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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LightWarden" data-source="post: 6744895" data-attributes="member: 6803540">Originally posted by alien270: Tips, Strategies, and Tactics Aspects of Control (or, what to focus on)There are many different ways to control the battlefield, and different techniques usually have different goals in mind. Controllers have the potential to use all of these methods, but different classes and builds have their own strengths and weaknesses. Specializing in one method will make you more effective overall (for example, if you take a feat that imposes save penalties or that increases the size of your AoE's, specializing in save ends powers or AoE's will mean that more of your powers benefit from these feats). However, you have to balance the fact that certain types of powers are more or less effective depending on the encounter and what types of foes you're up against. All controllers should therefore make sure that they have a number of tricks up their sleeve so that they can handle whatever comes their way. Area of EffectsUsing bursts and blasts is a way of affecting multiple enemies with a single power. This tactic is very broad, as AoE powers may have very different effects. Some do damage, pure and simple. The more enemies you catch in the blast, the more your damage adds up. The argument is often made that it's best to focus fire on a single enemy since foes do not become less effective as they drop in HP, until they cross that 0 threshold. While this is true to an extent, hitting 3, 4, 5, and upwards enemies with a single power can inflict staggering amounts of damage on the enemy forces as a whole. Besides, the rest of the party can focus-fire on single targets; when they move onto subsequent targets they may already be bloodied. Watch out though, as a lot of AoE's do not discriminate friend from foe.  AoE's usually do more than just raw damage, and this is where they become truly useful. Status effects can be used to eliminate an opponent's turn, and if you can engineer the situation so that you scrap the turn of multiple enemies with one power, that's all the better. Obviously AoE powers will have weaker effects than single target powers of equivalent levels, but you can still get creative and make the situation work for you. Slow is usually considered to be one of the weaker status effects, but if you can slow an entire front line of brutes and soldiers while convincing your own allies to keep a respectful distance (that fighter is just itching to charge in there...), you can have a huge impact on the battle. Just convince your melee friends to delay until after the enemy's turns (assuming you went before).   The benefits of mass debuffs should be relatively obvious, and imposing forced movement on a clump of enemies is much more beneficial than moving each individually.  Wizards in particular have many spells with very large AoE's (and the feat Enlarge Spell can make them even bigger if you're willing to accept a damage penalty).  Single Target Lockdown A strategy made famous by the Orbizard build. The most powerful status effects are likely to be single target, and if they're save ends then you can dramatically increase their efficacy by seeking out ways to impose save penalties (this is why Orbizards excel at the task). The most dangerous foes (Solos) have save bonuses, so you should consider the pros and cons while choosing targets (a controller with no save penalties is unlikely to keep a Solo busy for very long). Obviously Stun is one of the most powerful effects at locking down any type of foe, but you won't have access to powers that stun for a while. In Heroic tier your ability to lock down single targets will be mostly limited to melee foes (daze, immobilize, prone, etc.), though you can ruin the day of ranged enemies if you employ these tactics while a melee ally is breathing down their neck. Druids can lock down ranged enemies right out of the box just by being in melee, assuming they can maneuver them into a corner or onto difficult terrain. The most important thing to remember is to choose your target carefully so you get the most mileage out of the effect.   Summoning Different controllers go about summoning in different ways. Generally speaking, summoning is a way for you to put an extra ally on the battlefield. Most universally, all summons serve as a form of damage mitigation. Summoned creatures have HP equal to your bloodied value, but when they're killed you only lose 1 healing surge. Furthermore, if you time it right and the dice favor you, you may find yourself in a situation where your summoned ally is almost down. At this point you can dismiss the summon and all of the damage dealt to it will have been wasted! Finally, this form of damage mitigation is also a good way to draw fire away from your allies, particularly melee Strikers (which tend to have few surges and a knack for getting knocked around).   Since summons count as allies, they can also be used to set up flanking (a pseudo-debuff) and they can benefit from a leader's buffs. They also simply take up physical space on the battlefield, which may or may not be useful in a given encounter.   Many individual summons have specific control abilities, but I'm not going to attempt an exhaustive list. Rather, I will generalize how the summons of Druids, Invokers, and Wizards differ from each other and what makes them unique. Invoker summons have the ability to make opportunity attacks (OAs), potentially limiting the movement of enemies (or at least punishing them for moving). They sometimes get bonuses to their defenses, and the higher level summons can attack with the Invoker's minor action. Wizard summons are similar in that they can make OAs and they tend to get defense bonuses. They also usually get some minor controlling effects, but their attacks are standard actions instead of minor actions. Often the OAs of Wizard summons will even have an additional effect of some kind (often allowing the summoned creature to act as a secondary Defender). Druid summons are the most offensively oriented of the bunch. Most of them can't make OAs so their ability to affect enemy movement by simply being present is limited. They're also a bit squishier since they don't usually get a bonus to their defenses. The most important feature of Druid summons, however, is their ability to take Instinctive Actions. You can opt to control a summoned creature using your standard action much like a Wizard does, but if you don't command it then it will take its instinctive action at the end of your turn, assuming that it's able. Some instinctive actions are better than others, and some have control effects while others just do straight damage. Some incorporate movement into their instinctive action, making them viable even if your enemies are mobile. Essentially they can be no maintenance, granting you an extra action each round. You have to pay attention though; there are some summons that instinctively attack creatures that meet certain criteria, and that includes you and your allies! DebuffsA controller that focuses on debuffs is sort of an anti-leader. I differentiate debuffs from status effects by defining debuffs as numeric penalties and status effects as effects which limit enemy actions or options in some way. Sometimes the line is blurry (i.e. blinded). In a sense this form of control can be almost indistinguishable from what a Leader does; after all, mechanically there is no difference between giving an enemy a -1 penalty to AC and giving your ally a +1 bonus to attack (assuming they attack AC). Furthermore, sometimes Leaders debuff as well (i.e. the Bard's at-wills Vicious Mockery and Guiding Strike). In fact, Vicious Mockery is virtually identical to the Wizard spell Illusory Ambush (Vicious Mockery has the Charm keyword and Illusory Ambush has Illusion, but otherwise they're identical with the obvious exception of keying off of different attack stats). Both can be upgraded with Psychic Lock in Paragon. So do debuffs fall under the jurisdiction of Leaders or Controllers? It would seem, rather, that the two roles happen to share this ability (nothing wrong with that though).   PositioningOnce again, this is something that Controllers and Leaders have in common. Generally, however, Leaders affect positioning by granting their allies extra movement and Controllers conversely impose forced movement upon their enemies. This actually results in some important distinctions that are appropriate for both roles; namely, Leaders can bail their friends out of zones, difficult terrain, etc. to reduce their negative effects, whereas Controllers can force enemies into zones, difficult terrain, etc., compounding their negative effects. You're concerned with offense, while the Leader plays a defensive game. You also get to have more fun with movement since you can knock enemies into pits, off cliffs, etc. (a Leader would be unlikely to do the same to your allies). Both of you can manipulate flanking, either creating flanking opportunities for your allies or eliminating them for your enemies. The Druid at-will Call of the Beast is a unique way of denying enemies CA (from flanking or otherwise) without affecting positioning at all.</blockquote>

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