Thoughts on Static Field?

Yes, I did, and exploring all the interactions in the Elec set has been a plus for the GR experience. I rolled an Elec/Rad in Praetoria and one in Atlas, and the ride is different for each, but Static Field seems to be a staple once you have it.

I mostly play Controllers, and the Controller section gives some of the best responses to questions you will see anywhere. Local Man in particular carries a lot of weight with me when he speaks, as he is very good at articulating a lot of viewpoints that I either agreed with going in or agreed with once tested in the field. And, of course, anyone who agrees with me is clearly a genius!

If I can add something useful, I will chime in now and again, but the ground is usually covered very well by knowledgeable and friendly Controller type folks from the git-go. Thanks again to you all.

Sorry you are wrong about a petless MM being argued as better at support. First making things die faster is great support. Second, pets act as meat shields, any hit they take is one a player may not of taken. Finally, a lot of pets have support effect. They have all sorts of controls and debuff effects that add to support. Take your FF how much better would it's support be with just Lich adding it's -tohit and controls.

Killing things and getting hit by them is not support; Scrappers are not a support AT. Some pets do have support powers though, and the Lich... Good point, it's not really the having pets I was finding a problem, more that after bubbling 6 pets and 7 teammates I didn't have enough endurance to do much besides recover for the next buff cycle and with the new AoE buffs replacing a couple of zombies would mean having to drink almost a full column of blues.

Ok, so my argument for 'petless' seems to suffer from a black/white view of either having all pets or none; taking Lich and possibly Grave Knights but skipping the horde would cut the amount of pet buffing in half and remove the squishier stuff so reduce resummon costs a lot. Does skipping the tier 1 pets sound reasonable? Getting bubbles and fearsome stare on the same character is definitely appealing enough to take Lich again, and Grave Knights look like they do a lot more damage than the Horde would for the amount of maintainance required.

Edit: Uh, this thread is about Static Field? Sorry about the major threadjack :/

Your pets support YOU by keeping you alive, even if they did no damage, unless you don't know what Bodyguard mode is or don't use it? By taking the pets, I can use my support to keep the rest of the team alive, instead of completely relying on my secondary to keep me alive.

Petless MMs are not unplayable, but dont go around saying that its allows more effective support compared to taking the pets, that's the same king of thing, 'pure support' defenders used to say for why they don't blast. It didn't work for them, and it doesnt work for petless MMs.

Getting hit by things is support by most standards. Tanks are support, they keep teams alive by taking hits, pets do this on a smaller scale or with the MM them selves. Damage is a stretch, but how different is having a pet attack compared using -res debuffs and +damage buffs. Both increase kill speed from powers outside off attacks. I just don't see a petless MM providing more support.

Gimped as far as not reaching full contribution that they could in most situations yes; my dark/ff 'fendermind' didn't put out near as much damage as she would have with her pets, slightly less than a similar defender even, but without having to manage and buff them it is possible to be a more active with the FF side; whether you consider it worth the time to play FF as more than 'bubble every 4 minutes' is another argument that there seems little consensus on. I would like to emphasise that I did specify "that side" of their role, not that it made them a better or even equal character in total.

A petless MM is pretty much a Defender gimped by low multipliers. Post proliferation and GR the only excuse for it is a concept that requires whips or a non gun-fu pistol set. Hopefully the latter will be removed by alternate animations soon enough.

Not at all. As an mm on a full team you have one support set and 14 targets to support, by leaving off some pets you reduce that number releasing more of the powers' uptime to supporting the other 7/8ths of the team rather than keeping your 1/8th alive. A defender that fires a blast at an enemy can turn round and cast a buff on an ally as soon as the animation is over, an mm that uses a power to keep a pet alive can't use that same power to aid an ally until it has recharged. On sets like Dark Miasma, Poison, Storm, Traps and Trick Arrow the argument doesn't apply since at most you're looking at a weak heal. With Forcefield it's a very marginal area that I wouldn't bother with these days since you can get an FF defender or controller redside now. With Thermal and Pain Domination however having less targets to keep alive does have advantages.

Bodyguard mode is effectively personal ablative armour. I do not count that as team support any more than I would taking a patron armour toggle. And no, to a large extent I don't use it since I like to be able to give my pets other orders than "stand near me and shoot things if they look angry". My main MM that I play as an MM is bot/dark, I soon learned that bodyguard mode and fearsome stare don't make for quick starts to combat.

Tanks have aggro as a form of control. Controls, debuffs and buffs can count as support. Damage is damage. -Res is a force multiplier, +Dam is a force multiplier, pets attacking things are not. If the pets had some taunt effect like PA I could see them counting as aggro control, but since for the most part they don't do enough damage to pull aggro off anything else that is actually attacking - no, the only pets that count as support are the ones that actually do support. If the MM has taken pool taunts and is using bodyguard mode to be a tankermind, that's another matter entirely.
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Ok, now we've gone from whether elec control is playable without Static Field, through whether it is possible to play the game without mezz protection or just more difficult; and now are arguing about... well actually I don't think we're all on the same page on exactly what we're talking about so I'll summarise my argument as succinctly as possible.

Focussing your build and playstyle on team support makes you better at team support. It does not necessarily make you a better character or increase your overall contribution to a team.

I believe both of those sentences to be correct. Unless someone wants to disagree with the former directly rather than attempting to imply that it contradicts the latter then I think we are in agreement over everything bar what can be classed as support.

Hmm..I wonder why? It couldn't be lack of semantic understanding?

unplayable - not capable of or suitable for being played or played on

I won't even touch the rest of the comments. The premise of your arguments are incongruent enough that they don't even hold up under their own merit.

I would say the inverse of that. Support can only go to other people. If you only use World of Pain on yourself and your pets then you've helped yourself stay alive and do more damage, you haven't contributed any support to the team by doing so. Use it on the team and you have; use it on both and you're doing both. Empathy heals and buffs the entire team; it is a support set. Regen heals and buffs the player; it is an armour set. Pets in bodyguard mode do not absorb damage inflicted on other people, only the MM; so it is armour not support. It would be nice to have a "defend that person" order so you could use bodyguard as team support, but that's a matter for another thread.

That is the meaning I was using yes. Unplayable means 'not able to be played', not 'subpar', an Electric Controller without Static Field is subpar, it is not unplayable. An MM with no pets is gimped, but still not unplayable.

Never mind the fact that, assuming the desired backset is available (i.e. not poison or ff), an attackless corruptor will be more effective than a petless mastermind. Every time.

Static Field is so different from other sleeps. First, the power ticks every five seconds for an accuracy check to put everything back to sleep in the AoE. Second, the static field transfers end drain from foes to recovery for allies within the static field from target the passed the accuracy test whether they remain slept or not. Third, whether the target is still slept after being attacked, it has a slow component. The duration is 25 seconds with a base 40 recharge. This power can easily be made perma.

In my opinion, character with electric control but no static field are GIMPED.

Not capable holds the meaning you were using. Not suitable holds another meaning. No one ever said it is "impossible" to play.