My idea re the new power back mechanic

I have played a ton of MMOs over the years. Many of the older ones had a similar mechanic for power over time like DCUO does. Many more modern MMOs have moved away from this mechanic for many of the reasons that people have stated about Controllers is threads (e.g., throwing a POT power and spamming recharge is hardly an engaging and exciting mechanic). With #allstatsmatter, the devs have stated that they intend to make changes to the power back mechanic (especially in light of the removal of Advanced Mechanics which all had a power back mechanic baked into them). Below are some ideas that I think help resolve the lack of engagement the controller role currently has, the power back mechanic and the improvements to the supercharges that the devs are working on.

1. Remove power management from the Controller role and change the controller to an enemy debuffer, enemy CCer and party buffer. If each power and role are given their own power back mechanics, you free up the controller to do more things (and more interesting things). Controllers already debuff, and somewhat CC (though this could be greatly improved). I suggest removing all other team member buffs (besides shields) from all other roles and give various team buffs to the controller to use and chose from. For example, get rid of all of the various Prec or Might buffs from other powersets and only give them to controllers. This also frees up powerbar space on other powersets and roles (e.g., celestial dps could free up to 3 power bar spaces to use for other things) which creates more game play diversity.

2. Add an stronger innate power regen to all powersets and roles that is completely independent of whether you use a weapon or not. Even if you do nothing, you should regenerate power at a decent rate.

3. Add a stronger, long-lasting, power regen to all supercharges which would further increase their usefulness

4. Add a power regen to attacking enemies under the effect of each role's PI. For example, the more things that are on fire and burning shoould increase the power regen to a fire user etc.

5. Consider having all consumables add a power regen which would actually make using them more worthwhile. for example, if you use Karmic Hex, it adds a buff to your current power regen.

Not all of these are necessary but rather serve as ideas or starting points to change the nature of how power regen works while also enhancing other aspects of the game.

What are your ideas?

Considering controllers are suppose to be C&C it kills me to see them used as a battery and only source of power.

They haven't really been pure batteries for awhile... though folks needlessly pretend they are.

One thing that the AM introduced was allowing controllers to have more "power reserves" in order to actually crowd control... although based off of some of the mechanic's in this game even when this was introduced it still doesn't quite work due to the way enemies react in this game.

If you completely remove the power aspect of controllers such as insta power and PoT. Then people will never run with a controller unless new content calls for one. Currently no boss necessarily requires a debuff other than the enemies in OLYE and GOME.
The moment you remove the power aspect from controllers is the moment the role becomes irrelevant.

As far as #1 goes. It would take too much work to strip all buff abilites from current powers. This goes the same for CC abilities.

As far as #2 goes I think it would work as long as you are in combat there will be a natural power regen while in combat, outside of power regen via weapons.

#3 wouldnt work due to that limiting all players to use supercharges.
#4 wouldnt work due to it would limit loadouts due to you having to use cerain abilites to initiate and maintain PI
#5 wouldnt work due to it limiting you to using consumables other than your cola. Many people have all trinkets in their utility belts while others may use 1 or 2 consumbables.

Now weapons need to be viable, however there is also the necessity of being able to play from the tray like how live is now without power constraints and the utter dependance on a controller.

What I would do is while in dps stance restore 35% of power pool over 15s after using 2 or more powers in a 7 second interval. Restore 50% of maximum power pool over 15s while using 2 or more weapon combos in a 15s interval.

For all other roles. Restore 25% of power pool over 15s after using 2 or more powers in a 7 second interval. Restores 50% of maximum power pool over 15s while using 2 or more weapon combos in a 15s interval.
These percentages can be adjusted.

The problem with this idea is the power is not self sustaining as you can burn through your entire power bar in under 10s and unless the power back mechanics stack you will be left low on power and eventually to 0.

The main problem is how to keep controllers relevant without making them batteries, while at the same time making dps play available to play by the tray which AM allowed.

The answer to the dps is easy since the powerback for current AM is between 60-85%. So from a dps standpoint, while using 2 or more powers in succession restore power the AM power regen would apply. However to ensure trollers are not useless use the 60%. For a weapon standpoint simply increase weapon power regen substantially for all roles.

Now the only issue is the other roles and how they regenerate power which as we all know outside of nature did not have a power back. So either power cost is greatly reduced or power regen via power usage and/or weapons is greatly increased.

But obviously if the devs dont want the power regen like dps currently have with AM, then controllers might become a battery again

I am not worried about controllers being irrelevant if they remove power back. They are basically irrelevant now. You only need a single controller for a raid. You don't need them at all for any other content. So instead of trying to make them relevant for power back, make them relevant for other purposes like I outlined above. Many games have a role that is a party buffer/debuffer. Of course you have to make. The content relevant to these changes and quite honestly they should do that anyway.

controllers being a "power battery only" role is because most of the controllers don't know how to replenish power properly so its hard for them to do both at the same time. a good troll can keep the power up and still doing cc/debuffs, even back in the jump clip - phase dodge era. and if u really think about it doin debuff is just casting ur debuff power and clip with power dump rather than just cast ur power dump. its not like u need to do it every time.

i'm all in for debuffs to be relevant again. we actually have boss mechanics that "need" a debuff. like jesse in DC alert or dr light in PB have a buffed state that can be removed right away with a damage debuff. how about adding few boss mechanic in the future that can make debuff more important? like a boss charging a super attack and will 1 shot everyone unlees a troll debuff him in the next 5 seconds. or a boss that pop a shield and recieve only 1 damage unless a troll debuff him. or a boss with healing mechanic that no dps can keep up with the heal unless a troll debuff him. and since they plan for us to have ALL of our power ability at lvl 30, this wont be an issue coz trolls can just adjust their loadout before the boss fight as needed.

Every role does what it sounds like except for....

Tank. You dont tank, you survive.

That's the problem. They are not C&C, tanks are. Sorry, trolls frustrate me when tanking more than help. Good ones that know how to assist the tank. Bad ones just piss people off and get people killed.

The problem is people use powers that have CC effects and do not know how to effectively use them. As a tank, I like to keep the flow of the raid moving. Most runs areally like this now. When I see a HL or quantum troll I know they are going to slow us down by stopping the npc and freezing them.

I still wish we had a training for off roles either before they get off the brainiac ship or before you can starting running as your off role in groups. It would help so much.

so its players fault for throwing a pot on npc ? for not turning around and throwing that pot on no target?

cmon i am to lazy for that ****.

Hey now, I'm super lazy. Lol. Just don't target anything with throwing POT. I mean all HL trolls had to learn this back in the day as to not lunge and kill themselves.

Tank, does what it sounds like.

never had any trouble with HL's pot back when boxing and claw was the only pot. we can always clip it with recharge to keep us from lunging the boss to his face, which is something that most troll do anyway right? clip their pot with their power dump? the only time i drop my target to give pot is at the start of a boss fight to make sure i didnt hit the boss before the tank does, but other than that, seems too much of a hassle to do it every time.

that was no issue, not then and not today as u clip pot with recharge and i dont care if tanks like it or not the developers designed my pot as a root for npcs, i am going to use it exactly for that whenever a pot is needed.

When the am was introduced the need for two trolls was eliminated. But the game was designed to have two trolls and two healers from the start of the game. And the damage gap between dps and role was far less. Making it where groups wanted a vital damage troll and a cc or dom damage troll and yes it was a real thing. Both trolls had recharge and you never had power issues. Now recharge has been slowed or the cool down is longer more big heals have a little longer of a cool down so the development are telling us Wethersfield you like it or not run the 2s.
Healers used to be more capable of damage trolls used to be as well. And plenty of power and heals flowed back then. And now maybe the game will require players to actually learn how to use a power set once again

Umm, in a perfect group maybe. Back then we all had to go thru the nightmare of trolls measuring each other to see who's was bigger, pot that is. Lol. It was not as hunky dory as you say, in fact, that was the worst role to try and pug. Some people will not and do not believe off roles should do damage, so they just stay pure troll. There are those, like myself, that think every role should play hybrid. Just saying, not everyone was on the same page back then. Saying 2 trolls worked better was not always the case. Good trolls have been able to solo content since prime battle ground. AnB made trolls look ridiculous when they had to do something other than worry about POT. I believe that was also around the time the shield power super charges came out. Today's trolling is boring yes. But you can play hybrid and still solo troll just fine. Even if they make trolls hit harder. Unless we start depending heavily on trolls again, which was not a good thing either. At one time with the dps power spamming that was going on, 3 trolls were needed for some dps.

First off you have to do some kind of damage period. Second your job is a role comes first most seem to sacrifice role gear for dps not the way to do it. Modso and skill points after your roll and increased damage numbers will come. But again if someone takes the wrong gear and try to troll or tank or heal stats matters will take care of that. But as in saying a role out dosing a dps not going to happen ever unless the dps doesn't know what they are doing.

Remember back the pulse beam was the main off role choice. So yeah no damage.

Since no one really knows what will happen after the revamp. We can only get from little hints given by the devs. They had said the gap between dps and off roles with be closer like it used to be. If they do go this route, I think you will see plenty of hybrids beating dps. Just depends on how things work. All speculation.

I get what your saying. I do but I am hoping that the innate stats for each role can not be sacrificed to do damage or maybe just make gear setups complete roles but to many players think they can do Thierry role while in dps gear and to me that's not being a hybrid that's just foolish a hybrid should use special and mods not gear and you are right we keep just getting hints on what will happen

I had to finally get all tank gear for my atomic tank. The new stuff his hard, lol. It's not that bad though once your above CR. The wearing of dps gear is not a bad thing, but it should not hurt the group. That's why I got my tank pieces. People running OLYr & GOMr in less than 10min really makes me think the dps gear once high enough CR will be OK again. Just have to get more purple pieces.