Wilfred

Have actually already got a character halfway to the same goal, glad to see I'm not the only one with the idea... for the record, rad defenders are effective enough that I do well even in teams that aren't willing to sacrifice a character

Cookie-cutter builds rarely work for the individual - Remember you'll want high damage and some control, plus be able to escape with suppression on the go and have some sort of status protection. Work it from there! (PS Cloaking device probably should not be missed out!)

Regarding secondaries, I like Fire Melee, high damage + the two AoE's really help with gauntlet-taunting.

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I bet your a Tanks worse nightmare in the arena.

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Rad/Psi

Could no doubt find room in TANC for another Union refugee (since Union finds so much room for TANC refugees) - we're not massively busy but we ARE friendly

Oh and, welcome to Defiant - the grass is always green, the sun is always shining, and there's always at least two Paladin construction sites up.

Please note - claims made in this paragraph may not actually be entirely true. All rights reserved. Send SAE to TANC for application details. Does not affect your statutory rights. Void if removed. To be taken with or after food.

Bah. Can't be there, but good lucks!

Wowie, someone used Howling Twilight on this thread.

If you specifically need an empath or a granite tanker, there's something desperately wrong with the rest of the team makeup which should probably be addressed first. That thing is the team leader.

If you're AFK a lot or have a slow connection - think twice before dedicating yourself to twitch healing!

If it's a tough battle and you're needed to buff, debuff, and heal - don't draw aggro!

Teams that ask for a healer specifically, probably need at least three healers to be remotely viable. Often a single debuffer will do better than a half-team of empaths, especially against much higher-level foes.

Act, then react. Think about who's taking the aggro - watch which teammates take the most damage. Ask who wants which buffs. Very often when I see a large attack about to hit a teammate, I'll fire off a heal just before it hits. The HP boost hits at the same moment as the damage and noone even notices anything happened (so easily done, especially with big-hitter AV's like Battle Maiden or Shadowhunter). Keep your eyes and ears open, and the camera scrolled out.

If things go a bit pear-shaped - concentrate on keeping tankers alive first and foremost. When they drop, it's all over.

Defending's not always about defence - occasionally the only way to protect a teammate can be to draw his aggro - if you're sat there healthy and the blaster's about to kark it, it may be possible to draw whatever's after him.

Healing aura is wasted on auto-fire - it doesn't take a lot of concentration to fire it off when it's necessary. Spamming doesn't say a lot for your skills.

Finally, never EVER take tips on being a good empath from the croatoa TF summon.

Supergroup invite spam. A lot of newer players to the game will accept blind SG invites, and learn what passes for normal ingame from people who can be less than polite. Not meaning to be up on my high horse, but I used to think SG's that invite blindly deserve people that accept blind invites - changed my mind lately, however, as many new players simply do not know what basic courtesies used to be present server-wide and are now resigned to established SG's and private channels. There ARE good players coming into the game, of course (TANC has had the good fortune of coming across several of late), but oh so very many are snapped up by supergroups which simply do not deserve the title and are either put off the game or pick up bad manners.

/acidmode_off

Less than 10% perhaps, but still an increase in XP rates concordant with the assault buff. Plus it's very useful for a defender forced to solo.

By the way, recharges may be more use than sleep duration in mass hypnosis - duration on it is long enough at base for most spawns and it's way more useful to be able to spam it on every fresh mob, I reckon.

I'd take Atomic Blast at 41, so the 46 slots in Neutrino wotsit could go into it instead,then take Power Buildup, CP and TF at 44, 47, and 49. Also, I agree with respect to Assault and Tactics, 10% more damage is 10% more to XP rates, however the Stealth/TP road to ghosting is also useful in a support build - up to you, I guess. Finally, nothing wrong with recharge reductions in Rez - sometimes things go wrong that not even the finest of empaths could deal with, and it's nice to get a whole team back on their feet sharpish (Especially when exemping to pre-travel power levels).

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Opinions on the Psykic Mastery Epic? I have seen telekinesis in action and like it. With three end red will I be okay?

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Yup, you'll be fine - although may be a problem running it with repel, since you'll be needing to get transference topups regularly. Actually, for kinetics, the shining star of Psyche epic is mass hypnosis, lets you fulcrum shift without aggro. Happy times.

Almost certainly going overboard with tactics + 3 acc - fulcrum shift benefits most from 2 acc and 3 recharge - owt else is a bit of a waste. Shufty the spare slots over to ID for res buffs, 40% ish resistance to three most common damage types in game is rather good and squishies will love you in a tough fight (not that they wouldn't anyway).

There's no accuracy cap, but a point at which unless you're fighting +10's you'll only really be missing 5% of time.

Hasten is a nice complement to siphon and speed boost, transference and FS recharge just a little slowly for comfort without hasten (though my Kineticist doesn't have it, needed to make room for controllery epics). Besides which, when siphon speed misses you'll really feel it.

Totally agree re. Repel, it's a beaut when it's needed, although a KB enhance isn't really needed, unless you'll be playing a lot of Hellion tennis.

Only other comment - swish concept but you're going to really annoy yourself with your own KB

Looks like there may be enough interest to run two - if there's two full teams I challenge t'other team to an race!

1) Run towards enemy, getting shot lots.
2) Reach enemy, get hit in face
3) Fall over
4) Get rezzed by friendly empath
5) Re-engage toggles while team finishes most of mob
6) Start taunting just in time to catch the last minion as it goes down.
7) Run towards next mob...

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Attacks : slot a acc instead of a dam, if you can't hit at all it's not worth the end/animation time

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Judging by the way Assault is in there at the end, I'd guess they'll be going for Tactics next - making damage the priority.

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Heals : you haven't stamina, you have hasten. 1rech/2end would do better than 3rech.

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With RA up a lot of the time I don't think endurance will be an issue - there's always blue nibblies dropped very frequently in any case.

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Lightning bolt, Zapp : with "normal" slotting (1acc/3dam), it's not very good damage ; with only 2 slots in it, it's even worse. You could pick Ball lightning and short-circuit instead, since it's AoE and you're group-oriented, you'll get to hit enough foes to make it worth it.

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You'll also draw a whole world of aggro, and noone likes to see their empath having to take to their heels.

IMHO.

If you're doing the whole Hurdle/CJ thing, could always try and spare a few Jump SO's for Sprint. Gives an edge.

As far as speed boost goes... it won't need slots right away but it will help to have three end. mods in it by the mid 20s, since a lot of builds are getting very toggle-heavy by then. The protection from slow is a real godsend later on against tsoo and knives of artemis. Don't slot it for run speed, though, else you'll get many curses as scrappers run straight past the droids they were looking for and aggro the next mob on.

As far as other powers go... If you're planning to PvP, try to wangle tactics and repel in before level 25. Repel's got a fair bit of utility in showing up stalkers and interrupting their AS, and in chuckling manically as you hoon it round perez with speed siphon going, repelling vast mobs of hellions all over the shop with your three-slotted-for-knockback repel. Heh.
Tactics is fairly important, without it you'll need 2 accuracy slots in all your utility powers.

Don't rely on siphon speed as a travel power - often you'll be in zones a lot higher than you are and to siphon a foe is to invite suicide (if it hits, even). Inertial reduction, on the other hand, makes an ace travel power.

Take Increase Density early, it's always easy to see it as a sort of... don't-need-this-right-now-so-it'll-wait-til-level-41 power... but it has massive benefits early on. The +res is very nice, slot it up for resistance with SO's and you'tre looking at 35% res against the three most common damage types in the game. Most useful, however, is the knockback resistance. No more will your team groan at the prospect of bouncing all over the shop when facing ruin mages! Hussar!

I'd say nothing's wrong with it!

If it was my build I might consider dropping the extra slots in lightning bolt and charged bolts and revisit them later when slots rain from the sky, pop an extra slot in superspeed for crazy-fast, and dump the spare slot into zapp where it's doing the most good.

I like how you've left CM for a bit to wangle some more important powers in early.

Good show.

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After testing this with a friend I am fairly confident that it is correct that the taunt component of a damaging aura can miss along with the damage.

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It doesn't miss, per se, but it does have a limit on the number of targets it can hit. Might be 5 per taunt tick, like the standard taunt.

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I think it would help for you to understand what Thunderforce is talking about here if you read back a few pages...

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I'll definitely think before I try to help next time, thankyou.

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TANC are always looking for members, check out our forum {link in sig} and stuff!
We dont really have rules, or anything like that...hoorah!
(you must like tea however..)

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and biscuits of course

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Cakes, however, are optional.

Never ever miss Stun if you're planning to PvP a lot.

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After testing this with a friend I am fairly confident that it is correct that the taunt component of a damaging aura can miss along with the damage.

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It doesn't miss, per se, but it does have a limit on the number of targets it can hit. Might be 5 per taunt tick, like the standard taunt.

I liked kin/psi, the main drawback on the Telekinetic Blast>Will Domination chain is waiting for recharge with my empath - on my kineticist that's not an issue. Council mech men, titans, turrets and a whole bunch of praetorians are the main enemies that are not psi vulnerable. And I happen to think that TK Blast, Will Dom., Psychic Scream and Wail are some of the coolest looking attacks in the game.

I'd say an Empath was good support for a kinetic-heavy team, as the heals and end replenisment could hit Blasters, and non-meleers.

I'd also say the FF or Sonic are very good sets to look into, as with Kinetics on board you're probably finding you've squishies in the thick of the fighting a lot of the time - to protect them would be a pleasant plan, and I'd say Res was more useful to them than Def - with that in mind, I'd go for Sonics. Personal choice.