Weapon Mastery: Rise of the CC controllers. (Thank Devs 2 THUMBS UP!)

I guess we have to agree to disagree. I feel like these dime a dozen DPSes have more to worry about more than trollers do. Groups Will sooner or later ( Post WM ) realize that they don't need A DPS overloaded group to run content any more. Which means someone who was benefiting from those types of groups will see their free ride to their next tier armor, come to a swift end. Unless they get their Skills & SKILL POINTS UP and finally pull their weight in Raids. That's why I'M inclined to think the ones arguing SOOO FIERCELY against WM but yet have No valid Opinion about why WM is a bad thing, were the ones sitting back tapping POWER DUMP to no end letting everyone else do the heavy lifting. It's my hope the Devs see thru this transparent attempt to go back to the BAD OL' DAYs before WM. Where all you needed to troll was 2 buttons and 60-70 SPs & you had yourself a Golden Ticket to get carried in any raid you wanted without worrying about putting in any real effort. LUCKILY, THE DAYS OF THE LOW END, 2 BUTTON PRESSING 60 SPs TROLLS SOON WILL BE GONE P.S.& yes WM made SPs matter again.AWESOME ISN"T IT????

JEEBIE has highlighted a great factor for our Controllers - people can and do argue that we shouldn't be concerned with "numbers/damage out" but as a damage player this is an important aspect to me, I want to have the best numbers without burdening the team - Weapon Mastery is now the single avenue to damage/efficiency, I have to use less power to do more damage - Might specing and power consumption should be put back on the table as a viable option because as far as it stands, WM has degraded an aspect of the Controller role (power healing) without compensating by providing Controllers some legitimate alternatives.

Our content is largely inappropriate for today's player based mechanics, back tracking and adjusting it is, I presume, not an option due to the time required to do so - so lets look at the future! Going forward what can be introduced?

Why not the adaptation of Controller powers so they can bring something new and unique to the table;

• Power(s) to reduce the enemies attack speed by X% (AoE or single target).
• Power(s) that have an X% chance to cause enemies attacks to miss/fail (AoE or single target).
• Power(s) that erect a barrier of X radius that prevents enemies from entering it for X amount of time (AoE or single target).
• Power(s) that reduce movement speed by X% for X amount of time (AoE or single target).

These are some basic concepts, but you get the idea - make these powers mutually exclusive, so that one Controller cannot utilise several of them, making multiple Controllers viable and useful.

Thanks for this. This is the kind of thinking we need on this matter. Create new and exciting ways to give Controllers value to the team, not take away a huge part of what makes tanking fun and viable.

I totally agree! I can FINALLY be alloud to CC and not just power out n debuff and WM is good because it stops other roles spamming their power when there is'nt any need

And yet, this is the matter that can actually change the way controllers are viewed in the game. The content is what is lacking the need for a controller. To the extent that people would prefer a battery or just run w/o a controller. It's a matter of putting a need for all the classes, not just controllers, in the content. Don't make it easy for only one role, make it where you can run w/o the role, but you are severely at a disadvantage at level, but are perfectly fine overgeared. FOS2 is a good example of that. CC, tanks, etc were all aspects that were needed to accomplish it.

I do like the idea of scaling of controller related stuff. Everyone wants Dom to affect debufs. But they should be working on a content that needs the controller, what good are better control effects and debufs if people still want you for your power?

That would be a problem with 1 side of option 2. So perhaps it's the pulls that have to go and controllers just use pulls and pushes after the Tank taunts the NPCs. Which isn't really difficult to handle live in game right now if a tank wasn't physically pulling period. Some NPCs can have their immunity grant a second or 2 after their current time for some instances. Tanks still keep their juggles/knockdown/knockbacks for the main reason Tunso stated, to keep enemies from beating on them, and they can use these control effects in solo's, duos, PvP. Keeping these control effects does not make them "helpless" as some are putting it in here.

With my first option, where Tanks can't control (specifically in Raids & alerts), there is a work around with this. I spoke about it too. Aside from the outdated reason they can control, Tanks control because of Dominance stats in their gear. Either it is some how just disabled for them in raids/alerts, it applies differently to them (just shield strength/health regen), or the development team just creates a new stat to base Tank shield strength and health regen on. What ever it is, it would still allow Tanks to control in solo's & duos because NPCs have low will power there. Healers can control in there. In PvP, players are controllable.

I'm thinking of solutions since very few others are. I suggested 3 which can all work. Others have mentioned NPCs controllable by tanks only or Controllers only. I think that would work too but does the development really have the time or resources to go into the older content and change it? Is it better and possible for them to do this with new content? Is it even possible? What would be their plans on the make up of these kinds of NPCs in herds?
Would they say that is what A&B last boss is? Because even though that room clearly says "stun me" tanks still try to seize that job. Not to long ago I read tank players doing that and I read controllers complaining about it. 2 of the posters who spoke about this are in this thread. One the snatcher. One the victim.

The slowing down of NPCs is already a control effect in game. Ice's wintry tempest does it. NPCs do it as well. Some of them are out in south gotham. Quantum may have abilities that do this. In the end, it is just a control effect that can still be broken out of by NPCs or just be completely immune too. Unless the dcuo team says they can change that, slowing down NPCs won't really do anything. I still want to do more as a Controller than just control the speed of an NPC.

The center 2 may be possible but what the Controller roles intention and design is to also disable NPCs. That means to stop them from attacking period. That's why Controllers can stun and use powers that have a primary control effect and end with a final stun. The point is to make controllers control. I wouldn't mind a buff to our debuffs but we should be the ones controlling to progress and organize things for a tank & dps and not just control because it just so happens that's what my powers/weapon combos result in when I use them.

Exactly. To be blatantly honest its selfish to take away another roles depth just so you can feel more needed

The thing i think these idealist don't understand is that:

There is a difference between being needed and being useful. Right now Troll CC's are useful. They aren't needed. That's a content design problem more than anything else. What these people want is to be needed. I say personally get over it. Tanks haven't been needed in content for a long time. AND THAT IS A CONTENT DESIGN PROBLEM. Do you see a select few of us saying decrease everyone defense to zero so only tanks can take a hit? NO!

Suddenly it happens to trolls thanks to Weapon Mastery and they ( a select few), instead of showing empathy, decide its best to screw over the role that has been dealing with this crap for years.

Theres no understanding. Theres no attempt at empathy. Its beyond short-sighted and completely narrow-minded. Its selfish to be honest. Instead of trying to strip the tank role of depth and playstyle these people need to be moaning and groaning about content that so far has been designed to force trolls to be batteries. Tanks and Trolls are suffering from the same thing. Poor content. It is beyond my comprehension why some people don't seem to get just how bad an idea it is to strip away a tanks ability to CC considering everything that role has been through

I specifically asked for power cost increase and vit reduction, it was necessary at the time because power costs were about to fall behind individual power dumps

We asked for controlling to be revamped, not a DPS mechanic to come in and reduce the need for the role. For the last 3 years controllers have been reduced to power batteries because Tanks have all CC responsibility and now that power is not needed to provide a majority of the damage that comes from the weapon mastery, controllers have lost considerable value to the group. Where we were seeing 3 troll raids a few weeks ago, we are seeing 1 troll raids now (and frankly, I dont even think 1 is necessary if everyone runs a power return SC).

We are designed to be crowd controllers, yet we aren't anything of the sort in current groups. I dont think its too much to ask to adjust the roles a bit to see a "Tanks pull in, Controllers lock down" type of dynamic

Sure sure, I get that you, and Controllers at large, want to do more than control the speed(s) of an NPC, these were spit balled on the fly at the time of posting, something that can work alongside the Tank - not intended to be concrete nor robust solutions.

My intended point was that IMO the locking down of an enemy in the manner we can now is just the tip of the iceberg and inadequate for content today - it's nice and usable, but hardly essential, and doing so largely prevents the enemies from being movable and as you pointed out they break free within moments - the last time such an ability was appreciated was FoS:2, and tried to be relevant in A&B, though that was the last room for all of 2 minutes - we need something new, something fresh, what I'd be hoping for are options for our Controllers to control the battlefield beyond the basics and in tandem with a Tank.

You may well have outlined it already, and I have missed it among the pages, but what would you like to see Controlling become? Improve on? Are there alterations you want to see to existing powers, or additions?

Now all they need to do is add shield and staff moves to martial arts and brawling to make the masteries look GOOD.

Talk about baise. The exact same thing you're talking about with removing a roles depth already happened here. Tanks took the intended and designed responsibility of a controller. THAT is the truth. I've explained countless times o. how both roles were created with primary responsibilities. Reasonable posters in this thread already agreed with me and admitted tanks do not need to control to perform their primary function. And that it shouldn't have been thrown in there in the first place.

There is understanding. These suggestions have been thought out. I'm not just forum poster who posts ideas became I came up with them in 5 minutes and thougt about it for 2. I have suggested things I have noticed already occur in game. Stop jumping the gun with making it seem as if the tank role is suffering through its built in mechanics. It is not. It is too independent and that deteriorates the need for healers and controllers to be more engaging.

That's the thing, tanks didn't take anything, they wre given it 3 years ago right out of beta. so. . .

And tanks do suffer constantly, they're the first role to be replaced in any content. When things get easy enough that you don't NEED a tank, guess what, they don't get picked up. That's what TrueOlympus is talking about I believe.

As he said, trolls are just now feeling the sting tanks have felt for quite some time. Not being a needed part of an alert run, so you're left out of some groups. Raids, only 1 is needed/wanted. Welcome to the club.

It's spread out in 3 threads. I'll go into detail when I get on a PC. But most of it depends on the direction the development team takes with the content. Like the enemies in corridors and side NPCs in boss fights. That is the core of it all. If those remain the same as the herds we have in paradox, nexus and gates, then all or some of tank controlling has to go to keep the controller role controlling, active and needed. The breakouts/immunities duration and NPCs with unique battling mechanics are also key.

They were given it for the reason tunso stated and because of how dominance worked back then. It is outdated and no longer needed. especially since it reduces another roles "job." Game update 17 and 31 made it so tanks don't even need to control to prevent NPCs from beating on them. Controller stuns, levitations, roots and encasements(except for ice) last longer than a knockdown/knockback/juggle. This is noticeable to incapacitate enemies in the batcave raids, alerts and duos. The t4+ raids just did away from them in hallways.

Come on man. there is so much baise here and its not just leaking from me. That's a problem each role runs into. It is not just isolated to tanks. Becoming overgeared is the problem. That's what takes away the need for controllers to even control (batcavea with unique NPCs & fos1 2nd boss fight crabs, fos3 good sentries, and even a&b controlling is needed for less than a minute with WM and t6. A tank could probably get away with spamming reckless juggles/knockdowns and 30 seconds later done.

Something needs to be done to improve the need for tanks, healers and controllers to be in the group to highly depend on each other to survive so damage role stacking is avoided. Tanks are gods in this game. You know. Yea you do. Of course tanks don't want to give up god mode.

Tanks took it? When? When did this theft happen? Tanks are designed to use crowd control as a form of mitigation. YOU QUOTED A TUNSO POST SAYING THAT SAME THING. But YOU don't agree with it thus it is outdated? Lol. OK. I'm not being biased. I telling you the reality of the game. YOU are theory crafting and assuming. I see your reasoning. I see your problem. But your solution to that problem does more harm than good. Period.

You don't have the authority to say, a certain mechanic should never have existed. I don't need to make it SEEM like the Tank role is suffering. That is reality. The most under-utilized role in all of DCUO, and you want to nerf it. You want to make it less fun. You want to strip it of a viable mechanic. Instead of looking for solution that make everyone happy you are looking out for your own self-interest. I'm not being biased.

I say: "Make better content". That is the most unbiased solution there is.
You say: "Nerf the tank role, so Trolls can feel needed. Tanks should never have been able to do what they did for the past 3 years anyway."

You tell me which is biased.

I don't care if you want to call be bias, I'm not asking for a complete overhaul to another role because i want something. WM broke the need for controllers, but tanks get to feel the wrath...

When did tanks take it? When they started complaining and telling controllers to not control. It has happened both in game and on the forums. The fire tank guy even failed to realize of the default effects that happen a long time ago until I described how for controllers have no choice in that.

Why do I disagree wih tunso's comment? What did game update 17 and 31 do? Who does it favor?

You are baise too. You're talking about depth of a role and you're excluding the controllers part?

I'm not the only one who said it shouldn't have existed for tanks dude. 2 other tanks have said that. One specifically made a blue print of what the roles should do and controlling for tanking was not one of them. That blue print was made up by a tank.

Again, I gave 3 ideas. I said if things remain the way they are with NPCs, then tank CC needs to go.

Seriously stop getting worked up, and use logic as well as your feelings. You complained about how I'm mean to you or whatever but you over react on almost everything. Even things I describe clearly before. Just do me a favor walk away and calm down. Just let the discussion stay constructive and healthy. Greenman, Jeebie and that odyssey guy are doing a good job. So something but please stop it man.

Now you're going down that route too? Did you forget I mentioned there was a conflict with the controlling responsibility with tanks and controllers long before WM? WM is what we're blaming for everything now?

Greenman and I have been talking about this before WM. in private and public. Our ideas arent the same but they are similar.

Another thing. You don't have anything to say to what I wrote? What happened to the constructive talk? Does GU 17 and 31 not favor controller?

Tanks don't want to give up god mode. What I would like to see is a chat between yourself and trueolympus. One says it will destroy the role. *As in some how conflict with its main duty.* The other says it will just take away "half" the "fun".

I do. Greenman does. The tank I debated it does. All the other tanks, DPS and controllers in multiple threads over the years have. You didn't read them? Too bad. But they did occur.

It is an inablity that does not conflict with the a tanks main job of taunting to get enemy attention. Controlling is not needed for tanks.

2 players said it should not have happened. Again, removing it will not conflict with your main job. The only reason he said it wouldnt be a good idea 3 years in is just because that is what everyone is used to. If something solves an issue in the game, its clear the developers will do something do something about it and they don't care about how long you've new doing it. Same DoT power stacking from the same player (you probably don't even know about this one) & WM are examples.

Ok.