Learning to Control

Hi, nice guide. One thing I might add is how great the new neck mods are for trolling. I ran a few numbers comparing the modded and unmodded neck performance assuming 50% critical power magnitude, which is slightly under the real number. Here's a sample from the spreadsheet. The 5th column is the pot tic you would need without the neck mod to be equivalent to the pot tic in column 1 with the neck mod. You get diminishing returns when you have less vit, but at all vit levels it is superior to have a modded DPS neck than an item level 78 lockbox troller neck.

pot tic magnitude chance equivalent added to pot tic total equivalent equivalent vit added
162 1.5 0.06 14.58 176.58 208.29
161 1.5 0.06 14.49 175.49 207.00
160 1.5 0.06 14.4 174.40 205.71
159 1.5 0.06 14.31 173.31 204.43
158 1.5 0.06 14.22 172.22 203.14
157 1.5 0.06 14.13 171.13 201.86
156 1.5 0.06 14.04 170.04 200.57
155 1.5 0.06 13.95 168.95 199.29
154 1.5 0.06 13.86 167.86 198.00
153 1.5 0.06 13.77 166.77 196.71
152 1.5 0.06 13.68 165.68 195.43
151 1.5 0.06 13.59 164.59 194.14
150 1.5 0.06 13.5 163.50 192.86
149 1.5 0.06 13.41 162.41 191.57
148 1.5 0.06 13.32 161.32 190.29
147 1.5 0.06 13.23 160.23 189.00
146 1.5 0.06 13.14 159.14 187.71
145 1.5 0.06 13.05 158.05 186.43
144 1.5 0.06 12.96 156.96 185.14
143 1.5 0.06 12.87 155.87 183.86
142 1.5 0.06 12.78 154.78 182.57
141 1.5 0.06 12.69 153.69 181.29
140 1.5 0.06 12.6 152.60 180.00

edit: sorry that chart looks terrible

Can you dropbox the file or something? Brain isn't working at the moment.

Tell you what, I'll take a screenshot next time I run on my troll and turn a boss into a ghost, then feel free to tell me that it's my imagination.

I'll sum it up as simple as I can, just consider what they always say... "Everything is working as intended".

-Edit

Said something that wasn't necessary.

We know that Orbital Strike does that. Regardless of who cast Orbital Strike, the target will have it's control resistance reduced for anyone attacking it. What needs to be tested is if the weakening field mod effects NPCs or just players.

Have you ever turned a boss into a ghost without someone else having used an Orbital Strike? There's so many strikes being thrown around these days I can't say that I've seen it happen, which is why it needs to be tested.

I was able to do it to Jor El in FOS2, and I was able to do it to Brainiac in Prime and FOS2, mind you both times on Brainiac, they were so brief it wasn't really worth mentioning, but it was just crazy to see.

I'd be lying if I said it was 100% without any Orbital Strike (especially on Prime), however, I am willing to say that I'm fairly positive that it was done on Jor El without the use of Orbital Strikes.

I made a google doc and corrected for the fact that getting up to 9% is not unreasonable.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ahyz27uDR8W6dEM0V3VLTlBwWlAxaVRBQkRXcnFFdGc&usp=sharing

You get better optimization though by casting after the 20 second mark instead of letting the PoT fall off them immediately recasting. You don't have to really count to 20 (unless) you are hardlight. Mental and Gadgets both have Granduer and Distract (which have 20 second cool downs) that they can clip their PoT moves with so that they can know when to recast PoT to get the double tick everytime.

great job on the guide, I tend to point a lot of noob trollers towards this as a troller 1.0 if you will

Heh, I got into a rather heated discussion on the old forums about this. I value Grandeur/Distract far too much for their shields to ever recommend this to anyone.

The more you PoT, the less you have to count the ticks.

Out of interest, what white mods are people going for? I'm starting to test them out now.

I understand. I personally don't use Granduer outside of PVP so when I realized that I could use it to clip the PoT with so I don't actually have to pay attention to the ticks I saw it as an addition since normally I wouldn't even have it in my loadout anyway but to each its own. For those who use Granduer or distract on a regular basis in their loadout I could understand how it would interfere with their normal castings.

Useing Granduer/Distract in this way is an okay way to train (at a Target dummy) your PoT casting until you learn the timing. But I don't agree with using in a raid becasue of the inefficent power useage and lose of being able to use the move to pick up downed people without useing a consumable shield.

I've been useing:
Replenishing Adapter Level 4 - [Chance every 60s] 226 - 286 Power to Self; power restore w/weapon attack
Core Strength Level 4 - 10 Dmg in Troll/Dmg Role; no penalty in Tank/Healer Role
Reserve Tank Level 4 - Increase Max Power by 845
Inertial Inversion (Super Speed) Level 3 - Recover 6% of total power/3s after Inertial Flywheel(every 15s)

When I troll (under normal circumstances) the last thing im doing is actually counting the ticks. I normally just go through my rotation and cast my PoT move before the bolt goes down or immediately after. I'm concentrating on the battle and the bolt the whole time. i don't watch blue bars nor do I even notice when the blue numbers are on the screen. I also never found a reasonable need for granduer in terms of a shield or drop aggro in PVE. I have a healer to keep me from dying and I use a bow to stay ranged. if a person dies and they need to be picked up I would rather cast phantom flames or mass terror to stun the mob around them and pick them up or just let them die and keep going without the person.

So basically the purpose of the cooldown would be the only real advantage to having granduer in my loadout not the shield or the aggro drop.

BTW I only ever have that move in my loadout when I know that getting that double tick constantly is going to be what the group needs to accomplish whatever goal we have set otherwise i'd just have a move that actually does some kind of damage or gives power in my loadout.

Yeah just my opinions and thoughts, everyone has them and a right to ther own.

I think the rotation is most important. My biggest concern would be the power spent using the move as a timer every time just to get a double tick. Thats why I don't do it that way especially in an alert where you wouldn't have 2 Controllers, but if it helps another controller do their job thats fine

Tesseract keep up the good work, very good guide will help alot of people with those small but important things for controlling that are never mentioned within the game

This is one of the better Controller guides I've read since the forum merge - big thumbs up.

I'm not usually the Controller responsible for PoT, and am probably a little too relaxed about it when I am - usually waiting for the bolt to drop before I use claws (HL controller) or possibly using claws a little too often.

Does anybody have any hints for getting the timing right, or at least approximately right? Having a rotation would probably help, but using HL combos could be problomatic.

I've found counting ticks to be the best way to get a feel for it. Once you start to get a feel for it you have to start trusting your instincts. At worst I'm only ever one tick off where I thought I was. If I recast too early, I just wait a tick and recast again. If I recast too late, no big deal, still get the zero tick.

About white mods - has anyone looked into the differences between the various movement ones? From what I can recall from the test server the flight one seemed the least useful.

good guide. more people need to know how to use controllers. all the other roles are are pretty much self explanatory. whereas the power over time aspect of controllers is not visible in its name when thats the primary job of them.

the thing i want to know most about controllers is at what point does vitalizations effectiveness become replaced by power critical chance. i know vitalization follows a logarithmic function pattern.

I stand corrected. I've ran multiple raids since those posts, and without an orbital strike, I have not been able to do a successful "ghost". Granted, the mod could possibly still benefit, but it was not the only thing doing all of the work as I previously thought. With that being said, I apologize.