Guild Wars 2

I’ve been trying to use it with my group of friends when we do fractals, but none of us are really sure how it works. Sometimes it works and resses you, and sometimes it won’t. I’m assuming it’s based on killing blow, and not on your target dying (like with the downed state), but I’m not sure. Is that it?

If you would normally get a rally, you will be cleansed of Illusion of Life. If you do not get a rally, you will go down as if you were not up in the first place. It is possible to “die” in Illusion of Life and then when it ends, you are fully dead. If you go down in Illusion of Life, you will die.

Esplen.3940:

If you would normally get a rally, you will be cleansed of Illusion of Life.

In my fractal runs today and yesterday, I noticed my allies were not being cleansed of illusion of life, even when they should have gotten a rally (their target dying). Is it just a buggy skill, or is there something I am missing?

JohnnySupernova.9182:

Esplen.3940:

If you would normally get a rally, you will be cleansed of Illusion of Life.

In my fractal runs today and yesterday, I noticed my allies were not being cleansed of illusion of life, even when they should have gotten a rally (their target dying). Is it just a buggy skill, or is there something I am missing?

Who is their target? Basically, if they get an EXP notification, it SHOULD go away. Sometimes people don’t tag the mob hard enough.

Today, it was the ice elemental adds in the dredge fractal, and the cultists in cliff side. Last night it was the fire elementals in the imbued shaman fight. Each time we’d focus one target to get someone up, the target would die, but they would not rally. I guess they didn’t hit the mob hard enough each time.

When Illusion of Life is used, the downed ally/allies in the effect are rallied but gain a 15 second effect that will do a large amount of “Damage” to down them once again. During that 15 seconds, if the player kills something that rewards XP the effect disperses and the player is safe. The “Damage” bypasses Evasion/Invulnerable/etc, so there isn’t a way to avoid it (that I know of).
If the player is Downed and THEN the 15 second effect wears off? The “Damage” occurs, and kills the player.
If the player is Alive when the 15 second wears off? The player is basically put straight into a new Downed phase, including a new Downed Penalty stack (meaning less downed health then before, up to and including insta-death with a big enough stack).

I’ve been slowly learning when I find it best to use Illusion of Life.
—Use when the downed ally is being swarmed by enemies, or is the main target of the boss. (Gives them a chance to get the heck out of dodge, and either find a safe place to be revived at or kill something to stay revived depending).
—Use when trying to revive an ally normally, but a Red Ring of Death pops up around you and your ally. Or an idiot went and downed in the Lava on a certain fractal.
—Use when multiple allies are down bad luck and missed a bosses 1-shot move.

I know I used to scoff and think of Illusion of Life as pointless, until I realized something.

Almost EVERY other skill has a 2 second or more casting time to immediately rally a person. The ones that don’t, instead heals a downed person in pulses and still takes time. Illusion of Life on the other hand has an extremely short cast and instantly allows a person to get to their feet and move. The draw back is that its just for 15 seconds, unless they “Rally” via killing something that gives XP. A reflex emergency skill to keep an ally alive is something that shouldn’t be overlooked, especially when considering the alternative is to bring someone back from Defeated state instead.

Not always useful, but I’ll be kittened if it doesn’t have its uses.

I use it in Jade Maw if someone is down and targeted with no chance of getting up. Essentially negates the Jade Maw attack.

I use it in some dungeons. If they can still use their 4 skill- heal while down- then you can use it and they will get a few seconds of life. They can either kill something or they will go to a downed state again if they do not. If they are all the way dead- then it will not work. I wish it was just a rez but it still helps sometimes.

I use it all the time in Fractals. The difficult part is getting your teammates to understand that they should retreat to a safe distance so they can be revived properly, and not go rambo on the boss (and promptly get downed, then killed by Illusion of Life, then blame me for killing them…).

There is only 1 class that can avoid Illusion of Life downing you again and that is a Necro. I have used this skill on a necro I play with and if he won’t get the rally he simply goes to Death Shroud which will absorb all dmg from IoL (you can also jump from any height, just go into DS and it will absorb all fall dmg). Although I don’t know if this has been patched.

MLieBennett.9031:

A reflex emergency skill to keep an ally alive is something that shouldn’t be overlooked, especially when considering the alternative is to bring someone back from Defeated state instead.

Not always useful, but I’ll be kittened if it doesn’t have its uses.

Yes, I’ve been experimenting a bit more with it, too.
It’s really quite good. Thoroughly underrated. As you say, it’s faster than comparable skills.

I’ve made good use of it on Kohler before, too. 3 people failed the check, get pulled in, blam up again. If the adds are still up (that’s usually when people fail to spot the toss) then they can quickly rally off it and nothing ever happened.

Likewise in WvW, it allows some nice “suicide charges”. You can rush in with 4-5 people, blow important CDs, and if you get downed on the way out the Mesmer (so lagged behind more!) gets you up and you can then safely be re-rezzed once back at the zerg.
Makes for an awesome backup in case Portal failed to save you.