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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mad Hamish" data-source="post: 4810886" data-attributes="member: 25321">There seem to be a couple of different questions herea) How do different approaches stack up?Are you better attempting to take individual targets down as quickly as possible?Is the additional buffing and healing of leaders worth slowing the damage output?Are the abilities that Defenders bring to the table worthwhile?Do controllers provide enough functionality to make them worthwhile?I think that the answers to this are highly dependent upon the way that the individual group plays and what the GM does.My suspicion is that a striker heavy group requires less in the way of group coordination and is less reduced in effectiveness by lack of combined tactics.So a group might find 5 strikers optimal for the way they play and the way that their GM sets things up, however for different encounter composition the focus on damage may not work as well as a more balanced approach.The group I'm in currently has 1 leader (str cleric), 2 defenders (sword and board fighter and warden), 2 strikers (artful dodger rogue and archer ranger) and 1 controller (wand wizard) In different fights the different characters contribute a different amount and do different things. The controller isn't generally the best contributor against 1 tough critter (although chuck in flaming sphere damage on top of other attacks and he's still doing a fair amount) The leader is a huge thing in terms of keeping the party going and provides reasonable damage and some very nice buffs. The strikers do output a lot of damage but then so does the forced movement focused fighter when combined with Zones, walls and barriers which the controller & cleric put out. we had a fight last night that would have torn the strikers up completely if not for the fighter pulling off the majority of the enemies while the archer ranger took down the enemy leader, and without the cleric the fighter would have died, Blood Pulse also did a fair amount of damage as did Blade Barrier when they're combined with a lot of forced movement...Similarly I suspect that an all-striker group would have real trouble againt an enemy force of controllers and artillary.b) Are the current controllers effective?There's certainly some questions on the Wizard straight out of the box. (I haven't looked through Arcane Power yet to see how it's changed) The general view seems to be that the at-wills are weak and the encounter powers moderate but the dailies are good.I haven't had enough of a look at the Invoker to really say what it's like. The brief glance suggests that the at-wills provide more in the way of options for actual control.</blockquote>

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