Area Man

A long time ago, I wrote an Illusion/Radiation Controller guide on the Live Forums in which I recommended a strategy for using Spectral Wounds and maximizing your damage. You can find that guide here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120905042613/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=141225 Under Strategies and Discussions: Maximizing your Damage, I explained a strategy to maximize your damage by (a) setting up a quick attack chain of Blind-Spectral Wounds-APP Blast-Spectral Wounds (B-SW-Bl-SW), and (b) focus your attacks first on taking out minions and then Lieutenants, before attacking the bosses or AVs. Why? If you kill low level foes quickly, the Illusory Damage doesn't have a chance to heal back. While you reduce the numbers of foes, your pets can focus on the tougher targets, drawing their aggro away from you. When all the low level foes are gone, you can focus on taking down the tough ones in relative safety. To get the attack chain, you need a fast recharging blast, and I argue that Fire is the best, but Ice is next best. With these, you can spam the B-SW-Bl-SW attack chain quickly. My guide had all kinds of details and strategies for Illusion. Although there new set options to get Perma-PA, most of the info in the Guide still applies today.

I would say also that Illusion is probably the best Primary to pair with Trick Arrow, although Trick Arrow is not the best secondary to pair with Illusion. Why? Mainly because Trick Arrow really benefits from Phantom Army -- You start a fight by sending out Phantom Army, and they draw all the aggro, allowing you to stand back and fire off all of your Debuff and Control Arrows without drawing any aggro. Plus, Phantom Army cannot be buffed, so the only way to make them better is debuffing the foes -- which happens to be a strength of TA. TA works best as a ranged set, and Illusion is all ranged except Flash, the PB AoE Hold. The Stealth in Illusion helps you avoid aggro until a teammate gets the aggro, letting you stand at range to fire your arrows. Plus, Illusion is low on overall control, while TA adds a single target hold (Ice Arrow), a single target Immob, a ranged AoE Slow, a ranged AoE Hold, AND some AoE damage (which Illusion lacks). Your goal should be to get enough Recharge in your build to get Perma-PA in your end-game build. I'd suggest getting Archane Bolt (AB), the Sorcery single target attack, while leveling up, so you can have an attack of Blind, Spectral Wounds (SW), AB, SW. AB does Energy Damage, so it can light your Oil Slick later on. When I got the APP powers, I chose Fire Blast and Fireball, specifically to light Oil Slick. Fire Blast is much faster than AB, so you can have a good and quick attack chain of Blind-SW-Fire Blast-SW.

If you want a massive amount of information on Illusion/Radiation builds, take a look at my "A Local Guide to The Illusion/Radiation Controller," which was on the live forums. On the Live forums, It was the powerset-specific guide with the most views when the forums shut down. https://web.archive.org/web/20120905042613/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=141225 Your goal should be to get enough global Recharge to get Phantom Army's Recharge down to the same as its duration. The main changes from then to now are that there are a few more IO sets which can add Recharge. This makes it a little easier to get a Perma-PA build. What is a "Kick Butt Build?" Well, that depends a lot on your playstyle. I like to rely on stealth and control instead of Defense, so my build emphasizes Recharge. With Perma-PA, you can have PA draw the aggro. With the strategy I outlined in the Guide (Getting rid on Minions first, then Lieutenants, then Bosses to maximize the effectiveness of Illusory Damage), you get hit very little. You let PA and Phanty draw the aggro while you take out foes one at a time.

I prefer to start with Sovereign Right and Expedient Reinforcement Pet Resistance Bonus IOs. Then 3 more Expedient Reinforcement, and finish with an Acc/Dam Hami-O. Both Pet Resistance IOs make Singy much tougher, so it can be used more effectively as a tank/aggro magnet.

I was specifically talking about - Resistance and (to a lesser degree) - Defense. Those are the two debuffs which have the effect of buffing Phantom Army by improving their damage and accuracy. A stationary +Recharge field has limited benefit, especially with a fast moving team. Same with stationary debuffs.

Back on the Live forums, I wrote the only Guide to Electric Control. It discusses the powers, primary and secondary effects, and slotting options. You can find it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120907044159/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=287903 Of course, back then, we did not have Electric as a Secondary. Electric Control and Ice Control were the two lowest damage Controller primaries -- and Ice may have been boosted when Homecoming added damage to Ice Slick. The key power of Electric Control is Static Field -- which is made mostly ineffective by anyone with AoE DoT powers. As a Controller, Electric works best on a small team, such as teamed with a tank and a scrapper -- the kind of team that does not use large AoE Damage-over-time powers. However, because Static Field recharges so quickly, it is very effective at controlling groups while your melee buddies kill off foes one-by-one. As I discussed in the Guide, the Gremlins are still lacking as pets. They are easily killed, don't do much damage and tend to run around almost as badly as the Fire Imps.

Time works quite well with Illusion. Mine is named "Time is an Illusion." (Lunchtime doubly so -- a "Hitchhiker's Guide" reference) Time and Rad are the only two secondaries with BOTH a Recharge Buff AND foe Debuffs -- both of which make Phantom Army more effective. Generally, the goal with Illusion is to get Perma-PA, so the Recharge buff helps with that. Since PA can't be buffed, the foe debuffs help Phantom Army be more effective. Plus, Time adds some additional controls otherwise lacking in the Illusion primary, so the synergy between the sets is very good. Personally, I rank Ill/Time just behind Ill/Rad, but very close.

Yep, my Earth/Storm was my fourth recreation of favorite characters from Live. Using both pet +Resistance procs on Rocky makes him very tough. So I like to use invisibility to lead him into drawing aggro, then stand back to unleash the controls and Storm damage. Of course, my Ill/Rad was my first.

Thanks -- I have no problem with any of those except Super Speed. Back on Live, it was common to take Super Speed with partial stealth power like Shadow Fall or Steamy Mist to get full invisibility -- even before Stealth IOs were available. I think it was a mistake to include Super Speed in that list. Yes, I'm sure it was debated, and it is not that big a thing with Stealth IOs being easy to get with merits. I suppose I just find it annoying. I used to take Super Speed on almost all of my characters with partial stealth. With only a few exceptions, I've now abandoned or respec'ed out of Super Speed as a travel power (unless Super Speed + Stealth IO is the "cheapest" way to get full invisibility without taking the Stealth Pool).

I still don't understand why the stealth in Super Speed no longer stacks with Steamy Mist/Arctic Fog/Shadowfall. I used to take Superspeed with all my Storm characters, which gave me full invisibility with Steamy Mist, and then I could "herdicane" with Hurricane and Superspeed. Now I have to put a Stealth IO in Superspeed to make the same thing work. Why the change?

If you are interested in going with an Illusion/Rad controller, might I suggest my old "A Local Guide to Ill/Rad Controller" on the old forums? It is still valid except that some of the newer IO sets give you some more options to go perma-PA. Here's the link: https://web.archive.org/web/20120904193426/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=121712 Illusion/Time also has those two key elements: a Recharge buff for you and foe de-buffs to make your PA more effective. It is almost as good as Ill/Rad. My personal favorite for AoE control is my Earth/Storm. He can solo, slowly, but can easily be the only controller on a full team. Grav/Storm can solo fairly well. You get four powers to deal ranged single-target damage in Gravity, plus Tornado and Lightning Storm in Storm.

If you want a TON of information on Illusion Strategy and slotting, take a look at my old "A Local Guide to the Illusion/Radiation Controller." Back on the Live forums, it was the most viewed powerset-specific guide. It is only out of date due to some of the new IO sets which are available on Homecoming, which were not available on the Live servers. You can find it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120905042613/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=141225 It is important to understand how the Illusory Damage in Spectral Wounds works if you want to maximize your damage. The damage happens, and then heals back after a few seconds UNLESS you defeat the foe before the heal-back. So, the best strategy is to kill off the minions and the Lts. while letting your PA draw the attention of the bosses and AVs. To do this, you want a fast attack chain. What works best is Blind first to set up Containment, then Spectral Wounds (SW), some kind of blast, and another SW. By then, Blind should have recharged, so you can repeat the Blind-SW-Blast-SW chain over and over. As for the Blast -- you need something that recharges quickly enough to fit in the attack chain. In upper levels, only the Hero APP sets have that. I prefer to avoid Psi Blast since you are already doing Psi Damage, so the better choices are Fire or Ice. Fire does slightly more damage, so the choice really comes down to whether you want the Defense of Ice Shield, or the resistance of Fire Shield. For my Ill/Rad, I prefer Fire, but I chose Ice on my Ill/Time and Ill/Storm. I chose Fire with my Ill/TA, as the fire can also light the Oil Slick. As for exempting -- I keep the blast from the Sorcery Pool in my build for that reason. Mostly, I rely upon Invisibility and occasional uses of Deceive to let the team draw aggro before attacking to take out the Minions, then the Lts. It is also important to have the Team Teleport, as an Illusion Controller is one of the best Stealth characters thanks to Superior Invisibility. To grab glowies, you can Deceive any foes near the glowie to grab it without drawing aggro.

I wanted to THANK YOU for this update. I used Citybinder on Live until shutdown and then on Homecoming, and was using my old version. I have a 17-button MMO Mouse and a G13 gamepad, so I bind a bunch of powers to the buttons on the mouse and gamepad, and have a bunch of other binds I use with EVERY CHARACTER. I have now been using this update for about 6 months, since I found out it existed. So, I very much appreciate the update. I had been setting up a series of Ultimate Binds for every new powerset, but this saves me some work. I just wanted to post this since I recently started telling a few folks about how great it is to use Citybinder for my binds.

Maybe the power has changed since Live -- I know that Arctic Air was substantially improved, but I haven't checked and compared the numbers on Choking Cloud. Still, that does not affect the other points I made -- that I prefer to stay out of melee, and it ruins Stealth while drawing aggro.

If you run into melee Invisible, pop Flash, then run out and duck behind Phantasm (with his knockback) and/or Phantom Army with their taunt, then the few minions and Lts. who were not held usually won't come after you. It is something I don't use often, but it has occasional effective uses.