illusion trick arrow

There are some older posts about it, if you run the search.

I have a 50 Ill/TA with standard level 35 IOs, no real set bonuses. It is a powerful combo, both solo and in groups. I found it to be fairly steady in terms of power and leveling; you are good early on pre-20, and it only gets better with PA and Phantom.

Key Powers:

Blind - your ST hold
Deceive - your ST confuse
Spectral Wounds - your ST damage
Terror - cone fear
Phantom Army - temporary invulnerable tanking/damage pets
Phantaasm - summoned damage pet
Superior Invis - great aggro control and best stealth in game, does not suspend in combat

Entangle Arrow - useful, for the -recharge as well as quick immob
Ice Arrow - i love it for the extra hold, some hate it
Acid Arrow - debuff
Glue Arrow - -rech and -speed
Disruption Arrow - more debuffs
EMP Arrow - awesome aoe hold
Oil Slick Arrow - aoe soft control, massive debuffs, and superior damage if you light it on fire (energy/fire damage required, so grab tech or magic origin for the energy newbie attack)

I'm writing this quickly, so I may have left something out, but you should get the idea. Ilusion offers you controls, and some great pets. Arrows offers more hard controls (immob, another hold) plus wonderful debuffs. You won't be an AoE damage machine (outside of Oil Slick), but you can pretty much solo the toughest missions, as well as greatly help a team melt groups of enemies. Leave the heals to the Empaths

Illusion/Trick Arrow has no ST sleep. The only sleeps it has are Poison Gas Arrow (AoE Sleep) and Blind (Chance for AoE sleep)

True, confused my Mind and my Ill for a sec. My year away is showing. Thx for correction.

I found the "trick" to Ill/TA is to group your Arrow powers together to reduce re-draw. I typically will Deceive one or two, then send out my PA. Then I stand back and fire off all my debuff arrows in a row: Glue, Acid, Disruption, PGA, and then I pick a foe (usually a boss) to hold with Ice Arrow. Then I go back to using my Illusion powers -- Blind-SW, Deceive, Spectral Terror if needed. The another round with the arrows -- whatever needs refreshing.

When you do it that way, the redraw is not a problem.

Because PA is so good at drawing aggro, I really feel that Illusion is the best primary for Trick Arrow (even if TA is not the best secondary for Illusion).

And another correction to the list above: Spectral Terror is an immobile pet with an AoE Terrorize cloak, and a single target Terrorize (even though it looks like a cone, and it used to be).
And Superior Invisability is the best hero-side invisability, but Stalkers get better Invis than SI.

I hated it too. At low levels I used Ice Arrow a lot. The redraw drove me nuts! I dropped Ice arrow in the later levels to focus on area control and debuffs.

To minimize the redraw I usually open with Phantom Army followed by Spectral Terror. I then fully unload all area debuffs which I finished off with Fireball to ignite OSA. I then go into clean up mode by focusing on Single Target attacks (Blind+Fire Blast+Spectral Wounds) as PA and OSA kills most of the weaker foes. Rinse and repeat based on what is available. Add a dash of [Confuse] for flavor.

Ill/TA is a fun combo but truth be told its only been holding me over until I can re-roll as Ill/Traps. One can dream right?