What makes a controller a controller?

[Felon]

What makes a controller a controller? Well, if it has lackluster defenses and HP, doesn't do particularly great damage, and can't heal, then it's a controller.

I'm half-joking, but it does seem that leaders offer lots of control (with debuff powers mixed in with their buffs), and have the added feature of a built-in healing power.

 

[igniz13]

It isn't just the ability to control one thing, it's the ability to be flexible and control whatever aspect of the game your party might have trouble with that makes a controller what he is.

I will echo this, expand on it and add something else.

The Controller's job is to do whatever helps his allies win, but often with a focus on how the enemy is working against what party is doing.

Using a daze power as an example:

The other roles will often use a daze power with their own role in mind.

Cleric Dazes so others have CA against a target he wants them to take down
Rogue Dazes so he has CA against that target and can take it down easier
Fighter Dazes so an enemy has a harder time ignoring him

The Controller Dazes for any of the above reasons as he see's fit.

This applies to other status effects. They're used to help others.

Controllers also have AOE.

In terms of Controller design, your focus should be on making the Controller as little of the others as possible. The Controller can be defined in that he is none of ther others but is free and able to act in their interests as he see's fit.

 

[Felon]

I will echo this, expand on it and add something else.

The Controller's job is to do whatever helps his allies win, but often with a focus on how the enemy is working against what party is doing.

Using a daze power as an example:

The other roles will often use a daze power with their own role in mind.

Cleric Dazes so others have CA against a target he wants them to take down
Rogue Dazes so he has CA against that target and can take it down easier
Fighter Dazes so an enemy has a harder time ignoring him

The Controller Dazes for any of the above reasons as he see's fit.

As presented, this is pretty much a non sequitor. Anyone who dazes will apply that power for one of these reasons, or with some other intent entirely (e.g. for putting distance between themselves and the target). Intentions are amorphous things.

True, a rogue is by design less likely to daze a target so that it has a harder time ignoring him than a fighter is, but then again so is a controller.

 

[Felon]

Defenders have things that encourage enemies to attack them.

A Martial controller has two viable paths, only one of which appeals to me.

1) A "bursty" controller that uses "hails of arrows" and "wide swaths affected by a whip", or "sweeping blasts from my polearm". I'm not a big fan of this one.

2) A close in, adjacent and blast 2 focused tripping/shoving, sweeping controller. This I the one I like and am pissed off they didn't use this as the Dark SUn Gladiator.

Both of these seem to me more like alternate builds for existing classes than an entirely new one, simply because there are only so many novel ways to trip and shove and sweep, and the rogue and fighter have them covered pretty extensively.

3) The third "martial" controller people try to mention is a grenadier or gadgeteer. I just don't see that as martial. Great for the Steampunk power source though. ;-)

Personally, I'm an advocate of the notion that the rogue should have been the martial controller from the get-go. Currently, there's a lot of kludgeyness in trying to make the guy in the party wielding the tiniest weapon into one of heavy hitters (chiefly because of the big differential between a rogue attack with sneak attack and a rogue attack without it). How much cooler it would have been to depict the rogue not as "Mr. Stabs-Real-Hard", but rather as the harrier, the fly in the ointment, the purveyor of dirty tricks, the one they regard as lest threatening until it's too late.

To that end, I would like to have seen the rogue be the martial master of immediate action attacks. There is no dirtier trick in 4e than a perfectly-timed interrupt or reaction. Forget AoE, this is where the real control is exerted. Imagine the rogue completing his turn to little fanfare, but then during the monster's turn, as some big nasty is about to make his power play--surprise! Foiled by a sudden trip, a sap on the noggin, something in its eyes.

For that matter, I think every controller should have some immediate action power that's as ubiquitous a class feature as leader healing, defender marking, or striker damage bonuses.

 

[mneme]

There are really two different divisions in play here:

1. Ranged characters get to operate from range (thus get greater safety and target selection), but are glass canons (and even when they have great AC, tend to have few hp/surges).
2. Melee characters operate from close range, and can take hits or avoid getting hit. Melee characters are always going to take more hits than ranged characters--because they're up front and center [barring wierdness like melee charactars that always have stealth; those basically tend to operate like ranged characters]

vs

1. Controllers prevent the enemy from doing what they want to do, break up enemy tacts, etc.
2. Strikers make enemies go away, and stop being a problem.
3. Buffers (leaders) make the party more able to operate as a group to take down enemies
4. Healers (leaders) bring party members back when they fall down and prevent them from falling down in the first place.

There's no such thing as a defender, really--a "defender" is a melee controller -- a melee character (designed to take hits) who controlls the enemy by preventing them from operating optimally--getting controller features more cheaply by limiting some of them to be "attack me" features rather than "attack nobody" or "attack the one I designated". Similarly, the -typical- controller is a glass cannon because they're a ranged build -- and as such, they get to operate at range but can't take many hits.

This is, IMO, why druids are so problematic. They're billed as melee controllers -- but they're too fragile to actually operate in a melee role. They get decent enough +striker and +defender features (mostly on items) but not having one of the big pieces of the melee role while having one of their big class features operating only in melee hurts them a lot.

This is also why shamans are so solid despite having terrible defenses. They get full leader and good controller features, and can do it all at range--so they're -supposed- to be glass cannons who operate from range and try not to take hits. They've got the odd kicker of wanting good defenses anyway (as their controller features act a bit like defender features), but since even when they're in full "spirit defender" mode they act as if their spirit is insubstantial, they can be really effective.

 

[Fluxx]

What needs a controller?
- Forced Movement; If you can make the enemies stand where your allies want them to stand is gold
- Zones; When enemies can't move around like they want that is controll
- Status effects (slow, immobilize, daze, stun, attack-penalties...); they all hinder enemies to do their job (on the other hand combat advantage or defensepenalties aren't controller but leader things - they don't influence the action of the monsters but help your allies to defeat the enemies)
- Area Effects; They make it a bad choice to stand near each other so the enemies again can't act as they want without beeing punished.

If you do it from range or are highly mobile and do it in melee is not relevant for the question if you are a good controller but you should be able to act where you are needed most...

Other things mentioned aren't necessary controlllerthings:
- Low HP are a ballancing for beeing ranged - if you make a melee-controller you should give him more HP the same way a melee striker has more HP or better defenses than a ranged striker
- Low damage follows from strong other effects if you do high damage AND good conditions it is overpowered so a good controller shouldn't do much damage but you are not a controller because you do small damage...

Some additional thought:
Each Striker has some dmg-bonus, each leader has healing, each defender has a mark, in my opinion each controller should have s.th. like 'Mystical Debris' (Wizzard Utility 2)

 

[Felon]

True, a defender is simply a melee controller, although I'm more inclined to say the reverse--that the controller role is the appendix of the party because whatever dubious functionality it offers can be co-opted by other roles.

The problem with being a squishy ranged attacker is that 4e is a game of small-scale skirmishes. When most of your powers have a range of 10 or less, you're probably better off standing right behind the tank than straggling 9 squares behind him, where you're easy to isolate and victimize.

 

[dragnsteph]

This is, IMO, why druids are so problematic. They're billed as melee controllers -- but they're too fragile to actually operate in a melee role. They get decent enough +striker and +defender features (mostly on items) but not having one of the big pieces of the melee role while having one of their big class features operating only in melee hurts them a lot.

Thank you for reading my mind and being able to translate it into actual text. I started a reply to this thread 3 hours ago that was trying to say that

I am hopeful that druids will get some abilities that will address this issue, I think it's really OK at low levels (I have a baby level 2 druid that I play in a PbP game who is wonderful) but I can see how it could be more of a problem as her enemies do more damage later on.

Was trying to say, also, that I didn't see the point of a "martial controller" since really that's either a defender or something inherently broken that would be better done at range unless you're imagining some kind of arrow specialist with payloads that will blow up into sticky messes, but that might just be my City of Heroes history shining through.

 

[Felon]

What needs a controller?
- Forced Movement; If you can make the enemies stand where your allies want them to stand is gold
- Zones; When enemies can't move around like they want that is controll
- Status effects (slow, immobilize, daze, stun, attack-penalties...); they all hinder enemies to do their job (on the other hand combat advantage or defensepenalties aren't controller but leader things - they don't influence the action of the monsters but help your allies to defeat the enemies)
- Area Effects; They make it a bad choice to stand near each other so the enemies again can't act as they want without beeing punished.

The problem is, not a one of those features can't be found in ample supply in other classes.

It is not a problem endemic to the controller role. The designers of 4e did not do a good job of ensuring even a basic level niche protection. I see it constantly.

I create a hybrid barbarian/paladin, and come to realize that without Howling Strike, the barbarian doesn't bring any extra damage to the build.

A cleric tosses out Fire Storm (a 5d10 area burst 5 enemies-only attack that creates a zone that damages enemies for the rest of the encounter) and both the wizard and sorcerer's jaws drop. Then he shoots some 5d10 reliable laser beam that makes us even more aghast that we're not looking at an isolated incident of one OTT power.

The party's fighter gets to double-attack an enemy every round, and pretty much every other melee characters shakes their head at the notion of 4e being finely balanced. Defenders upset a lot of 4e's apple carts.

Honestly, I don't know why anyone would get upset at the notion of a 4.5 edition. But I digress...

 

[Victim]

People are right to consider the controller to be close cousin to the defender - both roles are focused on enemy action.

To go through all the roles:

A Striker is all about applying damage - both in large amounts, and where desired. Strikers have bonus damage with mobility/ranged (sometimes both of these). Focus fire is easy with strikers.

The Defender, on the other hand, is basically the anti-striker. His job is to make sure the monsters can't strike effectively by interfering with their ability to target the characters they'd really like to get to, or reduce their damage by making their most readily available target tougher and harder to hurt.

Strikers apply concentrated damage to kill desired enemies, defenders keep concentrated damage away from desired PCs.

The Leader makes the whole of the party greater than the sum of its parts. He keeps his teammates alive when they take lots of damage, helps to remove conditions that keep them from acting effectively, help get them where they need to be, or provide bonuses so their actions are much more effective. IMO, one of the keys to playing a great leader is knowing how your allies work so you can set them up and support them properly. When there's a monster that needs to go down, it might the strikers of the group doing most of the damage, but the leader is probably helping to make it possible in some way.

Now the Controller is basically the anti-leader. Where the leader offers powers that improve the plan of his allies, the controller takes apart the plan of the enemy.

Just like the Leader gains a lot from knowing about what his allies will do, when they'll need heals, what powers help them the most, etc, the Controller benefits from understanding what his enemies are going to do. Then he messes them up. Got enemies coming down a flank without any of your melee friends to cover? Icy Rays pins them down for a bit. Is that Artillery unit going to keep shifting away from your beatdown squad - you can use Icy Rays here too so it has to provoke. Melee enemies usually need to cluster to focus fire - and area powers can mess that up.

Of course, just because the controller is concerned with enemy action doesn't mean coordination with his friends is unimportant. Friendly fire sucks. If your allies aren't careful with positioning and shifting, then a lot of area powers will either hurt your friends (which is bad, especially when you impose conditions) or hit very few enemies. Similarly, having a lot of Slow, forced move, or Immobilize powers might not be useful if you have a strong melee team. Our invoker often found herself not moving enemies, since we already had them flanked (which our rogue often needed).