Jacqueline

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Just a point... empaths are no different to my mind than any other defenders when we are considering secondaries surely? Shouldnt this discussion be about defenders using there secondaries as opposed to empaths?

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Err, no, the discussion should be about which AT is the best healer, as that's the original question.

It sort of deviated into a discussion on secondaries, because someone said that it's their experience that Empaths are bad for not using their secondaries and that this type of "bad playing" is "a lot more common in empaths than in any other powerset [they have] seen." /em shrug

Of course, if we stuck precisely to the question in the OP then this would be a two-post thread, because the answer to the question is; Empathy Defender.

Ah, I haven't noticed empaths not using their secondary powers and no one who teams with me is left in any doubt that I'm using mine as I often get all excited and shout "Woohoo! Eat my 19 damage $target!"

Yes, my main attack does roughly 19 points of damage to even level mobs. To go with this awesome power, I have power push, which I can't use unless I have aggro right in my face as the knockback annoys tankers, (the knockback being exactly why I took it), and snipe which I can't use in fights, due to the long interrupt time.

This may also be why people think empathy defenders stand around doing nothing - we do attack, but even the bad guys we hit don't notice.

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I have nothing against Empaths (the buffs are great and healing is usually welcome), I just don't like it when they take 3 travel powers and the medicine power pool instead of working on their secondaries, which are there for a reason.

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What you're saying there has nothing to do with Empaths and everything to do with bad players... I have nothing against Blasters, I just don't like it when they take three travel powers and, umm, spoonbending, from the hobby set.

Any AT can have a gimped, or poorly optimised build in the hands of an poor player.

But the thread has moved away from the original question anyway - what is the best healer hero. I've read the "my team doesn't need an empath any more" stuff a lot and an empath's game does have to change as they level, but the answer to the question is an Empathy Defender.

It doesn't invalidate the other defender's abilities, (and I dislike the defender=healer stereotype seen in the game as much as other defenders), but if you like green numbers over your head then welcome to Empathy. It's what we do.

Err, an empath defender?

Just be sure to take all the primaries and know that, after level 20, you'll be less a "healer hero" and more a "buffer hero with a nice and frequently explored sideline in heals."

Ok, it sounds like you know the dark secondary... I've been happy with everything I've taken from the primary so far, except that, if I ever respec, I'd drop an attack so that I only have Aimed Shot and not Snap Shot too - you only really need one attack, as your boys will be doing the fighting for you.

Take everything else - Smoke Bomb is priceless and you will learn to love it, especially when you get your Oni.

Basically, smoke bomb the Oni, move him to mid range and then have him attack a mob and he'll do a cone Breath of Fire which will critical everything it hits - he'll then usually back it up with another attack, while still concealed while will also be a critical hit.

Before you get your Oni you can use it to conceal your Jounin and they do this awesome double sword thrust which gives you a critical and, often, a knockdown too.

Basically, take everything from the primary, bar the attacks, as soon as it's available. All of it is good.

One last note though - fallen ninja cannot be res'd.

Take Howling Twilight anyway, for teammate resing and, the reason I use it most often, for a disorient power in solo mode. If you get jumped on by a huge mob you can fire it off and disorient all of them in one go and buy some time.

I love my ninja/dark MM... a lot. More than chunky munky ice cream, for example.

I have stamina but don't often get into blue trouble, because my boys do most of the fighting for me. If you don't already, I would strongly, strongly suggest getting an MM keybond set, (Master Zaps is supposed to be excellent), as the melee nature of ninja means you're going to have to have them on a good tight leash, control wise.

When you get up some levels it's just gorgeous. Invisible fire breath from Oni equals massive cone criticals and then just when the mobs are recovering from suddenly being on fire from nowhere, here are five other guys to lamp them till they stop twitching.

My other half is disturbed by how much I giggle at my ninja - I love this set.

Plus those cavernous CoT maps are going to be fun with zero vertical travel power.

So when the Pirate MM's come out, will you be rolling a Matey-Bubbles?

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Also iv noticed that when teamed with a bot MM there protector bot bubbles up all the bots, then all my mercs but never puts a bubble on me or other players in the team. This leads me to beleave that there is something in the pet AI that causes all pets on a team to regard each other as one of there own and maybe the cause of the pets running of to with with another MM pets when your now where near the other MM.

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They've formed a union! (No, not the server).

I've always prided myself on keeping my pets on a short chain, but around christmas they seemed to develop another stupidity gene and now they have many more moments of individual madness where they'll ignore heel commands in favour of mooning at some distant boss.

That aside, my only bug bear with my boys is the Jounin's power selection after they're smokebombed... Someone has already mentioned their love of ignoring their massive and really quite shiny sword in favour of the thing that fires HB pencils at the bad guys, but even worse are the Jounin who get smoke bombed and then placate the enemy too.

I'm not invisible enough!

My Ninja are named as follows :

Genin
Phil, Simon and Brian.

Jounin
Derek and Kevin.

Oni
Ernie.

All good, solid Ninja names I'm sure we can agree.

I used to hate losing Genin, to the point where I considered coming up with a new name for each one as he died. Then I hit the higher levels where the Genin get to be three or four levels below the mobs I am fighting and, if I'm honest, (and they're not listening), they turned into a handy distraction while the real magic goes on elsewhere. A lot like Debbie McGee.

These days, when I have time for a set up, I send in a smoke-bombed Oni. As soon as I tell him to fire, the Genin go in to cause a nuisance and pull the aggro back off of Oni and then the Jounin go in to do the real dirty work, by which time smoke bomb is recharged and whichever Jounin looks best placed gets the second bomb.

It's a critical fest from the people who can do real damage and the Genin are there purely to make sure that this happens. Which means they die, a lot.

So I too felt like a failure when I lost one of my gray-clad clowns, but now I've turned completely around and I expect to lose some, now and then and instead feel like a triumph when I keep all of them alive through a whole misison.


*As for aid other being as powerful as TG - sorry about my bad there. I do have AO on my dominator and, even slotted, it always seemed weak compared to my MM and TG.

Yet more proof that you shouldn't listen to Jacqueline. Except when she says that you shouldn't listen to her.

Once you get SOs Twilight Grasp is fine - you do have to go in close to your pets, but I haven't yet had a problem with this more than once or twice. I have two ACC SOs on Grasp and it hits everything but bubbled Raiders more than 90% of the time now.

Also, because it's a heal that has to hit, it's more powerful than an aura heal. So I'd advise against the medicine pool.

Best thing about Grasp is it works on almost anything - I can even suck HP out of the vault door on bank missions.

Maybe they want to entice us into PvP in the hope we'll fall in love with it.

Come for drops, stay for the ganking™! That sort of thing.

It strikes me as dumb to upset the people who actually do like PvP to entice PvE people into the zones, but I suppose that might not be the reason for the de/buffing at all.

And the mercs too.

I don't read where he said it's only for slower people, just that it suits his slower style. Doesn't mean it doesn't work for fast too.

I like my Ninja, a lot, even though people in the mid-level 30s look at me and sigh and say "never mind."

It takes a bit of fiddling to work the Jounin into really close range for awesome smoke bomb fun, while keeping the Oni at perfect cone or immob range, but dammit, I like my boys.

Even though the Genin are just three clowns who run around a bit and then fall over. At least they're trying.

Try them all and find the look you love - be it robots, ninja or dead folk vomiting on things... They all have good points.

I'm new at this punching people lark, but the build up bar means I don't stop between mobs. I'd rather die and get debt than lose fury by standing around.

So I'm definitely suicidal, even now that I hit level 10 and can get debt. I've never used inspirations like I do with my brute.

Maybe they could tie pet colour options to the final upgrade at level 32, as an extra reward for actually getting that far.

Then folks who pick up MMs because they think it's an AT where they can level while filing their nails will still be running around in drab gray, but let us who take it all the way get shiny new outfits.

Of course, the, (server destroying), ideal would be to assign a uniform slot to our pets, leaving us with three and allowing us to dress them all up purdy. <swoon>

Hello! As a casual Dominator I can tell you that the reason I don't play my Dom hardly at all, is the seeming complete lack of accuracy.

I'm sure that people here could tell me that I actually have a +1 chance of something, something, something, but the actual game experience for me was just cast... miss... run!

I loved playing my controller in CoH, so it's not a mindset thing getting in the way - I'm not someone who enjoys punching things - I just feel like I always, always miss with him*.


*Yes, I use suitable enhancements, inspirations where appropriate and fight a range of bad guys from gray to pink.

If you can work in an extra mouse click, Jack, try using Go-To... it seems to instantly override the existing commands, so you can haul back that genin who's on the track team and stop him from playing "tag" with the target.

I often find myself going 7-8-7-8-7-8-9-click-7-8

I wish the stay command mixed with attack my target to produce a line at which we will fight. I'd feel all Henry V, surrounded by archers.

King Henry had a big battle in a cave, against Hordelings that isn't in many history texts.

The ingenuity one is great

I like this one - a special message from the map makers, to anyone complaining that the new maps look just like the old ones : Map Bird.

Another random thought about people going for healing instead of shiedling, (which may already have been mentioned in the six pages so far), is that I have already lost count of the number of times I've seen people ask to not have the fire shield cast on them, because of the limitations of their PCs.

It's comfortably into double figures now - "I don't want fire shield, it kills my frame rate" - now if I'd taken the power and slotted it and it was oooh so shiny and then I end up standing around not using it, then I'd be fairly miffed and may end up rerolling a new toon or respeccing away from the shield.

I don't know that this is the thought process for even a single player out there, but I can say that it wouldn't surprise me, due to people's requests to not have the shield.

That's awesome!

And I just changed to an all white costume too...

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bah, dam that acursed NumPad, iv got a laptop so lack the deliciousness that is a NumPad, but im ok at binds n macros so hopefully i'll b able to do a bit of jiggery-pokery to sort it out.

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I know of one fine fellow of an MM who has all of his pet commands mapped to Shift + Movement keys, so that he doesn't have to use two hands, so you can certainly do that with your lappy.

Good luck!

I don't have flash arrow, so the flashy thing I use to divert alpha strike from my pets is, umm, me!

A quick arrow from extreme range followed by "RUN AWAY!" will pull the mob right past my pets, who happen to be loafing behind a rock, or a wall, with stance set to aggressive... Mob runs past and hey presto, they have three ninjas up their bums.

Then I can bounce back to support range, so they get their bonuses from having me nearby and annoy bad guys with the puny arrows I do have on hand.

He means tactics in the control and planning sense, rather than the CoV power sense.

There is no command that says "stay here and shoot at them" - some pets prefer melee combat and one of your Genin will be one of them (if my experience is anything to go by).

So, you can give up being a MM, you can get used to losing a pet or you can get used to something akin to using passive, mixed with goto > attack target > goto > attack target. Rinse and repeat.

It's the only way I've found, so far, to force my Genin to stay at range. Keeping the GoTo close to me and the target at distance.

I am very comfortable sending my Genin in and out of battle and, if set to passive and attack my target, they'll 99% of the time, fire from range, go into melee and club the target to the floor, then come out again, back to me, without any intervention. Sometimes, though, they don't do this and then I have to get more specific.

I have dark as my secondary, which means I get to heal my pets, but they still do a damn fine service, provided I remember one thing - I am a MasterMind, they are not.