We have seen a lot of changes over the last few months, and a lot of them have directly affected how trolls play the game. With the death of jump canceling, phase dodge and the addition of dovetails and weapon mastery we have seen a significant shift towards power efficiency. When I troll, I no longer feel like I am only a blue bar healer. I now have a lot more freedom to debuff more frequently, cc more strategically and even pay more attention to the damage I am contributing. Now while I have greatly enjoyed this new found freedom, I also feel that my role in a lot of power effecient groups has significantly less value. What I would really love to see is the controller role truly upgraded to a full utility class. A few ideas for abilities or changes that would really shift the role of controlling to a jack of all trades style. - Group Buffs: I know that all dps generally run with their own buffs, but I think that additional might/precision/crit buffs would be a great asset in any group. - Group Shields: again I know that healers have always been in charge of the group shields, but to me this really seems like a utility ability that a troll should have access to beyond just a brief supercharge. - Debuffs: I would really like to see an increase in the potency of our damage and defense debuffs. It would be nice to see the value of debuff play a bigger role than it already does. - Supercharges: while I think the group shielding supercharges are great, I would love to have access to a supercharge similar to steam powered batmans double damage debuff. - Unique buffs: I know some of this is kind of uncharted waters for this game, but it would be interesting to have buffs that increase the groups supercharge regen, or give us a couple additional seconds to revive fallen teammates. There are many possibilities for these kind of buffs. Bottom line is now that I'm not Only a blue bar healer, give me a more unique way to have a positive impact on my group.
re: Group Buffs While I do wonder why this wasn't a controller mechanic to begin with, this is a double-edged sword. Yes, it would give controllers extra value but it would also take a bit of your freedom away because it would take away yet another loadout spot. re: Group Shields I don't like that the mechanic belongs to healers. I would have liked it to belong to Tanks or Controllers, to be honest. re: The Controller role in general The controller role can definitely use some revamping. However, the playerbase simply wouldn't allowing for the role to flourish. As it is it seems that devs have to design content assuming that players are incompetent and don't communicate. Sadly, I can't say I blame them. Could you imagine if a boss had to be damage-debuffed in a timely manner so he doesn't one-shot the group? I simply can't imagine trusting PUG controllers with that kind of responsibility. Yes, you can run in leagues but then people would start crying about being forced into leagues. re: Unique buffs If something is unique one of two things will happen. It will either be so bad that nobody will use it or it will be good enough that players from another powerset will cry about not having a re-skinned version of it.
You just put 4 extra NECESSARY moves for the troll loadout, and if precision buff is buffed then that's a must also! We may actually need 2 trolls in a raid to get all these benefits.
Ha I guess it can seem that way in pug groups from time to time. But I generally run with people from my league or friends list, and they are all quite good at what they do
I was actually thinking about this last night when I was looking at the threads about the awesome mechanic with DoTs & how WM is OP. Which I guess it needs to be to some in order to allow Controllers to do other things. I think they should focus a on a few things now. One is definitely changing or increasing the function of our debuffs. Perhaps give NPCs higher defense along with the high health they're programming now so that the defense debuff is an actual bonus for reducing tiem spent on a NPC. Or put in some unique NPCs that will only take half damage unless the debuff is applied. Or even removes a NPCs shield that prevents all damage but 1s unless it is applied. The heals in debuff could also be improved a bit as well as the damage debuff. I'd prefer if they have either 1 or 2 NPCs in each group, or just the bosses, require one or 2 of those debuffs. Maybe every few herds has a NPC that requires it. I say that because I also want to steer away having to have the other 2 debuffs all the time. I don't mind switching powers in a loadout or armory builds but I rather not carry all of them for every NPC group. Just mixing them up and distancing the places to use them still allows me to use whatever other powers I want. I'd still prefer to have atleast 2 of them on bosses be required to effectively kill them quick and with less damage out on the team. The other thing that they could definitely do, and it's something that I keep pointing my finger to, is finally give us unique NPCs that require Controllers to control for good reason. As in separate and keep apart NPCs. Control to prevent a NPC from infinitely controlling, similar to wing armors in outer but more like the ones in inner, or harming one or all members with a devastating attack. An attack that kills quickly. Like a whirlwind attack that deals higher damage. Or being encased in a green orb and taking higher damage but you can't break out of it. The target has to be controlled. Just something with the NPCs because ever since gates, a majority of them do not need/can't be controlled for a time period that matters. The immunities allow them to break out too quickly. So each herd should have something like a few long duration controllable NPCs, and 1 or 2 NPCs that break out that the tank can focus on because they have more health and deal slightly more damage. Like what's in the t6 alert. But for raids the herd should be doubled or tripled with those NPCs in corridors. I'd also like for them to somehow program some, not all, NPCs to only be vulnerable to stuns only. This way Tanks need a Controller to control for them and give them aid/relief. Tank walk around like supermen in this game. The Devs better do something though. On their own, they have never been able to really utilize the Controller role and I honestly don't think they can. They need ideas ideas from the players on this. Sometimes I get the feeling Loche is the only one pushing for ideas and tank baised devs dead the whole thing. They said they'd have normal and challenging raids. If they're afraid low skilled controllers can't handle it then keep it to the normal raids. But they better be in the challenging ones. If they can't do any of that, then I guess addressing how PoT and instant works is what they'll have to do if they want to work towards promoting a 2 controller raid set up.
I'm a troll and I approve. I have tossed the idea around for a support role buff to sort of counter precision group buffs from the likes of Rage. Anyway, good stuff. Whatever would help make roles more dynamic and necessary to interact with each other.
I've been on both sides of this spectrum. I've solo'd with some experience efficient groups with pink WM "Ziiinnngs" popping everywhere and I've played with players that have no idea what WM is or what it does. Then they "blue-bar dump" on any little add that moves and cry for more power. I like a challenge as must as the next Troll, but I will take that experienced efficient group everyday, all day my friend.
I agree with everything stated above. Previously there was a slight issue with power. While experienced controllers had little or few issues giving power AND doing other responsibilities, an adjustment needed to be made. However, power returning was our primary function for 3 years and to have such a dramatic turnaround to the point where groups were often running with 3 controller raids, we barely need 1 to maintain power upkeep. So while controllers DO have more freedom to debuff, stun and do damage then they had pre-GU36, they just arent going to be getting into raids because of how little power people actually use now and the fact that controllers take a backseat to tanks and healers in regards to CCing and buffing the group. Several of us have been advocating what TheDark mentioned above. Make our debuffs more essential to a raid group by creating more advanced enemies: - Enemies that take half damage or shield themselves/others unless defense debuffed. - Enemies that heal themselves and others unless healing debuffed. - Enemies that 1 shot unless damage debuffed. - Create enemies that cant be controlled by Tanks as well as enemies that cant be controlled by controllers - Enemies that stealth or move too fast to target/hit unless they are stunned (damage over times wouldnt keep them out of stealth) - Semi-Invincible enemies that are fully susceptible to crowd control until another target is defeated or switch is hit Id also like to see new things added: - Make Menace/Warped Reality/Intimidation work like Hive Mind and Carnage and give a team damage buff - Allow us to slow enemy attack speed by a percentage with certain moves - Allow us to stack debuffs to greater decrease defense/damage/etc (1st debuff 7% defense reduction, 2nd 12% or something like that) - Bring back group debuffs for certain moves - Allow encasements to allow ALL damage to pass through instead of just some moves and give each power encasement breakers Our value to a group has severely diminished in 8 man content and unless we see new stuff, we're going to be going from 2 or even 3 controllers raids to just 1. We need something to not only revitalize the controller role and make us relevant again, but to keep people running with 2 controllers.
I couldn't agree more with so many of the above points. It feels like they went through a lot of effort to break the mold of the trinity (tank, heal, dps) but outside of being a battery they have created very few challenges to give the controller role legitimate value. I think the most viable option is to modify the NPCs with a combination of the unique mechanics listed by The Dark. Placing more emphasis on debuffing and creating more strategic encounters that require legitimate crowd control. I am a dps first and a troll second but even I think it's ridiculous that balancing all the DPS abilities takes such precedent over giving the controller role more legitimate function outside of only giving power.
I like a lot of what you said. i feel like trolls have always been the ultimate "team player" role since this game launched. I would love to see the devs commit trolls to this role even further with some of the suggestions you made here
