Help with Illusion/Time Manipulation

[MaskedMan]

I've had a ill/time controller sitting on the shelf for a long while. I got him to 20 and just benched him as I have no real idea where to go with him. It's a concept character and I would like to keep sorcery in the build. Any input is appreciated.

[EmperorSteele]

Illu/time with sorcery, huh? That's gonna be a tight build, especially if you want to take every power in each set. If you want more than 1 or 2 other pool or epic powers, you'll have to skip a few. My votes for that would be one of the invis powers from illu (so keep either Superior invis for yourself, or Group Invis if you're more of a team player), and maybe drop Spectral Terror. From Time, maybe skip Time Crawl? Yes, it makes your debuffs more potent, but only on one or two adversaries at a time. I'm always forgetting to cast it. Time's Juncture is also so-so since it's an aura (and can ruin your stealth if you forget to turn it off), but since your AoE hold is melee-ranged, there's a bit of compatibility there. Time Stop can go either way: it's either really good if you want to stack holds/have a proc-bomb, or redundant since you already have a ST hold and AoE hold.

In my experience, Illu/Time has pretty good AoE control and damage. However, between Arcane Bolt and Spectral Wounds (and maybe proc'd out Time Stop), you're going to have pretty good ST damage, as well. Either way, the build is going to mature VERY late. At level 20, you've JUST gotten access to PA, and don't have your best powers from Time yet.

The main thing is, do you want Phantom Army to be Perma? If not, then you'll have a pretty easy time slotting your powers and using them however you like. However, if you DO want it perma, you'll want to squeeze in powers like Hasten (obvs), and Hover, Combat Jumping, Maneuvers, etc, to mule LotG +Recharges, and slot your powers with sets that give +recharge bonuses. It can become a real chore, but it's worth it in the end.

Illu/Time works well if you want to stand back, send in your pets and toss out a few debuffs. It works well if you want to pick off hard targets from range. it works well if you want to tangle in melee. You can make it do all these things at once, except then you're going to run into trouble running out of Endurance since a solid chunk of your powers cost 15+ End. Best bet would be to figure out the playstyle you want, and build for that.

[Uun]

My Illusion/Time build is attached. It has perma PA, Hasten and Chrono Shift. I use Power Boost with Farsight and Chrono Shift and refresh them both at the same time.

Uuntouchable - Controller (Illusion Control).mbd

[MaskedMan]

On 6/26/2024 at 7:05 PM, EmperorSteele said:

Illu/time with sorcery, huh? That's gonna be a tight build, especially if you want to take every power in each set. If you want more than 1 or 2 other pool or epic powers, you'll have to skip a few. My votes for that would be one of the invis powers from illu (so keep either Superior invis for yourself, or Group Invis if you're more of a team player), and maybe drop Spectral Terror. From Time, maybe skip Time Crawl? Yes, it makes your debuffs more potent, but only on one or two adversaries at a time. I'm always forgetting to cast it. Time's Juncture is also so-so since it's an aura (and can ruin your stealth if you forget to turn it off), but since your AoE hold is melee-ranged, there's a bit of compatibility there. Time Stop can go either way: it's either really good if you want to stack holds/have a proc-bomb, or redundant since you already have a ST hold and AoE hold.

In my experience, Illu/Time has pretty good AoE control and damage. However, between Arcane Bolt and Spectral Wounds (and maybe proc'd out Time Stop), you're going to have pretty good ST damage, as well. Either way, the build is going to mature VERY late. At level 20, you've JUST gotten access to PA, and don't have your best powers from Time yet.

The main thing is, do you want Phantom Army to be Perma? If not, then you'll have a pretty easy time slotting your powers and using them however you like. However, if you DO want it perma, you'll want to squeeze in powers like Hasten (obvs), and Hover, Combat Jumping, Maneuvers, etc, to mule LotG +Recharges, and slot your powers with sets that give +recharge bonuses. It can become a real chore, but it's worth it in the end.

Illu/Time works well if you want to stand back, send in your pets and toss out a few debuffs. It works well if you want to pick off hard targets from range. it works well if you want to tangle in melee. You can make it do all these things at once, except then you're going to run into trouble running out of Endurance since a solid chunk of your powers cost 15+ End. Best bet would be to figure out the playstyle you want, and build for that.

Thanks for all of that! At least I know what I can expect. I could respec out of of sorc if I had to. 

[MaskedMan]

On 6/27/2024 at 6:43 AM, Uun said:

My Illusion/Time build is attached. It has perma PA, Hasten and Chrono Shift. I use Power Boost with Farsight and Chrono Shift and refresh them both at the same time.

Uuntouchable - Controller (Illusion Control).mbd 45.86 kB · 4 downloads

Thanks! This gives me something to go by. Much appreciated.

[Maelwys]

On 6/27/2024 at 1:05 AM, EmperorSteele said:

Illu/time with sorcery, huh? That's gonna be a tight build

I realise this is a bit of a necro; but since I was gonna post the attached build somewhere anyway I figured this thread was still recent-enough that it might benefit the OP...

Controller - Illusion - Time (PwrBoost).mbd

It's an Illu/time with Sorcery. It mainly takes it for Arcane Bolt, although picking up RoP and Spirit Ward (useful to stack on Phantasm when soloing) is a nice side effect. Super Speed as the main travel power is part of my own toon's theme - it could easily be swapped to Mystic Flight (or anything else since there's a pool pick free).

Anyways. The main focus of this build is "team support"; so it has Perma PA and Perma Chrono Shift and Perma Farsight (and Perma Hasten) obviously. But its party piece is that it can grant all its teammates a very hefty permanent +40.26% Defense to all (via combining Power Boost + Radial Clarion with Farsight + Group Invisibility) plus a good chunk of -ToHit debuff (via Time's Juncture: -25.88% before Purple Patch etc) which means even allies (and pets!) that have zero inherent defense end up effectively softcapped.
Whilst Group Invisibility is commonly considered a skippable power in Illusion... unlike Superior Invisibility the effects of GI are coded as a long-duration clickybuff, meaning that it stacks nicely with short-duration +Strength% buffs like Power Boost. And a lot of GI's component effects (including a decent chunk of the +Defense and all of the -StealthRadius and -ThreatLevel) do not cancel or suppress whenever you attack or are attacked. Therefore everyone affected by GI will get lots of defense and full invisibility and they will also attract less attention from hostile NPCs even if/when they do decide to attack something or click a glowie.

Whilst it's not huge on -regen or -res, Slowed Response and Time Crawl are better than nothing. And swapping Lores can get you some meatier debuffs on demand.