AE has caused a resurgence of the word "Healer"

Had an issue with a more experienced "healer". Was doing a Manticore TF with 4 Scrappers, a Blaster, a Controller, an Empath/Rad Defender, and myself a scrappy human-only Peacebringer. I looked at his powers and noticed he had a nice balance of everything, so I thought he'd be fine. I take the lead to soak up alpha strikes since, between my shields and the Scrappers and Blaster, my resistances are capped and, since we're all primarily single target damage, I freely let loose mob-scattering powers such as Solar Flare. It isn't long before the Empath is screaming at us to tighten up and stay around him like good little puppies instead of chasing down and making quick work of the enemies. At one point I deliberetly got on one side of a target so I could watch him and noticed, despite having taken many powers from it, was completely neglecting his secondary. A little bit later, the leader, who was a friend of mine and could play an Empathy Defender very well, asked him to stop trying to order everyone around and learn to play. He got ticked, but did as asked. Later though he apperantly was telling one or more members what to do in tells, as an arguement spilled into team chat. He quit in frustration. We then went to finish the TF with even less trouble than we had with him on.

So the other day I'm sitting around in Atlas, bored and wanting to kill some time, so when I hear some guy broadcasting a LFM for a 52 AE boss mission, I send him a tell saying sure, 50 fire/kin controller, toss me an invite.

The guy (a 50 tank) sends me a tell back saying, "We need heals only."

Once I'm over my "..." reaction, I send him another tell, repeating, fire/kin. He replies no, they just need a healer.

I almost offered to come along and trail the team spamming Transfusion on autofire, doing nothing else, but I decided I wasn't that bored.

Seven pages of this thread and I haven't the patience to read pass the first... anywho, I too have been seeing a lot of Defender "Issues" resurface lately.

Let me set this up. I have up to 4 years in Vet. badges (yet only 10 posts on the forums, yeah I don't come here much). My first level 50 was a Storm Summoner/Energy Blast Defender (I'm Luna Eclypse on Virtue ^_^). All those years ago when she was still being leveled, pre-exp arc adjustment I might add, I got non-stop complaints from almost every team I was in. Why? They did not understand my power set. And I would explain it that Storm is most entirely debuffs, the knockback is a side-effect that they just have to live with. No dice.

For a while, I wasn't getting invites because they'd send a /tell beforehand and ask what I was. So entered my "Unorthodox Stormie" build as I called it for a while. O2 Boost six-slotted for 3 Heals/3 Rech and Aid Other (also six-slotted) from the Medicine pool. Add in Resuscitate with some timely recharge time and I became an improvised pocket healer. And for a long, long time I would get invited to teams of 8 and be able to keep them all alive as the sole support-capable AT in the group. Either they tweaked it a bit or I got slower over time, but I can't seem to do that anymore... not as efficiently as I used to anyway.

My Storm powers were at a minimum... Snow Storm, Freezing Rain & Lightning Storm for debuffs, Steamy Mist running on the team, Hurricane only where applicable. I was never one of those Stormies that keeps it indefinitely running. I found that to cause more problems than not. And Tornado as a quasi-getaway power. Only used it for debuffing on AVs since it couldn't throw them around.

Consequently, this is still how Luna is built after all these years. On the occasions where I ever feel like using her, people get a taste of the Unorthodox Stormie... now with knockback-alicious Nova. ^.^ My healing tends to stay to a minimum nowadays though. I try to keep an eye out for whoever is nearby and not getting any love from the other heal-capable Defs/Trollers in the group. I usually stay shoulder to shoulder with the Blasters anymore. Toss out my debuffs and blast'em into next week.

Not sure I had any particular reason behind my rambling, just using myself as an example of how you can show your usefulness regardless of your build.

And, lastly, let's not forget the magical phrase that you should use if you're a Defender/Controller with any healing powers, this is for the unruly noobs that cause you grief. It's never failed for me: "I'm not healing you because you won't learn anything if I do."

My Empath Defender is by far my favourite character, but I can't get over how everyone refers to him as a "Healer". It seems that everyone has generalized Empaths with healers when healing is only half of what makes them so unique. Less experienced players seem to overlook the pressence of the multitude of other powers Empaths possess. In fact, I feel I haven't done a good enough job at Defending if I have to heal. I prefer to protect my teamates rather than heal up the ones I didn't. So if you hear people calling out for a healer inform them of the much more important services you can provide.

If anything, I'm noticing as much "we need a kin" in the AE these days, particularly last weekend. Now, sure, given that around half the characters in AE are Fire/Kinetic Controllers, they're not that hard to find, but it's still stupid. Had a situation where we had a 7 man team looking for one last member. I was on my Ill/Rad, we had a Fire/Rad and a Rad/Rad Def. Our glorious leader - a tank - refused to start until we found a kin. After 20 minutes, 5 of us disbanded, reformed, picked up a new tank (a fire one at that) and a couple of blasters, and it turned into one of the fastest moving teams I've seen in AE...

Amusingly enough, it also highlighted the "healer" thing. When we recruited the Rad def, the tank announced something like "at last, a healer". A remarkable display of ignorance, seeing as not only was the defender a Rad, he hadn't actually taken his heal (I asked him why, and he said he was going to pick it up later, but he wanted to get his debuffs, AM and some attacks first - he was mid-20s IIRC).

Apart from what already been said,

If im on my granite, i dont need a sonic or ice, i dont need a FF. I have trashloads of defense myself already (basicly capped resist), i need healing. Nothing more, nothing less.

So i wont ask for a defender, i will ask for a healer. Controller empath is good too

QR

Sometimes heals is just what a team needs...granted most in AE are not that kind of team...but when I build a team I build for a good mix of control/debuff/dmg/buff/heals...I could have all of what I want...and be short my healer.

So yea if my team needs a healer, I may go looking for one. Now every defender is not a heal...yea I get that...But sometimes all we need is the green numbers...anything else you do is just gravy.

The sad thing? The AE is breeding a new type of noob defender who isnt empath either. This week i teamed with a FF defender who made me want to cry. The team i was in was punching above our weight but i felt pretty safe since we had 2 defenders, 1 being dark and the other was a FF - our tank was also shield ('Great!' im thinking, capped def for our tank and some protection for my blaster').

Then we start the mission...

At no point does anyone get a deflection or insulation shield, neither does the defender put up dispersion. I know they have them because i always inspect every player when i join a team to know what im getting. After the first couple of deaths i ask if the FF can remember to bubble the tank and squishys if they dont have time to do everyone (which from playing FF, i know they do...) and keep dispersion up since alot of our team was def based it would help greatly - the 2 scrappers were SR and Shield. Nothing...

Tank dies again. So i politely ask again and in response the defender pops up FORCE BUBBLE sending the mobs everywhere while the confused tank tries to catch up to the mobs...

After sending a PM to the defender telling them which bubbles i meant they dropped the 'g2g' in chat and left!

Oh, this person had 45 months of vet also.

Im sorry, but there is no way that would be possible without PL. My first toon was a defender, FF at that. You would have to learn what your bubbles did by the time you hit steel or have been kicked.

So yeah, no wonder people think healers are win if the non-healers in AE teams are giving good defenders a rap like that!

I do not team with emp defenders. If my team NEEDS an empath, its time to log and sleep off the booze. In this game strict heal's are a waste of a party spot. Trollers at least can troll when not healing. Rad, Termal, Kin, Dark can heal AND do other things like buff/debuff. And I love TA/A or bubblers any day of the week. And ive known a few of those that will add medicine for heal other, stim, and rez, and use them only in dire circumstances. then again ive known blasters to get those powers too.