brophog02

Which says something.......it was once one of the most popular Controller primaries.

To the OP: Are you looking for uncommon pairings or poorer performers (which is often the reason they're uncommon in the first place).

Energy/Electric Blaster is a great combination, but rare. It's rare because 99.9999% of Energy Blasters go Energy/Energy.

Electric/Devices Blaster is rare because it simply isn't a great performer (it isn't as bad as its rep, imo).

Both rare, but for very different reasons.

It is an enormous part if you're switching sides to do content and get badges.

The whole idea of Going Rogue is to experience more content with characters that were previously limited to only one side. Ouroboros is how a high level character accesses most of the content in this game.

I sure hope some of that changes. With Ouroboros being such a huge part of the game for a higher level toon there isn't a lot of incentive to stay Vigilante/Rogue.

There's been quite a few new players in the game all summer.

It could be over-simplification. It could be that the role can often be seen as too passive in a game all about killing. Tanks can do a great job without punching buttons frantically, and to some that's just boring. Certainly it can be an AT where you round everything up, let your taunt aura go to work, and get up and go get a drink. That may be too passive for many. I don't think there is an AT in this game where the difference between a player playing it well and a player not having a clue is so dramatic. There are tankers in this game and then there are people just playing the tank AT.......if you get my meaning.

It could be a lot of things. The aggro cap doesn't change the AT, it changes the scale that the AT works on. It is just an arbitrary number. 16 is big enough to be big, yet one can still design encounters to exceed it. If you have more than 16 targets, odds are pretty darn good you have a team......and they can do something about those targets you can't keep aggroed. Yeah, managing a large spawn is necessary, that's the entire reason target caps, aggro caps, and mez duration and recharge times on controls were redone.

Every AT has to deal with that change.

I don't have an AT where I can say I've never been on a team that I didn't feel superfluous. I've taken a Blaster on a support heavy team and felt unnecessary. I've taken support on a damage heavy team and felt unnecessary.

That's just how the game is.........especially in 35+. I've quit more teams in that range because I felt unneeded than I have teams that died a lot. I don't particularly care for steamrolling teams and that's about the range where any AT on a decent team gets about 1 attack off and finds everything dead.

It's not so much AT design, but the fact the vast, vast majority of this game can be done with about 2 people on an 8 man team.

If I find myself in that situation I politely quit and find another. There's always another team out there that can use your services, regardless of your AT.

Don't pick an extreme example, no doubt with recharge to the gills (considering 2 of the 4 are on base 4 minute timers and the other two are on 40s/45s timers) and including many soft controls.

Every control set can't do that.
They're soft and not hard controls, meaning one idiot ruins.
You don't run into 64 enemy spawns.
And, we're assuming no other aggro management whatsoever is on the team.

You still can't do what a tank does. You can't re-position mobs (mind can with telekinesis, but it takes practice and you didn't list it). You've got no -kb to help with knockback containment (whereas a smart tank can reposition near structure). You can't do squat against POTD.

So, in an ideal condition, with no other forms of mitigation on the team, everything recharged, no AVs, clustered 8 man spawns..........yes, you can control more than one single tank. Bravo.

It doesn't replace a tank. That sleep pops due to anyone hitting it, you have to wait for it to recharge. The fear pops, they get an attack in.

A tank can reposition and re-grab aggro, its not waiting for recharge. Any of those controls aren't recharged and you can't use them. A good tank can keep mobs moving towards him even, aggroed, even if a squishy is in the way.

I don't know how many times on my Energy Blaster, where I'm positioning to control knockback that I can stand in the middle of incoming enemies and the tank can move them to where I'm shooting. A controller can't do that. A dominator can't do that.

They can't replace a tank. They do their thing, a tank does his. Both excel in certain situations.

The difference is, they no longer cry about things that were done so many issues ago, like some on the tanker forum do. Some think that increasing the aggro cap even a little somehow validates the AT. You haven't changed role, you're arguing scale. In your extreme example, we'd have to increase it to 64 targets to make the tank control as well as your dominator.

That's ridiculous, and you should know that. Increasing the Aggro cap to 20 or 30 won't validate tanks, it will make people want to raise it to 40 or 50! That's how the playerbase works......they whine and moan until they get more and more.

We call them badgers.......

That's the issue. Thank you for your clarity.

Nor have I stated they balance things in a vaccuum. However, when they implement new systems, like IOs, they do not go back and change all of the pre-existing systems, but instead attempt to balance around them.

In effect, they get trapped in their own continuity. They want to make as few changes as possible to the established powers, with good reason, but by attempting to do so it can create unforeseen issues as one system gets implemented onto another. As unpopular as they are, there is a reason for "Retcons".

I understand the Cottage Rule just fine, thank you.

Only the greatest power in the entire set...............

There's no idea to talk about.........your suggestion can't be implemented. Go back to the drawing board, within the confines of this game, and come back with something that will work.

If the premise of the discussion is flawed, the discussion is flawed. That's why you're not getting any real discussion.

I agree completely. It's really only on a few sets where it is a problem, mostly because IOs have wrecked the damage/recharge ratio in sets that have their damage concentrated in one or two powers.

Archery is the perfect example here: Blazing Arrow accounts for a far larger percent of the ST damage than the tier 3 does in most of the other sets, even though collectively Archery's 3 ST attacks are roughly equivalent in single use to most other sets. ROA is similar due to being a crashless nuke.

The power concentration of those two powers means that with enough recharge you have the vast majority of the rest of the power slots to make those compromises. Something like Archery/MM is perfectly capable of being fully effective and have soft capped defense without making those compromises.

It is global recharge more than defense that is responsible for some of these things, because as noted the compromises for most sets are high enough that it isn't always worth pursuing soft capped defense. Sets that may have been designed in a certain way originally more as a novelty can now be skewed to the point the overall balancing mechanisms just don't work.

If you're going to hold firm as s developer to the Cottage Rule, these things in concert create a significant balancing problem.

That increases the gap between the ATs, but those toons don't really need more survivability. In fact, I would suspect going forward that all ATs will have less overall power in relation to new content simply because the IO system has created the opportunity to make a lot of it fairly irrelevant.

I agree completely that anything smelling like a "nerf" will draw more ire than it is worth. However, the only way to solve these problems efficiently is by doing such. To do it any other way only transfers the problem to another area and you really never get anywhere.

My Energy Blaster only has 50-60% global recharge and if I can move fast enough attacking hazard zone sized spawns I'm within a second or two of perma-hasten with a Force Feedback in the each AOE power.

It's definitely handy, particularly for the mitigation in certain team situations..........it makes that chance for knockback far more reliable because you can cycle the powers fast enough that pretty much everything can stay down. (They really should make those two powers 100% knockback, the way similar AOE powers are in other sets, but that's a post for another occasion.) With those and the cone from the Apps I have a full AOE chain with three powers, with four of them consistently fitting in the time frame of Aim/Build Up and 5 of them just fitting in the frame of one of those buffs, if I execute everything in a certain order.

Yeah, it's noticeable, to say the least. If more sets had multiple knockback AOE damage powers, it would be on the verge of broken. I'm not sure it isn't already, though most people have a far higher threshold for the term than I do.

Plant/Storm can certainly slot several, but I'm not sure how reliable some of them would be. Creepers can slot the Force Feedback proc, but with IOs working so oddly in that power I have no idea how effective it would be. I've never needed more recharge on a Plant/Storm mostly because the combination has the benefit of using the cheapest purple sets in the games with effects such as Sleeps, Confuses, Immobs, Stuns, and Holds.

There's 5 sets without even touching the far more expensive damage purples. One of the many great aspects of this combination.

I agree with Milady on this..........I use the Fly Trap more as another means of control as a distraction. On teams I don't need it for the damage, and usually won't even summon it on a team. Solo it is nice, and I keep it 4 slotted with Expedient Reinforcement.

For Achilles Heel, I like it better on Tornado than the Fly Trap. I mostly need it for hard targets and with enough recharge I can keep Tornado stacked and it can't die! Something like an AV can kill those controller pets pretty quick. Tornado is set and forget.

For the OP, just frankenslot the Fly Trap for now, making sure its damage and accuracy are sufficient. When soloing, until you get the rest of your powers, solo on larger spawns with a lower difficulty rather than the other way around. Turn bosses off if necessary. Damage should not be a big issue on teams.