The Selfish Illusion/Sonic Controller
by Captain Spud

Introduction

I didn't intend the character to be any good. That wasn't why I chose the powersets. I did a survey of the archetypes, and the only sets in the entire game-- outside of Blasters, which I don't play-- which I hadn't already tried out were Illusion Control and Sonic Resonance. They didn't seem to have much synergy, but it was 3am, and I was bored... I rolled the toon.

Two months later, Woozy's in the mid-40s. She's a ton of fun to play. That said, I wasn't incorrect in my original assessment-- the sets don't have a lot of synergy. That's not to say that it's a bad combo-- I really can't see Sonic having much synergy with ANY controller primary. Illusion kinda does its thing, and Sonic kinda does its thing. They don't really interfere with each other, and they provide some related support in a few key areas. I describe myself as an Illusion/Nothing Controller, with the ability to shift gears and do some defending if the situation is really desperate.

I was originally going to call this guide 'The Soloing Illusion/Sonic Controller", but I realized that it's not quite accurate. I didn't solo all the way to where I am. I got probably half of my levels on teams. That said, even when I teamed, and even though Sonic is a very team-support-heavy set, I rarely did more than keep my AoE bubble up and try to make sure my pets working to keep my teammates alive. On teams, I'm still mostly minding my own business and using my Sonic powers largely to support the actions of my pets. Thus, "Selfish Controller".

As you'll see at the end, the character I'm describing is very odd in two significant ways. First of all, I have completely the wrong secondary for the kind of gameplay I use. The selfish playstyle would work much better with a Kin or a Rad. But I'm okay with that. As I said, the toon wasn't built for synergy, it was basically a random pairing. That said, Illusion is so much fun on its own that I barely even cared that I had no secondary to speak of. The second oddity is that, even stuck with the powersets I had, I chose to ignore what most people would see as the obvious playstyle. Illusion/Sonic has the potential to be a VERY powerful and effective pure-support toon, dishing out bubbles, using pets as shields, and the like. And I will explain how to play that way later on. But even though I have most of the powers to play a support troller, that playstyle just doesn't appeal to me, and I avoid going into support mode until the situation becomes absolutely dire.

So, if all that pessimism and disclaimer didn't already scare you away, I'll go ahead and start with the actual, yaknow, "guide" part. Despite any negative comments here and in the guide, the sum total of the build is still extremely enjoyable and tremendously strong. When I mention a failing in the build, it's merely as a warning so you'll know it's coming and can work around it. None of the problems I encountered in any way made the toon annoying, weak, or frustrating. They're simply the bumps and bruises that make me love the toon even more. :)

Version History

06/05/2007: Fixed an incorrect power name in the Psi mastery pool, and corrected an error in the discussion of the invisibility powers.

06/02/2007: Fixed some power descriptions and IO set names. Added a new trick in the tactics section.

05/28/2007: Initial build.

Glossary

Control: Commonly referred to as a Mez (for Mesmerize); I find the term Control to be more appropriate. General term for any effect that hinders an opponent. Controls come in two varieties-- Hard and Soft. Hard Controls consist of Holds and Stuns-- once affected by it, the target cannot attack you regardless if what you do do it. Soft Controls are a much larger category. They consist of anything that stops the opponent from shooting you, either for a short time, or unless you break certain conditions. Knockback is a soft control, putting a bad guy on his back for a few seconds instead of on his feet, killing you. Fear and Sleep are another soft control-- they lock an opponent down until that opponent takes damage, at which point they're free to kill you again. Recharge slows, extreme accuracy debuffs, and repel powers can also be considered controls, depending on how you want to look at them.

Containment: Containment was implemented in Issue 5. The Devs at that point decided that controllers were way too good at their job, leading to the reality that with a good controller on the team, the team was effectively in zero risk of dying. While fun, this isn't conducive to a balanced game. So the devs gave controllers a two-part swing: They nerfed the hell out of AoE controls, and to compensate, they gave Controllers the Containment inherent power. Containment is pretty simple-- if you shoot a character which is Held, Stunned, Slept, or Immobilized, you do double damage to it. There are some exceptions to this (Inherent powers such as Brawl do not do Containment damage), but that's essentially all it is.

Magnitude (Mag): The effectiveness of a control effect. The system works basically like this: Minions are 1, Lieutenants are 2, Bosses and AVs are 3, Elite Bosses are 4 or 5. Those numbers are the total Mag stack you need to add up to to stun/hold/whatever that enemy. Most holds, for example, are Mag 2. That means they'll lock a Minion or LT in one hit, but will require two hits to hold a Boss or a low end Elite Boss. Those numbers for rank resistance are only the base; some enemies, such as Lost psionics and any enemies running Unyielding or a similar power, will require extra hits to affect them.

And two definitions that many people aren't aware are different things:

Mez Protection: The ability to completely stop a certain amount of a certain mez. For example, all Nemesis troops have Mag 2 Protection to Fear and Confuse. What this means is that if you try to Confuse a Nemesis minion, one application of your Mag 2 "Deceive" power won't do the trick as it would for most Minions. Nemesis Minions have Mag 1 protection for their minion rank, PLUS Mag 2 protection for their special power. This combined Mag 3 Protection means that a Deceive's Mag 2 won't affect your target in one hit, but rather will require a second application, adding up to Mag 4, to Confuse the minion.

Mez Resistance: Provided by powers like Accelerate Metabolism and most IO set bonuses. Mez Resistance works just like damage resistance-- a 100 damage attack does 60 damage against 40% resistance, and a 10-second Hold will last 6 seconds against 40% mez resistance. Mez Resistance shortens the duration of mez powers after they've affected you.

These effects are often confused, because the game doesn't make it clear that both exist. Powers that provide Protection are labelled Res (Hold), exactly the same thing that would be written for Resistance. To find out which a power gives, you need to read the power's long description. Look to see if it describes it there as Protection or Resistance. Another thing that muddles it all up-- almost all powers that provide Protection to a mez type also provide Resistance to that type. So in addition to requiring more applications of a power to work, those "partial applications" don't last as long as usual, so it's actually harder than you'd normally think to get the overlap and accomplish a solid mez.

I probably just lost half my readers, too. :D

Primary Power Set: Illusion Control

Illusion Control is weird. Most control sets follow a certain template-- single-target Immob, single-target Hold, AoE Immob, AoE Hold, Second AoE Control, Pet, and then two "signature" powers, such as Fire's "Hot Feet" and Ice's "Arctic Air". Illusion doesn't follow this template. Illusion takes a different approach to controlling mobs. Most sets concentrate on applying soft and hard controls to a group of enemies, keeping them locked down and unable to attack. Illusion controls the opponents not by restricting their bodies, but by controlling the AI that directs their behaviour. They have a few of the standard template items, but the powers that you'll find yourself using the most often are ones that control your opponents' minds.

Spectral Wounds – Level 1
Ranged (High psionic), Illusory

Spectral Wounds is your meat and potatoes for the first third of the game, dishing out heavy irresistable damage at a good range. Combined with Blind for containment, two shots of Spectral Wounds, fully slotted, will kill most yellow minions.

Spectral Wounds is a funny little power. It's your first exposure to what the game calls "Illusory Damage". Essentially, you're making your opponent THINK you've slashed open his belly, when you've actually done nothing at all. He'll believe it for a little while, but eventually he'll desperately grope at his stomach to hold his insides in, and realize that there isn't really a gaping wound there after all. Soooo... what that translates into, is that after a few seconds, the opponent will heal back a chunk of the Illusory damage you inflicted. Fully slotted, the healing amount is about 40% of the inflicted damage.

Now, this seems like a lot, but there are two mitigating factors here that make things better. First of all, Spectral has very high base damage for a Controller attack. So, even if you lose 40% of it, you still packed quite a wallop. The second sunny point is that Spectral has fairly fast recharge and VERY fast animation. If you fire Blind, Spectral, wait for Spectral to recharge, and then fire it immediately again, the opponent will be killed, and you'll still be about three seconds away from the first Spectral shot healing back. Thus, Spectral's drawback is really only an issue on enemies with high HP. If you concentrate on a minion and refire quickly, they're down before it's a problem.

Another weird thing about Spectral Wound is that it uses Containment in an unusual fashion. If I shoot an enemy and do 100 damage, about 40% of that will be healed back. The remaining damage is 60 "sticky" damage. Well, if you fire with Containment up, you don't do 200 total as you normally would. Containment only applies to the "sticky" part of the damage, so you'll do 160 damage total. Trust me, this is still an awful lot of damage for a fast-firing Controller power.

Suggested Slotting: 2 Accuracy, 3 Damage, 1 Recharge

Blind– Level 1
Ranged (Minor psionic), Hold (100% chance, mag 2)

Blind is your standard single-target Hold. It does Psi damage, so it cuts through most defenses in the game. There isn't much to say about it-- take it and use it to pump up Spectral Wounds.

Oh, actually, there is one interesting feature on Blind. It has a very, VERY small radius chance of Sleeping enemies who are basically right on top of your main target. Now, don't get too excited-- in 40+ levels, I could count the number of times this happened on two hands.

Suggested Slotting: 2 Accuracy, 2 Hold Duration, 2 Recharge is the standard slotting, which gives you the best coverage if you like to keep switching targets and holding a large number of people. If you want a more "Fire and Forget" power, which you'll throw onto large targets and then move onto other powers, go with 2Acc/3Hold/1Rech.

Deceive– Level 2
Ranged Confuse (100% chance, mag 2)

Deceive is a marvellous power. I'll go into an explanation of how to use confusion later in the Tactics section, but suffice it to say that Deceive is an absolutely wonderful power with a large number of handy applications. I'll admit it's not for everyone, as it requires some thought and strategy to get the most out of it. But if you're willing to put in the time to learn to use it right, I'm sure you'll grow to love it as much as I do.

An important thing to note about Deceive-- it is aggroless. Unlike your other powers, you can shoot an opponent with Deceive, and it won't trigger that opponent or its posse to come kill you. If you fire it from invisibility, it doesn't decloak you either. These two properties of the power are very helpful, so keep them in mind.

Suggested Slotting: 2 Accuracy, 3 Confuse Duration, 1 EndRedux

Flash– Level 6
AoE Hold (100% chance)

I don't like AoE holds. They just don't do enough to be worth the effort of taking and the large number of slots you need to use them properly. For me, an AoE control needs to do one of two things-- it needs to recharge in time to be used on every mob, or every second mob at the worst; or, it needs to be an effective panic button.

The first test, fast recharge, is because I generally like to figure out an optimal way for my character to operate, and then I use that delicate recipe over and over again without fail. My Fire/Rad Controller, for example, starts off every single mob with: Flashfire (AoE Stun), Fire Cages (AoE Immob), run in, then let my PBAoEs kill the mob. The powers are up quickly, and they all have reliable effects, so I'm able to use that recipe on a consitent basis. The first test simply looks to see if the AoE power can be integrated into your basic battle maneuver, and Flash fails this test.

The only way an AoE can redeem itself if it has a long recharge, is if its effects are staggering. I took EMP on my Fire/Rad because it has high accuracy, enormous range, and the longest duration of any hold in the game, PLUS it has several helpful debuffs attached. It just does a metric crapton of helpful things, so if I'm in a heap of trouble, I can fire EMP and be fairly sure I'll be okay.

Flash, like just about every other AoE immob, doesn't do enough to qualify as a really handy panic button. Its accuracy sucks, so you need to invest heavily in slots. Its duration is pretty short, so even though you can use it to relieve pressure and buy a few seconds to regroup and recover, it's doubtful that you can get any serious momentum going on the spawn you held, much less completely wipe them out, before it wears off and they start kicking you again.

This isn't to say that Flash is useless, of course. If you really want a panic button, and I'm definitely a fan of a panic button if it's available, then Flash is your best option. It's just a personal choice for me-- I'd rather refine my basic operations so that I never get into a situation where I need a panic button.

Suggested Slotting: 2Acc/3Hold/1Rech

Superior Invisibility – Level 8
Toggle: Self Invisibility, +Def (All)

Suggested Slotting: 3 EndRedux

Group Invisibility – Level 12
AoE Ally Invisibility, +Def (All)

Suggested Slotting: 3 Recharge

I'll discuss these two powers together. Group Invisibility and Superior Invisibility offer essentially the same effect-- Mag 3 Stealth. Stealth is kinda complicated, but essentially what it does is it affects the radius around you at which you can be seen. These aren't the real distance numbers, but let's say that a basic, unstealthed person has Mag 0 stealth, and can be seen from 20 feet away by the AI. Now, let's add some stealth. "Stealth" is the common description of a Mag 1 Stealth bonus. This is given by a lot of powers-- Stealth, Steamy Mist, Shadow Fall, Cloaking Device... the list goes on. This reduces your "seeable radius" down to, we'll say, 10 feet. If you stand 11 feet from an enemy, he won't see you. Go closer than that, and he'll start kicking.

Mag 2 Stealth is much rarer, and is commonly known as Invisibility. Most stealth powers don't stack, but in theory, stacking two "Stealth" powers gives you full invisibility. Otherwise, you can get it from a couple places, notably the pool power, "Invisibility". Invisibility gives you a "seeable radius" of 0. It doesn't matter where you stand, the enemy won't see you. However, this can be penetrated. Some enemies have a +Perception bonus-- Snipers for example, or enemies like Night Widows who use the Tactics leadership power-- and will effectively knock you down to Mag 1 Stealth. These people will see you at 10 feet away.

And so we arrive at the Illusion Control set. Illusion has two powers which are unique-- they provide two of the game's three possible Mag 3 Stealth buffs, the other being a Stalker's Hide (which I believe is even Mag 4). Mag 3 usually has no benefit over Mag 2, except that the game's NPC enemies, with very, very few exceptions, only have enough Perception to knock you down to Mag 2, which is still invisibility. So in essence, Mag 3 is "Invisibility, Plus Insurance". You're invisible, even if the opponent has a perception boost.

[NOTE: Only Superior Invisibility is Mag 3 "out of the box". Group Invisibility is Mag 2 by default, but unlike most other Mag 2s, you can stack on it (by adding, say, Super Speed or Stealth) to give Mag 3.]

Most Illusionists pick up at least one of these powers; some take both. There are definite advantages to each one. Most Illusionists will advise you to take Group Invis, as it's very useful for concealing the squishies on a team, ensuring that only people with shields take hits. It also allows your whole team to stealth past a mission toward the objectives, instead of you going alone, or you having to Recall them. If you're planning on going the route of a standard "group support" Ill/Sonic, you almost definitely want to take GI.

That said, this isn't a guide for The Group Support Ill/Sonic. This is a guide for the SELFISH Ill/Sonic, and the Selfish Ill/Sonic has one priority: himself. This may seem callous and cruel, but you WANT your opponents to ignore you and shoot your teammates instead. If you're soloing, this means your pets. Who cares if pets die? Just make more. On a team, it simply means that whoever would have gotten shot anyway will still get shot, except that person won't be you. You're not foisting any extra damage on your teammates that they wouldn't have gotten anyway.

That said, saving my own skin isn't the main reason I have Superior over Group. Group is a click power, while Superior is a toggle. Group is up about 3/4 of the time, which is pretty good. But... it's not perfect. It's not just the fact that you're visible 1/4 of the time-- it's that you don't control when you become visible. The duration timer runs out, and POOF, they can they see you.

Stealthing through missions is really delicate work. You're always surrounded by piles and piles of bad guys. As long as they can't see you, you're cool. But if you don't pay attention to your buff display, and you accidentally decloak inside a mob, you are GOING to die. Unless you're playing on Heroic like a wuss, the average spawn has enough "oomph" to kick your ass. And remember, you can't run away-- you didn't clear to this mob like you usually do, so you're surrounded on ALL SIDES by enemies who can now see you. Most of the time, you have nowhere to run, and you'll simply die.

The debate on the invisibility powers comes down to one thing-- utility versus reliability. Group Invis makes a fantastic team support tool, but it can let you down. It can fail when you need it. Superior Invis doesn't do any many things for you, but it ALWAYS works. Personally, on a team, I never turn it off. Running around the world, I never turn it off. It's my armor-- not protecting me against damage, but against the attention that brings damage with it. As a Selfish Troller, your priorities should be, first and foremost, on yourself.

Hmm... that was practically a guide in itself. Sorry. :(

Phantom Army – Level 18
Summon Phantoms (Tank Pet)

Phantoms are where Illusion really hits its stride. When you summon Phantoms, you get three pets who hang around for exactly one minute before disappearing. With 3 Recharge SOs, they recharge in 1:45, so they can be up "most of the time".

The first and most important property of the phantoms is that they are completely indestructible. The only enemy in the game who can touch them is Hamidon. Thus, Phantoms are the perfect Alpha power-- fire them off and let them be the first thing an enemy group sees. The enemies will fire their "alpha" powers, generally the best things they have, which will be wasted on the untouchable Phantoms. Your group then runs in and takes out a group of enemies whose best tricks are already spent.

Phantoms also have an interesting property which I didn't know about until a few weeks ago, and which I'm still a little fuzzy on, but which I will attempt to explain. Basically, Phantoms are flagged with a very high "Threat Rating". What this means is that given the choice between two targets, an AI enemy will generally choose to take out the bigger threat first. Phantoms have a Threat Rating way, way higher than any player's, so as long as they are up, they will absorb most of the enemies' attentions. Hitting an enemy with lots of damage, or taunting the enemy, will break the Phantoms' spell, but the enemies you draw off them will usually be few in number, leaving your team very, very safe while the Phantoms are up.

The last important thing about Phantoms is that they do Illusory damage, just like Spectral Wounds. Unlike Spectral, only about 20% of their damage heals back once they're fully slotted. So while there's some heal-back, it's negligible.

Phantoms really are the best power Illusion has. If I could have only one power from the entire primary, this would be it. They keep you safe, and they do a really impressive amount of damage. If I catch you without them after 18, I will personally slap you. Twice.

Suggested Slotting: 3 Recharge, 2 Damage, 1 Accuracy

Spectral Terror – Level 26
Summon Terror (Fear Pet)

This power summons a spooky Spectral Terror at the location of your choosing. The Spectral is stationary, and has two powers-- a PBAoE Fear aura that affects those standing very close to it, and a short-ranged Fear cone. The Spectral recharges very quickly (before it expires), so you can have it up all the time, and it's ready for every fight.

It's a really great general control to use in a big fight. Plonk it down in the middle of a mob you're fighting, and it'll ensure that at least a few of the unengaged bad guys, who would normally be hitting you with various implements of death, instead pee themselves until you're ready to turn your attention their way. Spectral will never cause a hard lock on a full spawn, but it's a great helper to ensure the opposition comes at you in pieces, rather than all together.

The Spectral itself can be killed, but enemies don't target it, so it's effectively immortal until its timer runs out.

Suggested Slotting: Ehh, doesn't really matter. Pop in a couple Fear Duration if you want a more sustained fear effect, or a Recharge or two if you want to reposition it a lot. It's pretty solid right out of the box, though.

Phantasm– Level 32
Summon Phantasm (Blaster Pet)

The Phantasm is your damage pet. Now, that said, fully slotted it does about as much damage as your Phantoms. It was kind of a letdown for me when my blaster pet turned out not to be all that much beefier than my tanks, but the Phantasm has the advantage of not expiring after a minute. The Phantasm fires two powers, Energy Bolts and Energy Torrent from the Energy Blast set. He does decent damage, and a lot of knockback. He's just generally a solid mobile turret. Think of it as always having a level 10 Blaster sidekicked to you.

Phantasm has one other neat power-- he can summon a Phantasm Decoy. This decoy "attaches" to an enemy, and lasts either one minute or until that enemy dies. His Phantasm is similar to yours, being invulnerable and having a high Threat Rating to attract aggro. However, unless I'm too much mistaken, I've never seen it connect with its attacks, so I believe it doesn't do any damage. If you freshly summon a Phantasm in combat, it'll usually fire the decoy off right away, so if you time it right, you can have the Phantasm Decoy come up in time to cover the loss of your own Phantoms until they recharge, so you always have a tanker floating around.

Suggested Slotting: 2 Accuracy, 3 Damage

Secondary Power Set: Sonic Resonance

Sonics is a great team-support powerset. However, it's a pretty thin soloing set. Still, there are a couple of VERY handy powers that make your life easier whether you're alone or on a team.

Sonic Siphon – Level 1
Ranged -Res (All)

I wouldn't take this power if I wasn't forced to. It applies a small -Resistance debuff to one opponent, letting your team do more damage when shooting them. It adds about a 25% base damage bonus to your attack, so it's certainly helpful against hard targets like AVs and a tough Bosses. It's really not a very exciting power, but you might as well use it since you have it.

Suggested Slotting: Mine still just has a single Accuracy. If I'm swimming in slots later on, I might chuck a second Acc in it.

Sonic Barrier – Level 2
Ranged Ally +Res (Smash, Lethal, Toxic)

The first of your shields, Barrier gives resistance to physical damage types. The resistance isn't huge (about 25% fully slotted), but it can make a difference in a tough fight. I'll throw these up on my team before a really rough fight (AV, huge room of purples, etc), but for general fighting I don't find it makes a huge difference.

The one exception is on tanks and scrappers-- they have some shields already, which don't hit the resist cap on their own. Hitting a squishy with this and reducing 100 damage to 75 damage doesn't make a huge difference, but hitting a Tank and capping his resists is huge-- reducing 25 damage down to 5 is very, very helpful. Thus, I'll usually try to keep up the two shields on my team's primary tanker when I'm teaming.

Suggested Slotting: 3 Resistance

Sonic Haven – Level 4
Ranged Ally +Res (Fire, Cold, Energy, Neg Energy)

Same deal as with the Barrier, except this one covers energy and elemental damage. You can wait to pick this one up, as these damage types don't become a big problem until the mid-20s.

Suggested Slotting: 3 Resistance

Sonic Cages – Level 10
Ranged Foe Intangible (Mag 2)

Some people disagree, but in my experience, there is absolutely no good reason to every use Intangibility powers. All it does is piss off your teammates. DO NOT take this power.

Suggested Slotting: You dont need to slot it because you won't have this power.

Disruption Field – Level 16
Toggle: AoE -Res (All)

Disruption Field is Sonic Siphon's weird older brother. It provides the same debuff, but it's an AoE toggle that you center on an ally. Wherever that ally runs, they'll debuff anything immediately around them. This is much more useful than Siphon. I'll generally pick a random brick on the team and let them run around with this on.

Suggested Slotting: 3 EndRedux

Sonic Dispersion– Level 20
Toggle: AoE Ally +Res (Hold, Stun, Immob, all damage but Psionic)

This power rocks. It has a very small endurance cost, and protects you and your team against all mezzes except sleep. There's also a decent damage resistance component (around 20%), but the mez protection is the important thing here. I leave this on all the time, as it barely costs anything to run, and being immune to holds and stuns is ridiculously awesome.

Suggested Slotting: 1 EndRedux, 3 Resist

Sonic Repulsion – Level 28
Toggle: AoE Repel

This power puts a repel aura on the team member of your choice. It's... kinda not so great. It definitely has its uses-- stick it on a blaster to make him immune to melee-- but I don't think it's worth wasting a power slot on unless you really, really want it.

Suggested Slotting: Knockback and EndRedux in whatever combination you prefer.

Clarity– Level 35
Ranged Ally +Res (Hold, Stun, Sleep, Fear, Confuse, Immob), +Perception

A clone of Clear Mind from the Empathy set. It's a great team support power, but I don't care about my team, so I skipped this. The only thing it really adds over Sonic Dispersion is sleep protection, which is nice, but it doesn't fit into my personal idiom.

Suggested Slotting: It's pretty good out of the box... 1 recharge maybe?

Liquefy– Level 38
Ranged AoE (Minor smash), Hold (Mag 2, 100% chance), Knockdown, -Acc, -Def (All)

This power does a lot of stuff, so here's how it works: You select a spot on the ground, which starts a little mini earthquake. The power does an accuracy check, and everybody you hit gets a Mag 2 Hold. The hold doesn't last very long (ten seconds maybe?), but it's enough to cover your team while you run in. After it wears off, the enemies it affected will join the people you missed in falling down. Repeatedly. And finally, everybody inside the area of effect will get a big -Acc and -Def penalty.

So, it's a pretty cool power. I have only two complaints: first, it recharges too slowly. Even with three Recharge, it's up every four minutes or so. So according to my AoE usefulness thingie above, it fails the "every fight" test. However, it makes a decent panic button. It's not fantastic, but it'll cause enough chaos to keep your team safe for a few seconds while you regroup.

I took it and I like using it, but you could skip it and not lose out very much. Grab it on Test and see if you like it before investing in it on Live.

Suggested Slotting: 3 Recharge, 1 Accuracy, 2 AccDeBuff

Pool Powers

Here’s a rundown of the various pools, concentrating on the reasons most people take them.

Fitness: I'm not a member of the "Stamina is optional" school of thought. Illusion is a fairly heavy endurance hog, so take Stamina and be done with it.

Speed: Grab Hasten. It'll help you pour out controls faster, and makes Phantoms cycle more often.

Medicine: I can definitely see picking up Aid Other if you're going the route of a team support Ill/Sonic, as you don't get a heal in your secondary and sometimes, you just need to pour out some green love.

Leaping: Combat Jumping and Acrobatics aren’t necessary, your Dispersion bubble takes care of everything the leaping toggles handle.

Flight: I took Air Superiority. Trollers really do need some external damage, so taking one of the pool attacks on the way to your travel power is a good idea.

Leadership: Even on a team support toon, I don't think you'll have the power slots to invest in Leadership.

Concealment: Superior Invisibility LAUGHS at the Concealment pool, then punches it in the gut and takes its lunch money.

Teleportation: Picking up Recall early on is probably not a bad idea if you go with Superior Invisibility. I could never fit it in myself, but I frequently found myself wishing I had it so I could bring the team with me to a place I'd stealthed to. I may pick this up at 49.

Fighting: As I said, you're going to need some pool attacks to fill in your attack chain. If you don't like the one in your travel pool, the Fighting attacks are quite nice. Also, since you already have some Resistance from Dispersion bubble, Tough is a little better for you than for most squishies (As resistance is more useful when it's stacked)

Epic Pools

Controllers get really great epics. There really isn't a bad choice among them. The Controller epics all follow a standard template, although the order gets mixed up from pool to pool. They all give you a ranged attack, a shield, an AoE of some sort, and a special power. The Special power is probably what will make you take one pool over another-- each one solves a certain problem you might have with your build, whether it's endurance management or weakness to mez.

Psionic Mastery : Psi is a really solid pool. The ranged Psi blast is kinda weak, but the AoE, Psionic Tornado, is the best damage of any of the Epic AoEs. That said, without an AoE Immob to set up containment, the damage isn't going to be as good for you as it is for other controllers. The shield has pretty beefy Psi resist, which is really nice and rather rare. The real reason to take Psi for a controller is Indomitable Will, which is a click mez protection power similar to Super Reflex's Practiced Brawler. Many Trollers run toggles with long recharge, and take Psi as a way to stop their toggles from getting shut down. If the Sleep hole in your bubble is a huge problem for you, you can cover it here. However, sleeps aren't a huge problem in the 40s, so it's probably not a huge concern.

Ice Mastery : Ice gives a solid ranged attack, a solid +Def shield, and the Ice Storm click power that creates a scattering rain on a target point. Ice Storm is hard to use without slows or an AoE immob, so it may be a bit tricky for Illusion. That said, it could work if you overlap it on top of Liquefy. The Special power for Ice is Hibernation, which is a toggle that makes you invincible and recovers your HP and endurance. If you're getting destroyed in combat, switch Hibernation on and go back to full strength. It can be tricky to time Hibernation to activate before you die, but if you like swimming in enemies like I do, this isn't a bad choice. You just need to have good reflexes to get it turned on in time.

Fire Mastery : Fire is the damage pool. It gives you Fire Blast and Fireball right at 41, and is usually taken by low-damage Trollers to give them some oomph in the 40s. However, once again the lack of an AoE immob really hurts this pool, as Fireball only does about 20% of a white minion's health without Containment running. It is, as they say, better than a kick in the teeth, but it's probably not worth bothering with. The Special power for Fire is Consume, which is awesome for recovering your endurance. If you're running dry a lot, Consume is a great choice to fix that problem.

Primal Forces: Primal is the "Generic" pool that can be fit into any concept. The blast and shield are pretty standard, but it doesn't have an AoE. Instead, it has two special powers. The first is Conserve Power, which makes all of your powers effectively free to fire for a minute or two. Switch it on, and after a little while you're back to full endurance even though you're spamming attacks. This is another great way to combat Illusion's heavy endurance drain, especially if you're doing team support and need to fire a lot of buffs and resummon a lot of pets. The second special power is Power Boost, which is one of the neatest powers in the game. I won't go into the full explanation here, but essentially what it does is makes all your effects, except damage, increase by 250% for ten seconds. So, your holds last twice as long, your travel power goes twice as fast, your heals are twice as strong, etc. It's a really awesome power for a controller.

Earth Mastery : Earth is the pool I took on Woozy. Hurl Boulder does really decent damage (less than Spectral's full output, more than Spectral after the heal-back), and Rock Armor is another fairly standard +Def toggle. The AoE, Fissure, is a really short-ranged AoE which does a small amount of damage, throws your opponents back, and has a chance to stun them. It's really handy to compensate for Illusion's lack of soft control. The special power in Earth is Earth's Embrace, which is a clone of Dull Pain. It boosts your max health by 30% and heals you by that much. The heal can be slotted to bring the total healing to about 60%. It can be kept fairly close to permanent with Hasten running, and is just a really handy power to have for when you're getting your ass kicked.

Build Overview

So, there are basically two different ways to build an Ill/Sonic-- team support, or selfish. Objectively, team support is probably the better of the two, but as I said it's just not the way I like to play.

Team Support Build: This is a really packed build. Phantoms and Spectral Terror keep the heat off your team, and the Phantasm does damage while you're busy tending to your teammates. Keep the bubbles running, and have Clarity ready to go when mezzes seem likely. Put Repulsion on squishy teammates to create a safe zone away from melee enemies. You'll probably pick up Aid Other to help keep your allies healthy.

Selfish Build: You concentrate on getting the most out of your pets. Use Phantoms to start combat, and to help kill really tough targets. Spectral goes right on top of you to keep nearby enemies cowering. Dispersion stays up all the time to stop you from getting mezzed. Deceive helps turn tough bad guys against their friends, and you personally run in and start destroying minions and LTs. Disruption Field only goes on against hard targets, as the end drain will slow down your attack chain in general combat. Spectral, Blind, pool attacks, and epic attacks make up your arsenal.

My Build

Here's how I built the Woozy, my selfish Ill/Sonic. A couple oddities to notice-- I took two travel powers, and as I'll discuss later, I took some odd assortments of IO sets.

The "Slotting" column is for pool powers and for anywhere I diverged from the recommended slotting in my guide, most notably for where I added IOs.

Invention Slotting

Woozy was my first character to be levelled after I9 hit, so I ran her as an experiment to try out IOs wherever I could. The results were very positive. I bought her a mixed set of 25 and 30 IOs from the market when she hit 27, and I found that not having to replace these as she levelled was enormously helpful. Both from a cashflow point of view, and also just because replacing them is a hassle.

There are a lot of interesting things you can do with IO sets. I chose to select sets that gave a really easily accessible +Recovery bonus (most sets give this for only having 2 pieces slotted) to help offset the high endurance costs in Illusion. I slotted Deceive with a mix of Malaise's Illusions and Befuddling Aura, to give +4% recovery total. I also slotted two pieces of Impervium Armor in each of my bubbles, and a few other random sets here and there. With all of my set bonuses running, I get about 15% recovery bonus, which is quite nice.

I picked up the Glimpse of the Abyss psionic proc and put it in Spectral Terror, with the idea that it would become a kind of mini turret in addition to its normal purpose. The result was a bit underwhelming. The damage isn't that high, and doesn't fire that often. Also, only the Spectral's AoE aura does proc damage, I've never seen its cone cause damage ticks. I went ahead and slotted five pieces of Glimpse anyway since the bonuses are pretty nice, and even a small amount of free damage is still very helpful. That said, it's definitely not worth spending a lot of cash on, so slot it if you pick it up, but don't kill yourself on the market like I did.

I went with Thunderstrike in both of my ranged attacks (Spectral Wounds and Hurl Boulder) as it gives very high enhancement with really solid set bonuses (notably, Recharge and Accuracy). Boulder got four pieces of Thunderstrike (the fifth and sixth bonuses aren't all that great) and then two pieces of Entropic Chaos, including the Self Heal proc, to get Devastation's +Regen bonus. Randomly getting healed is certainly a nice effect to have. I originally had the Devastation +Hold proc in Boulder, but since it's only Mag 1 and can't hold an LT, I didn't find it that useful. Once I get some Acc/Mez HOs and I have a bit more room in Blind, I'll try out the +Hold proc in there for an increased chance of one-shot holding a Boss. For right now, though, replacing an enhancer with a Proc would gimp Blind too much.

I also picked up the Steadfast Protection Knockback Protection IO and put it in Sonic Dispersion. Getting knocked back isn't a huge deal for you since none of your powers really require you to be positioned anywhere, but I picked it up really cheap before the rush and chucked it in anyway.

Tactics

How to use Confusion: A lot of people don't like Confusion, because it makes you lose some of the XP you'd get if you did all the fighting yourself. And there's certainly some validity to that point of view. If you get too aggressive and confuse everything on the map, you'll completely screw over your XP gains. You have to use it carefully, conservatively, only confusing certain targets who won't rob you of too much XP.

The basic theory here is that confusion makes you pay a small amount of XP for a large amount of personal safety. Confusing a Tank Smasher will make you miss out on a minion or two of experience, but in return, you don't have that Tank Smasher smacking you around the room. Another good application is using it on AVs-- do it a few times, and they'll wipe out their posse. Here, you're losing out on up to a dozen mobs' worth of XP, but again, you need to weigh that against the safety gain. A dozen bad guys aren't a whole lot of XP in the long run, but they can be a huge problem when you've got an AV attacking you, and the debt they can cause when they overwhelm you IS a huge deal.

There are other applications of using your confusion power that don't really rob you of XP. If you come across a boss standing on his own, generally your plan should be to get him Held. However, one application of your hold won't do the job, and while you're waiting for Blind to recharge, he could very well kick your ass. So instead of starting off with Blind, hit him with Deceive. Deceive doesn't aggro, so it'll hit, and not do anything yet. Then, you wait for Deceive to recharge and hit him again. Now, you've successfully pacified him without taking any hits, and since he's alone, he won't kill anybody. You're then free to run up to him and start the hold process in total safety.

I play on Rugged most of the time, and the most common spawn in solo Rugged missions is one minion and one LT. When I run into these, I fire Deceive on the minion, and I Blind the LT. The minion gets maybe one shot off on the LT, and then when Blind recharges, I Hold the minion. Once again, I have two incapacitated foes, I didn't take any hits in return, and I only lost a tiny amount of experience from the minion's attacks. This is probably the most common use for Deceive-- as a temporary half-hold while you wait for the right time to fire a real hold.

Play around with Deceive, I'm sure you'll find lots of great ways to use it. It really helps to make up for the lack of a proper fast-recharging AoE control by helping to even the numbers against your opponents.

Pet Mechanics: Just some useful general information about how your pets work. First of all, if you're invisible, summoning pets WILL NOT drop your cloak. You can stand in the middle of a huge pile of guys and summon Decoys next to you, and they won't see you. This can be very useful, letting you run ahead on big teams and put your pets exactly where they need to be in preparation for a large rush from the rest of the team.

Another important thing to know about pets is how enemies respond to you. Basically, when a pet is summoned, all enemies who see that pet know who summoned it: you. In the case of Phantoms, this isn't a problem-- they're alerted to your presence, but you have a much lower Threat Rating than the phantoms, so they'll ignore you in favor of the bigger threat. However, summoning the Spectral Terror on an otherwise mez-free and unaggroed spawn can be really messy. Enemies never want to shoot the Terror, and the Fear effect it causes has holes and can miss, so the result is that you'll get a big chunk of the spawn immediately starting to shoot you. This is bad. If Phantoms aren't ready to be summoned, dropping the Terror on a fresh group instead isn't a good alternative. Either wait for Phantoms, let someone else be the first to charge in, or lead off with Deceive and Blind to reduce their numbers.

Invisibility: It may not seem like it, but invisibility is one of your most important control elements. As I said in the powerset intro, Illusion is all about controlling your opponent's AI. Phantoms cause them to punch an invincible brick wall, Spectral causes them to do nothing, and Deceive makes them hit each other. Your invisibility powers work in a similar way-- it's like you're commanding enemies to ignore you until you're ready to start a fight. Invisibility isn't just useful to stealth through missions to reach objectives faster; it's also an important element in your general combat tactics.

Having some people on your team visible and others invisible will have an immediate effect on enemy AI. As long as the invisible people aren't the initiators of combat, they will be much less likely to take hits. On a team, this means that you can Group Invis the squishies while standing away from the bricks, ensuring that the bulk of the damage hits people who can handle it. With Superior Invis, this means that enemies will always favor your teammates or, preferably, your pets. Not getting shot in the first place is the best damage protection there is.

Psi Damage: Your two main attacks, Blind and Spectral Wounds, are fairly unique in CoH, because they do Psi damage. Psi is the most rarely resisted damage type in the game. It's fairly easy to tell who will have some resistance to it: robots, and people who do psionic damage themselves. Against both of these, you may want to focus more on your pool attacks and pets. Also, once you hit the 40s, there are a lot of enemies (Carnies and a few of the Praetorians, off the top of my head) with fairly heavy resistances to Psi. So again, during the home stretch, you'll want to lean a bit more heavily than usual on your pools and pets.

One very neat advantage of Psi, aside from the general lack of resistance to it, is that even "God Mode" powers usually don't do anything for it. So all of those frustrating enemies who use Moment of Glory-- Paragon Protectors, and a few AVs-- have no protection against you, so even after they pop MoG, you can still keep wailing away at them as if nothing happened. Your teammates will absolutely love you for that. :D

Reuseable Minions: A fun trick you can try on a team. If you summon Phantoms and your team clears the mob very fast, usually the Phantoms end up wasted-- by the time the team engages the next mob, they'll get a shot or two off and then disappear. However, if the next mob is close, you can get a second use out of them as tanks. Just turn invisible and run through, and way past, the second mob. The decoys will follow you, colliding with the 2nd mob and grabbing alpha for at least a few seconds.

And that's about all I have to say about that.

Acknowledgements

Train Wreck: As always, mad props for coming up with the guide format I've ripped off again and again

Ephemeris: For teaching me about the Sonic set, and showing me some good combos to use with it.

Virtue Server: I generally play on Freedom, but Woozy was my first big step onto another server. The Virtue people were amazing-- they have a great attitude, they're always trying to have fun, and they're always giving me free stuff. "Hey, I picked up [object]!" "Ooh, I need that..." *I start typing up a trade offer* "Here, take it." *he gives it to me for free*

THIS HAPPENED LIKE TEN TIMES. :D

If you have any suggestions to improve this guide or if you've spotted an error, you can e-mail me to let me know.