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.

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.

Would really need to know what type of hero you'd like to play...
They're is no best AT.
If you have no game style preference, I'd say the scrapper part was quite a good idea, it's great damage, quite sturdy, and you'll get that heroic feeling for sure!

Just don't start with an Illusion / Storm if you're totally new to COH.

Whatever you choose, check their forum and ask a couple questions there first, in order to avoid the hardest combination, and pick something that fit your style & concept.

Coming late in that dicussion but I'd say there are different things to consider for a new vigilance.

I'd see at least three important parts to design against :

• Team size : solo, multiple players in team, raid (multiple teams)
• Current "success" of the "team" : owning, normal, struggling
• Def primary.

Then one important check would be considering defender stacking (or stacking with trollers / corrs).
I've played long ago in a team of 8 defenders, all with a different primary, and we STEAMROLLED everything, like no other team I've witnessed (might be a lack of exp on my side though). Nothing could touch us and we blazed through everything like it was butter.

I think a new vigilance should work for all team sizes, and their success, and all defender primaries, while not overpowering def stacking situations.
Might have a different impact depending on team size & team success, and also on the primary, but ideally it should have an effect.

The current vigilance seems does not work at all solo, and does nothing for a team "owning" content, doesn't make it faster in any way. Also has a very different impact depending on the primary (defender are NOT all empats).
Even then, in the situation it seems designed for the most (struggling team) it is quite underperforming... Some primary get barely any help from it, sure they benefit on their secondary some, which is nice, but doesn't really fit the "vigilant defender" much, imo.

Compared to that, the troller containment works for all team sizes, all trollers primaries and wether the team owns or not. Which is good, imo.
Also slightly better with stacking but not overpowering.

Scrapper inherent, same deal. Tanker, also.

Some are not designed as well (as in they don't help every situation, but it often means they have improved value in some).

I don't have a good suggestion for a new vigilance myself, but I'd really love one working for all defenders, and that would be at least "fun" if it can't be powerful. The current one is quite dull, on addition to be underperforming, imo.

I tend to see more FF than sonics, TA or colds out there.
Storm is not used a bunch either, but I see some.
Emp is the one I see the most on defs followed by rad I'd say.
Kin is huge on trollers, but I don't see that many defs with it.
Dark is not much used either.

But I'd say sonic / cold / ta, not sure which, for the least used.
Then storm / dark / kin. Then rad. Then emp is easily the most used on defs for me.

You can also access PI through a vanguard base, and I think through Ourobouros iirc.

You *REALLY* want Tornado on a Fire/Storm imo, that's why I made mine, to be able to control and use Tornado all the time.
Stacking Tornado / Lightning Storm with hotfeet and imps is just awesome, thanks to fire cages (and of course FR). You really don't wanna miss that.