The Ins and Outs and Sadness of Being a Controller

They would probably have just increased the cooldown if this was the case.

Imagine if defib had a cooldown of twenty seconds...

My, this post takes me back, way back to the days of Everquest Enchanters on the forums over a decade ago. "I am not just a machine to cast clarity on everybody!"

Overall, I'm inclined to believe this is less a problem with the game design and more a problem with the end game sucking. The trouble is that end games in MMORPGs have a tendency to be infested with elitist jerks whose theorycrafting figures being maximum clipping dweebs is going to make them awesome, while having giant mental blinders on and being unable to recognize that letting the troller throw a debuff that would boost all their damage would achieve a heck of a lot more at a better energy:damage ratio... or even pull their fat out of the frier in the event the tank lets a few nasty mobs through the front lines and the need controlling.

You want to be the subtle genius? You got it. You'll be so subtle that most people won't even recognize that the reason why their damage numbers were so high at the end of the scenario was because you were applying subtle debuffs/buffs throughout and not only boosting their energy reserves. Then you'll get shouted at for not simply regenerating their energy the whole time. You can't be a genius without enduring prejudice from those your actions will go completely over the head of.

If it bothers you, there's not a whole lot to do but find a league of people who aren't closed-minded idiots and roll with them instead of throwing in with a pack of random tweenagers living in the boonies who think they're God's gift to DC Universe Online. If you're getting shouted at to only use one ability, when you know full well that you can be doing that and more, it should be a dead giveaway that you're either dealing with an immature dork or someone who's the mental equivalent.

Simultaneously, however, don't begrudge people wanting to do a lot of damage, because you know what? Defeated mobs are permanently controlled. That's right, doing lots of damage is just another kind of trolling. Wrap your cowl around that one! Life's about compromise, after all, and if you're not willing to humor the value of other people's play styles why should you expect they'd be willing to humor yours?

Which brings us to the topic. There is no use for trollers. And if we are just power batteries they should change the mechanics of controllers. If my role is a power battery, give me more than two powers and a sc. Instead, they make it not even necessary to be a battery with dlc6.

Now some of the threads on here are so funny like i try to save some power for the healers well lets see 2 healers 3 dps 1 tank 1 other troll the whole raid out of power or better yet tank has 25%, the other troll has 2%, both healers 1%, dps no power, and your saving how much. i would think a soda would be at hand but dps are thinking MORE POWER, healers screaming more power, I'm thinking wow poor power management and bad team work.

I tell you the truth i haven't been playing long but i for 1 will drink a soda if thats what it takes to ensure the tank and healers get power if dps are out they will be ok pot they live off pot as far as i'm concerned.

Seems to me you're trying to have it both ways. On one hand, you complain that people shout at you to be nothing but a battery. On the other hand, you complain when DLC6 adds a means for people to get their energy on without having to shout at you to be a battery. Thus, on the tangent of "To be or not to be a battery," you've successfully eliminated 100% of what the developers can do to solve your issue by taking issue with either scenario.

If you want to make controlling important, I think the only way to do so is to nerf the amount of aggro tanks can manage, thereby requiring either an off-tank or a controller. It would diversify your role as a controller, yes, but at whose cost? Not just the tanks, who suddenly can't taunt as well, but also the DPS and healers who now have to worry a bit more about out-aggroing what the tanks can not pull. So you've successfully made the other three parts of the quartet miserable so you can feel like controlling is important. Shall we commit to this new design?

No i was making a point on what you were stating. A dead opponent is a controlled one and one should be just a battery. In that case give us more to be that battery. Instead they made it easier to not even be that. To be honest, they could remove power output all together for all i care. But there needs to be a use for the controller class. There really isn't and that is not fun at all.

*scratches head* forgive me if i am wong, but isn't that what this game was? You are basically describing how the quartet works. In your mind, it seems that the tank does all the crowd control. Though he can, his focus is all heavy damage on him. It seems like you are okay with a trio instead of a quartet.

Once again, the phasing out of the class is happening by the community, the devs picked up on it and trying to appease the masses. We get higher vit gear. That made the power battery. Now we have DLC6, which even takes that from a controller. I may have made a joke about "i am not your power battery" in the OP, but that was certainly not the post intention nor the topic of the thread. It just seems like a lot of posters took it that way.

Totally agree on your point about buffing/debuffing. My most interesting toon to date is a Nature DPS that has only two damage powers in my tray (multishot batarangs and NeoVenom Boost). After that, I have Carnage, hive mind, the mteabolism HoT and rounded out with the Regen SC. I buff EVERYONE throught alerts/raids and NEVER make top DPS unless the other DPS(s) is/are undergeared. And I LOVE it. So much fun helping the team, but I have already had the unfortunate luck to have teamed with 2 other DPSs that were giving me grief over my pitiful damage out numbers. Decided it wouldn't do any good to explain how their (and everyone else's) damage numbers were buffed by me, even the shields and heals thanks to Hive Mind's Resto buff.

In the end, all that matters to me (on that toon at least) is that we all finish quickly and safely. Hopeing to see what Ani Magus is capable of once I get some reall gear and SPs into him.

Great analysis of how the Controller role has evolved, BumblingB. But I believe your fear of trollers being phased out altogether is overblown. Certainly your statements “there is no use for controllers” and “now we have DLC6, which even takes [being a battery] from a controller” (both on page 8) are false. In any 4- or 8-man PvE instance, and any PvP deathmatch, there will always be the need for at least 1 troller, since PoT has not yet been (and is unlikely to be) replicated in another mechanism of application/renewal by players of another class. And in PvE, debuffs (most importantly the def debuff) haven’t been replicated either.

Given the fact that 1 troller will always be needed for PoT, the question changes to: “In future, will 2 trollers be required for raids,” as well as “will the normal raid setup change to only 1 troller?” THESE are the questions on which those speed runs of Prime that BB mentioned have the most bearing. You’ll notice that all those vids (barring 1 I’ve criticized previously) had at least 1 troller to provide PoT AND def debuffs, which supports my initial premise.

The answer to the first question is: No, 2 trollers are not required for t2, t3, or t4 raids, and probably won’t be required for t5 raids either. Not needing 2 trollers for t4 raids and below has been proven. And as Massah pointed out on page 4 of this thread, t5 raids will probably be CR 78+ or 80+, so at CR 89 we’re already overgeared for t5 content, before even considering t5 gear with lvl 5 mods. T5 raids with a single troller will certainly be possible.

The answer to the second question is: No, the “normal” raid setup will not shift to only 1 troller, the way it shifted to only 1 tank. Why? Because it necessitates top-geared players with above-average skills, HT trinks, Zesti Party Packs, voice-chat to coordinate rotating Supply Drops and Zestis, and a degree of teamwork. The voice-chat requirement for properly rotating items/trinks immediately excludes all pugs, and most pugs haven’t got the requisite teamwork or above-average skills either. Unless it’s one of those CR 88+ groups, most pugs also won’t have the requisite gear and HT trinks. Even if you’re doing it as a league with a bunch of experienced CR 89s, you won’t be able to do every raid every week with only 1 troller because your group won’t have enough Zestis. It takes a lot of PvP’ing to get those Zesti Party Packs – 500 influence per box, and I only get a Zesti Party every 6th box or so, if I’m lucky.

So you can rest easy, BB – the troller role, at least as a blue-bar healer, is safe for the time being and in the immediate future. If I were you, I’d be more worried about the role of tank: with full t5 + lvl 5 mods, tanks will become even more unnecessary for the current content (t4 and below), and maybe even for t5 too. How about starting a thread on that more pressing issue?

My post just prior to this one focused on how the Controller role isn’t actually “headed for the Endangered Species list,” as TK Pusha put it (page 2). This one concerns trollers properly playing their role.

I don’t quite understand why BB and Bishop seemed to “jump” on Worlok in previous posts on this thread. He’s the only one here that’s made the excellent point that “good trolling is hard” (see quote below):

From reading every post on this thread just now, I can see that there are a great many players complaining about being batteries, yet very few players who ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO BE A GOOD BATTERY! I’ll point to a few of the more obvious examples. As Worlok said, good trolling involves a lot more than just “recasting PoT when the lightning bolt blinks” (according to Risen on page 1) and “having one of these to Defib for me when I raid … then I just take a nap” (according to The Goat on page 3). Any experienced troller will be able to immediately identify the glaring issues in Risen’s and Goat’s statements, but as it’s apparent there are only a few experienced trollers posting on this thread, I’ll do a breakdown of those errors point-by-point, starting from the basics.

As BB, Bishop, and a few other experienced trollers have stated in this thread (and other threads as well), the best way in which a troller can help his team is by providing power. This is due to the large amounts of damage good DPS can do with an abundance of power. Aside from providing power, the only way in which trollers can DIRECTLY speed up an instance is by def debuffing bosses (and in certain cases, like Brainiac in Prime and Zeta in t4 Inner, health debuffing as well). They can also speed up an instance by ensuring players don’t get locked out of an instance (via popping a shield to revive a player), but that’s only needed when a player gets KO’d, not on a regular basis the way power is constantly needed or a def debuff is needed every 10 secs on a boss.

So, if the best ways in which a troller can help his group are: 1) Providing power; 2) Being able to def debuff; and 3) Having a shield, how does a troller go about doing that? The last two are easy: simply place a power that def debuffs on your loadout, and place a shield on your loadout. Perhaps also use consumables as shields.

It’s the troller’s main job, providing power, that most people posting on this thread have shown a remarkable ignorance of. To provide the MAXIMUM amount of power, a troller must:

1) Set up his stats, gear, mods, and trinks to supply the most power;
2) Double-tick PoT at the 5th tick, meaning casting it every 20 secs, BEFORE the lightning bolt fades (this is what Risen was NOT doing, since he only recast it after the lightning bolt faded);
3) Keep instant power on cooldown;
4) Use a power-giving SC (Speed Drain or WoP) when necessary;
5) Regen HIS OWN POWER to sustain keeping instant on CD, reserving enough power to pop a shield if needed, and double-ticking PoT (if he’s primary troller) or def debuffing bosses (if he’s secondary).

The VAST majority of players mess up that first step of giving maximum power: proper preparation of stats, gear, mods, and trinks. I’ll summarize the proper methods here:

· Power Trees: PoT, Instant Power, WoP (if you’re not Speed)
· Speed Tree: Speed Drain
· Wep Trees: All the Vit and Cunning Inates;
· Gear: Stack Vit . Troller Norseman/t4 armor, troller Promy rings (or Holiday rings as substitutes), 36 vit neck w/ white socket from Inner t4a (or 30 vit blue neck or 29 vit HT neck, as substitutes), OMAC 1h (or Runic troller wep as a substitute), 36 vit utility belt from Inner t4 (or 27 vit lvl 75 belt), troller mask from Inner t4a (or HT mask as a substitute);
· Regular Modding: Pure-Vit in yellow sockets; Vit&Prec in red sockets; Vit&Health in blue sockets.
· White Mods: Replenishing Adaptor (wep), Escalating Replenishing Procs (neck), Reserve Tank/Extended Supercharge/Enhanced Recovery (chest), Regenerative Shielding (hands), [if Speed] Inertial Innervation (feet)
· Trinkets/Consumables: For the lvl 75 belt w/ 1 consumable slot: shield/PI consumable, FoS troller trink, CC/Holiday troller trink, Supply Drop/Sidekick.

In other threads on the old PC forum and on this new one, I’ve written comprehensive essays on why Pure-Vit mods should be used in yellow sockets instead of Vit&Power, why Prec should be used in red sockets instead of Might, and why Health should be used in blue sockets instead of Dom. If anyone is interested in the mathematics behind these methods of modding, I’ll copy sections of those essays into this thread in later posts. For now, I’ll just give brief summaries:

· Both power-out from PoT, instant, and your SC, AND personal power regen via wep attacks scales with Vit. I’ll copy over some tables Superskull and I created if anyone is interested in exactly HOW Vit increases your personal power regen via wep attacks and power-out via PoT, instant, and your SC;
· Between uses of instant power and PoT every 20 secs/ def debuff on bosses every 10 secs, trollers should constantly be attacking to maintain their personal power regen. Due to this, the vast majority of a troller’s damage is Prec, so Prec mods give more benefit than Might (even for the debuffing troller);
· At t4 gear, a troller’s shields are already strong enough to last for the short time it takes to revive someone – and they can be strengthened even further by allocating surplus SP into Resto and Dom inates. Strengthening them even more via mods is not as important as staying alive. Your shields are only up and taking damage a fraction of the time that you're in combat – but your health bar is always up and being depleted.

So, now that you’re properly prepared for being the best battery you can be, what do you actually do in combat? Well, to give out the most power, you double-tick PoT and you keep instant on CD. But that’s going to seriously deplete your own power pool. So how can you make keeping instant on CD sustainable? I’ll give a list of all the tricks:

· Increase your Vit with a Vit-boosting soder. You regen power with your own PoT, so increase that PoT tick.
· Increase your Vit with a trink, optimally before recasting PoT. Same logic as above.
· Drink a soder. Most of the time, I keep Remixes on CD when I’m trolling for good DPS (Impact, Tas, Poxy, Scum, Cindra, etc). Sometimes I even use Zesti Party Packs (mainly for PvP though).
· Always attack whenever you’re not doing something else. Clip wep combos with your instant power. This will constantly keep you at Tier 1 regen, which amounts to a significant amount of power over the course of an instance. This will also constantly regen your SC – which is nearly as important. (This is what The Goat was NOT doing, and should have been doing).
· Use a power-giving SC (Speed Drain or WoP).
· Use Supply Drop and/or a Sidekick.
· If you’re in a raid, ensure the other troller is also using all these tricks – his instant power will regen your own power pool in a virtuous circle.

I think I’ve covered everything a good troller needs to know (at least for maximum power-out. I didn’t cover CC’ing, but that’s currently a minor part of trolling, and I’ll describe that too if anyone wants me to). So, as you all can see, there’s a great deal more to properly being a battery controller than just “recasting PoT when the lightning bolt blinks” (according to Risen on page 1) and “having one of these to Defib for me when I raid … then I just take a nap” (according to The Goat on page 3).

IMO, all trollers (especially the ones QQ’ing in this thread about “just being a battery”) should actually LEARN how to PROPERLY be a battery BEFORE branching out into CC’s and such. I think that’s the point Worlok was making in his post I quoted at the beginning of my message.

There isnt a single content that cant be done without tank already. so tanks are already a dead class for all content up to T4 included. Of course you dont want to miss a tank in unknown pugs but in groups with communication this role is a waste of a dps spot that makes the entire raid faster. Sounds rude to the tanks but thats how the current things are.

I couldn't agree more. I did say in my initial post that "tanks will become even MORE unnecessary," implying that they're already unnecessary. With everyone at full t5 + lvl 5 mods, and with the release of new instances, tanks will become more unnecessary, by which I mean, unnecessary in more instances.

what would make controlling fun is if we could control mobs like how boost 2 orbital strike did before they nerfed it, we would be able to debuff entire mobs with a move and for bosses we could have a 50% supercharge that did exactly what boost 2 orbital strike allowing only controllers to control the bosses for about 30 sec. That would be fun to do.

actually, i've never made a video and don't know how. not that i can't just download the software and learn. thing is, what do i have to prove to you, when i'm not the one with an issue?

sometimes, dps chew up way more power than others. in most of these instances, their damage is not worth the power in any way, shape or form. anybody can get good damage with cheap tactics like 1h. but then they use double the power of an actual good dps with the same damage out. any incompetent fool can use their power in 2 seconds. that's not hard. can i keep up with somebody face rolling their power bar? no. do they get good damage? no. but, if i have any combination of 3 gadget/hl that dps properly [yeah, they juse a lot of power too] then i can keep them up. lol it's a bug, but cc trinket can refill over half my power bar twice. also, i don't insist that i use "no" soders. i just don't use vit soders. i have 3 trinkets to cycle.


i didn't derail it at all. i never argued that it was all about power. some people complain about being batteries and their other abilities being rather pointless. i disagree with that assessment as being a role issue.

also, i'm not exactly telling you what you can't do. you are saying what you can't do and that it's the dev's fault. don't get mad at me because i agree with you that you fail, but disagree that it's the dev's fault.



here's how i do troll;

if i don't need to pot, de-buff, or cc, i weapon combo. i don't insta power as fast as i can. i clip the end of my combo with it. i don't build up power with combos unless i'm solo.

mr.boo trinket and fos2 trinket. pot, let 3 ticks go, and re-pot. that let's me keep vit bonus on ticks up longer. after 1 trinket runs out, regular pot once. when that runs out, use other trinket and repeat.

out of power, soder cooldown, no pot, i use cc trinket and use it's secondary ability. pot, insta it all away, and recast secondary, re-pot if trinkets have cooldown.

70% or more of the time, i have 240 bonus vit from trinkets.

that said, if i have an 1100 vit secondary troll that does his job, there isn't an issue. but if i have a secondary that can't power, and can't dps despite trying to dps, then he's sucking up power and doing nothing for the group. some pugs have this guy. lol


i don't de-buff trash mobs.[unless it's got big health] i always keep def de-buff on bosses if i can get in without getting killed. i lung on boss, clip whip, clip instant and roll out. if i need pot, i use that to lunge. i don't waste time giving power. you can only kill any given boss so fast without de-buff.

i don't use sheilds, because healers and tanks have 'em. instead, i keep gatling gun on my bar for cc. i find it extremely useful. more so than WoP.

groups need trollers to do everything we do.


i've been main trolling since f2p and trolled in beta. my very favorite thing by far is HL trolling. i don't just play a troller, i am a troller. i'm quite biased for this role. i'm not arguing to argue and i'm not against buffing it. i just happen to think OP and the rest of you are wrong.

All due respect but that was a joke, and a fairly obvious one at that.

Ah, sorry about that. I wish I could edit my initial post to use an alternate example of ignorance in this thread, but since I can't, I'll just identify a few such examples here. The point I'm making with the following examples is that most of the posters here DO NOT EVEN KNOW HOW TO BE PROPER BATTERY TROLLERS! IMO, they should first learn how to be the best blue-bar healers they can be, which (in the age of over-gearing content) most benefits the group, BEFORE they start branching out into CC's and such. CERTAINLY before they start QQ'ing about being a battery - because they're not even doing the battery thing right!

This comment by JessTier is why, in my previous post, I felt it necessary to explain EXACTLY how us blue-bar healers should mod our gear, and why modding it the way I described best helps us output power. Most of the previous posters on this thread haven't done all the research into power output and regeneration that I and a few others (such as Superskull) have done, so just don't realize that there IS an optimal method of doing certain things, the methods which I've described in my previous post, and that there are logical reasons for using those methods.

This quote from BezerkerUnit prompted a suitably theatrical /facepalm when I read it. Not getting ANY Vit in ANY of your mods, and not getting ANY Vit from the wep trees? If it were from a lack of funds to procure proper mods or a lack of SP to allocate into wep trees, I would understand - but it's not. It's a WILLFUL disregard for the way in which trollers can best help their groups - outputting power. I would go so far as to say it's MALICIOUS. I would absolutely HATE to DPS with this guy trolling, since I'd only be able to do a fraction of my normal damage. I'd especially hate it because I'd be thinking the entire time: "W.T.F. is this guy doing? ... I can troll better in my current dual-spec than he's currently doing in his pure-spec."

*Ani kicks n00b troller*

*Ani switches role, equips troller gear, and shows everyone what a 1315 base Vit troller with proper gear and technique can do*

BB, I'm glad you pointed out to this guy that him spec'ing into Dom is essentially pointless, but I wish oh-so-much that you hadn't started with "Good that you play it your way." There is NOTHING good about the way he plays for any DPS in his groups - particularly high-performing DPS like myself, ObsidianChill, Scum, etc. The way he has chosen to mod his gear and allocate his SP, as well as his play-style, SEVERELY restricts the amount of damage us DPS can do, and results in finishing the instance less rapidly.

Given equal stats (which, albeit, is rarely the case), the secondary troller should do slightly more damage than the PoTing troller. Why? Because both trollers are doing the majority of their damage via wep combos clipped with instant power, but the secondary troller is sneaking in a def debuff between his wep combos and his instant power every 10 secs on bosses, and that does damage. Not a lot, compared to the Prec damage both trollers are doing via wep combos to regen their own power pools, but enough to give the secondary troller a distinct lead over the primary troller. The secondary troller might also do an occasional CC, which would further increase this damage gap, but if the tank is at all decent, very few CC's will be required from the trollers.

I didn't include the damage done by the primary troller casting PoT because, most of the time, PoT doesn't actually DO any damage. Since the primary troller has to use PoT every 20 secs regardless of enemies on which to use it, in order to maintain the double-tick, he's usually just casting PoT at the wall, since all enemies have died 1 to 3 secs after the DPS ran ahead and engaged them.

A role is only dead when we let it die.


There are powers that break encasements and generally add more damage when doing it, so unless you are running with those who are just flat out unwilling to play with you, then this should not be a problem, as, if you are going to encase, and you are as good of a player as you think and say you are, you should then have a power that breaks the encasement you threw out there. If not, then you deserve to be chided and derided. And if you do not have that power, and no one else in the group does either, then why are you encasing in the first place?


And if you choose to be a Just Another F-ing Battery then that is Your choice and no one else's.


Honestly, Damagers run the game on the uninitiated right now because just about everyone is one and the players that are not damagers allow themselves to be bullied by the damagers into accepting the role that the damagers want them to be. Don't believe it? Well, when was the last time you have seen a Damager Block?


For me though, I say Read the Theories and Philosophies of Radamanthus (aka-Battery) and you will see that that is, for my money, the most rewarding way to play as a controller.


And yes, controllers do have a 95% reduction in skin thickness and a 100% increase in sensitivity.


As in all things, this is just the way I see it. Except the last part. Controllers are very thin-skinned. Almost Gingery if you will.

I'm requesting to lock this thread. I've said my peace. I've given it my all. Most people couldn't get past the first line in my OP being a joke and stopped reading. Some were receptive and understood and had an open discussion. A few chose to think oppositely of me and would argue their case. Which in fact, what a discussion is about. It's not about I'm right and every post after is "I agree". It's about a conversation back and forth. Which we did get. But unfortunately, the majority that couldn't get past the joke I should never have said won. Made it a thread about "How to troll." when it was a discussion of the direction of the controller role.

I had a long time to think about this thread. I went through a lot of stages. From shocked, to flabbergasted, to angry, to stewing on it. (I wonder how my face was at work earlier.) I came to the conclusion that it is better to just stop this now. I'll probably stop with posting topics altogether and just remain a poster.

@Anierna I will say that your first post in this thread was a good argument and I would have loved to have a conversation with you. As your understanding is quite pleasing for a counter argument. But I would have to also acknowledge your second post, which completely and utterly made me angry. I will say it, it made me upset. For someone that actually read the whole thread to actually post an off topic "how to troll" post left me speechless. Which is why I had to not post until now. Thank you for your first post, I will remember it and maybe we can have a discussion about it in another thread someone else starts.

Oh and a response to the previous post. Why yes, I'm thin skinned. Thank you. Otherwise this thread would not have been there and I would have been content with just hitting "T" and forgetting the Controller role ever existed.

I don't think that the controller role will ever become "dead." However, I do think that many players that have been trolling for a long time have come to the conclusion that this role is changing, in a way they consider "bad."

For a role that was relatively complex at the start, is slowing become more and more simple/redundant/painstakingly-boring for many of us. Personally, I'm not overgeared to the point that this is how I feel, but a lot of trollers I talk to don't have the fun trolling like they used to.

One problem I think contributes to this is how the recent content (pve) has been designed. Mobs with lots of health that hit hard. Much of the time is spent burning them down, while the healers burst heal those large attacks that happen way too much. Trollers are too busy being batteries to help in any other ways.

Sometimes I wish that our tank in FoS2 isn't that good so that I can pull sentries into the pit, and feel like I'm accomplishing something. Pulling the shield drones away from the rest of the mobs in t4 inner is also fun.

I am going to close this down now. Please remember to keep posts constructive and respectful on these forums.