What should be done about the Controller role?

We all know it has been said and threads have been made. But it is my right to post any thread I feel strongly for no matter how many times its been said. So with that lets begin.

What is a controller? A controller focuses on incapacitating enemies and group support including Power regeneration. Controllers have specific debuff abilities that can lower an opponent's defense, toughness, and healing or damage output.

The Controller in group content is expected to maintain constant Power Over Time. The Controller should also provide instant power when a Healer is low on Power. Controllers can also buff the groups damage for a short time. A Defense debuff is useful on Boss opponents as it reduces Defense by 33%.
When running group content with two Controllers, the Controller with the higher Vitalization should provide constant Power Over Time. Both Controllers should provide instant power to the group. The Controller with the lower Vitalization should maintain defense, healing or damage debuffs on enemies and Boss opponents. If there are 3 Controllers in a raid the third one should also provide instant power and work on Crowd Control. Generating the least aggro than the other roles, controllers are responsible for rescuing group members, reviving group members and activating or moving items whilst in battle.

Now this is from the site http://dcuniverseonline.wikia.com/wiki/Controller so if you wish to more about controller role it’s there.

Looking at that and what the controller role have been reduced to in some cases. I feel the role should be expanded more. Now look at other games that have some type of controller role in it.

Movement modifiers
The ability to move faster than an opponent provides a form of crowd control, often through kiting. Any modifier that decreases an opponent's speed will allow more efficient kiting.
Many forms of crowd control use this type of modifier. Traditionally, "root" and "snare" effects that directly modify opponents' movement rates by lowering them or simply preventing movement have been the staple of this type of crowd control.
The abilities include, but are not limited to:

• Poison - poisons the targeted character doing damage over time, usually slowing the target
• Root/Snare - immobilizes character while allowing all other actions to occur
• Movement speed debuffs
• Knockback - forces opponents away from the CCer
• Levitate - allows CCer to use terrain advantages to line-of-sight or safely fall from a height in order to cover more ground than normally possible
• Direction changes - forces opponents to move in another direction, often resulting in tempo or distance gains for the CCer
• Fear/Stun/Mesmerize ("mez")/Charm - robust CC abilities that usually include other types of CC alongside one from the above list.

Action/ability rate modifiers
Abilities that can decrease the number of times one can perform an action in a given time (usually by increasing cast time and/or cooldown time) or stop a player from performing actions all together.
Abilities in this group may include, but are not limited to:

• Silence - Prevents the target from using spells or other such abilities, limiting their usefulness in a fight
• Disarm - The target is unable to attack normally via physical means/autoattacks, sometimes due to the target losing their weapon
• Magic Immunity - While technically a buff, a target that is magic immune cannot be affected by magical abilities
• Interrupt - An extremely brief stun that can easily disrupt channelled abilities

These abilities can also affect the amount of "energy" to perform an action, be it mana or otherwise.
Others can decrease damage given from actions, or increase healing from allies.

Forced action modifiers
This is the most unusual category of crowd control spells, but abilities that fall under it are often considered the most powerful. These abilities force an opponent to use certain abilities without their consent.
Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Charm - takes control of the opponent and allows one to use some or all of their abilities
• Fear - forces opponents to run away from the user.
• Feign death - makes it less likely or impossible for an opponent to attack the user.
• Taunt - forces opponents to attack the user.

In City of Heroes and its expansion, City of Villains, the Controller archetype is the primary provider of crowd control effects. Controllers, depending on their primary power set, have a variety of options for crowd control—essentially all of the effects in the above list—but the most commonly used effect is the Hold, which prevents an opponent from attacking or moving at all for a time. Dominators, a City of Villains archetype, share the Controllers' crowd control abilities, but with substantially reduced duration under most circumstances. To balance this limitation, a Dominator has access to an inherent power called "Domination." After a Dominator has inflicted enough damage with his or her attacks, this power can be activated, which doubles the duration and "magnitude" of his crowd control effects for a short time. Domination allows the Dominator, when it is most needed, to provide considerable crowd control and damage.
In Final Fantasy XI, crowd control means neutralizing every monster except one, so the party or alliance can focus on one target at a time. It can also mean buying enough time to exit the zone safely using the Flee/Escape ability, or by running across the zone line.
Immobilizing
Preventing movement of monsters, by using abilities such as Sleep, Sleepga, Lullaby, Shadowbind, Bind, Nightmare, or Sleep Bolt. This method is popular in the Dynamis game location.
Kiting
Kiting (luring a monster along a path) can be done by characters possessing high evasion or defense attributes to avoid taking massive damage. This technique can be combined with abilities like Utsusemi, Flee, Bind, and Gravity, and sometimes Charm. This is popular for some special mission fights (such as Promathia Mission 2-5) and HNM (high-level, notorious monster) battles.
Temporary tank
Since melee classes generally have stronger armor than mages (and often have Warrior as a sub-job), they can use the Provoke ability on an extra monster while they attack the current battle target. While usually not the best solution, tanking is often used by EXP party as a stopgap measure until a mage or Bard can (re)neutralize the extra monster.
One variation would be a Paladin tanking two monsters at once by tossing an extra Provoke or Flash at the second monster. A Thief can also single-handedly hold off a variety of monsters with a combination of Sleep Bolt and Utsusemi. It may not be necessary to use Sleep or Lullaby while using these two alternatives.
Alternatives
A Summoner has the option to use an avatar to stall or kite an extra monster. Beastmasters and Puppetmasters can also use a pet or Automaton to distract a monster. Beastmaster can attempt Charm on certain monsters, as can high level Bards using Maiden's Virelai—but both are extremely dangerous abilities to use on monsters typically hunted by exp parties.

In MOBAs, crowd control refers to anything which prevents or limits a player or mob’s ability to fight, as well as impair their ability to move. There are a wide variety of types of crowd control, and most player controlled characters have some means of crowd control. The most common forms of CC are slows, which decrease the player’s movement or attack speed, and stuns, which stop the player from moving or performing any actions. The support (tank) role will usually have more forms of CC than other roles due to their playstyle being more about defense and area control.


Looking at all of that above I believe DCUO should evolve the Controller role to jack of all trade and change some of how the other roles may work. Like reduce healers CC effects maybe look at reducing a Tanks CC effects as well and buff their Aggro and pulls. Make Controllers buff matter and maybe give them the ability to self buff, like if a raid needs an extra DPS instead of switching to DPS the troller can buff their DPS abilities for a certain period of time. And Make then an alternate tank in some cases, if a tank goes down for a bit you can buff your role so to say that would mean also giving trollers something in their move pools to pull off tanking or maybe they have the tools to pull it off already. But these are my opinions so nothing set in stone I was just thinking out loud and sharing my thoughts.

So where do you think this role should be heading towards?

Give all support roles power back mechanics.

Going forward create debuff AM for controllers and make debuffs much more important and in some cases manditory for bosses in raids and alerts.

Debuff am and cc am.

Which is what a troll should have been

Interesting.

I want to see 2-2-3-1 and 2-2-2-2 groups allot again, but it's not happening anymore. All the groups I go in and the videos I watch are always solo controllers and the powerbars are always over 75%. Controllers have practically lost 50% of there purpose.

It would probably be an interesting idea to reduce Tank crowd control or increase npc immunity against CC. Therefore 2 controllers are required to incapacitate the enemy as one controller isn't strong enough most of the time.

I'm not much of a controller, but with all these power back mechanics, overpowered CC, etc, the controller role needs a new revamp and needs to focus on a new area and replace the 50% powerback purpose.

Edit: A unique debuff AM, and a CC AM is the way. Controllers being the only ones that can stun, root, encase, etc, enemies. Maybe they can self buff with unique buffs like increased speed.

I honestly never liked the idea of a controller giving power that's just me. I always think it should be able to control the battle and cc

To me, the controller role was completely new compared to other games, so power back was unique and suited them back in the day, now it needs to evolve into something completely new, be more useful, that's why a Debuff/CC AM, self increased speed buff and a group command mechanic could be highly interesting. Crowd Control needs to be allot more exclusive to controllers though.

Detaunts like Distract, Grandeur, etc also need to only work in Controller role, and not work in dps role, thus increasing Controller uniqueness and helpfulness.

I agree quatum dps I wish didn't stun. It should be troll exclusive

New mechanics definitely wouldn't hurt, both on the actual controller side, and cps side. I mean new mechanics for both ways to stun, CC, and give power. My new Sound power thread has some neat power back ideas I think. Including a new way for the power back supercharge to work. The thread is in my sig if you want to check it out.

Worst of all is when you are trolling and some quantum(or other power) in DPS runs ahead and uses some dps stun, causing a bunch of enemies to breakout almost immediately and rendering them immune to your stuns, thus reducing the effectiveness of the group.

Ikr. Take stuns away from dps it needs to happen to make a control more vauable

This and beneficial group buffs for up to 7 players as well.

This. Power back mechanics need to be reduced. They shouldn't give that much power back.

I would also like to see NPCs use more buffs. Healing NPCs, offensive buffs, defensive buffs that we can counter with our debuffs.

What's wrong with the troll now? You still need troll in end-game contents just like you need tanks and healers

+1
#DCUOTrollArmy

It's not what's wrong it's the fact it's being devalued every month

It would be cool if trolls could use some kind power akin to a breakout that would enable the entire group to physically move faster during combat or lesson the "weight" of battle. Just an idea, but when I think of improving the controller role I try to think of things that make combat fun, are beneficial to the group, and give people a reason to want trolls in content.

Everything the op states seems to be what controllers can do in game other than controlling via movement mode. The problem is that every other role can do the same. If all the other role's CC abilities would be reduced, then the controller CC abilities would stand out more.

And AM abilities are an interesting idea, but I thought most people were against the cookie cutter 1234 stuff? So is power back/AM suggestions for support roles something radically different? Or will I be limited to the same 3 powers to do my controlling? I understand it's kind of how it is now, but I do have options to do my controlling effectively where dps are limited to do high dmg. Personally if it takes away flexibility so I can get power back (which I can already do with weapon attacks), then I wouldn't really be up for that.

Improve the encase cc so it does not disrupt battle flow. encasements protect enemies from some damage, and most stop tank pulls. Could also have them not fly off in random directions when hit.

if cc can't be removed from non-dom roles, maybe add a different cc level for them; like when an enemy flashes white they can only be stunned by countering them. or when they flash blue, not even countering them can stop them. trolls and tanks could have their own level of that, stronger than the white stuns everyone can do, and below the blue immunity.

Stunning seems to be what gives DPS time to KO opponents without support. It's unlikely that majority of players can knockout opposers before being KO'd themselves. Particularly when it comes to facing multiple opponents and without over-powered gear.

Example: Play Electricity through the entire game without crowd controlling. Then imagine a novice facing the same challenges.

Bottom Line: The learning curve for DPSing would likely rise if it lost the ability to crowd control.

I'd like to see something with controllers and tanks, where their individual CC effects on enemies are counting separately than a dps or healers. If an enemy breaks out of a dps and healers CC, it will not count as them having immunity from a tank or controller's CC effects.

I'd also like to see something for controllers where debuffs can apply either to multiple targets, or can be refreshed on individual targets in some way that doesn't require the power be manually recast every several seconds - or simply double the debuff time on npcs, but keep it as is for pvp.