Do Teams Avoid Illusion Controllers?

As a new player, this exchange with a Tank was an eye-opener for me yesterday.

NotRealName: i didnt know you were illusion. i dont team with illusion, but you can stay through the mish before i kick you.

Polaric: All right.


(the rest proceeds through Tells)

Polaric: What's the trouble with illusion?

NRN: i dont team with energy/ [[I missed what other type he said here]]/ illusion.

Polaric: Okay. What's the issue with them?

NRN: im the Leader and i get to choose. thats the way it is.

Polaric: I'm not arguing, just learning. What's the trouble with illusion?

NRN: i dont like chasing after things.

Polaric: Ah. I don't use Fear much. Mostly Blind.

NRN: dont use PA for this mish or Phantasm.

Polaric: Okay.





What's the issue here? As you can see, I wasn't able to get much in the way of explanation.

In groups, I'm cautious with PA (and don't yet have Phantasm) to avoid unplanned pulls. But since the Decoys stay behind me, I've found them harmless as long as I move carefully. They also work fine in the middle of a big fight likely to last longer than their timer, or in a clear area. I don't cast them in tight spaces between mobs.

This exchange began after I cast PA to save my redlined toon who had a stray boss pounding him. At +3 to me, he'd resist attempts at Blind, and since I cast RI in the middle of the main group (where it affected more targets), I didn't have it as protection on my stray. Without help from the Tank or another teammate, it was PA or death.


I do use Spectral Terror and watch closely for runners; I've never had one pull another group. I'm also becoming increasingly impressed with Deceive, but since that's a misunderstood hold, it didn't seem worth mentioning in the above exchange.

So is the problem here Knockback? Does it really make for that much running around?

Or is there another issue in play?

I don't think Fear is any kind of a problem at all. Nine times out of ten I find my Spectral Terror holds foes in place, it doesn't make them run. The Fear effect should make them cower, not run. The only exception I've ever seen is if the foes are extremely low level, or have a tendency to run anyway, and the Tanker should be able to overcome that with his taunts. (Even just Punchvoke and his aura)

The knockback I can see being an issue, but the PA usually use a combination of effects, including Fire and Ice Swords, and often run into melee themselves. I don't see them causing knockback that much, except with Hurl. The Phantasm is definately a different case, he has ranged energy blasts and uses them often, so I can see him knocking back foes. On the other hand, he tends to concentrate on foes that have aggroed on you, not the Tanker. If you're not near the Tanker, so the nearest foes aren't the ones around him, he's probably less likely the knockback too.

It sounds like this guy is just really, really paranoid about knockback. Seriously, he should be able to handle it, but why argue? He let you stay through the end of the mission, so at least he was polite about it. The way I look at it, if he doesn't need you on his team, then you don't need him on your team. You are both better off without each other. Find someone who is more accepting towards knockback.

I'm sure some other people in this thread will have more choice words for this Tanker. I'm not going to put him down, though. It's his choice, and leave him to it. The SG team I run my Controller with loves knockback, we have a Storm in our group, and we usually don't even have a Tanker. (When we do, it's usually me )

(Actually, just this week the Stormy mentioned that she might drop out because of all the knockback she was causing, and my reply was, "Don't be a wuss! Chase down your victims like a MAN!!!" Made even funnier because the characters we were both playing were female. )

Knockback.........


Oh and the leader was roasted wrong smothered in wrong sauce with a side of wrongkabobs and a wrong salad.

"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." (Robert A. Heinlein)

Obviously, the guy is an idiot. Phantasm has knockback that can be bothersome in some situations, but a smart Illusion Controller will stay back of out melee to avoid any problems . . . then Phantasm becomes a wonderful bodyguard with a decoy.

Phantom Army has no knockback at all, including the Hurl attack. (Sorry, Jade Dragon, but you are incorrect.) It is actually all an Illusion, because the melee and ranged attacks are all the same Psi damage in spite of how it looks. No knockback. (Check City of Data or in game if you think I'm incorrect.) So I don't know what his problem was with PA . . . unless he's afraid that PA will steal aggro from the tank or keep the tank from herding up groups. The easy solution to that is to wait on using PA until after the group is gathered up.

Illusion adds to ANY group. Many, many powersets have one or two knockback powers in them, and to pick out Illusion as a bad set is just plain ignorant.

I would have let him have an earfull, then if he did not repent in his foolish ways, I would quit in a huff.

Avoid Illusion?

WHY?

Why would I deny myself that much of an unfair advantage? And, if I can get a decent Ill/Rad then its time to crank the difficulty a bit and bust a few heads.

The issue is the tanker's being a jerk and not doing his job to boot; a competent tanker would have had that boss off of you very quickly. Yes, indiscriminate knockback can be annoying for a melee character but it's by no means impossible to compensate for. PA is a signature power of Illusion; it's a distraction and a significant damage source that an Illusionist would be a fool not to take advantage of.

I mainly play tanks and scrappers myself although I do have several high level controllers. Any tanker who's complaining about anything in an Illusionist's toolbox is a fool. Yes, Phantasm can sometimes be problematic when he decides to use his energy torrent power on a group but it's nothing a competent tank shouldn't have under control almost immediately. PA doesn't have any real downsides other than possibly loose aggro when they expire.

By the way, Spectral Terror does NOT make the enemies run away, it simply makes them cower in fear. I also agree that Deceive is a fantastic power and one of the staples of your control repertoire; a no-aggro hard control that can take a mob completely out of the fight. I tend to use it on a boss (it takes two applications) and then toss RI and EF on him.

I have run across this attitude before. Usually it's when I've been invited to a farm without being told it was a farm (I don't join farm teams because they are boring). Illusion on a farm can slow things down because the level of challenge is so low that any scatter at all lowers the effectiveness of all the aoe flying around.

To be honest that guy is a nutsack. He enjoys not being challenged, and having a team that doesn't want to be challenged. His missions will be boring in the extreme, and his expectations will be that you do nothing that will ever cause a mob to move away from the mass around the tank. He is your worst enemy, and you are truly his worst nightmare, because Illusion's mitigation lies in keeping the bad guys running around chasing ghosts, running from ghosts, and being knocked on their buts by ... well a ghost. In a difficult situation it's VERY effective. In a dynamiting fish in barrel situation, you actually will slow things down. Don't feel bad about it, you would have left the team after the second time they ran the same mission without completing it anyway - and you would have stayed for that mission out of some perverse conception of what it means to be polite even when the team leader is a nutsack.

Hope that helps

I'm a Illusion/Radiation and people beg me to join there teams/taskforces. Its a pure PvE Build lol. That dude is retarded, gimme his global! I wanna say somethin to him.

I'm tempted to start a thread on a certain other AT's forum, something like "Do Teams Avoid Narcissistic Tankers?"

This tank may just be jealous that as an Ill/Rad you can tank better than he can. My Ill/Rad normally pushes aside slow tanks and just kills the mobs by myself. This guy really doesn't know what he is missing.

Mostly because of KB, like other users said. On another note - illusion is pretty hard to play if you don't know what you're doing. Maybe the tank didn't want to take the chance. I know on the villains side a lot of people don't let masterminds on their team because if you have an inexperienced player you have a lot to loose. Just simply tell the leader if this happens again (and it probably will) not to worry and that you know what you're doing.

Don't let the tank know that you can tank better

It helps the team overall, it may not "help" the tank but it serves it's purpose on the team.

I play both several Illusion controllers and several tankers/scrappers and while I can understand being annoyed by rampant knockback, that is rarely the case. Especially Illusion/Radiation...you only have the Phantasm to worry about in that case.

Plus, I keep auto-follow bound to the tilde <`> key. Tab, Tilde, then through my attack chain, dead...Tab, Tilde, then through my attack chain...never worry about chasing knockback again. Granted, I don't always auto-follow my target while playing a Tank so I'm sure to stay with the group, but it's easy to work around.