If a brand new level 30 player were to read this guide through and through, I think that they would go away with the impression that as a controller, they need to master how to give and maintain power at reasonably high levels throughout an instance before they branch off into debuffs and CCs. Which for all intensive purposes is the main message of the guide. It says that keeping and maintaining power is the MAIN responsibility of a troll, and only after this requirement has been satisfied should a controller dive into the other aspects of the role.
[/quote] The tone of the guide is that controllers should first and foremost, beyond a shadow of a doubt, focus on replenishing the groups power. If the power needs of the group are satisfied then by all means, trollers should do CCs, debuffs, and damage moves, but if the power needs of the group are lacking and the controller is doing CC, debuffs, and damage moves instead of power dump, PoT, and WoP/SD. Then that troll is not doing his job. This message would be clear as crystal if people read the guide completely.
I simply don't believe that is our main goal. Players need to understand weapon regen via POT. Controllers aren't batteries. Our main objective is to crowd control. The power dump is an emergency power regen. Similar to healers' instant heal. The goal isn't to spam instant heals but to provide a means to take care of themselves. With healers, it's block and stay in the area where heals are at. With controllers, it's use your power responsibly and not expect us to be your only source of power. I can't tell you how many times I've saved people by stunning adds that were going in for the kill. THAT is our main goal.
The "fix" you provide to my "inefficient method of delivering power" is: 1st: A simple addition of trinkets to what I said the trolls should be doing. After popping the trinket what will the trolls do? Use PoT, power dump and SC. 2nd: Rarely will two controllers, especially if you pug, have the same vit to the point where their PoT and power dump numbers match up. 3rd: The only real, efficient way to rotate trinket bursts is if you have been playing with the other troller for a long time. Something like this will more then likely only be found in Leagues, good luck finding that in a pug group.
I think thi is an excellent guide that most people are definitely overlooking. To be honest I would love to see what most of these trollers that responded are capable of doing. What they wear and what they firmly believe they are doing in a raid that I must clearly be missing out on. There are 2 types of raids I've come across, as a tank, a dps, a troller anda healer. 1) Successful 2) Unsuccessful A successful raid, a majority of the time is a raid completed by everyone playing their role, following an understanding of who does what in each rad. As long as this is established then it will most likely be a successful raid. Upon joining any group for any raid or instance, the majority of the DC community will establish one thing before the queue, VIT. And I dare anyone else to say otherwise. From my understanding to what VIT is, Vit allows a controller( Key role here) to give back power to the group. The more VIT the more power. I have yet, and again dare anyone to correct me have come across a group that has asked a trller what their DOM is. That being said it is my understanding that DOM affects stuns (Crowd control) to mobs and bosses. The reason why trollers are never asked is because that is not the focus. Seeing all these so called trollers respond and saying that power is more of an after effect of them being a troller makes me question their credibility as to how many successful raids they have been in. Using their logi I'll surely test it out and by that I mean ask for these trollers to dare team up with mine and I would like to see how they play in a pug group with me as a secondary controller. Responses to our trolling will most definitely be posted.
So is a healer to not heal? Is a tank to not pull the adds onto him and allow trollers to staple adds everywhere? I've yet to see people rely, not even, ask a troller to watch out for adds that were killing other team members. If that were the case we would not use tanks. As I just posted, VIT is the main stat for a troller, when you join a group what is asked of you? When a healer can't heal, when a tank can't pull when a dps cannot burn who do they turn to? The troller that is going to keep every trash mob from killing an entire team. Have you learned of immunities? I will leave it as that.
A few things to point out: 1. Sore's comments about personal power regen above should be integral to every player's knowledge base. Not only does your Combo Tier affect your personal ability to get power back, it also affects how quickly you get your SuperCharge up (which in turn helps you with damage or power - whichever is your personal priority). Get a good rotation going and never settle for Tier One. 2. I've always said that the view of many people on this thread is detrimental to the safety of the group. Even if you believe that a Controller's only reason to exist is to give Power (a position I do not support), it doesn't mean that they're there to provide juice for the DPS players to pew pew to their hearts' content. A Controller's Burst Power move (Defibulator, Psychic Empowerment & Recharge) only gives power back to the three players with the lowest blue bars. If several DPS are spamming their powers, it means that the Healer and the Tank are less likely to have power when they need it - and they're the people who are keeping you alive. A slow, steady burn is more likely to result in victory. 3. I'm surprised that we're three pages into the thread and nobody has mentioned that aside from Power Controllers and CC Controllers and Debuff Controllers and Damage Controllers, there are also Power Interaction Controllers - Controllers who take on the job of setting up the Power Interactions that their DPS teammates can then capitalize on. With the recent Fire and Ice changes, Burning and Frostbite seem to be even more important and I can see some secondary Controllers going pure PI in the future. Other than that ... good thread with good points and some good conversation so far. Let's try to keep it civil, hmm?
Is it not more efficient to give the DPS power to kill the ads that were going in for the kill instead of simply stunning the ads? Would a healer prefer the ads to be stunned, or for their power bars to be full so that they can use any heal they need, whenever they need to? Would a tank prefer a trash mob to be hitting the party because they have no power to aggro the mob? Like I have said before, if the groups' power is full, not topped of, just generally sufficient, then by all means, stun, and CC, and debuff. But do not for one second believe that a stun or debuff is better then giving a tank, healer, or DPS the power they need to play their role.
Would it be possible to get a little "crowd controlling" done on those paragraphs? They run on way too long and make what you are trying to say a rather difficult read.
1262 Vit. I can solo power and CC all T3 raids and most T4 stuff (not Prime and the end of Dawn). I am full T4 with mixed Vit mods in everything but one ring that has a Vit 4. I start with a sticky bomb, guass grenade, sleep dart, weapon combo. Power dump if the support roles are low. If not, I cycle through the debuffs on various targets slipping away from the tank. I only power dump every other rotation. I rarely fail a raid. And it's usually because healers don't heal or a tank can't keep aggro. And even those times we lose ONLY because the weak link is low level and won't communicate.
Not in high end stuff. Those adds have the ability to put you down quickly. Debuffs reduce that and make healers' jobs A LOT easier. Especially since DD haven't figured out the R1 button. Unless you're running Kahndaq or Batcaves as full T4, The controller should always be stunning and debuffing.
Your points are well taken, but let me say again, that the message was never that a controller should only be a battery. The message is that being a battery, which is a term that the forum community used not me in my guide, is the priority of the control class. If you are in a full raid group: 3DPS, 2Trolls, 2Heals, 1Tank. And the 2 trolls are using their power dump. six out of the eight people in the group are going to be receiving power. The tank will more then likely be one of the initial recipients, as he needs to use his powers to gain his tank buffs, and pull the aggro, but soon enough he will start blocking. This means that with the trolls constantly doing power dump, minus the blocking tank 6 out of 7 people will be getting power, with everyone being the recipients of the power dumps at different intervals. I am not saying that trolls should keep everyone's power at 100% throughout the entire instance, but that to keep everyone well above 50% of their max bar is more then reasonable, and to try and aim to keep everyone at about 80% of their max bar or higher if possible. The control role is not a hard role to play, the reason many people complain about trolls in game is that some trollers try to focus on everything but giving power. Giving power is the core aspect of the controllers job, know your role.
Any T4 troll or healer should be easily able to solo any T3 instance, the fact that you can also solo these instances does not prove much. As for soloing the T4 raids, that would depend more on the group's ability to correctly use power rather then the ability of the troller to put out power. I can however say that there is no group worth being in that would actively choose to have a solo troll in a T4 raid. Simply because if the group knows that they are solo trolling a T4 raid, their power usage is going to be very different from how they use their powers and rotations when there are two trollers present, and more then likely their style of play will change to cater to the fact that there is only one troll in the instance. In a T4 raid, I am confident that a group, who know how to play their roles, with two controllers will have a smoother, easier, faster run then a group, who know how to play their roles, with just a single troll.
When you say things like this it makes me think you are either making stuff up, or have run in some very shady groups. Lets say keep it as a four man example. If you as the troller focus on giving power that means a few things. 1) The tank is going to have all the power he needs to keep his tank buffs up, and keep the aggro of the enemie/s the group is fighting. 2) The healer will have enough power to heal all the damage that the tank is taking, and the occasional damage the group takes from an ad that escaped the tank's aggro. 3) The DPS is will have enough power to kill the ad so that the tank and group is not just sitting there taking and healing damage all day. Now again, like I said in the guide, and like I have mentioned multiple times as comments to posts, if the power needs of the group have been met, the needs being those stated above, then by all means, do your CCs and debuffs, but if the other players are running out of power to point where they cannot play their roles, then put CCs and debuffs aside, and give power.
People should look at the name of the guide..."Class Tips". Yea tips, things you can do that will help you be better at what you are supposed to be doing. Improve your game, not limit your game, or change it, but be better at it. Some people also seem to want to through around the weight of what they do and force others to do the same, if I wanted to do that I would have simply posted my layout for each instance and said "this is the best load out, you should use it too", but I did not, because that is not the intention and if you take the time to read the guide, you will see that I am closer to saying "keep doing what you are doing, just add this stuff to it and prioritize more in accordance with what is required of your role"
I do not bother to go into detail about CC because that is not the problem I was encountering. The issue that alot of other players complain about is "why is my power so low" and the guide should make it so that if you incorporate the tips into your trolling, if someone where to run out of power during an instance it would be more their fault for over or misusing power then it is yours for not giving power.
Sadly what the OP had stated is honestly what majority of players want/care to see trolls do. They only want us as their portable blue batteries. I am still rather new to the game as a troll but I have already seen people in raids where no matter how much power is pumped out to them by the trollers, their power bar just goes bye bye in a blink of an eye. And the shouts of "What the Fu*K you stupid trolls, where is my power, gimme my 'meth' power". And my favorite part? Its usually something like a wrongly geared DPS shouting at us lol DSPers will always burn power like Snowflame through Crack... It's part of their job to do so by doing maximum damage in the shortest amount of time. What I hope most people remember is that they do need to use their weapons to regen power concurrently when us trolls are doing the same to regen power to provide them and not shout thinking somehow power will flood their power bar...
The main times that I hear the complaint about people running low on power in groups is not because I am there and they do not have power, it is because when (I am sure I am not the only one who has heard this) a raid is run with two controllers who are doing their jobs and keeping everyone's power full, things like "wow I can't run out of power" or "there is so much power I do not know what to do with it" or "wow I can't drain my bar even if I tried" are being said by the other roles and the other troll. It seemed that having trolls that were able to keep everyone's power bar full is a rarity, and it shouldn't be because that is our main responsibility. The countless of people who have said things like this that show how surprised they are at the power the trolls gives meant it as a compliment but all I could think to myself was "all I'm doing is giving power, the basics of trolling, I haven't even started doing everything else that I can do". But alot of people were not able to understand the message of the guide because they did not even bother reading the guide through and through and just jumped to conclusions. While the few people who did read managed to give some insightful and constructive comments on it.
[/quote] Why limit a dps from using a more viable supercharge that can help kill a boss, even trash mobs that much quicker than relying on a troller who needs to do 2 times the amount of damage to keep up with a dps. I've yet to see a word of power make a difference outside pvp when used by a dps. That is beyond a waste. If we follow that logic then we should let DPS heal the group as well, so if you're nature you should run metabolism instead of carnage?
Right, its a group based game, if the people in the group are playing poorly, then we trolls can not fix stupid, we can however make sure that we are doing what we are able to do in order to keep power full. I have been in an alert where one of the DPS stated, after I showed some concern at his power bar being low, "don't worry about my power I am over using it on purpose". I could not keep his power bar full not because I am a poor troll but because he was actively trying to not have a full power bar, it was LOA, a very easy alert, so it did not matter that he ran out, the healer had full bar, and the other DPS had more then enough, no one cared.
