Frosticus

Settle down. No one is saying TA isn't great at debuffing. I was commenting on your assertion that acid arrow is what makes it the best. I play with my alpha slotted so mechanically I never face higher than +3 unless exemping down for low content. You might also be confused about what unresistable means. It is still governed by the purple patch. You might also be confused about how certain debuffs are impacted by other mechanics that make unresistable debuffs less effective in some situations. You might also be confused about how much -regen is needed for most encounters and at which point it becomes redundant. 1 (strong regen debuff like lingering rad) makes almost all AV's/GMs manageable. 2 debuffs regen by 84.5%. If your team can't outpace that then there are other concerns. There are some unique encounters that could warrant more.

Maybe a miscommunication. The comment was about acid arrow. I'll give an example: Hurricane can debuff any normal enemy into the ground, but is largely useless vs AV rank. Acid arrow does not suddenly make hurricane viable. Short circuit can flatline endurance recovery (and drain a good %) of any normal enemy. Acid arrow does not suddenly make sapping hugely effective vs AV rank We weren't discussing the unresistable aspects of TA's other powers, but we certainly can. They are great and not great. Unresistable -tohit = big thumbs up Unresistable -damage is only beneficial if the target has significant damage resistance because their resistance will resist your debuff. So things like godmode powers render most damage debuffs mute (which can be a real shock to anyone that leans on that type of mitigation). The inverse is also true. -damage is boosted by -resistance debuffing. So outside of godmode powers many damage debuffers will produce much higher results. That unresistable portion that TA puts out sees no benefit from the -res in the set (or elsewhere). Ice arrow is great. It is a reverse powerboost that I said was a star. Poisons is a bit better is all in that department. TA is a great set, no contention on that. It takes awhile to get all of its debuffs out, but it has a great suite of tools. My response was in regard to acid arrow specifically.

Good question. My ice/sav/psi was planning this same route along with world of confusion. The project stalled in anticipation for ill/sav, so I can't say how well it would all work together in a finished build. That said, ice slick can trigger the proc. I think it rolls 3 times over the life of the slick which is better than nothing. After that it really depends on how much aoe damage you dish out as it is a flat proc chance on attacks. If you just use a pbaoe once in a while it might not do much, but spamming a power like feral charge (5 target 20ft aoe) might have ok results. It is very short duration vs +cons though. Single target you'll have little issue procing it, but then single targets are rarely an issue that a mag 2 confuse would solve.

ill/dark/(psi) is a great choice. Very little in the game it can't solo. One of the strongest self sufficient builds in the game. It isn't my cup of tea though, you need to throw it into extremely difficult scenarios to challenge the strength of the build, but its damage is a bit low for my liking and you spend a lot of time summoning/activating buffs/debuffs. So it ends up feeling like a bit of a slog.

It's a neat debuff, but for the most part debuffing most enemies into the ground is easy enough. The enemies you want to improve debuffing heavily resist acid arrow's effects. For instance it doesn't make sapping or tohit debuffing an AV suddenly viable as a primary strategy. Regen debuffers usually neuter AVs single handily. On the other hand the reverse powerboost of weaken actually cripples AVs like ghostwidow and makes silver mantis way less threatening.

No real suggestions but I really dig the idea of the seismic waves with poison's aura.

Inconsistent endurance costs Gleam and Stalagmites: end cost = 10.4 Flashfire, Wormhole and Heart of Darkness: end cost = 15.6

You are not wrong. I'd forgotten about the days of imp armies, dumpster diving and (near) zero damage perma PA. Perhaps it is best not to dwell on what past devs thought because all that matters is what the current ones envision. They clearly have a problem with illusion having taunting pets (earth has one mind you). I dont see their design intent behind dom PA or phant decoy, but I'm still going to use the set extensively.

PA is a pretty broken power on trollers. The devs are obviously very adverse to repeating that mistake even going so far as to strip the taunt mechanic from the decoy in Phantasm. Keep in mind that when PA was designed high uptime of the power required an entire team dedicated to the purpose. Now there is no reason not to have perma PA on a high level team. That said, they need to decide what role PA is to serve for doms and possibly look at adding a power or two to Phantasm to compensate for the decoy nerf. Is PA intended to be a control power? Maybe they should do fears or confuses? (fits the set pretty well) Is PA simply intended to be an auxiliary damage source? Should likely reduce the % of illusionary damage then and/or look at reducing the base recharge, or extending the duration of the summons. Every control set has 2-3 thematic set defining powers unique to only them (so not gleam). Superior invis and PA are illusion's. Illusion being a strong control set doesn't mean PA (and phantasm) should be swept under the rug. There are fair ways to differentiate dom and controller PA without repeating the mistakes of the OG devs.

I'm partial to Poison. Venomous gas is a good size auto hit aoe that debuffs all the good stuff a nice amount. Then you have envenom and weaken on the harder stuff in the spawn. Very little time spent applying debuffs, but pretty drastically alters the strength of a mob.

ok? it's actually one of your best DPA attacks. avg 258 dmg w/ 1.118 sec cast, but I said power, not attack. It also paints them, grinds them to a halt and applies -20%*.9 = 18% res debuff. An ice/cold corr should prioritize it over every other attack unless scourging and/or under the buff of aim+guassian (freezeray and bib) when using single target attacks. To each their own though.

you guys don't 5 proc infrigidate? It is one of the best powers in the game with near perfect proc chance. Not waiting till 38 for heatloss? yes please. Dominator t8, and 9 attacks at a useable level? thank you

This is a strange conversation. I like both AT's a lot, but one is the strongest AV/GM killer in the game and is agnostic about what enemy it faces and the other is a dominator with nothing more suited to the task than a scrapper. Some doms can rip through TF's pretty nicely though. For example I recently saw a vid of a dominator fighting lvl 53 sinclair. It took like 20 mins with lore pets. Comparatively my ill/cold/stone can drop a lvl 53 sinclair in about 3.5mins w/o lore. (I can't recall how long the 54+3 sinclair in my sig took, but it wasn't more than a few cycles of hybrid). I think many doms are better at the x8 part than controllers, but vs AVs/GMs it isn't in the same realm.

Re: AV's being a little bit better, when the AT is very mediocre, isn't particularly concerning. Confusing AV's is an inefficient gimmick. It might be the best Dom's can do, but a real AV killer will already be moving on to the next target by the time you get it confused. I think many dom's will find that attaining perma PA is a whole different kettle of fish than attaining perma dom. It will be very difficult to hit those levels of recharge AND still have solid defenses considering Dom PA doesn't tank for you. Dark, Plant, Mind, Elec, Symphony, and Earth are all control powerhouses in their own way. I don't see illusion standing above them. Also remember that the only way to increase PA's output is through debuffs. My ill/cold can stack 80-130% -res so the damage some controllers extract from PA might not coincide with what doms experience when using pylons as an example.

I want to expand on PA because I think the devs are throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this power. Troller PA is broken because each attack has a ~25 second taunt. They spam attacks so even lvl 54s are indefinitely taunted by 1 PA, let alone 3. A much shorter duration taunt (2-3 seconds) attached to only a single power would mean that weaker enemies are bamboozled a noticeable amount. More powerful enemies would quickly shrug off the "illusion" of the PA being real and quickly focus on the source (you). Some special mobs even have taunt resistance, which would further allow them to quickly dispel the illusion and seek you out. In some cases it would expire so quickly that you may regain aggro before the next attack vs powerful foes. Short duration limited taunt + the new control powers they posses would make them fit the purpose they were likely always intended to serve.

Ok I've now put in a good number of hrs on an ill/sav/ice (will be making this for sure). Last night I was just working the wall in Cim because those are lvl 54s and pretty nasty melee mobs. Dominator Illusion has no issues taking down those spawns in or out of domination and I was pretty safe in melee range although /sav is unparalleled at getting your around the battle field, so it's not like I just sit there facetanking. My previous feedback remains consistent, but I want to update my thoughts on 2 powers Phantasm: total junk on a melee dom, makes fire imps look sturdy. I will take him on a pure ranged ill/fire though because I pull all the agro at range while he hangs out with PA in "relative" safety. Just fix the AI so it hangs at range then it will be useful for melee doms and ranged doms (that don't stand beside it). What is the purpose of him casting "decoy" if it does nothing of the sort? Maybe dom Phantasm should do something different? PA: I get why doms won't get the troller version. I've abused the hell out of that power on my ill/cold. Right now this power is like if seeker drones had a baby with fire imps. They absorb the alpha and then die a short time later (60 sec duration). My suggestion is to give their punch power(s) a very short duration taunt. Just enough for an enemy to occasionally get fooled and direct a single attack at them. This set is good, maybe even great. But as far as being an "illusionist" it pales in comparison to the troller version. Trollers make such strong illusions that they can convince everything in the game they are real (too strong). Doms can't even fool skuls with their illusions (too weak)... there has to be a middle ground no? Bonus: spec terror needs to dominate. All control powers should dominate, this is no different.

Plant/fire dom Ice/ta blaster Fire/Dark Corr All have good damage with good control. They have tools to stay at range and have no incentive or alternate builds that perform "better" in melee. For instance melee Fortunatas do way more damage, so pure ranged builds always have that gnawing at them. Hover sentinel -Pick one with a ranged nuke and it will sail thru most of the game allowing you to slowly turn up difficulty or engage new enemy types with confidence

I think you will be good with any secondary you like as illusion is very good on doms. honestly ill/x/ice can breeze through most encounters, so anything you add just speeds it up. I think there are 4 secondaries that stand out most to me /dark - self heal and -tohit to stack with spec terror /energy - stuns to stack with gleam and PA's melee punches /sonic - additional -res to boost PA /sav - additional +rech to boost uptime of PA /fire would have been unreal if PA still taunted, but it will still offer a ton of st damage. I've tried out ill/fire, ill/son and ill/sav and the ill/sav/ice is just great and really fun. Teleporting around while your mirror images fight along side you is very iconic feeling. It will be my selection for live.

Played an axe/ea scrap last night for a couple hrs. I've always liked axe, but never saw reason to play it over warmace, or even broadsword really. Some observations: Swoop has so much knockup that it can cause enemies to be out of range of other melee attacks (vs +0). It probably always did, but the trimmed animation probably makes it more apparent. - cued chop generally executed well. cued gash sometimes wouldn't fire until they hit the ground. I'd want to test this more. Axe Cyclone sometimes doesn't seem to tractor beam in enemies that you'd think it would. Is there a suppression period on the reverse repel? Fighting smaller groups of 7ish enemies. Maybe I'll watch the combat log to see if it was simply missing. - otherwise this power is the bee's knees setting up pendulum and even cleave to be more successful. It also makes armor auras perform better. - I can think of quite a few places where this tech would be better suited than a melee pbaoe, but it is great that axe got it. Pendulum was always an easy cone to use, but I prefer the new aoe version Cleave is really easy to hit 2-3 targets with after Cyclone. Excellent single target damage, good aoe that offers additional synergy, and pretty solid single target mitigation. It leaves broadsword in the dust, but still leaves warmace looking decent. Nice job. I'd recommend pairing it with an armor that offers endurance management because this set can suck down the blue bar pretty quickly.

My desire was always ill/fire, but I've been testing an ill/sav. I'm pretty well versed in what illusion can do for controllers. There will be lots of good ill combos for doms. 1. Spectral wall - meh. I'd rather have spec wounds. High burst damage of some doms would work well with the heal-back timer. Man doms t1 ranged attack is really weak and now skippable. Having a decent psi ranged attack would be welcome. I'd skip spec wounds on some doms, but I will skip spec wall on most doms. Maybe you need this though to prevent running AV's since PA no longer taunts? 2. Spectral Terror - love that it is available earlier. Have always loved placing outside of line of sight. Its a good power and keeps working while you do other stuff. I've always wished it had a bit more range on initial cast so you can get it down more easily before the team engages. 3. Superior invis - might be of even more value in lowering your threat modifier now that PA and phant decoy have no taunt? 4. Gleam - aoe stuns under domination are amazing. This is a great one, taoe with pretty quirk cast time. 5. Phantom Army - They have enough control (stuns/kd) to easily contain a single boss. Gleam more than makes up for the loss of taunt vs groups. PA is the entire reason to take Illusion for controllers imo. Definitely a decent damage source for doms, but I'm not seeing a compelling reason to make large build sacrifices push these to perma on a dom. Huge step down for the set vs AV's though. 6. Phantasm - skip. This suicidal pile of tissues is barely worthwhile for trollers that have considerable support powers to keep him standing. The decoy's taunt could occasionally cover downtime of phantom army, which was the only reason to use him imo. Conclusion: I'm going to play this set. It is great. My ill troller has no really way of locking down x8 spawns, has extreme st damage, and is unreal vs AV's. My ill dom will have spectacular group control and super high (st) damage. AV performance is a good or better than most doms.

Huge buff to some defenders, doms, tanks (bye jab!), poison as a secondary, etc. I think blasters make out the best though - at least for me. Not sure defenders need a boost as they are already pretty desirable relative to corrs and tanks definitely don't need a buff. On the fence, definitely a nice quality of life boost, but...

Gives up AV dominance for pretty stellar group control with a big aoe stun that has good cast time. But could still do most AV's safely with domination confuses if desired. Haven't tried it yet, but I've been waiting as long as I can remember for illusion dominators. A lot of fun combinations

8 seconds is fine, but the little used (or valued) mechanic of mez resistance should reduce the suppression window imo.

plant/son will wreck stuff. Add in /ice app for sleet and you have a ton of aoe -res for your (proc'd) creepers to shred mobs.

I know it probably isn't intended but sonic blast paired with cold/poison/dark and others was one of the most potent damage debuffers you could ever imagine. Frequently capable of flooring the damage of almost anything they faced due to the way that -res works with -dam. I definitely know some cold/son defenders that specifically built for the purpose of debuffing enemy resistance and flooring their damage. Their personal damage output was not their focus to say the least. I think these sonic changes look great, but I do feel bad for such unique builds disappearing just for the sake of more damage.