Local_Man

I have had situations where my Ill/Rad hit the Recharge cap, and re-casting Phantom Army when a set is still out just causes the still-out set to disappear.

A couple of quick points:

The Flightspeed in Fly does nothing. Since I-18, Fly is at flightspeed cap. It would be better to slot an EndRdx. Or you might consider a Zephyr -knockback if you don't feel you need the EndRdx. That will let you take the Karma -knockback out of Hover and use that slot somewhere else.

Replace the Regen Tissue Proc in Health with a Numina's Heal. Between the set bonus and the enhancment in the power itself, you actually get more Regen from the Numina's Heal.

Lots of questions, there. Glad you are enjoying your controller. Controllers are my favorite AT because the playstyles vary so widely. You have picked a good one in Plant/Storm.

Many of the answers to your questions depend upon your personal playstyle and the way you play the game. If you mostly play solo, your build should probably be different than if you mostly team. Do you tend to hang back more, or do you prefer to run into melee?

First and foremost, Controllers do not need to built for Defense. Your goal is to control the group, and if you are successful in doing that, the bad guys won't be shooting at you. You may want to try to build your controller first with no defense in mind, just to see if you can develop the strategy where Defense is not needed. Most of my controllers, including my Plant/Storm, use Invisibility to be able to approach groups without being seen so that I can then spring my AoE control on them without giving them a chance to attack me. The main goal for IO bonuses is Recharge and Recovery so that I can throw out my controls as much as possible.

On the other hand, lots of people like to build their controllers for defense. For a Plant/Storm, Ranged Defense is probably best. Most mez powers have a ranged aspect, so Ranged Defense is usually the best defense against mez. More importantly, Hurricane can handle most things in melee including some AoE users, so Ranged Defense will handle most things at a distance.

*/Storm is always hard on endurance, so going for Recovery and +Endurance is always a good thing. All of my */Storm controllers have the Cardiac in the Alpha slot. Recharge is essential to get Seeds of Confusion, Roots and Carion Creepers up as much as possible. Some folks choose the Medicine pool to make up for the fact that Storm does not have a self heal. Or they go for the heal, Earth's Embrace, in the Stone APP set. Or they take Hibernate from the Ice APP set (which is what I usually do). Another option is to go for the heal power from the Destiny incarnate slot.

Yes, you can get more than one Lightning Storm and more than one Tornado out. Unfortunately, the Recharge buff does not extend to the pets and pseudopets. Multiple Freezing Rains will stack.

Interesting . . . you skipped Spectral Terror, the best AoE control in the set, so that's a major problem. You also skipped Flash, so you have no AoE control to speak of.

You have high defense, but no mez protection and skipped the main protective power in the Time set, Time's Juncture. So if an ambush gets through your defense and gets you mezzed, you will be in trouble without any AoE control.

Plus, I feel you have a lot of poorly chosen slots. Here's my canned response to when people put the Lockdown proc in Blind:

I haven't gotten all that far with the set yet. but I view Time's Juncture to be a worthwhile power. On teams, I'm letting the tank do his thing, drawing the aggro, and then running round the outside with TJ debuffing the ToHit of foes who may be outside of his aggro. Or I can use it as a kind of defensive power for an ambush. Since the AoE of Distortion Field kind of ruins invisibility, I may as well debuff the ToHit of foes since they know I'm there.

I use it less solo, as I rely more upon invisibility, PA and Deceive. Still, it can be a kind of panic button power to reduce incoming damage.

First, I suggest you take a look at my Illusion/Rad guide, linked in my sig. That may answer some of your questions.

As far as Invisibility: The game shows full invisibility as 70 ft perception, which is the stealth cap. There are really two "levels" of stealth (there are actually a few more). Powers like Stealth (from the power pool), Super Speed (power pool), Steamy Mist (Storm), Shadowfall (Dark Miasma), Shadow Cloak (Warshades) and several others are basically half invisibility. The will keep you unseen from a distance, but not if you go right up to a foe. The Stealth IOs like Unbounded Leap are also half invisibility. These are all shown as 35 ft perception

To get full invisibility, you have to stack two halves, but some of them won't stack. Usually Super Speed will stack with most others. Usually, the Stealth IO will stack with most others. Or you can use one of the full invisibility powers like Group Invis or Superior Invis. Superior Invis actually goes way over the stealth cap, but that extra is wasted except in a very few situations where there are foes who have higher perception . . . in those cases, SI is better than GI or two half-stealth powers stacked.

As for the practical application -- half stealth will let you sneak by foes as long as you stay at a distance or go by really fast. If you run into a room where foes are blocking the door, then you are likely to be seen. Full invisibility will let you stand in the middle of a group of foes dancing and they still won't see you.

My guide goes into a discussion about SI vs. GI, but I recommend taking one or the other unless you prefer to have Super Speed + a Stealth IO. Both SI and GI will hold a LotG Recharge IO to help with your high-recharge build.

There are a lot of one-slot-wonder powers that can be useful. I really like having Recall Friend. An Ill/Rad with SI is the best team spy around, and Recall Friend makes him into an even better spy. (Plus you can slot a Zephyr -Knockback in the default slot).

If you went with the Fire APP, Rise of the Phoenix is the only self-rez available to controllers, and it only needs one slot -- Recharge or Damage, depending on how often you think you will need it. I'm not a big fan of the Psi pool for an Ill/Rad, and my guide explains why. From the Psi pool, Indomidible Will is the main reason to take the set, and it needs 3 Recharge. Psi Blast should be in your build (if you stick to the Psi Pool) for the great Blind-SW-Blast-SW attack chain. Psi Tornado is a decent AoE power and Mind Over Body is a decent resistance-based armor. World of Confusion, however, absolutely stinks.

I like having Combat Jumping and Hover -- both take a LotG Recharge. Combat Jumping provides protection from Immobilization powers, jumping mobility and a place for a LotG Recharge and uses very little endurance for a toggle. Hover lets you fight from the air, out of melee range.

Mutation is a nice Rez power that gives a huge boost to the rezzed teammate. I currently have it on my build, but I wouldn't mind dropping it if needed. There are so many ways to rez folks in the game today that it is nice to have but far from necessary.

I haven't tried the 5th power from the speed pool yet, but I can see its appeal, especially if you don't have perma-PA yet. It could be very useful on a Mind or Plant controller or other powerset combos that have long recharge powers that are not persistant. I'm not sure how much it is needed for an Ill/Rad, though, but I haven't tried it.

First, I disagree with switching out Frost Breath for Ice Storm for an Illusion controller. Frost Breath is all up-front damage, which is far better to leverage illusory damage. Ice Storm is all DoT and foes can run out of the area since Illusion has no way to hold them in the area.

As for the first build, it is pretty good. I see a few small tweeks and things I might change:

SI has no EndRdx in it, which means that you won't be able to run it when you are running other stuff. You might consider: put a Celerity Stealth in Super Speed, and then swap out SI for GI. You can still put that LotG in GI, and it will be more useful. Most of the time running around, you can rely upon SS+Stealth IO. In battle, you can fire off GI, then turn off Super Speed and keep your invisibility.

You appear to be going for S/L defense, but missed the chance to get an extra 3.75% from Siphon Insight. Move a slot to Weaken . . . you could use the 4th slot in Stamina or the 4th slot in Health.

Your powers have pretty good accuracy, so you can probably skip that Kismet proc . . . except you may want to swap in the Acc/End/Rech for the DefDeb/End/Rech in Envenom. Also, use the Quad with Acc to replace the triple in Paralytic Poison. Then you can either move the slot from Ice Armor, or slot more Defense in there.

One way to free up some slots: trade out Poison Trap for GI with a LotG Recharge. Then you have three more slots to use other places. On my Demons/Poison MM, I find Poison Trap to be not all that useful. Maybe it is better on a controller, but those three slots might be better used.

I must admit that I really like Hibernate. So you could replace Elixer (although it is fun to make people barf), swap Hover sooner, put that +3 Defense in Frozen Armor, and fit in Hibernate. But that's just a matter of preference. Hibernate has saved my backside many-a-time, so I really like it.

With the Alpha Slot of Spiritual, you will be at perma-PA. Otherwise, you'll probably need to add some purple sets.