Illusion Control Tweaks

This is a "what if?" mental exercise.

If you had to tweak Illusion Control for a port to Dominators but doing so would change the set for Controllers as well, what would you change in the set?

I'm curious as to what players would put on the table for adjustment. Lets hear it!

Under those conditions I wouldn't change anything.

I expect a lot of abandoned Controllers once/if Dominators get the set though. Thats not necessarily a bad thing. Controllers will still be better at killing a few hard things and support. Dominators would/will do so much damage they'd be able to blow through those enemies eventually, and be a lot more able to kill standard enemies.

I wouldnt change anything. I don't get it? Why not just copy it over, and if Domination doesn't really help as much since it doesn't have a bread-and-butter AoE mez, well so what? You can still dominate single targets, and you'll still get a mez protection benefit and an endurance benefit. Phantom Army would still crush all. EDIT: not to mention the awesomeness of having a whole secondary full of damage to throw at confused perma-PA-assaulted foes.

I guess if I had to change something, I'd just make Spectral Terror inherit Domination when cast while Domination was up, so that its fear could dominate enemies.

Lewis

EDIT: /P.S. I expect the devs might make Dark Control for Dominators only, and just let them live on different sides of the street. Perhaps there will be a domination-enhancing effect (shortening the domination recharge time under a certain condition?) within the primary itself. That way, there'd be something Dom-specific to give a justification to not bring it over to controllers.

I would just make Spectral Terror work like that Gun Drone in the Devices powerset only having it use psychic blast powers instead of full auto.

I wouldn't mind Flash becoming a targetted AoE Hold instead of PB AoE. And I would like to see Phanty fixed where he doesn't run into melee.

Since Doms are originally from the red side I think Group Invisibility is more of an heroic power because it helps the team out and Doms are self sufficient as for damage wise. I would trade Group Invisibility and make a new power that is an immob. I love Spectral Wounds, but the secondary has enough damage for a Dom and I would swap that power out for a new Mez power. Other than those two changes I think doms are fine to swap over.


P.S.

For Flash to become targeted though, it would have to lose 10ft of radius. (Well it doesn't have to, but I have doubts about making Flash better than any other AoE hold.)

EDIT: Paralyzing Blast in Electric Control for some reasons lists 30ft radius + ranged on Controllers and 20ft radius + ranged on Dominators. I have reported that discrepancy as far back as GR beta. I don't know whether the powers really have different radii or the info text is just wrong. The expected value would be 20ft +ranged to match identical powers.

If I had to make a change to the set...it would simply be swapping out the self invisibility with a ranged targeted AoE sleep.

Similar to Mass Hypnosis from Mind Control, just up the recharge a bit to say...90 sec ??
and lower the duration a little.

Call it Swirling Light or something.

"You create an illusion consisting of several small lights swirling around which catches the attention of nearby enemies.
They will just stand there going: "pretty lights!!" and any damage done to them will snap them back to reality.

Putting a dedicated sleep power in Illusion would be like putting a sleep in Fire - it would last for about a second before the damage wakes them up.

I'd prefer to keep it the same for Controllers. For Dominators, however, I would do the following:

1) Remove Group Invisibility and replace it with something similar to School of Sharks from Leviathan Mastery. Maybe combine Group Invisibility with Superior Invisibility.

2) Reduce the number of Decoys summoned in Phantom Army to two, this should help with balance.

If an Illusory Assault is made then Spectral Wounds could be moved over to that. Illusory Assault would be characterised by higher than average (for Doms) damage offset by Spectral Wounds-style healing. Most attacks would have a small chance of confusing (similar to small chance of sleep for Electricity). One or two attacks would have a chance of placating, to make better use of Superior Invisibility in combat. The powers themselves would be based on making the target/s believe that things are happening to them - like they're on fire, being stabbed, bleeding and falling to the ground.

Yes, Psionic Assault could work but it would be nice to have a unique offensive Illusion set.

I can dream, at least.

Honestly, I would not change a thing. When I compare my Illusion controller with my dominators, I don't see what people fear in the set. Phantom Army is a very powerful ability, and it does make tackling very strong single targets possible. I've solo'ed GM's with my ill/kin, however, I find PA a bit lackluster when dealing with large spawns and she struggles in x8 missions where my dominators excel.

Perhaps someone could elaborate on why Illusion for doms would need to be changed. I often see two reasons cited, Illusion wouldn't benefit from Domination and Illusion deals too much damage, that is to say, some see Illusion as weak for a Dom and others see it as too powerful. At the moment, I see it as sitting in the middle being just fine.

I'd get rid of Group Invis. Possibly give Superior Invis a splash effect to invis the team.

Then I'd replace Group Invis with a single target fear power, that has a chance to hold and if the hold is successful, they recieve DoT damage as they claw away at themselves.

If I were making changes to Illusion, it would be the following:

• Reduce Superior Invisibility's endurance cost to .26 or below;
• Allow Fear/Confuse to set up Containment (for everyone not just Illusion);
• Have Spectral Terror benefit from Domination.

Lower the damage Phantom Army does.

Replace Spectral Terror with Terrify/Fearsome Stare-ish type power.

Replace Group Invis or Superior Invis with a Cloak of Fear-ish type power.

And a bit of a pipe dream... have Domination remove the Illusionary damage healback when its active.

First off thanks everyone for the great responses. I appreciate everyone's input.

Truth be told my OP was a "knee jerk" reaction to Illusion/ not being ported to Dom's this upcoming round of Proliferation 3.0. Pure speculation on my part, but I assumed Illusion/ was not "good enough" for porting as-is, meaning it could be subject to change. If changes were made I wouldn't want them being made and effecting us without some input from the Controller community. Thus my intent for initiating this dialogue without appearing like yet another "nerf herding" post.

(I know. Lots of what if's. )

I wanted to share these two great posts by Muon_Neutrino. They were posted over on the Dominator board and seemed relevant to the matter on hand.:

Post #1

Post #2

I know this sounds crazy pantz but...since they are customizing the set...maybe they are giving Doms Phantom Army but maybe a different Version tailored only to Doms?

Instead of getting Three phantoms that deal ST dmg, doms will get two phantoms that only have Pbaoe/aoe attacks to compensate for the lack of large spawn control? Controllers have a secondary to back them up if things get dicey...Doms...not so much.