No Empathy=Teams might have to plan more:)
By
Animal_Mutha_EU,
Posted on: 2005-11-04 15:35 in Defenders
Speaking as an empathy defender I can only applaud any attempt to get a team to work together rather than blindly rush in and expect the poor old defender to mop up the mess and keep them standing.
Communication within some teams I have been on of late has been sadly lacking. The extent of the communication being "here" whilst I note yellow health bars and try to encourage folk to stay together as I have not yet unlocked the omnipresent power.
COV has some healing powers but these are secondary powers and nowhere near as powerful as empathy is. With the fact that most of the archetypes in COV have low hit points planned teamwork is even more vital.
I'd have to second that. As a current lvl 15def with healing aura, rez and heal other, im expected to make them invincible. Teams of my level seem to think 5 blasters and one tanker is effective, as long as they yhave me to heal them. And so the decline of the empath beingd...:P
The only thing CoV would be better with from empathy set is RA. Also, I dont think that good teams will need to plan any more than they did, considering that there wasn't nearly always an empath available in CoH.
empathy is more needed in COH as a lot of power sets are made to enhance the defence and survivability of the team. In COV the focus is on damage and buffs so the enemies go down faster - less need for healing. The healing powers available seem to function very well within COV.
No Empathy is always a good thing 
Empaths are great but there are too many idiots who don't see the value in other types of defenders.
I agree and feel sorry for low level defenders, especially new players. They join a team (being a rad, kin, dark, FF etc - all very useful) and get shouted at for healz plz and/or kicked because someone thought they grabbed a heal bot and runs around aggroing everything then faceplanting. those are the teams you leave with the defender I think.
After trying out 12 levels of ice/emp controller I have immense respect for anyone who can stand having a targetted heal on low levels..
Ah, I always like to cast my mind back to a team I was on a couple of months ago in, yes, the Hollows. I was flying about as DC, doing a bit of drive by healing, recall friending and dispensing pearls of wisdom (Did you change your reputation earlier? Ah, that explains everything, it's not just cosmetic), when I got a tell asking me if I could lend a hand.
Being a generally nice sort, I said yes, and ended up, in a shocking and unexpected turn of events, doing Frostfire on a four man team. All of them were new, so I did what I usually do in such situations, debuffing and blasting away, while letting them figure out the best way of handling stuff, only chipping with advice when everything was going pear shaped.
Anyway, the leader of this team was an energy blaster and a tool. Not just a bit of a tool, but the tool I have subsiquently used as a comparison for all other tools.
Taking on one spawn at a time was a foreign concept to him. He wouldn't have an end rest when he need it, let alone anyone else. One of the other guys bailed half way through, and I stayed in for the sake of the remaining normal person.
Anyhow, we get to frosties room. By this point, I'm in giving advice mode, as I feel bad for the amount of debt they must be getting. I say, "take the mobs by the door first". Normal bloke opens the doors. I stick Darkest Night on the boss in the group by the door. Tool blasts frosty. Everything goes to pot.
I'm blasting. I'm healing. I'm desperatly trying to get all the mobs clumped into that lovely, lovely debuff I'm putting out that will turn us into untouchable gods. Normal bloke goes down in a hail of fire. I finally get all the mobs together. By this point, tool is well in the red. I now, unfortuantly, have bugger all end left. If I hit TG, DN will drop and we will all die. In the mean time, I've got frosty down to but a smidgin of health.
Does the tool notice that he is not getting hit any more? Does he take a shot at frosty to finish him off? No. He runs around (neither towards me or away from the mobs, just in circles) shouting "HEAL HEAL HEAL OMG HEAL". I think to myself, "If I heal, we will both die in 10 seconds. If I do not, the tool will survive". Normal bloke is out of the picture due to deadness, so it is a no guilt situation.
I do as he says. I heal. I hear the WUURRRRMMM sound of impending death. Tools health goes up. And then straight back down. Dead. While they smack him, I get enough end back to smack Frosty with a dark blast, which (being SO'd to the hilt) finishes him off, just as the other 10ish mobs including two bosses do me in.
Tool then says "OMG U R RUBBISH HEALER!!!1 Y U NOT HEAL BETER???"
One of that team got a nice bunch of influence after that mission. Guess which.
Dead Calm's Defender Manifesto
great story 
unfortunately no empathy in CoV hasn't stopped the cries of "omg we need a healer".. corruptor with thermal = healer, mm with poison = healer... with no emapthy, people are settling for whatever they can get.
Ive avoided pickup teams so far in COV but for COH and COV im gonna have to bind "zomg we need to replace you with someone with a clue" to something
A corruptor: zomg we need a healer!!! Who are healers in CoV?!!
Me: corruptors
Silly or not, that felt pretty satisfying
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great story
unfortunately no empathy in CoV hasn't stopped the cries of "omg we need a healer".. corruptor with thermal = healer, mm with poison = healer... with no emapthy, people are settling for whatever they can get.
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Heh...yeah, I keep seeing broadcasts (in Sharkhead no less!) asking for healers to join teams 
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great story
unfortunately no empathy in CoV hasn't stopped the cries of "omg we need a healer".. corruptor with thermal = healer, mm with poison = healer... with no emapthy, people are settling for whatever they can get.
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Heh...yeah, I keep seeing broadcasts (in Sharkhead no less!) asking for healers to join teams
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Yeah that happened to me in my first day on CoV I got killed by a mob that our hidden stalker had ran straight past went to the Hossie, on the way back to the mission all I could seee on team chat was "OMG!! WHERS THE HEALER!!!!". In the Hospital genius.
Have always felt empathy where a bit overrated and have always been more to the dark miasma/kinetics side, which luckily CoV also have.
That said I was in a team yesterday with my brute fighting +2 and +3 mobs together with a team consisting of two other brutes, two dominators and a corruptor with warmth, which was a scary if interresting experience, and I learned a really important lesson about charging and brutes without buffs.
Warmth is not the best heal power but in lack of anything better it still felt like a god blessed life saver.
Anyway after many hardships and deaths we did finish the mission, with the use of some pulling, some sleeps, some tactics, and a lot of health in red and lots of running.
Lesson: Hard fight without heals/buff/bebuffs using tactics is a must.
My main is a lvl 50 empathy defender... and i love playing that character. Though, what i have noticed is that empathy defenders are there strickly to look after the team mates. I have been in a few teams where empaths are more interested in fighting than looking out for the others, which only makes me think they should be playing a scrapper or a blaster.
@Psychochill & @Psychochill.
All ATs are there to look after their team mates. You see a team mate in trouble, you taunt/hit/blast/mez/debuff/buff/heal to get them out of it. I firmly belive that everyone should have the team health window open at all times.
An empath having blasts in addition to your heals/buffs simply gives you another way of supporting the team.
Personally, I prefer teaming with balanced empaths when I play DC. Why? Because with either a buffer or a debuffer on the team, then every single persons primary activity will, once the team is buffed/enemy debuffed, be damage dealing. Sure, they are also there as insurance if something goes terribly wrong (eg, I get hit with a mez in between CMs, someone gets a lucky shot on the blaster or it is a banished panthion mission and I am officially dead weight on the team), but I want them to have fun in between applying buffs.
Dead Calm's Defender Manifesto
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My main is a lvl 50 empathy defender... and i love playing that character. Though, what i have noticed is that empathy defenders are there strickly to look after the team mates. I have been in a few teams where empaths are more interested in fighting than looking out for the others, which only makes me think they should be playing a scrapper or a blaster.
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Why? It seems a bit silly to pigeonhole a character just by their primary.
I decided at around lvl 33/34 that I would be more offensive with my empath. With the electric blast secondary, I can not only heal the team, I can also stop them taking so much damage by draining mobs of their end.
My build certainly needs a respec (I need to bring Aim in for Ball lightning and should have taken Tesla Cage earlier), but it is effective despite being a concept build. I've taken the important Empathy powers and kept them slotted up.
There's more to being an empath than toggling leadership/stealthing others, buffing, sticking auto fire on heal aura and chucking out the occasional Heal Other. Not that theres anything wrong with that either.
Wow all of this Defender navel gazing. Imagine if you were a Tank and all you could do was be hit.
I haven't started on COV yet, but I checked some of the info leaked out, and I noticed, NO EMPATHY.
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If this is true who agrees with me that this can only be a good thing. Teams might have to plan more for a fight rather than shout at the defender or controller HEAL PLEASE.
I can't stand teams that think there is only one way to do a mission, and that's with a "healer"
Empathy is fabulous and there are a few empathic defenders and controllers in my SG. However don't think that HEALING is their only role, albeit an important facet to their character.
My opinions about this may change when starting COV
Visionist LVL 50 Ill/kin
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