Alvan

Well, if you still haven't picked your patron, let me suggest switching to //Mu

The Mu Guardian is probably the single best patron pet in the game with the heals, especially as you don't have other pets it might heal instead of you. And the endurance-gain power is superior to that of //Soul.

I'd probably drop Mass Hypnosis and Levitate (as you're not clearly putting an effort in them anyways) and take Stimulant and Aid Self instead. And slot Aid Self properly. Power Boost + Aid Self is surprisingly awesome

Otherwise looks quite nice. I personally never liked the cone on my /Ice domi, but it's not bad at all for pve.

I13: The Flames of Heck!

One contact in atlas park, with a repeatable mission to arrest hellions (levels 1-5)
One exploration badge in atlas park next to the new contact "I survived Issue 13"
A Co-op zone called "The White Heck", which is basically a textureless white flat zone without any content. Except a Hellion giant monster, which looks like a standard hellion thug. Doesn't give badge due a bug that is promised to be fixed some time in the near future.

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What about ultra hardcore wekend? All enemies have their stats doubled

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Or a total hardcore weekend - hospitals won't work for the weekend and all resurrection powers have recharge time of 72 hours for the duration of the weekend.

I know I would be able to play like 20 minutes before I ran out of characters...

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I edited my previous post to further things.

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So I see.

And oh bother.

I assumed that using phrases like "here are some tips" and "guide may contain opinions" would be enough to make people realize that it is one that isn't a 100% "this is what you should always do like a mechanical robot" guide, but more an eye-opener to what could be done with their powers. Looking back at the guide, I still think I wrote things pretty clearly. But because of the multi-linguistic nature of the community I should have written few more warnings about it being written by a human, not by a higher being that knows what's best for everyone.

I'm sorry if you are reading the guide as one full of absolutes, it isn't that. And to extrapolate (maybe add a little hyperbole to it as well), my most sincere apologies that I have, by not adding the aforementioned disclaimer of me being human, offended you somehow.

From what I'm reading from the other replies, you are the only one completely missing the tone of the original guide and I hope this directed response cleared things for you. But in case there are some people lurking there who think that they should follow things said in the guides section about powers to the letter without using their own brains, this is to you lot as well: go read my original again, notice the words like "opinion" and "tips" before the "wrong" and "right", even if the latter are in shiny and pretty colors. That should put you on the right tracks.

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Warning: Guide will contain nothing but opinions.

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That's what 95% of guides about powers are. The remaining 5% are a numeric breakdown of powers copied from the game.

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The fine-tuning comes as you learn what suits your style best and how there are situational exceptions to every basic idea.

[/ QUOTE ]You should of said this in the post of personal opinion. Then it looks more like a guide.

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The what now. If you're trying to say that I should have said the post is a personal opinion, I did. From the second line of the OP:

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Warning: Guide might contain opinions.

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If you're trying to say that it should have been included in the first post. Probably, didn't originally think it needed to. People usually have brains and they eventually learn the finer points without guides. But if it wasn't in the OP, I did say the very same thing in the first reply to you:

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But situational changes are something that just need to be learned by each emp individually...

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I agree that 1 empath and 7 blasters can work wonders, but they can also team wipe fast, only takes one mess up which could be from anyone. A mishap is fine, no one is perfect, an exact repeat of it though can be seen as for emphasis; [censored] stupid.

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when I say "work wonders" I mean it works wonders on the morale after three levels of being in a super-efficient team where you only need to re-apply fortitude every now and then and watch as the hyper-optimized team grinds through missions and you have nothing to do.

Also, I can't really help but notice the incredibly negative vibe flowing out of your posts again, Shanny. Chill.

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Great guide Alvan, however you did not state the cryptonite of most good empaths in a good teams, get in a solid experienced team after the mid 20s and if the tanker knows his job you are in danger of falling asleep as you are delegated to buffing people every few minutes.

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That's why you need to play in good teams that take the fact you're an empath into consideration and try to keep things lively. By aggroing three or four groups at the same time, for example. Best fun I think I've had on my empath was in a team of 7 blasters and me doing some task force.

But yeah, pure empathy in good teams can be tedious, as quite many powers are there to remove damage taken. And if the team is playing it too safe, than there is not much damage taken, thus quite many of your powers don't really have that big an use.

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Thanks for this guild Alvan.
I have just started an Empath and found the information here very useful as a start point.

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Thanks for the nice words for those who've said them, and yeah, it's meant as a starting point for empathing The fine-tuning comes as you learn what suits your style best and how there are situational exceptions to every basic idea.

So even if that one person in the thread is being overtly negative about it, try not to ignore what they say, as it might come handy later-on

Most of the weekend was spent on my Granite/Dual Blades Scranker who I think I got from 37 to 48. Also completed Lady Gray TF and Shadow Shards TF #1 with her, so now I have nice talsorian and rularuu blades to hit things with. Also got my empath from 47 to 49.5

All in all, good weekend

Hiya and welcome to the boards!

The other servers are for the American version of the game. You are subscribed to one or the other, and in your case it's the European version, not the American one.

You should be able to choose a title from level 15 onwards. You should be able to do this at the place where you select new powers and enhancement slots when you level, so the arbiter who is telling you you need to be lv 15 should be the person that allows you to set your new title. If you are level 16 (and have trained yourself to that level) and can't set a title, you should perhaps contact support in-game.

omg? lv 20 pentad team time!

Well, the APPs have a nice range of support functions in them, had all of them on my blasters on one point or another.

As you said //Ice is pretty much the one for PvP, but it tends to clog things up a bit in PvE. On the other hand I have it now on my PBAoE monster to keep things grouped in a neat pile for takedown.

//Elec is really nice for a controller-type build. The PBAoE Stun, whilst having a huge recharge and some nasty side-effects on your endurance, is technically a sure-fire way to render a group of enemies harmless. For a sapper build, I'm not really sure if having //elec brings anything to the mix, as your main powers will be doing most of the work on that. For Solo-PvE: The shield is good, the hold is great, the cone is good, the pbaoe is a bit meh as you won't be running into that many enemies. For Team-PvE: The shield is good, the hold is ok, the cone is great, the pbaoe is good.

//Force Basically suited to turning you into a mini-tanker. With //Force you'll be running in the front lines, grabbing alphas with PFF and blappering away with the godmode. It's in my opinion best-suited for characters that spend time in melee, so if you want to focus on your secondary, //Force is probably the set to take. For Solo-PvE this is a all around good set, for Team-PvE the knockback field isn't that wonderful and PFF will be used far less often

//Flame shares the fast hold with //Elec and the shield is bog-standard resistance shield. The two other powers in the set are really what make the difference. Bonfire is usually an ignored power, but it's great if you're focused on ranged combat. Drop a Bonfire at your feet and fire away at enemies who try to charge you, but get tossed away by the flames. Rise of the Phoenix on the other hand is a great self-rez that damages and stuns things around you when you fire it. My main is currently a //Flame spec. For Solo-PvE: The Hold is great, Bonfire is a bit meh, the armor is ok/good and rise of the phoenix is either really frustrating or utterly awesome (if you have a control build that can lock the enemies in the 10 seconds you're invulnerable, it's great, if not, it can be a bit annoying), For Team-PvE: The Hold is ok, Bonfire is great (if the defenders realize they can stand inside it and be safe, the shield doesn't hurt and RotP is great (as you stun everything around you, you're providing quite nice control and also save the actual rez to someone who needs it)

//Munitions is the Sniper's Choise. The defining power is the AoE snipe you get, and it's really as great as you might imagine. The sad thing about //Mun is that you get the assault rifle when taking it, so the otherwise sweet-looking hold gets a bit meh as you have to redraw it every time (as you're not an AR/blaster). The Sleep is really quite situational power and totally useless in teams, and the armor, while being "omg autopower" is quite crappy in the protection you gain from it. Solo-PvE: The hold is ok/good, the armor is meh, the sleep is ok (if you don't have lots of aoe) and the snipe is great. Team-PvE: The hold is meh/ok, the armor is meh/ok, the sleep is waste of space and the snipe is great/awesome.

Don't know if this helps you any

Well, this will be the end of PvP. Can't the devs think of all the little children.

On a more serious note, this was a long way coming.

Need to unlock the midnighter club on my BS/Dark then it seem

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I havent even touched the psychic primary for blasters yet... But I do read patch notes

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I don't really like the characters in those, and the plots are generally sub-par. However, the twists in them are sometimes quite surprising, so I do understand why one would be a reader...

aww

well, it's not like I've had time to play the damn thing over level 6

In PvE, both are really nice. Psi is quite an "either or" primary, as enemies are usually _very_ resistant to it, or not resistant to it at all. Psi has more viable single target attacks than any other set, so it's really more of a boss killer of a set. Also the secondary effect is more defensive than offensive, as -recharge makes the enemy attack less.

Sonic is a bit more focused on the AoE side with more crowd control capabilities. Sonic's base damage types are pretty much resisted by everyone on some level, but the secondary effect that's quite focused on bringing down the enemy ASAP regardless of this (-res(all)).

On PvP side, Psi is the Flavor of the Month, but that might be partly because it's new. But most likely because Psionic damage is not very well resisted in PvP.

The secondary pretty much depends what you want to do with the character. Energy's Power Boost doesn't affect either -Resistance or -Recharge, so thinking from that vantage point, it's not that clear a choice as it might be for some other primaries. On the other hand, Psi, bring the longest range attack primary, benefits nicely from Boost Range. And Sonic, being quite short ranged, does so as well. Electricity and Energy are for either of the sets pretty much the best option for a single target melee secondary. Fire rules all for AoE melee, and as such, could either complement Psi with the ST focusing (and Psy Tornado, being KU, could give you a nice opening to rush in and start dealing PBAoE), or benefit greatly from Sonic's AoE -Resistance powers. Devices can work really well with either, but it on the other hand a set that requires quite unique thinking and quite often defines how you play your primary. Ice secondary is based quite heavily on soft control, one that nicely stacks with psi, but on the other hand keeps mobs in neat groups that can be dealt with AoEs. And finally, Mental Manipulation, that offers nice variety of powers, again, working for either quite well.

So, to summarize: Depends what you like.

Inv/SS (50)
Stone/DB (37)
WP/Dark (6)

BS/Dark - 37

I can't really scrapper

Emp/Dark (41)
Storm/Psi (38)
Emp/Dark (37)
Cold/Sonic (16)

and a few deleted ones, around lv 20.

Just a Grav/Rad (50) at the moment. I had a mind/kin as well, but had to make room.

I'll be there.

Ice/Devices/Fire (50) - Incredibly fun to play, dropped all /devices powers that would slow my pace down. Really nice and fast to play these days. Still the character I play the most.

AR/Ice/Force (47) - Polar opposite of the previous - Slow and steady. Ice Patch + Ignite is really nice a combo.

Elec/Fire/Cold (41) - AoE monster. Backed up by a personal Empath. Can keep AVs taunted pretty reliably as long as the team is lacking in the Gauntlet department.

Psi/Energy (6) - Just started this little bugger. Seems nice.

And of course there are a few ones I've deleted along the way.

Fire/Fire - My very first character. Debtcapped from level 5, but got destroyed when CoH went live.

Ice/Energy - For the S4 PvP tournament. Deleted to make room for other things.

And others I can't remember just now. (couple of Archery/s, at least one Sonic/, perhaps another Fire/ or two...)

Kill them until they prove their worth on the zone by at least trying to fight back and not whining.

Its AoE damage is second only to Fire Blast, and in many ways, more usable with pbaoe build than fire/