Well, "best support" is vague, but Empathy is entirely teammate support focused. All heals/buffs for your buddies, and little tasty goodness for you. For BEST heals, Defender is your bet, but if you want a great support char for you, earth/emp has great controlls and great heals.
So, earth/emp controller, but you sure wont be doing any damage at any speed.
So will earth/emp be impossible to solo? should I find a leveling buddy?
and is being the best healer equal to being the best debuffer or buffer? Im just curious what is more appreciated as far as your abilities as a support class.
Well, you'll find people all over the game who NEED to have a healer around, while I happen to avidly disagree with that statement, it's a personal playstyle thing.
Earth/Emp, will not solo quickly...but it will excel at team support, especially large teams.
As far as best healer vs. best buffer vs. best debuffer, I'd go with what you feel like you like to do more. Though if you want a balance of heals/buffs because you like to help your team out, look no further than thermal radiation, it has shield buffs and decent heals/buffs.
As far as soloing? the more directly team focused it is, the slower it'll solo.
As noted, "support" can mean a lot of different things.
My first controller was Ice/Force Fields. I could protect my teammates with the bubbles. But I was also able to slow down the baddies, make them slip on the ice slick and freeze them solid in big blocks of ice. This was prior to any appreciable temp powers or vet powers, so my damage was diddly. But I was providing a lot of support.
I finally rolled a Trick Arrow/Archery Defender this year. The Trick Arrows mostly debuff the baddies so that attacks hit them more often and harder when they do. I finally got Oil Slick Arrow, which makes them slip, and since I have the Tech Origin Taser, I can ignite the oil slick and damage the baddies as well. My Archery subset also provides some damage, though until I got Rain of Arrows, it was not a whole lot. Still, this hero mostly supports the more powerful attack-oriented heroes, albeit in a different way than my Controller did.
As noted, Empathy provides another form of "support."
So when all is said and done, you may want to try out a few different heroes, Controllers and Defenders, and see what sort of supporting is most appealing to you. For me, it was predominately Controllers, and I have not yet taken an Empathy set. I have taken 5 Controllers and 2 Blasters to 50, but my TA/Arch is on the cusp of 46 and may be my next 50... of course, I also have a Plant/Storm Controller and an Elec/Elec Blaster at the same point, so who knows?
CoH provides tons of variety. Play a few different heroes, since each brings its own wrinkles to the game. You will see what you like fairly quickly if you play a few different ones. 
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
The best one is always going to be the one you enjoy playing the most, and that's something only you can determine. All the Defender primaries/Controller secondaries provide good team support. Some are focused on doing one or two things, like Force Fields (defense buffs and enemy positioning), some are more well-rounded, like Radiation Emission (debuffs, buffs, healing, mezzes). Something to keep in mind is that buffs and debuffs are stronger in COH than in some other games, so pure healing is relatively less desirable than you might expect.
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That's a debate that I won't get started one way or the other really...
Defenders primary powersets will buff allies and/or debuff enemies. Many of these powersets are available as secondaries for Controllers. Since Defenders are primarily the buff/debuff AT, the values you will get from these powers will be higher as a Defender.
Defenders secondary powerset is a "blast" set that will add additional damage and generally have secondary effects that help you with your primary job (Defending the team).
Controllers primary powerset is control oriented, which will allow you to mitigate damage done to yourself and your teammates while the enemies are defeated.
I would not recommend comparing Defenders and Controllers to "Priests, Healers, Enchanters, etc..." from other MMO games, as they play quite differently in CoH. I never like playing a "mez" character in other games (i.e. Enchanter) but absolutely love playing Controllers.
That all said, I would vote Earth/Thermal Controller for pure support, if your main concern is keeping your team alive. That's just my preference and opinion of course 
Plant/therm gives a lot of team support and solo's well. With plant you can cut incoming damage to nearly nothing from shortly after level nine and do good damage when solo as well. The therm set gives you shields for the team, heals, and a bit of buffing. Teams stay plenty healthy when my plant therm comes along to join. It is an easy combination to play too for a beginner. Remember seeds of confusion is your best tool with plant, and forget the sleep, it is of little use when you have soc. Be sure to keep the team shielded and just heal as needed after that.
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is being the best healer equal to being the best debuffer or buffer?
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Buff/Debuffs rule this game. Heals are nice but not needed as much in the higher levels. So, the term "healer" doesn't really apply in this game as much as others. I would play what's fun for you
I agree with Battlebabe, if you want a great support set along with the ability to solo, Plant/Thermal would be pretty good. If you are new to the game, you may want to look at picking up a pool attack ( Air Superiority ) to allow you to finish off the last guy standing after Seeds of Confusion/Roots has done it's job. Illusion/Empathy, or Illusion/Thermal would solo well as well - again if you are new to the game you'll still want a pool attack to solo.
I would consider the following sets if you are interested in a support character:
Primaries:
Ice Control: Ice's cornerstone power, Arctic Air, is a toggle aura that slows enemies, lowers their recharge rate, and makes them run slowly away from you. It also has a chance to confuse enemies. Because this power is always running, it means that an Ice Controller can buff/heal without losing any time. Downsides are that you need to be in melee-ish range for it to work, and you are exceptionally vulnerable to mezzes (because they cancel the toggle). Ice's pet is much less sturdy than the Earth pet, but is situationally more survivable because he uses holds that stack with your own; assuming he doesn't die, he's IMO more useful to a group. Ice is the only of 2 Controller primaries to get a area effect knockdown-zone power--a game-changing power when solo or the only Controller on the team, but much less useful when multiple Controllers are present. Ice's secondary effects (which are arguably primary effects) are -Recharge and Slow, allowing you to slow down enemie's rate of fire to 1/4th its normal value. A lack of ranged AoE status effect powers means dealing with alpha shots can be tricky. In large groups, Ice shines during extended fights against enemies that have good status resistance, like packs of bosses.
Earth Control: Compared to Ice, Earth is much more "direct." The first few powers in each set are nearly identical, but Earth provides -Defense instead of -Recharge. -Defense in theory increases your team's damage by making enemies easier to hit, although it does nothing to increase any attack rolls that already have a 95% hit chance. Earth deviates from Ice in that it has no auras but relies instead on the trio of Stalagmites (ranged AoE stun), Earthquake (knockdown zone similar to Ice Slick with different debuffs), and Volcanic Gasses (pulsing AoE hold). Quicksand was recently described by someone as the "icing" that goes with it. Compared to Ice, in the first few moments of a fight an Earth Controller can practically pretend Minions and Lts don't exist, because Stalagmites is up every fight and will stun them from a distance. Earth might fall a little behind Ice if the battle drags on for a while, because Ice's powers are perpetually available. Earth also has problems with enemy scatter that Ice can largely bypass with its huge cone power, Shiver, but the duration of Volcanic Gasses (an epic 60 seconds) easily makes it one of the best (if not THE best) AoE hold in the game. Earth's pet is a tanker that is great solo and so-so on teams.
Illusion Control: Illusion is of interest to a support character for a few reasons. First, it is one of the few Control sets that actually contains a team buff (Mass Invisibility). Second, because Illusion allows you to run past enemies, you can run to the end of missions and Teleport the rest of the team to the end. Invisibility also means that if a fight starts and you need to heal/buff, you are near-100% safe from attack until you take your first aggressive action. If you open with a single target confuse, you will still be hidden from mobs. The major downside of Invisibility paired with a buffing secondary is a shortage of AoE lockdown capability.
Secondaries:
Empathy: Empathy contains multiple heal powers and several powerful, but short duration buffs. The heals and buffs can be used on your pets. Has a much more endurance and recharge friendly rezz than Thermal.
Thermal: Recently described by someone as a "greatest hits" set. Thermal contains both heals and single target shields. It pays for this by giving up the +regen +recovery and +recharge of Empathy and the protective/anti-mezz bubbles of Sonic or Force Field. At high levels Thermal switches gears and offers two great debuffs. The downside of Thermal is no one power particularly sticks out as fantastic. To make this set shine, you must invest in it heavily, because its the combination of powers that make it strong, not any individual ability.
Sonic: Sonic is the sister of Force Fields and a cousin of Thermal. It has +resistance shields like Thermal and a giant bubble like Force Field. It also offers a unique traveling -resistance aura toggle that you can place on a pet or team mate. 1 of only 2 sets to offer always-available mezz protection to a Controller. Downsides are the very large endurance costs and the redundancy of having both a mezz-shield and a mezz-removal power but no direct heal. The set also contains two powers that are almost always skipped. The Tier 9 is tremendously powerful but rarely available.
Force Field: Force Field is a very highly regarded set with the interesting twist that many of its powers are highly skippable. Personal Force Field, the two ally shields, the big bubble, and Repulsion Bomb are musts. Everything else is situational at best. This set is a possibly a competitor for the "Most Disappointing Tier-9 Power" contest. Force Field is the kind of set that everyone seems to want on their team but not many desire to play; if you enjoy this set, expect to get lots of invites. Also plan to invest in the Leadership pool to increase the protection of your bubbles.
Kinetics: Kinetics is an untraditional buff set. It does contain a heal, but focuses primarily on boosting team damage and recharge rates. Be aware that taking this set means many teams will expect you to take and use Speed Boost, a power on a 2 minute recharge. Kinetics usually works best near melee range.
Depends on what you prefer. This game lets you play just about any combination of healing, ally buffing, and enemy debuffing that you could want.
I'd suggest an Earth/Thermal Controller or an Empathy/Sonic Defender for a new player.
Once you get the hang of a controller, a Mind/Kinetics controller is a real beast for controlling and buffing.
A Plant/Empathy Controller gives plenty of control with only a few powers, letting you focus on healing. I have a friend who swears by it for team support.
Too many alts to list.
Earth/Thermal is the only controller I've ever played into double digits. I still don't have the ST heal, but he's a beast for team support. Earth's controls pretty much neuter spawns, and the Thermal shields toughen up the whole team.
They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
man no love for Fire/Emp 
I play mine now @ 30ish and I control fine.. better in fact than every controller I've been group with to date...then again I set my immo, cinders, disorients etc to be up REALLY fast with at least 2 ACC's so I can spam firecages (after Tank has agro) and hold much more than others I've been with.(and they stick)
Leadership helps as well
imo
Fire/Emp is a fine powerset.. with mine I can keep 4 team members fortified/buffed at all times all the while controlling/ healing at will
/shrugs
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Ice's cornerstone power, Arctic Air, is a toggle aura that slows enemies, lowers their recharge rate, and makes them run slowly away from you.
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I've never heard Arctic Air called Ice's cornerstone power.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
Controls may be better support combos. Their buffs/debuffs/heals are not as potent as a defender. You also get them much later.
However controls lock down the battlefield while defender are blasting enemies.
If you want to blow stuff up while supporting, then defender wins.
That being said I think defenders can get a bum rap in game, if they are not a healing set. I have run with many Trick Arrows, Sonics, Force Fields, and many have horror stories about being kicked from teams or over looked.
I find that for most controllers people seem to disregard the secondary because they expect them to lock stuff down and see their secondary as weak.
Note: These are not my views but they are the views of many I have come across. Now the more experienced player will know exactly what that Trick Arrow is doing and not go "GET A HEALOR!!"
In the end its a matter of Support-Blasting or Control-Supporting. There is no bad secondary or primary only bad players. Yes some do things better and some have a higher learning curve but in general they all have their niche. Just a matter of finding a player who likes that style and making it shine.
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man no love for Fire/Emp
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Sure there is, but those guys are so darned HYPER and over-aggressive! They aggro stuff from a mile away, split up and aggro three separate groups simultaneously! Then they run back to you with 3 groups that want to kill you...
Oh, wait, you said Fire EMP.
Sorry. 
"How do you know you are on the side of good?" a Paragon citizen asked him. "How can we even know what is 'good'?"
"The Most High has spoken, even with His own blood," Melancton replied. "Surely we know."
Ive always played support powersets in any mmo game I play.. I guess Im happy just sitting back and helping my teammates... What is the best support powerset in COH? Is it a controller or defender? Please be nice as I am fairly new to the game and havent been around as long as most of you.
thank you in advance