A discussion on MMORPG – what works – what doesn’t work – and suggestions for better. Your Controllers are your crowd control ( CC ) with powers to slow, trap and lock down your opponents.
Party Animals 3
One of the major differences in MMO RPGs from solo-play games is the role of Parties within the game. In a MMO RPG no one character holds all the skills. Each class has a role to play within the party. Here I want to explore how this works and the possibilities. For the most part, I prefer to play a healer. In Aion I have played all of the classes so will use it for my examples here.
Support Classes
There is a third support class in the game. These are your controllers. It is their job to keep order during chaos.
Crowd Control
Your Controllers are your crowd control ( CC ) with powers to slow, trap and lock down your opponents. This can be a very challenging role to play in the midst of battle.
This class, as a whole, are normally casters, but not always. They wear light to medium armor and, depending on how the game has set up their skills, light to medium damage as well. Their spells range from slowing to immobilizing skills all to the purpose of controlling the enemy.
The controller is often slow to level. In solo play they combine CC with low to moderate DPS. This is not 
to say they are a weak class. They just like to play with their food . In Aion there is no one controller class. Instead they have given CC skills to each of three classes. The Spiritmaster is the master of fear spells. The Sorc has spells to sleep, transform and immobilize. And the Ranger has been given traps as well as arrows of sleep and silence.
In parties a good controller enables the group to tackle more difficult and more numerous foes. It is their job to coordinate pull sequences with the tank. They then hinder and lock down the on rushing mobs allowing the party to concentrate damage on the main targets in some sense of order. Not an easy task in the middle of chaos. It comes down to having excellent timing, managing cool downs and the rotations of your skills. There is rarely time to think about doing damage and should never be done at the expense of loosing a hold on a foe.
A controller will have a variety of hold skills to choose from. Learning how they can be sequenced and combined or stacked for the best effect is this class’s challenge. These skills will also have cool downs to be considered. It is best to pick at least one good AOE hold spell as well as one really good reliable individual hold.
Playing solo on a controller can be slow going, but in party it becomes fast paced and demanding fun. Remember, excellent communication and cooperation with the tank is vital to the success of the party.
If I built the world…
If I built the world I would enjoy developing this class. Actually, I can see two possible paths for a controller to follow: a mechanical one dependent upon traps and devices and a more traditional magical one. Now I’m not against giving other classes some means of CC and I truly enjoyed playing Aion, but I think they really missed the boat not including this class in the game.