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I didn't have that much time to play, but I got one of my goals done . . . my Earth/Storm started at 46 and finally hit 50. I got two levels on my Plant/Kin to 48. Two levels on my Demons/Pain MM to 22. A level on my DP/Dev Blaster to 40. A level on my KinMelee/Fire Scrapper to 22.

I learned that while an ITF is quick and easy with the right team build, that it can be somewhat slow with a good team on less-than-optimal characters, and very slow (and painful) on a not-as-good team on less-than-optimal Characters. A good tank can make all the difference, and a Warshade is not as good as a tank.

Frankly, each of the APP sets have something to offer.

Fire has the most overall damage. Fire blast is quick and adds some DoT. Fireball is a nice, fast targetted AoE that is available at 41. The Shield is Smash/Lethal/Fire Resistance-based, Consume can help your endurance issues, and Rise of the Phoenix is the only self-rez available to Controllers.

Ice has a fast blast almost as good as Fire. It is the only set with two AoE damage powers, Frost Breath and Ice Storm -- both add slow to the AoE Damage. Hibernate is a great "Panic Button" power that lets you regenerate both your health and endurance. And the Ice Shield is Smash/Lethal Defense with Cold Resistance -- Defense is usually better than Resistance.

Primal has a decent blast, a cone AoE, but the real jewel is Power Boost. It will substantially increase the duration of your control powers when active -- great for Mass Confuse, Mass Dom, Terrify and EM Pulse. Conserve Power is great for Endurance problems and the Shield is Smash/Lethal Resistance.

Earth has a slow but hard-hitting single target, Hurl Boulder. The AoE damage is Fissure, a very short range AoE that has a chance to stun, and you have to be on the ground to use it -- it is very popular with */Kinetics Controllers. Arguably the best power in the set is the hard hitting melee attack, Seismic Smash, which has a hold included -- great for stacking single target holds on Bosses while doing damage, but only if you like to play in melee. The shield is ugly, but it is good Smash/Lethal defense. And Earth's Embrace is a HP boost/Heal, which is always nice.

Psi's best power is Indomidible Will, the click mez protection that is only part-time. It helps prevent your toggle powers from being knocked off as often. IW includes some Psi Defense, but that is its only Defense. Psi blast is OK, Psi Tornado is actually pretty good with Knock-Up (and not throw around) and decent Damage over time. The armor is Smash/Lethal/Psi Resistance, kind of meh but it is less intrusive in its looks. World of Confusion simply sucks -- too small a radius to be effective.


There are some factors you should consider. All your damage other than Levitate is Psi damage, and Psi damage is heavily resisted by some foes in the late game -- especially Robots. So a different damage type might be a consideration.

Terrify is a cone. That means that you will already be in position for another Cone. Primal and Ice have Cones. Ice also has Ice Storm, but you don't have an AoE Immob to keep foes from running away. Mind Control also has limited opportunities to set AoE Containment, but has good single target Containment. You may get more overall damage from a fast single target attack than an AoE attack.

In general, I lean towards Primal for Mind Controllers because Power Boost has a lot of benefits for Mind Controllers. But a lot depends on your playstyle.

As for Telekinesis -- it is a situational power, but can be useful. It is a toggle hold with repel, but it is great for trapping foes against a wall or in a corner. Still, it is the most skippable power in the Mind Control set.

I really need to go back to that Earth/Rad guide and update it . . . I have learned a lot since I wrote it. My more current recommendations for the Rad secondary can be found in my Illusion/Rad guide.

Most of the power pics and slotting are good. Just a few things here and there:

There is no real reason not to use IOs other than the time and effort to craft them. With some effort, it is easy to earn millions in this game. Want an easy way to do it? Do Tip Missions. 5 a day for 4 days will earn you two Allignment Merits (A-Merits). Buy a Luck of the Gambler Recharge for 2 A-Merits at Fort Trident and then sell it on the Market. That will net you 160-200 million. There are many, many other ways to make lots and lot of Infl, too. Once you start to earn some significant Infl, you can look to working up an IO'ed Set build.

You don't have a travel power. If you have chosen to get by with Ninja Run, that's fine. But you might want to consider dropping the Invis pool and taking Super Speed. Then add a Celerity Stealth to it for full invisibility. (Those are expensive, but this is another one you can get with A-Merits if you want.) When you need vertical travel, you can use a Raptor Pack or Ninja Run. Since you are taking Hasten anyways, you can use only one power pick for Super Speed and have one more power pick available.

Put an EndRdx or a Damage proc in that last slot in Stone Cages.

Quicksand can probably get by with 2 Recharge, especially if you use level 50 IOs. Same with Earthquake, but Earthquake can take ToHit Debuff if you have the spare slots.

Enervating Field can get by with 2 EndRdx -- the third one has minimal benefit. Again, switching to 2 level 50 IOs will be even better.

The 4th EndMod is doing very little. You can use that slot somewhere else.

For an extra power pick . . . you could consider Fallout. My opinion on the power has improved some -- I have it on my Earth/Rad, and although I don't use it all that often, it is a lot of fun when I do. It is still very situational, but with many of the newer TFs, more deaths happen. You don't really need Tactics with all that Defense Debuff (other than for the perception buff).

Christopher Reeve was a great Superman for that time. He was the best personification of the character when "comic book heroes" were supposed to be somewhat comic. Things are different today.

As good as Reeve was, the earlier Superman movies had terrible writing and plots, with stupid plot holes and devices. Even the first two "iconic" ones.

All I want is a well written, well directed and acted film with a coherent plot and some great action and special effects. If they can do that, they could cast Jim Belushi as Superman . . . well, maybe not, but the casting isn't nearly as important as the rest. Give me a good story. Without any "throwing the S" or "you can't change the past, but if you do, nothing will happen."

Just because Earth is the best primary for Sonic does not mean that Sonic is a particularly great secondary for Earth. Overall, Earth/Therm will probably be a better character.

I have my Earth/Rad and just last night got my Earth/Storm to 50. I don't have a strong desire to roll up an Earth/Sonic either. Sonic just seems to be a less desirable secondary compared to several others.

If you can get one more slot into Spooky, you can slot 5 Unspeakable Terror for an extra 5% Recharge.

Personally, I'm not sure that Kismet proc is doing much good, and I'm not sure I would devote a slot to it. You already have pretty good global Accuracy bonuses with Coercive, Posi-blast and other sets.

As for Holds . . . I rarely get held on my Ill/Rad. PA draw the aggro, and any time a foe looks past PA to me, I use Deceive to convince him "I'm not the foe you're looking for." On team, I let the Tank do his job and draw the aggro. Solo and small teams, PA draw the aggro. And I stay back far enough to stay out of range of most AoEs.

Leveling up, I had Recall Friend on my Ill/Rad. Then I dropped it for my perma-PA build . . . but missed having it. With I-19, I have added it back into my build again, which I really like. Obviously, if you spend a lot of time solo, there is no need. I tend to team with the same group of guys, and it is appreciated when I have Recall Friend to stealth missions.

We get a lot of "make me a build" posts . . . I suggest you put some effort in by getting Mids and trying to make your own build.

Explain your playstyle and why you took what you took. Without more information, it is very difficult to make suggestions since a solo Grav/Storm would be build differently than a team one. A Grav/Storm that plays with the same group might be built differently than one who mainly joins Pick-up groups. One who plays aggressively would be different than one who plays more support from range.

And an important factor is how much Influence do you have available for this build. Some of the IOs can be somewhat pricey to eye-gougingly pricey.

Earth/Sonic seems to be the best pairing. In particular, Rocky has high Resistance that is further boosted by Sonic's Resistance buffs. Plus, Rocky goes into melee, so he's a perfect target for Disruption Field, the toggle -Resistance you put on an ally. Plus, Earth's Quicksand will let you set up a good debuff patch of Slow, -Defense (25% in Quicksand alone) and your -Resistance. For the most part, Earth is not a high endurance primary since you lay out your AoE Controls and then mainly Fossilize tougher foes.

The other set that might work is Gravity, since Singy also has high resistance. However, he is not ideal for running into melee since he has a Repel aura. I doubt it would be as good a pairing as Earth.

You made a few choices differently than I would have, but those choices weren't wrong . . .

Hasten is well past perma with just 2 slots with level 50 Recharge, so you could move that last slot somewhere. There are a lot of options for that extra slot -- put a -Knockback in your Armor so that you can trade out Acrobatics for Recall Friend, for example. Or slot a Numina's Heal in Health. Or add a Achilles Heal -Resistance proc to RI.

You could also put a Zephyr -Knockback in Super Jump or even CJ to get rid of Acrobatics.

As for AoE damage -- I like to have some. My Ill/Rad uses Fireball a lot. My Ill/Cold uses Frostbreath, not Ice Storm. Frostbreath recharges far more quickly and since Illusion does not have an Immob, foes can run out of Ice Storm. Plus the DoT interferes with Spectral Terror and the slower damage rate allows Illusory Damage more time to heal back.

My Ice/Ice/Cold Blaster uses Ice Storm frequently. On many of the high level TFs, there are enough bosses and Lts that Ice Storm provides a nice contribution of AoE Damage. As previously said, Shiver + Ice Storm puts foes at the slow cap -- which is especially great in the ITF.

I generally play with a great tank . . . he runs in to grab the aggro, and Ice Storm is perfect for the large groups that we deal with on large teams. (It is also good at revealing foes who are hiding . . . )

Hasten provides a 70% recharge while it is active. Accelerate Metabolism provides a 30% recharge while it is active. Both of them are additive and both act on themselves, so they provide about 100% Global Recharge. AM and Hasten both require about 180% total Global Recharge to be made "perma," not including the Recharge slotted in the two powers themselves.

Phantom Army has a 240 second Recharge and a 60 second duration. Fully slotting PA cuts its recharge nearly in half, so Phantom Army goes to nearly 120 second recharge. I'm not going to go through all the calculations (because I'm lazy), but it takes approximately 203% minimum Recharge to get Perma PA assuming you are slotting PA, Hasten and AM for enough Recharge. Hasten and AM handle 100% of that 203%. The rest has to come from sets or some outside source. But that 203% assumes that you have Hasten on Auto-fire and are able to re-cast AM the moment it expires . . . all the time, which is kind of tough. And it will be just exactly recharging the moment that the Phantom Army disappear. So you really want to get a little bit over 203%.

My Ill/Rad build actually had Recharge at 206.25% before the Spiritual Boost. With a couple of other touches and the Spiritual Boost, I'm up to about 216%.

Speed Boost will provide 50% of that 103% you need for Perma PA after Hasten and AM. So, yes, you could cut out some of the expensive sets . . . IF you can rely upon being Speed Boosted continually whenever you need Perma PA.

Truthfully, those LotG Recharge IOs are pretty easy to get now-a-days, if you are just patient. It takes 2 days of running Hero (or Villain) Tip Missions to earn an Allignment Merit, or you can spend 50 Reward Merits and 20 Mil to buy one (limit one per day). It takes 2 Allignment Merits to get a LotG Recharge. You can earn a LotG Recharge in 4 days worth of Tip Missions (which are amazingly easy with my Ill/Rad). If you are in a bit more of a hurry, it will cost you 2 days, 50 Merits and 20 Mil Infl to earn/buy the two A-Merits needed for a Luck of the Gambler Recharge.

Where you need to spend some Influence is the Confuse purple set and maybe the Baz Gaze sets (which can also be earned with A-Merits). The recent changes to the game have made it much easier to earn your way to what would have been a very expensive build in earlier days.

By the way, welcome to the Game. Take your time, read the stories, learn how to play your character. If you are interested, take a look at my Illusion/Radiation Guide, linked in my sig. You will learn a lot about the game in general as well as specific things about your character. I included strategies and recommended builds for leveling up. I haven't quite finished updating the last few sections, but the Guide is up to date through the first 5 or 6 sections.

From what I can see (I don't have access to Mids at the moment), this looks like a very good build, quite similar to my own. I have some Acc/Dam Hami-Os where you have some Thunderstrike Acc/Dam/Rech, but that difference is insignificant (and yours is cheaper unless you already had the Hami-Os sitting around, which I did).

About the only suggestion I can make is: Mutation is a fine choice, but you may want to consider Recall Friend. That is purely a personal choice, but there are lots of ways in the current game to rez people, but an Illusion Controller with Recall Friend is especially good at stealthing Missions.

Also, I would change the slotting in Stamina to 4 Performance Shifters including the proc. Or, you could put three common level 50s in Stamina, move the 4th slot to Health for a Miracle Proc and change the Numina Heal/End to the Miracle Heal. That will net you more Recovery.

I would move EF and LR earlier and move Leadership back, but that is also a personal choice. I would also move Hasten to just before PA. All that just to make exemping down easier.

Well, you asked about Controller pets in the Controller forum. Controller pets are only a small part of their overall powerset. Masterminds are a pet-wrangling AT, so their pets are going to have a heck of a lot more AoE, and you get at least 6 of them. I have experience with Thugs and 'Bots, but not the others.

I suggest you ask the question in the Mastermind Forum.

Well, let's do a quick run-down:

Earth: Rocky has no AoE powers.
Elec: 2 Gremlins that have a weak Jolting Chain attack, but otherwise no AoE.
Fire: Imps have no AoE powers, but there are three of them and their melee attacks do more damage than many other pets
Gravity: Singy's Repel is AoE (kinda) and does no damage, but no other AoE powers.
Ice: Jack's only AoE is Chilling Embrace, which also does no damage.
Illusion: Phanty has a Torrent Cone that can hit up to 10 foes. Plus, there are three Phantom Army guys, if you count that as AoE, but their attacks are all single target.
Mind: No pets
Plant: Twoey has Fling Thorns, a cone that can hit up to 10 foes.

Thus, Illusion probably wins depending on your definition of "AoE Damage." However, until the pet bug that causes Pets to run into melee is fixed, Phanty is a bit suicidal. He is supposed to stay at range to fire off his cone and blast, but he currently tries to run into melee to get his ghosty butt killed. The greater amount of "AoE" for Illusion offsets the fact that the other powers in Illusion Control have no AoE damage powers.

The main problem with "AoE" from pets is that they don't use it with any smarts -- Phanty and Twoey will throw their cones at single targets and make no effort to line up foes in a cone.

I think it was Magicj who was the strong advocate of the Illusion/FF build, and acted as though it was the greatest build ever. You might want to search for some of his/her posts or builds, if they haven't been wiped from the Forums. I think you may be able to find some videos on YouTube where Magicj showed off handling tough content with an Ill/FF.

Illusion/FF is one of the three Illusion builds I really have no interest in making. (The others are Ill/Emp -- just don't especially like Emp -- and Ill/Sonic.) I have a Mind/FF sitting in the 40's so I have played the FF side for a bit. It's OK, but far from my favorite secondary. I love PFF and the mez protection from Dispersion Bubble. Force Bubble can be fun in the right situation, and Force Bolt has its uses. The ally bubbles make you welcome on any team, but I often forget to keep everyone bubbled. Repulsion Bomb is a dissapointment and the other powers are fully skippable.

Where would I go with an Ill/FF? Probably go with the strengths . . . Recharge to get PA up frequently -- LotG sets in the defensive powers give not only the Recharge proc but also lots of Regen to make up for the lack of self-heal. I'd probably go with either the Ice APP or the Mace PPP -- defense based shields. Ice gives you that good single target blast and two AoE damage powers, with Frost Breath having some Slow, too. Hibernate is probably skippable since you have PFF. The Mace set would not have the fast Single Target Blast -- Poisonous Ray has a longer Recharge, but the extra Pet might make the Mace PPP appealing.

As for playstyle, I would probaby stay at range, trying to cover my squishier teammates with Dispersion bubble and sometimes Force Bubble. I'd use Deceive a lot, cast out PA to draw aggro, use Spooky a lot for AoE control and take down single targets with your Blind-SW-Ice Blast-SW attack chain.

I'm pretty fond of Illusion, and feels that it goes well with every secondary. So far, I have Ill/Rad, Ill/Storm, Ill/TA and Ill/Cold all at 50, and I'm working on a second Ill/Rad and an Ill/Kin. I might try an Ill/Therm someday, but I have very little interest in pairing Illusion with Sonic, FF or Empathy. I have a Mind/FF, and have no interest in doing another */FF character. Sonic has some positives with Illusion, in that the Resistance Debuffs will help Phantom Army do more damage . . . but the couple of times I have tried to play a Sonic character, I just find the set to be uninspiring. It is kind of too bad, as there are plenty of pun and joke names that can be created based on Sonic/sound/noise, and that's an important part of a character for me.