Shocktacular

I ended up going with /savage for this particular character, but I'd still like to hear more opinions (because apparently my brain has to "make ALL teh alts!!!" or something).

So I've been looking around on the Dominator forum and I've seen that savage, dark, sonic, and energy seem to come up the most, but I thought I'd ask more generally: What do YOU think works best with Illusion and why? What are the advantages/disadvantages of various pairings? I've added a poll from which you can pick multiple options, if you like. I'd just like to get people's opinions to see what others have tried.

Coming April 1st! 😛

It just seemed to me like hide vs. no hide was the main difference between the two. Thank you for your insight.

I also found blasters too squishy to play most of the time, but I was determined to find one that I could play to 50. Dual Pistols / Martial Combat was the winning combination for me: It has a teleport power to get you into and out of melee quickly It has a slow power to keep enemies from running up on you and smashing you that also gives you some absorb and +recovery You can Swap Ammo to whatever your foes are weakest against to do more damage, or to add other effects including holds or -dmg There are stun effects in both powersets, which stack Ki Push (aka "super yeet") is a good "get out of my face" power and VERY fun to use It has a "get out of mez free" power that you can also use to heal yourself when below half health and it enhances your own mez effects Overall, she was still squishier than I'm used to, but still pretty fun. Plus, lots of cool animations!

I'm confused: If you don't want hide, why not just make a scrapper?

If Maid-Man's secret identity has a lot of wealth, then Maid-Man is a made man. You should get this character made, man. 😛

Okay, now I've GOT to try this. Thanks so much!

This! A thousand times, this! Same for the gloves.

This. Which is a shame, because after I got the two teleport attacks on my stalker, I was mostly thinking "I'm barely even using AS. Why am I not playing this on a Brute?"

Donated. Keep the good stuff coming!

I recently discovered that you can put them in salvage racks in your SG base. I suspect that everyone else already knew about this, but I can be a bit slow sometimes. 😛 Anyway, this will make transferring them between characters much easier, especially since I have one character that tends to hoard them so I can see the total number I have.

I also recommend Sentinels. They are very forgiving as a beginner/I-just-got-back AT. In general it seems hard to make an unplayable character in this game and IMO Sentinels are the hardest to mess up. You can also build them up really well if you want to get into IOs and set bonuses and all that. Basically, it's easy to make a good, fun Sentinel with just the basics and there's also a lot of ways to make them even better once you start getting into some of the more complex features of the game. Also, WELCOME BACK!!!!! 😄

Yeah. I really wish they'd update the color palette and add a ... ... wait for it... ... tan line. 😛 *Everyone groans*

Sadly, those pieces are not available to players in the costume creator (yet???).

Fear and/or KD make the most sense to me for control effects for Beasts, since being attacked by wolves and lions is scary and they're big enough to tackle a person. Slow could work, too, as the aftermath of a leg injury, and maybe Stun like if they surprised-pounced on you and smacked you in the head or something. Not sure about debuffs, but -tohit seems to go with Fear most of the time. -Def would work for similar reasons to Slow; after being injured, you can't dodge as well. Also, possibly, because most enemies aren't used to fighting animals so they're not sure how to anticipate their attacks, making them harder to dodge. Just my 2 inf.

... You realize I'm going to have to make another alt now, right? Thanks... 😛 Also, will the Bombardment: Chance for Fire Damage proc ignite the oil slick if you slot it in oil slick arrow? Do you know?

Oh, I forgot: One of the best parts about ill/dark is that the buffs from /dark are enough to keep the Phantasm alive most of the time, so he's actually *gasp* USEFUL!

I know I'm necro-ing this thread, but... My ill/dark/psi controller is incredibly awesome! She's got perma PA, perma fade, and perma Indomitable Will (so no getting mezzed!). My memory has a hard time grasping her amazingness, because every time I play her I end up thinking "wow, I knew this character was good, but daaaaaaamn!". On another note, Lightning Rod always felt really super to me; you teleport in in a huge burst of electricity that zaps in like a lightning bolt, kapow! Definitely a "FEEL MY POWAH!!!" moment every time.

I started with a bio/rad tanker and just had to make the corresponding brute for exactly this reason. She's a lot of fun! (I'll probably want to re-slot IG now, though; I did have it super procced).

It's not so much that the question is too hard, it's that it sounds like you're really after something else and are settling for "uber-br00t". We're trying to help you make the "something else" work. As for the title question: I've rarely gotten a brute to 50+incarnates that couldn't solo at least +3x8 against most enemy groups. The two most fun I've made so far are probably my rad/bio (although I haven't played her since the rad melee updates) and my elec/WP: /Bio is a pretty active secondary, but it's very flexible and you can adjust your toughness as needed with the different adaptations. I generally leave mine in Aggressive for more dmg, and have tweaked her build for this. She's ever so slightly squishier this way, but between /bio's debuffs and dmg aura and rad melee's Irradiated Ground, things tend to die too fast for it to make much of a difference (also, Destiny Barrier helps a ton). I'm not sure about her as much as I used to be since IG got tweaked, and I tend to play her more against large groups than AVs or GMs, so I'm not sure how she'd do there. I have a spines/bio in progress as a potential replacement/alternate, but haven't gotten her to 50+ yet, so I can't really compare them yet. I've heard that that's a good combo, too, though, and it's similar to rad melee in that you do toxic damage and have a damage aura. My elec/WP is my namesake character and my badger (1573 badges and counting!). /WP is basically "set and forget" which means you can spend all your time attacking things. Elec melee has the most multi-target powers of any melee set. Again, I tend to focus on large mobs with her, but she's soloed a couple GMs as well as some task forces and strike forces (including Aeon when it first came out and no one knew the tricks yet, although admittedly at a much lower difficulty level).

To make a blood-wielder, maybe try Dark powers colored red / darker red (especially the soul noir versions, which have some lovely drippy and fluid effects)? A lot of concepts can be made to work if you get extra creative with the power customizations and/or costume.

I'm having a great deal of fun with a necro/elec right now. She's tough, too. Those extra minions from the blasts help a lot. I'm usually a bit cautious when it comes to increasing the difficulty while soloing. I generally don't touch it until the mid to late 20s at the very earliest. With my necro/elec, I started turning up the diff at lvl 8 and I've never looked back, so this combo definitely gets my vote.

Is this asking about powerset combos, animations, character concepts, or any/all of these?

Illusion/Dark Controller if you don't already have one. I have an ill/dark/psi with (barely) perma-IW who's just AMAZING! The combo is a bit clicky, but once you get rolling with perma-PA, the good times just keep on coming. Mine is basically "summon, debuff, attack ...aaaaand everything's dead now. NEXT!"