my controller feels useless

i am sorry if this has been mentioned before..

at the moment i am level 24 playing as an Illu/Storm controller and i really love it, i play in a group with an Elec/Elec blaster, Emp/something defender and a invulnerability/energy melee tanker who are similar levels to me.

when doing missions with these guys i feel pretty useless though, we have the difficulty set to max and the tanker is perfectly capable of grabbing 2 or 3 groups and tanking them while losing almost no hp.

is this something that will change as we get higher level?

I'm quite sure Spectral Terror does something like 15% unenhanceable ToHit debuff.

Ill/Storm is extremely powerful in the higher levels. You will feel more useful, eventually.

Actually, depending on how disruptive you want to be, you can feel useful now -- at the expense of your teammates.

Which brings me to the regrettable, and likely controversial point: Ill/Storm is all about chaos; it brings immense mitigation to the table, but it's also hard to play it to its full potential, most of the time, in the typical Tank-Defender-Blaster team. A lot of powers will disagree with the Tanker and the Blaster -- the former because meleers typically don't like to chase mobs everywhere, and the latter because AoEs require a relatively bunched-up group of foes.

Doesn't mean the build won't work, or isn't effective. It just means that, under most circumstances, either you or your teammates are, in some ways, going to be feel marginalized.

Personally, I like the more unconventional builds in this game, and I absolutely love Storm -- but you seem to have joined a team which is unusually analogous to the typical MMO, tank-and-spank holy trinity.

That said, any build can be made to feel useless, or superfluous, under the right circumstances. In the higher levels especially, a lot of teams will simply kill stuff so quickly that certain builds will wonder what the heck they can contribute. Sometimes, often in the case of lower-damage (or slower-damage) Controllers, they're right; othertimes, it's only psychological. Even if you're only tossing out one or two powers before a spawn is dead, it's possible, even likely, that those two powers are contributing in their own way as much as anyone else is.

Small to mid-size team play ought to get a good deal more interesting in Issue 16, though. If you can set a four-person team's mission to spawn for eight, then you'll get more mileage out of everyone's contribution. Should be fun.

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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Illusion/Storm has lots of tools to make that team better.

Deceive will take any problem foes out of the fight even before it begins. Deceive will also let you get any foe who uses mez powers to use them on other foes, and not use buffs on the foes. For example, use Deceive on a Tsoo Sorcerer before the fight begins, and he will not heal other foes, and his Hurricane will debuff the accuracy of the foes instead of your team, letting your team kill stuff faster.

Freezing Rain is one of the best debuff powers in the game. Your teammates and Phantom Army will do 30% more damage and hit far more often. For example, your Electric Blaster's "Ball Lighting" will become far more effective, hitting more and doing more damage.

Snow Storm will allow you to keep foes from running away very fast, and knock down fliers. Croatoa will be available at 25, and knocking down those witches is a delight.

Hurricane will allow you to help the tank be a better tank. You can run around the outside of his group, pushing any runners or stragglers back into the group, while debuffing their ability to hit. It takes some practice to learn to do this right, but it is a great strategy. I like to use Super Speed for travel, as it makes doing this much easier. (Plus, super speed + steamy mist = full PvE invisibility -- no need to take Superior or Group Invis.)

Phantom Army adds three more damage dealers to your team. Your Blind+Spectral Wounds allows you to be a single target blaster, holding the foe from running. Pick targets outside of the tank's reach of his melee attacks. (Energy Melee has low AoE but high single target damage after the last two powers. You can help taking down those single targets, especially ones with only a little health left.) I suggest you focus on taking out the lower level foes, starting with minions, and let the tank and others focus on the tougher foes -- take a look at the Strategy section of my Ill/Rad guide to see why.

I agree with the OP somewhat....I think it is more the Illusion side of the equation more then anything.

I find that my Illusion troller seems pretty useless in big groups as well. Probably not as bad as the OP as my secondary is Kin so I at least have that going for me....but my primary suffers from non use in big groups.

Sure I can use ST, but most of the time half a group is dead before I even can get it summoned. I have the same problem with PA....if my group is killing quickly (like most of my SG groups) then PA is pretty useless as I summon we kill the entire group and most of the PAs summoned time is getting to the next group so their damage output is severly limited. About the only thing I get out of my primary on a regular basis is the phant.

I think the problem is that Illusion only has one reliable hold and spectral wounds. So you have 1 damage and a total of two holds (one being AOE that does no damage).


Now solo....my Ill/Kin is one of my funnest toons because I really get full use out of almost all of my powers then because I control the tempo of the missions and can make sure I put myself in a position to maximize the goodyness of Illusion.

thank you for all the replies, it looks like Illusion/Storm controller doesnt really fit in my group all that well which is a shame really as i do like the character. think i may just reroll to a spines/fire scrapper or would a fire/kin controller work well in the group?

i am pretty new to the game on the whole so i don't really know much of later levels.

I have an Illusion/Storm at 50 and love the character. How much of the skills you use will vary on the team. For a team like the one you were on, with a herd tank, most controllers won't feel that useful. /kin is maybe the strongest in that case, but it would probably be the weakest on a team where you really need storms powers. As others have said, Freezing rain is really a fantastic skill and makes a large difference in battles. For that alone you'll add a lot.

Ill/storm helps more for groups that aren't steamrolling, but that's true of most controllers. When stuff dies that quickly there isn't a need for much control. Stick with FR and take out troublesome mobs. On tough maps you can make a much bigger difference.