evetsleep

Illusion is a late bloomer that heavily leans on Phantom Army. Sonic is an odd set since your army won't directly benefit from most of what sonic provides. Most folks pair illusion with things which either increase recharge (time or kinetics) or has a ton of debuffs (dark, radiation, trick arrow, poison, etc.). There is nothing wrong with sonic resonance as a secondary, but the only thing that the phantom army really benefits from is the Sonic Siphon power (single target debuff) and maybe the T9 (Liquefy). If you team that's not a big deal, but if you solo a lot it might not feel very strong. My personal favorite is either /traps or /storm, but again when it comes to Illusion you really won't see it start to shine until the mid 20's and it will feel a lot stronger post 30s. The reason that people lean so heavily into phantom army is that, for controllers, the 3 pets that get summons are invulnerable, cannot be damaged\mezzed, and most importantly they taunt (Dominator version does not). Illusion is great, but you need to be patient with it. If you're really looking to lean into sonic resonance, I'd probably suggest a different primary. Personally I love electric/sonic.

It's kind of the go-to for T1 pets. Especially necromancer's Zombies and their puke attack. For almost all my MM's that overwhelming force proc always goes in my T1'S. It adds a ton of survivability to ninjas.

Single target confuses are extremely useful for annoying mobs like sappers and the like. It's certainly situational, but when I bring my illusionists out I try to keep Deceive in the build to nueter those types of baddies. Being able to confuse them without aggroing anything has some really high strategic value.

I know this isn't entirely helpful, but everything goes with Thugs... even /sonic. If you're new to Thugs secondaries that both heal and add to your minions survival is a good idea. I like /dark & /time as a newer Thug MM. Less of a learning curve. I've got at least one of every Thug in my stable. Personally I really enjoyed all of them, but Time or Trick Arrow are my favorites. Traps is super nice, but it's just too slow for teaming, but just fine solo. Trick Arrow is nice and smooth for the teaming experience in mid to later levels compared to traps. If you go down the route where you don't have an AoE heal,. don't fret. With the recent changes to MM's pets cost almost nothing to summon and the summon powers recharge really fast. I'm happy to let my T1's die (especially the suicidal Arsonist). They're easy enough to resummon.

Well dang.. that wasn't as obvious as I thought it would be. Thanks!

I realize this is probably a silly question, but I can't seem to figure out where to look to see someone's forum signature (where they say they've linked helpful posts they've made). Where is the right place to go to see a posters forum signature?

Also doesn't level differences between the baddies and bots mean 45% isn't as effective since even even cons to the MM would be +1 or +2 to the pets other than assbot (and thus getting an accuracy buff)?

They do go together nicely. I have one that is super solid. However I've tried /sonic on just about all MMs and after the recent pass on some of the primaries I very much love it on ..... bots. The healing drone provides the needed additional healing and the protector bots force field provides the layer defense to my resistance. I know that the one toggle is melee and I often put it on the assbot and send him into packs. It works really well. Probably my top pick right now with/sonic.

The thing to take away from this thread, if I were new, is everything will go with super reflexes. Star with concept and/or an attack set that is appealing to you. They'll all work. Personally I wouldn't fret too much about melee sets that offer up a heal since as a brute you can get some really good regen numbers and +def sets since SR offers that up pretty easily in it's own with high DDR. So go with what is sexy to you. You'll have a far better time I think. For me, I have quite a few SR brutes. I REALLY enjoy energy melee and stone melee, but I'm weird and like oddball combos.

Energy aura can be pretty forgiving since you have tools to deal with endurance and heals. Yes, super strength's rage crash will make you a little more vulnerable for a time, but there are creative ways to minimize that. But as was mentioned, concept and style should come first. Both savage and super strength are fantastic sets.

Why I too also hate my blue bar. Good to know I'm not alone 🙂

Trick arrow has mountain of debuffs that are all single target or AOE, so it works quite well in close range. Fire/TA certainly isn't boring and once endurance is under control it roasts baddies quiet well. Normally I start with Flash Arrow & smoke to apply the non-aggro -ToHit to the entire spawn, then I disorient, run in, apply immob, then disruption arrow. After this, while they're cooking I drop bonfire and apply other AoE debuffs as needed. As you can see it's pretty busy, but effective. Getting endurance squared is super important though as all those TA debuffs plus hot feet are not blue bar friendly.

I've literally got every secondary with ninjas. The defense based ones are a given but the one secondary I've had the most fun with is trick arrow. Fantastic debuffs that include a partially unresistable -ToHit (Flash Arrow). While it doesn't have a heal and since the ninjas can all heal themselves it's not a huge deal. In the end, after the rework, ninjas are.pretty solid. More cardboard dragons instead of paper. Certain mobs still sneeze and make them crumble (really anything that does a lot of -def), but in the end I still find them fun. If you haven't given ninjas/trick arrow a try it's worth taking it to the 30s to see what you think.

Honestly you should start with a concept you really like and not base it off the FoTM. Just because something has fantastic min/max numbers it may not gell with what is fun for you. That said you really cannot go wrong with just about anything available to brutes. Personally the only real duds, for me, are ice armor and kinetic melee. I have brutes of ever other combination and they're all fun and effective. For harder stuff I like stuff with layered protections like invulnerability or radiation armor. Defense in depth, for me, let's me not worry too much with running into various annoying baddies.

On all my sentinel's, from the moment they get it, I turn on offensive and leave it. Sure the others have uses, but I can't think of a situation my sentinels would have been better served by a different adaptation. It's one of really nice things about running BIO on a sentinel to boost the damage, which tends to be more valuable (to me).

On /dark MM's this is almost always a good idea (especially until fully IO'd out). It reliable procs and can really take the edge off MM's higher endurance costs.

I have a baby ice\traps (in the 30s). The thing that is kind of fun with it is that because of Arctic Air, it's pretty easy to drop traps, including Trip Mines. It's ice, while not the fastest arrester, but it works reasonably well. Either combination will work. I also have an electric\traps controller and same idea...distract the spawn while I drop traps. With cold it's the AoE confuse, with electric it's the pulsing sleep. Frosty isn't too bad here since he benefits from the force field generator (since he's defense based). Basically throw out seeker drones to get some aggro\alpha, run in and drop ice slick and start dropping traps. Of if it's up, I drop my traps, then ice slick, and then Fold Space. Ice slick really helps here so that anything which doesn't fall over from this alpha isn't too much of a threat and Jack and I can pretty easily clean them up. It won't win any damage or speed awards, but it works.

As someone whose been here a long time and has just about every MM combo, this was the thing that made my MM life so much easier once I came to terms with "letting them die" after the QoL pass on MM's. It breathed new life into my play style that includes letting my cardboard dragons (previously paper dragons) of Genin die so I could just resummon them. I spend far less effort protecting my pets (especially the T1's) and it's allowed me to play a much more aggressive MM. Probably my favorite update change.

This is really hard! I have over 600 alts and maintain a file on my phone whenever I get inspired for a new name/concept. But if I had to choose: Mr. Crisp - fire/rad Sentinel. Something a mad scientist armored head to toe with heat resistant armor plate and a flame shield mask shooting flames from his proprietary integrated flame system through his hands. His special suit has, on more than one occasion, surprised everyone, even himself, at just how durable and effective he can be at saving the world. Ms. Crisp - fire/nature corruptor. The ex-wife of ... Mr. Crisp. Always had a close relationship with nature and through a horrible explosion (the cause of which we don't discuss) she was horribly altered to where her entire body is constantly smoldering and she's completely burnt, head to toe. She wandered the Earth without any clothes since she doesn't really need any since she's literally a walking burnt-to-a crisp being. Through the "incident" she was gifted with powers that allow her to use both the ever burning flames of her body as well as the surrounding natural life forms to defend herself.

I've made similar toons and I like radiation melee colored with appropriate colors. The bubbling sounds and splash toxic damage kind of makes sense.

Something to consider with discharge and shock is that, yes they do -END and there are lots of views on the value of this, but I see it from another angle. They apply a -DMG debuffs (which is effectively +RES). It isn't something you can enhamce, but that -DMG stacks nicely with +RES from faraday cage and and +RES that your henchmen already have. If I have room for both I normally take them to help the little guys stay around a wee bit longer.

They all do really, but it is probably easier with pets that stay relatively close together (mercs, bots, demons, and to a degree thugs) so they stay inside the faraday cage and easily get the chain heal and absorb. But I've seen plenty that do really well with ninjas and necromancy. I personally find it easier with thugs and electric affinity provides a nice balance with their defense and DPS and it's +RES.

You're right it is 5 seconds of a 100% increase in global recharge. When it expires your recharge does go back to normal, but you still have shaved off time of other powers that were recharging. If anything login to the test server and try it out. It tends to be worth it for all my storm characters.

Yes. Normally I'll cast tornado, wait about 10 seconds, then cast lightning storm. Both will always trigger FF, which will give you 20 seconds of the buff. This is why you'll always see FF procs in both. But don't forget endurance reduction... They are super thirsty.

I think what is confusing to me is in this thread: It was suggested that the phantom army clones certain stats from the illusionist such as +DMG value. The example given was a ill/kin jumps in the middle of a pack, fulcrum shifts and gets damage capped and then summons the army. The above thread suggests the army gets the damage boost since it is cloned from the summoner. Is that accurate?