Empathy, the lost defender

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sigh, i honestly feel the ppl who dont like empaths have never actually teamed with a good empath

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Admittedly there are a lot of bad ones out there. I found myself on a team with 2 of them (can't remember the lvl). 6 man team, 2 empaths and not a fortitude or CM between us. I checked them both out, they both had both powers.
Eventually I had to start asking them.

NOTE TO ALL DEFENDERS:
If someone asks you to use one of your buffs then you're not doing your job properly.

Bottom line and what I think gives empaths a bad name, is that some empaths think of themselves as healers and that's all they focus on.

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NOTE TO ALL DEFENDERS:
If someone asks you to use one of your buffs then you're not doing your job properly.

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I think that's why I sometimes dislike playing my Kin defender, keeping speed boosts on a team is a pain.

For an empath with Fortitude though, they aren't many buffs to go round so I'd change your statement to

If someone asks you to use one of your buffs and it is recharged then you're not doing your job properly.

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Bottom line and what I think gives empaths a bad name, is that some empaths think of themselves as healers and that's all they focus on.

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I tend to agree there are some really bad empaths out there, not that there aren't good ones too though.

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I think that's why I sometimes dislike playing my Kin defender, keeping speed boosts on a team is a pain.

For an empath with Fortitude though, they aren't many buffs to go round so I'd change your statement to

If someone asks you to use one of your buffs and it is recharged then you're not doing your job properly.

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Not really want I meant. It was more along the lines of; blow the dust off fortitude and use it on SOMEONE!!

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I tend to agree there are some really bad empaths out there, not that there aren't good ones too though.

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There some very good ones and I of course count myself in that number but they're FAR outweighed by the bad ones imho.

Im rolling a TA now...

NB HINT TO ALL THOSE THINKING OF ROLLING A TA: DO NOT, I REPEAT NOT, PUT THE WORDS "ARROW" "BOW" "FLETCHING" OR ANY OTHER RELATED WORDS IN YOUR SUPERHERO NAME...

Beleive me ive tried...

1st TA Toon: Crimson Arrow - 2 team invites up to level 10, kicked once for being a TA

2ns TA Toon: [Name classified] - No more than 5 mins waiting for an invite...

Oh, and I love TA, its just I do feel it needs a bit of a buff,,, and its getting it apparently

Happened today. On a team with the worst empath I'd seen in a while.

"Are you ever planning on casting fortitude?"
Casts fortitude.

We're just about to go into battle for the 3rd time.

"I think RA once in a while would be appreciated."
Casts RA.

"I see you have CM. Do you ever use it?"
Casts CM on 2 ppl

3 battles later

"I see you've forgotten how to use fortitude and CM again."
Casts fortitude.

The guy genuinely irked me and I had to think about it. I saw him attacking a lot and maybe he'd went for an offender as opposed to my pure defender build, but I think Empathy carries certain expectations with it and perhaps the reason ppl don't think empaths all that good at the later lvls is because most players dont live up to those expectations.

Because, lets face it, if empathy is redundant then ALL defenders are redundant. If the team is doing fine without a lot of heals then it'll do JUST as fine without a lot of buffs, or a lot of debuffs on the mobs. No?

No

Because if a team is doing fine without heals, healing wont make anything go better. Buffs/Debuffs however will speed up the whole thing

On the other hand, if you are an empath in a team not needing the heals, probably best to up the ante and have a harder mission

Could have probably used a bit more tact Innigo when asking him about his use of powers.

A lot of defenders get stick if they aren't constantly buffing, there is more than one way to play and I know a lot of kins and bubblers not getting speedboost/deflection shield because they don't want to be a buff bot.

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Could have probably used a bit more tact Innigo when asking him about his use of powers.

A lot of defenders get stick if they aren't constantly buffing, there is more than one way to play and I know a lot of kins and bubblers not getting speedboost/deflection shield because they don't want to be a buff bot.

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After 2 team wipes I was losing patience. Not only was he NOT buffing, he wasn't healing either.

It's a tough one. A defender who doesn't want to be a buff bot? What about the scrapper who doesn't want to get into melee?
My advice - back to the toon creator and roll up something you DO want to be.

From the empath in question's behaviour I think he really wanted to be a blaster.

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Could have probably used a bit more tact Innigo when asking him about his use of powers.

A lot of defenders get stick if they aren't constantly buffing, there is more than one way to play and I know a lot of kins and bubblers not getting speedboost/deflection shield because they don't want to be a buff bot.

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After 2 team wipes I was losing patience. Not only was he NOT buffing, he wasn't healing either.

It's a tough one. A defender who doesn't want to be a buff bot? What about the scrapper who doesn't want to get into melee?
My advice - back to the toon creator and roll up something you DO want to be.

From the empath in question's behaviour I think he really wanted to be a blaster.

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So a defender has access to 18 powers and because he doesn't want the one that he has to cast regularly (therefor cutting into his time using the other 17 powers) he should reroll a different toon?

If he wasn't healing then I'd be a bit irked as well, but if he was actually contributing by blasting instead of buffing, I'd tell you to shut your cakehole and let him play the game he wants to play it.

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If he wasn't healing then I'd be a bit irked as well, but if he was actually contributing by blasting instead of buffing, I'd tell you to shut your cakehole and let him play the game he wants to play it.

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He can, but he'll still be a bad player and as such not wlecome on any of my teams. A GOOD player would have known which of their powers were needed the most at any given time.
Am I not allowed to call a bad player a bad player anymore?

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If he wasn't healing then I'd be a bit irked as well, but if he was actually contributing by blasting instead of buffing, I'd tell you to shut your cakehole and let him play the game he wants to play it.

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He can, but he'll still be a bad player and as such not wlecome on any of my teams. A GOOD player would have known which of their powers were needed the most at any given time.
Am I not allowed to call a bad player a bad player anymore?

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Someone without certain powers does not make them a bad player, and saying in game that someone is a bad player because of the powers they have taken is wrong.

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Someone without certain powers does not make them a bad player, and saying in game that someone is a bad player because of the powers they have taken is wrong.

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No one but you has mentioned not taking powers. I'm talking about NOT using the powers you DO have when it's obvious the team is needing them.

But it's not your place to tell them when to use each of their powers.

It's like saying to a scrapper, right use your 4th power now, aren't you going to use your AoE? You seem to have forgotten your AoE again.

Surely everyone can play how they want to? Giving advice on how to play better is one thing, but telling someone what to click and when is rude.

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But it's not your place to tell them when to use each of their powers.

It's like saying to a scrapper, right use your 4th power now, aren't you going to use your AoE? You seem to have forgotten your AoE again.

Surely everyone can play how they want to? Giving advice on how to play better is one thing, but telling someone what to click and when is rude.

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Your reading in what wasn't there. I had hoped with the fortitude prod he'd get the message, so I prodded further with an RA prompt, I then prodded a bit further with CM. Obviously I was being too subtle as he wasn't buffing on his own initiative and heals weren't particularly forthcoming. This is POOR defending, plain and simple.
Saying "ppl can play how they want" is a non-argument, of course people can play badly if they want, but it's STILL playing badly.

To fill out your analogy it'd be like a regen scrapper being careful with his heals and attacking purely with brawl. You want to call that good scrapping?

And the way I look at it, if you don't want to be a buffer then don't play a defender, or rather, take a primary set that specialises in debuffing.

i have also noticed teams are getting a bit thin on the ground lately.
as for for empaths ?? i love them even with stamina and accelerated metabolism i can still burn end like no tommorow when all the pets are sent and i run all my debuffs so an empath is really handy

here was me thinking of a empath for my nest toon as well !!!

lol i said i was new to forumns didn't i! i couldn't do that quote thingy like u guys could so i put it in "" hopefully to show i didn't say it. some one else did, i think empaths are always welcome in my team, i don' discriminate and powerset really. i was the one ranting about T.A

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He can, but he'll still be a bad player and as such not wlecome on any of my teams. A GOOD player would have known which of their powers were needed the most at any given time.

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Course this only comes with practice and friendly advice from others who know.

Dunno if people see me as useful on my empath, she's still at a relatively low level. I heal when necessary, rez when necessary (and possible), use RA when it's ready (unless everybody's standing around yakking - yes, I've wasted it like that before) and look for the best character to stick Fortitude on.

Fortitude being the only real 'decision' that has to be made...who gets it. It doesn't recharge fast enough to keep more than two constantly buffed.

My rule of thumb (and nobody's complained yet) is to look for any SK'd characters first for fortitude, if none see if there's a blaster, if not then look for scrappers and tanks. Of course if the tank is having problems then that AT gets it first on the assumption that if the tank goes down we're all in trouble.


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Am I not allowed to call a bad player a bad player anymore?

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Nooo, you have to call them 'Players with teaming difficulties' these days.

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If he wasn't healing then I'd be a bit irked as well, but if he was actually contributing by blasting instead of buffing, I'd tell you to shut your cakehole and let him play the game he wants to play it.

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He can, but he'll still be a bad player and as such not wlecome on any of my teams. A GOOD player would have known which of their powers were needed the most at any given time.
Am I not allowed to call a bad player a bad player anymore?

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Someone without certain powers does not make them a bad player, and saying in game that someone is a bad player because of the powers they have taken is wrong.

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other day i was teaming with a lvl 14 storm/energy defender, they had 3 energy pwoers, hover, fly, stealth, tp foe and recall friend. however their only storm pwoer was gale, basically they were a very weak blaster, tell me that aint a bad player, only thing they did right was the lvl 14 travel power.

in my opinion a bad toon is one whos playing the wrong AT for the job, if they want to cause damage use a blaster or scrapper, if they want to be the first into the battle an empath defender is not a valid choice, furthermore if you incist on using all the medicine pool,leadership and presence, maybe you should rethink your stalkers build
/end rant, borrowed from someones messages

Nothing wrong with the leadership pool at all, for any AT, if you are a team player. That seems to be a dying breed tho from the amount of tauntless tanks, single target blasters/trollers, regen scrappers, and attackless empaths (none of whom trust the other) playing...

/em rant off

Not directed at anyone, just genral thoughts. I've noticed more people not wanting Speed Boost as well - I recently teamed with a /Stone tank who didn't want it! I nearly fell off my chair! Also, I respecced Speed Boost and Increase Density out of my kin build for a while (hadn't teamed for a while, my SG had recently splintered, had barely used them and didn't want to feel like a buff-bot), and regretted it almost straight away. Suffice to say I respecced them both back in ASAP (which was about 10 lvls later ). I still hate to feel like a buff-bot, so tend not to advertise the fact that I have SB and treat it more like Fortitude, and prioritise who I think will need/benefit the most from it. I always keep any stone tank SB'd (unless they tell me not to, obviously), and then try to keep it on blasters and defenders next whenever I think about it for the +regen. Plus of course I cast it on anyone who requests it But then I've built more of an Offender build so spend as much time buffing as I do attacking myself (just love to get in there, throw out Fulcrum Shift, and blast away at point blank range ).

Whenever I'm leader - which isn't often, I don't like the responsibility much - and I search for other people I just search for AT, which powersets people have don't bother me at all. I figure an empath will be as much use as any other defender, exactly as with other AT's, for all the pro's and cons outlined so well by others in this thread.

My personal take on the empath vs. other defender sets is that it's psychological - if people in a team know they have an Empath for a 'safety net' they will be more reckless and *need* more healing, whereas if they don't have an Empath people tend to be a little more safety conscious off their own back.

All IMHO of course.

I agree with that, certainly when playing with *my* non-empath characters, I'll be a lot more careful if there's no empath around.

It's always nice to know that you can just keep pounding away with a greatly decreased chance of debt.

Thing that I don't like on my kheldians is that power that increass density (can't remember what it's called now). In nova form it makes control quite difficult. After many levels of smoothly gliding to a controlled stop it's tough to get used to stopping instantly with that buff active.

I don't complain when it's done though, people don't generally remember that one character in the team doesn't want it and they're trying to help...

I think you mean Increased Density it slows you down but protects from mez effects and gives a little +res to smashing and lethal I think. Personally I only use it as a reaction to 'zzz' from other people, since the duration is so small there is no way I'm even gonna try to perma it, especially on large teams.

Just goes to show you can never please anyone - people don't want Speed Boost because they overshoot targets, you don't want Increase Density because you stop too quickly... Will the madness never end? (Joking, btw)

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I agree with that, certainly when playing with *my* non-empath characters, I'll be a lot more careful if there's no empath around.

It's always nice to know that you can just keep pounding away with a greatly decreased chance of debt.

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Isnt this the case with all defenders???

I think the effect is psychological ONLY... you can keep pounding away and if your help drops you get healed. However, with other defenders you either a) dont need the heals in the first place or b) you ratch up the difficulty until you do need heals and then everyone screams they need a h38lor!

Personally, when tanking i consider debuffs far more of a safety net than my healer. I prefer my health bar not to move thankyou very much