Psiphon

Originally Posted by Sweetmeat

My Ill/Kin/Stone is 48, my Ill/Storm is 50. Honestly I find the Ill/Storm much more survivable in pretty much every situation one could throw at her, so I'm going to have to agree with Local - both for the whole ride to 50, and functioning in multiple environments, my Ill/Storm outperforms my Ill/Kin. It's also not nearly as busy ( not saying it's not busy, but Ill/Kin is like being on speed, crack, meth, and redbull all a the same time - it's exhausting ).

Illusion is a great set, anything would pair well with it. Illusion/Storm though is really the cat's meow of Illusion controllers.

Originally Posted by Local_Man

Well, I admit that I was looking at the entire journey of leveling up a controller, rather than the limited view of how a fully built-out controller would be at level 50 doing solo missions. I'm not sure I would agree that "is a very blinkered view." I like to look at the entire journey and see how a controller plays while leveling up, solo and on large and small teams. If I don't like my controller at level 25, I'm never going to get to 50.

What you have described would apply to most */Kinetics controllers -- Fulcrum Shift + APP AoE damage. It is a controller entirely focused on damage. What you suggest takes the single best power in the illusion set, Phantom Army, and makes it mostly irrelevant, but only applies in the end game.

Ill/Kin is a late developing build, and has no AoE damage until the APP powers, so you only have a single target attack to take advantage of Siphon Power until you get Phantasm. But in order to take advantage of Transfusion, Transference and Fulcrum Shift, you need to be in melee . . . but Phantasm acts as a body guard with his knockback and tries to knock foes near you away. With Phantasm out, your target for your siphon powers will often get knocked out of range. The only solutions are to not use Phantasm or to go so fast that Phanty can't catch up -- in which case he has no chance of getting the buff from Fulcrum Shift.

Of course, neither of those damage buffs or other buffs help Phantom Army. The core of an Illusion controller is is distraction -- Illusion has weak controlls because it can distract so well -- and PA do it best. Kinetics is an "in your face" offensive set with team buffs and almost no defense. Sure, an Illusion/Kinetics controller can be very effective, because both sets are great sets. But if you want to experience Illusion in particular, like the OP seems to want to do, then Kinetics is not the best set to enhance Illusion.

Originally Posted by MrAlex311

Sounds like I just need more practice and patience. If someone else was doing it then it's not impossible, I may just need to wait until I get her to L50 and have access to all her powers. Now I have something to look forward to. Thanks for the input.

Originally Posted by MrAlex311

The reason for this post is to pick the brains of the more knowledgeable members out there to find out if a fire/therm is able to solo a EB/AV/GM? I've tried taking on Bosses with my 39 troller and gotten waxed within seconds, so must I take a Kin in order to solo Bosses or do I just need more time working with my troller?

Originally Posted by Carnifax

Not really, as you've no control over which 2 out of 3 (actually it's 1.5 out of 3 really) it will stun. It stuns 50% of the time basically. It's great as a follow-up move following a more reliable control (especially an initial AOE stun, my Fire/Rad loves it as a follow-up Smash-and-Mez move) but on its own, if there was a Sapper or something in a spawn I wouldn't like to be relying soley on it to mez him.

It's my favourite Epic Power, especially on a toon with other stun mezzes for it to follow on from. But soley as a control power it isn't really that reliable. Following on from Thunderstrike would be the way to use it on an Illusion/Storm, if you like to use Thunderstrike.

Personally on my Illusion/Storm I went with Ice Mastery for Hibernate, Ice Storm and Frost Breath. Those 3 suit her ranged, attacking from the edges while chaos reigns in the middle of the fight approach. They suited my playstyle for her more than the more melee based approach the Earth Epic gives you.

Originally Posted by Local_Man

Illusion -- my favorite primary in the game. So far, I have Ill/Rad, Ill/Storm and Ill/TA at 50, with a second Ill/Rad, Ill/Kin and Ill/Therm on the way. No matter which secondary you choose, I suggest you take a look at my Ill/Rad guide, linked in my sig. It has a ton of information about the game in general, controllers in general and useful info for anyone using either the Illusion primary or Radiation Secondary. Mostly, I compiled a lot of information that other great folks around here have put together.

No question that Radiation has the best synergy with Illusion. There are several reasons, but the easiest is to look at Illusion's best power, Phantom Army. PA are a set of three invulnerable pets that last for one minute and taunt the foes, drawing the damage to themselves. PA can't be buffed, so the only way to make them better is by using debuffs on the foes. Defense Debuffs are like an accuracy buff--the PA will hit more often. Resistance Debuffs are like a damage buff--the PA will do more damage when they hit. Finally, you most of all want Recharge, to get PA out there as much as possible. Radiation is the ONLY secondary that provides a Recharge buff to you and Defense and Resistance Debuffs to make PA better.

There are several other reasons that Rad works so well with Illusion -- Except for Flash, Illusion is a ranged set. And except for EM Pulse (a similar power to Flash) and Choking Cloud (which I suggest you skip), Rad is a ranged set. Rad allows you to set many of your key powers and then focus on other things. And Rad has a self-heal, a nice team buff and a rez, plus some control powers to make Illusion better.

I would put Ill/Storm just a little behind Ill/Rad -- probably slightly better for solo and small teams, but not as good for large teams or general purpose. It has great debuffs but no Recharge buff. Storm adds some nice damage in upper levels, and the chaos from Storm's knockback can increase your safety solo but frustrate teams unless you know how to play Storm well.

Illusion/Trick Arrow is a nice combo for solo or team play. I found the playstyle to be quite different, pretty much always from range. It even more relied upon the distraction of Phantom Army to allow shooting the Debuff and control arrows from range. No Recharge and No self-heal. Make sure you choose either the Magic or Tech origin to be able to light the Oil Slick Arrow.

Ill/Therm is a nice team support build, but lacks debuffs until the upper levels and has no Recharge buff. There isn't much in the Therm secondary to make Phantom Army better, but you get a self-heal.
Ill/Kin gives you a Recharge buff but no Defense or Resistance Debuffs, and the great team buff of Fulcrum Shift doesn't work on Phantom Army. Both Illusion and Kinetics are great powersets, but they have some synergy problems together.

Ill/Emp makes a great battlefield healer, but Empathy provides no Recharge buff or debuffs. Ill/Sonic has Resistance debuffs, but no Recharge buff or Defense Debuffs -- but you can put one of the Resistance debuffs anchored on Phantom Army. Ill/FF is a nice team character, but Force Fields offers nothing to make PA better and there is really no synergy between the powersets -- you can be an Illusionist and a Force Fielder, but the two don't really interact.

There is my summary of the secondaries for Illusion -- and others have different opinions. Illusion is a great set and really works well with any secondary -- but some have more synergy than others.

Originally Posted by MentalMaden

I'm not sure I'd describe fissures disorient as "reliable"...I'd say its more like "possible".

Originally Posted by Thorm

Ill's main power is Phantom Army. Main issue being it has a hefty recharge preventing you from using it all the time.

So sets that provide haste to the user are quite popular (rad & kin).
As long as PA is up for every group, you basically don't need more control...

Thing is kin is mostly a buffing set and PA isn't buffable. Also phantasm uses energy attacks and will sometimes knock targets away which can become quite a pain with powers like transfusion & transference, even Fulcrum Shift if torrent just hits a bunch with KB...
Pretty rare, but highly annoying.
Also as Ill doesn't have a reliable way to setup containment for AOE ownage with FS, people will often pick other sets for kins.
Still the haste kin provides makes it a nice secondary for Ill just because of PA.

Rad having awesome debuffs and PA being invulnerable tanks means some Ill/Rads can solo AVs, and GMs, which made the combination highly popular, even if only a tiny number can achieve that (requires good IOs).

Other than haste sets, secondaries providing debuffs instead of buffs are doing great with PA (TA, Storm).
Ill/Storm is famous for being the most chaos oriented combo in game, also the master of "summons" as you have a lot of pets & pseudo pets to summon.

Secondaries providing some control are also popular as Ill doesn't have much "hard control", so that's a + for rad, storm & ta.

Ill / FF looks well together (force bubbles & illusion summoned entities). Kind of a concept thing I guess.

But mainly what goes well with Ill is haste, debuffs & extra controls, synergy wise (you can always use a buffing set for "group synergy", there will just be a lesser primary/secondary synergy).
Which means rad is excellent, and ta & storm are nice too.
Kin works too, as the "group synergy" from just kin is so insane (you'll always have teams looking for you, whatever your primary, as a /kin troller), and the self haste is GREAT for PA.

My Ill is Storm, and I find him quite strong. I have quite a bit of storm experience though, might not be your thing if you don't know storm well.

Originally Posted by Thorm

I certainly think it's a great team combo!
Sure if you use every power as soon as their recharge is up it's not gonna work great. Both of these sets, and especially storm have very strong powers that require a situational use.

But with PA and FR, you can just own every group you face, these two powers are insane!
Then you have some other extremely nice team powers like snow stom, deceive, hurricane (I mostly use it as a positioning tool but it sure is a nice debuff too), even gale to quickly toss a whole group into a corner, steamy mist, terror, group invis, etc.

Really really powerful powers, but requires you to pay a lot fo attention to positioning, and kb.

I just love tossing autohit snow storm & tornado on MOG'd PP, and then dropping FR and finishing them off.

Tornado is great for KB resistant foes like AVs, I get much less from it than on my fire/storm, but I still picked and slotted the power, it's just that good for me. And I very rarely use it on the ill...

Just don't be the pain in the *** stormy that runs into every group with hurricane on & tornado summoned... Instead, always work on making a tight pack out of every group, under your FR, and teams will love you.

Originally Posted by RabidBrian

Exactly the problem I had building this. Kin handles all the usual desires.

As for going for ranged defense, its too hard to softcap and dare I say impossible with my power choices. So, I opted for the more available s/l defense. Just need to squeeze out more from set bonus's...somewhere.

Originally Posted by Sailboat

I don't want to sound like a build snob -- and I think all Tanker sets can be made quite effective -- but I am a little surprised to see anyone rank Willpower as equal to Fire for survivability. I mean, Willpower is a pretty strong set, it has a good reputation, and since it offers no real offensive bonuses, it should be stronger for survivabilty than Fire and Shield, which offer big offensive advantages.

I'm not even a big proponent of Willpower, and I'm not particularly attracted to it. I'll admit my only Willpower character of significant level is a Scrapper, not as strong as a Tanker. But the numbers indicate it should be pretty strong, and the reports I read consistently agree with that assessment.

Have you tried a Willpower Tanker to approximately the same level as Fire?

Originally Posted by LostNinja

What is the best simple tank?

I generally play Scrappers (or defenders, controllers & blasters) in melee, but have wanted a good tank for a while. Especially recently when the quality of tanks seems to have dropped through the floor. "No really a tank is supposed to hold agro and not work like an underpowered scrapper."

I'm looking for a tank that doesn't need expensive sets to be good, has good survivability in most situations, I won't be tanking Hami ever, would be a good tank for the high level TFs (especially STF, ITF & 5TF).

Less bothered about secondary as I'll either pick something that synergises well or SS which I quite like.

I already have a DA/DM tank (at ~level 25) but now I read that they aren't actually very good as tanks...

Originally Posted by xoxman

So, I was wondering if siphon speed is worth taking? It could replace hasten to lower recharge on flash and other powers, and combined with inertial reduction, it could be a travel power. Im thinking putting just one enhancement slot in siphon speed, and slot it with recharge and accuracy, and maybe one in inertial reduction. Do you think I should be using enhancement slots or even power slots at all on these two powers?

Edit: And if this is a little unclear on some parts, I apolagize and will edit later, team is waiting on me.

Originally Posted by _Uun_

Carrion Creepers does many things, but none of them is really a mezz:
- Bramble (AoE slow)
- Entangle (AoE immobilize w/ DoT)
- Vine Smash (melee damage & knockdown)
- Vine Thorns (ranged damage)

It is targetable and is useful for taking aggro and absorbing alpha strikes. It spawns vines for each foe and can put out a reasonable amount of damage. It has a 2 minute duration and will follow you.

Originally Posted by NordBlast

I respeced out of fly into SS after i13 was released that made raptor pack available for purchase. I also prefer psionic mastery to fire mastery due to IW (even clicky one). And I keep both GI ans SI: GI is a good placeholder for LotG 7.5, karma KB prot and Kismet +6%

Originally Posted by Yoshitomo

Yeah, there is always that tactic....but I'm selfish lol. Plus I already have other means of keeping the team alive. My theory on the whole tank issue is: If GI reduces a tanks ability to taunt by reducing his/her threat level, it also reduces the threat level of the rest of the team meaning the tank will still have a higher threat level than the rest of the team by means of his/her gauntlet and taunt powers. But many people don't think like this.

Originally Posted by Yoshitomo

I can definitely see where you're coming from about GI but I can't stand re-casting, just like I hate scrapper's mez protection clicks, there's no reason they cant be toggles =/ plus, in my experience, a lot of teams don't like GI because it "stops tanks from doing their job" I don't know how true this is but for these reasons I much prefer SI.

Originally Posted by Local_Man

To some degree, I think it depends on your secondary. With a Rad Secondary, an AoE Immobilze + Radiation Infection becomes almost a continual hold. The AoE immob keeps them from moving, and RI slotted with ToHit Debuffs keeps them from hitting you (much -- and that can be healed with Radiant Aura). Since CF recharges before it runs out, and RI can be on continually as an Anchor-based toggle, it acts like a low-level continual hold.

Also, I see almost no purpose in taking Swift or Hurdle at level 6 . . . there are so many other powers that will give you far more benefit. I generally wait as late as possible to take these, as the benefit to my build is so small.