At the risk of my own neck, I have to say Transhade has a point, somewhat. Healing is yet another form of damage mitigation, much like regen Scrappers. While I do understand the resentment of those who expect all Defenders to heal, we cannot and should not grieve over the mere mention of this ability.
True, I tried to make the Manifesto with all types of Defendering included... if you noticed.
My manifesto:
I am a defender.
I am an empath.
I hope you never need me. On a good team, I'm pretty much a blaster that throws up some buffs, because you're never hurt badly enough to need me.
When I'm duoing with my best friend, a claw-regen scrapper, I can make her a dark and vengeful goddess of death.
When I'm alone I go slow and steady. I have holds, I have three of them, I can be your crowd control, I can be some damage, I can be your buffs, I can be your infinite health bar.
I take it personally when I let someone fall, even if it's Ghost Widow or Hamidon slinging the damage.
I am a safety net, I don't win fights. I help you win fights. I don't kill lord recluse, I try to keep you alive long enough so you can kill lord recluse.
People say controllers are more of a team-spec than a defender, I beg to differ, because a controller doesn't need you. I need you. I can't solo an elite boss, I can't run clean and fast alone. I need you. You might not need me, but with enough +defense, +damage +regen and +recovery you might want me anyway. Together we're faster, stronger, better.
I am a defender. I don't win battles, I give other people the ability to win battles.
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I am a defender. I don't win battles,
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You can you know. I'm not saying you have to, but you can. Yes, even an Empath.
- Jock Tamson, Who is sounding a little like a Obama speech here.
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Together we're faster, stronger, better.
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We can rebuild you, we have the technology. 
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Together we're faster, stronger, better.
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We can rebuild you, we have the technology.
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You asking for a dev review of defenders? :P
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Together we're faster, stronger, better.
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We can rebuild you, we have the technology.
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You asking for a dev review of defenders? :P
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I already did my part and got results. 
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I am a defender. I don't win battles,
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You can you know. I'm not saying you have to, but you can. Yes, even an Empath.
- Jock Tamson, Who is sounding a little like a Obama speech here.
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Oh I know I can add a fair amount of DPS, even being a healing-spec empath. But the increase in damage output when I fully buff a scrapper or blaster and make them more or less immune to mez and free from worrying about their health bar far outweighs anything I can do on my own.
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I am a defender. I don't win battles,
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You can you know. I'm not saying you have to, but you can. Yes, even an Empath.
- Jock Tamson, Who is sounding a little like a Obama speech here.
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Oh I know I can add a fair amount of DPS, even being a healing-spec empath. But the increase in damage output when I fully buff a scrapper or blaster and make them more or less immune to mez and free from worrying about their health bar far outweighs anything I can do on my own.
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No doubt.
If that Scrapper is in over his head, and half the team is lying dead about you. You can be the difference maker. Not just because you have some tools to make it happen, but also because playing a Defender develops situational awareness. When thing start going South, it is typically the Controllers and Defenders who realize it first. Sometimes the fastest solution is a handfull of red pills, a Power Build Up effect, then a Nuke.
- Jock Tamson, Whose Empath had "Right! That's it! Everyone out of the pool!" keybound to Blackstar. Only in Latin to make it sound more clever.
I laughed quite a bit at the Burger King part of page three...*sigh* Time to go hurt things.
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When thing start going South, it is typically the Controllers and Defenders who realize it first. Sometimes the fastest solution is a handfull of red pills, a Power Build Up effect, then a Nuke.
- Jock Tamson, Whose Empath had "Right! That's it! Everyone out of the pool!" keybound to Blackstar. Only in Latin to make it sound more clever.
[/ QUOTE ]I've been saying that for ages. Tanks and Scrappers just look at the foe in their faces. Blasters unload to bring down massive blows of damage.
Controller's greatest powers are wasted where foes die the fastest, so she watches the edge of the battle, using his powers to make the foe's helpers not matter.
Defender, watching everyone and everything, shouts "INCOMING!"
Does anyone else find themselves typically being team leader because of the situational awareness thing?
Not to denigrate any other ATs, but it seems all to common when people, for example, can't keep track of how many generators out of four are live or where they're KBing mobs, or what mobs are under the bridge they're on...
I am probably a very strange kind of player, but I happen do do this even though I play a scrapper primarily. This may come from the fact that more often than not I am the leader of the team or that I have experience leading raids, both in CoH and in other MMOs. I tend to do this by leading from the front, but I take pride in the fact that I will situationally disengage and tear stuff down before it can start threatening my squishies.
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Does anyone else find themselves typically being team leader because of the situational awareness thing?
Not to denigrate any other ATs, but it seems all to common when people, for example, can't keep track of how many generators out of four are live or where they're KBing mobs, or what mobs are under the bridge they're on...
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I think it is true of experienced players in general, but that Defenders get there faster and are in a better position for it than the melee ATs.
Often on teams I feel that hole there wanting me to fill it, but stubbornly resist as I have quite my fill of being responsible for others at work thanks! 
So I will typically run over and confront the incoming trouble without saying a word. Usually that buys enough time for everyone else to notice.
Another effect I find it has is that I absolutely despise those Task Forces where you can't see the map. Not being able to see where everyone on the team is feels like being partially blind.
- Jock Tamson, Who now feels the same way about the GPS map in his car.
Im sure the Tanker forum would disagree with the idea that they dont need situational awareness.
I'd also say a Blaster with no defences needs more situational awareness than, say, a Dark Defender running Darkest Night in the middle of a mob.
This is denigrating other AT's, lets not, eh? We dont need to.
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This is denigrating other AT's, lets not, eh? We dont need to.
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I concur with this statement.
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Im sure the Tanker forum would disagree with the idea that they dont need situational awareness.
I'd also say a Blaster with no defences needs more situational awareness than, say, a Dark Defender running Darkest Night in the middle of a mob.
This is denigrating other AT's, lets not, eh? We dont need to.
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If that what I seemed to be saying, I misspoke. I intend no slight against any other AT.
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Any experienced player will develop good situational experience.
Team support ATs will develop it faster.
All ATs are, to greater or lesser extent, team support.[/list]
A good team support Tank requires excellent situational awareness. There is also a great spectrum of situational awareness for the players in any AT.
Situational awareness is perhaps a bad term for what I was trying to convey....
I think Defenders are typically in a better position to notice and react. It is what we are geared to. I don't think that is any a slight against any other AT, nor do I mean they can't or don't do it. It's how I would define Defending. The Tank may be just as well aware that a player is about to die or that an extra mob just got aggro'd half way across the map, and there are certainly things he can do about. However, he is likely locked in with a giant crowd of badguys already, has fewer reactive powers and, as a melee AT, less opportunity for ... maneuver is a bad word here because melee ATs have to run around more ... rapid engagement of something on a different part of the map?
I'm not trying to set up some combative comparison of Us and Them. I'm trying to define one of the things Defenders do well. Hopefully it should be no more divisive than Blasters blast better, Scrappers scrap better, Tankers tank better, Controllers ... Ok there it might become divisive
Someone help me pick a better term than situational awareness. Can I just call it Defending?
- Jock Tamson, Who is the last person to want to degenerate someone, unless I think they are whining 
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Ooo Special Edition!
Obviously we need bonus extras. So here is
The Origin of Fruit Salad
It all started in a thread now sadly lost called Answers to R U Hlr. After a round of suggested sarcastic responses and a few Lighten up. Youre a healer, live with it posts the indomitable and much missed TheMightyScourge piped in to say that some people like fruit salad and others dont and that was nothing to get worked up about, and might she add this was in no way to be taken as an analogy. I followed up to say that while this might be true, if someone just walked up to me on the street and said Fruit Salad? it would be a denial of my fundamental nature to not give a sarcastic response. Fruit salad recipes were exchanged, Wiggles songs and Monty Python sketches were linked to, a grand time was had by all.
The idea evolved that if, as many of us claimed, Healer was a term so confused and loaded in this game as to be useless as a descriptor, you might as well call yourself Fruit Salad.
The whole thing really hit the main stream when the poster formerly known as Hobo_Healer was called out by someone on his name after expressing his opinion on the Healer debate. He promptly changed his name to Hobo_Fruitsalad and the rest is history
So what is a Fruit Salad Defender? Fruit Salad is a Dadaist meme. It is a rejection of labels in general and the label Healer in particular. Its a term for a good Defender that we get to define ourselves, with the added bonus that anyone arguing about it sounds instantly silly. Anyone can be a Fruit Salad Defender or Controller, all that is required is that they care about what they are doing and try to do it well. As the Paragon Wiki entry someone (whistles casually) created puts it
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If following true furu-tsusarada-do (The Way of Fruit Salad) a Defender should be good humored, witty, and devastatingly effective. Healing powers are neither forbidden nor required.
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but really my best effort to capture what it means is the Parable of the Fruit Salad in the In the beginning
thread.
- Jock Tamson, Who didn't start but sure did push it 
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after that whole Healzor thingy i also change my forum name.
I am a Empath and yes i suck
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If that what I seemed to be saying, I misspoke. I intend no slight against any other AT.
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More referring to the posts before yours, Jock. One day Ill get into the habit of using this quote feature.
I just find it a bit odd to paint archetypes with these broad strokes when most players have probably been all of them, even though we all have our tendencies to favour certain ATs and sets.
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Someone help me pick a better term than situational awareness. Can I just call it Defending?
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I'd call it Spider-Sense.
Just so its named after a Super-Reflexes Tanker, of course.
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If following true furu-tsusarada-do (The Way of Fruit Salad) a Defender should be good humored, witty, and devastatingly effective. Healing powers are neither forbidden nor required.
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When are you gonna open up the Furu-Tsusarada-Do Dojo?
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If following true furu-tsusarada-do (The Way of Fruit Salad) a Defender should be good humored, witty, and devastatingly effective. Healing powers are neither forbidden nor required.
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When are you gonna open up the Furu-Tsusarada-Do Dojo?
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Wouldn't that be kudamono-saradajutsu-Dojo?.
You know, I play both a tanker and a defender.
I have situational awareness when I am tanking, but I will freely admit that when I have a huge group of wolves or behemoths beating on me, I am more concerned with the fact that I CANNOT FRIGGIN SEE and my own health bar than I am with the actual fate of my teammates. As a defender I have the luxury of a moment to glances at a teammate's health bar. as a tanker I very seldom do.
that's not to say I am a bad tanker, I mean, I do the best I possibly can and I am usually horribly busy keeping my teammates from faceplanting by being a target, and in fact I have never teamed with a tanker that, in my opinion, can do a better job as a tanker than I can. But the fact remains that defenders are usually (not always) on the outskirts and more able to take a clear view of all factors than other members... their major job is to be situationally aware, while the scrapper is tangling and the blaster is lining up the best aoe and the tanker is under a horde of pounding monsters and the controller is desperately trying to unsummon her idiotic imps before they reach the next spawn.
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Im sure the Tanker forum would disagree with the idea that they dont need situational awareness.
I'd also say a Blaster with no defences needs more situational awareness than, say, a Dark Defender running Darkest Night in the middle of a mob.
This is denigrating other AT's, lets not, eh? We dont need to.
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By the way, I wasn't saying tanks don't need situational awareness, they need a ton of it, but it's of different focus: they need to watch spacing, which way mobs are facing (indicating aggro attention) about half a dozen toggles, and through all that whichever mob they need to 'hard hold' (like an AV in the midst of holding onto their entire addspawn).
Blasters need to be very aware of aggro too, mob spacing for firing off their AoEs and pulling, their own end and health bars, cooldowns on their big, slow powers, what target needs their special brand of love, ect.
Controllers need to be aware of spacing too, for AoEs, their positioning if they have an aura, positioning of teammates for aura heals if they have one and teammate's buff bars if they have those, what mob is most dangerous so they can lock it up, in addition to anything a defender is worrying about heal/buff wise.
I guess my point is that while most ATs watch the mobs, I find my defenders more often watch the *team* as opposed to what they're fighting. I rarely even look at the fight, I'm watching health bars, buff stacks and the periphery of the fight in case I need to snap off something on a weakened runner.
When it's AV time, I can target the AV through any member of the team, they're all shooting at it after all, so I can devote a very small portion of my attention to clicking off my two main attacks while the rest goes to shepherding over the team: tossing off heals, keeping buffs up, intercepting adds and ambushes, watching AV health for critical points when they spawn ambushes or pull their special moves, ect.
I think that puts defenders in somewhat of a unique position as being more aware of the team and how it's doing, as well as the situation outside the immediate fight, because their attention isn't 100% occupied by trying to use their powers to greatest effect on the mob right in front of them.
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of my companions, I shall fear nothing. For they stand against any harm that may come my way, and I shall make them strong against any harm that may come theirs. For, in my presence, they shall never fail to defend me, and I, in theirs, to defend them."
Controllers are Defenders that are scared of getting debt badges.
That's why controller primaries are mostly blaster secondaries.