NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mapache" data-source="post: 5402524" data-attributes="member: 64751">I'd say Leaders are completely indispensable.  Not only are they the safety net that keeps people up, they're a powerful force multiplier for the rest of party when played well.Controllers are mostly extraneous.  Actual control effects don't seem to be as effective in practice as simply killing things, and other roles can get multi-target powers.Defenders are nice, but not crucial.  Their ability to control the flow of most battles isn't as strong as you'd like, and their value is directly dependent on how much worse the rest of the party's defenses are.Strikers I used to think were less important, until I started playing.  They "just" bring damage to the table, but damage is what wins battles.  Without them, everyone else has to work harder for longer, and that starts depleting longer-term resources.  It also makes the fights longer in real time.I've have very good experiences with "thug squad" parties consisting of four Strikers and two Leaders that just steamroll the opposition.  I've lately become enamored of hybrid Striker|Leaders, which if built correctly can operate as nearly a full Striker and about 3/4 of a Leader.  I think the nuclear option of party composition is a gang of optimized Striker|Leaders with maybe a defender or two, and maybe some hybrid Controller somewhere in there for a bit more AoE punch.  Distributing your Leadership around via hybrid is smart both because it enables the party as a whole to nova harder by stacking available buffs ("I'll boost accuracy at the same time as you boost damage!") and because you have redundancy to get around "Oh, no, the Leader's down and is the only one with minor action heals!"</blockquote>

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