Playing without a Controller - feasible?
- Thread starter Knuddelbaer
- Start date
the Jester
Legend
It should be just fine.
The Human Target
Adventurer
I echo the above sentiments.
Controller is by far the easiest roll to not have filled.
And having 3 strikers, 2 defenders, and a leader will work out fine.
I wouldn't even say use less minions.
They should be able to straight up handle it.
Controller is by far the easiest roll to not have filled.
And having 3 strikers, 2 defenders, and a leader will work out fine.
I wouldn't even say use less minions.
They should be able to straight up handle it.
IME, you can probably do without any single role if you have the other roles filled.
For the longest time, our group had no Leaders and only one Defender...but we had a surplus of strikers. When you kill things quickly, you don't need much healing.
Then we lost a bunch of our strikers, but gained a leader. Our combats are longer, but now we have the healing to deal with it.
Oddly enough, our Defender was glacier-cold in the last session, and largely just gimped along doing 5pts of damage with his mark, 'cause he couldn't hit a damn thing, and the other main striker kept getting nailed with conditions that limited his efficacy. So it was the Controller the Leader and my Starlock doing the heavy lifting. (For some reason, my dice were volcanically hot- even maxed out a non-crit hit.)
For the longest time, our group had no Leaders and only one Defender...but we had a surplus of strikers. When you kill things quickly, you don't need much healing.
Then we lost a bunch of our strikers, but gained a leader. Our combats are longer, but now we have the healing to deal with it.
Oddly enough, our Defender was glacier-cold in the last session, and largely just gimped along doing 5pts of damage with his mark, 'cause he couldn't hit a damn thing, and the other main striker kept getting nailed with conditions that limited his efficacy. So it was the Controller the Leader and my Starlock doing the heavy lifting. (For some reason, my dice were volcanically hot- even maxed out a non-crit hit.)
My guess is that your party will be fine without a controller.
Because this is the internet, and I feel the need to throw a little bit more out there, I'll add this.
It seems to me, and my 4E experience is largely limited to LFR, that the controller really comes into his own in paragon tier, maybe surpassing in importance / replacing the defender at higher levels.
Because this is the internet, and I feel the need to throw a little bit more out there, I'll add this.
It seems to me, and my 4E experience is largely limited to LFR, that the controller really comes into his own in paragon tier, maybe surpassing in importance / replacing the defender at higher levels.
Knuddelbaer
First Post
Well thank you all for the replies. I'll let it roll from here as usual, just to try things out.
A few comments:
- Yes, the ardent has actually cut his work out for him. Often he runs out of healing powers before the battle draws near the end due to a lack of focus firing. The player even picked the Multiclass Cleric Feat to get the Healing Word as an extra.
- The monk and warlock are doing fine, unless the monk maneuvers to a place where he gets eaten the next round. The guy is addicted to flanking.
- Oddly enough, the battlemind deals a lot of damage because he is a dwarf with a craghammer (brutal 2). He deals considerably more than the paladin who wishes for a d20 with numbers larger than 5.
- Tanking, in general, works fine, especially because the battlemind is driving me nuts with his interrupts and reactions.
- The paladin himself has 2 uses of Lay on Hands, a feat that boosts LoH (Devoted Paladin, I think) and probably more healing options. I will suggest that we look into the healing topic more if the players feel overwhelmed.
A few comments:
- Yes, the ardent has actually cut his work out for him. Often he runs out of healing powers before the battle draws near the end due to a lack of focus firing. The player even picked the Multiclass Cleric Feat to get the Healing Word as an extra.
- The monk and warlock are doing fine, unless the monk maneuvers to a place where he gets eaten the next round. The guy is addicted to flanking.
- Oddly enough, the battlemind deals a lot of damage because he is a dwarf with a craghammer (brutal 2). He deals considerably more than the paladin who wishes for a d20 with numbers larger than 5.
- Tanking, in general, works fine, especially because the battlemind is driving me nuts with his interrupts and reactions.
- The paladin himself has 2 uses of Lay on Hands, a feat that boosts LoH (Devoted Paladin, I think) and probably more healing options. I will suggest that we look into the healing topic more if the players feel overwhelmed.
I soooooooowant a craghammer or similar superior (hammer) weapon for my Dwarven Starlock.
Ardents have that insanely powerful at-will that grants bucket loads of THP, so that has to help in fights. I think it is something like 'main stat+Half Level'. All other classes with similar abilities only get to do a secondary stat worth of THP.
I'm always glad when a player chooses a Controller. I set up fights with lots of cool stuff to push people into and terrain to get people stuck behind. It is disappointing when the PCs cannot take advantage of it.
That being said, I really don't see the point in controllers in heroic tier unless the DM goes out of his way to make them useful. Personally I use lots of minions and damaging terrain, so I am pretty Controller friendly.
I'm always glad when a player chooses a Controller. I set up fights with lots of cool stuff to push people into and terrain to get people stuck behind. It is disappointing when the PCs cannot take advantage of it.
That being said, I really don't see the point in controllers in heroic tier unless the DM goes out of his way to make them useful. Personally I use lots of minions and damaging terrain, so I am pretty Controller friendly.
The Human Target
Adventurer
There is a lot of truth to this.
Most defender type stuff is a class feature or maybe an at-will, so they tend to stay at the same level of defendery-ness forever.
A lot of controller stuff is really power selection, which gets more powerful as you go up.
Though I'd still rather have a defender over a controller at paragon in an either/or situation.
