Phantom army

Minor caveat- But remember SB only affects pet travel speed now and no longer increases their recharge.

With one exception; Hamidon can kill them.

I have; Disruption Field works fine.

Ill/Rad has a good reason why it is popular: It is the only only secondary that provided Debuffs to make the Phantom Army better AND a recharge buff to help PA recharge faster. It is a very powerful build, for both solo and teams. Take a look at my Ill/Rad guide, linked in my sig. Even if you don't go with the Rad secondary, it has lots of information on the Illusion Primary.

Ill/Kin can gain a Recharge buff from Siphon Speed only when you can siphon off of foes, and can't buff Phantom Army. Ill/Kin does not have Defense Debuffs to improve PA's accuracy, or Resistance Debuffs to improve PA's Damage. Also, Phantasm's knockback has a tendency to knockback foes away from your melee buffs. On the other hand, Kinetics has such powerful buffs, you may feel it is worth the synergy problems.

Sonic has the Resistance Debuffs, but no Recharge buff. Storm and TA have debuffs, but no Recharge buff. Thermal has debuffs but no Recharge buffs.

Good move. You would think a Natural origin could at least carry a Bic lighter or something, but no go. So my first TA found out upon getting OSA that the fire arrow had to be used, which is a shame.

Ill/TA does sound very interesting as you describe it. But I think I will go Ill/Rad next, once I can envision the character.

Tase that OSA, bro!

In addition to my Ill/Rad and Ill/Storm, I also have an Ill/TA at 50. While I feel that Rad is the best secondary for Illusion, I also feel that Illusion is the best primary for Trick Arrow. The added controls from TA are a great complement to Illusion, and the Debuffs make Phantom Army better.

However, you may find that the play style is about as far from your Ill/Kin as possible. Ill/Kin is mostly a melee oriented character. For the most part, my Ill/TA is ranged -- I send in Phantom Army, then stand back and fire off all my debuff arrows before using my single target attacks. Phantasm is a great addition, as he acts as a body guard . . . any foes who decide to come into melee are usually knocked back. I like to save Oil Slick Arrow for when Phantom Army are Recharging, since it adds some control as well as damage.

The only Trick Arrow power I skipped was Flash Arrow. With Superior Invis, I didn't see that much need for Flash Arrow, as the ToHit Debuff is pretty small. (I have Flash Arrow on a TA Defender, and find it more "Flash" than substance.) My goal with my Ill/TA was to try out the TA set, so I took all the other TA powers. On the Illusion side, I skipped Group Invis and Flash. In general, I take the AoE hold on my controllers, but my reasoning this time was that since Flash is a PB AoE power, and all my other powers were all ranged, I really didn't need Flash -- instead, I use EM Pulse Arrow when I need an AoE Hold. I took Hasten/Super Speed for Travel just so I could get Hasten and still have enough power choices for all the TA powers.

For my APP set, I picked Fire Blast and Fireball. Oil Slick Arrow + Fireball make a delightful bar-be-que. I decided to include, as my last two powers, Aid Other and Aid Self from the medicine pool. Not necessary, but I like those enough to keep them.

I went with Tech origin for lighting the Oil Slick. It works OK for the six levels until you get Fire Blast. I set up a macro for targetting the Oil Slick, making it easy to fire off Oil Slick Arrow, hit the macro to target the Oil Slick, and then fire off my taser, Fire Blast or Fire Ball to light the slick. Phantasm also has an energy component to his attack so he can light it if he happens to hit it.

When I was trying to come up with a name for my Ill/TA, I wanted something that would combine the bow and arrow aspect with an Illusionist/Entertainer -- and it had to have a pun. So, I came up with "Beau Jester," who was an entertainer for the French Foreign Legion. I was thrilled when the Devs later added in the Jester costume.