Illusion/Cold

Mid's is wrong on this. I have gotten 11-12 stacks of Heat Loss.

It does not tend to matter anyway you can hit the +rec cap after about 5 stacks. After i19 comes out I'll be able to hit ~8 total end/sec on 2 stacks (ie one enemy) which is more then enough end rec.

Heat Loss is good.

Hmm actually you're right. Heat Loss actually seems to have a target cap of 10 for the debuff portion. Better than I thought. It was never in question about whether the power was "good" though.

Sorry, but lots of sets are good. Cold is about on par with Radiation and Kinetics for a top spot. But anyone who tries to claim any set is the "best" should be ignored because such a conclusion, in a game like this, is impossible to draw.

I mean in that Heat Loss is a very unique power. The only power that is on it's level end rec wise is Drain Psyche.

If you are making a steamroller kinda of Controller I don't you can make anything that wouldn't better with /Cold as the secondary. That just can't keep up with the end usage with anything else. /Kins are solid but spends too much time messing with Transference (which still has problems keeping up with my end usage on Plant), Siphon Speed and FS.

Heat Loss is an excellent and unique power. I don't think anyone questions that. However, Fulcrum Shift, Speed Boost, and Accelerate Metabolism are also excellent and unique powers. Which one is the "best" depends entirely on what situation we're measuring them in.

The current ascendancy of Illusion/Cold as a build is based almost entirely on its solo performance against single hard targets. The build was practically unheard of until an Ill/Cold player charted at the top for DPS in the pylon soloing contest. Prior to that word on the street was the "best" combo was Illusion/Rad. The main justification for this claim? Its solo performance against single hard targets.

Solo against a single hard target, in most situations, Ill/Cold IS better than Ill/Rad. But soloing single hard targets was never the only thing Ill/Rad was good at. It's also not the only thing Ill/Cold is good at. That's all okay because soloing a single hard target was never accurate measurement of the performance of any set. Illusion Control is extremely powerful. Anything you pair it with is going to result in a very strong character. Anyone who tells you not to play it with a certain secondary because it is the "best" should be required to qualify that statement with "...in situation X Y or Z."

Not sure what you're sorry about, no need to be apologetic. Can you show me where someone in this thread said Cold was "best"? Not sure what you're referring to.

From the first post, which initiated the discussion:

I think Ill/Colds strength on pylons is a bit misleading. Ill/Cold has all sorts of trouble setting up containment yet with a pylon that does not matter. Add to that pylons being stationary means the lack of mobility of PA is not exposed.

Most TFs missions tend to consist of a large groups of enemies + an AV or 2 at the end. Ill/Cold is neat against the AV part not so good against the large groups.

im very good against large groups and have no problem with containment.. i regularly play at +2x8

So a single target Mag 3 Hold covers all your Containment needs does it (including PToD)? That's amazing. Do you also take out +4/x8 packs in around 7-8 seconds as well? Incredible!

Seriously though, Ill/Cold is a great combo but if you are run it and say you have no problem setting up Containment I'm calling shenanigans. They can also do okay AoE but are a bit slow. They are no Plant, Fire or Mind.

i use flash. Although I haven't tried +4x8 I doubt I could take them down in 8 seconds. My containment is in no way as good as some but combined with the slows of sleet and my epic choice of cold and with the use of spectral terror I've never had a problem with containment. Usually I just cast both my rains and flash and phantom army takes care of everything.

Containment is very important for your single target attack. That's why the attack chain of Blind-SW-Blast-SW can be so effective. I haven't actually tested it, but I think that I can outdamage my pets if I'm trying.

AoE containment is not important other than for your AoE APP or PPP attack, since Illusion replaced AoE damage with pets.

Can Ill/ take out large spawns? Yeah. But since they really don't have any effective any AoE attacks it's slow. One or 2 slow charging AoE attacks without Containment won't kill quickly (due to Trollers poor damage modifier). Ill/ basically ends up single targeting everything to do. While it works, as I said before, it's slow.

Single target it's a very big deal especially against targets with some status protection. It's actually fairly important to /Cold since without a Immo AVs tend to run out of Sleets.

My point is Ill/Colds performance on Pylons isn't necessarily 100% accurate with how they deal with normal AVs. The auto Containment and the lack of movement of Pylons (so no running away or out of Sleet) makes them the perfect target for Ill/Colds. While I am not saying that Ill/Cold are bad on hard target (they are obviously very good) they can have some issues which don't appear when beating on Pylons.

I love my Ill/Rad but I am waiting with baited breath for /Traps to come to Controllers.

Ice is a bit...yeah. Maybe my perspective is a like skewed due to loving my current Plant/Cold I am playing. But watching a +4/x8 spawn melt in 8 seconds to Seeds, Sleet, Roots, Psi Tornado, Roots (while Creepers are running) kinda makes my Ill/Rad feel bad. The Plant/Cold AoE is so fast and so safe it almost feels like cheating.

Plant/Cold is indeed an insanely amazing build. I'm shocked we don't see more of those.