Illusion and Controller newb needs your expert guidance

[graeberguinn]

Alt-itis is always a hard drug to resist. And since the game has been back I've wanted to roll an illusion controller. But...I don't know where to begin. I always have a theme for a toon whether it comes from the powers or the costume. But with Illusion I'm stumped. And I'm stumped as to what secondary to pair with. A few look good and I can't decide. 

 

So I'm looking for some guidance on general thoughts and tips on the different secondaries that pair well. And what pros/cons may come from each. What is your personal choice on secondary? How does each secondary play different? Thanks in advance for helping to feed my alt addiction. 

[EmperorSteele]

Here's the thing with Illusion: It's not a great "control" set (it relies a lot on confuse and fear, which you can't get extra containment bonus from, and except for the long-recharge AoE hold that all Controller primaries have, it doesn't have much else, besides), but it's a really good "Controller" set. It's key power gives you invincible pets (yay!), but you can't buff them (boo...) and they're on a long recharge (aghh!). It's main attack power does a lot of damage (oooh!), but if you don't kill the bad guy fast enough, they get some HP back (oh...).

All that said, Illu works best with a secondary that can boost your recharge, increase your damage, and debuff your foes' defense and resistance, to allow your un-buffable pets to do more damage.

For this reason, /Rad is usually seen as the best pairing. It does everything i just mentioned above,, plus even has an extra AoE hold for you! It's also an AV/GM soling death machine when built right. The only downside is that Illu/Rad controllers are a dime a dozen, and you won't exactly be bringing anything unique to the table, if you care about that at all.

/Time is also a good secondary. It does many of the same things Rad does, though it does its best work when you're close to the action. Again, very common. However, I believe it's easier to "conceptualize" this combo. After all, there's a saying: "Time is just an illusion", so you can work off that! I mean, I guess at some point in history someone may have said "Time is rad!" but I don't see that going down as one of history's great quotes.

 

/Storm is another favorite. Now, it doesn't have all the same mechanical niceties Illu usually needs, but between Phantom Army and Phantasm knocking everything around, fear and confuses going off, thunderstorms and tornadoes and hurricanes all over, you become the anti-controller: CHAOS EVERYWHERE!

 

Finally, /Dark is pretty good. Its best powers are front-loaded, so you can get your debuffs early, then work on rounding out your Primary. It even comes with another pet! Again, no +recharge powers, but that's okay. It's a good paring if you want to play as, say, a rouge Carnival Master Illusionist, who literally had Illu/Dark as their powerset before Dark ever became a Controller Secondary!

[Coyote]

One more set that works GREAT with Illusion is Traps.

1: Immobilize for AVs, great -Regen for AVs.

2: AoE damage that doesn't rely on getting Containment.

3: slotting FF: Recharge in Trip Mine allows it to act as a minor +Recharge power when used regularly.

 

[Extor Prime]

Alright! Soapbox time! This is a subject that is near and dear to me.

 

EmperorSteele here has hit a quite a few nails on the head. Illusion/ is perhaps the least "controlly" powerset of all controller sets; you get a great ST hold, a great AoE fear, a (sometimes AoE) great ST Confuse, and... that's about it. Our AoE hold is PBAoE, mediocre and skippable. We don't have an AoE immob or an AoE confuse. We are DPSers first and foremost, and we rely on debuffs and straight DPS output for our damage - Containment plays a second fiddle. You know what? We were Dominators before Dominators were cool. Or Corruptors. I don't know. There isn't anything quite like an Illusion controller out there. Some like to call us pseudo-Masterminds, but you go ahead and show me a Mastermind whose pet can facetank an AV or a GM right out of the box without the need of any manner of buff. We soloed AVs and GMs before incarnates were even a thing.

 

We are a DPS class onto itself with a strong predisposition to solo. With the right primary/secondary pairings, we can do nearly anything in the game, which is a lot to say for a non-melee squishy. Our approach is slower and more deliberate than that of a Brute or a Scrapper, which makes us less amazing in the current GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO group meta. We do have a setup time, however short (it takes time for us to summon the decoys and for the decoys to engage). Our Phantasm is both daft and squishy, and often bites the dust quickly in a group scrum with a lot of unchecked AoE flying around. You could clear things faster with a Brute or a Scrapper; or with a right Blaster even (after all, a right Blaster can solo MoITF, and that ain't chump change). But, we combine a very unique playstyle with a lot of capability, particularly for soloing hard targets, and that is what matters, at least to me. We are concept characters that still kick more ass than five men beating a dead donkey. We are also the only controllers that can reliably "control" any AV or GM in existence, short of Hamidon: after all, if it is busy trying to kill an unkillable construct, it might as well be controlled.

 

As to the theme. My honest opinion is that "Illusion" is just a word. I've always seen Illusion controllers as dime-store Lanterns (pick a color, any color). We make constructs out of light and use light to fight. Yes, there's the healback, but... just ignore it. It's there and it's annoying but just pretend it's not there. The decoys and the phantasm can be recolored and even made to look somewhat solid. Throw in extra summons from Lore Incarnate and voila - constructs galore! There's even one Lore (Phantoms) that gives you two more constructs that look exactly like your decoys. It's not the best Lore however. Anyway, for me Illusion theme was always about light and energy emission and manipulation. I would love it if my basic attacks (Blind and Spectral Wounds) could look like beams or projectiles, but you can't quite have it all. To give you an example, the current incarnation of my main (Ill/Cold/Ice) justifies his cold powers by saying that he can manipulate energy in his enemies or in a target area. Drain energy from the enemy and take it for himself? Heat Loss. Remove energy from everything in a target area, to the point that the air itself condenses into ice crystals? Sleet and Ice Storm. Remove energy from a single enemy, rendering him sluggish and vulnerable? Benumb. Bend light around himself to become partially invisible? Arctic Fog (I color it the darkest purple so it is effectively invisible). I know it ain't exactly science-science, but it's enough to pass for comic book-science, and we're all in a comic book after all.

As to Primary/Secondary pairings. There is a lot of opinion out there on the subject. Here's what I know. Your primary is best complemented by a secondary that 1) debuffs your targets - the harder the better; and 2) feeds your rather steep requirements for Stamina, or Recharge, or both.

 

Ill/Rad is the perennial classic. Ill/Rad is what took me to the top back in the day. There wasn't a bigger Ill/Rad fanboy than me, except maybe Local Man, whose guide to building an Ill/Rad is still gold standard. /Rad gives you a recharge and recovery buff, a heal, and debuffs the enemies' regen and resistance. That is just about all you need to rock. And it doesn't hurt that it has one of the absolute best PBAoE holds in the game, too.

 

Ill/Cold is the best there is. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to admitting that, but there's no way around it. Much like /Rad, it debuffs the enemy's damage resistance and regen, but unlike /Rad, with enough recharge, these debuffs are stackable, That is BIGLY YUGE. It also gives you a COLOSSAL Stamina and Recovery buff (Heat Loss) that is comparable in its effect to Destiny Ageless; the only catch is that when you use it, you have to be in PBAoE range. This lets you use the Destiny slot for something else, like Clarion (to make yourself immune to all mez). Or if you don't expect a lot of mez, you can still slot Destiny Ageless and use Heat Loss as a ranged AoE debuff. /Cold debuffs also don't require anchors and are very quick to deploy. This improves your value on teams - even if you can't quite keep up with the GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO ball of meleers, you can still help them out by dropping substantially helpful debuffs onto the enemies frequently. You pay for this buy having absolutely no self-heal and no way outside of IO sets to buff your own recharge. But boy, is it ever a worthwhile exchange. This is one of the combos that delivers Incarnate-like performance before it actually gets into Incarnate abilities.

 

Ill/Dark is somewhat similar, quite a bit tankier and has a lot of similar tools in its toolchest, plus an extra pet (Dark Servant). However, it lacks the ability of /Cold to stack debuffs, which makes it less efficient against hard targets. Soul Absorption, while very similar on paper to Heat Loss, is a lot less powerful and you may need to use Destiny Ageless to keep your blue bar topped up.

 

Ill/Traps is predictably great, because /Traps is great; but it's also a bit too slow for my tastes as traps take time to set up in each fight. Illusion also lends itself well to flying, and Traps requires you to be up close and personal, at least in the setup phase. TBH if you want to use Traps, you are better off as Bots/Traps MM (AKA "the guy who can kill anything").

 

Ill/Storm has insane DPS output potential that only gets better the more recharge you get. On paper, that is. In reality, because /Storm's best tools (Tornado and Lightning Storm) induce terror in everything, this combinations suffers TERRIBLY from the lack of a reliable AoE immobilize. Seriously, everything runs like a scared little girl. Even AVs. They run into the next zip code, regen, then come back to bother you. Worse, if your Tornado decides to chase, it can aggro things along the way and ruin your plans with extra adds. Is it fun? Sure. If you love making an utter mess of the battlefield, Ill/Storm is your huckleberry. But a lot of actual damage potential is wasted because of the "RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!" effect, and it won't make you a team darling either. /Storm plays a lot better with something that can immobilize, like Plant.

 

Ill/Time is a good choice, but it is a bit more team-oriented and lacks the debuff potential that you so very sorely need. I don't know much about it, but there's an ongoing thread that hopefully can provide some guidance.

 

Two secondaries that you should definitely NOT pick are /Force Field and /Empathy, unless you want to take a chunk out of your own performance to be extra-team friendly. But hey, Leandro plays Ill/Emp, so I guess there's something to it.

 

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, Extor Prime said:

Seriously, everything runs like a scared little girl. Even AVs. They run into the next zip code, regen, then come back to bother you.

 

Just as a note, I've had running issues with like 3 AVs so far, out of a few dozen. And one was, I think, due to some AI bug possibly caused by him being a spawned ambush AV rather than a normal map-spawned AV (Nosferatu spawned by activating a computer). Then Nossie again ran around a lot in the New Praetorians arc. The other was Diabolique, because she phases, and apparently the Fear effects last longer than the PA Taunt effects. Otherwise, though, AVs will sometimes just move around a bit to get out of the patches, but will often just plant in one spot. They only really move when one PA drops and the next set has to establish aggro, because their Taunt seems to be stronger than the Fear effect.

 

If you want NO problems, then avoid Storm, but if you're willing to deal with a bit of movement in return for excellent DPS in other situations, Storm is fine. It can handle most AVs without serious problems. It's not as simple "stand in one place, summon, and debuff" as the other sets, but IMO being able to smash through kill-all missions solo without shedding illusionary tears is worth the extra management issues against AVs.

 

Nosferatu, though... ugh, he's like the marathon runner of AVs. Avoid him and things are cool. Otherwise have your decoys do their wind sprints when you train 😉

[Mopery]

Hold my beer...

 

After maining an ill/rad way back during live, and recently testing builds on Beta to help me decide whether to IO my new ill/cold or ill/dark, I went with ill/dark. All of these combinations are powerhouses which can and will drop GMs and AVs(no doubt ill/traps could do it too), I just have to say there is a huge difference between these other builds and ill/dark. There are several reasons for this, the main being Fade.

 

In my build Fade allows me to more than cap defenses against S/L/E, and with a small purple inspiration be capped vs all damage types(45%+). This allows me to survive the 2-3 seconds when, pre-incarnate, I don't quite have perma-PA. With Spiritual t3 and above I have perma-PA, but that's really just icing on the cake. With /dark I have one of the strongest aoe heals in the game, helping not only myself and my pets but my teammates also. Oh and did I mention that Fade grants a large defense buff to your pets and teammates, too? The build is very end heavy, but with Soul Absorption you'll never notice it, even if there's only one target to drain. This power also buffs your pets and teammates. But PA doesn't need buffs you say? Well, Phantasm, Fluffy, and your mini-Toxic Tarantula enjoy them! That Tarantula brings aoe damage with it too, one thing illusion is poorly lacking.

 

Testing on the beta server, I went all out +4/x8 doing the Ouro missions to unlock your Alpha Incarnate slot(without any incarnate powers), and was nigh invulnerable to the Council, Rikti, and Crey I was fighting. I also cleared the entire spawn pretty quickly for a controller. This made my mind up. Ill/rad or ill/cold might be able to survive and bring down spawns like that from a distance, but I spent my entire time in their midst! I felt like a walking God(well, hovering), and then I realized I didn't even have a single Incarnate power yet! Not even perma-PA!

 

ill/dark

 

"'nuff said"

Edited January 1, 2020 by Mopery

[oedipus_tex]

Illusion Controller is easier to understand if you know that it was designed as for issue 1 of the game as a "Mastermind" class, prior to their being a real Mastermind class. 

 

The main pets are unkillable, but also without a sufficiently strong build aren't permanently around. The pets are also better tanks than most Mastermind pets.

 

This was also before mechanics existed to direct pets to do your bidding, so Illusion has none of that, where a real Mastermind will.

 

Other than that though, if you know the role of the Mastermind, the role of Illusion Controller should follow suit. This tends to split two different ways:

• Players who really want to play support will enjoy Illusion Controllers. That's because you can set your pets free and spend your time concentrating on your buffs. This is why I suggest Illusion Control to players who want to play classic healer/support roles. Illusion Control (or a Mastermind) is often a better choice than a Defender, because Defenders have blasts, not distractors.

 

• Players who really want to play solo will enjoy Illusion Controllers. For these players, choosing a secondary set with strong debuffs is best. All the normal reasons that apply to Masterminds basically apply here.

 

 

[Extor Prime]

On 1/1/2020 at 2:25 PM, Mopery said:

Hold my beer...

 

After maining an ill/rad way back during live, and recently testing builds on Beta to help me decide whether to IO my new ill/cold or ill/dark, I went with ill/dark. All of these combinations are powerhouses which can and will drop GMs and AVs(no doubt ill/traps could do it too), I just have to say there is a huge difference between these other builds and ill/dark. There are several reasons for this, the main being Fade.

 

In my build Fade allows me to more than cap defenses against S/L/E, and with a small purple inspiration be capped vs all damage types(45%+). This allows me to survive the 2-3 seconds when, pre-incarnate, I don't quite have perma-PA. With Spiritual t3 and above I have perma-PA, but that's really just icing on the cake. With /dark I have one of the strongest aoe heals in the game, helping not only myself and my pets but my teammates also. Oh and did I mention that Fade grants a large defense buff to your pets and teammates, too? The build is very end heavy, but with Soul Absorption you'll never notice it, even if there's only one target to drain. This power also buffs your pets and teammates. But PA doesn't need buffs you say? Well, Phantasm, Fluffy, and your mini-Toxic Tarantula enjoy them! That Tarantula brings aoe damage with it too, one thing illusion is poorly lacking.

 

Testing on the beta server, I went all out +4/x8 doing the Ouro missions to unlock your Alpha Incarnate slot(without any incarnate powers), and was nigh invulnerable to the Council, Rikti, and Crey I was fighting. I also cleared the entire spawn pretty quickly for a controller. This made my mind up. Ill/rad or ill/cold might be able to survive and bring down spawns like that from a distance, but I spent my entire time in their midst! I felt like a walking God(well, hovering), and then I realized I didn't even have a single Incarnate power yet! Not even perma-PA!

 

ill/dark

 

"'nuff said"

 

If you are looking to shore up your AoE game, /Ice may be a better choice than /Mace. Frozen Armor is only a bit worse than Scorpion Shield (though with Fade, you might not care), Ice Blast is a great single target, Ice Storm is a very good rain AoE, and since you like to be up close, Frost Breath might be helpful (though I never used it).

 

Aside: Can you imagine what life would be like if there was such a thing as an Illusion Dominator? Holy crap, I'm salivating just thinking about it. Illusion/Energy Assault/Ice. Illusion's constructs, Energy's bolts, beams and glowing punchery, and Ice for Sleet, Hoarfrost, Ice Storm and Frozen Armor. Might be a bit light on the defenses, but then again maybe not. I love my Ill/Cold, but I'd reroll THAT in a heartbeat.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Extor Prime

[Mopery]

3 hours ago, Extor Prime said:

 

If you are looking to shore up your AoE game, /Ice may be a better choice than /Mace. Frozen Armor is only a bit worse than Scorpion Shield (though with Fade, you might not care), Ice Blast is a great single target, Ice Storm is a very good rain AoE, and since you like to be up close, Frost Breath might be helpful (though I never used it).

 

Aside: Can you imagine what life would be like if there was such a thing as an Illusion Dominator? Holy crap, I'm salivating just thinking about it. Illusion/Energy Assault/Ice. Illusion's constructs, Energy's bolts, beams and glowing punchery, and Ice for Sleet, Hoarfrost, Ice Storm and Frozen Armor. Might be a bit light on the defenses, but then again maybe not. I love my Ill/Cold, but I'd reroll THAT in a heartbeat.

The thing about /Mace is I get the bonus cap to Energy defense in addition to S/L, Poison Ray for added -Res(plus Achille's Heel Proc) for hard targets, and the Tarantula is a fire and forget AoE monster(cd resets long before the 4 min timer is up). The build is pretty busy as is, firing off other powers, and against most foes my non-PA pets usually don't die.

 

Yeah I always wondered if they would move Illusion to Dominators before the shutdown, it would certainly be interesting.

[oedipus_tex]

I think Illusion Dominators would be cool, but since Dominators lack significant debuffs, Controllers probably still come out ahead. The only strong debuffs available to Dominators are Sleet and Drain Psyche. Drain Psyche is strong... but PBAoE. The rest of the Psi set doesn't offer particularly good damage to back it up, so a Cold Domination Controller probably comes out ahead.

 

The strongest Dominator raw DPS set is Fire, which doesn't have any significant debuffs to speak of.

 

A few Dominator sets provide Power Build Up, but Illusion Dominators can already get Power Boost.

 

I think Illusion Dominators would be fun, but where most would excel would be AoE and trash mobs. But still not to the extent of a Blaster, just typical Dominator stuff. Dominators tend to have pretty mediocre damage overall, in the age of crashless nukes. Ahead of your standard Illusion Controller, sure, but nothing crazy.

Edited January 3, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Frosticus]

I'd enjoy illusion on doms. I dont think for a second it would be the best in most regards. What I seek for a dom, as I really like the assault sets, is a primary that just let's you attack almost full time. Especially for savage assault, I just want to fight all the time. 

 

I've tried grav, fire and dark and something isnt quite there for what I seek.

 

Finally, I like solo'ing tf 's. It is certainly possible with other primaries, generally a bit more so with illusion. 

 

 

[GM Miss]

Some of the posts here have already been so helpful so I will only post my own experience with illusion. I played retail with Illusion/Kinetics - as some previous posters have mentioned +rech makes it easier to perma decoys which is usually my main goal. Since playing HC I went with /time (mostly because I didnt want to buff everyone once every 1 and 2 minutes) but time comes with lots of other amazing stuff (+def, +rech, ST buffs for pets, etc) I even perma my Patron pool pet which is super fun. 

 

Good luck with your set!

[You]

Assuming someone immo an AV/GM, which one kills the AV/GM faster: /cold, /storm or /dark?

 

thanks!

[Razia]

I had an perma PA Ill/Rad on live and now have a perma PA Ill/Dark. I personally enjoy the /Dark much more, with that much recharge (215% in my case) all powers are up so often and Fade and especially Soul Absorption are so damn good, I can hardly ever play any other Secondary on a Controller. Fluffy also helps with setting up some containment ans is generally a good pet to have around.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Razia

[Coyote]

3 hours ago, You said:

Assuming someone immo an AV/GM, which one kills the AV/GM faster: /cold, /storm or /dark?

 

thanks!

 

In most cases, Storm. The DoT effect of the Storm powers makes up more effective DoT than the -Regen from Cold.

However, the -Regen is not affected by Resistances, so if you face an AV with high resists, then damage is lowered but not regen debuffs, so at this point it's Cold. And generally the AVs that give problems are the ones with high resistances.

Dark is not it in either case... its -Regen is about Cold but a little bit less, its -Resist is also a bit less, and while it adds some damage it's not that high.

 

So... if you average out the time to kill all of the AVs in all of the ordinary single-player story arcs, Storm will kill them all faster on the average. But Cold will have the lowest maximum time, and there may be a few whose Resist are high enough that Storm can't kill them all (Lt Sifu Tendaji, and Madame of Mystery, Siege, Diabolique... maybe others). So who is better depends on what is more important to you: average kill time, or ability to kill absolutely everyone.

 

BTW, just as a note... Traps is actually the best. It puts out -Resist that's up with the better ones, and the best -Regen in the game, along with adding its own Immobilize to keep the AV from moving away. And if you're not running Illusion, its Defense/Mez Protection helps a lot with fighting AVs that may actually shoot at you. But that's only for soloing... on teams its setup time makes it clearly behind Cold.

[RabbitUp]

I have to say Traps offers the best synergy. It does lack Rad's +rech, but you have Cold's stackable -res/-def, an immob for AVs (also useful for containment during the early levels), the strongest -regen in the game that also doubles as a potent AoE hold, and huge +def from Force Field Generator to easily softcap yourself to anything. It's also the most consistent set, because you don't run the risk of getting screwed by hitchecks. All other debuff sets have long cooldown debuffs that can miss, while Traps' Poison Trap is autohit.

 

I don't agree with the setup time argument; in a team, an Acid Mortar is all the setup you need. The real downside is that you can't use Hover as easily, but that's less of a problem when you are softcapped.

 

Edit: How could I forget, you also get mez protection from FF Generator.

Edited January 7, 2020 by RabbitUp

[graeberguinn]

Thank you for all the good info. After all this time and lots of other alts I've decided to try I'll/dark. Anyone have a build they can share for so.e inspiration and further help? 

[Erydanus]

On ‎3‎/‎3‎/‎2020 at 11:31 AM, graeberguinn said:

Thank you for all the good info. After all this time and lots of other alts I've decided to try I'll/dark. Anyone have a build they can share for so.e inspiration and further help? 

So I've gotten the impression that you haven't played a controller before either, so I thought I would write up a little leveling build guide for you. This is not your typical at-50, here's your IOs and smashing/lethal are nearly capped style build. It's more a suggestion of what to take as you level and a few notes on why.  This is an extremely effective combination, you don't need to do much with inventions to level. 

 

Level 1 - Blind, Twilight Grasp

Standard starting pics. You want Blind first because it will hold a target and set up containment. Fun fact! Blind is a single target hold and it also has a VERY TINY mag 2 AoE sleep stacked on top of it. Basically if you get 3 Hellions shoulder to shoulder in a doorway and target the one in the middle there's a chance the guys on the outside will get slept. Is it useful? Probably not but you might see it happen sometime and you can exploit that for containment if you do.

 

Twilight Grasp is of course a great heal that affects yourself. The target is also given a small -regen and -damage debuff so it's pretty much always worth spamming for multiple types of mitigation. You'll need to slot it for accuracy before anything else though, it can miss.

 

Level 2- Deceive

You said you wanted to play with this power right? Solid choice. Plus you don't need many slots in this at all which means it's going to be doubly helpful especially at early levels.

 

Level 4 & 6 - Spectral Wounds or Darkest Night

If you're soloing you can get by with the P2W veteran attacks for a while but you'll probably want to get an actual attack you can slot with accuracy pretty early on. Now part of the Spectral Wounds damage is temporary but its a part of the unenhanced value not the enhanced so it's not like this power's damage is gutted! It's perfectly good for a nice spike of damage. Darkest Night is a fantastic shut down power as it reduces to hit and damage. Having it on my Dark/Dark controller is what let me solo Veles and Cernabog - it shut them down so hard. Now anchor debuffs require a little finesse to use but on Homecoming once you target a mob with them, if the mob dies they stay there as if they were ground targets until the body disappears and you can shut the toggle down early if you're done with it.  Even if a team melts things pretty fast it's generally worth tossing out to neuter foes for a few seconds. It used to be considered a very expensive toggle but in this free Stamina at 2 age, it's not a problem even unslotted.

 

Level 8 - Utility Choice

This is a good level to pick a power based on utility. From the primary and secondary, Flash, Superior Invisibility, and Tar Patch are available. Tar Patch is a great power as it applies -damage resist and slows things in it. This powerset doesn't have an immobilize per se so keeping things clumped with some slow is a bit helpful and the increased damage is clearly helpful. Flash is not a good power to take at this level. With the inherent accuracy penalty that aoe controller holds have and its extremely long cooldown it's simply not useful enough at this level. It's fine to take it later but at level 8 you need another power you can use a lot more often. Superior Invisibility is the best invisibility power in the game and the 2nd best concealment power (behind all versions of Stalker Hide). However, it cannot be used at the same time as Shadow Fall which carries a massive teamwide defense/resist benefit versus dark, energy, and psi damages as well as fear resistance.  If you want to solo and stealth missions like a stalker, Superior Invisibility is a good choice, if you're planning to team a lot then waiting and picking up Shadow Fall is a better plan. Again you might have room for this later. Taking Superior Invisibility here does allow you to slot it with a Karma: Knockback Protection IO that's level 10, if that's important to you to have.

 

This is also a level where you can take a travel power. A bonus attack like Arcane Bolt from Sorcery would also fit in here well; if you want to mostly solo, that might be the best option of all.

 

Level 10 - Howling Twilight or 2nd Utility Choice

This level is again going to be very dependent on what you want to do with your build but Howling Twilight is now an option and you should strongly consider it. While Howling Twilight started as a team res that healed the revived players for a % of health based on how many foes were targeted, that just never ended well. So the power got massively buffed and now is a full team revive even if the target is a 1 hit point gear. It also is an autohit stun, an autohit fear, deals a token approximately 8 hit points of negative damage to simulate the "life drain" aspect of the power, and it's also a massive slow that stacks with tar patch, a -recharge power, and also -500% regen which pretty much makes this power a "Kill the AV" button. The base recharge is 3 minutes which is pretty long but it is such a kitchen sink of benefits I'd seriously consider taking it. You can after all simply treat it as if it's an AoE stun (which most controller primaries have but yours does not) and yes, the stun is auto-hit but will only affect minions & lieutenants. 

 

Level 12 - Hasten

I'm not a person who puts hasten in every build. It's a special treat for me. I only put it in when it fulfills some special objective and in this case that objective is: Permanent Phantom Army. At low levels no way will you have perma PA, but with Hasten at least you'll get it back up a lot faster.  The only other new option at this level is Group Invisibility which, again, great power but not essential. Group Invis does grant a 1.8% defense buff along with its invisibility so it's worth having and casting on your team but like many of these low level powers, it's not essential right this second. It's a click not a toggle so it's helpful to just drop it for some bonus defense routinely. On the other hand, if you take Hasten here you can have a few slots in it before you get Phantom Army, which I think is ideal.

 

Level 14 - Utility Choice 3

If you haven't picked up a travel power yet, now is a really good time for it because you're going to be moving to the larger zones soon and being able to fly or whatever to get around places like Skyway City and First Ward will be nice. You can certainly get by with P2W jet packs and take one of the powers you've skipped up to now, even Group Invis or the like. For sake of this sample build, let's say you take Mystic Flight.

 

Level 16 - Shadow Fall

As previously noted this power combines stealth with defense and resistance bonuses team wide for 3 damage types that people typically are less protected against. If you're mostly soloing you probably already took Superior Invisibility. Shadow Fall would be a great benefit for foes like Tsoo, Banished Pantheon, Circle of Thorns, and Clockwork, all of which you're fighting extensively in this level range.

 

Level 18 - Phantom Army

Probably the most popular power in the set. You will want to focus on keeping PA out as much as possible.

 

Level 20 - Fade

And here's the other reason I was suggesting you hold off on Superior & Group Invisibility. Fade is a massive ~9% defense buff to everything and also has some bonus resistance and resistance to defense debuffing. It pretty much makes that less than 2% defense buff in Group Invisibility go to a corner and cry.  It has about a 50% uptime before slotting for recharge or factoring in Hasten or any recharge bonuses you put into your build

 

Level 22 - 24 Whatever

Filler levels to be honest. Now that you'll have access to SOs and their IO equivalents, Flash isn't unreasonable to take now but you're close to your real main control power. Any of the invisibilities, a travel power, another sorcery power - all possible choices depending on your playstyle.

 

Level 26 Spectral Terror

This is the set's real "control" power. It's a stationary pet that locks mobs in place with fear attacks.

 

Level 28 Soul Absorption

This is a teamwide regen and recovery buff. It's actually massive and it works on living foes and dead ones (as long as you use it before the bodies fade).  Dark Defenders would be grateful to get this power with the controller values, it's that good.

 

Level 30 Rune of Protection

If you have been picking up sorcery powers as options this is a wonderful point to grab a 3d power from the pool. Rune of protection is a mez protection power with significant resistance as well. And you can activate it while Mezzed already (IIRC, I remember doing this). This is a good level to fill in such a useful self-defense measure.

 

Level 32 Phantasm

Sadly it's a ghostly glowing dude and not a trio of chrome balls with drills but it's still good. I GUESS. Anyway this is your pet, he makes a pet of his own. Buff him with shadow fall and fade, let the phantom army tank for him, and treat him as your pocket blaster.

 

At this point the path to 50 is pretty clear. At level 35 Black Hole unlocks. It's an uncontrolled intangibility power and 99% of the playerbase despises this power. It's a great time to grab the first power from your epic pool instead. At level 38 Dark Servant unlocks. Some people dislike him but fluffy can run around spamming a 2nd copy of Twilight Grasp, as well as Tenebrous Tentacles (which gives you, a controller, secondary access to an AoE immobilize your set doesn't have already), and he also has Chill of the Night which is that dark damage aura Tsoo Sorcerers have. It does tiny damage but a lot of -tohit, plus fluffy can be procced with -tohit; a Cloud Senses chance for negative energy damage is a particularly good IO to put in him as everything he runs has a chance of proccing that. Dark Servant does have to be recast but I think it's worth it.

 

The rest is just a matter of any epic or pool choices you want for flavor. Truthfully this combination benefits from a huge amount of defense and resist and a ton of regen, healing, and bonus recovery. A lot of the epic pools are kind of snoozers for it. Who needs conserve power or dark consumption when you have Soul Absorption already? Not you, not really. If you are the sort of person who really wants to full on cap your defense and resist as much as possible for incarnate powers, you might even use the typical epic levels for the fighting pool so you can grab tough and weave.