controllers, defenders and dominators? oh my @_@;

ok so excuse my noobyness, but how exactly is the controller/dominator good and what is it's roll in a group? is he just mainly there for buff/debuff?

i understand that a defender is usually the resident healer, but i don't fully understand the roll of the controller =/

Controllers: To control! They can make it so that no other support is needed. They are one of the best ATs for many people. They are so diverse in gameplay depending on the powersets.

The defender is good for well defending the teamates. This is done by severly debuffing, super buffing, or the dreaded healing (or a mixture of all of the above). By far my favorite is the force fielders. You cannot get much better than a team having near soft capped defense.

Dominators: well they are good at controlling as well, but honestly I usually do not have a dominator on my team unless it is for a concept. Im honestly not a fan of them at all.

Welcome to CoH

The roles in COH are overlapping, and thus, unlike many other MMOs, there are some fuzzy lines between the archetypes. Everyone can contribute to damage, many Archetypes have access to heals, buffs, debuffs, controls, etc. In some respects, its not what you *can* do, its the order of magnitude you can do it in.

Because the power sets within each archetype can vary so much, it is hard to pigeon hole each arcthetype, but here are some general thoughts:

Controllers have the best crowd control powers. They also have access to defender powers as a secondary power set, which means they bring additional buffs/debuffs/heals etc, to the table (but not as strong as the Defender version). The controller's job is to neuter the enemy so that the team takes less damage. While doing this, the controller often does damage at the same time. Their pets contribute as well. You will want to be a controller if you like to really manipulate the battle field while helping your allies at the same time. There is a lot to do, and a lot of tactics you can employ.

The Defender (and Corruptor) are there to buff/debuff while adding some extra direct damage (but again, that overlap happens - as some defender blasts offer more debuffs or control, too). If you want to help your friends and hinder your foes, and do some more direct blasting (and less controlling) than a controller, this is your Archetype. You will generally have the best buffs/debuffs in the game (again, not always true).

Dominators are a bit more like Blasters with a dedicated single-target focus, emphasizing locking down the targets with their controls, then moving in to pick them off with some ranged, and some very hard-hitting melee attacks. They have controls like controllers, but instead of buffing/debuffing, they have some very potent ranged and melee attacks. So if you like a more visceral feeling to your play with some whack whack action, this is your archetype.

Best thing to do is try a few out to level 16 or so, get a feel for them. Realize that endurance issues kind of stink on all of them until level 20, when you can get Stamina from the power pools (which I highly recommend). But then again, that's pretty much true for most archetypes (with a couple of exceptions). Have fun!

Rather than try to fit CoH into traditional roles, it is better to look at the sets and see how individual characters are put together to re-define roles, entirely.

Tank: Defense - Melee
Scrapper: Melee - Defense
Defender: Buff/Debuff/Heal - Blast
Controller: Control - Buff/Debuff/Heal
Blaster: Damage/Control - Damage/Control

Then the Warshades and Peacebringers which can do quite a bit of everything with both secondary and primary.

Lots and lots of overlap and you build towards that overlap. Anything "pure" is going to have a major weakness of some kind in this game, because as you can see above, basically every AT has several possible functions within a team. Unlike a great many other games, there isn't much of an advantage to loading up into a "pure" role, but instead an opportunity to make varied characters that are both self reliant and beneficial to a team.

It does make it an awkward transition from a game with a more narrow focus (I truthfully think the biggest hurdle to innovation in the industry is players staying to familiar old ways and always trying to move any new system into something more familiar). However, it also gives this game an enormous amount of flexibility and replayability. Your team compositions can be just about anything. You may like a certain archetype, and because of the varied nature of the game you could build highly contrasting characters within that archetype. A lot of people love their controllers, and while there is a lot of similarity in function, anybody on this board would tell you that their Illusion/Emp plays different than their Illusion/Storm, and their Earth/Emp and Earth/Storm play little like their Illusion counterparts. While it could possibly be said that the "role" of the controller is to mitigate damage, they can go about doing that in extremely different ways and are an AT capable of some truly amazing things.

Until Going Rogue where side-switching will be enabled, you will only find controllers and defenders on the blue (hero) side, and dominators on the red (villain) side.

Let's talk about the blue side first:

Many people coming from other MMOs think of the defender as the "healer", but the actual "support" class blue-side is the controller. Unlike in other MMOs where "crowd control" is limited to stunning on guy, rooting another and sleeping the third, in City of Heroes we generally fight up to 10-20 mobs at once, and crowd control powers are literally "AoE" in scope. The controller has an entire primary devoted to crowd controlling the massive number of mobs, and a secondary with buffing, debuffing and healing powers.

However, unlike other MMOs where the "support class" is rather hapless without a team, controllers are powerful in their own right and by picking different combinations of primary and secondary, can produce very good damage and soloing ability. (see below for more on the secondary) For example, Fire/Kin is famous for farming mobs, Ill/Rad is famous for soloing AVs (and just about anything).

The defender is more of a hybrid support/offense class, with a buffing/debuffing/healing primary, and a secondary that deals damage. However, they are kings of (de)buffing. Their primary set is stronger than the controller's secondary, and their offensive blasts are linked to various secondary effects that are stronger than any other AT. For example, defender radiation blast debuffs mob defense, and debuffs more than the radiation blast blasters have.

So there is a difference between the two blueside classes. The controller controls and (de)buffs to achieve safety, and deals double damage on the mobs that are controlled (called "Containment). The defender achieves safety by primarily (de)buffs, and deals damage. This is not set in stone because there are controller sets that have a more "blastery" flavour (e.g. Mind, Gravity control), and defender sets that have a more "controllery" flavour (e.g. Storm summoning, Dark Miasma, Trick Arrow).

Red side now:

Dominators perform crowd control and deal damage. Their crowd control at baseline is weaker than a controllers, being of shorter duration, until they reach the state call "Domination", which is when their control exceeds a controller's. This happens when their "Domination bar" builds up through attacking, at which point they can fire off a button that lets them enter Domination. It is possible to build a Dominator such that they are permanently in Domination, a state call "perma-dom".

Assault sets are a mixture of melee, ranged, single target and AoE damage. Different assault sets have different focus although most of them favour going into melee. The melee damage is higher to reward the dominator (low hitpoints and squishy) for going into melee range. The only exception I can think of to this is fire assault.

If you like support classes redside you might look into the Mastermind, with pet control and (de)buffs.