Last week I delved into Scaphism’s Necromancer/Warrior as an example of a support character – a character who’s job was to simply make the other characters on its team better.  A character that’s going to stick to the back rows and wants to stay as far away from the enemy as possible.  And my advice was to pare that character down as much as possible to do that same job while to diversify the build by including more skills and more roles that the character could fulfill.  This week, I’m going to go in a completely different direction and put the spotlight on a character that’s headed right for the enemy lines and out to do as much damage as possible.  A character that’s all about offense and concentrating on making one, single keystone skill valuable.

That’s right, I’ll be looking at the oddity that is the Mesmer/Warrior using Illusionary Weaponry build.  Or IW build for short.  An IW build is going to be using Illusionary Weaponry to the full or else there’s not much point.  It’s a build that’s devoting itself to one single strategy succeeding.  Looking at the IW build that Kui used to great effect this past BWE, I can hopefully shed a little bit of light on just what makes such a build tick.

Let me start off by saying that I’m not a big fan of the IW build.  Not necessarily in and of itself but more for what it represents.  Firstly, playing a secondary Warrior is a difficult and thankless task.  If, that is, you’re trying to play it as anything like a primary Warrior.  The various features of a primary Warrior – that 80AL+20AL armor, that small energy pool, those adrenal skills – make Warrior a profession that doesn’t tend to play nicely with other professions.  It’s not a profession you can combine easily with another for the best effect the way you could meld, say, Mesmer and Elementalist together to produce something that neither could achieve alone.  It’s a profession that, in combinations, is taken either to play towards or to splash for one or two key skills.  The main culprit, I believe, is attribute requirements.  In order to swing a weapon well you need high levels of the associated weapon attribute.  In order to use a decent shield you need high Tactics. Most Warrior skills are designed around having one or both.  You’ll need a weapon to use any Warrior attack skill and those skills that aren’t attacks are mostly meant to support or enforce those attack skills making them largely useless without a weapon to swing.  And a shield is needed for the secondary Warrior because Warriors are restricted to melee range by those aforementioned attack skills.  In order to compensate for the lower armor levels that every other profession has so as to survive in melee long enough to do much worthwhile, a secondary Warrior needs that shield’s armor bonus.  A secondary Warrior is all but committed to having a high weapon attribute and high Tactics.  Adding in the lure of their primary only attribute and the fact that they’ll be unable to boost that weapon attribute or Tactics through runes or a Captain’s Helmet, as well as the fact that a primary Warrior has Strength which will as provide a shield instead of Tactics freeing the primary Warrior to explore a third attribute avenue, secondary Warriors stand as pale shadows of their primary counterparts.

An IW build stands the normal poor standard of a secondary Warrior playing as a Warrior on its head and can be extremely effective at the offensive role of a close-ranged damage dealing machine that a primary Warrior can excel at.  It does it by getting away from the normal attribute requirements by replacing the normally essential weapon attribute with Illusionary Weaponry’s linked attribute.  That attribute is, naturally enough, Illusion Magic and even though like a normal weapon attribute the I-Weaponeer will want it as high as possible it’s a Mesmer line with nearly twice as many skills as the average weapon line.  There’s just a lot more options in there to play with to complement a build, much more than just Swordsmanship or Axe Mastery would provide.  So, rather than being a pale imitation a Mes/War can be much more well rounded than other secondary Warriors with far less effort.  However, IW is an odd skill - one I’ll detail in a bit – and an IW build is a strange beast that nearly occupies its own little design space because of it.  And it bothers me that in order to make a decent secondary Warrior to go out and smack some heads with I’d need to go to such extreme measures.

But more than that, the mere fact that an IW build can be fielded by a serious player with anything resembling a straight face is indicative of what I see as a big problem in the way Guild Wars is currently structure.  Illusionary Weaponry is an enchantment and it could easily be removed from any IW build if there was anyone on the other team that cared to use their enchantment removal techniques against the Mes/War.  However, enchantment removal is incredibly poor.  So much so that even though Illusionary Weaponry is the sort of enchantment that an enchantment stripper should love to target - being a skill with a long duration and a long recharge time, it’s difficult to put back up if it gets eliminated and the character using it was probably counting on it being around for a while – but no character out to remove enchantments is going to “waste” a strip on a Mes/War, no matter how much damage they’re doing.  Enchantment removal is too inexact, too costly, too rare, too difficult to be used against anything other than the most high value of targets.  Those enchantment strippers are going to gun for their team’s called target in the hopes, the mere hopes, of taking out the defensive buffs that are keeping them alive.  An offensive buff on a low-priority target like a non-casting Mesmer is something that’s going to get ignored.  If there were single enchantment removal skills that were both quick and efficient perhaps that would be the case but it is and it stinks.  

I could go on about game theory, threat/counter design, and meta-game balance in an effort to explain just why enchantment removal is both poor and in need of help and perhaps I should but in another article because here we’re talking about why an IW build works.  And we’re talking about it working in the only situation that matters: now.  We play the game we have not the one we want to play.  Perhaps enchantment removal should be better but the fact of the matter is that it’s not and since that’s the case, the sensible thing to do is to exploit the situation to your best advantage.  There’s no honor, there’s no fairplay, there’s no sense of right or wrong on the battlefield.  There’s a winner and a loser.  And if you’re playing to be the winner you use everything at your disposal.  I begrudge no IW build the fact that they can work, I just bemoan the fact that’s it’s possible.  An IW build is viable and it’s viable without having to compensate for what happens if your enchantment gets stripped because hardly anyone’s going to bother to waste the few enchantment removal skills they can play against anything that’s not vital.

And from the point of the opponent, Illusionary Weaponry is not vital to remove.  That’s their mistake as a well-made IW build is capable of carving nearly anything into neat little pieces in short order or at the very least taking a big chuck out of their target before anyone’s the wiser.  If they’re going to ignore that lovely little enchantment sitting on your shoulders either because they can’t or because they don’t want to remove it, fine, make them pay for it.  But, before getting to how best to exploit the enemy’s oversight, first, we must understand just what’s making it all possible.

Illusionary Weaponry is, understandably, at the heart of any IW build.  It’s a Mesmer skill from the Illusion Magic line.  In keeping with my stated policy here of keeping as general as possible in order to avoid any potential NDA conflicts, I’ll refrain from quoting chapter and verse about just what its recharge and energy costs mean and just direct you to check out the latest version for yourself here (I also never have to go back and correct myself every time a developer decides to tweak a second or two off things this way.  Not that I would ever use the NDA as an excuse to duck accuracy.)  Without being too specific, though, Illusionary Weaponry is an enchantment spell, meaning it comes with all the vulnerabilities and assets of both enchantments and spell casting.  It has a casting time, it has an energy cost, and it can be interrupted while being cast by anything that would interrupt a spell just as it can be removed by anything that might strip an enchantment from a character.  It’s a temporary, magical bonus that will eventually fade away until recast.  Illusionary Weaponry has both a long duration and an even longer recharge time.  There’s a lengthy period where that magical bonus will be active once you cast it and there’s an even longer period for the skill to finish recharging.  This creates a lull, a period of downtime, where that bonus cannot be had.  That sounds pretty daunting, doesn’t it?  There are a host of options available to prevent you from using Illusionary Weaponry – an opponent can deny you the energy it takes to cast or blow the skill once you’ve started to cast it, once past that hurdle it can be removed by anyone who cares to, and even if you’re lucky enough to escape all of that there’s going to be a few crucial seconds when IW isn’t going to be active at all – so why bother with such a cumbersome and finicky little skill?  For that magical bonus, of course, because it’s good enough to have to jump over those hurdles.  In this case, Illusionary Weaponry’s magical bonus is that it replaces your melee weapon’s damage with what amounts to a touch magic attack that deals armor-ignoring damage.

When your character uses IW they replace their axe, hammer, or sword’s damage with what’s listed by IW itself.  And that damage cuts through any armor in the game as if it wasn’t there.  Now, perhaps, it’s apparent just why Illusionary Weaponry is a skill that draws those looking to play as a Warrior.  Because Illusionary Weaponry requires a character to enter into melee it can benefit from the sorts of close-range techniques and melee skills that populate the Warrior list and its ability to ignore armor is extremely attractive to those Warriors used to scraping their blades on their opponent’s armored hides.  Ignoring armor means not only that even the hardiest of targets is going to suffer the same amount of damage as the characters who are wearing armor that’s the equivalent of waving a large metal rod around in a thunderstorm but that any sort of defensive measure that works by increasing armor is useless.

Keep in mind, though, that Illusionary Weaponry works a little differently than just swinging a weapon, though.  What happens when you use this skill is not that your weapon’s damage is overwritten by IW’s damage - that, if IW does 20 damage a hit, your 5~16 axe now does 20 damage – instead, it overwrites your weapon’s damage to read 0.  Your weapon does no damage whatsoever, it’s as if it doesn’t connect for all intents and purposes, and instead of dealing every time you swing your weapon your enemy takes the Illusionary Weaponry damage.  This is an extremely important distinction because just as ignoring armor means that increasing an opponent’s armor becomes useless, not actually mattering what your weapon does makes any defenses that avoid attacks similarly useless.  You don’t have to land a hit, you just have to make one, and your target will take damage.  Illusionary Weaponry bypasses those stances that blocked a hammer’s fall.  However, this also creates a few other odd effects because, for all intents and purposes, your weapon hasn’t connected.  Anything that’s triggered “on hit” – when your weapon connects with your target – doesn’t go off when you connect with Illusionary Weaponry.  It’s that invisible, no-energy, instant cast touch magic attack instead of a sword that’s hitting your enemy.  Skills that will increase your damage when you strike an opponent, such as Barbs, are as useless to the I-Weaponeer as those skills that increase their weapon’s damage, such as a Conjure Element.  And, in a similar fashion, any modifier on your weapon that requires connecting with your opponent will not work when using Illusionary Weaponry, either.  Zealous or Vampiric upgrades are useless neither energy gain or health stealing nor any other modifier that requires a physical blow to land will trigger.  Nor will the extra damage from any attack skill.  Power Attack won’t add anything to the damage total. You can’t even score a critical hit so something like Wild Blow just won’t work.  Perhaps most problematic when trying to use Warrior skills is the fact that IW hits do not let your character gain any adrenal charge.  You need to land melee blows to gain that adren and Illusionary Weaponry requires melee range but it’s most definitely not creating a melee blow.

This all means that while an IW build is going to act a lot like the normal Warrior’s weapon-centric build there are some key differences.  No adrenaline rules out a lot of skills.  No extra damage from skills also rules out several skills that the average Warrior would consider.  And no “on hit” modifiers rule out some of the more popular equipment choices.  At the same time an IW hit can be countered much in the same way that a normal melee hit can be.  Opponent’s can stray from melee range, lower a character’s attack rate, or prevent them from swinging a weapon entirely and they’ll be safe from IW hits.

However, all is not lost, because while “on hit” effects are done away with when using Illusionary Weaponry not everything is.  The secondary effects of skills will still trigger.  Take a skill like Gash, which will deal a piddling amount of damage and give the target a Deep Wound if they’re Bleeding when it connects normally.  Using Illusionary Weaponry, Gash will not deal piddling damage.  It will instead deal that hefty IW damage.  And it will still cause a Deep Wound if it hits someone who’s Bleeding.  That Deep Wound bestowing is part of the skill, not a function of your weapon, swinging your weapon using that skill will cause both that side-effect and the IW hit to go off.  Of course, you can’t use Gash more than once with IW because it requires adrenaline but many Warrior skills don’t.  One of the staples of most IW builds because of this reason is Hundred Blades which when using Illusionary Weaponry, your damage won’t suffer any reduction as a normal strike with Hundred would but instead, each and every hit delivered by Hundred will be replaced by the full IW hit damage.

To sum up: Illusionary Weaponry replaces your weapon with a melee range, touch-based attack that ignores armor.  In doing so it ignores anything that’s going to otherwise affect your attack’s damage, not just armor which prevents you from triggering certain effects including gaining adrenaline.  Effectively, it changes the damage any attack you’ll do into the damage stated by Illusionary Weaponry including other skills, which can be a good or a bad thing depending on the skill.  It’s an enchantment that can be countered both by the normal means of countering enchantments but also by the normal means of preventing someone from making melee attacks. 

Now, the question is just how to put Illusionary Weaponry to the best use.  To address the various vulnerabilities that come along with Illusionary Weaponry, simply put, don’t worry about it.  As noted before, enchantment removal is poor, you’re unlikely to get Illusionary Weaponry removed or interrupted in the first place.  Those characters who can strip that enchantment off you are likely paying attention to someone else and will ignore you.  If you do get stripped, you’ve lost your big offensive buff and won’t be nearly as effective – Illusionary Weaponry all but requires building around it because of all its oddities so without it your build suffers - but your opponent has also lost the ability to cast that enchantment removal skill for a while.  You’re reduced to ineffectual flailing with your weapon but other players on your team can take advantage of the enchantment stripper making a tactical error by using enchantments they otherwise couldn’t get away with.  It’s not the best place to be, but you can survive it, in so many words.  Anti-melee measures are a bit more problematic as they’ll prevent you from attacking but to overly concern yourself with them is the equivalent of deciding to stop casting spells because there are characters out there who can interrupt or otherwise prevent people from casting spells.  Being hit with Blindness or Faintheartedness or Empathy is something that can happen to anyone swinging a weapon.  There are counter measures to them and you need spare them no more thought than to make sure that your team has made some stab at being able to remove hexes and conditions in case any of you are affected by them.

Your IW hits are likely to land, true, but how do you get the most out of them?  To be honest, the average Warrior is going to be outdamaging the average IW build.  A well-made Warrior swinging a weapon should be expecting to do 30 hit points worth of damage every second if not more.  Illusionary Weaponry negates many traditional techniques that allow the average Warrior to increase their damage output.  You can’t buff up IW damage no matter how hard you try.  You can only increase your Illusion to get more damage out of the skill.  And because the speed at which you get IW hits is tied to the speed of your weapon, even if you get your Illusion Magic high enough to get 30 or so damage a hit from Illusionary Weaponry you’ll be doing less than that figure per second.  Simply put, a Warrior wants to raise their DPS as high as they an to deal the most damage they can over any period of time and don’t fool yourself, even though an IW build is a primary Mesmer it’s still very much a Warrior’s build.  The best Warrior builds raise their DPS in ways that are sustainable – they deal a lot of damage over a short period of time and they can keep it up for a while – and they do it largely through stacking damage on top of their weapon’s base damage.  That’s not possible with an IW build What is possible, though, is to use the other main method of increasing a Warrior’s DPS and that’s to increase their swing rate – or the speed at which they land blows with their weapon.

A Warrior character is limited in how fast they can attack by that swing rate just as a character using a bow is limited by their rate of fire or a character slinging spells is limited by their recharge times.  It’s a weapon’s cooldown.  And while Illusionary Weaponry eliminates the damage factor from a weapon everything else remains, including the swing rate.  In order to get the most out of Illusionary Weaponry it’s best to use a weapon with the lowest swing rate possible.  It doesn’t matter what the weapon’s damage is because you’ll be ignoring whatever it is anyway.  An I-Weaped hammer and an I-Weaped sword will hit for exactly the same damage.  You take the one that’s going to swing faster and you’ll being doing more damage.  This means that an IW build is going to want a sword or an axe for preference.  Swords have more skills that require energy rather than adrenaline so they’re the most popular weapons in an IW build.  Beyond just swinging a faster weapon you’ll want to increase your swing rate further by using skills that will let you swing faster still.  Usually this involves using a stance like Flurry or Frenzy.  The basic idea is that, alright, you have so long in which to use your IW hits and you can’t raise or lower the damage of those hits so you want to make the most of it by packing as many hits into that time frame as humanly possible.

Since the innate abilities of your weapon remain – what’s lost is a weapon’s damage and its ability to proc on hit effects – you can also benefit from selecting not just the weapon with the lowest natural swing rate but also a weapon with an upgraded speed.  Such an upgrade will still affect your weapon even when you’re enchanted with Illusionary Weaponry.  Modifiers that change your damage type, lower your critical rate, or raise your damage are unimportant when you’re using Illusionary Weaponry.  You won’t have critical hits, you won’t deal the weapon’s damage, and you won’t deal any elemental damage, either.  You want a weapon that’s swift, first and foremost.  And, because Illusionary Weaponry is an attribute and there are skills and modifiers on items available that increase the duration of any enchantment, one of those is sure to aid you.   If you can increase the duration of your enchantments long enough you can drastically reduce if not outright eliminate the amount of time you’ll spend unenchanted.

And here’s where one big advantage of using Illusionary Weaponry comes into play.  Because you ignore your weapon’s damage you can also ignore item requirements.  All meeting the Swordsmanship requirement on an excellent sword does is to let you deal the full damage listed on your weapon.  Without an attribute at that level, you’ll be dealing far less damage with that weapon.  But not when you’re using Illusionary Weaponry.  Likewise, most attack skills are linked to an attribute but what’s linked is their damage.  You’ll be replacing whatever that damage is with your Illusionary Weaponry damage so there’s virtually no need to raise the attributes of those skills.

What’s called for in an IW build, instead of a high weapon attribute, then, is a high Illusion Magic score.  The higher you push Illusion the more damage each IW hit will do.  But you can comfortably leave your weapon attribute at 0 and not suffer any adverse effects.  As a Mesmer you’ll have access to the primary attribute of Fast Casting, which shortens the time taken to cast any spell.  What it doesn’t do, however, is affect your attack skills in any way, so it’s largely forgettable in an IW build.  Also, as a Mesmer you’re more able to spread your attributes out than other professions.  While other characters crave getting to the 10s and 12s, a Mesmer cares only to get somewhere in the decent range of 6~10 in order to have effective skills.  Illusionary Weaponry is an exception to this as it greatly benefits from pushing Illusion sky-high but most other Mesmer skills don’t need a maxed out attribute to be playable.  Furthermore, while the best shields require a lot of Tactics, perfectly acceptable ones can similarly be found with requirements in the decent attribute range.  This all means that an IW build is a lot more flexible in terms of attributes than many other builds.  I-Weaponeers can afford to splash one or more attributes to pick up a single skill.

So, let’s take a look at Kui’s build to see a fine example of just how to go about taking advantage of Illusionary Weaponry.

I-Weaponeer

Professions: Mesmer / Warrior

To start with, Kui obviously understands that the key to pumping out damage with an IW build lies in the swing rate.  He’s found a nice sword and he’s well versed enough in the mysterious of IW to not even bother to tell me its damage or attribute requirement.  They don’t matter, because whatever they are it’s going to increase his attack speed significantly - +10% speed is the highest I’ve heard of lately – and the penalty for that is a hit to critcals which doesn’t matter with Illusionary Weaponry.  The +4AL bonus should work even while enchanted with IW making his sword both a slicing and dicing machine and a weak, secondary shield.  Coupled with a decent shield that’s going a long way to make up for the naturally weaker Mesmer armor.  

There, Kui’s picked out the Rogue set.  I’m not sure about Rogue; if it was an older version from a previous BWE it’s a smart choice, as that +AL vs. Physical was impressive and certainly useful for a character expecting to enter into melee.  But the more recent set includes a hit to energy, which makes it something I’d leave behind.  Illusionary Weaponry is a pretty energy intensive, it lasts a while but it takes a lot of energy to cast, so the focus, which can be used to swap to when protection isn’t required or a little more energy is needed for a cast, is a good idea and works to offset the hit to energy from Rogue’s.  But so is not shooting your energy pool in the foot with your armor choice in the first place.  I’d switch armor sets, the Enchanter’s set offers +1 energy per piece and I’d pick up a pair of Enchanter’s gloves or shoes and pair them with the Regal set.  It’s a bit less armor against physical damage but a bit more armor overall with only earth damage to worry about.  Most earth skills ignore armor anyway and people using earth damage upgraded weapons would get past Rogue’s, too, and with that armor mishmash Kui’d have an extra 5 energy to use.

Still, Kui says that energy wasn’t a problem at all.  And I’ll take his word for it.  Looking over his skills, he’s probably right, as there’s not much there outside of Illusionary Weaponry to really tax his 4 pips.  

Kui’s intended this build as a caster-killer.  The highest priority targets in most cases are the healers.  Specifically, Kui’s either going to join in the ganking of a called target or he’s going to jump on an “off” Monk – a Monk that the rest of his team isn’t targeting - and use his disruption to prevent them from healing.  He won’t do any extra damage with Savage Slash but it’s still going to interrupt and doing IW hits he probably won’t miss the extra damage.  And Distracting Blow, a skill I’m really starting to like again, works beautifully with IW.  It’s AoE disruption that will interrupt the skill – not the spell, so it can as easily blow signets as anything else – not just of its target but those of every enemy near them as well.  Also, while it normally does very little damage, with IW it deals a respectable hit all at low energy and a low recharge time.  Combining those two attack interrupts with Arcane Conundrum, the poor man’s Dazed, means that the targeted caster is going to have a hard time getting their spells off.

For damage, Kui’s included Flurry to further increase his swing rate making his IW hits that much more frequent.  Since Flurry works by increasing your swing rate but lowering the damage of each hit it couples with Illusionary Weaponry rather well as an IW hit will be the same no matter how much Flurry might decrease it.  He’s mentioned to me that he realized that Frenzy might be a better alternative to Flurry and that’s an idea I’ll support.  Frenzy lasts a bit longer than Flurry for the same energy cost.  While Flurry’s reduction to attack damage doesn’t matter, Frenzy’s increase to damage suffered does.  While it’s up the I-Weaponeer will be taking significantly more damage.  That’s not a good thing, for sure, but it’s not that much of a danger unless Kui’s heavily focused.  His team’s healers are there for when he takes damage as long as Kui can win the damage race by attacking fast and furiously, he should be able to put down a target before he’s dropped himself and that’s all that really matters.  Frenzy will lift the burden on his energy pool a little more and while energy management wasn’t much of an issue for Kui better energy management means that he can afford to include some more costly skills in his build more easily.  Unfortunately, both are stances so they can’t be used together.  Casting one will override the other and vice versa so it is an either or situation.  With just 8 skills there’s only room for the one.  Frenzy would get my nod over Flurry although they’ll both work well.

And, just incase his sword wasn’t swinging quickly enough already, Kui’s also thrown in Hundred Blades.  As I mentioned earlier and just like Flurry the reduction to damage that Hundred Blades normally would have is a non-issue here.  Every time it’s used Kui will have two IW hits.  Not only that but it can also deal AoE damage, hitting anyone near the target for two IW hits as well.  At a low energy cost and a low recharge it can be cast repeatedly and send this build’s DPS through the roof.  Hundred Blades is really the attack skill of choice when using Illusionary Weaponry and it’s no surprise to see it here.

Sprint’s in this build because it’s a Warrior build and any Warrior build needs some kind of speed buff or snare to stay close enough to its targets to deal any damage.  There’s something to be said for including both, especially here where Kui can pluck one of the Burdens from Illusion and snare a target from range or use his sword to Hamstring someone.  Earlier I counciled Kui to consider Ethereal Burden for the energy but given that his energy concerns seem light, Ethereal's long casting time is anathema to any Warrior build and an IW build is no exception.  Time spent casting is time spent away from swinging your weapon so that skill really needs to be worth the drop in your DPS to consider anything over a casting time of a second or less.  Therefore, it’s Imagined Burden, for preference.  But both Sprint and Imaginary Burden is probably overkill.

Disciplined Stance is a solid choice for a defensive stance, especially with as many points invested in Tactics as this build has.  Illusionary Weaponry precludes someone from gaining adrenaline so there’s no drawback to Disciplined Stance beyond the fact that it has such a long recharge time and that occasional defense can be effective.  The problem here, though, is that you can’t use it in combination with Sprint or Flurry/Frenzy so you’ll have to chose which is most important to you in a given situation.

When switching from PvP to PvE scenarios, Kui dropped Distracting Blow for Healing Signet and Arcane Conundrum for Conjure Phantasm.  Both are solid choices as disruption is less important in a PvE setting.  Healsig provides some more defense through self-healing, which can be crucial.  While Conjure Phantasm provides some extra DPS through damage over time.  There’s really not much else in Illusion beyond Phantom Pain and Conjure’s lower recharge means it can be spread to more creatures.  

In both cases, Kui happily reports he met with great success.  Healers went down quickly followed by the rest of their teams and AI mobs were no match for his human might.  Close with the enemy and swing away with increased swing rate and disrupt anything they might try until they’re dead.  Simple, brutal, and effective.  Still, there’s no build that can’t be tweaked or tightened in some way.  For possible improvements Kui’s mentioned dropping Sprint in favor of Illusion of Weakness or Illusion of Haste.  Were he to do so, I’d say definitely pick up Imagined Burden as well, but the main reason he’s contemplating dropping the nearly enshrined Sprint is that he actually ran into a problem with enchantment removal.  The Illusions would provide an easily replaceable buffer that would prevent the stay single enchantment removal from nailing his IW.  Of the two, Weakness is an intriguing option for defense, especially if you can cast it early enough and heal yourself back up.  Haste is a bit weaker as, although it’ll be a nice replacement for Sprint it will also Cripple the character whenever Kui decides to stop recasting it.  It does have a nice bonus in that it will cancel the effects of being Crippled, though.

I’m not entirely sold on those changes, myself, though.  I’m not certain - not having played with Kui - just how frequently he had his Illusionary Weaponry removed.  It might be that he was in several losing fights and as the battle wore to a close he found himself targeted and the enchantment strippers had nothing better to do than remove an unimportant buff.  It may be that he was playing people who were doing odd things and not behaving according to an optimal game plan (Hey, it happens, not everyone listens to me, after all).  It may be that people have clued into just how dangerous an IW Mesmer can be and put a priority on stripping it away.  It might be that Kui was doing something wrong tactically and drawing too much attention to himself and his all-important buff.  It’s hard to say but I suspect that when his Illusionary Weaponry was removed it was a case of either being in the hole or his opponent’s wasting their removal, a situation to take advantage of not to bemoan.  In other words, Kui had already lost the fight or it wasn’t decisive.  If that’s the case, it doesn’t matter.  You don’t plan for when you lose, you’ve already lost; you plan for how to take advantage of your opportunities so that you can win.  Either something else bad beyond getting stripped has happened or there’s an advantage to exploit in Kui’s fight.  Enchantment removal happens and it needs to be accounted for but it’s the price a character pays for running with enchantments.

And, I’d think there could be better ways to compensate for what happens when this build is without its central enchantment than to try and out enchant the enchantment removers.  After all, using another enchantment as a buffer only deals with single target enchantment strips, a skill that removes several enchantments like Rend Enchantments, Lingering Curse, or Nature’s Renewal will take away both the buffer and the precious Illusionary Weaponry.  Since there’s going to be some amount of time when this build won’t be running around with IW up anyway it makes sense, to me anyway, to plan for those moments when it will be absent.  So, I think what’s called for here is not a spacer enchantment but more a refinement.  This is an IW build, fine, let’s figure out what’s most crucial to making that work and then work to find what else can be included that won’t rely on Illusionary Weaponry.

Now, of course, I said at the start that this was a build that was focused, with laser-like intensity, on one and only one strategy.  It’s a build that’s devoted to making sure that Kui will be able to swing away as quickly and effectively as possible with Illusionary Weaponry in order to carve up casters in specific and everyone in general.  It’s not a diverse build, it’s not a build that’s trying to fill several roles at once, it’s a build that’s best served by wholeheartedly devoting itself to that role.  It’s, in the crudest terms, a gimmick build.  It’s revolving around one central, critical piece and the whole thing collapses when that gimmick is taken away.  What belongs in this build, then, is what makes that role possible and what makes that role better and nothing else.  

And while that might sound like I’ve just contradicted myself there’s really nothing stopping a build from being both focused and streamlined.  The key is to diversify but to diversify with utility rather than to branch out into another role.  Putting all your eggs in one basket is one thing but to make sure each egg is exactly the same is another.  Utility skills work with a chosen strategy and even when that strategy is stymied in one way or another.  An IW build is meant to deal damage so trying to force one into becoming a tank with that poor Mesmer armor is counter-productive.  It’s sucking up slots and attribute points that could be better spent supporting the Illusionary Weaponry.  At the same time there are only so many slots and so many things a character can do at once so keeping those skills that let an IW build deal damage to a bare minimum so that other skills can be included is certainly a wise plan.  The goal, however, is not to include skills that don’t work well with Illusionary Weaponry but to include skills that both work well with IW and without.  Utility skills that can be used in a variety of situations to good effect.  Sprint is a good example as it helps a character close to melee range to begin to deal damage, to stay in melee range once closed to start piling up damage, and to avoid danger if Illusionary Weaponry was removed and damage dealing became the absolute last thing a character designed to deal damage with IW would be worrying about.  Remember, part and parcel of Illusionary Weaponry is that it can be removed.  In fact, given the dead space between duration and recharge times, it’s assured of being removed part of the time.  It’s built-in to your strategy, when you run an IW build, that you won’t always have IW simply because of the way the skill works.  So, once you’ve acquired enough skills to make that damage excel you can take on skills that can be used without that source of damage.

Here, there’s a damage-dealing core of Flurry/Frenzy and Hundred Blades surrounding Illusionary Weaponry.  With no Swordsmanship those skills are going to be trash without IW, anyway, so once Illusionary Weaponry drops Kui’s already going to be looking elsewhere on his skill bar.  Also, as Kui’s primarily worried about hunting casters there’s a solid set of disruption with Distracting Blow and Savage Slash.  While those skills are going to deal poor damage if Illusionary Weaponry goes away they’ll still function as interrupts.  Even without IW, Kui will still be able to disrupt any caster he’s targeting pretty well; he just won’t be dealing any significant damage.  Especially when he’s targeting an off-monk then he’s really not caring so much about damage so much as preventing that healer from saving the targeted Monk or diverting a large portion of their healing potential into saving their own self.  Damage is just a bonus there and it’s hard to argue with any of those skill choices so we’ve already established a firm base of Illusionary Weaponry, Flurry/Frenzy, Hundred Blade, Savage Slash, and Distracting Blow.   That’s five slots to make a character a handful for any opponent.  It can deal massive damage with IW up and it can be extremely disruptive even when it’s not.  Kui’s remaining three slots should go towards making it easier to be that caster-killer.  As that requires melee range, we’ll need a snare or a speed buff, a task Sprint currently fulfils.  Arcane Conundrum is a ranged hex spell that increases a caster’s casting time.  That makes Kui’s interrupts better but it can also be used even if this character can’t reach someone to wail away with IW damage.  It’s an effective utility skill here because it’s both supporting the role Kui’s chosen and providing that little bit more that keeps Kui from being completely marginalized should his strategy be countered.  What doesn’t really fit, though, is Disciplined Stance.  It’s not a bad skill, and when IW is taken away it can easily save Kui’s hide, it’s just not doing much to actually boost things when Illusionary Weaponry is active.  I’d rather have something I could use in both cases instead.  I plan on playing with a competent healer who’ll be able to save me when I need it.  And I plan on doing enough damage that I needn’t spend to long getting hurt by any one character.  So, for me, Disciplined Stance is forgettable.

As such, were I to tweak Kui’s build it would look something like this :

IW II

Professions: Mesmer / Warrior

I’d mostly keep things intact.  I’d pass over Sprint in favor of a snare, Imagined Burden in this case.  Not only does it serve in place of Sprint to keep a target in melee range, it lets this build snare a character in any other situation as well.  When Kui doesn’t want to enter into melee he can still use Burden from range.  If enchantment removal still proves problematic and the loss of Disciplined Stance creates too much vulnerability I’d replace Imagined Burden with Illusion of Weakness.  It serves to buffer Illusionary Weaponry as well as being a health boost that will go off when Kui’s in danger of dying or if it’s removed.  There’s no downside to it being removed, in other words, except that it would need to be recast.  It’s also the better option in PvE play.

 I’ve subbed in Frenzy over Flurry as I think it’s the superior option especially as I intend to have Kui casting more higher-energy cost skills.  I’m less concerned with avoiding damage than I am with making sure I can keep wailing away with IW and Hundred Blades as long as possible for as little energy as possible.

The big change, of course, is the addition of Power Leak.  Kui would liked to have used it but he could never get his hands on it.  One of the advantages of playing around with builds on paper as opposed to reality, I suppose, but even if Power Leak was unavailable I’d pick up Power Spike in its place until I could locate the right skill.  Already going after casters with several interrupts, Power Leak provides an interrupt that’s going to be used from range as opposed to melee.  Thus, if Illusionary Weaponry gets nuked, Kui can back off and snipe away with a wand and hex targets with Conundrum and Burden as he waits for them to let lose with a juicy target for Power Leak until Illusionary Weaponry recharges and he can go back on the offensive.  And if no one bothers to strip Illusionary Weaponry, Kui can still use Power Leak when he’s up close and personal.  The loss of energy sure to ruin any caster’s day is just gravy here.  Power Leak is the best of the Mesmer interrupts but any of them would work just as well in a pinch or if Power Leak’s high cost made things too difficult.

Taking Power Leak, though, necessitates sinking some points into Domination Magic and that’s just what I’ve done.  As I stated earlier, as a character that’s going to be trying to stay in melee range, high casting times are something Kui will want to avoid.  Since he’s keeping his casting times at or below 1 second anyway, Fast Casting is of limited benefit.  I’d shift all those points in Fast Casting into Domination and stick whatever’s leftover into Fast Casting for the slight bonus it’ll give.  If energy becomes an issue, Kui can swap Domination for Inspiration and pick up Power Drain instead of another Mesmer interrupt. 

I’ll leave Tactics alone as it seems to work for Kui, but really, all it’s doing here is to give Kui a shield for some extra defense.  He’ll want an amount of Tactics no more than the requirement on that shield and he can spend the rest of his points elsewhere.

Overall, this makes for a character that’s going to be casting a lot more than Kui’s original build.  The idea is to support his Illusionary Weaponry damage with a few choice spells and hexes that can be used independently of Illusionary Weaponry, too.  Since he’s going for a disruptive character in the first place, adding a bit more to mess around with other characters is what I’d recommend.  This raises the question of if he’ll have enough energy to function but that’s something that would need to be tested out.  Still, I think he can continue to function as well, if not better than, before.

Thanks for reading and be sure to comment on this essay as well as Kui's build here in our forums.