Filler-attack suggestions for a leveling Ill/Dark? :)

[synfoola]

Hi, all.  🙂


Giving Illusion a whirl due to the changes and, since I already have two /Time toons, I decided to go with /Dark. But, here's the thing...

...we all know that Illusion isn't heavy on the attack chain until much later and I'm kind of addicted to leveling with teams and a little sprinkle of solo, so I'm wondering what you guys would suggest for a filler attack during her leveling?  My Altitis keeps me from anything more than lightly investing in IO's (a Gaussian's here...a KB->KD there...), so my recharge will be limited to craft IO slotting and Hasten when I hit 22. 

Air Superiority is always an option for it's flippiniess. Boxing/Kick is OTW to Tough & Weave and there are enough skippable powers in the set-combo during leveling to get to Crosspunch, I guess. The sorcery attack would fill in the gap, but that activation time is horrid. 😕 Or should I just play team half-fender until Epics?  😮 

Thanks in advance, all!  😄 
 

[SeraphimKensai]

Sands of Mu, Nemesis Staff, Black wand, and a slew of paid for temp powers can round out an attack chain.

[quixoteprog]

I went with Arcane Bolt on my Ill/rad, mainly because it was the only ranged pool attack power at the time. Now, you have the project will, or whatever in the other origin power pool.

 

In my Mind/emp controller I went with flurry of blows, which I KNOW is looked down upon. But the thing is, it can be ok. It has a very low endurance cost, for the damage it does, IIRC. I mainly took it because I took it on the same guy 15 years ago when I made up one of my first toons on live.

 

Once I got high enough I got fire bolt and fire ball.

[Riverdusk]

Arcane bolt is my goto now.  Activation time isn't great, but at lower levels when you don't have many powers what else are you going to do with those gaps anyway?  As an illusion I'm not often in melee so I also figure by the time I'd run up to melee them with boxing or air superiority or whatever, I could have easily gotten a bolt off and something else too.

 

Other option is temps as suggested.   As a dark you don't have any -defense powers to help you hit with them, but you can go to the P2W vendor and get the temp buff power that gives you a +tohit buff for up to 8 hours at a time.  At lower levels it isn't too expensive, so I always stock up on all 3 of them myself.

[Camel]

3 hours ago, synfoola said:

Hi, all.  🙂


Giving Illusion a whirl due to the changes and, since I already have two /Time toons, I decided to go with /Dark. But, here's the thing...

...we all know that Illusion isn't heavy on the attack chain until much later and I'm kind of addicted to leveling with teams and a little sprinkle of solo, so I'm wondering what you guys would suggest for a filler attack during her leveling?  My Altitis keeps me from anything more than lightly investing in IO's (a Gaussian's here...a KB->KD there...), so my recharge will be limited to craft IO slotting and Hasten when I hit 22. 

Air Superiority is always an option for it's flippiniess. Boxing/Kick is OTW to Tough & Weave and there are enough skippable powers in the set-combo during leveling to get to Crosspunch, I guess. The sorcery attack would fill in the gap, but that activation time is horrid. 😕 Or should I just play team half-fender until Epics?  😮 

Thanks in advance, all!  😄 
 

If you are only buying cheap, but effective IOs, then Arcane Bolt is perfect. You can put a Force Feedback +recharge proc in it and make the build a bit speedier. It can also take several damage procs as well.

[oedipus_tex]

If you can afford procs already, I'd go with the Force of Will pool and get both single target attacks. Proc the one that does -Resist with additional -Resist and some damage. That will help your Phantom Army deal extra damage.

 

Wall of Force is pretty nice as a filler AoE altho to be honest probably works best on Controllers with an AoE immobilize because of Containment. It's got good range tho and a generous arc (90 degrees) and isn't a bad place for a Force Feedback proc.

[Ultrazen]

I took sorcery, ended up also taking the sorc flight.  This is especially handy if you're not going to bother with the fly/hover path.  Arcane bolt is fast enough to go into the rotation, especially if you juggle it with nemesis staff or black wand, it gives you pretty seamless attack chain.

[Carnifax]

48 minutes ago, Ultrazen said:

I took sorcery, ended up also taking the sorc flight.  This is especially handy if you're not going to bother with the fly/hover path.  Arcane bolt is fast enough to go into the rotation, especially if you juggle it with nemesis staff or black wand, it gives you pretty seamless attack chain.

Sorcery is also a route to mez protection which acts like a break free. This gets very useful in the 40s when Malta and Carnival start showing up.

 

Later I respecced the absorb shield in instead of it on my Ill/Dark. Thats more situational but good to lob on an aggro attracting Blaster or Domi. 

[synfoola]

Thank you for the tips, gang. 🙂 

I grabbed Arcane Bolt (would've considered Will pool, but no AoE containment to take advantage of it besides Flash on a horribly long CD).  I'm also honestly considering Air Superiority since Darkest Night let's me mix it up in melee to Sands-cone the contained mobs who were affected by Blind's small pseudo-AoE, anyways.  This way, I can have a solid ST attack chain to help deal with Ill's crawling temp-damage regen on mobs.  Then, I'll probably spec out of one of the pools later when I have the endurance and slotting to just Sorc-Fly and burn the saved power slots on getting up to Rune. 

And thank you also for the reminder about the proc, especially the -Res proc. That's 3 times I've forgotten about it, even with 2 /Time toons. 😅

[Gulbasaur]

To add on to this rather than posting a new thread, what do people think of the Fighting pool attacks? On my tanker I have kick (for the +recharge proc) and cross punch (ditto) and I think they're surprisingly solid attacks. 

 

Has anyone taken them on a controller as filler? I'm currently levelling a gravity/time controller and the time debuff aura thing works best in melee range, so it makes sense to me to take them. 

 

Does anyone have any experience with them?

[Erydanus]

I do not like the fighting pool attacks on controllers though they are cleaner than Jump Kick.

 

I made a point of making a test (controller) character who took every possible attack from the pools and comparing them. The jump kick from jumping is an intolerable animation for me, we're talking fingernails on a blackboard bad. Flurry was not pleasant to use either. The fighting pool moves were ok, but in a meh way. It'd be different if  Boxing didn't just have a chance to stun though, wow that would be useful for mag stacking. As it is, both Boxing and Kick do less damage than Air Sup, and Air Sup does knockdown EVERY time and has a clean direct animation. As a controller looking for bonus damage, you benefit from a power that does more damage and puts 1 dude out of commission for a few seconds while he stands up. That might be the few moments you need to cast a single target hold on a boss a second time to shut him down for good. Of course, the -fly aspect is also potentially useful.

 

Overall it's either Air Superiority or one of the ranged attacks from an origin pool (I tend to prefer Arcane Bolt due to it being the path to Rune of Protection but Project Will is viable as well). 

[Gulbasaur]

2 hours ago, Erydanus said:

As it is, both Boxing and Kick do less damage than Air Sup,

Is that even with the fighting synergy? Also, cross punch has practically my favourite animation in the game.

[Erydanus]

I'm only looking at them as 1-offs. Hey if you like cross punch take cross-punch.