Local_Man

Not just one TF, there are four TFs . . . but poorly designed. I love the look and the story behind the Shadow Shard, but the TFs badly need a re-write. There is so much potential in that zone, it is really a pity.

Well, I also have to say that I love the general feeling when I fire off Oil Slick at a large group, then use my little macro to target the Oil Slick and shoot Fireball. WHOOSH! Fire everywhere, and the slick is flaming away, bar-b-queing the bad guys. It is just so satisfying!

The theme of my Ill/TA has no problem with pulling out a bunch of flame as part of his magic act. I wanted a name that reflected both the Bow & Arrow and an Illusionist -- and I love bad puns. So he became the official entertainer/magician for the French Foreign Legion (kind of like a USO performer) who uses trick arrows as part of the act, named "Beau Jester."

Take a look at my Illusion/Radiation Guide -- just click on the link in my signature below. An Ill/Rad is the most flexible build in the game. Great solo. Great on small teams. Great on big teams. The only thing an Ill/Rad is not good at is farming large numbers of foes, but no build is better than an Ill/Rad at handling really tough foes like AVs.

I also recommend an Ill/Rad as a "first" controller. It is easy to play moderately well, but has the complexity to be a challenge to play it really well.

My guide has recommendations on an effective leveling-up build, lots of strategies, and then includes discussions on the super end-game build. It also has a lot of information on the basics of being a controller.

First, let me deal with your last question. My Illusion/Radiation guide gives a lot of the details of Choking Cloud, so you may want to look there. CC needs to be paired with some other kind of AoE control to be effective. I love it on a Fire/Rad . . . Flashfire + Fire Cages, then run in with both Hot Feet + Choking Cloud on, and the foes die in a short time. It also works well with Ice/Rad . . . Ice Slick from range, then run in with Arctic Air + Choking Cloud. Foes will be Held and/or Confused, Slowed and Afraid, and sitting ducks for your teammates. See the pattern? CC is most effective when you can combine it with some kind of ranged control, and then combine it with another kind of PB AoE aura (or if you can stack CC with another Rad). It might be somewhat effective if you Wormhole foes into your aura, but once the stun wears off, some of them will break out of the hold and start shooting at you . . . that second aura is there to handle the guys who don't stay held. I wouldn't recommend Choking Cloud on a Grav/Rad, but a few people like the power on other characters. If you want, try it out and you can always respec out later . . . that's what I did with my first Ill/Rad.


Pairing a Gravity Controller with a Bots/Traps? I see some serious nastiness with Wormhole. Personally, I'd stick with Grav/Storm (Wormhole to a corner where a lot of tripmines have been set. Pin them in the corner with Hurricane, Debuff with Freezing Rain and Acid Morter, blast them with Lightning Storm and the Bots.) But Grav/Rad would certainly work (Wormhole to a spot with Tripmines, Crushing Field+RI+EF+Acid Morter while the Bots wipe them out).

Oops, you are right. It was changed a while ago before it was added to the primal set, it does knockdown instead of knockback. Phanty's version still does knockback, but not the Primal version. Still, I like Fireball better. It can hit more foes and doesn't require careful positioning like a cone does.

If you are not careful, Torrent will knock foes out of your Oil Slick, too. I like fire for a few reasons: Fire Blast has a faster animation and does more damage. Fireball is also fast, does great damage and it simply looks awesome to blast a group with Fireball and then have them continue to roast in the oil slick.

As for Power Boost, do you really need to EXTEND the hold from EM Pulse Arrow? It already lasts for a long time -- if you can't defeat the foes in that time, you have other problems and may need more damage.

However, one of the things I really like about Deceive is the duration of the control. Basically, if you Deceive a guy, he's not only helping you out, he is out of the fight for most or all of the fight as well. That is worth a little extra time waiving hands to me. PLUS, once you can get that Contagious Confusion proc, it becomes an occasional mini-Mass Confusion power, which is just awesome if you use Deceive to take a Boss out before the fight since the proc may take a bunch of the minions and Lts, too. Nothing is better than Deceive to take a problem foe (Sappers, I'm looking at you!) out of the fight before it begins.

Most other controller sets have something that will neuter foes to allow a controller to go into melee. Ice's Ice Slick. Earth's Earthquake or Stalagmites+Stone Cages. Fire's Flashfire+Fire Cages. Plant's Seeds+Roots. Even Mind's Mass Hypnosis. Once an AoE control is out, then other sets have the same opportunity for Fulcrum Shift + Fissure . . . and some sets have other AoE damage options.

Correct. PA cannot be buffed by anything not actually slotted in the power. That is one of the reasons that I have generally considered sets with debuffs to be a better pairing with Illusion, because the debuffs have the effect of buffing PA. The only benefit Kinetics gives to Phantom Army is higher recharge from Siphon Speed. And since Illusion only has single target damage attacks (other than Phanty's Torrent), it really can't take as much advantage of Fulcrum Shift as other controller builds.

The combo of Fulcrum Shift and Fissure can add up to a lot of damage. But that has nothing to do with Illusion. Fulcrum Shift will give a huge damage buff to Blind and Spectral Wounds, so clearly an Ill/Kin will be able to do some pretty good damage. There are trade-offs. If you go with the Earth APP set, you give up the single target Blast from the Fire or Ice APP sets. Those blasts can give you a really nice single-target continuous attack chain of Blind-SW-Blast-SW.

Earlier in this thread, Psiphon said that he felt that Ill/Rad and Ill/Kin put out about the same amount of damage before Fulcrum Shift. I don't buy that one. Siphon Power gives a 20% buff to damage (if it hits), and can be stacked (but not for very long in those lower levels). It only affects the character and, if Phanty is close enough, your Phantasm. Rad's EF grants a 22.5% debuff that is autohit and continuous, and also buffs the damage done by PA as well as Phanty and Phanty's Decoy. I don't see how an Ill/Kin could outdamage an Ill/Rad before Fulcrum Shift (assuming both were competant players).

I would include Illusion/Trick Arrow as a great pairing, too. I took one up to 50 because I wanted to try out the Trick Arrow set. TA fills a lot of the holes in the Illusion set to make a very effective character . . . besides, I really liked my character concept. I wanted a name to reflect both the Bow-n-Arrow and the Illusionist . . . He became an entertainer for the French Foreign Legion, amusing the troops with his magic tricks, trick arrow shooting and jokes. His name? Beau Jester. (I love bad puns.)

The problem is that Phantasm acts as a ranged energy blaster . . . he mostly floats out of melee range and shoots foes, often knocking them back. If you put the Field on Phanty, then most of the time he won't be in melee range.

The absolute best pet for Disruption Field is Earth's Animate Stone. He's tough, so he lasts a while (especially if you buff his already high resistance with Sonic buffs). He usually goes into melee after one ranged attack, so he will debuff foes a lot.

Grav/Cold may have the same mechanic with Sleet as Grav/Storm has with Freezing Rain, but Storm gets it at 16 instead of 35. Plus, I found that Hurricane makes a big difference on this character -- I use Hurricane more on my Grav/Storm than my other Stormies. Since he is so single-target-damage focused, he needs something to protect him while he pounds on that single target. Hurricane does the job even if Wormhole misses.

Absolutely, Disruption Field can be put onto Phantom Army. I have teamed with a Sonic who did just that. Of course, the PA will go away after 60 seconds.

I like it! Far better than I could have done . . .

No Network Man . . . I played out the "Local Man" joke far enough, so my other characters have other puns and joke names.

There are three LotG 7.5% Recharge IOs and three Basilisk Gaze with 7.5% Recharge . . . but those are separate under the "Rule of 5." The Recharge from the LotG is an enhancement rather than a set bonus. So you get the benefit of all of them. If you had the powers to add them, you could add two more LotG Recharge, and two more IO sets with a 7.5% Recharge.

On your build, you could save two slots by putting a fifth LotG Recharge in Superior Invis and then reducing the slots in Stamina. I'm not a fan of Leadership on most controllers -- personally, I'd rather have an APP blast and EM Pulse, but that is a viable choice. In Phantom Army, you already have a ton of global accuracy -- to get a little more damage out of PA, replace the Acc/Dam/Rech from Soulbound with a Dam/Rech, and then replace the Recharge common with a Chance for Build Up. You still have perma PA, but you get more damage, a damage buff from the Chance for Build Up (with three PA, it has a higher chance of going off and it will affect Phantasm, too). Plus you get a nice Regen bonus of 16%.

I tried several Gravity controllers with various secondaries, and I just didn't like Gravity. I tried Grav/Rad, Grav/Kin and Grav/FF . . .

Until I was able to get a Grav/Storm up past level 26. There is a special aspect of Gravity that really works with Storm. The AoE Immob, Crushing Field, does not have knockback protection, unlike the AoE Immob in other sets (other than Illusion and Mind). This means that Freezing Rain+Crushing Field can act as a knockdown field. But I was still taking a lot of damage . . . until Hurricane and its ToHit Debuff. And then Wormhole lets me put them right where I want, and I can stack the stun in Wormhole with Thunderclap. And then you add the damage from Tornado and Lightning Storm.

Now, my Grav/Storm is one of my favorite Controllers to solo with. Good single target damage with Grav. Dist. - Crush - Propel. For protection, I use Hurricane. AoE control with Wormhole+Crushing Field+Freezing Rain+Thunderclap. Singularity is my tank to draw aggro while I get my controls in place. It is not fast, and I certainly wouldn't use Grav/Storm to farm. On teams, I have to change my tactics quite a bit and reduce the chaos. But I can't imagine any other secondary being better with Gravity than Storm.

I didn't have time this morning to go into detail, but there are a lot of things I would change. Unfortunately, I don't have access to Mids at the moment. I agree and disagree with some of the advice above.

I agree Radiation Infection is a key power that should be taken early -- no later than level 12. And I would say that Deceive is even more important in those low levels -- I take it at 4 on all my Illusion controllers.

Superior Invis can be very useful for a low level character . . . but don't try to fight with it on or you will drain your endurance bar. SI is great for stealthing missions, travel through difficult areas, scouting out ahead and Deceiving foes before the fight begins.

I agree with the advice for Blind . . . as you can see in my guide.

Enervating Field needs two EndRdx -- no more, no less. Hasten should have 2-3 Recharge and no more (with enough global Recharge, you may be able to get away with 2 and still have perma-PA. Otherwise, use 3).

Ling Rad can get away with a single Accuracy in the default slot if you have enough global Recharge. Perma-PA builds have enough.

At level 50, my prefered slotting for PA is 4 Expedient Reinforcement (all but Dam/End and the Resist proc), then Dam/Rech and Chance for Build Up from Soulbound. That caps Damage AND Recharge, with a chance for added damage. For Phantasm, the same four Expediant Reinforcement with some additional Acc/Dam -- a Nucleus Hami-O works great.

But you have to watch out for the Rule of 5 . . . no more than five set bonuses of the same kind. There are a lot of sets with 6.25% Recharge, which is why I used the Unspeakable Terror set for Spectral Terror in my Ill/Rad build.