Different pairings with Illusion?

[Azernak0]

Dear old dad and I were in the beta. The firstest first character we ever played was an Illusion Controller. Figured I would try one out again. What are some of the good secondaries with Illusion?

 

Hope y'all are doing well 🙂

[SeraphimKensai]

I really like: Cold, Traps, Storm, Dark, Poison, and Trick Arrow

 

Otherwise Rad is a classic pairing that still works well enough.

 

 

[TygerDarkstorm]

Seraphim hit a lot of them, but I wanted to back up just how much fun Illusion/Traps is. 🙂 It is such a different playstyle compared to some other AT's and powersets, sort of a master of the battlefield strategist feel. And I know it's usually seen as more of a soloing combo, but I team with mine a lot, even on fast moving teams, and I still find it fun.  I personally do a lot of toe-bombing and battlefield management, but I know the more common playstyle is to set up all your toys and then pull/fold space a spawn into your traps. Just depends on your preferences.

 

I also have an Illusion/Trick Arrow in the works, though I haven't played it enough to comment to how good it feels yet.

[High_Beam]

I am going to give you two that YOU SHOULD AVOID.  I have two (2) Illusion controllers and they both suffer from "what was I thinking" syndrome.  Please note this is my opinion, a lot of people will disagree I am sure.

 

Flattery is Illusion/Kinetics, built specifically for Nukem events (Giant Monster pull party!).  Do teams love Kinetics? Sure.  But that's what they love they do not love you they love your car.  Kinetics is too busy when I am also busy with my illusioning.  And of course my pets give the illusionary middle finger to my buffs.  I ran her to 50 and have done some incarnate stuff but I never fell in love with her so she is shelved, except for when we do the Nukem event that she was built for.  It was painful and to be honest, boring especially in the majority of todays Team/Task Force environment.

 

My other Illusion is Doctor Finetush who is Empathy.  She was a tribute character to a late friend.  She was built as team support and while I have plenty of teams they honestly rarely care about needing my heals and again, my pets with the middle finger.  Lost track of the number of teams that have quite literally said, you should be kinetics so you can at least help the team.  A slow and painful grind that I do not recommend to anyone, even using Arcane Bolt 🙂

[Uun]

I'll second Poison and I'll add Time to the list. Chrono Shift really helps in achieving perma PA.

[Doomguide2005]

2 hours ago, High_Beam said:

I am going to give you two that YOU SHOULD AVOID.  I have two (2) Illusion controllers and they both suffer from "what was I thinking" syndrome.  Please note this is my opinion, a lot of people will disagree <snip>

 

My other Illusion is Doctor Finetush who is Empathy.  She was a tribute character to a late friend.  She was built as team support and while I have plenty of teams they honestly rarely care about needing my heals and again, my pets with the middle finger.  Lost track of the number of teams that have quite literally said, you should be kinetics so you can at least help the team.  A slow and painful grind that I do not recommend to anyone, even using Arcane Bolt 🙂

Well I agree about Ill/Empathy but the reasoning is slightly different (but seems to have the same root cause).  I love my Empaths but especially on larger teams it can require a lot of attention.  In hectic fights I'll barely notice the battlefield I'm too busy buffing and healing focused on the team window largely.  Controllers overall tend to be the reverse for me.  I'm far too focused on the foes and battlefield to notice the team window.  I had an Earth/Empathy as one of my first characters and while I enjoyed it overall (I mean two of my favorite sets on one of my favorite ATs how could I not).  But Illusion is/can be very effective in an almost fire and forget mode especially on a large team.  I can switch my focus from Illusion to the Empath side with very little worrying about losing effectiveness as a Controller if things start to go sideways.  So if you want to be an Empath first the pairing works well (at least in my head).  But if you want to be a Controller, meh, something like Ill/TA is a far more effective pairing for teaming especially larger teams and will debuff the crud out of things for both your allies and un-buffable pets.  

[SeraphimKensai]

I used to main an Empathy defender eons ago.... and Illusion/Empathy worked best IMO in PvP prior to defenders getting access to patron power pools. As at the time they had access to Superior Invis (still do) and had access to a power boost that recharged in 120 seconds base as opposed to 240 seconds base. Now defenders can get a 120 sec base power boost with Soul Mastery and have bigger buff values.

 

For PvE content though empathy is overshadowed by a team's Destiny Buffs at max level, and as IO'd characters become the norm, the empathy buffs are less often needed. We had our hey day prior to the release of IOs and incarnates where team members would actually gather for RA, and good Empath would be able to keep Fort on 3 people on the team.

 

I wouldn't play Illusion/Empathy today unless you were feeling nostalgic to be honest, as the meta has shifted to being proactive vs reactive.

 

Also I agree kinetics works great with our pairings but with Illusion it's kinda subpar. Time Manipulation can work well with Illusion for Chrono Shift and helping getting Perma PA, but my original recommendations deal with -res debuffs to increase the damage PA does, since they can't be buffed outright. Any Illusion pairing can be built to have PA Perma with some IOs, which is fairly typical these days.

[Zect]

Define "good".

 

With that said, here's an analysis of possible synergies with illusion.

 

Illusion is defined by its phantom army which are untouchable pets that require high recharge for full uptime. There have been two schools of thought as to how to maximize illusion's performance.

 

The dps school of thought views PA as a source of dps and holds that since the pets are unbuffable (specifically, untouchable, the same status that some self-rez powers give you; imagine an impervious wall dividing the PA's from other entities, through which damage, healing and buffs all cannot pass, however the PA's are able to use their own powers on themselves, including any self-buffs they might have e.g. build up proc), weakening enemy resist with debuffs will achieve high performance. In particular, debuffing sets that also feature self rech buffs to help perma-PA such as ill/rad and ill/time were popular on live, however, homecoming power creep has introduced enough global rech that modern builds trivially perma-PA without the help of rech buffs from the 2ndary. This shifts the balance towards heavy-duty debuff sets such as ill/cold and ill/TA that output superior -res, since rad and time are only average in -res output.

 

The support school of thought views the PA's not as damage but as tanks (the MMO role). From this school of thought we get combos such as ill/emp and ill/kin that attempt not to maximize PA dps, but rather to bring complimentary support powers that either defend the team from any circumstance or provide offensive support to balance the mitigation provided by the PA's tanking. This philosophy has cratered in popularity given the massive amounts of power creep the game has experienced in recent years; however, in the right circumstance it is still worthwhile. An ill/kin on 4* hardmodes for example is not too bad since there are situations where PA's offtanking is valuable and kin makes up for the dps loss that is bringing a controller.

[Azernak0]

Thanks for the info! I think I am going to go Storm; did a little bit of reading after the first wave of advice an I like the idea of an immortal army holding the baddies in an area while 3 tornadoes, a hurricane and a blizzard pummel them into submission. "Officer, I swear they were frozen solid BEFORE I made my citizen' arrest!"

 

Now just to figure out who the heck to build the thing as I level. I'll probably utilize, uh, Advanced Efficiency to get to early 20's to unlock most of the kit but still have enough to discover.

[Psiphon]

On 3/29/2023 at 3:28 PM, High_Beam said:

I am going to give you two that YOU SHOULD AVOID.  I have two (2) Illusion controllers and they both suffer from "what was I thinking" syndrome.  Please note this is my opinion, a lot of people will disagree I am sure.

 

Flattery is Illusion/Kinetics, built specifically for Nukem events (Giant Monster pull party!).  Do teams love Kinetics? Sure.  But that's what they love they do not love you they love your car.  Kinetics is too busy when I am also busy with my illusioning.  And of course my pets give the illusionary middle finger to my buffs.  I ran her to 50 and have done some incarnate stuff but I never fell in love with her so she is shelved, except for when we do the Nukem event that she was built for.  It was painful and to be honest, boring especially in the majority of todays Team/Task Force environment.

 

My other Illusion is Doctor Finetush who is Empathy.  She was a tribute character to a late friend.  She was built as team support and while I have plenty of teams they honestly rarely care about needing my heals and again, my pets with the middle finger.  Lost track of the number of teams that have quite literally said, you should be kinetics so you can at least help the team.  A slow and painful grind that I do not recommend to anyone, even using Arcane Bolt 🙂

Personally my experience of Ill/Emp and Ill/Kin have been pretty much the opposite. I find Illusion to be a relatively passive primary; main powers are PA and Spectral Terror both of which are drop and forget, they just do their thing. This allows you to concentrate on the secondary both of which are very busy. So from a playing perspective they work well together.

 

The Ill/Kin is played as a buffer, drop PA and ST then buff away - who doesn't like Kin?

The Ill/Emp is played as a healer/buffer/utility. With Superior invisibility you can heal and buff players without pulling any aggro so can go places other healer/buffers can't. 

Group invis can be used for teams to speed certain missions as can Sup Invis with summon team.

 

I find both good fun and useful in teams with good synergy from a passive/busy perspective. I'm not making any claims of how super they are and the playstyle might not be for everyone but certainly not ones to be avoided - IMO. 🙂

[Chi]

Electric would be nice fit. 

[inqueblawt]

My Illusion/Dark is one of my favorite controller with the Spider pet and armor. Tons of pets and works extremely well with the theme of controlling fear itself.  Renamed the pets to various related phobias. Also decent healing and tons of defense. 

 

Beware... Chilling Thoughts! 

[purplereigning]

On 3/29/2023 at 6:06 PM, Zect said:

Define "good".

 

With that said, here's an analysis of possible synergies with illusion.

 

Illusion is defined by its phantom army which are untouchable pets that require high recharge for full uptime. There have been two schools of thought as to how to maximize illusion's performance.

 

The dps school of thought views PA as a source of dps and holds that since the pets are unbuffable (specifically, untouchable, the same status that some self-rez powers give you; imagine an impervious wall dividing the PA's from other entities, through which damage, healing and buffs all cannot pass, however the PA's are able to use their own powers on themselves, including any self-buffs they might have e.g. build up proc), weakening enemy resist with debuffs will achieve high performance. In particular, debuffing sets that also feature self rech buffs to help perma-PA such as ill/rad and ill/time were popular on live, however, homecoming power creep has introduced enough global rech that modern builds trivially perma-PA without the help of rech buffs from the 2ndary. This shifts the balance towards heavy-duty debuff sets such as ill/cold and ill/TA that output superior -res, since rad and time are only average in -res output.

 

The support school of thought views the PA's not as damage but as tanks (the MMO role). From this school of thought we get combos such as ill/emp and ill/kin that attempt not to maximize PA dps, but rather to bring complimentary support powers that either defend the team from any circumstance or provide offensive support to balance the mitigation provided by the PA's tanking. This philosophy has cratered in popularity given the massive amounts of power creep the game has experienced in recent years; however, in the right circumstance it is still worthwhile. An ill/kin on 4* hardmodes for example is not too bad since there are situations where PA's offtanking is valuable and kin makes up for the dps loss that is bringing a controller.

This is an incredibly insightful way into seeing Illusion outside of a vacuum, thank you for sharing! What are your thoughts on the support school of thought leveraging /Dark? I've always believed the proliferation of that set to Controllers created the best iteration of it. Do you think it compliments Illusion well? To be a tad more specific, I'm looking for a support approach to hardmode content that exists outside of the usual Cold and Kin sets. 

[honoroit]

illusion is great and all, but if you're considering ??/dark on controller, then dark primary really is worth considering strongly. 

 

while close with earth/dark, my personal 'you cannot harm my team' character is dark/dark controller. its laughable sometimes.

 

aside from just about everything doing minus tohit across primary AND secondary, youve:

 

❤️ of darkness (pbaoe stun) to combine with howling twilight <thats mag 7 (4 and autohit 3) between the two>. whatever you do, use howling twilight offensively and for its debuffs.

 

while inferior to mind's, you get a big fear cone in dark primary.

 

also, tentacles.

 

shadow field is a placable aoe hold zone, and beats out a pbaoe on a 4m cd aoe hold in illu.

 

the pets and haunt are decent. PA is great but there is a lot missing in illu as a controller.

 

if you want an inactive primary to deal with /kin impact on use of activation time (v active as things you do), then illu is more hands off a primary than most.

 

(tho then one might say: make a mastermind?)

Edited April 26, 2023 by honoroit

[Shocktacular]

My ill/dark is probably my favorite character... like, EVER. 

 

The -res in Tar Patch effectively increases PA damage.  The -regen in Twilight Grasp and Howling Twilight help things die faster as well.  Between the two sets, you have FOUR defense buffs, which gives you lots of places to put the LotG +rech IO without having to use up all of your pool power picks, as well as making you nearly unhittable.  3 of those 4 apply to Phantasm, as does Soul Absorption (+regen and +recovery buff), so you have enough tools to keep him alive enough of the time to be *dramatic gasp* useful, even at max difficulty.  Add in Maneuvers from the Leadership pool for your 5th +def power (to get that 5th LotG +rech IO) and he's gonna stick around most of the time.

I also find it works pretty well thematically as a spooky or monster-in-the-dark type character who has their enemies so scared they're seeing things that aren't really there... or are they?

Edited April 26, 2023 by Shocktacular

[inqueblawt]

To add onto Ill/Dark - While great it very much is a LATE bloomer like a lot of controllers. Most I think will try it and immediate hate it. Definitely not for soloing, especially early on, but fantastic group synergy. Very fire and forget with the pets and you'll mostly be using your secondary powers. Add LOTS of procs to help your damage.

 

I would strongly recommend power leveling it, or always be in a group. If you want to solo, it takes until 40+ before you'll have enough tools and attuned IOs to be a freak. You'll still defeat enemies slowly, but they'll just be slowed, -acc, feared, held, and otherwise sitting in a puddle of their own nightmares.

Edited May 1, 2023 by inqueblawt

[Frosticus]

I toss a nod toward ill/cold. It was ridiculous on live and has only gotten better. It used to be a real slog to play up to 35 to unlock sleet, but it unlocks at lvl 28 now.

People over emphasize the importance of perma PA. I turned my settings up to include AV's in the late 30s on my ill/cold and had no issues running things like maria jenkins with a mild IO build. Even my build now has a few seconds of downtime on the power. 

 

Ill/dark is very strong, leans too far towards safety for me personally and fade feels like it needs to be activated too often. I'll eventually 

finish incarnating mine because I think there are some things it can do that my ill/cold can't, but the inverse is true as well.

 

Ill/storm is pure chaos and heaps of offense. My personal issue with the combo is that I want to fight huge spawns to maximize my storm summons, while Illusion borders on broken vs small groups, but quickly falters when faced with a lot of enemies. So I end up needing to shore up my personal defenses more than I'd like.

 

ime at least. 

[smnolimits43]

I also recomend Ill/Cold.  I just restarted mine, the other day, his name is Spookyboo.  

[Chi]

oH GOSH golly ,  I forgot to add

Illusion / Nature . 

[honoroit]

On 5/8/2023 at 7:03 AM, smnolimits43 said:

I also recomend Ill/Cold.  I just restarted mine, the other day, his name is Spookyboo.  

 

so cool! spookieboo(gie - from psychopass)!

 

 

 

[Ringo]

On 6/7/2023 at 1:02 PM, Chi said:

oH GOSH golly ,  I forgot to add

Illusion / Nature . 

I'm curious how Illusion/Nature would play?

[Riverdusk]

On 3/29/2023 at 8:53 PM, Azernak0 said:

Thanks for the info! I think I am going to go Storm; did a little bit of reading after the first wave of advice an I like the idea of an immortal army holding the baddies in an area while 3 tornadoes, a hurricane and a blizzard pummel them into submission. "Officer, I swear they were frozen solid BEFORE I made my citizen' arrest!"

 

Now just to figure out who the heck to build the thing as I level. I'll probably utilize, uh, Advanced Efficiency to get to early 20's to unlock most of the kit but still have enough to discover.

 

Hopefully the illusion/storm worked out for you.  It is powerful for sure.  Only issue I had with the combo and the testing I did with it is that storm's built in fear effects were enough to sometimes overcome phantom army's taunting.    

 

For those saying /time doesn't have good -res ability, don't forget to slot an Achille's heel proc into slowed response.  Should be almost guaranteed to proc (haven't run the exact proc chance numbers so feel free to tell me if I'm mistaken there) and turns it into a -42.5% res debuff for at least a short while, and a short while is often all that is needed now a days.   

[Ringo]

I already went ahead and grabbed the name Ill Natured for my new ill/nature.  No idea how it'll play but I'm excited to roll a new Illusion controller

[Riverdusk]

23 hours ago, Ringo said:

I already went ahead and grabbed the name Ill Natured for my new ill/nature.  No idea how it'll play but I'm excited to roll a new Illusion controller

 

Hah, good name. Should work well imo.  Maybe not the most "ideal" as nature is more about buffing and healing, which of course don't affect the phantom army.  Entangling aura should be a highlight though as it provides nice extra hard control and helps set up aoe containment that illusion can struggle with.  

[Ringo]

Didn't even think about Entangling Aura setting up Containment.  That's something to look forward to!