How Not To Be Seen: The ILLUSION DEFENSE Powerset

[AspieAnarchy]

ILLUSION DEFENSE (Defense)

Available to: Tankers, Scrappers, Stalkers, Sentinels

Set Color: Arabian Purple-on-Evening Blue

 

You have the power to surround yourself with a wide variety of illusions with which to evade harm or detection, or bedevil the minds of those who track you down. One way this set stands out most from other Defense powersets is the extent to which it relies on debuffing or manipulating your enemies to keep you, and sometimes your allies, from harm. Among its less-advantageous quirks is a greater recharge time for most powers than is typical of Defense sets, and generally poor defense against area attacks.

 

1) Blur (Tanker, Scrapper, Sentinel) – You warp the light and energy around yourself, becoming difficult to clearly target. While this power is active all your defenses save Psionic are increased; this defense increase is weaker against Energy and Negative Energy damage, but you also gain some resistance to those two damage types. Recharge: Fast

OR

Hide (Stalker)

 

2) Spectral Fortitude (Tanker, Scrapper, Sentinel) – You convince yourself you are less injured than you really are, both imbuing you with temporary hit points that soon fade, but also resulting in a small amount of real healing. Recharge: Moderate

OR

Blur (Stalker)

 

3) Displacement – You shift your visage a few feet afield of wherever you actually stand, increasing your defense against melee and ranged attacks, and protecting you from being ensnared by most control effects. Recharge: Medium

 

4) Chiaroscuro – Chiaroscuro is the classical art of manipulating light and darkness to all manner of striking effects; your power, of course, extends beyond canvas or camera! So long as this power is active, your dynamic mastery of the shadows around you enables you to keep enemies within a moderate-sized radius of yourself at a disadvantage to their perception, accuracy, and defense. Recharge: Medium

 

5) Superior Invisibility (Scrapper, Sentinel) – as Illusion Control power

OR

Impending Doom (Stalker) – Enemies become jittery in the presence of an unseen Stalker, flinching at every odd noise and motion, only to be further distracted from the true danger until it is too late. So long as you are Hidden and this power is active, enemies in an area around you suffer a modest debuff to accuracy, speed, resistance, and control resistance. This power has a comparatively-lenient endurance cost. Recharge: Slow

OR

Cloaking Field (Tanker) – You turn your powers outward, partially concealing the presence of your allies and leaving the enemy to deal with you. So long as this power is active, all allies in limited range gain minor stealth, and increased defense and accuracy. Recharge: Slow

 

6) Phantasmagoria (Tanker, Scrapper, Stalker) – You surround yourself in all manner of horrifying illusions, making nearby enemies likely to quake in terror; these visions also galvanize your own mind and interfere with the mind-tricks of others, thus increasing your resistance to Psionic damage. Recharge: Slow

OR

Veil of Deception (Sentinel) – Creates a translucent, short-length wall (about enough to cover a typical hallway) of twisted illusions a short distance in front of you; so long as you or any allies are near this wall, you and/or they gain a bonus to ranged and AoE defense against such attacks passing through the wall.

Recharge: Slow

 

7) Mirror Images (Tanker, Scrapper, Sentinel) – You create 2-4 phantasmal duplicates of yourself, which remain close to you at all times for so long as their existence persists; each one has the exact same travel powers you do (and this power can benefit from Universal Travel Enhancement sets), and imparts a cumulative large bonus to your defense as enemies cannot tell which is the real you, and their ‘attacks’ (which mirror yours precisely) are just real enough to function as a cumulative small bonus to your damage (they do not actually have any attacks of their own); these images also each generate a strong but short-area ‘taunting’ aura, thus driving foes to attack them rather than you – while they each have only a limited fraction of your own hit points, and can neither be healed nor buffed, they are immune to Toxic and Psionic damage and possess very strong resistance and defense to all other damage types, and their defense versus area attacks is so strong as to make them almost impervious. Recharge: Long

OR

Disappear (Stalker) – Other Stalkers may know how to disengage from a few foes to flee the scene, but few indeed can claim mastery of this trick to the degree that YOU can! With this power, you abruptly remove yourself from the senses of others, effectively placating all enemies in a large area around you. Recharge: Long

 

😎 Dazzling Defense (Tanker) – While this power is active, you generate an intense, riotous display of bright colored lights that both increase your resistance to Energy, Negative Energy, Cold, and Psionic damage, and severely reduces the perception and, to a lesser extent, accuracy of enemies in a short radius around you. Recharge: Medium

OR

Diversionary Defense (Scrapper) – You briefly project your own appearance onto foes nearby you while assuming one of theirs, causing them all to become confused and greatly increasing your own ranged defense for the same duration. Recharge: Slow

OR

Mesmeric Lure (Stalker) – Creates a short-duration, stationary illusion of whatever your nearest enemies find most precious in all the world. It periodically targets nearby individual foes with a powerful combination taunt/sleep/defense debuff effect. Recharge: Slow

OR

Shadow Puppet (Sentinel) – You create a semi-substantial shadow of yourself, immune to Negative Energy and Toxic damage and heavily resistant to all other damage but Energy, to accompany you and hector your foes with a small assortment of frightful and manipulative powers.

Shadow Puppet:

Shadow Attack – as Spectral Wounds, but mimics your tier-1 attack power

Confront

Intimidate

Invoke Panic

Combat Teleportation

Recharge: Long

 

9) Photo-Finish – By simultaneously turning yourself completely invisible, rushing a targeted foe, and leaving a single phantasmal duplicate where you just were, you effectively perform a devastating ‘teleport-charge’. The duplicate is similar to the ones created by Mirror Images: Very fragile, but emitting a powerful taunting effect that is almost certain to draw the ire of nearby enemies. You, meanwhile, will find yourself right next to the targeted enemy, and with a large boost to hit and damage but invulnerable to all harm yourself, all for a precious few seconds. Recharge: Long

 

Example Character Concept: The Horrifying One-Eyed King! (Villainous Savage Melee/Illusion Defense Magic Stalker)

 

Yes, the Tier-9 is a reference to something in particular; Extra-Credit for whoever recognizes it first!

Edited August 10, 2023 by AspieAnarchy
added clarifying text to Impending Doom

[JasperStone]

kinda like Jubilee from the Xmen 

...

in the good old days when she wasn't a vampire

[AspieAnarchy]

2 hours ago, JasperStone said:

kinda like Jubilee from the Xmen 

...

in the good old days when she wasn't a vampire

 

0.o

I definitely missed that.

TBH I thought her powers were more in the Blaster, Corrupter, or Dominator mold....

[Player2]

No illusion defense until we get storm armor.

[JasperStone]

1 hour ago, Player2 said:

No illusion defense until we get storm armor.

Yesssssss

POOOOOOOSEIDON!!

[Yaliw]

I love the concept. 

[Menelruin]

Interesting idea, and I like that AoE is a logical weakness for it....though I feel this might step on Defender/Corruptor toes a little.  May wanna add more psi resist in the powers that don't give AoE defense.....basically, even if someone can tag your AREA with an AoE psi attack, if you're messing with their mind (especially by way of your OWN mental powers) that's still going to interfere with their ability to affect you.

[AspieAnarchy]

3 hours ago, Menelruin said:

....though I feel this might step on Defender/Corruptor toes a little.

 

No moreso than Defenders/Corrupters who grant defense buffs would step on Defense-set ATs's toes, though, right?

 

3 hours ago, Menelruin said:

May wanna add more psi resist in the powers that don't give AoE defense.....basically, even if someone can tag your AREA with an AoE psi attack, if you're messing with their mind (especially by way of your OWN mental powers) that's still going to interfere with their ability to affect you.

 

My thinking was:

- most Defense sets don't offer more than 1 or 2 powers that offer protection from Psionic damage at all to start with, if any (Psi was always supposed to be hard to resist).

Phantasmagoria (which every eligible AT gets except Sentinels, who get the booby-prize of more AoE defense than any of the others) offers protection from Psionic attacks regardless of form, so between that and the fact that Displacement implicitly protects against (non-AoE) Psionic damage, I felt that was about enough.

- depending on the character, this need not be "one's own mental powers" to start with; certainly could be, but for example, a Tech-origin character who achieves this with light-bending technology isn't going to have much sway over Psionic attacks (this being the perennial woe, of course, of Origin not making more of a difference).

[Menelruin]

3 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

 

No moreso than Defenders/Corrupters who grant defense buffs would step on Defense-set ATs's toes, though, right?

 

 

My thinking was:

- most Defense sets don't offer more than 1 or 2 powers that offer protection from Psionic damage at all to start with, if any (Psi was always supposed to be hard to resist).

Phantasmagoria (which every eligible AT gets except Sentinels, who get the booby-prize of more AoE defense than any of the others) offers protection from Psionic attacks regardless of form, so between that and the fact that Displacement implicitly protects against (non-AoE) Psionic damage, I felt that was about enough.

- depending on the character, this need not be "one's own mental powers" to start with; certainly could be, but for example, a Tech-origin character who achieves this with light-bending technology isn't going to have much sway over Psionic attacks (this being the perennial woe, of course, of Origin not making more of a difference).

Fair, I was thinking of how Mysterio is a tech villain, but also uses hallucinogenic gasses to screw with people's perceptions, like throwing off Parker's spider-sense.  That kind of thing could also probably hamper a psionic opponent like Xavier or Emma Frost to some extent.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Menelruin

[Rudra]

8 hours ago, Menelruin said:

Fair, I was thinking of how Mysterio is a tech villain, but also uses hallucinogenic gasses to screw with people's perceptions, like throwing off Parker's spider-sense.  That kind of thing could also probably hamper a psionic opponent like Xavier or Emma Frost to some extent.

That has actually been used before. Not in CoX, but in comics. A psionic dampening gas (how that works is beyond me) or device that creates a psionic suppression field. So yeah, that kind of thing is definitely possible.

[BrandX]

On 11/24/2022 at 7:01 AM, JasperStone said:

kinda like Jubilee from the Xmen 

...

in the good old days when she wasn't a vampire

 

Well, not a vampire anymore.  However, she's for sure a Blaster or Sentinel.  

[Menelruin]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

That has actually been used before. Not in CoX, but in comics. A psionic dampening gas (how that works is beyond me) or device that creates a psionic suppression field. So yeah, that kind of thing is definitely possible.

Honestly, anything that screws with their mental focus would probably have a noticeable effect.  Even just hotboxing them would "weaken" them 😂

[Zepp]

No Brutes! Why?

Edit, I would try this, probably the Scrapper version.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Zepp

[AspieAnarchy]

5 hours ago, Zepp said:

No Brutes! Why?

 

Well, it's not a terribly "Brutish" concept; it would be one thing if it were all freeform, but since the game works on the Archetype system, I'm not keen on total proliferation.

[MistressOhm]

Brutes tend to have issues with Defense-based armor such as Ice, that prevents them from getting hit (Ice also slowed down the opponents Recharge rates, which means they attacked less often, a double whammy for Brutes).  This set is ALL about making sure the opponents can't aim, can't see, can't figure out up from down, so it will definitely dampen how often a Brute gets tagged.

 

Brutes gain Fury from getting hit (even if it doesn't hurt that much) which is why they do much better with Resist-based armors that mitigate the damage from being hit.  

Edited November 26, 2022 by MistressOhm

[Alchemystic]

5 hours ago, MistressOhm said:

Brutes gain Fury from getting hit (even if it doesn't hurt that much) which is why they do much better with Resist-based armors that mitigate the damage from being hit.  

 

They actually changed this so Brutes generate Fury every time they are targeted with an attack, not if the attack hits. This was to ensure that Defense based sets weren't at a disadvantage.

[Rudra]

7 hours ago, MistressOhm said:

Brutes tend to have issues with Defense-based armor such as Ice, that prevents them from getting hit (Ice also slowed down the opponents Recharge rates, which means they attacked less often, a double whammy for Brutes).  This set is ALL about making sure the opponents can't aim, can't see, can't figure out up from down, so it will definitely dampen how often a Brute gets tagged.

 

Brutes gain Fury from getting hit (even if it doesn't hurt that much) which is why they do much better with Resist-based armors that mitigate the damage from being hit.  

Brutes gain fury from being attacked, not hit, and from attacking.

 

Edit: Sorry @Tyrannical. Kneejerk need to respond kicked in before I read your response. I'm apparently just a parrot.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Rudra