Tal_N

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1. Introduction
To say that I absolutely love the combination of Illusions/Storm Summoning carries more weight when you realize that over the years of playing City of Heroes/Villains I've created and deleted more alts than I can remember and I think I've teamed and played personally with possibly every possible build in the game at the time of writing this. So for that reason alone you should realize that Illus/Storm is something very very special. That's why I felt the need to create this guide as I personally think that there isn't a nice thorough (or recent) guide around to fully explain the wonders of this set plus it's a set which feels powerful, is very flexible in its potential tactics and above all else it is one of the most visually impressive of all the power combinations the game has to offer. All information contained within is accurate as of Issue 12 for City of Heroes.

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2. What this guide will tell you
Don't you just hate those guides which you pick up looking for something specific and skim through the whole thing to find it is not there? Yeah, me too. So here's a quick rundown of what this guide is intended to cover (and what it won't).

- Powers. General information including animations, visual effects, damage type, status effects, general recharge, endurance costs and damage infomation, slotting options, important notes and some personal comments from me, (NOT COVERED: all specific stats on powers - as you can now get these in-game, example builds and epic power pools) Although some hard numbers are available from data mining I have done, these are included for reference material at the end of the guide.

- PvE Tactics. What to use in what situations, what not to use together and specific tips on certain enemies. Advice on soloing and teaming in PvE (NOT COVERED: how to powerlevel with this set or how to level the fastest)

- PvP Tactics. What to expect from PvP, what to be aware of, who you'll have no problems fighting with and who you'll struggle with. Various approaches to PvP using Illus/Storm. Some general advice about PvP. (NOT COVERED: zone by zone guide or how to 'pwn' everyone)

- IO sets, procs and suggestions for slotting your powers.

- Common myths about Illus/storm controllers debunked, proven and explained.

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========Smoke and Mirrors: A guide to Illusions/Storm controllers=[v/1.6]
============ by Tal-N=====================================

INDEX
1. Introduction
2. What this guide will tell you
3. 'Illusions' powers
3a. Summary of Illusions
3b. Specific powers
3c. Understanding 'Spectral' damage

4. 'Storm Summoning' powers
4a. Summary of Storm summoning
4b. Specific powers

5. PvE Tactics and advice
5a. What is PvE?
5b. Things to remember about your controller
5c. General soloing advice
5d. General teaming advice
5e. Situational powers and when (or when not) to use them
5e/i. Gale
5e/ii. Deceive
5e/iii. Spectral Terror
5e/iv. Phantasm
5e/v. Hurricane
5e/vi. Freezing Rain
5e/vii. Tornado
5e/viii. Lightning Storm
5f. A Word on Combat and Tactical thinking with Illusion/Storm Controllers
5g. The Black List
5g/1. Nemesis
5g/2. Rularuu
5g/3. Arachnos
5h. Specific tactics using Illusions and Storms

6. Invention Origin enhancements and IO sets
6a. Introduction
6b. Invention system summary
6b/i. What are Inventions and Salvage?
6b/ii. Wentworths auction houses
6b/iii. What are Recipes?
6b/iv. IO enhancements
6c. IO sets and Illusions/Storm controllers
6c/i. Understanding IO set bonuses
6c/ii. IO procs - Programmed Random OCcurance
6c/iii. Unique sets and IO enhancements
6d. Your character and IO sets

7. PvP and you
7a. Things to keep in mind about PvP
7b. PvP with Illusions/Storm controllers
7c. Illus/Storm PvP Tips and Dirty Tricks

8. Myths and Misunderstandings involving Illusions and Storm Summoning
8a. "Stamina is essential for Illus/Storm controllers"
8b. "Superior Invisibility stacks with Steamy Mist"
8c. "SI and GI stack together to give extra stealth benefits"
8d. "Phantom Army causes energy damage"
8e. "Range enhancements allow pets to attack from greater distance"
8f. "Confused enemies can actually lower the amount EXP gained"
8g. "Inspirations can be used to boost the damage/accuracy/defense of pets"
8h. "Group Flight works with Phantom army"
8i. "Vengance can be used on a Phantasm upon their defeat (if you're quick)"
8j. "Spectral damage is always Psionic in nature" and/or "Spectral damage is unresistable"
8k. "Phantom Army does not transfer aggro to you like other pets do"
8l. "Spectral damage is not increased by resistance debuffs"

9. F.A.Q

10. Reference material
10a. Link to Joe Chotts' CoH Planner
10b. Tal-N's recharge/damage/endurance cost catagories
10c. Tal-N's Spectral damage data
10d. Link to CForces confusion/exp loss guide

11. Acknowledgements

Capture the Flag would make for an interesting diversion if it's done through Pocket D or the Arena.

To keep things interesting and fair I think that everyone should have their travel powers removed, buffs are allowed however the maximum speed is capped out so that you don't simply have someone running back and forth from capture points at high speed.

All stealth powers should indeed be surpressed when traveling with the flag.

The flag can be retrieved from the target by either defeating them (causing them to drop it) or hitting them with brawl. When you hit them with brawl you are then in possession of the flag and can return it manually to it's resting spot for bonus points. If the flag is dropped it cannot be picked up and remains at where it dropped for 30 seconds, requiring the defending team to focus protection upon it. After 30 seconds it automaticlaly returns to the resting spot.


All points are based upon the flag, players and the team get no points for killing someone who didn't have the flag. This is to deter people from running around solo treating it like a deathmath which can often happen in popular CTF games like Team Fortress. If the flag holder is the only person you can score personal points from then it unifies the team to genuinely work to protect their flag.

Points are scored based upon capturing as well as defending the flag. 5 points for a cap, 3 points for returning it to its resting spot and 1 point for defeating someone who is holding your flag. To encourage people to defend the flags resting point there will be a multiplier applied to all points the team scores the longer the flag is left uncaptured by the opponents. Lets say if the flag has not been captured for 3 minutes then all points earned by team members is multiplier by 2, 8 minutes it becomes x3, 15 minutes is x4 and for every 30 minutes beyond it rises by a factor of one each time. A cap should NOT be placed upon the multiplier. If the flag is captured up at any point the multiplier is reset and starts over, simply touching the flag does not reset the multiplier. This avoids the point system from being exploited by people allowing someone to pick up the flag in order to score points from them. The most successful team are capable of defending their flag while capturing their opponents again and again. Additionally a less organised team who make frivolous raids on their opponents flag are simply boosting their opponents scores.

Yeah, quite rough around the edges and saddly it doesn't do the video any favours as I've seen more interesting promos done with demo-editing. The low res texturing was also a big disapointment. Clearly someones first time at modelling and animation but 10 out of 10 for effort at least.

Didn't know this was here. All of my videos are over on TalTV (linky in my sig). Of special interest are these ones:

Back to the Futurepast - A Stitch in Time music trailer. There is a much better quality version of the video at this link.

This is a combat montage for SFX who is my illus/storm controller. Basically its a variety of fights with a sound track.

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Thanks Dr. Brainstorm!

Poor guy minor mishapped his eyebrows right off.

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I'm more impressed that he survived what the article says was a blast equal to that of a neutron star exploding.

Put simply. It's never going to happen folks, it's too much of an investment of budget to justify such as small feature to the game.

Slight delay in getting this done. Wife has been working overtime so I've been looking after the kids, thankfully shes off work for the next 2 weeks which should allow me to grab a couple hours to finish this new 1.5 version off.

If Lord Recluse crashes the wedding I'm going to be very very disapointed with the writers not coming up with something so predictable.

While the live roleplayed wedding will be interesting I wonder what they'll do about having someone showing up to ruin it all. You can't seriously expect with 100 attendents that you won't have some jerk(s) messing around and getting a kick out of being disruptive.

I would love to catch the whole thing on video with Fraps so hopefully a demo record won't screw things up. Wonder when the devs will bother to invest some time to fix them. They've been broken for how long now?.... since issue 7 as I recall.

Just a heads up, I've finished a draft of the i11 update for this guide to include a section about IO, IO sets and Procs. Once I give it a few more passes and check a few facts I should be ready to release a new version of this by the end of February.

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And to Tal-N I ask, what does that same Scrapper do when he has to chase down a flying NPC?

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Flying NPCs can be brought down through patience and sometimes tactics, because the developers know that not all heroes and villains have the ability to fly you will notice that flying NPCs are somewhat rare in the game as a result. When NPCs do fly away they will inherantly return to their ground based spawn point if left alone plus you are able to duck out of LoS to cause the NPC to follow you at which point they usually return to ground level.

You point is moot however, we're dealing with PvP here and ways to keep it enjoyable. An NPC might have a tactical advantage over a ground based melee character but has no sense of survival, no sense of enjoyment and in many cases does not need to be defeated by the player to advance through the game. In PvP all of these things are different, there is no fun in fighting a fight you have no chance in losing and there is also no fun in a fight you have no chance of winning. Enjoyment comes in PvP from the fight, the to and fore between two players fighting for victory. If this doesn't happen the enjoyment of the game is greatly reduced.

The solution to have a PvP spec character isn't going to help because it's the ATs which provide the problem, the fact that the devs have been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole now is self evident. They've had to make special rules for status effects, changes to how blaster damage functions, endurance drain is tweaked, invisibility has to be restricted to name but a few special conditions which change how certain ATs function. The thing is though that despite all of these changes it's possible to go into a PvP situational casually and run up against players you have utterly no chance of defeating or can defeat with utter discrimination not because of how skilled you or they are but because their AT and build has weaknesses which happen to be your strengths.

That's broken and can't be easily fixed.

Example:
A regen brute, has fury to help with extended fights. So a blaster comes down with frontloaded damage and obliterates him in 2-3 hits before the brute can even get a hit off. Now only the most pathetic of players will get any enjoyment from doing this again and again when that regen brute has almost no chance of countering that kind of attack. And you can be sure the brute is getting more and more frustrated at having to sit back as hospital waiting for Rest to recharge or his health to return normally.

Taking all powers and making them available to all players would make the game nearly impossible to be balanced. As stated to do this you'd need to totally rewrite a fundamental part of the game and it's not going to happen. He addressed it, but completely misses the point that it's never, ever, ever going to happen so all of the suggestions made are a moot point because they're hooked together onto this one feature being the solution to the problem.

I'm all for creative feedback to the devs, however it's not creative when it's unrealistic.

While you may have put alot of thought into your post you have missed one fundemental issue with PvP which is the root of almost all of the problem. That thing you've missed is intergral to the first thing you said - a game can be built on PvE or PvP, not both as they operate on totally different rules.

The source of problems in CoX PvP is the ATs, they have clear weaknesses and strengths. Because of this people will inenvitably come up against another player who is able to exploit all of your weaknesses but isn't weak against all of your strengths. The simplest annalogy is the super speed scrapper vs a flying blaster. The blaster can hit at range while staying in the air but the scrapper can't get into the air to fight back. Thus is ceases to be PvP and becomes a turkey shoot for the blaster with the scrapper being nothing more than a victim.

Good PvP requires both players to have an equal or near equal chance of success if they have the same amount of skill as each other. In multiplayer FPS games, which are the most popular PvP on the internet, all players have the same strengths and weaknesses and there is never a no-win situation.

Thus the solution to PvP is to totally remove archetypes and give every player access to powers which let players create characters with no severe weaknesses.But you know what? It's never going to happen because it means developing two radically different games on a budget intended for just one.

CoX archetypes are designed to need each other to encourage teaming, that design choice carries over to PvP. Team based PvP is very very fun however without a well rounded team it loses alot of appeal. Since casual PvP is typically solo folks get an unpleasent and unbalanced perspective of PvP and thus lose interest, since they lose interest they don't meet other PvPers much who like to team and thus never get to enjoy CoX PvP as it was intended.

There is no quick fix to make PvP appealing, the basic design of the game does not support it thus the base design of the game would need to be changed.

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Didn't EQ2's exemplar come after the game came out? It is nice that other MMO's are copying some stuff from CoH finally (meant that in a nice way)


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As I recall I seem to recall that WoW 'borrowed' the Team Seek feature several months after CoX was released. I've not played the game but from what I was told there are these crystal things all over the WoW world where you can search for people looking for a team and then teleport to their location or something.

In retrospect, SWG was doomed from the start. If there is one underlying fact which drives the atmosphere within the classical trilogy era that the game was set within it was that you were living in an oppressive, corrupt, uncivilized, militant dictatorship. That's what the Sith Empire was supposed to be, 'order' through terror and violence. It's why the universe was thrilling to live within, it's why the rebels existed, it's why people want to blast stromtroopers, it's why the Emperor and Vader were such good villains.

The thing is though, if you create an MMO where the players feel that they are being persecuted by the NPCs and 'the system' then they become unhappy usually. However Starwars fans WANTED to immerse themselves in a universe where things were unfair because it was authentic and justified the core aspects of the storyline. But it would have scared off casual gamers and such because if you were finding your business being harrassed by the Empire, find yourself being stopped into the streets and thrown in prison or fined for the smallest crime. Or being hunted down like a dog for even being suspected of any involvement with the rebels then you'd get sick of it all in the end.

The classic era SW was all wrong for an MMO and the devs ended up creating a fluffy-bunny version of Starwars where you could go to the Imperial palace on Naboo and see ALL of the major charcters within a few missions. Fictionally, it was all wrong and I feel the same way with having the main leaders of Arachnos all together in an office in Grandville where your average player can wander in and see them all at once. Frankly it would have been far more convincing to have Mako in a fortress on Sharkhead surrounded by guards, Black Scorpion in a facility in Primeva which is also a major robotics research facility, Ghost Widow deep within Fort Cerberus and Scirocco holed up somewhere in St. Martial. Lord Recluse should be the only person in the tower at Spidercity and he should be behind tons of security and never deal directly with villains unless they have proven themselves. Infact all of the signiture characters should have their sidekicks initially deal with new villains who have been newly sent to them.

But anyway, I detract. What I was going to say is that I'm looking forwards to the new Old Republic Starwars MMO because the setting of the Republic vs Sith Empire conflict is perfect for an MMO and can be authentic to the full without creating an unpleasent MMO environment.

I'm sorry to see you had to experience Tabula Rasa first hand before you realized how it was one of the most over-hyped games of the past 2 years. (and thats saying alot). What it promised in bucklets it delivered in drips and when you play and then look back at interviews with Richard Garriott you can see that the clues were there all along. The founder of the MMO has totally lost touch with where the genre is today, in the interviews he talks about turn based combat and standing toe-to-toe with enemies while numbers are crunched. He claims that dynamically changing battle fields, customisable weapons, real-time 3D combat with stat modifiers and use of cover are revolutionary. So unless I've been reading the wrong websites and magazines and playing obscure MMOs for the past 5 years I could have sworn that all of those things have become commonplace, maybe not all in the same game but certainly done somewhat.

Dynamically controlled territory. Planetside.
Real-Time combat which uses terrain: Every MMO since SWG, except WoW.
Customisable weapons: Every MMO since Anarchy Online.

But CoH has all of these, ok so the dynamically controleld terrain is limited to PvP environments so it's yet to move to PvE but it is there. It's not something TR invented like Mr G would claim. To be fair, Cryptic broke the MMO genre mold a loooooong time ago and we're only now seeing new developers pick up the peices. The Team Seek function, renewable respecs, dropping stat attributes in favour of customised powers/weapons which are clear, exemplaring/sidekicking so you don't have to always find someone near your level, missions which are available as soon as you log on without needing to run across half the game world to a contact.

There is so much that CoX has done for the genre but saddly its gone unawares by many people due to a lack of advertising, it's too late now to capitalize on the success of the game as it's looking too aged these days compared to new MMOs. However I still feel that more exposure is needed.

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Started with Superman being a dick.

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A website dedicated to Clark Kent's superdickery. Have a look, it's a real laugh.

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Barca Plaza - No idea. Barca is Hannibal's last name (the guy who crossed the Alps in 14 days on elephants), but I can't see where that relates to the undead.

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I've often wondered about this, it might be a play on words. Barca = Barker. Clive Barker, a famous horror writer who has also had films of his books made. Since all of the references mention horror directors, screen writers and novelists this one appears to be correct. Unless of course there is some obscure significance to the word Barca.

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The Serpentine - a lake in Hyde Park, London. But, more tongue-in-cheek-wise, a public transport system in Switzerland called the "Serpentine Peoplemover System", and what are the DE trying to do in Eden but "move the people"?

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A reference to the Serpent in the garden of Eden. As I recall it's a area call the Serpentine is a collection of paths which wind their way through the heavily wooded part of the zone under the trees. The Serpent in the Bible was said to be resting in the branches of a tree as I recall, I'm still studying so excuse my inaccuracies.

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Grendel's Gulch - Grendel was the creature from "Beowulf" who, if not traditionally a troll, could certainly be likened to one.

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Grendel was the original leader of the Trolls, he was beaten down by Ata in the region which is now called the Grendel's Gultch, it was no doubt named that because of that battle. I have seen some odd references however to some kind of monsterous Troll in the Hollows, it doesn't appear as a GM or anything so I suspect it might be part of a storyline yet to happen. My theory is that it's Grendel, especially as we now have the Troll rampages in Skyway which is apparently caused by the Trolls getting a mega version of Superadine from 'a new supplier'. It's one of the more forgotten of storyline threads which I'm curious to see develop.

How about looking at the progressive change in superhero culture away from the classical 'perfectly good' heroes to the rising popularity of the anti-hero in todays comics and films.

Are people bored of heroes who are absolutely perfect model citizens? Or have writers simply jumped on the bandwagon which started with Punisher and Venom and never looked back?

Frankly I'd like to see a pic of the lads wearing superhero costumes, which I'm CERTAIN they have around the office somewhere.

I think given the circumstances the majority of the staff will probably be on a hard earned holiday with only Posi and the bosses doing any kind of work. I'd imagine there is a ton of paperwork and organising needed since they changed buildings and employers.

What I find encouraging is that the lead designer on CoX is an avid gamer himself and has excellent taste in games, it seems. Good to know we have someone who genuinely understands working at the top rather than a 'business man'.

So then, once you're all settled in can we expect some tasty clues for what we can expect in 2008 please? We know you already have plans drawn up, even if they are rough plans.

edited: wow, it only took me 3 years to finally get to post first after a red name lol

Ahh, so thats why the devs have been so quiet. I wondered where all of the post-release buzz was this year since there is normally a flurry of activity once an issue is finished. Good luck with the move, hope you don't give the IT guys too much of a headache

Unfortunately I feel that the article is somewhat lacking in when it comes to providing a suitable guide, you do infact contradict your intended reason for the guide in a single paragraph:

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This is information is solely intended for use as a general guideline and description how I chose my powers. I am not telling you how to play or slot.

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You clearly state, and I can see from the tone of the 'guide' that this is how YOU like to play this character. As a start you have removed data which you consider unimportant (endurance drain amounts, endurance costs, damage amount ect..) leading to a very empty description of powers except for your opinion on them. There is nothing within the guide which lets an uninformed player look at the 'guide' in order to form their own opinion, they only see what you want them to.

I'm sorry to say that this is not a guide at all, it's a description of your character and your opinion with some basic explaination of what powers you could have taken for the hero wrapped up with vague analysis of what the powers do and how they should be slotted. In the end this isn't of much use to someone who is looking for advice on a character they intend to make or are having problems playing with.

I realize that people on this forum are often trying to avoid hurting people's feelings and giving them a pat on the back for effort if nothing else, but I feel that if someone intends to contribute something and has tried their best then at least give them enough respect to provide truthful and fair feedback. If its bad, it's bad. If it's good, it's good. People here aren't 3 year olds who need to have their ego's wrapped in cotton wool and told that they're good little girls and boys.