Revamp Controller Role (Strip Power Out)

No trolls need to control the NPC's.

We have a job, it's like we get diminished from lack of skilled trolls or because of the lack of respect for the role because everyone is coming from some other title using other roles to define the role.

Any unskilled player can easily lead to a wipe, which is why unskilled players generally are not found near elite content and they struggle hard in normal content as well.

It applies universally, it's just nobody would say "trolls down, it's a wipe" because the only thing that most people think about is the power we give and not that loose add that popped up and about to attack the healer that we stunned, other than the tank, who probably have had bad runs with trolls who were either new, nervous, or simply just doing what everyone else does when they first start out.

I get where tanks had a problem with trolls stunning adds loosely and all over the place with the hard stuns.

Believe me... I get it.

But, tanks get upset when every other role tries to do the tank job, we trolls should do the same.

CC is our job.

By now everyone should know what the tank job is and tanks could never hold as long as a controller, there would be no threat if they did.

A skilled group would only cycle stuns that way, it's the path of least resistance.

Sorry, I know this is a reply on a very old comment...but isn't a healer just a battery for health? The whole battery argument doesn't quite make sense to me at all. The thing is, before (at least to me, though I am an inexperienced player, so I might very well be mistaken) controllers seemed to be the most complex role...because they had the same general importance as a healer in primarily maintaining a bar for the player (power vs health), except controllers also had the whole debuff and crowd control thing. This meant that, even though power maintenance was important just like health maintenance, there were a range of other things to consider sacrificing power supplication for. And thus, the role felt complex. Sure, one could choose to be a battery, and basically every troll needed to be one to some level (just like a healer has always been), but one could also help out in controlling and debuffing as well and I used to find myself thinking and experimenting with how much I could help out with each of these more secondary roles, even while still keeping up with my primary role.

Again, I'm not a super experienced player. I used to play a lot 6ish years ago and only recently returned, but it seems to me that the complexity of the controlling role has taken a step back to become even more linear than how I used to consider the other power-specific roles. At least with healing, you might often be challenged with figuring out the best way to keep up with the health of several different people. Keeping up with that demand in itself is a challenge, even if the strategy for doing so might be relatively straightforward (Or I might just know nothing about the healer role). Tanks have always been somewhat interesting in that they also keep people alive, but by drawing attention, and there can be a lot of challenge in figuring out how to maintain the attention of enough of the surrounding enemies or bosses to keep teammates (especially loose cannons) from being squashed. In this way, tanks are a big asset to the healer and to damage dealers alike.

But now, in my limited experience with the changes to the role thus far, it feels like the challenge is gone from the role. The reason the role feels so much less rewarding to people is that its been diminished to a lot of very simple things that can be done which might boost the team and provide a benefit, but don't seem to offer the actual challenge of figuring out how to best support the team. The team can support itself in most cases, so the energy provided no longer is necessary. Buffs are helpful, but straightforward. it's worse than being a battery. At least it used to be a battery that had to figure out how to spread itself and its function for the good of the team. Now it just applies and reapplies buffs and debuffs like a...machine? Almost like an artificial equipment or something. How does that feel better to anyone?

Some people have mentioned in this thread that increasing the crowd control aspect for controllers might improve the role, and I think I agree, if only because it might reobtain that "challenge" aspect of thinking of the best way to control crowds and keep group from being overwhelmed. However, I believe that we would also need the other change that I've been seeing in this thread: changing the dynamics of some missions to make controllers more necessary. Right now, Tanks fill a role that a good group DOES need (someone who can take large amounts of damage to give healers more time and opportunity to save them. In true challenging content, without a tank, I'd expect it would just be impossible for the healer to save some, because they'd just die too fast). Healers obviously fill an important role for the group. While Damage isn't as vital a role (which is fair, since all powers have access to it, so its also the least rare or special), it, as someone else mentioned, allows the fight to be finished much faster, thus greatly reducing the length of time with which the healers and tanks must keep everyone alive. Controllers currently have the role of...boosting the other roles. It helps other roles do their jobs better. Even disregarding the limited challenge in the role, its whole purpose is premised as an accessory (again, before, it was just a vital because of the power production), and so even while the role is useful, it simply cannot hold the same importance as the other ones as it currently is. It needs *something* to make it more than just a boost to everything else (because, to me, this is the real essence to being, essentially, a battery). If this can't be fixed by reinstating the level of importance of its power maintenance, the next best thing I can think of is making overwhelming onslaughts or battle ambushes more of a thing (Such to the point of crowd control being even more important and incredibly more challenging for just a tank on its own).

Forgive me if I'm just totally off on a number of these things. I'm not even close to an expert on the game and I realize my experiences are very limited. After reading through a few threads and also taking into consideration my own thoughts, this is what came to my mind.