Concept Build Viability: Ill/FF with NO pets

To expand on the title, I have a character concept I'm contemplating (Attack of the Angry Alliterative Avenger! -- and no, that's not the concept) and I'm thinking how to reproduce it in-game. Think of the number of comic book characters who can turn invisible. You've got just a couple or so for whom invisibility is their main thing (Invisible Woman, Invisible Kid from the Legion, anyone else?) and only a very few more for whom invisibility is just another in their bag of tricks, and not the main thing brought to mind when you think of them (Martian Manhunter, uhm...).

So I want to center a character around invisibility. There're two ways to do this in-game, to my knowledge: make an Illusion controller and pick up Superior Invisibility, or dive into the Concealment power pool (something I admit I've never tried to use).

But even when your supername has the word 'invisible' in it, that doesn't give you any kind of power to kick some. Maybe that's why Invisible Kid has always seemed far less than useful; his power is nothing flashy, and he's way outclassed offensively in that group. As for Sue or J'onn, the invisibility comes with other strong powers that overshadow it, almost making it unnecessary.

So, down to my question: if I want to simulate a hero who has invisibility as a main power, would I be gimping myself to the point of unplayability to make an Illusion controller and never take any of my pet powers? Even if I did this, what possible secondary could I use to bolster my hero?

I could continue on, and in fact I've written another 3 or 4 paragraphs and then erased them several times. I'll end this post for now, and participate in any discussion there might be.

Go with the stealth pool and you will be much happier because you won't be limited to a petless Ill/ controller. Power customization lets you tweak your desired primary/secondary into many more options for concept giving you greater range of flexibility and possibly much more satisfaction with your chosen character.

Wouldn't a stalker satisfy this best? Go for MA/SR maybe for a character with no other powers, or EM/SR and treat the glowing hands as just an ingame effect. (That's what I do with my EM stalker, who's a boxer with an invisibility device)

Alternatively, make a Scrapper with the concealment pool. Stealth won't give you full Invisibility, and Invisibility doesn't allow you to use your attacks, but its definitely effective. I used this pool on my first character, a Blaster, and swore by it.

With an Illusion/FF controller you're still going to be creating visible force fields and using some kind of mind powers most of the time, so even skipping the pets is going to feel pretty concept breaking.

Stealth, yeah, that's what I meant to say earlier.

Now, I know a Primary or Secondary power is supposed to, by definition, be better than a Power Pool power, but is the invisibility in the Stealth pool any good? I mean, does it work, not at the level of Superior Invisibility, obviously, but good enough to spend a power choice on? Anyone have any experience with it?

THere are many ways to get Invisiblity or Stealth (which is for PvE effectively the same thing just various levels of Stealth). It'd be better to tell us what sort of powers you want to have other than stealth/invis for a suggestion. I'd guess you want no pets, so that rules out Masterminds and makes Controllers and Dominators (other than Mind) less effective. It also rules out some other pet type powers in other sets.

But there are so many ways to get stealth/invis in CoH, that's the easy part. To name a few:
Illusion's invis & group invis, Stealth pool, stealth IO, super speed, Stalker's hide, /Devices' stealth, /Dark Miasma's shadowfall all come to mind.

You could also change the character's main power from Invisibility to Light Control. With that in mind, you could do a Rad/Energy Blaster. You could still make Invisibility be the main way he interacts with / opens up on bad guys.

Of course, Illusion/FF/Primal could also work for a "Light Control" character, or an Energy Mastery character, but then Invisibility becomes more of a side effect of what you can do. But hey, at least then there would be no reason to skip any powers, really.

Lewis

I have an Illusion controller with no pets, and it's the best empath you'l come accross, Healing and buffing does not break invisibility as it is not an offensive action.

With the concept of the Invisibile Woman from the Fantastic Four, I would lean towards doing an FF/Energy Defender with the stealth pool. Or, you could do Super Speed + a Stealth Proc, and have no suppression for attacking whatsoever. Make sure that the blasts are as colorless as possible.

Personally, I would find a petless Illusionist to be an exercise in frustration. Ugh. You would be left with Blind, Spectral Wounds, Deceive, two kinds of invis and Flash. You would be cutting out PA, Spooky and Phanty.

My favorite invisible character? Invisible Boy from the Mystery Men -- he was only invisible when nobody was looking.

Make a Stalker if you want a Invisible being.

Great suggestions here. I think I'll be implementing more than one of them.

Long, long ago (this is my second account, so don't be fooled by my forum registration date; I'll be hitting 4 years end of this month), the first character I got past 25 was indeed a FF/NRG defender. Deleted that one in favor of an NRG/NRG blaster (I lurves me some knockback as a mitigator!) which ended up being my first 50. Time to try that defender again.

I like the idea of a stalker starting out in Praetoria. Maybe Kinetic Melee will serve there.

As I mentioned before, I haven't actually tried the Stealth/Concealment pool. I will do so.

I will also look into a Stealth proc. I got Mids, so I'll play around.

I guess it's no real surprise that no one has done a Power Pool guide. Methinks that would be a lot of research-y type work.

Thanks, all, for all your suggestions! You've given me the basis for another 4-6 alts...you enablers, you!

/alt-itis whine

Well if you have your heart set on playing a petless troller you could try mind/ff..decent single target levitate you are using your force field powers to lift them up...etc... heck confuse could be explained as you are using your powers to deflect their attacks on each other..telekinesis (requires some practice to get good with).....just use the pool powers for your invis concept