Why arn't Controllers Sexy

[wcpfish]

My best friend is playing a Wizard in my current campaign. His dailies are just plain sick....Visions of Avarice + Wall of Fire = Lights out! The wizard as a controller can still dominate just not as frequently as in past editions of the game.

The wizard is Gladys Knight sometimes and then takes his turn as the Pips (unlike previous editions where the rest of the party served as support for the wizard). The controller is tough to quantify but fun for a cerebral player to play.

The Invoker and Druid are far better controllers IMHO and I agree with Morrus - expectations of 4E wizards vs. the reailty is where the feeling of 'meh' occurs.

If you want 'sexy' play a striker. That's the equivalent to being your team's leading scorer in basketball. Want to be the guy who sets screens, back cuts, and dishes out assists? Play a controller.

William C. Pfaff
aka WCPFish
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[AbdulAlhazred]

Their contribution is difficult to measure, basically. Strikers? DPR. Easy. Leader? Healing/+to hit/+to damage, averaged out. Straightforward. Defender? High defenses/HP/surges. Easy.

Controllers? Damage? Maybe? No... status effects? Well, doesn't everyone get status effects? Minion sweeping? Who cares? They're just Minions.

A good controller played tactically will be the invisible force that wins battles, but less tactically oriented players will simply never notice that fact. Particularly in Paragon/Epic (which most games never get to) not having a good controller hurts.

I don't think you can make them more appealing without upping the average tactical acumen of players. And that isn't really likely, heh.

This pretty much says it. Players in my group that have played wizards I think do have some trouble mastering the role and sometimes feel like their underpowered. OTOH as the DM I really fear the moment when they unleash something like Stinking Cloud or Flaming Sphere. Even those low level dailies are pretty close to guaranteed to win an encounter unless you can knock out the wizard promptly. Overall though I think the players enjoy being a wizard, its the only class more than one player in my main group has decided to try at various times.

 

[kaomera]

My personal experience is that it's entirely possible to have a good party without a Controller, but not so much for any of the other roles. If you're missing a Leader, Defender, or Striker, you feel it immediately, you can work around it but you have to pretty deliberately do so, and it's much harder to recover if anything goes wrong. Most other classes have a few options for debuffing and/or clearing minions, and a few is normally all you need.

 

[fba827]

But why don't people like playing Controllers? Is there a way to make them more appealing?

It takes a certain playstyle and mindset (just like all the roles do).

The role doesn't need an extra gimmick (though admittedly, early on it was ill-defined, it has since taken shape) to make it more appealing. Just a matter of what the player likes/doesn't like.

In the group I play with, controller classes are something that pretty much all the players would enjoy trying out if not playing regularly.

 

[renau1g]

Why aren't they sexy? Have you seen controllers?

Vs.

 

[firesnakearies]

I love controllers. They're the most tactically interesting class, in my opinion. As Aulirophile said above though, that makes them most appealing to the rarer players with a high degree of "tactical acumen", or just players who enjoy that "chessmaster" play style.

The thing about controllers is, they really only shine super brightly when the rest of the party cooperates with them and plays to best take advantage of the controller. Herding enemies into groups and through chokepoints, staying out of optimal AoE and wall areas, moving around to force the enemies to move where the controller wants them. If the rest of the group is willing to do what the controller wants them to, and you have a tactically-minded "chessmaster" type of player running the controller, then they suddenly become stupidly awesome. When all of the rest of the team is just running around randomly on their own doing whatever they want, the controller seems a lot less cool.

I personally just like melee characters with weapons the most, thematically. So I tend to play melee leaders and defenders the most. If we ever get a melee-based, weapon-using controller class, I'll be all over it. I'd love to see some kind of martial controller using a super long reach polearm or chain kind of concept to do all of the control stuff at close range.

 

[outsider]

For me, it's not really that the controller role isn't sexy, it's just that all of the existing controllers have something I don't like about them. Wizards, Invokers and Druids: I don't enjoy rping the themes these classes bring to the table. Psions: theme is fine, mechanics unneccessarily complicate an otherwise elegantly designed game system. Seeker is too weak for my powergaming instincts, but once more and better material is released for them, I'd probably actually play this one.

 

[drothgery]

Why aren't they sexy? Have you seen controllers?

Well, all controllers to date are Int or Wis primary; Charisma is a secondary stat at best for them...

 

[Stalker0]

Controllers are one of those roles that comes of age at higher levels to me.

When I played my 1st level wizard I ddin't feel very controllery. I got an at will slow that hit fort, and a once per fight immobilize, meh.

But when I DMed my paragon game and our wizard is freezing multiple guys for the fight, putting the big solo to sleep permanently and then like...now you start to see the magic.

 

[The Human Target]

I love controllers.

But I will agree that they aren't as clearly defined as the other roles and they are the role that its easiest by far to not have in the party.

As to however said "killing minions doesn't matter", your DM must not be doing it right.