Smoke & Mirrors: Guide to Illusion/Storm Summoning
By
4elements,
Posted on: 2007-02-27 14:36 in Player Guides
1. Introduction
To say that I absolutely love the combination of Illusions/Storm Summoning carries more weight when you realize that over the years of playing City of Heroes/Villains I've created and deleted more alts than I can remember and I think I've teamed and played personally with possibly every possible build in the game at the time of writing this. So for that reason alone you should realize that Illus/Storm is something very very special. That's why I felt the need to create this guide as I personally think that there isn't a nice thorough (or recent) guide around to fully explain the wonders of this set plus it's a set which feels powerful, is very flexible in its potential tactics and above all else it is one of the most visually impressive of all the power combinations the game has to offer. All information contained within is accurate as of Issue 8 for City of Heroes.
2. What this guide will tell you
Don't you just hate those guides which you pick up looking for something specific and skim through the whole thing to find its not there? Yeah, me too. So here's a quick rundown of what this guide is intended to cover (and what it won't).
- Powers. General information including animations, visual effects, damage type, status effects, general recharge, endurance costs and damage infomation, slotting options, important notes and some personal comments from me, (NOT COVERED: all specific stats on powers - as these are often subject to changes, example builds and epic power pools) Although some hard numbers are available from data mining I have done, these are included for reference material at the end of the guide.
- PvE Tactics. What to use in what situations, what not to use together and specific tips on certain enemies. Advice on soloing and teaming in PvE (NOT COVERED: how to powerlevel with this set or how to level the fastest)
- PvP Tactics. What to expect from PvP, what to be aware of, who you'll have no problems fighting with and who you'll struggle with. Various approaches to PvP using Illus/Storm.. Some general advice about PvP. (NOT COVERED: zone by zone guide or how to 'pwn' everyone)
- Common myths about Illus/storm controllers debunked, proven and explained.
3. 'Illusions' powers
3a. Summary of Illusions
Some things to remember about Illusions is that if you're expecting to be keeping tight control over the enemy then you're going to be disappointed. Illusions offers a lot of what they call 'soft control'. The best way to describe soft control is to say that powers are intended to mitigate damage away from you and your team without stopping the NPCs dead in their tracks completely. That is not to say that it doesn't have any hard controls, it does have a 1 PBAoE hold and 1 single target hold but other than that its got nothing else. That said it is one of the most damage dealing capable control sets due to its heavy use of psionic and energy damage types.
3b. Specific powers
SPECTRAL WOUNDS
Available at level: 1
Type: Ranged single target click
Damage type(s): PSI/SPECTRAL (see 3c. Understanding 'Spectral' damage)
Damage potential: Moderate/High
Recharge: Low
Endurance cost: Moderate
Status effect(s): NONE
What does it look like: Looks like you throw a handful of light particles, the target then developers a blue/purple aura made of ghostly screaming skulls with flickering red lines (like deep cuts)
Animation used: It's the quick backhand sweeping movement also used by spines scrappers using Throw Spines (left handed)
Slotting options:-
(acc/dmg/dmg/dmg) - saves slots with decent damage
(acc/acc/dmg/dmg/dmg/rch) - maximum damage, also suitable for PvP
(acc/acc/dmg/dmg/dmg/end) - PvP/PvE stamina-less option
Additional Notes:-
Spectral wounds is capped so you won't get full containment damage as with other controller powers, this is because with full containment enhanced spectral wounds this power would be devastating so the devs placed a limiter on it. This power also has a +10% base accuracy bonus.
Tal-N's notes:-
A staple power for Illusionists but oddly enough it's not critically important as the character matures mainly because a lot of damage is produced by the phantasm, phantom army, tornado and Lightning Storm. However it's an excellent power for PvP and in the pre-32 game. So skip it at your peril.
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BLIND
Available at level: 1
Type: Ranged/Special single target click (small AoE)
Damage type(s): PSIONIC
Damage potential: Moderate
Recharge: Moderate
Endurance cost: Moderate
Status effect(s): HOLD (SLEEP)
What does it look like: A burst of light flashed from the eyes, a flickering white light appears over the enemies face. They clutch their head as if blinded and in pain.
Animation used: Character leans forwards and fires the flash from their eyes
Slotting options:-
(acc/hld/hld/rchg) - ideal bear minimum slotting for control purposes
(acc/dmg/dmg/dmg) - ideal bear minimum for damage
(acc/acc/hld/hld) - slot saving, high accuracy, decent hold
(acc/dmg/dmg/dmg/rchg/rchg) - maximum damage effectiveness
(acc/hld/hld/hld/rchg/rchg) - maximum hold effectiveness
(acc/dmg/dmg/dmg/acc/end) - stamina-less, PvE/PvP damage dealing
Additional Notes:-
Blind has the unique aspect of being a ranged attack which doesn't actually have a ranged ToHit check. Essentially if you have ranged specific defense it bypasses it completely, this is also a trait of Mind Control's hold called Dominate. The power also has a very small AoE of around 1' so if you have two targets almost on top of one another the nearby targets will be effected by a sleep style effect from the flash hold placed on the main target. Has an inherent +10% base accuracy bonus.
Tal-N's notes:-
Basically, if you want to be a controller you ideally want at least one status effect. This is it. It's also about the only solid one you have besides Flash. This is pretty much an essential since it's needed to set up containment damage bonuses plus it is Psi damage as well. A good Blind+Spectral Wounds combo is great for killing minions. The 'AoE' sleep is a complete joke however, it is very rare to get enemies to stand close enough to make it of any use, even using hurricane to herd them into a corner tends to result in only 2 enemies being caught at once. The sleep component is not reliable at all.
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DECIEVE
Available at level: 2
Type: Ranged single target click
Damage type(s): NONE/PSIONIC
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Moderate
Endurance cost: Moderate
Status effect(s): CONFUSE
What does it look like: Light particles appear around your hands, there is a flash over the eyes of the target and purple dots/haze appears around their head
Animation used: Reaching out with both hands and gentley waving the fingers as if trying to hypnotize someone
Slotting options:-
(acc/conf/conf) - minimum advisable slotting
(acc/conf/conf/conf//rchg/rchg) - maximum effectiveness for single targets
(acc/conf/conf/rchg/rchg/rchg) - maximum effectiveness for groups
(acc/conf/conf/end/rchg) - slot saving with regular usage and cost effective
Additional Notes:-
Damage done by confused NPCs to other NPCs will cut into the exp you get from defeating the enemy which was harmed. Details on this can be found in section 7f. This power has a +20% base accuracy bonus.
Tal-N's notes:-
Is it essential, or is it a luxury? It's a much debated power but not one person will say its useless because that's a blatant lie. The fact is that there are times when the confusion status effect can really turn the tide of a fight in your favor compared to times when it works against you. It's a power which needs a lot of knowledge and skill to use effectively, timing can be critical as can knowing what you should confuse in a horde of enemies that want to tear your face off. Very much worth getting if you have the space for it in your build but there are alternative ways to overcome the problems which this power are designed to help with. (Please see 5e/ii of the PvE Tactics section for more advice on how to use Decieve.)
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FLASH
Available at level: 6
Type: PBAOE click
Damage type(s): NONE/PSIONIC
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Extremely Long
Endurance cost: High
Status effect(s): HOLD
What does it look like: A large flash around the player which looks like the old style phosphorus camera burst.
Animation used: Character crouches slightly while bringing their arms close to them and then reaches out as it spelling a Y with their arms and body to accompany the flash.
Slotting options:-
(acc/acc/rchg/rchg) - bear minimum slotting for best effect
(acc/acc/rchg/hld/hld/hld) - long duration, infrequent use
(acc/acc/rchg/rchg/rchg/hld) - regular usage, moderate duration
(acc/acc/rchg/rchg/hld/hld) - best of both
(acc/rchg/rchg/hld/hld/hld) - less accurate but good recharge time and long hold
Additional Notes:-
Has the usual -20% base accuracy penalty.
Tal-N's notes:-
This is one of those powers which needs a lot of slots to really be of value. When you first pick it up the recharge is so long that you'll barely be able to use it in most fights and the duration is painfully low. With 3 recharges and 2 holds it becomes a lot more useful but frankly what you'll find is that Phantom Army is better at aggro mitigation compared to Flash. These days Flash is only really any good for setting up containment since its effectiveness in crowd control and as a panic button is limited, especially as you need to stand in the middle of the mob to get the most from it. If you're that close to a crowd of enemies who are out of control without phantom army up then you won't last long anyway.
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SUPERIOR INVISIBILITY
Available at level: 8
Type: Self affecting toggle
Damage type(s): None
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Moderate
Endurance cost: High
Status effect(s): SELF STEALTH and +DEFENSE TO ALL (EXCEPT TOXIC)
What does it look like: You turn invisible with a blue tint outline
Animation used: A 'powering up' type animation with the head tilted up and the arms down by the side while semi-bent. Same as Build-up's animation.
Slotting options:-
(end) - minimum slotting
(end/end) - optimal
Additional Notes:-
Most powerful toggle invisibility power in the game for heroes. Hides you from just about anything. Allows you to attack while the toggle is active although it will suppress if you do. SI does stack with any other stealth powers however there are caps placed upon the stealth value of players, in the case of SI it's such a high stealth bonus that it'll send the player straight to the cap so additional stealth powers are of little value except in one rare exception (see section 7c. later in this guide) Please note that SUMMONS will not cause supression so you can summon away without being seen at all, however the AI will aggro to you as the result of some pets.
Tal-N's notes:-
There is often much discussion about what is better to take SI or GI (listed below) as both of them do the same job AND both have almost the same stealth capabilities. The benefit of SI and why I feel its the better to take of the two is that its a toggle rather than a click power. So you have complete control over how visible you are. Additionally if you get killed or suffer from -recharge debuffs then you cannot loop GI endlessly to be always invisibile should you need to. On top of that you need to slot GI more heavily than SI for it to be permanent, SI only needs 2 slots in total and they're to lower the rather heavy endurance cost for running it. In any event, its a purely optional power in the grand scheme of things. It makes life easier but it's far from an essential.
There is some debate over if using certain non-aggro powers will cause SI to supress so far as to make you visible when standing near the enemy. It's seems to be that the SI value increases as you gain levels meaning that in the teens when you stand in a group of enemies and use Decieve it'll supress enough for the enemies to aggro however at the higher levels (post-30) you'll remain invisible when using Decieve at close range.
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GROUP INVISIBILITY
Available at level: 12
Type: PBAOE click
Damage type(s): None
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Very Extremely Long
Endurance cost: Moderate
Status effect(s): SELF AND ALLY STEALTH and +DEFENSE TO ALL (EXCEPT TOXIC)
What does it look like: Player and allies are invisible with a slight blue aura
Animation used: Character crouches slightly and reaches out left and right with their arms, light particles tricle like water from their hands.
Slotting options:-
(rchg/rchg/rchg) - optimal, frequent use
Additional Notes:-
Most powerful click invisibility power in the game for heroes. Hides you and your allies from just about anything. GI however does not supress in PvE but will vanish completely in PvP and when clicking on an glowie. GI stacks with any other stealth power however there are caps placed upon the stealth value of players, in the case of GI it's such a high stealth bonus that it'll send the player straight to the cap so additional stealth powers are of little value except in one rare exception (see section 7c.of the FAQ later in this guide for details on this quirk). Be warned: GI will make you visible for a moment when you reapply it!
Tal-N's notes:-
As much as its a shame I have to say that I've rarely found Group Invisibility to be much of a use.
Never in the years have I been playing have I been on a team where someone asked for GI to be placed upon them. Not that I haven't seen it used on teams but its really not all that useful. If you want it for your team and your phantasm then it's better than grant invisibility, if you want it purely for soloing and yourself then take superior invisibility. It's far more flexible. Bear in mind that this power also has the drawback with Tankers of making it harder for them to maintain aggro, since enemies will choose targets based upon distance, threat multiplier, damage and visibility a tanker who is invisible won't be an appealing target unless they're dealing damage or able to grab aggro with Taunt generating powers. This means enemies outside of melee range aren't going to be as bothered with the Tanker compared to the squishie Defender who is right next to them. If you're going to use GI make sure you give Tankers a chance to get out of it's AoE before you activate it! Where this power is of use is mainly when you have groups of enemies close together and you don't want excessive aggro. It's nice to be able to fight one group when right next to another one and still find that the 2nd group is totally oblivious to you. Of course due to the duration of the buff it leaves open the chance that it'll either drop half way through the fight or need to be reapplied, the reapplication wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that it makes everyone visible for a split second which is the last thing you need when you're standing near a 2nd spawn of enemies.
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PHANTOM ARMY
Available at level: 18
Type: targeted click summon
Damage type(s): PSIONIC/SPECTRAL (see 3c. Understanding 'Spectral' damage)
Damage potential: (individual) minor/moderate (combined) moderate/high
Recharge: Very Extremely Long
Duration: 60 SECONDS (Very Long)
Endurance cost: High
Status effect(s): TAUNT
What does it look like: Summons 3 random body-type phantom heroes dressed in blue and white bodysuits. They have a blue/white aura. They then attack using fake super strength punches (as well as Hurl), electrical blasts, ice blasts and fire blasts. All of these attacks however do not do anything but psi and spectral damage.
Animation used: Left hand outstretched, light particles appear around the hand and 3 phantom heroes appear to run into where you directed them to appear. They appear 1 at a time.
Slotting options:-
(acc/rchg/rchg/rchg/dmg/dmg) - best recharge and decent damage
(rchg/rchg/rchg/dmg/dmg/dmg) - inaccurate but high damage and recharge
(acc/acc/dmg/dmg/dmg) - pure damage, minimum slotting
(acc/acc/acc/rchg/rchg/rchg) - purely for tanking purposes
(rchg/rchg/rchg) - panic button or distraction purposes
Additional Notes:-
The phantoms are intangible, you cannot buff, heal or effect them in any way but they also cannot be effected by the enemy. The Phantoms will often choose to target seperate enemies rather than double up on single targets, this obviously means that the larger spawns aren't going to be hurt much by the PA as the damage per NPC isn't being done fast enough to overcome the Spectral damage healback.
Tal-N's notes:-
The corner stone of the most solid and risk free tactics that an Illus/Stormie has in their arsenal. The description in-game is a little misleading as these guys/gals (yes, it'll spawn either randomly) are quite capable of defeating enemies without any help. Their main role however is to draw aggro, they do this by the AI choosing them as a target above all else unless you're practically standing next to the NPC causing some massive damage. This works exceptionally well except against AVs and high level enemies like giant monsters. They tend to be smart enough to break free of the autotaunt which the army generates. (There is more on this power in chapter 5h.of the PvE Tactics section.)
All I can say is... you'd be mad not to get this power and 6-slot it.
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SPECTRAL TERROR
Available at level: 26
Type: Targeted click summon
Damage type(s): None
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Very Long
Duration: 30 SECONDS (Long)
Endurance cost: High
Status effect(s): FEAR COWER and FEAR RUN
What does it look like: Hard to describe. A ghostly visage made of light with screaming skulls and what looks like two claws hovering in the air.
Animation used: Arms are raised slowly from the side to be palm up at eye level, as if the player is attempting to lift something. Light particles trickle from the hands like water.
Slotting options:-
(fear/rchg) - more than ample
(rchg/fear/end) - regular usage, stamina-less build
(fear/fear/fear/rchg/acc/acc) - getting the most from the fear 'attack'
(fear/fear/fear) - casual use, maximum duration
Additional Notes:-
While the Terror might float in the air it will actually will fall to ground level where it will hover a fixed distance from the floor. This allows you to drop it onto enemies even when you're well out of range. However be aware that while the autohit fear aura will be applied from any distance the Terror's 'attack' will not activate unless you are within 45-50' from the Terror itself.
Tal-N's notes:-
It's rare to come across a power which works to its full potential without any slotting at all. But the Terror is it. Fresh upon getting it at level 26 you can use it and find it to be very very effective. It has two traits, an autohit PBAoE fear aura with the terror as its centre and a directed Fear attack which will be directed at enemies and usually causes them to run a short distance and cower. Very effective for soft crowd control however against bosses you need for that fear attack to hit so it stacks with the aura. Excellent in almost all circumstances but loses its effectiveness in the late game a little due to fear resistant enemies.
Very much worth getting however. (Further information on this power is available in section 5e/iii of the PvE Tactics section.)
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PHANTASM
Available at level: 32
Type: targeted click summon
Damage type(s): ENERGY/SMASHING/SPECTRAL (see 3c. Understanding 'Spectral' damage)
Damage potential: Moderate/high
Recharge: Very Extremely Long
Duration: Permanent unless killed or zoning
Endurance cost: Extreme
Status effect(s): KNOCKBACK
What does it look like: A male human figure made totally of light, the 'body' is invisible with only the vibrent light aura showing its outline. Quite spectacular.
Animation used: Raises arms and is surrounded by an aura of light as if copying yourself into the image of the Phantasm.
Slotting options:-
(acc/dmg/dmg/dmg) - ideal minimum slotting
(acc/acc/dmg/dmg/dmg) - saving slots, best damage
(acc/acc/dmg/dmg/dmg/end) - stamina-less build, best damage
Additional Notes:-
The duration of the phantasm means it's essentially perma, the devs said it will vanish given enough time but it would take ages. Do remember that it'll not zone with you so don't go summoning it before entering a mission as it won't be there when you get inside. The phantasm will also produce a decoy phantasm of itself which is intangible like the Phantom Army decoys are, it deals 100% spectral damage while the true phantasm does 100% energy/smashing damage. The phantasm's decoy is also 'attached' to a specific target so if that target is defeated then the decoy vanishes until its resummoned by the Phantasm on another target.
Tal-N's notes:-
If the phantom army is the pocket-tanker and the spectral terror is the pocket-controller then the phantasm is a a pocket-corruptor... yes, it's odd but the phantasm is slightly better with damage than a defender but slightly worse than a blaster. So a corruptor from the villain side is about as close as you'll get. It's handy, it's flexible and half the time you forget it's there beside you kicking some villainous butt. The modest stats don't seem like much on paper but the phantasm decoy is really what keeps the phantasm alive as the decoy is summoned in the thick of things so it tends to take the aggro a lot of the time. It is however a little bit of a liability due to the knockback not being very helpful with things like freezing rain or spectral terror which are fixed location AoE. But then again all pets have their drawbacks. It's worth taking as the extra firepower is very much worth it, however its not essential by far. It is however your ever-loyal bodyguard. (Please see PvE section 5e/iv for more details on Phantasm)
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3c. Understanding 'Spectral' damage
Unique to Illusions is a special feature not found naturally on any other current power set, this feature is called Spectral Damage. This can be best described as temporary damage. When a power which causes spectral damage hits, you find that after a fixed duration of time part of the initial damage caused will vanish. In-game this appears as if they are healed as the green text appears over the target's head, this is the Spectral damage wearing off. The main benefit of Spectral damage is that its nature means powers with it are initially more damaging than you're expect, this means those powers are ideal for burst damage however over longer periods of time they are actually fairly weak. Remember however, that if the targets health hits zero then they're defeated as normal even if the spectral damage has not worn off yet - spectral damage does not wear off once the target is defeated. As such it is mainly useful on minions and targets which will be defeated quickly compared to targets which take time to damage.
Now the quirky thing about spectral damage's values is that it will vary depending upon the power itself. There is no standardised percentage or duration for all powers. What is consistent is that the Spectral damage itself is always a fixed portion of the base damage which the power causes when unenhanced, plus the spectral damage cannot be boosted by enhancements. The enhancements do instead boost the base value of the power leading to the total damage of the power increasing as do inspirations and damage buff the spectral damage portion is always the same. Below are specifics on the values for each power in regards to the Spectral damage component.
Spectral Wounds - 39% of unenhanced base damage is spectral, duration of 12 seconds. Spectral damage accounts for 20% of total damage when power is fully enhanced. Containment bonus only effects the real (psionic) damage portion of the attack, Spectral damage gains no bonus.
Phantom Army - 79% of unehanced base damage for melee attacks is spectral, 71% of unenhanced base damage for their ranged attacks is spectral. Duration of both is 8 seconds. Spectral damage accounts for 35% of ranged attack damage while for melee attacks it accounts for 39% of the total damage done when fully enhanced.
Phantasm - 100% of the decoy's damage is spectral in nature. The duration is 6 seconds. Unlike the Phantasm it does the same damage with both it's cone attack and it's single target attack unlike the true Phantasm which does more damage with it's cone attack.
Due to this mixture of how Spectral works it is understandable that there is often some confusion on how it operates. In general however a simple rule is that the more you enhance the damage of a power which has Spectral damage the less of the total end damage ends up being illusionary.
4. 'Storm Summoning' powers
4a. Summary of Storm summoning
The Storm set is essentially a toolbox, it is a nice selection of abilities which are utilities meaning that they can sometimes be very situational. The synergy with Illusions is impressive to say the least with very few conflicts arising between them however within storm summoning itself there can be powers which don't partner well together. A greatly misunderstood set due to a lot of player focus being mainly on the lower level powers while the upper level powers are rarely reached by anyone other than defenders and the fact that certain powers tend to have multiple functions and undocumented capabilities in-game.
4b. Specific powers
GALE
Available at level: 1
Type: Cone click
Damage type(s): SMASHING
Damage potential: Minor
Recharge: Moderate
Endurance cost: Moderate
Status effect(s): HEAVY KNOCKBACK
What does it look like: A high speed gust of wind which rushes from behind you towards the target, kicks up some dust and debris
Animation used: Character raises arms in a slight forward tilt as if directing the wind
Slotting options:-
(acc/acc) - casual use, good accuracy
(acc/acc/end/end) - frequent use, good accuracy
(acc/acc/end/rng/rng/rng) - wide cone, frequent use
(acc/kb/kb/kb/rng/rng) - powerful crowd control
(acc/acc/kb/kb/rng/rng) - accurate crowd control
(acc/acc/kb/kb/kb/kb) - just for laughs, insane knockback
Additional Notes:-
There is a -10% base accuracy penalty with this power.
Tal-N's notes:-
As far as compulsary powers go this isn't too bad. It's function becomes very diminished as times goes on as its mainly intended as a limited form of soft control used for throwing enemies away or simply buying some time for you and your team. Not really worth slotting except for comedy value as its one of the most powerful knockback abilities so it can send enemies flying quite some distance. Occasionally helps with herding enemies into a corner to set up an AoE or similar. (For additional notes on how to use Gale please refer to section 5e/i of the PvE section)
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O2 BOOST
Available at level: 2
Type: Single target click ally-only heal
Damage type(s): NONE
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Fast
Endurance cost: Moderate
Status effect(s): HEAL, SLEEP, ENDURANCE DRAIN and STUN PROTECTION
What does it look like: Target is surrounded for a couple seconds in bubbles of purified air and water. The usual green glow of a heal accompanies this
Animation used: Arms outstretched forward with head down slightly as if concentrating.
Slotting options:-
(heal/heal/rchg) - ideal minimum
(heal/heal/heal/end/rchg/rchg) - temp combat healer
(rchg/rchg/end/end) - downtime healer
Additional Notes:-
None
Tal-N's notes:-
It's a very simple power. It heals. It gives some stun and sleep protection which is a nice bonus however its by no means going to turn your controller into a full time healer. It's good for when someone is lingering close to death and you want to just patch them up to keep them in the fight for longer or as something to help with downtime or the inevitable 'zzzzz' from team mates who have been stunned or put to sleep. It's a nice multipurpose ability really but only of any real value if you intend to team up a lot with others. Does help in keeping the Phantasm alive too if you find it's taking a lot of damage.
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SNOW STORM
Available at level: 4
Type: Toggle anchored AoE
Damage type(s): NONE
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Moderate
Endurance cost: Minor
Status effect(s): -SPEED, -RECHARGE and -FLY
What does it look like: A big swirling snow storm
Animation used: Character raises their arms above their head as if calling down the storm
Slotting options:-
(end/-spd) - casual use
(end/end/-spd/-spd) - frequent use, slot saving
(end/end/-spd/-spd/-spd) - optimal maximum
(-spd/-spd/-spd) - best slow, normal cost, infrequent use
Additional Notes:-
Remember that Slow enhancements don't effect -recharge debuffs, just -speed debuffs.
Tal-N's notes:-
It's a nice power. But hardly essential, it does help but only in some circumstances. Since Illusions tends to be a little weak in crowd control but excellent in damage mitigation which is where snow storm helps as it stops the group of enemies from wandering too far very fast. The -fly component is also quite valuable in PvP. It's worth getting as I said, but its not a 'must have'.
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STEAMY MIST
Available at level: 10
Type: PBAOE toggle
Damage type(s): NONE
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Slow
Endurance cost: Moderate
Status effect(s): RESISTANCE to COLD, FIRE and ENERGY DAMAGE. PROTECTION against CONFUSION and +DEFENSE TO ALL (EXCEPT TOXIC)
What does it look like: A circle of mist that appears at ground level around your character (looks kinda ugly and fake when not standing on the floor)
Animation used: same as used for Spectral Terror, hands lifted slowly with palms up in front of the character.
Slotting options:-
(end) - optimal minimum
(end/end) - active use for stealth
(end/end/res/res/res) - optimal maximum for combat protection
(end/res/res/res) - infrequent combat use
Additional Notes:-
The defense base value is only a few percentages compared to the much higher resistance base values. Estimated resistance value is around 20% compared to 2-3% of defense as a base value. So don't slot the defense, put them into resistance if you want this power for protection purposes.
Tal-N's notes:-
As far as powers go this one isn't much use for solo PvE but will help in team PvE and PvP in general. The resistance boost is nice but the fact is that you're pretty well protected against damage thanks to the damage mitigation of phantom army. It does help you to take a couple more hits though and the team surrounding you will appreciate that especially if you intend to stand close to the tanker or scrapper to buff their protection. A good solid team support power which tends to benefit the more defensive nature ATs compared to the squishies as it makes them last even longer. Due to the nature of the power it's not useful against all enemies though. The confusion protection in PvP is invaluable as the last thing you need is your pets turning against one another or against you. As more NPCs are given confusion abilities it's usefulness in PvE is gradually rising.
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FREEZING RAIN
Available at level: 16
Type: targeted Summon AoE
Damage type(s): COLD
Damage potential: Minor
Recharge: Very long
Duration: 30 SECONDS (Long)
Endurance cost: High
Status effect(s): -DEFENSE, -RESISTANCE, -RECHARGE, -SPEED, KNOCKDOWN and FEAR RUN
What does it look like: The area is covered with a layer of ice where the rain and hail is falling
Animation used: Same as snow storm, arms raised in a V into the air to call down the hail and rain.
Slotting options:-
(rchg/rchg) - minimum slotting for regular use
(-def/-def/-def/-spd/-spd/-spd) - infrequent use, maximum effect
(rchg/rchg/-def/-def/-def/end) - frequent use, high debuff, stamina-less option
Additional Notes:-
The AI will react with a fear-like behavior with the rain by trying to run out from under it. It requires a ToHit check for each 'raindrop' and the debuffs will only apply if they hit the target. The effect remains for a few seconds after contact. This power has a +100% base accuracy bonus!
Tal-N's notes:-
I've heard some people call freezing rain one of the best debuffs in the game. I'm inclined to agree, it's a multi-component power which suits a number of uses and is almost universally beneficial. For a build which uses pets it is ideal as it has no anchors which will be accidentally defeated and result in the loss of the debuff nor does it effect only one target at a time. Its really an excellent DPS buff for you and even for your team and can allow the phantom army and a phantasm to wipe out a whole spawn of yellow con minions within 30 seconds due to the boost it gives to their accuracy and damage. It's regularly available without any recharge slotting as well which is a bonus, it also doesn't need heavy slotting to be effective. Work this into your build as soon as you can, teams love it. You'll love it. Your pets will love it. (Please see section 5e/vi in the PvE chapter for further details)
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HURRICANE
Available at level: 20
Type: PBAOE toggle
Damage type(s): None
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Moderate
Endurance cost: Moderate
Status effect(s): REPEL, KNOCKBACK, -ACCURACY and -RANGE
What does it look like: A vortex surrounds the player like a hurricane forming a disc. (Has some nice physics effects as it pulls leafs, twigs and rubbish around you in the wind)
Animation used: arms stretched out sideways with the character swatting slightly, same as Group Invisibility
Slotting options:-
(end/end) - bear minimum for combat usage
(end/end/-hit/-hit/-hit) - optimal maximum for combat usage
(end/end/end/kb/kb/kb) - regular use for keeping enemies away
(end/-hit/-hit) - infrequent use, slot saving but decent debuff
Additional Notes:-
The repel effect works on a 'pulse' which pushes targets away with each pulse. In PvE the pulse is every 0.5 seconds, in PvP its every 1 second. This means its a slightly weaker effect in PvP to reduce its ability to pin someone into a corner.
Tal-N's notes:-
If there was ever a power that people associated with a 'stormie' it would be the Hurricane. While not being the most powerful tool in the Storm Summoning set its certainly in the top 3 for being very very useful. Strangely enough its benefits are overshadowed a lot by some of the powers in Illusions which are far better at keeping the player from taking damage. (which is oddly enough, the purpose of hurricane). Even so this is one power very much worth getting as it helps with keeping crowd under tight control with some forced positioning. It also helps to maximise AoE damage if you get skilled at 'hurricaning' groups of enemies into a tight space. (See the 5e/v PvE Tactics section in this guide for more info.)
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THUNDER CLAP
Available at level: 28
Type: PBAOE click
Damage type(s): None
Damage potential: None
Recharge: Very Long
Endurance cost: Moderate
Status effect(s): STUN and (PvP) DETOGGLE
What does it look like: A massive flash of lightning over the area with bolts which appear from the air and are directed at the character's hands
Animation used: Same as twilight grasp, the arms are slowly pulled back in an underarm arc, then they are quickly moved in a forwards arc with the fists meeting above the head of the character to form an almost X shape with their wrists. This power has a -10% base accuracy penalty.
Slotting options:-
(acc/acc) - ideal minimum slotting
(acc/stun/stun/stun) - best effect, slot saving
(acc/acc/acc/rchg/rchg/rchg) - PvP toggle dropping
(acc/acc/rchg/rchg/rchg/stun) - regular use, decent duration
(acc/acc/stun/stun/rchg/rchg) - best of both
Additional Notes:-
This power is low magnitude and will only effect minions in PvE, but will effect players with no status protection in PvP and has a good chance to detoggle a target. Has the usual -10% accuracy penalty as with all AoE control powers.
Tal-N's notes:-
Quite possibly the most visually appealing power in the whole game and probably one of the best sounding as well. The Thunder clap isn't as great at control compared to Flash but its available a lot more of the time meaning that you'll find it ready almost every time you need it. Some people take only one or the other as having the two is a little redundant however taking both does have the benefit of meaning you almost always have a nice panic button to lock down some of a crowd. Good power, skippable if you find Phantom Army is more useful for crowd control. But it compliments other powers nicely so its worth adding if you have space.
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TORNADO
Available at level: 35
Type: targeted click summon
Damage type(s): SMASHING
Damage potential: Minor/Extreme (see details)
Recharge: Very Long
Duration: 30 SECONDS (Long)
Endurance cost: Very High
Status effect(s): KNOCKBACK, STUN, -DEFENSE and FEAR RUN
What does it look like: It's a 6ft tall spinning tornado which is quite wide, sucks up nearby debris
Animation used: Same as Phantom Army, one arm outstretched in a side-standing pose as the tornado is summoned ahead of you.
Slotting options:-
(rchg/rchg/rchg) - regular use, general disruption purposes
(rchg/rchg/rchg/stun/stun/stun) - regular use, high stun
(rchg/rchg/rchg/kb/kb/kb) - NEVER use in open spaces, great for enclosed areas
(kb/kb/kb/stun/stun/stun) - panic button
(rchg/rchg/rchg/dmg/dmg/dmg) - damage dealing purposes
(rchg/rchg/end/dmg/dmg/dmg) - stamina-less, damage dealing
Additional Notes:-
The tornado will never wander far from your location and it'll randomly seek out targets to 'bump' and it'll rarely stay on a single target for long. Probably the only 'pet' with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) but this is by design. This power is also autohit, it'll NEVER miss unless something is intangible. Bear in mind that it follows the same rules as a normal NPC in that it'll try to stay close to you. If it cannot get to your location or you get too far away it'll come to a dead stop.
Tal-N's notes:-
Now these last two powers in the Storm Summoning set tend to be the ones which people get a little confused about or fail to completely understand. Fair enough as they are near the upper levels and in the case of controllers you don't get them until you're well into your 30's. There's a lot to say about the Tornado so I apologize if the notes here are a lot longer than some of the other powers. The primary role of the Tornado is to cause chaos, it randomly moves around (rather quickly I might add) and bumps into random targets. It'll attempt to throw them away with some potent knockback as well as a decent chance to stun them as well.
One of the lesser known features of the Tornado is that it causes some minor damage. Now, the quirk of this is that as it whirls around it'll create a DoT if allowed to focus on the single target. Now each 'tick' of damage is indeed minor, but what you have here is a single power which will last 30 seconds and if allowed to focus on one target will deal 2 ticks of minor damage almost every second. As you can imagine that means this one power is very very damaging if you can get it focused on something, although it's slow to cause the damage you need to remember that time isn't something an Illusionist has to worry about as they can totally stop all damage coming from their targets via a number of methods.
If you were to work out just how powerful a damage dealer the Tornado was consider this. The Tornado itself ticks around 60 times in it's 30 second duration, each tick is equal to around 60% of how much damage your brawl power does at any level when unslotted for damage. Thus if your brawl does 10 points of damage then the Tornado does 6 per tick. As it does this twice per second you're actually finding its hitting with both ticks within the same duration of time it takes to activate Brawl and have the animation cycle. Thus in reality it does around 120% of what Brawl is capable of upon one activation. If you put this into perspective, when it's fully enhanced it is doing 120% of brawl's damage per tick. Toss some numbers in and you have a monsterously powerful damage dealer. Again going back to the example, lets say Brawl does 10 damage and your fully slotted Tornado is now dealing 12 ticks per second. In the 30 second duration has the capacity to cause 360 points of damage to a single target! When you think about that you can see it's almost capable of outright killing a defender or corruptor in PvP and does a huge amount of damage to AVs and GMs who aren't thrown around but the Tornado allowing it to maintain full contact for it's duration. Remember of course you can chain the Tornados end to end very easily and with a little bit of a recharge buff you can have two active at once for a decent duration of time. (Further information can be found in section 5e/vii of the PvE Tactics chapter)
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LIGHTNING STORM
Available at level: 38
Type: Click summon
Damage type(s): ENERGY
Damage potential: High/Extreme
Recharge: Extremely Long
Duration: 52 SECONDS (Very Long)
Endurance cost: Very high
Status effect(s): KNOCKBACK, -ENDURANCE and RUN FEAR
What does it look like: A Lightning cloud with flashes of lightning appearing within it, a large bolt strikes nearby targets with furious force.
Animation used: Same as snow storm, arms raised above head in a V to call the storm (yes, storm summoning uses this a lot)
Slotting options:-
(rchg/rchg/rchg) - regular usage
(acc/rchg/rchg/dmg/dmg/dmg) - regular use, damage dealing
(acc/acc/kb/kb/kb) - rarely missing, bodyguard/crowd control, slot saving
(dmg/dmg/dmg) - minimum slotting for decent damage
(acc/dmg/kb/rchg/rchg/rchg) - multi-purpose
(rchg/rchg/rchg/endm/endm/endm) - sapping lightning
(dmg/dmg/dmg/rng/rng/rng) - large coverage, damage dealing
(rng/rng/rng/kb/kb/kb) - large coverage, crowd control
Additional Notes:-
The cloud will only strike at targets when you are within around 80' of the cloud itself. This power benefits from buffs applied to the player prior to summoning the storm. Unlike the Spectral Terror this can be summoned in the air where it'll remain rather than falling to near ground level. Remember that you cannot target where this will appear like other summons, it will always be summoned over your head at your current location. Has an inherent +100% base accuracy bonus. The storm will stop attacking if you move too far away from it, estimated cut off range is around 50-60'.
Tal-N's notes:-
The big daddy of Storm Summoning, a shame that the cloud isn't a little larger but makes up for the size with sheer atmosphere and presence. The thunder rumbling while it's around is great, the lightning strikes are visually and auraly stunning. Frankly it's just plain 'wow' in a can.
Well that's enough preaching, so down to business. Get this power. That is all the advice you need. The Lightning Storm is truly a must have power.
Why? Quite simple. It does some impressive damage, it has knockback making it an ideal body guard, it's got some insanely high inherent accuracy and it can be looped endlessly due to duration and recharge times. Best of all though, it'll adopt any buffs applied to you when you summon it. That means if you have Hasten running when you summon it then it'll fire off its Lightning strikes at a faster rate than normal. The thing to remember though is that it'll only adopt buffs applied at the moment of summoning, if you bring it out and then pop some inspirations afterwards then they'll not benefit the storm at all. For this feature alone it makes the power worthwhile.
Some people might be asking why they'd want a damage dealing power at all if that isn't something you're interested in for their build. Well damage is just one of the Storm's features. It does endurance draining as well at around 10% a blast so enhanced that's a nice 20% chunk, add to that something like Power Boost (remember the buffs transfer over) that's 40% endurance being taken off with every hit which makes it an ideal sapper against single targets. Without Hasten it'll fire every 8-9 seconds, with Hasten it'll be around 5-6 seconds so that means you can drain enemies dry in around 15-30 seconds. It's also possible to have two storms active at once in the same way it is possible to have two tornados at once. This tends to require additional recharge buffs beyond what you get with enhancements and Hasten however for the both of them to be out for any significant length of time though. It's also exceptionally handy as a bodyguard since it has a high chance of knockback, if you position yourself under the cloud you'll rarely have enemies able to stand close to you for very long. In PvP it is also very handy as it has a chance to detoggle the target, this can be ideal when you want to soften up brutes who have status protection or some solid defense like granite armor.
5. PvE Tactics and advice
5a. What is PvE?
Figured I'd start with something basic for newbies or folks who don't know the jargon. PvE means Player Vs Environment. The environment is a unified term for enemies that the game creates and is controlled by the AI. These are commonly known as NPCs (non-player characters) or mobs (mobiles, an old RPG term). But it also includes hazards in your surroundings. In the game anything which can be done while solo and without coming into conflict with other players who are able to attack you is classed as PvE. That includes missions and content set within a PvP zone which can be completed without getting into a fight with another player. For example, the Shivan Shard mission in Bloody Bay.
5b. Things to remember about your controller
There's not much here to point out but I feel its worth making a few things perfectly clear. A controller is mainly recognized as a crowd control specialist and (de)buffer by the general CoX population. However, while this is partially true an Illus/Storm controller is more focused on damage dealer and damage mitigation rather than raw crowd control. They can provide a tanker for the team, they can provide the damage and even provide some limited healing as well. Quite a nice package over all however... some of the powers you have are not suitable to teaming and some are less valuable when soloing. This part of the guide will explains when and where to use certain abilities for the best effect as well as what works well together and what needs to be avoided.
One of the most important things to remember is that your controller is very vulnerable to damage and status effects so you need to keep careful watch on your surroundings. Since Illus/Storm hasn't got much hard control it's very easy for the enemies to start wandering around and potentially focussing on you as their next target. Also be aware of different enemies capabilities. If they have AoE powers then the worst possible place to stand is right next to one of your phantom army decoys because you just know that they'll probably be targeted by it. So if you're right next to them it's gonna hurt. Some people forget something as simple as that. If you die then the pets do too which on a team means that your controlled chaos becomes uncontrolled chaos, you walk that fine line between potentially getting you and your team killed and preventing them from taking damage at all. On the plus side though a pet-heavy controller isn't as crippled as normal controllers when stunned, disorientated, asleep or held. This is because the pets obviously carry on even when the controller is incapacitated.
5c. General soloing advice
As far as controllers go illus/storm is one of the best for soloing because you have a lot of damage potential and a lot of flexibility. I think the only enemies they struggle with is the Nemesis group of villains who tend to have resistance to a lot of your powers forcing you to approach them with caution.
Damage wise you're using energy and psi quite heavily and thankfully you'll not often come against enemies who are resistant to both. On the whole those which are tend to be odd enemies within a larger faction. Prime examples are the Arachnos robots who have the inherent robotic resistant to psionics (they have no mind after all) and energy resistance due to their high-tech armor bodies. This of course plays havoc if you want to run the missions in the PvP zones which (used) have a nice bonus to exp because you need to work a lot harder to defeat the Arachnos troops. Other enemies include the Rikti who tend to have some psi resistance on a basic level and most of the bosses and leuitenants have the rikti armor which has strong energy resistance. Mentalists are a pain as they have both the armor and high inherent resistance to psi. On the flip side you'll cut through enemies like the Clockwork, Freakshow and certain Crey like a knife through butter as they can be vulnerable to both or especially weak against psi itself.
In terms of progress you'll find the road from 1 to 18 is a little slow and tedious since you only really have 2 main offensive powers, blind and spectral wounds (unless you dig into the power pools). At first it'll seem like you're not all that powerful and some people give up before getting to a point where the Illus/Storm controller really starts to come into their own. Once you get Phantom Army it totally changes how you play the game and becomes increasingly potent as you slot it up. You then have an ever growing feeling of power from that point on as each new powers allows you to take on larger groups of enemies who are higher in level. By the time you have Phantasm you'll be soloing on Invincible missions and able to take on minions which are +5 above you if they are in small groups. By the time you're 40 you'll be laughing all of the way against just about anything. So what begins with a slow start does gather a lot of momentum. That's one of the great things about this build, you'll always have a power which is worth taking so you'll not feel that your character is 'complete' until they're into their 40s. That's the kind of motivation which helps to defeat the grind of leveling up some types of characters.
5d. General teaming advice
The words 'handle with care' seems to apply here. This combo of powers has the potential to make you the hero of the team or their worst enemy depending on how you handle it. The trouble, if you can call it that, is that you will generate chaos. Now it is organized chaos admittedly but for your average player who isn't familiar with partnering with someone with illus/storm they'll struggle to keep up if you're cutting loose with all of your powers. With all the knockback and such combined with enemies running around confused or tossed into the air over your allies' heads it is easy to understand how some people would feel like they were chasing pinballs. It's not so bad for ranged ATs but the melee ones tend to struggle, also AoE loses its effectiveness if enemies are spread out.
Given that fact, my best advice is that you need to take the environment into consideration. A good rule is that the more room there is for enemies to move around the less knockback you should use. Obviously this makes sense as enemies hitting walls and scenery will stop them from being thrown too far, thus confusing your team less and avoiding having a group of enemies spread over a large area. Bear in mind however that the number of enemies is also a factor, the more there are the more you need to be careful of spreading them out too much. The odd boss being thrown around like crazy isn't too bad as people tend to only get confused when there is a lot happening rather than a single target moving around randomly.
That being said, each player has their own preferences so you may need to find out what your teams limitations are when it comes to playing skills. Check the specific power combo tactics section for low or moderate knockback options you have open to you.
On the subject of teaming I'll also mention that you'd be wise to position yourself near the squishies with hurricane up. It helps to keep them alive plus if you have Steamy Mist the stealth bonus means enemies will be less likely to aggro to them as the AI chooses targets by a number of factors which include visibility. (i.e. they'll choose an unstealthed target over a stealthed one.) The hurricane will also help to keep the hard hitters out of range, a lot of the enemies favor melee attacks and quite often. This is often their most damaging attack so hurricane protects a great deal.
A quick word on arch-villains and giant monsters. While it might seem like a bad idea you'll want to regularly use Rest while fighting these guys. Even without stamina the summons take big chunks of endurance and for these enemies you want to be throwing out everything you can at them. standing there spamming spectral wounds isn't all that useful compared to the more permanent damage your pets will cause, you're better off using debuffs like snow storm and buffs like steamy mist to help keep the attention off of the squishies. The best time to use Rest is while Phantom Army is active since they draw aggro like crazy even against these kinds of enemies who are partially resistant to they're autoaggro effects. Just remember that while you can rest with something like snow storm or hurricane on their effects will stop, even if the graphics remain, until you come out of rest again.
5e. Situational powers and when (or when not) to use them
I mentioned a number of the powers have pros and cons to their use. Some of them don't work well together and others work exceptionally well to counter each others shortcomings. This part of the guide will let you know what, how and when to use these situational abilities.
5e/i. GALE
Sometimes a very underestimated power, it's also overshadowed by Tornado which is capable of the same job but doesn't require line of sight. If anything can be said of Gale is that it's somewhat free of the kind of chaos which Tornado causes so it's more team friendly. Ideally it's best used to hurl enemies somewhere that you want them or to keep enemies at a distance. Can be used as a nice opener should you be short on tankers or too low for Phantom Army. Superior Invisibility to get close and then have your team rush in while the enemies are getting to their feet. It takes some timing but it's handy at lower levels. It's other use is for when you want to push enemies into a corner, combined with hurricane it makes setting enemies up for some nice AoE a little easier. It's just too bad you can't respec out of this as it's usefulness in the late-game is dramatically reduced as other powers function as the same role but do it much better.
5e/ii. DECIEVE
Here is a power which is about as situational as it gets. How you use it can mean the difference between it being worthless or a god-send. As its been covered in the powers section what I think I'll do is list specific enemies worth confusing other than the obvious things like bosses and leuitnenants. As I'm sure you can imagine confusing the biggest and nastiest is the best use of this power in most cases, this list is going to cover the more interesting of enemies to confuse and explain their obvious benefits or how you can exploit their abilities. An interesting thing to remember is that if an NPC summons other NPCs as pets then if you confuse the summoner the pets will also be confused - quite often turning on their master and beating the snot out of them.
Generally you'll find a lot of these are buffers, controllers and debuffers as these are most dangerous to you and your team while also being great to assist you once they're on your side. Also because they're not major damage dealers you'll get a lot of benefit from them being confused without any major exp loss. Some of them will also be something you may want to exploit for laughs or because they spawn pets or allies:
Sorcerers (Tsoo) - [Accuracy debuffer, status protection and healer]
These guys as you may know are a complete pain. They teleport, they have hurricane and they also heal. They're actually very very handy to confuse as their hurricane will stack with yours. As a healer it tends to be great to patch people but however it will attempt to heal the phantom army which is a little annoying as they gain no benefit from it and the recharge on the sorc's heal is kinda slow.
*Kinetics* Blue/Red Inkmen ect.. (Tsoo) [Speed, damage and recharge debuffer and buffer]
They normally come equipped with siphon power and siphon speed. Both are a pain when used against players but siphon power is ideal when you receive it yourself by standing near a confused inkman who uses it. Also keeping them debuffing enemies with siphon speed while running around at hyper speed with their weapons is also very handy.
Embalmed cadavers/Embalmed abominations (Vahzilok) [Massive AoE damage]
Not anywhere nearly as popular as they may kill everything around them and sap a ton of exp as well since they do more than 60% damage. However in a pinch they are extremely effective at thinning a crowd or stopping them from blowing up you (or your team)
Communication Officers (Rikti) [Damage via portals]
If you're familiar with the Rikti you'll know that these guys are a pain purely because the portals summon reinforcements. Well the great thing is that confusion is passed down to pets and the portal is classed as a pet. Further more the portal itself also summons Rikti which are classed as pets of the Portal. So a confused officer results in confused reinforcements who normally end up smashing the portal that they came out of an killing anyone within sight.
Guardians (Rikti) [Bubbler, healer and buffer]
I love these guys! The main reason is for the PBAoE Accelerate Metabolism buff which if you're familiar with the game you'll know it's a great buff as it boosts how fast you recover endurance, it also speeds up movement speed and best of all it boosts how fast your powers recharge which for a summoning themed build. The bubbles/shields they grant are somewhat unreliable to get compared to AM which is fired in an PBAoE from the Guardian, they tend to do this as soon as they aggro or attack something and they fire it allowing you to position yourself before they trigger it. They also have an PBAoE heal which is random fired and the bubbles themselves are a decent boost if you're lucky enough to get them. They're a joint Insulation and Defection shield so they cover ranged, melee and AoE situational damage as well as offer some damage resistance.
Storm/Earth/Death shamans (Banished Pantheon) [Debuffers and damage via zombies]
While the BP might not be that common in the game the shamans are a pain in the aft as you'll know when you fight them. The Earth shamans summon earthquakes, the storm shamans summon snow storm and lightning storms while also having hurricane and the death shamans summon zombies. Now the first two are the best ones with storm shamans being the best as they have similar powers to your own which allow for some nice stacking. There's also quite a comical value about a Storm shaman being blasted by his own lightning storm which he just that moment summoned over his head.
Storm Mavens/Mistress of the Storm (Cabal) [Debuffers]
Much like Storm shamans these two are very very handy for confusing. Their storm powers obviously have a good synergy with your own.
Herders/Devoured (Devouring Earth) [Debuffer via swarms]
I say Devoured but basically the lesser, normal and greater are all the same except for how hard they hit and how bad they smell. The swarms themselves suffer from the affliction of confused master syndrome, so confuse the summoner and you confuse the Swarms. Normally these are a real pain even for an Illus/Storm controller as their hit and run tactics make it hard for Phantom Army to hold aggro and the -recharge is a real killer. If anything you'd confuse the summoner more to keep the Swarm off of your back rather than to use them since NPC recharge times aren't severely long anyway. But every bit helps.
Engineers (Sky Raiders) [Buffer and status protection via force field generator]
I'd say the engies are around the 2nd best enemies to confuse. Now you can confuse the FF generator directly if you want but sometimes because they're always bubbled it can be hard to hit them, sometimes its easier to catch an engineer who is standing outside of the bubble. The buff is around the same as a Dispersion field so it grants a nice significant defense boost and protection from holds, stuns and immobilization.
Sappers (MALTA operatives) [Debuffer and status effects]
The Sappers are by far one of the most feared NPCs in the game due to their ability to drain endurance by large amounts and chain hold targets. Confusing them obviously allows you to safely enter into a fight with their allies in the same group but also helps to ensure that the other operatives can't return fire once fully drained. Bear in mind however that Sappers themselves have unlimited endurance so two confused Sappers trying to drain one another won't get anywhere.
Agony Mages (Circle of Thorns) [Empathy, buffs and status effects]
There is nothing as great as confusing an NPC with Empathy powers. The Agony mages can grant fortitude and have the direct heal which is very handy in those long fights where you made some mistakes. They also have their mind control holds and sleeps which are equally useful so on the whole this is one boss you'll get a lot of benefit from if you confuse them.
Earth Thorn Casters (Circle of Thorns) [AoE debuffs]
Not really a problem for someone with Illus/Storm however for a lot of other ATs and builds they can prove to be a problem mainly due to their Quicksand. Confusing them reverses the effect so the defense buffs and the speed debuff is applied back onto the mages who created it in the first place.
Air Thorn Casters (Circle of Thorns) [AoE status effects]
While its not that common for them to use their Thunder Clap powers if they do it works very very well with your own Thunder Clap as the stacking will allow it to effect leuitnenants with one application if the mages have already used it. If you get enough of them using it at once they might even stack it enough to let you stun a boss.
Ruin Mages (Circle of Thorns) [AoE status effect and buff, single target control]
I'd say these guys are probably one of the third best enemies to confuse mainly because they really do mess things up for their allies while giving a nice buff to you and your team. The Earthquake they summon is one of the most annoying status effects in the game hence if you reverse it you find the NPCs flipping like salmon going up stream for spawning season. The Dispersion Bubble the mages generate is very handy for protection from the enemies who aren't effected by the earthquake or manage to get a few shots off. With the mage also having other earth powers they might manage to hold a few enemies if they stop doing backflips from their own Earthquake.
Concierge (Family) [Status effects and damage via singularity]
The Family bosses don't tend to summon their pets unless they're a higher level so this won't work unless you're into you're fighting enemies in tthe higher levels. The Singularity is the same as the one from Gravity Control, its surrounded in a knockbackfield, it has a single target hold and immobilise to make up its control side and its also got Lift which is an attack which causes knockup as well. Having this on your side is very handy indeed.
Lead Scorcher/Lead Freezer (Outcasts) [Damage via pets]
While they don't tend to use them too often the Outcasts bosses do have the ability to summon the elemental pets from their respective element. Freezers can summon Jack Frost and Scorners can summon Fire Imps. While these aren't especially powerful it is nice to have the boss being attacked by their own pets.
Bright Nova/Dark Nova (Nictus) [AoE and direct damage]
You probably won't come along these much while solo but they'll appear if your team has been hanging around with a Kheldian. The Novas are possibly one of the most lethal of bosses in the game, their AoE blasts can be devastating as can their direct attacks. Worth confusing just to avoid being killed by splash damage aimed at your pets. Your Phantasm is energy resistant and Steamy Mist will boost that resistant even further so the Bright Nova won't be much of a threat by the Dark Novas will be a real problem.
Devouring Earth Eminators (Devouring Earth) [Special]
A common misconception is that everything which you confuse is reversed in your favor. Enemies become allies, enemy debuffs don't work against the NPCs who cast them and enemy buffs work for you. While this is largely true the exception is with the eminators which the DE produce. Things like the Tree of Life, the Cairn and Fungus which provide heavy buffs to these mutant-plants and living rock simply get turned off by being confused. They won't provide you with the buff as they specifically target Devouring Earth NPCs.
Researchers/Radiologists (Crey) [AoE debuffers]
While the Crey might not be the most feared of groups the fact is that if the AI was advanced enough to properly use their debuffs. They tend to use them intermittantly however when they do hit they are somewhat significant, the radiologists have a version of Enervating Field which is great IF they anchor it to something which won't die in 3 hits while the Cryologists will have a cone -recharge and -speed liquid nitrogen debuff which is great... IF they position themselves correctly. As mentioned these would be dangerous if they weren't so stupid.
Master Illusionists (Carnival of Shadows) [Damage and Debuffs via pets, AoE status effect]
An Illusionist vs Illusionist fight is always a gripping battle of summoned pets and special effects. Thankfully you have Decieve and they don't. Since they have the sneaky ability to summon the Dark Servant you can turn this heavy debuff pet against it's master for some giggles. They also have a habit of firing off Flash the second that they aggro so if you confuse them while they're surrounded by allies you'll get a nice AoE hold which makes it easier to approach the group. Some Master Illusionists will also summon Illusionist minions who will also turn on each other and their allies.
5e/iii. SPECTRAL TERROR
Not especially situational however it does require some thought on how to use this. While it might seem obvious it is better not to use the terror when there is a lot of AoE and DoT attacks around as its effects are greatly diminished. If however there is more enemies around than the AoEs can deal with it helps to minimize damage a great deal. This is often used as either an opener on a group of enemies you've not yet aggro'd OR to deal with accidental aggro such as a nearby spawn or a patrol which has wandered into the middle of an ongoing fight.
Some great uses of the Spectral Terror is to create a barrier which slows or stops enemies from running or getting into range of you/your team. Sometimes in the game you'll encounter ambushes who announce their presence when triggered and you'll normally be able to tell what direction they'll come from. The trouble with ambushes is that they'll automatically aggro to the player if given the chance so things like Phantasm aren't much good as it doesn't draw aggro very well. Phantom Army is a great tool here or alternatively you can slap down a Terror in a prime location to capture the ambush as they approach. Since aggro is determined by a number of factors (visibility of target, distance to target, threat multiplier and damage taken) you ideally want to stop the target from hitting you until either the phantasm or one of the phantoms have landed a hit, this is why Terror is so helpful as it'll keep them contained until they take damage from something. The trouble is that if they're hit by Lightning Storm or Tornado then that is classed as damage from the player so they'll aggro to you. Just make sure you're a target which is further from the NPC than the phantasm or phantom army and ideally you're using steamy mist or superior invisibility to make you a lower priority target. Be aware of that!
5e/iv. PHANTASM
While the Phantasm might seem like an all-occasions power but the fact is that sometimes it does work against you a bit. Thankfully it's not so situational as to require a ton of information but here are a few pearls of wisdom.
The drawback to the phantasm is three-fold. Firstly it does knockback with its cone attack and direct blast, not a fantastic amount but it will throw enemies around 20' which can be a pain. Secondly it'll aggro to anything within around 45' which can be both good and bad depending on circumstances plus the 3rd issue is that enemies will aggro to it from their normal distance, that aggro is automatically transferred to you as well. Some people who are familiar with pets would probably be thinking now that this is obvious, but I figured I'd mention it for folks who have never even used a pet in CoX before. Because of these drawbacks you'll want to avoid using the Phantasm in times when you need to keep enemies in a fixed position, for AoE reasons for example, or when fighting in places where they can fall out of reach as that could lead to problems as well. Not so much a case of needing to only use them in certain situations as the knockback is very manageable. More of a case that I mention it here so you know to be aware of these potential drawbacks.
5e/v. HURRICANE
Quite obviously using the hurricane is delicate work and can be the #1 way to totally ruin your chances of crowd control if not used properly. It's really catch 22 with this power. If you want to use the debuff you need to keep enemies within the hurricane, but if you want to stop them from getting within melee range you need to keep them at the edge of the hurricane. Thankfully the debuff does extend a little beyond the edge but it's not as consistent a debuff unless they maintain contact with the hurricane.
While it might seem silly but some people who don't understand the dangers of scattering a crowd of enemies will run into the middle of a big pile of NPCs with hurricane on to debuff them. They think its a good idea but really, it isn't. The correct way to use hurricane is really two phase. First of all you need to use the repel feature to push enemies into objects to the point where it holds them in place. The most common environmental feature in the game world which works well is corners. If you position yourself adjacent to the corner where the two walls meet, the position of the repel field will push them into the corner away from you and into the walls. As the NPCs have no friction they'll slide along the wall as you funnel them into the edge of the corner.
Once here they'll have a hard time getting out, this allows you to move forwards a little so they are constantly debuffed and kept out of arms reach. This tactic works both in teams and while solo but considering how knockback can mess up your positioning you'll need to be aware of where the phantasm is so he doesn't make things harder on you. Also don't use Tornado or Lightning Storm until you have the enemies pinned as these will definitely cause you problems when attempting this.
5e/vi. FREEZING RAIN
Not very situational but it can work against you if you're not careful.
The main drawback to it is that it does damage, very very minor damage but it is there. That means if someone uses a sleep or fear status effect you don't want to be summoning the freezing rain over the affected targets as it nullifies the effects. The other aspect to remember is that it generates a fear type effect, not the cowering but the fear as in running away from under the rain itself. Enemies will try to get out from under it and put some distance between it and themselves. This can cause problems unless you set up something like spectral terror to capture the run-aways. The run-away feature of the rain can also cause problems with giant monsters and AVs who can sometimes run from them under some conditions, this can be a pain as you end up with them running all over but this can also work to your advantage as enemies will not be attacking if they're running in fear. They'll need to stop to attack. Try to keep this in mind when you want to direct an AV or a GM towards a certain direction, placing the rain on the right spot can help you direct them where you want them.
5e/vii. TORNADO
Here is quite possibly one of the most situational of powers in the game. It needs to be used with such precision and caution that some people completely misunderstand and underestimate the use of the power leading to many people not taking it on their characters. But the fact is, this is one of the most powerful abilities anybody with storm summoning can have.
Tornado has several drawbacks which are also its strengths if used correctly. It's a real paradox as its best aspects are also its problems. Firstly it does a lot of knockback. It'll throw enemies all around the shop and if allowed to focus on only a few enemies it'll have them spending most of their time either in the air or on their backs. Especially handy in boss fights as it has a similar effect as an especially long stun. The drawback to this is that in a large open area with a lot of enemies it can actually cause you to lose control over the situation. With enemies spread out and the Illus/Storm controller having limited AoE control abilities you get a recipe for disaster, some clever sweeping up with Hurricane can correct the problem but this is obviously a lot more work and its better to avoid causing problems to begin with. The ideal time to use the Tornado is either with several (3-4) enemies to a point with which you're comfortable to deal with. This is of course with a fairly large room where the enemies can be somewhat bounced around by the roaming tornado. As a good rule it's wise to remember that as the room size decreases the number of enemies Tornado can actively keep out of the action increases. Get a small enough room with enough obstructions to stop enemies being thrown clear of your area of influence and it's able to deal with an almost unlimited number of enemies.
Secondly the Tornado is insanely active and quick to aggro to just about anything, however it'll quickly switch targets if given half a chance. This means in a situation where you need to carefully maintain control over aggro the Tornado needs to be left out of the equation. This trait of the Tornado is however what allows it to be a very handy bodyguard as it'll never stray too far from the player and if there is a shortage of enemies it'll typically stay near you and instantly attack anything which comes near you. On top of this basic function the aggro-addicted Tornado simply wouldn't function very well as a form of chaos-control if it wasn't able to quickly deal with multiple targets, of course while its movement is fast and its attention span short it always helps to get the most out of it by restricting it to situations where the environment won't cause enemies to be tossed too far from your range of influence.
Now a lot of the confusion over Tornado is that it's just a soft control power, while this is true its also an extremely potent damage dealer if allowed to remain in contact with a target. Prime targets for this are Arch-villains, monsters and giant monsters who are all very resistant to knockback. Some basic enemies have limited knockback resistance such as flying Outcasts and such but on the whole it is more difficult to use on your standard minions, leuitenants and bosses. In situations where you have these more tricky enemies you need to use some skill to get Tornado functioning as a potent damage dealer. More of this will be covered later, so just be aware of Tornado's limitations for now.
5e/viii. Lightning STORM
In general you won't have many problems with Lightning Storm as the knockback is fairly minimal however its positioning can totally change how useful it can be. On the whole though it can be used in any situation, it provides a nice bit of soft crowd control as well as some potent damage. With some builds it's possible to have two of these active at once, with buffs and accolades you can have even more than that!
Depending on circumstances Lightning Storm can function in two roles. Offensive and defensive. The difference is totally on where you place it. If you want to use it on offense you need to position it in a place where it has the best 'view' over the area you're fighting in. For Stormies its always thematically worthwhile having flight and Lightning Storm benefits from this.Unlike Spectral Terror it doesn't fall to a fixed position above ground level. Where you summon it, is where it stays. As such the best place for a cloud is right over the area you're fighting in. Remember of course that the cloud has a striking distance estimated around 45'-60' so it has less reach than the player - avoid placing it too high in the air. The point of this position is two-fold. First of all the knockback the lightning strikes produce a velocity relvant to the direction of the cloud to the target. Hence if you place it above the target the knockback will actually be directed at the floor so the NPC won't travel very far which is always handy. Secondly because of the range of the strikes having it positioned over the fight ensures that it has the maximum coverage even if the fight shifts position a little.
Due to the limited range of this it's also quite handy in a defensive role to keep enemies out of melee range of you, while this role is also covered by Hurricane with greater reliability you'll find the Lightning Storm is a nice alternative which doesn't cut into your on-going endurance use. Ideally you want it positioned low to the ground (so summon it from standing) and around 10-20' behind you. This means anyone coming close will be blasted away.
5f. A Word on Combat and Tactical thinking with Illusion/Storm Controllers
Surfice to say that Illus/Storm has a lot of flexibility. There have been times people have asked which characters are the most diverse in what they can do or which build in CoX is closest to what is called a 'Tankmage'. In each case I've pointed out that Illus/Storm has such a huge mix of powers to call upon that there is almost nothing they cannot handle. However, with such diversity you'll also find people build and play their characters in drastically different ways. Storm and Illusions both have close range powers for active combat but it's also capable of a more passive role due to it's summoning nature, as such you can also opt to stay out of the fight and remain somewhat undetected in the shadows while your illusions and forces of nature tear the room up before your eyes.
There is of course a middle ground, a blend of aggressive and passive gameplay although to be honest a skilled Illus/Storm controller should know when to move between the passive, aggressive and the middle ground based upon the situation. However, building the character will depend on which you tend to favor. The aggressive methodology will require a lot of endurance reduction enhancements as well as Stamina from the Fitness pool to maintain, however the passive methodology can get away with just having endurance reductions and has utterly no need for Stamina. How you intend to play the most will determine which powerpools you may want to eventually invest it. Bear in mind however that there is almost no powers in either Illusions or Storm Summoning which can be classed as useless so the more you dig into the powerpools the less powers you can take from your primary and secondary. As such you'll be closing doors to tactics which require a certain power unless you think carefully about what you want to do with your character.
5g. The Black List
While these powers give the player a broad spectrum of abilities and choice in a fight there will always be enemies who give you as really rough time and need to be dealt with cautiously, or are barely effected by certain powers so you need to rethink your approach. Thankfully this list is quite short. I have rated them in degrees of difficulty, here is the top 3 biggest thorns in your side.
5g/1. Nemesis
On the plus side you'll not come up against the Prince of Automation until the higher levels. But I can assure you, it doesn't come much tougher than this. There is a number of abilities that these guys have and a number of units in their faction who have tricks up their sleeve to cause your average Illus/Storm controller to grit their teeth before every major fight with them. In small numbers it's not so bad, 2-3 enemies can be handled with relative ease as long as you're careful. Soon as you start to face 4-5 enemies in a pack you're running into trouble and need to consider going on the defensive or thining the crowd with pulling individuals away.
There are three frustrating factors with Nemesis troops which will always be present in almost all their units. Firstly is that they're resistant to Fear so you'll need at least two applications to lock them down. That means Spectral Terror isn't much use unless it nails a target with its Fear attack. Secondly is that they're also resistant to confusion so you can't simply toss on Decieve for that rogue Nemesis solider who wandered away from the Phantom Army and aggro'd to you. The third and more frustrating fact is that they are resistant to autotaunt effects of Phantom Army more than other factions, this often leads to them paying attention to the Phantasm or you even when PA is active.
This of course removes a number of your best crowd control abilities or at the very least hinders how they function. The time then comes to fall back on knockback powers and things like Flash and Thunder Clap to minimize aggro to yourself and your team. Saddly in large groups this means Tornado isn't always a useful option however Gale does start to become more useful as a result. Lightning Storm isn't generally seen as a great crowd control tool but it does some very accurate knockback so it'll deal with a few enemies that you can then afford to pay less attention to while you focus your attention on the rest. The crowd control abilities wouldn't be that concerning except that the steam-powered robot's that Nemesis produces are 50% energy resistant, this inherently leads to some very long fights as they resist a sizable chunk of the damage your average Illus/storm controller throws at them resulting in a greater need to keep using status effects.
Another other issue besides their mental fortitude is that Nemesis weapons tend to favor AoE and Cone attacks. This can be an issue only if you're standing too close to your Phantoms or the Phantasm as the splash damage can catch you off guard and kill you very quickly if you're not alert. I'd say if I looked at how many times I died to Nemesis soldiers it was due to splash damage and me not realising how close I was to my pets who were the true target of the blast.
The final point on Nemesis is that they have snipers. These guys have insanely long aggro range and hit hard enough to kill you in around 2 hits if you allow them. As such NEVER walk around a Nemesis mission without SI turned on as they'll often shoot you before you realize they were there. One drawback still remains with this method however as the Phantasm (which hopefully you'll have chosen as a power) is still visible and the sniper will open fire on him instead. Again if you're standing too close the AoE will hit you too. This would be probably the only time when GI would be of genuine use.
Nemesis. Your nemesis.
5g/2. Rularuu
Although the Shadow Shard isn't an especially popular zone it is certainly one of the most awe inspiring to play within and explore. Nothing spices things up more than spending your whole game in an urban environment and then stepping into a world which has a whole of reality has been fractured with scattered, floating rock islands, red/orange swirling skies and creatures which look like something that could pass for a teleportation accident victim. Of all these creatures the biggest problem is that they are diverse and they are also especially hard to kill due to their resistances.
The Wisps are probably the greatest theat here as they are Psi resistant and resistant to all status effects. That means they need two or more applications of hold, sleep, stun, fear or confusion to take effect. Which in total means your totally gutted of effective crowd control except for knockback and they'll take a beating to actually damage as well. You then have the Brutes who will clobber you with ease if they get their hands (?) on you and have a ton of hitpoints on top of some heavy resistance to smashing and energy damage. That means Tornado isn't much good but thankfully you have that extra psi damage component which will help a little. You then have the menace which is the Watchers and Overseers, which can be catagorised as being the single most irritating creatures in the game, probably second only to the Howlers in CoV. A giant eyeball surrounded by a mouth with sharp teeth. Their eyeblasts have a minor hold component which can catch you out, their accuracy is insanely high so they'll rarely miss and they have a perception bonus so they can see you fine through Superior invisibility. The good news is that they're not all that resistant at all but if you're not packing Phantom Army then a direct assault will prove to be difficult when faced with more than 2-3 of them. They also have cone attacks as well so you need to watch where you stand.
Rularuu. Big. Bad. Fulgy. 24/7.
5g/3. Arachnos
I swear that these guys were designed to be as tough as possible to all ATs and as many builds as possible. That said the only real issues with these guys is that they have a lot of bots in their ranks which are both psi and energy resistant, then you have the Fortunata's who are also psi resistant. But by far annoying is the bots as you can't use Spectral Terror for crowd control and you're barely doing damage to them so they take an extra bit of hammering. On the plus side they haven't got AoE galore and they aren't resistant to status effects which is why they're down here at number 3 and not any higher. They're an annoyance more than anything else but do require extra effort compared to other villain groups.
Arachnos. Tough... if they're made out of metal.
5h. Specific tactics using Illusions and Storms
Some things just work really well together. Jam and peanut butter (jelly if you're from the US), milk and cookies and Illusions with Storm Summoning. While there might be some powers which don't compliment each other the fact is that the majority do and when it happens the whole becomes far more than the sum of its parts. I'll open this guide with the single greatest tactic someone with Illus/Storm can perform - The DoT of Doom!
If you can excuse that little bit of melodrama I'll continue. This trick has no formal name but whenever I'm on a team and pull it off and call it the DoT of Doom I always get a laugh so it kinda stuck. It's actually fairly simple to explain but harder to pull off reliably because it tends to need either a single tough enemy or a large group of smaller enemies to be worthwhile. The net result is what justifies Illus/Storm as the most damage dealing controller in the game even over Illus/Rad and Fire/Kin.
Recipe:
Hurricane
Tornado
Lightning Storm
Phantom Army
Superior Invisibility
(optional Phantasm, Gale)
1. Find either a single tough enemy or a large group of enemies
2. Find a suitable corner nearby
3. Position yourself with SI on so you can turn on Hurricane and push them into the corner
4. Turn on Hurricane
5. Push the target(s) into the corner, using Gale if you wish to stop them sliding out of the way.
6. Summon Phantom Army to draw aggro
7. Summon Tornado between you and the cornered target(s)
8. Do NOT summon them too close to the corner!
9. Summon Lightning Storm
10. Enjoy the carnage
What you have here is a concentrated mix of smashing, psionic and energy damage. Typically something like this will kill a purple boss without any effort, usually the Tornado will occasionally end up scooping the enemies into the air and between the hurricane pushing them into the corner and the Tornado under them you'll have enemies being continually juggled in the air while taking occasional damage from the Tornado and full damage from the rest. Having used this on an Elite Boss it's amusing to see them completely incapable of doing anything but die. This trick can also be used in PvP against tougher enemies like Brutes although it's harder to achieve as players will think their way out. The effort isn't once they're in the corner, it's the herding part which is needed to get them there. Unless it's done with a lot of enemies or a tough enemy like a boss you'll find the target(s) is/are dead by the time you summon Lightning Storm anyway.
Moving on to the more everyday kinda tactics we have the classic phantom+freezing rain trick.
Recipe:
Snow Storm
Freezing Rain
Phantom Army
(any optional offensive powers)
1. Any group of enemies
2. Summon Phantom Army so they aggro the group
3. Wait a couple seconds to let them huddle around the phantoms
4. Toggle on Snow Storm using leuitnent, boss or strongest anchor
5. Summon the Freezing Rain
This is probably one of the most reliable way to deal with a group of enemies, the PA pulls them into a tighter huddle because NPCs tend to favor melee attacks as they deal more damage. There are some exceptions to this (Nemesis ...grrr...) however on the whole this will help make them into a nice tight cluster. The Snow Storm is set up next ahead of Freezing Rain in order to prevent the enemies from moving too far when they try to run out from under the rain, the just summon the rain over them and watch them squirm.
While these are the most reliable and best combination of powers in an offensive situation there are times when you also need to go on the defensive as well. As the set has a multitude of possibilities and situational abilities the best option is to create layers of protection between you and those who are intent on separating your head from your neck.
Recipe:
Spectral Terror
Freezing Rain
Lightning Storm
Hurricane
(optional Steamy Mist or Superior Invisibility)
1. Toggle on Steamy Mist or SI to reduce your aggro
2. Summon Lightning Storm and then step back around 30-40'
3. Summon Spectral Terror over the enemies
4. Summon Freezing rain between the terror and the storm
5. Turn on Hurricane if anything starts to get through
Now this of course tends to be enough to deter almost any enemies from trying to get close to you, the drawbacks is that some enemies still favor ranged attacks which this will not help much against (gahh.. Nemesis... again!). However the Steamy Mist will help lower aggro if this is used on a team with someone up front who is a more appealing target. This defense also works especially well with a slight variation as well, if you position yourself around a corner and twist the camera to see around the edge you can place the summons down without being in line of sight of the enemies. If you then step out to summon the Lightning Storm and then step back you'll get the maximum benefit from the cover while having the ability to use your phantasm and phantom army to deal damage. Soon as something starts getting too close the Lightning Storm will start firing so you'll have a nice early warning even if you can't see whats happening very clearly.
6. PvP and you
It's fair to say that almost anyone who looks at a guide is planning ahead, never is that more important than it is for PvP. A poorly planned character can inhibit your success more than you realize as PvP is a whole different ballgame compared to PvE, tactics need to be adjusted as your opponent won't be some dumb AI with predictable behavior. I won't dig too far into PvP as it's a huge subject but some general advice is always helpful I feel.
6a. Things to keep in mind about PvP
(1) You will DIE!
No matter how good you are. No matter how uber you think you are. No matter how prepared you feel, there is one true constant. You'll eventually make a mistake or simply have someone out-think you or overpower you. It's the nature of the beast and something everyone who steps into PvP need to remember. Thinking you won't be killed is silly, thinking you'll constantly get killed and never kill anyone is also therefore silly. No matter how bad you think you are there is always someone who'll make a mistake for you to exploit to your advantage. Don't be afraid of taking part in PvP because you think you'll be killed, accept that you will and don't be afraid of it because you're no different than anyone else.
(2) CoX PvP is balanced around teaming
In an MMO like this the archetypes are designed to ensure that every character has weaknesses and limitations to encourage teaming, what you'll find is that there is another AT who has the tools to expoit those limitations and weaknesses to ensure an easy victory. A super-speed martial arts scrapper is NEVER going to be able to defeat a flying energy blaster who stays in the air. It's a no win situation for the scrapper and an easy win for the blaster. Soon as you accept that there is no such thing as a character which can never be defeated the sooner you'll start enjoying the game. A defender is a good ally for a scrapper, a controller is a good ally for a blaster and so on and so forth. The more ATs are teamed together the less weaknesses they'll have to exploit. The perfect team in PvP has at least one of each AT and everyone is working together. When a complete villain team and a hero team clash the battle will be decided to which is the better organized and the fights are normally epic!
(3) Diversity for the win!
Excuse the paraphrasing of a classic l337 quote but it seemed appropriate. Your opponents in PvP are quite often quite intelligent people, not always but they certainly possess the ability to learn from their mistakes. Using the same trick over and over will eventually lead to it not working anymore on the same person if used too much, especially if they team up with someone. If you're constantly diving out of the air with build-up, aim and bone smasher primed to land a slap down on some controllers head and they know your trick then one of these days they'll either phase shift out, turn invisible just to break targeting and then slap a status effect on you the second you come into range after your buff has worn off. That's a simple example but it makes my point. When building a PvP character you want a number of options available to you just so you're not stuck with a predictable bag of tricks, eventually someone will have the perfect counter to your trick and you'll not have an alternative to fall back on.
(4) More accuracy
PvP has all players set with a base ToHit of 50% rather than 75% which you find in PvE. As such you'll be missing more if you don't compensate. For PvE it's common practice to have only 1 accuracy single-origin enhancement as that is ample, however in PvP it's better to have 2 accuracy enhancements. The difference in slotting and not slotting that extra can be quite noticable.
(5) The essentials for a soloing PvP build
There is a simple rule in what is 'required' on a good soloing PvP focused character. While there is many many ideas on how to play there is a constant line of paralells which can be drawn between everyone's opinions which leads to a conclusive 'recipe' for PvP builds.
To have a good PvP build your character needs to meet the following requirements.
A. Burst damage
B. A way to prevent escape of your target
C. A way to escape for yourself
In any situation you'll want a quick and decisive victory, that isn't always an option however protracted fights inherently lead to greater risk of your opponent getting time to think around what you're doing to them. Thus (a) burst damage is very important, the ability to quickly dispatch someone is always valuable however bear in mind that sometimes not all ATs are equal in this respect. A blaster's idea of burst damage will always be much faster and more potent than what a defender is capable of. But you'll have degrees of how fast each type of defender can deal damage, aiming for the best your AT can produce is the point of a PvP build.
Moving on we have (b) a way to prevent your target from escaping. While there is a culture in PvP circles of the 'honorable defeat' the ultimate rules are that of the game. If you die then you have consequences and penalties for that defeat and the winner gets a reward. If you want to stand there and give up any thought of self-preservation then fine, you just gave someone an easy kill. But that's your choice. a lot of players however will often bail out when things get rough and a soloing player needs a way to stop that. Status effects, endurance draining and -speed debuff are excellent solutions to this problem which is why a lot of PvP builds have one or more of these abilities. They also help with ambushes as people rarely stand still for long, so the ability to stop them from breezing by is critical.
In a very circular balance way you know that a PvP built opponent will have the same capabilites as you. Able to deal damage to you quickly and attempt to stop you escapaing. That is why you need to consider point (c) which is the need for one or more solution to allow you to get out of these sticky situations. This can vary from things like extra travel powers, invisibility, phase shifting and other things which allow you to get away or break out of a particular situation which would be impossible otherwise. Invisibility is a popular option as it causes all targeting to be lost which means the majority of people simply can't see you to follow you or even attack.
Linking together with (b) and (c) is the need for freedom of movement although its not a requirement in itself the difference is instantly visible. Typically if you're limited in where you can go then you'll have issues with successful PvP mainly because people who have freedom of movement have a significant advantage over those without. This is mainly why super jump is so popular as its fast travel and also gives you the ability to move in all directions, compared to something like super-speed which is limited to horizonal travel.
(6) Zone PvP vs Arena PvP
Remember that there are two forums for PvP. Despite arguements to the contrary the open PvP zones have no rules other than that defined by the End User Licence Agreement (EULA). It's not considered griefing to continually follow someone around however in a PvP zone nor is it against the EULA to intentionally cause someone debt. This can inherently mean that PvP zones are a very hardcore way to take part in PvP as it's no holds barred and the stakes are much higher than in the arena. That said the rewards can also be higher as well. You will find a lot of talk about PvP Ettiquette which is all well and good but ultimately it's fake rules covering over official rules, it is admerable to respect your opponent and such but sometimes it can (and will) be taken to extremes. The zones are not intended for things like dueling or specific rules, remember that. If you want to add clauses and regulations to your fights then stick to the arena which lets you customise how you fight. If you can accept that zone PvP means people won't play by your rules then you'll enjoy it a lot more.
(7) Don't take it too seriously
Above all else try to remember that while it's fun to be the winner it's not alw ays going to happen. Don't take PvP personally when you win or when you lose as in the end it's always for fun. If you lose then pick yourself up and go out there to get some friendly 'revenge'. If you start to get frustrated or irritable then just step away from the PvP environment and go do something else in the game, both you and the other people playing will be better for it.
6b. PvP with Illusions/Storm controllers
As mentioned previously there is a plethora of ways to build and play an Illus/Storm character. As such you'll find a ton of perspectives on how to fight in PvP while solo and also while on teams. In both circumstances however you'll find that there is a common ground in how they are played. The element of surprize is the best tools at your disposal as you have the 2nd best invisibility power in the game, second only to the Stalkers 'Hide' ability. Depending on what you favor you can either lunge in with hurricane up and push someone around as you hit them with blind and spectral wounds or you can be sneaky and summon an army of pets onto your opponent while remaining completely invisible, then step back and watch them try and deal with it. Whatever way you decide to approach things there will be various enemies you'll struggle with depending on your approach and powers.
Dominators - While not all that popular in PvP due to them being difficult to use outside of domination mode the fact remains that just about anyone with status effects will give the aggressive player a problem as you need to be visible and in close range of the target. As such if you're hit with one then you're left with just the hope that your pets will do enough damage to allow you to get loose. The passive approach here works much better as a well timed ambush where the victim can't find a target they can attack leaves them with only two choices, run or be defeated. Thankfully something like Tornado has enough status effects to keep the enemy busy while they're attacked. Beware of Dominators running the Tactics skill as this will allow them to see through SI at close ranges get a status effect on them before they get one onto you. The best option against a Tactics Dominator is to drop the Terror onto them from high above. If you can get them to stand still that is....
Brutes - The aggressive option here works very well as hurricane is more than ample to give most Brutes a hard time plus some Brutes have perception buffs which will allow them to see through SI. The other problem is that Brutes have enough health and defenses to survive an assault purely from the pets unless exposed to them for a significant length of time, it's generally required for the player to get involved when dealing with them. Given their build a Brute might require a lot of work to defeat but it'll be the safest kill an Illus/Storm controller can have thanks to them having a trick to counter almost everything a Brute has in their arsenal. For added safety use Decieve on them combined with Hurricane so they struggle to land a hit on you even more.
Stalkers - Most Stalkers don't stick around long enough to engage in fights. As with all other ATs you'll find yourself dying to them more often than you will to any other enemy. If they do stick around then don't be concerned as Hurricane is enough to keep them from getting too close to you without difficulty and assuming they don't have perception buffs you can just vanish from sight and have the pets finish them off. When a Stalker is visible they're practically a squishie so don't be too worried about an unhidden stalker. The great thing with taking on Stalkers is that their ability to placate you has utterly no bearing on your pets. Even if you can't attack them until the placate wears off the fact remains that the pets can still pummel them.
Corruptors - Much like dominators you'll find corruptors to be difficult. Infact they are probably the second toughest enemies you can face IF you catch them the wrong way. The main drawback is that they can have status effects of their own as well as some nice firepower. Ambushes are also not always possible as a corruptor with perception buffs will have no issues seeing you well in advance of you getting within range to fight. If you do fight them, finish them off fast or you'll regret it. Try to catch them with a status effect before they get you with one is best. A few extra range enhancements or using tp foe will help you to get that first hit in.
Masterminds - Out of all of the ATs you'll face in PvP the MM will be the most annoying. Since you don't direct your pets they'll aggro to random henchmen instead of focussing on the MM player, the MM however can direct all of his firepower onto you without problems as the autotaunt effect of the Phantom Army doesn't work well on henchmen.. With features like bodyguard to spread the damage you're not going to be able to defeat a MM unless you can get them away from their henchmen for a few moments. An upfront attack is almost always fatal and you can't even lay a hold on the MM first as henchmen in defensive mode will aggro straight to you. Another problem is that perception isn't an issue for the henchmen once they have aggro'd to you. Even if the player themselves can't see you the henchmen will keep attacking which is a real pain. Unless you have a way to seperate the mastermind from their minions you may as well just not bother fighting this AT one on one. Tp foe is very handy for this although since pets will quickly follow their master it can lead to you needing to finish off the player asap before their buddies show up.
While hero vs hero fights tend to only take place in the arena or Warburg the fact is that certain parallels can be drawn between how you deal with the heroes and how to handle the villains. Tankers and scrappers are much like brutes (i.e. it's possible to totally dominate them), controllers and defenders however are a lot like corruptors as they'll give you a hard time in some situations. Blasters on the other hand won't be much of a threat as they are fairly light on status effects although they can hit you at range, however if they see you coming you could find yourself flat on your face before you can say '[censored]!' Peacebringers and Kheldians in general are rare in PvP and again at the moment you'll tend onto to find them in the arena or warburg, that said they are most adaptable of ATs so they'll have ample ways to overcome your tricks so treat them with caution as there is very little they can't counter.
6c. Illus/Storm PvP Tips and Dirty Tricks
They say a good player in any game doesn't let the opposition 'see their hand'. Keeping your best tricks secret might be wise but it wouldn't make for a very informative guide now would it? So here's a brief run down of tips and dirty tricks you can do with your Illus/Storm controller.
::The Pile of Phantoms::
In PvP there is a well-known trick of */devices blasters where they lay down a pile of tripmines and toss in some caltrops over the top. They then use tp foe to pull the victim onto the pile which often results in their instant death. While this might be seen as extremely cheap you have to admit that it is a sure-fire way to get a kill. Thankfully Illus/Storm controllers have their own version of this which isn't quite as effective but does a good job.
You will need Phantom Army, Freezing Rain, Blind, Spectral Wounds and Teleport foe as a bear minimum. If you are high enough for Tornado and Lightning Storm then great as it makes this even more effective. Set yourself up in a nice comfortable spot, if possible have SI, GI or Steamy Mist concealing you're location. Make sure your target is within tp range. Summon Phantom Army first, summon the freezing rain second and then teleport the victim into the middle. Have Blind qued up so it hits as soon as they appear. If done correctly the target will be dead within the next 10 seconds especially if you chip in with Spectral Wounds or use additional pets. The one drawback to this is that unlike caltrops the freezing rain won't slow someone enough to prevent them from using SS or SJ to get away. Thus it's not quite as reliable. If possible you could purchase Web Grenades from Sirens Call as they prevent flying and jumping which pairs nicely with Freezing Rain as the defense debuff from the rain means it hits with more reliability.
:
oT of Doom::
Please refer to part 5h. of the PvE section for how to do this. It works in PvP very well except that you'll ideally need Snow Storm to help slow the opponents movement as the pulses from Hurricane are less frequent and allow a smart player to slip out from the Hurricane. Again the web grenades come in handy.
::Confused campers::
Sometimes you get people who like to sit down in the middle of a massive trap they have created and let someone come to them. Common tricks are standing in the centre of a Tar Patch, Quicksand or perching over a pile of freshly laid tripmines. In every case these people forget that if they're confused then their own powers turn against them. Confusion protection is very very rare so if you ever see someone doing this simply summon the Phantom Army onto them and then hit them with Decieve. In the case of the guy/gal sitting on the tripmines you'll notice a nice satisfying BOOM followed by much swearing over boardcast. Why the Phantom Army? Well, you don't get credit if they kill themselves so you will hopefully get the killing blow in and in the case of tar patch and quicksand the PA will get a nice DPS boost with the victim being unable to run away very easily.
::Invisibility, don't leave home without it::
It may seem like common sense but everyone knows that the hospitals are watched and often camped by villains. If they see you coming out then you're at a disadvantage, use SI or GI BEFORE you step out of those doors.
::Terrors on a Plane::
Since Spectral Terror is intended to hover at a fixed distance above ground level it is often a good idea to use this to your advantage. If you have someone apparently standing around below you just drop the Terror from high above them so it lands on or near them. It'll instantly apply the Cowering Fear status effect and allow you to follow up with relative safety. Be warned, people quickly become wise to the air-dropped terror trick since it's so effective.
::Stalker free zone::
The fact is that without their ability to use assassin strikes the majority of Stalkers are totally harmless. If you ever need to fight without hassle from a stalker or want to check if a patch of ground has any Stalkers hiding away you can flush them out completely by summoning some Freezing Rain over the area. The DoT it causes knocks them out of Hide and also prevents the Stalker from using Assassin Strike. Sometimes this is a great trick to use on someone who is known for camping a specific spot all of the time.
::The 'I-Win' button::
Sometimes people fall for this, sometimes they don't. It depends on how preoccoupied or unaware the opponent is. While being really sneaky this trick is actually simple to do. Quite simply the Illus/Storm controller has the capability to carry on fighting even when phased. If you get either the Phase Shift power from the Concealment power pool or a temporary power like the one you get from the 'patrol warburg' mission then you can summon all of your pets and then phase out. Admittedly it only lasts for 30 seconds (unless you chain two or more phase shift powers end to end) but that's 30 seconds of being completely undeatable while being perfectly able to defeat someone else. Of course, if someone is dumb enough to stand around watching 'uneffected' continually appear over their opponents head for 30 seconds then they deserve to be defeated. Most people realize whats happening and simply back off until it wears off because they know if they stick around they'll either end up badly hurt or dead.You can prolong how long it takes someone to notice the phased effect by using any of the stealth powers, SI and GI work best because they almost totally obscure the phased special effects. Because of the need for the pets to deal damage this trick becomes better once you're into your high levels with things like Phantasm and Lightning Storm at your disposal.
7. Myths and Misunderstandings involving Illusions and Storm Summoning
7a. "Stamina is essential for Illus/Storm controllers" (False)
As has been covered briefly in this guide earlier the fact is that this is not true for all characters. The fact of the matter is that you can play the controller aggressively and handle most of the effort yourself or you can play passively and rely on the pets to handle the work. (or a mix of the two). Because of the nature of the pets they'll allow you the capability to stand around doing nothing to recover endurance should you need it, even in the middle of a fight. The one requirement of playing without stamina is that you WILL need to have some endurance reduction enhancements in certain powers to avoid running dry too quickly, typically one enhancement is ample to off-set the lack of stamina in the case of Illus/Storm controllers.
One of the main reasons why stamina is not required is that the pets themselves tend to last far longer a duration than you need to naturally regain the cost of summoning them, thus you can create a perfect summoning cycle that allows you to keep your pets out without needing to have endurance recovery bonuses. If you do find that you want to have a lot of endurance in a short space of time it's perfectly safe in most situations to actually use Rest while mid-fight as long as you Phantom Army out to distract the enemy. You will only tend to need to do that when on a team facing an especially large group of enemies or when fighting an AV or GM. Or if you have very little patience and want to get back into the fight.
If you do prefer to get more actively involved then you'll tend to be spamming spectral wounds and blind quite regularly and no doubt running hurricane and maybe snow storm. This method is obviously not relying so much on the pets and thus has a far higher endurance drain to overcome while in combat. As such you'll see the need to have stamina. In the long run, you'll see the need to take stamina in the build become more important or less important depending on your play style, if you lean towards pets you won't need it but if you prefer to be more active you may feel things get frustrating without it. Always remember however that it's a good idea to turn off Superior Invisibility while fighting as it'll suck endurance like crazy and give you very little benefit in return.
7b. "Superior Invisibility stacks with Steamy Mist" (False)
A common mistake, the two cannot be active at the same time. If you're running Steamy Mist and turn on Superior Invisibility then the game will automatically turn off Steamy Mist, and vice versa.
7c. "SI and GI stack together to give extra stealth benefits" (True)
While this isn't quite what you'd expect the fact remains that there is a stealth bonus from these two combined. The thing however is somewhat quirky as some time ago the developers of the game introduced stealth caps which prevent archetypes from exceeding a certain value of stealth. All non-stalker ATs have a cap which increases with their level and is estimated at around 600' at it's highest point. It is actually a little short of that in reality but for the sake of this discussion we'll keep it as a nice round figure. This is different from Stalkers who can go well over a stealth value of 1000' when stacking multiple types of invisibility powers. Both Superior and Group Invisibility have a stealth bonus so high that it instantly sends the affected player to their stealth cap. So combining SI and GI doesn't have any bonus for the maximum stealth value as you already hit the cap with just one of them. The quirk comes from Stealth Supression. As you may or may not know when stealthed some versions of the power let you attack targets or interact with objects in the world, if this happens the stealth value is supressed to a lower value, with the exception of Group Invisibility which remains always at full in PvE but turns off completely in PvP when you attack. In some cases this means you've lost almost all benefit of the power for roughly a 10 second period until the supression wears off (the duration of supression in PvP is shorter compared to PvE). However supression appears to deduct not from the value after the AT specific cap is applied, but from the total stealth value BEFORE the cap is applied.
To illustrate:-
As an example, NPCs have a perception value of 600, any stealth value lower than 600 means they can see the hero. The lower the stealth value versus the NPC's perception value results in the NPC being able to see the hero from greater distances.
Example:-
Stealth value of 300 vs perception value of 600 means the NPC can see the hero at half their normal distance. (close range)
Stealth value of 600 vs perception value of 600 means that the NPC is completely unable to see the hero even at point blank range.
Stealth value of 599 vs perception value of 600 means that the NPC can see the hero only when they're at point blank range.
Now consider this situation with SI and GI:-
Hero A has a stealth value of 0 without any stealth powers applied. With Superior Invisibility applied their stealth value is 1000. As the cap for their stealth value is 600' they lose the benefit of +400' of what the power gave them. Their end stealth value remains 600'. Hero A then has someone apply Group Invisibility. The total stealth value rises by +1000' to a total of 2000. However the cap means that their end stealth value is still 600', they gain no benefit from GI being applied.
Hero A has a total stealth value 2000' but an end value of 600' after caps are applied. Hero A attacks a target. Stealth Supression takes away 50% from SI but none from GI of the total stealth value leaving the total value as 1500'. However the stealth value cap gives an end stealth value of 600'. They still cannot be seen even at point blank range against NPCs.
Hero B has only Superior Invisibility applied. Their total stealth value is 1000' but an end value of 600'. Hero B attacks a target. Stealth Supression takes away 50% of the total stealth value leaving the total value as 500'. This is below the stealth cap so Hero B loses 100' worth of stealth making them visible at close range to NPCs who have a perception value of 600'.
Now some enemies like Advanced Rikti Drones have a percetion value greater than what your average NPC does. Due to the Stealth caps you have no benefit from SI+GI and this can be proven by comparing the distance the drones aggro to you with SI and SI+GI, you'll find the distance is the same for both. However against other NPCs you have the capability to attack an invidual standing in a group of allied NPCs who would normally aggro to you, since SI+GI overcomes the supression you're completely invisible except to the NPC you're attacking. There is a drawback however in how the AI operates, upon defeating the first NPC in the group of enemies the others will aggro to you if you're still within their normal line of sight. If you break line of sight or use confusion on them prior to the defeat of the first target they will not aggro to you, this suggests that although they do not attack you they do add you to their aggro-list (a mental record of enemies they can see), yet they do not act upon that list until their ally is defeated. This can be a very effective way of thinning out a crowd of threats by using GI and SI combined. This result appears to be a bug in the AI more than anything else, so no doubt this will eventually be corrected as in its current state it would be possible to get xp from groups of enemies with minimum risk reguardless of the level or type of the NPC.
7d. "Phantom Army causes energy damage" (False)
As it turns out the in-game description of Phantom Army is incorrect. The phantoms actually cause pure Psionic damage.
7e. "Range enhancements allow pets to attack from greater distance" (False)
Unfortunately while it might be nice to have the ability to get them to attack and aggro from greater range the fact is that the range enhancements only allow you to summon them from greater distances. The exception to this rule is Lightning Storm which isn't classed as a true pet but a pseudo-pet, essentially the game treats it the same as the 'rain' powers like freezing rain, blizzard and rain of fire. This is why it gains the benefits from inspirations and other buffs. Bear in mind however that there is very little point in adding range enhancements to increase the summoning range as the pets are designed to never wander too far from you and the basic distance they can be summoned is usually near to the maximum range that the pets are allowed to be away from you. Increasing beyond that range simply means that they'll spawn at that point and then run back to you before they start to aggro to enemies. While this might be handy for pulling it could also result in you being caught in AoE and cone attacks.
7f. "Confused enemies can actually lower the amount EXP gained" (True... under certain conditions)
Of much debate is the value of using confusion in a fight. The simple fact of the matter is that if more than 50% of the damage an NPC has taken was caused by a confused enemy then the exp from that damaged NPC will be significantly lower once they are defeated. As such you'll find that if you let a confused enemy do most of the work you'll barely get any exp from the enemies that are defeated.
However, some will argue that while the exp per person (EPP from now on) is lowered, the exp over time (EOT) actually increases. The reasoning for this:
Hero A can cause 100 points of damage every 5 seconds.
NPC X can cause 100 points of damage every 5 seconds.
NPC Y has a total of 600 points of health.
..thus..
Hero A can defeat NPC Y in 30 seconds.
..however..
Hero A plus a confused NPC X can defeat NPC Y in 15 seconds.
Because the total damage is split 50/50, Hero A takes a significant cut to exp which has been found to be around 20%. However they've gained that exp with a 20% loss in half of the time it took to defeat an opponent while solo. Thus in the 30 seconds that you could defeat a single enemy solo (without the help of a confused enemy) you can defeat 2 opponents in the same length of time if you have a confused enemy to help. Thus resulting in a net gain of EOT at a loss of EPP.
But where this thinking falls apart is when you have confused enemies who have AoE/Cone attacks or are able to generate significantly more damage than the player can to nearby NPCs. This is obviously because the player has less of a chance to deal the majority of the damage and thus suffers more from the penalty which confusion has.
Consider this:-
Minions are worth 10 exp, have 100 hitpoints and deal 25 damage every 5 seconds
Boss is worth 30 exp, have 300 hitpoints and deal 95 damage every 5 seconds.
Hero A deals 50 damage every 5 seconds.
Recharge time on confusion is 5 seconds.
Hero A is invulnerable to damage for this hypothetical test.
(this is a fair comparison to in-game where a boss is considered somewhat equal to 3 minions with a DPS boost)
So you have a spawn of 1 boss (Boss A) and 3 minions (Minion A, B and C). The total worth of 60 exp.
:::::Scenario 1:::::
- Boss A is confused.
(1 second into the fight)
- Minion A is hit for 95 points of damage by Boss A. (Minion A HP: 5/100)
- Minion B is hit for 50 points of damage by Hero A (Minion B HP: 50/100)
(6 seconds into the fight)
- Minion A is hit for 95 points of damage by Boss A, Minion A is defeated.
**Hero A gains 0 points of exp, 10 points lost**
- Minion B is hit for 50 points of damage by Hero A, Minion B is defeated
**Hero A gains 10 points of exp, 0 exp lost**
(11 seconds into the fight)
- Minion C is hit for 95 points of damage by Boss A (Minion C HP: 5/100)
- Minion C is hit for 50 points of damage by Hero A, Minion C is defeated
**Hero A gains 5 points of exp, 5 lost**
(( Hero dmg = 5, Boss dmg = 95-75% = 23.75 [total dmg = 28.75] Hero % = 18% ))
(+30 seconds later)
Boss A is defeated by Hero A
**Hero A gains 30 points of exp, 0 exp lost**
Total fight time: 41 seconds.
Exp gained: 45 exp
:::::Scenario 2:::::
- Minion A is confused.
(1 second into the fight)
- Boss A is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion A (Boss HP: 275/300)
(6 seconds into the fight)
- Boss A is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion A (Boss HP: 250/300)
- Hero A confuses Minion B
(11 seconds into the fight)
- Boss A is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion A (Boss HP: 225/300)
- Minion C is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion B (Minion C HP: 75/100)
- Hero A confuses Minion C
(16 seconds into the fight)
- Boss A is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion A (Boss HP: 200/300)
- Minion C is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion B (Minion C HP : 50/100)
- Minion B is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion C (Minion B HP: 75/100)
- Minion C is hit for 50 points of damage by Hero A, Minion C is defeated.
**Hero A gains 8 points of exp, 2 lost**
(( Hero dmg = 50, Minion B dmg = 50-75% = 12.5 [total damage = 62.5] Hero % = 80% ))
(21 seconds into the fight)
- Boss A is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion A (Boss HP: 175/300)
- Minion A is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion B (Minion A HP: 75/100)
- Boss A is hit for 50 points of damage by Hero A (Boss HP: 125/300)
(26 seconds into the fight)
- Minion B is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion A (Minion B HP: 50/100)
- Minion A is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion B (Minion A HP: 50/100)
- Boss A is hit for 50 points of damage by Hero A (Boss HP 75/300)
(31 seconds into the fight)
- Minion B is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion A (Minion B HP: 25/100)
- Minion A is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion B (Minion A HP: 25/100)
- Minion B is hit for 50 points of damage by Hero A, Minion B is defeated
**Hero A gains 8 exp, 2 is lost**
(( Hero dmg = 25, Minion A dmg = 75-75% = 18.75 [total dmg = 43.75] Hero % = 58%))
(36 seconds into the fight)
- Boss A is hit for 25 points of damage by Minion A (Boss HP: 50/300)
- Minion A is hit for 50 points of damage by Hero A, Minion A is defeated
**Hero A gains 8 exp, 2 is lost**
(( Hero dmg = 25, Minion B dmg = 75-75% = 18.75 [total dmg = 43.75] Hero % = 58%))
(41 seconds into the fight)
- Boss A is hit for 50 points of damage, Boss A is defeated
**Hero A gains 24 exp, 6 is lost**
(( Hero dmg = 150, Minion A = 150-75% = 37.5 [total damage = 187.5] Hero % = 80% ))
Total fight time: 41 seconds.
Exp gained: 48 exp
As you can see, the duration of the fights are identical however there is a drop in the overall exp gained in the situation where the boss is confused. The amount of damage it can produce limits the ability of the player to cause damage to the target. This is also subject to the amount of hitpoints and resistance of the nearby NPCs which the confused NPCs will attack. Admittedly the drop in exp between the two is only minor in these simulations however consider that would happen if the boss had an AoE attack. Or if there was even more minions which the player could only attack one at a time while the boss could keep using their AoE! As you can see, for the best exp gain from confusion it's far better to confuse a bunch of minions who help to chip in rather than to confuse the big boss who is likely to finish off his/her allies before you've had a chance to even look at them.
Due to this there are some basic rules to follow if you wish for Deceive to actually increase your EOT value.
- avoid confusing enemies who have significantly higher DPS than you
- avoid confusing enemies who have AoE/Cone damage powers
- start causing damage as soon as possible
- don't spend too much time confusing targets while the fight is raging
- focus on enemies you can finish off quickly, save tough threats until later
- make sure you at least get a hit on all of the enemies, no damage done equals no exp at all
7g. "Inspirations can be used to boost the damage/accuracy/defense of pets" (False)
If some people are coming from CoV there is sometimes a little confusion about the difference between pets and henchmen. The mastermind AT in City of Villains has the perk of being able to pass inspirations to the henchmen and they'll use the inspiration instantly with the relevant benefits. Saddly this isn't the case for pets that Illus/Storm has with one exception. The Lightning Storm (which isn't a true pet) has the ability to benefit from ANY buffs that are applied to the player when the storm is summoned. For example, it is often wise to have Illus/Storm controllers work Hasten into their build, mainly because it's always helpful to be able to have summons recharged by the time their duration is up. If you use Hasten and have it active when you summon the Lightning Storm the attack rate of the lightning bolts will increase in the same way that you're recharge rates are increased as well. Likewise if you have anything which buffs damage or accuracy then the damage and accuracy of the storm will increase as well. This adds an extra element of tactical consideration when you finally have the ability to summon the Lightning Storm.
7h. "Group Flight works with Phantom Army" (False)
Saddly while it would be nice to see Phantom Army going through the air or have Tornado turn into a mid-air funnel of doom the fact is that Phantom Army's intangible nature means it's uneffected by any bonuses and Tornado isn't classed as a true pet so it cannot adopt buffs of any kind. The only pet this would benefit is Phantasm by increasing its flight speed. You also cannot use Team Teleport to move Phantom Army or Tornado around.
7i. "Vengance can be used on a Phantasm upon their defeat (if you're quick)" (False)
The Vengence power which gives a nice buff to allies and yourself does not function at all on any pets when they are defeated. Phantasm doesn't even leave a corpse anyway. You also cannot ressurect a Phantasm for this reason.
7j. "Spectral damage is always Psionic in nature" and/or "Spectral damage is unresistable" (False)
Due to the mixed nature of how Spectral damage works such rumors were sure to exist. The fact is that the damage type is always shared with the powers' true damage type. In the case of the Phantasm, the Decoy (although it causes 100% spectral damage) is paired with the Phantasm itself resulting in the Spectral damage being Energy based in nature however for Phantom Army the Spectral damage is actually Psionic as the real damage the Phantoms cause is Psionic based. Because of how Spectral damage has a fixed value it's easy to see why some people thought the damage was unresistable, the fact is that it IS effected by resistances because it is a percentage of the unenhanced base damage which the power causes. Thus if the base damage is 100 while the spectral damage is 20 and the NPC has 50% resistance to that damage type then the real damage is cut to 50 and the spectral damage is cut to 10 as well.
8. F.A.Q
Q1. What's City of Heroes
A. Very funny....
Q2. What does AoE / DPS / ect... mean?
A. Jargon is inevitable in anything which resembles an RPG-style game (look there's another one) so here's a brief run down of some terms you may come across within this guide.
SINGLE TARGET - Only effects one target
TARGETED - when you activate the power a targeting circle appears to direct when the power will be triggered at (or where it'll go). targeted powers do not require line of sight.
AOE - Area of Effect, essentially an ability which will effect more than one target
PBAOE - an AoE which has the user as the central of the effect
ANCHORED - a power that uses an NPC or player as the point of origin, if the anchor dies the ability is turned off.
LOS - Line of Sight, a line that can be drawn between the attacker and the target indicating a clear shot. Corners can be used to break line of sight in some cases.
COV - City of Villains
COH - City of Heroes
COX - A collective term for City of Heroes and City of Villains. i.e. City of X (where X is a variable)
STATUS EFFECTS - temporary conditions which place certain limitations upon those affected, see below
HOLD/HELD - target is unable to move or take actions, all toggles are turned off
SLEEP - target is unable to move or take action, condition is cleared completely if they take damage, all toggles are turned off
STUN/DISORIENT - target is able to move but very slowly, unable to take action, all toggles are turned off
FEAR - target cowers down and is unable to take action or move unless they take damage, upon taking damage they have a few moments to move or take action before returning to the previous cowering state. toggles stay active.
KB/KD/KU - Known as knockback, knockdown and knockup. Target is knocked off of their feet in the specified direction. Target cannot take action or move until they stand up again. Actions which take a while to fully execute, and are triggered before the knockdown, will continue even while the target is being knocked down however
REPEL - the target is pushed out of the repel area of effect relative to the position of the centre of the effect
PHASED/INTANGIBLE - the target cannot move or attack, they are also unable to be harmed and are non-solid (NPC and players are normally immobilised however in PvP there is a bug where if you have immobilization protection you can still move around). Target can only use powers that effect themselves, all of their toggles remain active. Anchored toggles stay active but lose all of their effects.
IMMOBILIZE - the target cannot move, but can take action
-FLY - target cannot use any powers that let them fly or hover
-JUMP - target cannot jump
CONFUSE - causes NPC AI to see allies as enemies, meaning they will not attack players and will instead attack NPCs who used to be allied to them. In PvP it causes player targeting to randomly switch between targeting allies and enemies. The name colours over player heads also switch. This state can be inherated by pets and pseudo-pets which the affected target summons, often leading to pets attacking their master.
TOGGLE - a power which has an off/on mode, while on it will constantly have an endurance cost
DETOGGLE - an ability which forces a random toggle ability to turn off on the target it hits
CLICK - a power which is activated and then does something with a one-time endurance cost
MELEE - need to be within 5' of the target
RANGED - distance will vary can hit from 0' to maximum range of the specific power. (usually 80')
AT - archetype
DPS - damage per second
DPE - damage per endurance used
DEFENSE - protection that causes attacks to miss (debuffed by -defense)
RESISTANCE - protection which reduces the damage from attacks which hit by a percentage (debuffed by -resistance)
TOHIT - a percentage value which defines when something hits or misses (ei. players have a base 75% chance ToHit NPCs as standard, ranks and levels of NPCs alter this)
-RANGE - causes the distance at which powers will function to be reduced, this does not affect melee range powers. These always remain at 5'.
Q3. I don't understand half of what you're talking about here. Why don't you explain everything in detail?
A. This guide is intended for people who are familiar with the game and have played through enough to understand the fundamentals of soloing and teaming. The guide is not intended for first time players who haven't sat down and played the game for several weeks.
Q4. What does DMG, RNG and such mean in the slotting section of the power descriptions?
A. They are short-hand for the various enhancement types. Here is a list of the enhancements you may see mentioned in this guide.
DMG = damage
RNG = range
-DEF = defense debuff
+DEF = defense buff
RCHG = recharge speed
ACC = accuracy
-HIT = ToHit debuff
+HIT = ToHit buff
END = endurance reduction
ENDM = endurance modification
HLD = hold duration
STUN = stun duration
CONF = confusion duration
STN = stun duration
SLP = sleep duration
FEAR = fear duration
KB = knockback/knockup/knockdown distance
-SPD = slow movement debuff
9. Reference Material
Of course producing a guide which covers as much as this one isn't possible without help from the CoH/CoV community and people who have dedicated so much of their time to help understand the game we all enjoy so much. This section includes a number of links and hard numbers from my own data gathering and also from people who I have sourced material from for the purposes of writing this guide. Please ensure that you give proper credit if you intend to use any of this information for your own guides or publications.
9a. CoH planner from Joechott.com. An excellent planner with some very accurate numbers for individual powers.
9b. Here is how I broke down the recharge times, duration times, damage and endurance costs into rough caragories. The numbers were sourced from the CoH Planner and then used to generate these catagories for the powers section of this guide. These numbers are designed to parrallel the rough catagories used for in-game power description as closely as possible. Allow for some minor discrepancies at the lower and higher end of each catagory so expect a certain amount of overlap in some cases when comparing with in-game descriptions.
ENDURANCE COSTS
1-5 minor
6-15 moderate (spec w, blind, deceive, gi, gale, 02 boost, thunder clap)
16-25 high (flash, spec terr, freezing rain)
26-35 heavy (tornado)
35+ extreme (pa, phantasm, lightning storm)
TOGGLE ENDURANCE COSTS
0.41-0.82 minor (snow storm, steamy mist)
0.83-1.25 moderate (hurricane)
1.26-1.66 high (si)
1.67-1.99 heavy
2+ extreme
RECHARGE SPEEDS (ALSO USED FOR DURATIONS)
1-5 fast (spec w, o2 boost)
6-15 moderate (blind, deceive, si, gale, snow storm, hurricane)
16-30 long
31-60 very long (spec terr, freezing rain, thunder clap, tornado)
61-120 extreme grade 1 (flash, lightning storm)
121-240 extreme grade 2 (gi, pa, phantasm)
DAMAGE (BRAWL INDEX/BI)
0-2.4 minor (gale, freezing rain)
2.5-3.5 moderate (blind)
3.6-5.5 high (spec w, lightning storm)
5.6-8 superior
8.1-10 extreme grade 1
10.1-15 extreme grade 2
15.1+ extreme grade 3
9c. As there was no reference material done before on the subject of spectral damage here is the data I gathered from an old test centre copy of my Illus/Storm controller. This data was gathered using the human nemesis troopers in Peregrine Island with a level 41 character. Data is organized like this:
# Enhancements used : total damage - spectral healback value (percentage of spectral damage out of total damage)
Note all enhancements used were yellow grade damage SOs which offer a fixed 30% boost each.
::Spectral Wounds::
0 SO : 47 - 18 (39%)
1 SO : 61 - 18 (30%)
2 SO : 75 - 18 (24%)
3 SO : 92 - 18 (20%)
:Phantom Army:: (has both ranged and melee attacks)
0 SO ranged : 41 - 29 (71%) --- 0 SO melee : 68 - 53 (79%)
1 SO ranged : 54 - 29 (55%) --- 1 SO melee : 89 - 53 (60%)
2 SO ranged : 66 - 29 (44%) --- 2 SO melee : 109 - 53 (49%)
3 SO ranged : 84 - 29 (35%) --- 3 SO melee : 138 - 53 (39%)
As it turned out, PA causes more damage at range than melee due to greater percentage of spectral wounds and the fact that their ranged attacks recharge faster than melee. Thus for damage purposes summoning them in the middle of a crowd isn't ideal. The PA will however randomly use ranged attacks at melee range which may be found to boost DPS.
9d. Cforce's wonderful guide to Exp loss when using the confusion status effect. A great reference for any number chunchers out there :- http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...part=1#2354729
Here's a quick reference for the relevant section for dmg/exp:
"Here's a handy table for this, rounded to the nearest percent. If you do A% of the total damage to the mob, and all the other damage is 'confused' damage, you get B% of the total XP for the mob:
A.....B
0.....0
10....31
20....50
25....57
30....63
40....73
50....80
60....86
70....90
75....92
80....94
90....97
100...100
A handy way to remember this table for approximations in-game is: 20 gets you 50, 50 gets you 80, 80 gets you 95."
10. Acknowledgements
Big thank you to everyone who helped to contribute directly and indirectly to this guide, I've learned a great deal from the community during my time spent on the forums and couldn't have written this guide without picking up bits of information over a long period of time from everyone who posts. All of this information could never have been learned by a single person from scratch so consider the majority of this guide a collection of wisdom from thousands of people which I simply organized together and added a few of my discoveries to. 
This guide was authored by Chris 'Tal-N' Blane. Please do not reference items from this guide without giving proper credit to those involved.
Special thanks go to the folllowing people for their invaluable contributions:-
- Joe Chott for his extremely helpful Hero Planner.
- Cforce for his amazingly indepth guide to Confusion/Exp Loss
- Emnity, for an excellent proof read to work the bugs out of the guide
- Papaschtroumpf, for reminding me of O2 Boost's endurance drain protection
- The CoX community for enduring my continued ramblings on their forums for the past few years.
Thank you for reading!
Wow, I'm first to comment.
Loved the guide. It's comprehensive, covering anything and everything any may want to know about an Illusion/Storm Controller. Well done Tal_N.
I'd think about making one, but I'm already fighting enough Altitis Interruptis while leveling Phillip, don't need more characters to play...right now.
Very nice and well written. Correct me if I am wrong but didn't you once say this combo was very boring to play i nthe higher levels? I have a Ill/storm lvl 22 and wondering if she is worth pursuing in the later lvls.
Don't know if I am misreading your earlier comments on this build or if you have changed your mind on it.
Thanks
awesome. well worth the wait.
thanks!
@VforVegan
The Nauseum (50) Kin/Rad/Psy Defender
Terror Storm (50) Ill/Storm/Ice Controller
Burn Bunny (50) Fire/Kin/Fire Controller
Michael Ebonheart (50) Warshade
Incredible Ism (50) Ill/Emp/Primal Controller
((and too many non-50s to list here...))
I have a level 41 Illusion/storm and it seems to me it only gets better as you level. I just got my first ever epic power pool and took psi to try and fill the gap in personal status protection. Mez and knockback have always been a problem. I've found that taking kb protection from my base ugh, forgot the name, buff machine thing 
helped plenty while doing nemesis missions. Love the character and love the guide. Tornado is one of my favorite powers. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that wasn't included.
Excellent work!
Pinnacle is my home server.
Cohort of the Lethal Ladies/Deadly Dudes
Magic based arcs:
41844 - An Element of Danger, Pt 1
41967 - An Element of Danger, Pt 2
Very nice guide.
I have a lvl 50 ill/storm myself and loved the ride.
Some comments on hurricane usage.
Meleers will often grit their teeth when they see a stormer join their team, the result of having seen too many bad stormer or just because their priorites and yours aren't totally the same.
The primary reason for their dislike is bad usage of hurricane.
You mention that using it to force enemies into a corner is a substantial goal for this power and I totally concur. I would say that having superspeed can make your melee teammate love you with this power when you are able to round up and keep large spawns pinned in a small space for them to just go crazy on them. In short hurricane can make you loved or hated by melee-ers rarely anything in the middle.
I see that you weren't inclined to add in a section on the epic/auxiliary pools and their effects to this build.
These are my thoughts and experiences with them feel free to ignore completely.
I have tried psionic, power and fire mastery. Perhaps others could comment on ice mastery, or i'll stop being lazy and copy to test and test it.
Psionic was my first and i would say most useful in my run from 41-50 than power or ice would have been, but that is of course debatable.
I chose psi for 2 reasons. Indomitable will provided substantial mez protection periods when slotted for recharge w' hasten and mind over body added psi/lethal/smash damage resistance which with steamy mist meant that the only two damage types unresisted were neg. energy and toxic. I found myself to be a fairly agressive ill/stormer and would from time to time find myself in the middle of the scrum and these additional defenses proved quite helpful. Also with the prevalence of status effects many of them AOE in the late game the mez protection was invaluable.
Also, as an illusionist i found it particularly galling to be flashed or blinded when fighting carnies.
Psionic tornado is an adequate aoe attack for use with the limited forms of group containment ill/storm is able to generate (ie. thunderclap and flash). It's knockup effect is respectable as a minor control effect. The downsides to it were long animation time, long recharge, lowish damage, and high endurance cost. Overall i found it of limited value.
Mental blast esp. since it has been tuned up for animation/activation time is not bad at all though, it's damage is not spectacular but healthy. I would assume it has a bit more value in PvP.
One other comment is that the effect for mind over body of subtle pinkish rings around your character is not exactly my cup of tea.
Now there is definitely something to be said for power boost, the primary reason for this build that i tried out power mastery.
Conserve power was a nice addition for big summoning fests but i did not feel was overall that necessary. Power blast is a nice attack. It does pretty good damage and is handy for aiding in taking down anything under containment with alternating Spectral wounds and Power blast.
Its recharge as with all the aux/epics is a little longer than you'd like but slotted 2acc/3dmg/1rchrg it's not too shabby.
Temp Invulnerabilty makes a nice add on for resistance to smashing lethal and it looks better than mind over body.
For my character at 50 though i skipped this power as between conserve power, power blast and the 4th tier power boost I didn't really have the slots to make this worthwhile and i wanted the other 3 more.
Power boost, very good power.
Its quite a rush to throw PAs hit this then freezing rain and one of the aoe mezs.
Now I'm not totally clear on whether or not freezing rain gets full benefit from the boost but one would think/hope so.
As I said I only specced into this pool at 50 and I don't do a lot of adventuring since then.
Fire mastery is a common choice among other controllers because of fireball on a spawn under containment. we don't have as many options for that sort of thing and as a result I don't feel that we benefit from this power as much. Fire shield looks coolest of all the aux/epic shield available to us imo, but I didn't feel it necessary with already having fire resistance in steamy mist.
The S/L resist is nice but not that critical depending on play style. Consume is a handy feature in that if you're playing ill/storm in a very agressive manner you're running through endurance quickly, this can help take care of that. Particulary easy if you run into a group under the effects of freezing rain. It will be more likely to hit more of them and will do more damage.
Fire blast is a good healthy damage attack that benefits nicely from containment, alternating between spectral wounds and this does away with foes quickly.
Ice mastery is a pretty good thematic match for your power sets. I can see hibernate being a good choice if you choose to pvp, allowing you to remain untouchable while your various pets and pseudo pets do their thing. Ice blast nice secondary slow effect, decent damage. Frozen armor plugs the S/L gap in your resistances and boosts fire and cold resist. You are however a big ice cube looking person at that point.
Ice Storm is a very nice addition to an Ill/storm arsenal for big aoe damage. An ideal setup would be, i would thin,k PA, pause, flash, freezing rain, ice storm. This could potentially depending on containment issues due massive damage as freezing rain is already debuffing defense and resistance, and the slows would stack. Could potentially make large groups just melt... so to speak.
Overall for Ill/Strm I would say Psi mastery If you despise being held and like to have a very full set of resistances.
Ice mastery is probably one of your best choices if you prefer to PvP or if in PvE you like doing a lot of AOE damage in the late game.
Power Mastery is quite helpful for hami raids.
Fire master isn't as beneficial to us as to other controller primaries.
Thanks for a very comprehensive guide. I have a lvl 43 Illusion/Storm and I agree with everything that you explained. Strange cause I always read guides and think, no, I've played that and it doesn't work that way
Beyond that there were two tricks in your guide that I will start using. One is to set the lightning storm up high for knockback into the ground. Damn I should have realised that.
The other was the layered defense of spectral terror, freezing rain, lightning storm and hurricane, preferably out of line of sight. Going to go try that one.
In your list of enemies, I'll add one. Redcaps in large numbers (especially at +2 or more) during the Croatoa story arcs. They spread out around you in open terrain and turn you into a pin cushion.
Oh, and Redcaps, Tuatha and Wolves all quickly dance out of Freezing Rain, then REALLY aggro on the caster. Use with care.
excellent guide Tal_N. Been waitin for this for awhile
It's beautiful! Reading what translates into a 55 page Word Document (I copied, edited, and saved it out!) on the subject matter of playing a quirky AT combo brought a tear to my eye.
Thank you for your time and effort...as well as your Table of Contents! Only internal hyperlinking could have made it better.
Truly a masterwork of longwinded goodness!
O2Boost also provides endurance drain protection.
It's only situationally useful, but can significantly help when fighting Cabal for example.
Great guide, I had been toying with the idea of an Ill/Storm, but I already have 3 illusion and 2 storms so I had discarded the idea. Your guide makes me wnat to gie it a try anyway.
Glad everyone likes it, I'm surprized that it stretched as long as being 55 pages but then again I wrote it all in notepad so I wasn't watching the length. Tried not to ramble too much though.
As for why I didn't cover the epics, the fact is that I feel they don't really add much to the tactics you can do as an Illus/Storm controller which aren't already possible. I mean the Mind Epic for the mes protection might be handy in PvP but in PvE I've rarely suffered from being held, then again I do play mainly by relying on the pets but for an agressive posture Illus/Storm I can see the benefits as you need to maintain DPS.
On the whole though I wanted to focus on Illus/Storm in itself rather than start writing outside of the box on things like Accolades, Hammi-Os to use, Epics and such. I might update the guide with those bits at a later date as I'd like to cover the Inventions additions to Illus/Storm when i9 is finally released. I suspect that given the wide variety of enhancements Illus/Storm can use I think Inventions will offer alot of benefits with it's multi-purpose enhancements and the special sets.
Amazing job on the guide. One of the best written guides I've seen on the forums. Koodoos!
-Malakim
Malakim
-Playing since COH beta and still love the game!
Very nice guide, and I have to admit my ill/storm is also one of my favourite characters. Dropping flash, freezing rain, PA and spectral terror on a spawn almost feels like cheating - the rest of my team roll's over them like they were paper.
One little note - you mentioned in PvP that Masterminds were one of the hardest opponents - I was pretty sure that "pets attack deceived masters" applied to them too, or have I been misinformed?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Psychoti
"....so I headbutted the blind chick."
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[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / transference.org / xenogamous.com / wytedragon.net / quantam sufficit ]
An utterly fantastic effort and a joy to read. Thanks Tal_N!!!
My Earth/Sonic teamed extensively with Darkfin's Ill/Storm around a year ago. Boy that was a thrill. Ill/Storm is a fantastic combination if you understand the intricacies. I don't think a person could avoid understanding them after reading this guide.
A suggestion: don't write your guides in notepad! Or do. I actually found the typos rather entertaining. My two favorites are (with my own interpretations):
"bear miniumum" - the sideshow freak midget bear!
"Concierge (Family)" - the Family NPC that will arrange tickets for the theater for you and then bonk you over the head.
================================================== =======
========Smoke and Mirrors: A guide to Illusions/Storm controllers==[v/1.0]====
============ by Tal-N =======================================
INDEX
1. Introduction
2. What this guide will tell you
3. 'Illusions' powers
3a. Summery of Illusions
3b. Specific powers
3c. Understanding 'Spectral' damage
4. 'Storm Summoning' powers
4a. Summary of Storm summoning
4b. Specific powers
5. PvE Tactics and advice
5a. What is PvE?
5b. Things to remember about your controller
5c. General soloing advice
5d. General teaming advice
5e. Situational powers and when (or when not) to use them
5e/i. Gale
5e/ii. Decieve
5e/iii. Spectral Terror
5e/iv. Phantasm
5e/v. Hurricane
5e/vi. Freezing Rain
5e/vii. Tornado
5e/viii. Lightning Storm
5f. A Word on Combat and Tactical thinking with Illusion/Storm Controllers
5g. The Black List
5g/1. Nemesis
5g/2. Rularuu
5g/3. Arachnos
5h. Specific tactics using Illusions and Storms
6. PvP and you
6a. Things to keep in mind about PvP
6b. PvP with Illusions/Storm controllers
6c. Illus/Storm PvP Tips and Dirty Tricks
7. Myths and Misunderstandings involving Illusions and Storm Summoning
7a. "Stamina is essential for Illus/Storm controllers"
7b. "Superior Invisibility stacks with Steamy Mist"
7c. "SI and GI stack together to give extra stealth benefits"
7d. "Phantom Army causes energy damage"
7e. "Range enhancements allow pets to attack from greater distance"
7f. "Confused enemies can actually lower the amount EXP gained"
7g. "Inspirations can be used to boost the damage/accuracy/defense of pets"
7h. "Group Flight works with Phantom army"
7i. "Vengance can be used on a Phantasm upon their defeat (if you're quick)"
7j. "Spectral damage is always Psionic in nature" and/or "Spectral damage is unresistable"
8. F.A.Q
9. Reference material
9a. Link to Joe Chotts' CoH Planner
9b. Tal-N's recharge/damage/endurance cost catagories
9c. Tal-N's Spectral damage data
9d. Link to CForces confusion/exp loss guide
10. Acknowledgements