Psiphon

/Fire has got a good mix of AoE and ST damage - with SS probably does the most damage overall.

Not on your list but I strongly recommend Plant/Storm - great solo or on a team, with a good mix of damage and control.

IMO Foot Stomp with stacked Rage is better especially with the larger radius.

I'm not a number grinder but from my understanding Fire Melee is top of the heap for damage in both ST and AoE.

What you said - Earth/TA or Earth/Storm.
Personally I'd go with Earth/Storm, simply for concept - I can control the Earth and I also have a bow doesn't quite work for me.

Although you're correct in saying that Shields, like Ice hasn't got any Psi defense, you're incorrect in saying that it has the same Psionic hole.
Shields has positional defense and not typed (Ice has typed defense, such as smashing or fire) and because most Psi is positioned as ranged it actually does very well against Psi. Obviously there are exceptons and as such a positonal defense alt is unable to cap defense against Psi attacks for the simple reason that some attacks have no positonal component.
Overall Ice will struggle against Psi, Shields won't so...........no not a Psi hole on Shields.

Thanks for the reply - EU servers show as up.

http://eu.cityofheroes.com/en/news/server_status/

Ooops my bad, both powers are available at 2 but obviously it's not possible to have that many powers at L2.
Agreed on Decieve, it should be taken early.

Lift reduces the amount of incoming damage in the same way as any KD power does, also it does decent damage.
Crush reduces the foe to ranged attacks which are often weaker and map dependant - walls etc can be used to eliminate incoming damage.


Both Mind and Grav have two powers that setup containment allowing double damage on multiple mobs - Illusion can't do this.
Grav also has Crush (Mag4 immob) which sets up containment on Bosses with one application - Illusion needs two applications of Blind before double damage begins.

Decieve is indeed a great power providing mitigation and supplemental damage. Not that relevant to a discussion on ST attack chains though.

This has been the point of my argument all along:
Illusion is great provided the foe is taken down by Blind - SW.
If it doesn't then Mind and Grav will pull ahead in taking down the same foe because it has an extra attack to complete it's ST chain.

Agreed and depending on the group might be required - however not really relevant to a discussion on ST attack chains.

Having played with and without AS experience tells me that AS makes a massive difference to both damage and mitigation.

This brings us back to "can Illusion take the foe down with a single application of Blind and SW?". Any foe that can't will be taken down quicker by Grav or Mind because it has a complete attack chain,

No argument from me.
As I said "Illusion does NOT have a great attack chain without the APP blast, even with a ton of global Recharge. To get that chain, you need Blind-SW-APP Blast-SW".

No, wait!

Hold on, what I said was - "Illusion only has a decent ST attack if you insert Air Superiority into it; Blind and Spectral Wounds aren't too good on their own."

This was actually said by you in this thead:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=254737

Maybe you should take up the issue with yourself.

As I said my comments are based around low level/mid level play when the player will be using TO/DO and to a lesser degree SO's. By the time the player has SO's PA will player a bigger part in the overall damage and control.

By level two both Mind and Gravity have access to 3 attacks while Illusion has only 2.
Without going into specifics all have similar recharge times and do similar damage - as you said the damage types differ so in reality Illusion will benefit in that area.

Having played all 3 many times - in practice:

Gravity allows the player to handle many mobs at the same time.
By using Lift, Crush and Gravity Distortion Grav has good small mob mitigation and damage.
Grav also has the benefit if an immob that sets up containment in one hit which Illusion lacks.

Mind can do a similar job alternating between Mez, Lev and Dom.
Provided that you are carefull the order of the attacks you can maintain containment on multiple mobs.

Playing in Atlas both allowed me to take on groups of 2/3 red mobs at level 2/3 - pop a yellow insp for the accuracy.

Illusion can't do this.
Use Blind and SW one mob and then you have to wait a few seconds for the attacks to recycle. With SW having no mitigation survival is also an issue.

You also make the assumption that the player is attacking a single target - just because the attacks are ST it doesn't mean it's the same target. With only one method to setup containment again Illusion falls behind.

I love Illusion as a set but based on my experience it really needs that extra attack in the low/mid levels to be comparable with Grav or Mind in ST damage.

A person starting a new Illusion controller who intends to solo would be doing himself a massive favour by taking AS from the flight pool - the difference it makes in the low mid levels is massive.

Provided that you can take the target out with a quick - Blind, SW - one, two I would agree with you. If the target has a slither of health left then the other two will pull ahead.
Also Grav and Mind have more mitigation in their attacks.

At the low levels all 3 are good boss killers, but Illusion does need AS as that extra attack. Especially as GI or SI allows you to get in the first hit and keep the boss bouncing till he's held.

I can understand why you would want to exclude the secondary from the discussion as it adds an additional level of complexity to an argument that's already complicated.

However if one Primary has an espect that can be enhanced by the usage of a particular secondary then personally I feel that it should be considered.

If some one asked what the most damaging AoE Controller Primary is it would probably be between Fire and Plant. However due to the direct nature of it's damage Fire makes better use of Kinetics to move ahead of a Plant/Kin.

Should the synergy of Fire and Kin be ignored?

Fair enough, I was simply highlighting the fact that in themselves Grav and Mind have complete attack chains without needing to dip into pool powers.
Illusion doesn't, it needs that extra attack.

I was talking about pre Epic.
The Illusion attack chain needs the addition of another attack to be complete, obvioulsy you can fill that with multiple vets or later on an Epic.

Some one without access to Vet attacks and pre Epic would do well to get Air Superiority as this greatly increases the ST damage of Illusion in the low/mid levels.

That's true but -End takes a while to work, stuns are instant and can be stacked with stuns from the Secondary, if going against mobs with debuffs this can be very important.
As you said though, you're the expert - if you say that -End in ELM gives as much control as stuns in OG that can also be stacked with a secondary then I'll bow to your greater knowledge.

Currently I'm running a DA/EM (only about L28) and stacking stuns negates a mass of damage.

Illusion only has a decent ST attack if you insert Air Superiority into it; Blind and Spectral Wounds aren't too good on their own.

I would put Dark above Electric.
They are quite similar in numbers but Dark has an additional layer of mitigation that Electric doesn't posess - control.

Oppressive Gloom allows Dark to Stun all surrounding minions thus reducing not only all damage from them but also any debuffs including -defense. This allows Dark to survive against mobs that Electric is not able to.
You can go even further and pair this with a Secdondary with a Stun component such as EM or WM for stacking stuns on Lts and Bosses thus negating all damage and debuffs from nearby mobs (excluding AV's and the like).

So Dark can eliminate alot of the incoming damage before even taking into account Defense/Resistance or heals.

Dark for me.

Good points and all I can say is OOPS!

This is a build that I adapted from another that got a little corrupted. The proper build is on my other PC - I'll try to post it later.

The build is aimed at capped defense and recharge though.
Recharge allows me to stack Rage for the damage, have permanent capped DDR and Footstomp up as often as possible.
Footstomp is not only great damage it provides mitigation.

And Primary (Shield Charge) if applicable - just read the title again, so ignore this.

Syntax42 has pretty much nailed it - cap with a set of Gaussians and then go for recharge.

Personally I slot 3 membranes in AD.