AE has caused a resurgence of the word "Healer"
Ignore the idiots and show them the ability of non-healers to shut them up.... like usual?
Ignore them and only team with people who grasp the Zen that is defending?
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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Ignore the idiots and show them the ability of non-healers to shut them up.... like usual?
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Empathy shines on dysfunctional teams, which the AE _BREEDS_ So it's hard for people to attribute value to sets that work best when you have a competent team (wherein Empathy will look almost useless).
I had that experience on my Empath. I was VERY, VERY little use when the team stuck together. Whereas our Rad/Rad was a true hero. My aura heal was the only utility I had, and she had it too. However, when one of our Scrappers got into trouble (Scrapperlock, go figure) and I healed him up and let him fight it out, I was thanked all over the place. It was a little sad...
I love running pugs through the AE and vocalizing they will not get their precious h34lz0r, instead - they will get buffs and learn to utilize debuffs, and if they don't, they make frequent visits to the warm glow of the AE hospital. The ones that quit the team when I don't show them the stoner brute/tank, the kins and emp/pains are the one who have teh sux and aren't viable anyways.
@LostComet
-Repeat Offenders Network-
It's even worse when your a TA/A defender and already explained you don't heal, but do debuff enemies up the wazoo and deal really good damage... Then the team's reaction to you joining is "YAY! A HEALER! WE ARE GODS NOW!"
Especially when you then learn the entire team wiped on the first group, which is +3 to you... Then they boot you after you defeat the entire enemy group (barely) and pass out wakies.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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Seriously. I don't think I can pass through Atlas Park or Cap Au Diable without seeing "AE team lf Healer!!" What's more, someone will usually say "we need a healer" when I'm on an AE team. AE has created a new generation of noob, the kind that think the only type of worthwhile Defender is an Empath. Also, no one seems to realize, anymore, that a Controller possesses Defender primaries (albeit weaker version).
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... and I *LOVE* it.
Group I got randomly invited to: Stone/Fire tank, Fire/SS tank, Plant/Kin troller, Mind/Emp troller, Blaster, Blaster, Scrapper, Me (Dark/Fire tank?) -- I was mid-rebuild on the tank and out of money, so when I get a random tell for a farm I figure why not,
Group killed hella slow, was not safe (amusingly I go afk and they all die but the stoner), but the good part is... this leaves more of what *I* want out there.
I don't really want an emp unless I need to softcap defense.
I do want a kin with FS, but they're a dime a dozen.
I grab up the rads, darks, storms, TA's, and colds as fast as I see them for my teams... and am very happy when I see people going "LF TANK! LF HEALER!" because it means they're not looking for the good stuff.
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Empathy shines on dysfunctional teams
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That's part of the truth, but any good defender is a godsend to a dysfunctional pug. AE is a breeding ground for noobish classism, nothing more and nothing less. Tanker, healer, damage dealer -- you must be exactly one and no more than one.
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mpathy shines on dysfunctional teams, which the AE _BREEDS_ So it's hard for people to attribute value to sets that work best when you have a competent team
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as does a well played cold, FF, and D3
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My aura heal was the only utility I had, and she had it too.
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Orly? yea who needs fortitude, both RAs, adrenaline boost, clear mind, <censored> that!
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However, when one of our Scrappers got into trouble (Scrapperlock, go figure) and I healed him up and let him fight it out, I was thanked all over the place. It was a little sad...
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And maybe here in lies the problem? empathy is a BUFF set not a HEAL set. True on most good teams little healing is required but the de/buffs from empathy, leadership, and secondaries improve an already good team. most everyday H3aLz0rs just put heal on auto when the team is ok and go watch TV, a great defender is able to attack keep the team well buffed and put out as much damage as is possible to help move it along that much faster. most people dont like this because they dont get the same appreciation that they do while healing. personally, I can not count the number of times im in a raid/tf/mission/anything and see "great healz" pop up. you never see someone tell the FF "awesome bubbles" or /tell a rad "awesome debuffs" because all the general public cares about is green numbers. see healing arrow.
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Ignore the idiots and show them the ability of non-healers to shut them up.... like usual?
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QFT
Positron's i13 letter: We are trying to make PvP more accessible to new players, while giving experienced PvP'ers the advantage that comes with formulating tactics around the new systems we're putting in place. PvP from now on will be on our priority list. If something isn't working out, we'll be in there tweaking it and making it work, for the entire future of the product, not just Issue 13.
I probably should've mentioned... I didn't have the buffs yet, I was like level 8 xD
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I'm getting tired of explaining that ANY type of Defender can be just as effective, even more effective in most cases, than an Empath. I've been asked "Do u heal???"
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Join CoX. Now with new and improved farming so you can get from 1 to 50 in under ten hours. Yay. 
All the fun and none of the tedious learning-how-to-play-the-game junk. 
Thats one way to get rid of the influence and power leveling sellers. Make them superfluous. I'm hoping NCsoft will start offering level 50 characters out of the box for a fee soon.
It doesn't have to be empathy but you do want some form of healing along with buff/debuff against level 54 boss spawns. Otherwise, the few hits that do get through are going to wear people down.
man our weekly "healer" threads aren't what they used to be.
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It doesn't have to be empathy but you do want some form of healing along with buff/debuff against level 54 boss spawns. Otherwise, the few hits that do get through are going to wear people down.
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yeah, FF and Cold totally needs heals in order to protect a team. /sarcasm
I remember once I joined a struggling team on my level 50 Rad/Sonic/Dark while waiting for my friends to finish up a safeguard they just started so they could swap and we could all go slap a TF silly. They asked if I was a healer and I told them I had one weak PBAoE heal. Instant invited. After I joined I went in, noticed they were almost done with a mob and fine, so I gave into my Scrapper tendencies and ran to the next one, hit my debuffs, EMP Pulse, Soul Drain, Aim, my nuke, a couple of blues, and then cleaned up the mob before they reached it (I think they were mostly lowbies, hence their slowness).
Next thing I get was "I thought you were a healer?" I simply replied "I have over 20 other powers too". Hopefully they learned something.
Also recently, got into an argument with someone about the usefulness of a dedicated healer. After a bit, found out he was referring to a well-played Defender and I was referring to a poorly played Empath. So, kind of looks like some people are just calling Defenders "healers" in general, even if they don't heal.
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I know these people existed before. But why do they ALL have to come to the surface at AE?
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Because there are a bunch of new players trying out the game having bought the "Architect Edition" of it that's in stores.
The AE isn't at fault here. What's at fault is new players coming here with notions shaped in other games. What's at fault is how much more apparent big green numbers are than the effects of buffs and debuffs.
The AE has its faults, but let's try not to blame it for everything.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I was MEOOOOOOOWING!!!1!1 my way through the 40s on my FF / Rad, and came across a scrapper who kept on dying even though he was bubbled.
He got on my case on how the healer hadn't taken Resuscitate. I shut off my toggles, told the team that it was time for a lesson in how FF works, and did nothing for the next couple minutes -- just as the ST buffs were wearing off.
The scrapper shut up once everyone came back from the hospital, and I kept on getting ph4+ xps. Yo.
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The AE has its faults, but let's try not to blame it for everything.
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While true the blatent farming that AE encourages has certainly not helped the situation.
I was on an AE team in Atlas Park with my Force Field / Dark Blast Defender last month, since I was bored and had nothing else to do. While the team leader was assembling the team and recruiting others, I was just going around the AE building and bubbling others. Again, because I was bored. I had gotten close to one of the exits, when the team leader, a level 48 Tanker, said:
"Healer, don't leave!"
I checked his veteran badges, and saw he had the 33 month veteran badge. :\
@Celestial Lord and @Celestial Lord Too
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a great defender is able to attack keep the team well buffed and put out as much damage as is possible to help move it along that much faster. most people dont like this because they dont get the same appreciation that they do while healing. personally, I can not count the number of times im in a raid/tf/mission/anything and see "great healz" pop up. you never see someone tell the FF "awesome bubbles" or /tell a rad "awesome debuffs" because all the general public cares about is green numbers. see healing arrow.
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And here's where I think the more educated defender community can really help things. I always make a special point on teams to appreciate the bubbles, sonic shields, dark debuffs, TA debuffs, etc. in team chat. Having someone mention it on a team, will often make other people go..."oh, you're right, look at that!"
I also make it my personal mission to argue with anyone that claims they "need a healer" or "need an empath" for something (no offense to empathy defenders).
Draggynn on Virtue: lvl 50 Storm/Psi, 1389 badges
Draggynn's Guide to Storm Summoning(Gale-Tornado, updated 6/25/2011)
Avatar by Wassy full reference here
I can't really fault new players for assuming healers are necessary on every team. It's the most noticable effect on your health bar. And to put down someone simply because that's what they're used to without even giving them the opportunity to learn there are other functions a defender can utilize to support the team is just as bad. Yeah that's right I said it. If you don't like players because they're looking for 'healers' then you're rasist! ;p
Joking aside...
When I first started playing CoH, the first character I played to 50 (and past 15) was an emp/dk. I did so because a group of friends migrated here from another game and most of them rolled blasters/scrappers. That is who I teamed with exclusively for several weeks until I logged on earlier than usual one day and joined another team. It was a team of regulars who had an open spot and they just happened to have a D3. You know what the first thing I noticed was? Not the cloud of smoke following him around casting tentacles or the dark patches on the floor, it was the fact that when he healed the group it was for DOUBLE the amount of my heal aura. At that point I asked her/him why that healed so much and s/he filled me in on dark miasma and what it had to offer. I created a Dark/Elec, a Dark/Rad, and then a D3. And from there other AT's as I learned more and more about the game. I still get tells from other players asking about what powers I have or how do I heal.
Nowadays, when I'm playing a non-empathy defender and another player asks if I'm a healer, my response is 'I can keep your health bar green'. Of course I'll get turned down more often than not but then again, I'm not losing anything for it. I'll help those that want to learn and avoid those that don't. Everyone wins.
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And here's where I think the more educated defender community can really help things. I always make a special point on teams to appreciate the bubbles, sonic shields, dark debuffs, TA debuffs, etc. in team chat. Having someone mention it on a team, will often make other people go..."oh, you're right, look at that!"
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Oh, I had quite a lot of fun showing the tank who was really leading the team a few runs back. I'd been pulling to a kill zone on my dark/arch on a 54 boss farm, and the fire/ss tank decided (on a completely defense buffless team - TA, dark, dark defs and kin troller) that he was tired of letting the defender lead after a bunch of spawns, so he jumped in. And the team followed. It was a little messy, I hung back (covered them with debuffs) and chatted with the other dark defender about not encouraging bad tank behavior by following him. After that spawn gave the warning "I'm pulling to the tar patch." aka "sit here quietly". He ran into the next group, and this time only the 2 scrappers and kinetic followed. They died in about 4 seconds. I gave them a few seconds to think about it, then debuffed the spawn, dropped fluffy to help lower tohit, tar patched, HT'd them all back to life.
He sat back politely after that and held down base while I pulled. I think he got 3-4 levels out of the run regardless (37ish to 41ish).
I was all for the "their $15, let them play how they want" approach for a while. That changed when I realized nobody was teaching anybody the ropes.
And this is why I fully supported farming nerfs.
My teams refuse to take Empathy unless we know the player well enough to trust them with the set.
After reading the various "AE WROO-END COH" threads, I think I'm just going to start using the term "healer" for everything because of the fact it enrages the farming Puritans. The Puritans have actually managed to edge out indignant "heal0rz" as the top of the pile for annoying players.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
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My teams refuse to take Empathy unless we know the player well enough to trust them with the set.
After reading the various "AE WROO-END COH" threads, I think I'm just going to start using the term "healer" for everything because of the fact it enrages the farming Puritans. The Puritans have actually managed to edge out indignant "heal0rz" as the top of the pile for annoying players.
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Ok, let me explain point by point why I dislike farming and powerleveling.
<ul type="square">[*]It's boring [*]it promotes people not learning how to play their character[*]it causes people to level too fast, thus missing all the content in the game [*]It promotes poor teaming skills, after all why learn to work with the team when one or two team members do all the work so you can level quickly?[/list]
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
Seriously. I don't think I can pass through Atlas Park or Cap Au Diable without seeing "AE team lf Healer!!" What's more, someone will usually say "we need a healer" when I'm on an AE team. AE has created a new generation of noob, the kind that think the only type of worthwhile Defender is an Empath. Also, no one seems to realize, anymore, that a Controller possesses Defender primaries (albeit weaker version).
I know these people existed before. But why do they ALL have to come to the surface at AE? I'm getting tired of explaining that ANY type of Defender can be just as effective, even more effective in most cases, than an Empath. I've been asked "Do u heal???" when joining an AE team on my FF/Rad. And I've seen countless Rad/* and Kin/* overlooked because the leader "Wants a healer." What the hell? Is AE killing the Defenders?
I've seen this sort of talk even from high-end Brutes and Tanks (you know, soft-capped Shieldies, etc). Hell, I've heard DEFENDERS say "we need a healer." Why, oh why can people not see our usefullness!
Well, Defender board, what's there to do other than roll an Empath? =/
/endrant.