So what is a healer? Is a healer not supposed to be worried about the green bar? So if they put down a soul well only and a nature put only one set of pheromones and didnt watch your health and you died would you or would you not complain?? I love how everyone dodges the question but has something to say. Most controllers here make it sound like they run the raid. When in actuallity can't do anything to any mobs once they gain immunities which is what most people here seem to ignore. Coming from a tank standpoint you can pull, pull and pull and there will be a time where that add will no longer be affectedby your pulls. That comes from dom which trollers share, you cannot stun over and over. If you could there would be no tanks. Your main purpose is to replenish that blue bar just as healers replenish the green. If you think otherwise, and considering you are new as you stated you will see once you get kicked constantly or you hear anyone talk about having power issues you will then know being the only person out of 2 in that raid who can give power back can then understand what you're supposed to do. I guarantee you will not be without people telling you how to do your role and I guarantee you will be searching how to give power back efficently. If you want proof you can even come on a raid run with my league as a dps even in the background doing not a thing but watching how it is done.
Seriously? You're quite happy to hobble a controller by limiting them to playing as batteries - but you balk at the idea of a DPS being self-reliant? As far as I'm aware, this is a group game (solo content aside). As long as everybody has enough power, a controller should feel free to add control effects, stun, juggle and damage. But the group should not simply rely on a controller to provide power - the same way you wouldn't rely on a healer to keep your health up. Regenerate some of your own power, use colas.
I'm pretty sure Khiron was being sarcastic about the DPS being self reliant. And healers using damage moves. lol. It is true that once in a while the group should pop sodas and build hit counters to heal themselves and restore their power but for the majority of the instance the group should expect the power to come from trollers just as they expect heals to come from healers.
Lol tanks are practically useless in anything outside of the T4 stuff. In a good group you can do without one anything under the FOS raids. You can’t without a Controller. Controller’s can cycle CC effects depending on the NPC. Before new or ignorant players who never played the Controller role, or understood the Controller mechanics, promoted reckless spamming of powers to deal damage instead of using mainly weapons then using powers to contribute to damage, the green lightning bolt (PoT) was enough. That was all the group needed to deal damage. Once the content got easy and players got sick of it that’s when pew pew became the fashion. If poT is up the group needs to manage their own bar. The instant power transfer is there to assist when needed not something to spam consecutively. A group can finish do a raid with a tank healer or controller. It can do it with a healer, controller or dps. It can do it with controllers and healers. Damage players are replaceable and like tanks CAN do without. In a good group where controllers assist in giving power to the team, actually weapon combo, apply necessary CC and have the team contribute to dealing damage as a whole, they’ll finish the raid just as fast as a team who only just replies on 3 players to do so. Some of talk as if, between 2 good groups, they’ll be a difference of an hour in time. The most you’ll probably save is around 5 minutes. Come on now. Players need to understand, to some degree, management of their own power bar. Otherwise if we get challenging content they wont survive because of how they’re used to playing. They wont realize that in harder content it’s more important for the group to last long enough to kill higher health NPC’s than attempt a blitzkrieg of attacks that’ll only deal ¼ to ½ the damage it would in easier content. Also, in terms of asking about Vit. I think it’s pretty obvious why controllers ask each other for their Vit. PoT obviously over writes. Dom, in regards to effects, can too but PoT affects the whole group. If 2 controllers don’t know how to cast PoT at the same time effectively or properly allow one controller to cast it they just delay the tick. Other than the controllers establishing who has the higher PoT tick, if anyone in the group asks if none of their business. Players don’t even know it’s irrelevant to ask for higher vit if you know to look for a higher tick. Vit doesn’t feed the group power, PoT ticks do.
LOL, I agree. Some people don't know. It's more of a no-brainer to get your intended combo even if people really want power because of the mechanics. The power you get back from combos scale up with your vit. Vit Stat http://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/sores-stat-testing-guide.84/#post-301 Vit Spreadsheet http://files.enjin.com/208137/Files/Vitalization.xlsx Your powerbar is a bucket. Your power in it is water. Each cast is water draining out of that bucket. PoT, Sodas, Supercharges, Combos, and the other controller puts water in. Let's not consider the otther controller, sodas, or supercharges for a minute. Let's looks at the behaviors that can create more water flowing in, than water flowing out. PoT ticks 154 power every 5 seconds for at 1200 vit. That's half a recharge every 5 seconds. That is about 31 power-per-second. A T1 combo can be triggered with a single hit. A T1 combo gives 198 power over 4.5 seconds. That's about two-thirds of a recharge generated over 4.5 seconds. But, if you keep that combo alive with 1-hit here and 1-hit there, you're just dragging that time out without actully getting more power. If you do a single hit and then let the combo meter reset, you at least know you're setting up for roughly 198 power from Recovery. A T2 combo takes, what, 2.5 seconds to execute? That means you should get about 5 ticks of T1 Recovery (110 power) before upgrading to 9 ticks of T2 Recovery (234 power). That's 344 power generated over 7 seconds (even though it only took 2.5 seconds to trigger the effect). If you choose to get to that T2 combo, you basically did 2.5 seconds of activity to get back 344 power from Recovery. Knowing that finishing off those 12 hits will lead to 150 more power is no joke. Instead of generating 66% of a recharge, you're now generating 116% of a recharge. Now don't do that just once, repeat it over and over through the raid. 2.5 seconds to combo and spend the remaining 4.5 seconds to use your powers, e.g. PoT, CC, PI, Recharge, debuff, etc. You can Recharge twice. CC and Recharge. PI and Recharge. Whatever. The 4.5 seconds is your time to use. It's not 100% sustainable, which is why once in every few cycles you take a little extra time and build up a T3 combo. Now, the overall cycle is sustainable and efficient. You will find you generate and distribute massively more power over the course of the raid that if you keep finding yourself spending 2 seconds on your weapon and landing just short of a T2 combo.
I should add, your supercharges build up similarly off the combo Recovery effect. Follow my advice and you'll have more WoP to give too.
OP im not about to actually read the entire Fail text that is your thread. I already understand that you have a battery view on controlling which I and the majority of the other players who are commenting don't agree with. I find it real funny how you have mentioned my name in a comment with someone else and even went back to quote and reply to a comment I had made back on the 1st or 2nd page. Seems like you are really emotionally hurt that I don't agree with your or something. To reply to something you said before, Yes all tanks can't keep aggro. I don't know what game you are playing but not everybody is the best at it. That is why I mentioned CCing. Debuffs are not the only way to CC because each controller class has great CC moves that aren't debuffs (Mass Terror) Yes you mentioned clipping but you still keep saying that it is better to give the DPS power rather than use a move yourself that does damage. Clearly through clipping you can do both which leads to more damage to the target which means it dies faster which means less time in the instance. Like Migraine brought up power interactions are a big part of what a controller can do. Not all power interactions are debuffs but most of them end up being good Crowd control moves which can setup a DPS while still locking down targets. If you clip them with your power dump then you just gave power, controlled enemies, and setup the DPS. That wouldn't have been accomplished "hitting their power dump from cool down to cool down, without fail, stopping only when everyone’s power bar is full because there are no enemies to kill." Sore always brings up good information as to how the power regeneration from weapons work, combine that with knowing how to utilize the double tick, rotating trinkets, and if you are hardlight using your constructs to rebuild power and there is no legitimate need for two controllers in a raid to limit themselves to being a battery. When you understand all the aspects of controlling you can see you can do it all and not have to be limited to 1 playstyle. so if you want to make a guide on how to play a playstyle then that is fine but if you are trying to teach someone about the role then you need to lead them in the way to maximize the entire role because the path you are trying to lead them in won't allow them to understand how much more they can do while still giving as much power as a battery.
I don't know how you define success but if you mean passing the instance, getting all the highest tier gear, speed feating, getting all the feats from the instance, soloing the instance, not getting any complaints, or wowing the rest of the group then im pretty sure most of the people including myself disagreeing with the OP are successful at what they do. As far as what I'm wearing I have full t4 controller gear. (I have some of the 4.25 gear but i don't feel like getting bits to mod it so I don't wear it. I just collect it to get the feats). I have a lockbox neck, and two lockbox rings. All my reds and yellows (including my lock box rings) have vit/might 4 in them. All blues have vit/health in them. I use my 125 bow because I still haven't gotten the 131 bow yet. When t5 comes out Im going to switch it and put vit/prec in all my yellows and reds to see which one leads to more damage. I can't speak for everybody but I know Im capable of doing all the jobs of a controller. I can give power, do damage, crowd control, debuff, pick up teammates, setup interactions, hit switches etc... Dominance only effects stuns (crowd control) once you have met the dom requirement for the instance. Anything over that does not effect your crowd control it only effects your shields. Upon joining a group I don't ask anybody what their stats are not even the other controller. I go into the instance and let him throw his PoT out and if he is ticking for more than me then I won't use mine unless the situation comes up where it is beneficial for me to do so. If his is ticking for less than me then I'll throw mine out after his cycle is over or as soon as I see a tick so that I don't delay the cycle. If he is overwriting mine even with a lower PoT tick depending on how low it is I probably won't even say anything and just let him have it because most of the time it won't really effect much.
Hmm. I know this is probably a matter of semantics, but I dislike the use of the terms 'main priority' and 'core aspect' when teaching the new generation of Controllers about what is important. For me, it's 'Basic'. The kind of thing that should be second nature. I think that your standards are reasonable (50/80%) and really don't disagree with you on any point. I guess it's just a messaging issue with me. But I must admit to my own bias - I run with a very talented League - a group who understands how to regen their own power. We're interactively helpful on an instinctual level. So my advice is probably more narrow since I rarely have to deal with pick up groups. Let's face it, at this point in the game, giving power is probably the most useful thing that a Controller can do even if it's not the most fun. And that's because we've advanced to a point where our DPS colleagues can melt stuff with a flick of their fingers. Killing Stuff Dead is the best form of Crowd Control. But this may not always be true - and I'd hope that most aspiring Controllers learn all aspects of the multi-faceted job that we play. We can do a little bit of everything and it's important to recognize when power dumping is your best option or when some other action best benefits the group.
I do hope to learn as I go along. I read both this and Battery's guide and took a good amount of info to mind. I took Dual Wielding, and went down the Support part of the Light powers. Though I can't for the life of me ever get those stupid constructs to go off, I do understand and now see the importance of using Boxing for the added power tick. I do try to make sure in the group with my spouse and sister that I watch their power bar. I haven't grouped with them since the Fire/Ice patch went in (sister was main Fire tank) so will have to see how it goes. New to playing a Controller in this game, I view them as one in EQ2 (my main game) so that's how I play him. My hotbar looks like this (from memory) 1 -Group Shielding (This has saved my group multiple times, especially when Doctor Fate? jumped us unawares) 2- Recharge 3- Boxing 4- Grasping Hand (I really like how this locks down and damages mobs so it is helpful in case any run up) 5 - Light Blast (I can easily kill any groups of small opponents with this in about 2 shots so I find it quite handy) 6- Hard Light Shield I did take Wisdom of Solomon, Hard Light Shield, and Intimidating Gaze from the Iconic Powers. I play Rook Wall by locking down stray enemies with Grasping Hand as my sister tanks. If some seem almost dead, I would use Light Blast to finish a few off. Though I learned more about Boxing, so I will make sure to get in a bit more so the PoT goes off. Some stuff I read did confuse me a little in regards to charts and formulas, so I want to make sure I understand correctly. I want to focus on VIT and DOM (with DOM up to a certain point depending on the mob or area I am in) and REST (with VIT and REST assisting with shields)? If that is the case with VIT and REST, does it affect the shields I use (Group Shielding and Hard Light Shield)? Thanks for the assistance!
The language used is what got my back up - unfortunately I see red anytime somebody implies that a controller has to play as a battery. With a slight change in language, I most likely wouldn't have a problem with the OP. Personally, I absolutely loath the idea of playing as a battery - a league mate mentioned that people are wanting to get through content quickly and efficiently - that's all good, but where's the fun? DPS have fun going pew, pew, pew.....I can't speak about healing and tanking, but where's the fun in simply dumping power? To be clear, I have no problem with DPSs (and I applaud the work they do - I can't DPS to save myself) - and I'm pretty sure you could run a raid without any of the classes, it may be slow but you'd probably get it done. Ideally, I like to run with at least one group member from each role.
Congrats on starting a controller - and a hard light one at that (my main is HL as well, although I do have a mental controller as well). Check out Battery's guide to HL controlling. And practice those combos! The beauty of HL is that you can access powers that aren't on you loadout via combos. From memory my loadout is Claws, Ram (or Impact), Whips, Hand Clap, Group Shields and Recharge. Using combos, I can then get to Snap Trap, Grasping Hand, Light Blast and Fan. Examples of a combos I use are Ram --> Snap Trap --> Light Blast, or Impact (or Hand Clap) --> Grasping Hand --> Light Blast. Light Blast leads into Hand Clap, which gives you a looping combo. My understanding is that shields are based on DOM and REST. From what I've seen, folk who don't use shields don't worry too much about dom - they get the suggested dom for an instance via gear. Anyway, as far as skill-points go, I went Vit & Dom evenly, then cunning as suggested in Battery's controller guide.
Sorry but I miss your point since I am not disagreeing with giving till I am flat and after that drinking a soder to give more and I'm perfectly fine not doing any CC but just spam power to the rest as you so succinctly put that people will kick me from raids because I am not doing my job (which had yet to occur since I DO make sure people are powered). Frankly I'm pretty fine to being compare with healers since its an important job. I'm just stating that there are people who spam power throughout an entire raid and keep asking for power without using their weapons. Its like a tank not blocking and asking the healer why his heals can't keep him alive.
Which I've had happen before with a tank when playing healer. The fact is there are certain instances where crowd control is absolutely necessary. A simple example is the Waterkeepers in Khandaq where many times a Controller will encase one which is also a debuff. A lot of FOS2 needs crowd control because the raid is just that hard and the trash mobs can be overwhelming. A tank can certainly help with CC but not all tanks have or use powers that assist with this
I can't believe this thread is still going...The OP even stated this is for a battery troll. IE: the most basic and simplistic version of a controller there is. The only reason this way even works right now is because we are OVERGEARED for every instance. I mean seriously we can 4 or 5 man everything in the game including PBG. This guide should be labeled Fresh 30's guide for Controlling
Did you really just say that Tanks and DPS roles are not needed? Or only needed in the latest Tier difficulty? Wow, you are really just digging a hole for yourself. I dare you to try and beat Prime Battleground with no Tanks or DPS. As compared to a DPS who can actually deal damage, no other player in the raid will be able to do over 20% of the damage that the DPS can. For EX. if you are in a Gates run, with no wipes, just a fast smooth and painless run, and the 3rd place DPS got 1,000,000 damage out, every other player who is geared in their perspective role will not have over 200,000 damage out, I can almost guarantee that. Let us not mistake playing our role efficiently with going into an instance that we are completely over geared for and beating it without the proper role. Any T4 player can go into almost any T3 or lower instance and dominate, but that's not because of skill, that is because you have the gear to abuse the weakness of those instances. I know, I have gone into khan, BC123, FOS123, and have 4-5 maned all those instances, I have duo-ed almost all alerts, alot of my leaguemates solo alerts, that is not skill, that is simply being so damn OP that you can do that. If you run with people who actually play their role in the highest tier content, that is when the controllers giving power is the MOST important, is when healers healing is the MOST important, is when the Tank keeping the aggro and placing the trash mobs in the right place and keeping the aggro of the bosses is the MOST important, is when the DPS having a high damage to power ratio the MOST important, once things get easy is when everybody goes outside their roles and start focusing on damage and just mess around. Trollers who only use their power dump when everybody has already run out of power are not helping the group. A Healer should not start healing when a players screen is flashing red. A tank should not start tanking when the mobs and bosses are KOing the team. A DPS should not start attacking only if the Tank, Healers, and Troll can not burn the ad down. A troller should not start dumping power after everyone's power bars are depleted, these are all things that these roles need to constantly be doing becuase it is their job, it s what their role dictates they do, it is what the game dictates they do. You say that a group that has DPS will only save around 5 minutes as compared to a group that does not have DPS? I can not even form the words to show how just wrong that is, have you ever played this game? Vit does not feed the group power, PoT ticks do? And what sir determines your PoT tick? Vit determines your PoT, establishing who has higher Vit does more then simply tell you who is in charge of PoT, it shows that the trollers are communicating with each other and the group, which is just as important as playing your role. I am not giving advice on what sounds good on paper, or on all the things that trollers are able to do, I am giving advice on what needs to be do done for groups to be the most successful, success is based on how smooth, easy, and quickly a group is able to run any instance without continuous wipes and/or KOs. I can say that any player, if they had to choose, would choose power over a debuff. why? Because healers need power to heal. Tanks need power to tank. No player should ever have to choose because we as trollers should easily be able to keep power up and place a debuff. But if you ever do have to prioritize, put your pride aside, and give power first!
This is really awesome advice with only one draw back, controllers run the risk of worrying so much about what tier combo they are on that they forget to play their role. This is something everyone should know so that everyone is better at recovering their own power, but as trollers it is ok, and correctly expected, if we dump our power into the group via our power dumps/PoT/SC if needed because that is our main job and because it is easier for us to replenish our power bars faster then every other role in the game.
I see the point your focusing on. It is important for controllers to give power. A controller should be maintaining a steady flow of power. If the tips I provided plus some SylarMan mentioned (Trinket rotating and POT double-ticks) aren't enough to stay ahead of the power needs of the group, you probably have a different problem on your hands than you being a bad controller. Sure, if you can see you have power to give and you see your healers dead empty, drop some power. Stop your combo. But know, that's somewhat sacrificing your long term sustainability for a short term tactical need. In general, that circumstance ought to be arising very infrequently. I notice that forum discussions often favor hypothetical possibilities without entertaining how probable they are.
You do an awesome job at remaining completely ignorant of what I am saying. I will say it directly to you since you seem to be having the hardest time understanding, mostly because of your own stubbornness but whatever, I'll say uncle and give you your own little special invitation to the message that you seem to be craving. 1st you comment on me going back and commenting on something you wrote and saying it is because I get emotionally and take it personally. Wrong. I try to comment on everyone's post because I think everyone deserves at least that when they take the time to comment on something I made. You keep saying how you did not bother to read, o.k. You not reading any article and then proceeding to comment on it makes your comments lose any kind of weight and basically makes them null and void, this is taught in elementary school. You love to point out moves like Mass terror and clipping as if you are teaching me something, not once have I mentioned my personal load out on this forum because how I play is not fully represented in this post, and trust me when I say you are not saying anything about the Mental power set that I do not already know. This post is not a "this is how I play, it is the best way to play, and everybody should play like me" post. This is a "hey trollers, I know there is alot that our class can do, but lets not forget what our MAIN job is, to give power" post. I point you to the title of the post "Class Tips: Controlling". What is the definition of a Tip? It has many definitions but the one used here is the one where a tip is a helpful hint. Hint: controllers should focus on giving power. Once again, the message of the post was never that giving power is the ONLY thing trollers should do, the message of the post (and those who read it understood the message as it shows in the comments they left, something that is lacking in your comments) was that giving power is the MAIN (top priority) things trollers should do. Power dump from cool down to cool down, guess what trolls will be doing in those 2-2.5 seconds that the power dump is on cool down? Or when the party power is already at or nearly full. OH IDK, maybe debuffs or CC or building hit counters, we as trollers do all of this constantly, because we can, because we should. But debuff/CC/Combos should not ever be more important then making sure the group has the power it needs to run effectively because a troller doing an instance that is the same tier as his gear cannot solo it. It is fine if trollers use debuff/CC and do whatever else they want to do as long as the group has adequate power. The reason why I prioritize giving power as the message of the post above all else is because there are too many players who are surprised when they are in a group and are able to fully utilize their rotations because their power bar is kept nearly full, there are too many trollers who use so much power on debuff/CC that they fail to help keep the group's power below critical. Keeping PoT up throughout the whole instance, but only using power dump if the group is nearly empty on power is not a desirable practice. Trollers should aspire to keep the group power above let us say a rough 50%, this will ensure at least the the other people in the group can play their role. IF read through and through you would have seen that this post does not limit the role trollers play in DCUO but in fact this post makes it painfully obvious that without controllers who have at least mastered the minimum of what their role dictates they do (give power), nothing would get done in this game. What you need to learn to do is to listen/read to what other people are saying instead of latching on to one or two sentences and then completely ignore EVERYTHING else because you are too busy already thinking about how to go against those few sentences. This is a guide that tips, hints trollers to focus on giving power. Same as if I were to have made a guide that tells healers to heal. Or tanks to pull aggro. This is the main aspect of the job.
