professions (especially Assassins). Along with the +24 armor bonus, cranking up the Mesmer's low 60 armor to a hefty 84 armor, this skill is very useful.

Conclusion
In conclusion, IW can be a very powerful spell. Its power against any profession along with its flexibilty with many skills makes it a good choice. IW Mesmers are some of the best players in 1v1, able to adapt to the foe with the large variety of skills. Most people can play as one, allowing it to be an easy build to use.

Important Notes

 * IW does not build adrenaline, as you are not hitting the foe.
 * The damage is armor ignoring, but will still be reduced by Stoneflesh Aura, Shield of Absorption, and Shielding Hands.
 * IW will not trigger skills that have an effect "when you successfully hit with an attack," like Insidious Parasite, but trigger skills that have an effect "when you attack," like Empathy
 * Skills such as Yeti Smash and Death Blossom will not cause IW to deal damage to adjacent foes, as you are not attacking them.
 * This skill could previously been captured Nulfastu Earthbound in the expansion Eye of the North, but has since been removed. Now the only elite skill that can be captured from him is Lyssa's Aura.

IW Builds
Here is a list of some of the more popular IW builds.

Archive:Me/A Neutral IW Archive:Me/W Illusion Slasher Archive:Me/D Mystic IW