Controller Role Truth(To The Devs): I'm Not Sure Why This Is So Hard To Understand....

I mean but as the tiers go higher are you really controlling or are you being a battery and mainly just giving power. The original description was controlling enemies first and giving power second. Seems like that has switched in the past couple of months and now its gotten so bad that you might as well rename the role battery pack because that is what it is.

Out of curiosity: when did it change on your opinion?

Yes, you're the one who's trying to force your preferences onto others. You're asking SOE to force a certain kind of setup for raids, that's forcing. Other players wanting/asking you to play in a certain way is not forcing. You're free to create your own groups and find like-minded people. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that, the game doesn't prevent you from starting a raid with 2-2-2-2/whatever setup. Not have I once told you how or how not to play. The whole time I've been saying you should find like-minded people and play with them. That way you get to do whatever you want, and you don't need to cry on forums how the role is "broken".

Please do explain why they shouldn't want power? If they can convert power into damage, that'll help the group. The amount of trolls vs. damage dealers is debatable, but generally speaking you get the best result with two trolls and four damage dealers. How are damage dealers crying for more power any different from trolls screaming at people who use power? I don't see any difference. Also, here's a little tip: don't play with them. Makes your life a lot easier when you just ignore them. Also, considering you keep saying it's "CONTROLLER", I'd say renaming it would do a lot. The name clearly bothers you, so changing it would fix that problem.

Remove the role just because you don't like the way people play it now? What a wonderful idea! You convinced me! Let's remove the whole troll role! Because who the hell knows why! The thing is, the role is not broken and there's no need to change it in any major way. You can still play it in anyway you want, you just might not get in every group if you don't play it as it's needed, but once again: FIND LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE AND PLAY WITH THEM, JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

True, healers are just bandages, damage dealers are just mindless nukes and tank is just the idiot who runs around taking the hits. It's so sad how terrible all these roles are, there's absolutely nothing more to them. Why does anyone even play this game? Oh wait, there's a lot more to every single role, even trolling.

I shall repeat the thing I've said multiple times in this game: find like-minded people and play with them, do not try to force everyone to play the way you want. If you want to pretend to be a SUPERDUPERMEGAHYPERHERO#1 you can! Just don't try to force me to do that. And just to be extra clear: currently you can play anyway you want, you just need people who want to play with you.

It's impossible to make classes equally fun or needed. There's no way to make everything in a way that it will be fun in everyone's opinion, although like I said earlier, currently you can play in anyway you want. Balancing the need for roles in instances is also impossible, unless you really FORCE it on everyone, which would kind of ruin this game. And once again: find like-minded people and play the way you want. You can create groups. You can decided how many of each role you get.

Your second paragraph is just amazing. I recommend you read it again. Remove roles because they aren't equally represented or whatever in your opinion? What a wonderful idea! News flash: trolls and tanks are still needed. Also, there's generally only one healer in raid, oh the poor healers, and as an example nature does pretty much all the healing with only two powers. It doesn't make the power any worse than the others, but by using your logic, the whole role and power set should be removed.

Tanks are needed for the end tier raids. You can also replace healer with a tank in alerts/ops. Also, troll supremacy? You do realize trolls are used and needed in every single tier? How much more do you want? You want everything to revolve around you? That's cute! Technically damage is the only thing you need to complete everything, but you shouldn't mix that with the damage role itself. You could replace damage dealers in most instances with support roles, but why would you do that? Damage dealers have a purpose, just like all the other roles.

Everyone gets grind to meat in the end tier raids if there's no tank, and that's more than enough. With bad gear the same thing happens in alerts.

The thing about the damage dealer spam fest is that every single power set can do it, and there's multiple ways to do it. It's the most versatile role. That should explain the high need for them. Just to point it out again: EVERY SINGLE POWER TYPE CAN DO DAMAGE ROLE. That should explain the excess amount of damage dealers and so on.

CMON EVERYONE KEEP THIS THREAD AT TOP TILL THE DEVS LISTEN OR CLOSE IT :3 I WONT LET THIS ONE DISAPPEAR : VIVA LA REVOLUTION DE TROLLERS!

The devs dont know what to do with controller role in pve or pvp

Your post was far too long to be reposted. While I disagree with you that trolling is best done by blue bar healing and feel that the role is fine now(that the issue's most post about are community and gear level related more so than mechanics or content type). I do agree that players need to find like minded people they enjoy playing with. I pay for my sub just like anyone else and I'll play however I want. So long as I'm able to perform my role's functions I can do whatever I feel like(without being scalded by another player). For the record controller role is to disable enemies and regenerate teammates power pools. Weak players who don't know how to use their toon to its full potential play the "Battery" style only. Controllers CC is done passively through all offensive attacks. If the players are working together CC gets in noone's way and helps everyone in the instance.







I also don't agree that 4 DPS is the most efficient way to play. I do think it is the fastest if everyone is already mostly geared or overgeared but with the way instant power heal mechanics work conventional set ups work better(1-2-2-3 or 2-2-2-2) but if the end goal is speed then it would be 1-1-6 or 1-1-1-5. I agree with your general point of players needing to find others they enjoy to play with. But completely disagree on your viewpoint of what a controllers duties are. If you want some tips you should check out Darth's guide for controllers needing help to learn the role.

all im saying is trolling isnt hard as u are making it out to bee

That's not what you said. You implied I was bad at it. Which is not true.

I'm just going to reply directly to number 3. Health cans should give power back equally as it does health.

I never said you shouldn't. All you say is right, and I welcome any player who plays like that and makes my run go faster.
I would say CC and debuffs are most viable now when properly geared. With the insane stats on T5 gear and now Vestments/Scion/Disciple that value goes down from decent to almost zero.
Doing Kahndaq in T1 gear? Stuns may give you time to protect the rocks from the waterkeepers. Nexus in T4 gear? Def debuff might save you from an Enrage. In IL90 gear (which seems to be considered T5 gear now considering the cr100 req for T6)? You won't even notice it. You might shave off 1 second off a 14 second boss fight. Adds get burned down so quick, you won't even see their stun animation.
From a 15-20 minute T5 raid, how much time will you save by debuffing?

I am still hoping that we will get content where a team-based controlling approach will work better than the damage-focused burn playstyle we have now. For now, and that holds true when including the new T6 content, Assault&Battery is the only place where burn is not superior to controlling (in my opinion).

Well all I can say is this. I started out as a gadget controller, and I prefer control role over dps. Yea so you might be seen as a battery. Well, Funky just sees it as this; you heal your own power just say funk it because you need that poT too

As long as changes dont make trolling so easy that you start seeing groups shout for solo trolling then im all for them. Thwn again i do league runs so screw everyone else...right?...no wait...uh fudge it all.

Yes, when groups get over geared there's less for support roles to do. That isn't just restricted to Controllers though. It applies to Tanks and Healers as well. All support roles make less of a difference when everyone is over geared. Therefore there is no point talking about the mechanics of the Controller role in these conditions. Any input about the role itself or any other support role should be reserved to when groups aren't over geared for it. In other words it should be done in a general application sense.

Here's the thing, when a Controller is as geared as the rest of the group, they can be more liberal with when they use CCs and debuffs. They have so much power and generate so much power that they can throw them more often than they should be. Of course its harder to keep a group powered when you're less geared than them but when a Controller is equally geared, keeping power flowing is easy.

The Controller role is all about adaption; knowing what to do in specific situations. It is never constant or static in any way. People need to stop over simplifying the role into an "is it more important to CC and debuff or give power" debate. Giving power should always be a constant but doing other things like CCs, debuffs and even damage can and should be done at the appropriate times.

Its pretty much impossible for the support roles to not have less to do when groups are over geared. That's just the nature of the game.

ok, i agree with a lot of the things people are posting about in this thread, but face it. that not gonna happen. I like the idea of having the power cost of a troll reduced to give more power, but wat really needs to happen is have a tactical mod b equiped to instead of give health when a shield is used, to give power regen for idk how many seconds. and then bring down the supercharge cost of group shielding to 25% instead of 50%. im a 103 HL troll and the only time i have time really to do otherthings besides be a battery is when i pop this super charge, it gives everyone including urslef a huge boost of power and makes everyone happy, but it just takes to dang long to get.
Im gonna have to say reduce the supercharge cost to 25% add another tactical mod that allows for power regen when a shield is activated(plus make personal shields last longer), and reduce the cost power it takes to troll. all this will make a huge diffrence believe it or not.

The original purpose may have been that, but there's no need for that anymore. In alerts mobs die instantly and in raids there's tank doing the controlling. If you only look at the troll role alone and ignore everything else, I agree, "blue bar healers" aren't using their role to its full potential, but then there's also the group. Are your CC attempts really useful for the group when the mobs die instantly? Or when the tank is doing the CC?

I don't think I've ever said 4-2-1-1 setup was the most efficient way to play, but I've said multiple times that you'll get the most damage output with that setup. Generally speaking, it's the most optimal setup for raids. What is the most efficient setup? That depends on the group. As an example everyone's favourite 2-2-2-2 setup is most certainly not the most efficient setup for a group with decent players. There's absolutely no need for two tanks or healers.

It's not about knowing how to use the role to its full potential, it's about being useful for the group. You can call people weak for working for the group, but sooner or later you'll see the big picture. I recommend you try playing all roles, it gives you a nice new perspective into the whole group dynamic thing.

Once again just to be safe: I'm still all in for properly used CC, but that's rarely needed.

And what's wrong with Controllers and Tanks working together to CC NPCs? As long as a Controller isn't neglecting his power duties, all he is doing is making the Tank's and Healer's jobs easier and make the require less power to the DPS can have it. When NPCs are CC'ed they're CC'ed whether the Tank or Controllers do it.

Btw, when a Controller uses the role to its full potential they are working for the group and being useful for it whether the ignorant people that don't understand the role realize it or not. The only problem is that it takes a lot of skill to be good enough at the role in order to truly use it to its full potential (more skill than most people seem to have). Runs with Controllers that have enough skill to use the role to its full potential are smoother and faster than runs with pure batteries.

I'm all up for that, and even do that, but it's rarely needed and it can easily prevent tank from doing his/her job. The role works as it is right now.

The meaning of "potential" really depends on the situation, or how much do your CC powers do against bosses? The max potential a troll can reach in that situation is all "blue bar healing" related with some debuffs. At the point when the mobs are dying instantly, there's no need for CC powers either, so once again we're back to "blue bar healing".

The more you talk about trolling requiring a lot of skill, the more I'm convinced you've never tried any other roles.

You keep saying "rarely needed" - CC is part of my loadout that does PI damage even if the situation does not require directly CC'ing to pass a section it's still viable in every situation during an instance.

If CC are preventing the tank from doing his job than the Controller is doing it wrong.

Here are the jobs I do while controlling:
-Keep power flowing
-Do damage (more than any other support role)
-Debuff
-CC
-Mitigate Damage
-Protect the group
-Be the first to pick up every downed team mate
-Make shoutouts because I have the best view of the fight

This is what I would qualify as the role's full potential. If the NPCs that get summoned die instantly than the only job that leaves is CCing. I still throw a CC at them when I have more than enough power to do so while keeping power flowing

The reason why I talk about Controlling requiring a lot of skill is because of the countless threads of Controllers that have enough problems keeping groups powered, let alone using the role to its full potential. The fact is that none of the other roles are as equipped naturally to do as many jobs as the Controller. No, I have not been a Tank or a Healer but you barely ever see threads about Healers or Tanks that are having trouble doing their jobs. On the other hand you get multiple threads from Controllers weekly. Would I say its hard for me to take advantage of the role's full potential as a Controller? No. But it is clearly too difficult for a lot of people which is why I made that statement. The Controller role is the most versatile and complex role in the game, plain and simple.

know how u can tell its broken? every LFG is lookin for trolls..cuz noone wants to play it. I have a few trollers...& really have to be in the mood to be pushing one button all night...

It's not a broken role its a hard role... you can't be lazy. You slack off the group fails. No power / no heals / no aggro then a fail.