Rebekah_EU

If it took 1 minute then the tank wasn't the most efficient herder. And I don't disagree that Scrappers can benefit from herding - only that when herding is done their role in a team is minimised as they aren't required to take any damage. My Kat scrapper has two quite wonderful single target attacks which I use less when herding is happening so I'm not exactly maximising my build and I think it's that frustration that leads them to getting annoyed at herding more than other ATs.

Edited to add we were talking in guild chat last night about the merits of scrappers heading off on their own and were divided on that subject as well.

As far as I'm concerned - provided the majority of the team is having fun then it's okay.

Do what I do and bat your eyelashes at some foolish old boy of the game until they give you influence. It always seems to work.

*bats eyelashes at Cap-Cosmos*

Just to give the perspective from someone who rarely plays tanks - I have a 50 scrapper and a blaster. When I team with my scrapper I'm less concerned about herding because it essentially makes me a less important member of the team. I do what I can to help though by culling the bosses as fast as possible and accepting that the minions will all be dead from AoE goodness from other AT's. When I am playing my fire blaster I like nothing more than herding. The closeness of the mobs after a herd means that fire breath and fireball will hit every bad guy rather than just half of them and leads to very quick killing. I would wager that any debuffers would love a tight knit mob too and possbily PBs and WSs.

Effectively the AT that loses out to herding is Scrappers and they were designed to be a soloing class anyway. There exists in all scrappers an inherent ego thing (I know from having one myself) that they want to take damage as well as tanks and do as much damage as blasters. This they cannot do, despite many people trying to argue that they can, and it bugs them to see tanks and blasters demonstrating this with a well oiled herd and kill. I think it is this that irks some people so much about herding and not the "time-wasting element" as with a good tank and a couple of good blasters herding will speed up the vast majority of mishes. I have never gone through mobs as fast as when I have had Cap-tastic herding for my fire blaster and that was in a 5+ team. Is it enjoyable for scrappers to sit and watch? From personal experience no, but then I rolled my scrapper to enjoy soloing the game and not to be an essential part of a team.

Sorry if this post was a bit rambly.

Not sure anyone in this thread had mentioned spamming healing aura. The only times I auto-activate HA is during a rikti raid or on lag hill in the ITF and then it's due to the factor of lag and not out of a desire to create green numbers all over the place. Also there are times when using AP is a death warrant for an empath as the mobs are numerous and there are lots of AoE's going around. At those times a quick push of power build up and lots of HA/HO is exactly what's needed. I'm not saying that Heal Other is the primary heal for an empath but Healing Aura shouldn't be dismissed as means to heal AoE damage and nothing else.

Anywho - I'm going on a bit cos work is dull so I'll shut up now.

There will always be idiots who don't bother to get them pre_Hami raid. *points to her own scrapper* And you will be considered a legend by them for having it.

If this build is purely for Hami and you're a scrapper then this is the one and only sensible time to pick group fly as a power. All your scrapper friends will be overjoyed that they can hover right next to the mito's and hack and slash without worrying about getting their jumps right.

Edited just to add that KB can be sorted by IO's so you don't need any of the leaping power pool.

lol Kallandra. Been there a few times.

I was introduced to it by a boyfriend who has long since quit playing. I quit back then too but was lured back one evening when I was bored and fancied playing around with the costume creator. Before I knew it CUSTARD had signed me up to Alpha-Omega and I am now legally obliged to play 16 hours a week or I have to give him my soul.

Good point Toerag. I sometimes accept blind invites if I am at a loose end but never from any character with a name that involves use of the so called "leet speak" or silly use of cAPslOCk.

A simple truth is that reward correlates directly with effort. the harder you strive to succeed at something the greater the joy on it's completion. I have received very little joy from completing this post because it wasn't in any way a challenge but if I discovered a cure for cancer after decades of hard work I think I'd be over the moon for quite some time.

In other words defeating Rom as he is now gives players a feeling of pleasure in that they've actually achieved something. If you make him easier to kill then people will come over all meh! at the end of the ITF. So instead of moaning about how hard he is to kill - get yourself into a decent team who know what they are doing and learn from them so that in future perhaps you can be the player that makes the difference in taking down one of the baddest AV's in the game.

I think one of my favourite moments in game so far was failing during the Hami raid we tried a few months back. I'm sure there's more fun to be had down that road in the future and when we finally do take down Hami it will be a night worth remembering.

Clangers I can believe in but I think you'll find the Armstrong Lunar Facility is in New Mexico somewhere.

May I be the first to say "wrong"

I'm having trouble connecting at the minute. It's now at #17 on the updater. I hope it works soon as I have organised a TF with my sg at 7pm.

...or you could all just ignore the Omega Team thing and come and help me celebrate my birthday on that day instead.

I promise there'll be lots of cake.

Mereman! You just made me snort coke out my nose laughing.

...erm edited because the comment I made could be misconstrued - I am not doing drugs!

I love the idea but to make it slightly more difficult to earn, I think there should be a condition that all heroes in the tf should belong to the same sg. That way it really would be a badge of honour. One of the problems I feel this game has is the lack of real challenges for experienced players and sg organised tf's would be one such challenge. I know such a system could be easily cheated on but it would at least give an incentive to organising sg based tfs

You might want to consider using the 2 build options to have a solo build and a team build. I did that with my empath and she has lots of damage potential (well - as much as an emp/dark can ever have) with just healing aura and the RA's for soloing with. The team build has all the empath powers as well as stealth/tp/flight/leadership for helping out her colleagues.

Anyone remember Star Wars Galaxy? No - just me then... but that had a system of allowing 250 skill points maximum that you could distribute between all your skills so when a character hit the magic 250 they could still learn new things and develop the character but they'd have to sacrifice skills in return. Always seemed better than the level system in my opinion.

Count me in sweetie although I'm nowhere near getting to the mish in Crimsons arc with Shanti

p.s Sunday afternoons are always good with me

I think you'll find my chattiness gets me aggro from other heroes rather than the bad guys.

Great name though

Clearly not a fan of sarcasm are you Paralux.

If I did indeed choose to stay away from the fight and not heal while my team mates fell under the sword I would still be useful though - I have tp and rez

Interesting thoughts on the different mob types. I shall have to make note of which baddies tend to try and maul me most. I'm not one for standing in front of tanks and tend to range heal more than area heal so when I dip into the fight it's usually just to shoot of a quick healing aura or RA before swooping back up to a safe position. This fact makes me think it might be code based rather than due to my physical position in a fight.

That's interesting. It means that if the team is coping well then the empath stays safer due to healing so much less but in times of crisis gets a crosshair painted on them. In future I shall avoid mass healing in order to save my own skin.

Over the past couple of months whilst playing the game I have started wondering if certain types of baddies have been programmed to target defenders or more specifically in my case empaths. I have found myself in a number of situations where I have been using no offensive powers and have been doing the whole "pure healer" thing, yet have found myself pursued by half the mobs the team has encountered. I understand that occasionally one can get caught up in AoE mayhem but it seemed pretty odd to have the odd bad guy trying to close on me for melee fighting. Can anyone shed any light on what it might be causing this aggro?

I've been playing Shanti my empath/dark from 1-50 these last few months and have to say this guide seems to cover most of what I had discovered for myself. On the absorb pain arguement I have to side with taking it as although it might get dusty being left on the shelf for so long it does provide a team saving heal at times of greatest need such as when your teams tank is taking hits from Recluse or whatever. I also found myself running out of powers to take as dark didn't have all that many powers I was interested in.

Thankyou to Shannon too for the suggestion of using AB on the other empath in a 2-healer team. The idea of empaths keeping each other CM'ed occured to me before during a CoT filled mission but I hadn;t realised the enormous benefit of keeping each other AB'ed as well. I used to get a little dismayed when teamed with other empaths but now I'm actually looking forward to it.

Scrappers are naturally the best at soloing the early levels and are usually not frowned on when looking for team composition as they can tank pretty ably if there's an empath handy and do a decent amount of damage. Their downside is that they are not actively sought out for teams in the way that defenders and tanks are so you might have to ask rather than be asked more often than not.