Help for Controllers Looking for Advice on The Role

As everyone that has been playing for a while knows, the number of great controllers in the game is pretty small. One of my friends reminded me the other day that we are a dying bread. Although most people think the controller role is merely a PoT, Recharge and Debuff job it is a lot more complicated when you get into the advanced aspects of it and you have a lot more responsibility than the other roles. Even experienced MMO players may not full understand it until someone helps them out. A lot of second rate trolls think that it is a simple PoT, Recharge and Debuff job. To become a great Troll it is much more than that.

Taking this into consideration I would like to use my experience to offer help/tips/advice/input on anything and everything there is to do with controlling. No, I am not saying that I am the absolute best controller in the game but I do know the role inside and out and I have been developing my play style for the past year and a half. I am a 98 CR, 130 SP, 1868 Vit, 1154 Dom troll that can and has solo trolled almost everything in the game including the last boss fight in Nexus when our second troll got KO'ed within a minute of starting the fight.

Not every troll is the exact same but I would like to help anyone that needs it. To get started, here are a few tips that my trolling style is based on:

1. Always make sure that the group has PoT. Although the troll with the highest Vit should always be in charge of throwing it, that little lightning bolt needs to always be up during a fight so don't be afraid to toss it out whenever the main troll hasn't yet because he is unable to (because he is stunned, downed or picking someone up etc.)

2. In raids: Hit recharge whenever you can (but keep enough power to throw a PoT or Debuff if necessary). Juggling power between trolls keeps the group's power as full as possible.
In alerts: Hit recharge as often as you can to keep the healer's power bar as full as possible. If you have a surplus of power feel free to hit it to give the DPS and Tank(if you have one) as much power as you can.

3. Weapon combos, soders and supply drops are the best way to build power if you're ever running low.

4. In your loadout, you always want to have a PoT, a Recharge, a Group shield and Speed power dump (or Speed Drain/Word of power if you are gadgets) as a supercharge and a personal shield and 2 debuffs or 3 debuffs. Unfortunately there isn't much room to personalize your loadout in this set up.

5. Trolls are the most capable members of the group to pick people up and should always try to be first to do so when a player is KO'ed. Use a shield and you will usually have no problem picking anyone up, even under the boss' nose (depending on your Dom). Situationally dependent it is usually your responsibility to do so in order to keep your group from wiping.

6. You should usually be using ranged weapon attacks (preferably with a ranged weapon) to build up your power in between casts.

7. When putting in skill points I go for the Vit and Dom in the first tier, then Vit in the second tier and then Cunning in the first tier. After that pick whatever you think it best.

8. Using a ranged weapon attack keeps you out of the way of immediate danger and give you a great view of the whole fight. Take this opportunity to lead your team and make shoutouts on anything that they need to be aware of but might not be able to see.

9. Use your Speed dump super to give your team full power bars whenever they inevitably start to get really low. If your super is also a group shield you can also time it to fill power bars and protect your team from a boss' super at the same time.

10. The Superspeed movement mode is not a must but I recommend it. The added speed allows you to get to downed team mates faster than others and the double jump is a great way to cross the room in half a second.

11. If you can, have a FoS or summer time trinket as well as a CC trinket. These will allow you to boost your stats regularly and put out more power. If you cannot have both I would recommend using the FoS/summer time trinket while making your way through mobs and your CC trinket when in boss fights.

12. Dependent on your utility belt (if you can have 2 trinkets or more) always have a Supply Drop. The reason was stated earlier.

13. In raids, try coordinate who throws out power when to make the most of the trinket boost.

14. For mods, I use Vit in my yellow sockets, vit & dom in my blue sockets and vit and prec in my red sockets.

As you can see my controlling style is a lot more than just Pot, Recharge and Debuff. I don't think the troll gear for the iconic battlesuits would usually have the word "command" in its names if you weren't meant to lead the group.
If you think I have missed anything feel free to let me know and if you have any questions feel free to ask.

To add to this SS is good because it allows for use of the inertial flywheel hone turf mod. With it if you use inertial flywheel you'll regen 6% of your power bar over 6seconds and it's usable every six seconds.

This is a good form of additional personal regen that helps us have power to do our job properly.

That is a great point. I would like to add that with tactical mods I obviously use mostly everything to do with power. This includes power an extra power chance in my weapon, a power pool addition in my chest and power regen for everything else other than my back that heals when I pop my shield.

Tips, rather than a guide. Interesting.

Fit recharge in with your combos rather than just spamming it. It's okay to starve the dps a little so you can stop comboing and really spam the recharge for the healers when they need it. Most DPS will adjust to the flow of power they receive. It may help to avoid flak from the DPS's if you work out the PoT privately with the other troll, so they don't hear a number like 1868 vit and just go nuts. When they ask, you just say which troll has PoT.

Ignore other trolls that say "your vit is too low, don't debuff, just spam recharge" It's what they were told, and it's bad advice. If I remember correctly, a defense debuff reduces the enemies defense by 7% ... considering there are eight people doing damage, including at least two heavy-hitters, a debuff is more valuable in damage, than the one extra power dump that could've been given to the DPS's. The stronger the DPSs are, the more true it becomes, not the other way around.

I don't care what your playstyle is, or how low your vit, don't take PoT off your loadout. If you accidentally hit it, communicate with the other troll so they know to override you at the next tick. There are so many times that a group is close to being done, but the PoT troll goes down, and it becomes a wipe because the other troll couldn't PoT. Even a low PoT could've carried the group through to the finish line.

Make a habit of getting ready to reestablish PoT off cycle when someone goes down. They don't have PoT anymore when they get up. Chances are they took a soder when they got up, and can wait until the next tick.

Make a habit of throwing PoT to let people's bars fill during cutscenes (they fixed it so it works now), and while everyone's taking a breather or checking the loot.

Don't give CC immunity to the enemies that are within pull of the tank, or disperse a tanks carefully gathered group.

I could go on and on....

Good additions and clarifications. Those things become second nature after a while but do need to be said for new trolls. I had a feeling I was missing some things.

All the above is great advice and information.

My main is a Sorcery Healer, but lately I've almost exclusively been playing my alt which is a Mental Controller.

It's just so much fun!

To be honest I don't have anything to add as you guys covered just about everything that is paramount to being effective at the role.

I just wanted to say thanks for sharing, and I hope this helps some of those who are struggling to figure out what to do as a Controller.

*Looks at post like lists*
"Sgt. Forge approves this thread!"

All good tips, just curious if your looking to keep your dominance that high solely for shields. With the changes made to dominance theirs not much point to it being higher for anything than that reason. I've been interested in testing whether it made much difference for me or not, I usually just watch my positioning and only need my shield to pick people up.

It may be helpful for the new guys to know that when their hit counter changes color they hit the next level of power regen. If they get their counter to blue then recharge/defib.

All in all a good post hopefully the controller who need to see this will. They likely won't though. lol...

.Couple things.skillpoints should be placed in vit then cunning then dom last.the critical chance is way more benefical for any role.as a troller ull have more then enough dom from ur gear to start with.super speed is best fit,as someone stated for flywheel mod restores power.

Good overall tips..couple of points I thought of when reading

#4 Nothing about debuffs in loadout.
#5 I agree on picking up people, however using something like PDF 4 / 5 makes this and survivability much easier. Always carry them in your belt.

#6 This is spot on except for HL. We are better served with brawling for better regen using constructs. Just a suggestion though to add maybe a link to something like Battery's guide.

#13 coordination is a great point, do you coordinate who throws Dmg & Def. Debuffs as well?

My Dom is pretty much as low as it goes. I only have Dom spec'ed for my first tier of skill points and I only have one Vit/Dom EXP in currently (my friend gave me a Vit/Health and I didn't want to be a jerk and say no). My current Dom is mainly from my gear but it is important to have it fairly high for your shields since it's a direct factor to how much DMG it can absorb and the lvl of NPCs you can CC. I hope that answers your question.

That comes down to personal play style. I know a lot of arguments can be made both ways. Say if you know you'll likely be the second troll, you know you'll need more CC. Personally, I have enough pts to spec both Dom and Cunning in the Tier 1 innates. I would recommend trolls with lower SP to play around with the 2 and see what they prefer more.

I don't bother using any skill points for dominance because my armor gives me around 1000, am I missing out on control effects or something by not doing this?

Good points. Like I said, I know I missed some stuff.

4. There are 3 types of debuffs you can put on enemies. Armor, DMG and healing. The armor debuff is the most important and should always be on. I usually run the Armor and DMG debuffs with a shield and swap my DMG for healing if the Boss will get heals. As stated previously, you could run all 3 debuffs but personally I prefer having a shield.

5. Usually your shield will be enough to deflect any attack while picking people up and for general survivability. That being said, you do want to always have PDFs on your belt. Personally I never end up using them because my shield is always good enough.

6. Also a good point. I have never been HL but I know this is true. It was an oversight on my part. If you want to link it that would be cool.

13. You do want to coordinate the debuffs as well. Most trolls just run with Armor and DMG debuffs so if I know the Boss will heal itself, I will talk to the other troll about it and make sure one of us has the healing debuff on.

Yes you are missing out on control effects. Your dominance correlates to the amount of DMG an enemy can take before it escapes the control effect depending as well on the difference between your Dom and the Dom of the enemy. I would suggest at least putting SP in all your first tier Doms but you don't have to worry persay about the second tier of Doms.

Nope. The dom effects dmg was changed a few updates ago. The in game description was never updated to reflect this but it is true. Dom effects if you can CC a mob by judging if its will power is higher then your dom, and it effects the strength of shields/personal heal SC.

That's it.

Thanks for the info Darth. When I first switched to HL from nature I asked a troll in my old league about dominance and he told me all the dominance you need is the minimum amount listed in raids for control effects to work so that's how I've been using my skill points but if giving up some health points for dominance will make me more efficient at my job that's definitely worth it.

It's good for your shields, but like Derp said above minimum it does nothing for CC

Hear thee oh Controllers and heed my words!
Thy soul and spirit are to give power and power again most noble to Thyself and thy allys.
Lo! The blue bar is thy plight, the blue bar is thy goal!
Nay let this blue diminish from thy sight nor allow a noob to stray thee from thy path!
Watch the fellowship of the blue bar! Yea give power to their great works!

Thou are not to pursue the path of a Tank! NAY, thy skin is too squishy and thy armor light.
Stay hence forth from the center of battles most epic, Yea support the might of the fellowship from afar!
Thy courage is great and thy buff is renown, but do not Tank!
If thou pursue this unrighteous path, thy doom is assured and thou too, shalt be labeled the noob!

Prepare thy patience and gird thy loins, tighten thy belt and have strength!
For behold I see that one, that point, that sponge!
This one shall test the bounds of your P O T and Defib!
Use your Powerful Words sparingly and nay spam this great skill on this sponge!
For the end boss shall task the fellowship greatly and their power shall wain.
So do not cast your power before this one, their path is folly!

It is you! Yea YOU who shall be the power to bring victory to the quest!
It is you! Yea YOU who shall allow the blue to prevail!
Fight on thou most valiant of Controllers. Fight on!

Well it's nice to know that they're still making Dom more and more useless -.- but in the end I'd still rather have a shield that can absorb a bit more DMG than not. 15 SP is worth what they give you in the first tier of innate Dom.

That's not really what I meant. I'm aware that you have purposely focused on dominance with your skill points(among other controller attributes). I was referring to the shield and if you notice that much of a difference with your current setup (1150ish dom) or someone T4 gear maybe(950ish) made much of a difference in said shield. How much mitigation(I don't need numbers just curious if its really that noticeable or not).

Right now I'm almost all T5 and have 110 skill Points but don't spec into dom at all. I dual spec so I have my crit chance/mag and might/precision(1st tier). Along with my vit/cunning innates. I've been playing like this for a long time and was thinking of trying something different. I'm gadgets so I don't have a group shield and am on the fence whether I want to invest the points into that style of play.

As for CCing dom does have an effect on that but with the minimum level dom required we can CC anything in that raid. I've never ran into that as a problem.

Anyways thanks for replying, sorry for the long post its late.