Jade_Dragon

Mitigation will always be higher for a Controller than a Defender, because the Controller has a mitigation tool Defenders don't have: Control powers. While a Defender might have a control power (Choking Cloud, just as an example) it will be inferior to a Controller's dedicated Control powers.

While your analysis is a good subject for discussion, there is another way to look at it. There are three types of powers in this game, offensive powers, defensive powers, and status effect powers. As you put it, offensive powers deal damage or multiply the force of that damage, while defensive powers mitigate damage, or multiply the magnitude of that mitigation. For instance, a +Def buff mitigates damage, but a -Res debuff on a foe hitting an ally protected by that +Def multiplies the mitigation of the +Def by the reduction in damage from the -Res.

Status effect powers also mitigate damage, while also controlling the location of the foe, thus giving the opportunity for greater damage. These three types translate into the five types of Power Sets the devs define, Melee, Ranged, Defense, Buff-Debuff, and Control. In its simplest form, Melee is damage in melee, Ranged is damage at range, Defense is personal damage mitigation, Buff/Debuff is either damage mitigation or force multiplication (greater damage) and Control is status effect.

Each AT in the game has two of these five types as a major capability, with lesser capabilities with the other. For instance, a Tanker is Defense/Melee, with a little bit of Ranged, and Control, mixed in with his Primary and Secondary powers. A Defender, obviously, is Buff-Debuff/Ranged, and a Controller is Control/Buff-Debuff. No surprise there.

It's the lesser capabilities that are the problem. A Defender doesn't lack control powers completely, some of his Primary offers "soft" control powers instead of or in addition to buffs and debuffs. And a Controller doesn't lack damage, some of HIS Primary applies damage to the foes that it holds. The problem is that with Containment providing the Controller with more damage, does that damage exceed what the Defender is capable of?

It should be like this:

Defender:
Buff-Debuff: High
Damage: Moderate
Control: Low

Controller:
Control: High
Buff-Debuff: Moderate
Damage: Low.

It is more like this:

Controller:
Control: High
Buff-Debuff: Moderate
Damage: Moderate

There is no arguing this is imbalanced. The Controller has the same amount of damage, almost as much Buff-Debuff, and MUCH more Control. So if you want to argue this you must either claim that:

1) Controllers don't do as much damage as Defenders. (Note: not that Controllers don't do MORE, just that they can do as much)

or

2) Defenders are as good at controlling as Controllers are at buffing and debuffing.

The claim is usually that a Controller's specialization with single target damage, and the Defender's with AoE, puts their damage in balance, or even for some Controllers, makes it worse. The problem with this is that the Controller is more soloable, because it has more single target damage, while the Defender's reliance on AoE makes him more reliant on a team. Particularly without the defenses or control powers to back up that damage. (As with a Kin) At least a Corruptor does enough damage to make that significant, and it has an Inherent that supports soloing as well. The Defender is only marginally better than the Controller at AoE, and then only if you are not talking about the Controller outliers that are capable of great AoE damage.

Alternately, the claim can be made that Dark or Force Field Defenders are capable of using control powers that are close to as effective as Controllers. But Defender controls are, as mentioned above, "soft" controls, usually knockback, slow, or fear. These are only partial damage mitigation. The holds that are available are obviously inferior to Controller holds, both because they are not in a Control set, and because the Defender's AT modifier with those powers is lower as well.

In short, as you said, while you may be able to make a Defender which is better at control than the others, he will usually give up some other attribute, such as damage, for Dark. Or if you make a Controller that is going to have lower damage, he will usually have greater damage mitigation through controls. The idea that a Defender and a Controller should both do the same damage, because they are both support classes, ignores the fact that Defenders and Controllers are already balanced around control. You cannot just compare damage mitigation to offense and say the two are balanced, the control aspect has to come into the comparison as well.

Posi seems to be aware of this problem, and working on it. I don't know what his solution will be, but likely you will be able to keep your powers if you exemplar down only a few levels.

The most logical solution is to allow you to keep all powers for any level up to the level at which you would make the team stop getting XP for the mission. So, whatever your exemplared level is, +5. That way you don't lose any powers you would have kept had you chosen not to exemplar. But the point at which you wouldn't be making any XP if you didn't exemplar anyway, you lose the usual powers.

Possibly, they could just use the exemplar level + 5 value for powers no matter what level you are, so if you exemplared down to level 1, you'd be level 1, but have your first five powers. As they will probably want to leave PvP and Oroborous missions alone, though, that might be overly complicated.

I don't think I've heard anyone say these are "bad moves", or maybe I just disregarded them. There's a standing suggestion to make Flurry an attack like this, so it will be BETTER. Not worse.

To each his own though, I guess. (And with Brutes, you want to make sure you've got full Fury before you use Shadow Maul, otherwise the animation time will make Fury go down)