Hellowie!
Storm Summoning. It is the only way to go. Storm Summoners can do everything every other AT but a billion times better! They're just amazing.
Vote Stormie!
The Rot Hood.
Kinetics has the best AoE team heal, but you need an enemy nearby to target. (Anyone next to the enemy is healed).
The main 'healer' is an Empath/* Defender. They get various heals and then move into Buffs at higher levels.
The other defenders are used to buff your team mates or debuff the enemy or both. Each one plays differently, some requiring you to be more active than others. If you want to be offensive go for Radiation, Trick Archery or Kinetics. Defensive go for Empathy, Sonic or Forcefields.
Storm is offensive and can be very good when used right. From what i've heard it isn't the easiest of Power Sets to pull off effectively.
I think Dark's heal is more powerful, and can be placed easier too.
Seems to be missing from you post entirely there, Stryker.
Dark has Heal, resurrect, a pet which heals (woo) lots of ways to stop enemies hitting you, and many nifty tricks.
DON'T eat muffins while I'm developing you.
Pants! Turkey Magnates! A man in a box! Rogue AI! Come one, come all, to arc ID 10107 - It's [i]'Not as long as some other arcs'[/i]!
Welcome to the game!
The sets are about
full support: empathy (heal,buff,rez)
support: kinetic (buff, debuff, heal,no rez), forcefield(buff, repel, no heal, no rez), radiation(debuff,buff,heal,rez), sonic (buff,debuff, no heal, no rez)
little more offensive: dark(debuff, small heal,area rez), trick arrow(debuff,no heal,no rez), storm (debuff,repel,no rez)
With dark, trick arrow and storm being a bit more controller-ish in nature.
In this game defenders do much more than just heal, debuffing enemy and buffing own team is an important part.
I recommend taking a look at the
prima guide if you want to know more about the powersets. 
thx for all the replys, think ill go with emp but dunno wich secondary to pick yet :P
Could be wrong but i heard recently somewhere that Energy is one of the better defencer secondary sets...
Defiant
Proud Member of the Liberty Legion
Venture - Emp/En Defender
Seph - Kat/SR Scrapper
Blizzard - Ice/Storm Controller
Legionelosis - Rad/Rad Defender
For PvP Psi makes a fairly nice secondary - it helpfully sneaks round most of the resistances.
For PvE it's still a nice secondary, unless you're magic or tech origin - although this is less of a problem since you'll have a dedicated group and hopefully never need to solo.
(edit)
Or natural, I forgot about the council mechmen. 
basically Psi has great range, good damage, some nice soft control options, and the irritating downside that there are entire villian groups immune to you. Banished Pantheon, Carnies and anything robotic (except clockwork, which are vulnerable)
[ QUOTE ]
thx for all the replys, think ill go with emp but dunno wich secondary to pick yet :P
[/ QUOTE ]
It depends what you're going for. Some Empaths choose to concentrate almost entirely on their primary, while others like to get a mix of powers.
I would really stick mainly to your primary if you're planning on being a PvP Empath. Of course, you could choose to level first with a different build, and then respec into a PvP build later on, but PvP Empath builds work perfectly well in PvE. And seeing as you already have a solid group to team with, you probably don't need to worry about being able to solo.
So, for a PvP build, I would look to choose a secondary with one or two utility powers - by this, I mean powers that have a use other than damage, that you could use to protect yourself:
Archery: Stunning Shot (disorient)
Dark Blast: Dark Pit (AoE disorient), Tenebrous Tentacles (AoE immob), Life Drain (tohit debuff and small self-heal)
Electrical Blast: Short Circuit (endurance drain), Tesla Cage (hold)
Energy Blast: Power Push (knockback)
Psychic Blast: Telekinetic Blast (knockback), Psionic Tornado (knockback), Scramble Thoughts (disorient)
Radiation Blast: Cosmic Burst (disorient)
Sonic Blast: Shockwave (cone knockback), Siren's Song (cone sleep), Screech (disorient)
Those are from a quick look at a hero builder program, I'm sure someone will point out if I've missed something. There are a number of other powers with a chance to take some effect (like a 30% change of knockback, for instance), but I'm just referring to the ones that are specifically meant for their status effect, rather than it being secondary to the damage. The only one I'm not sure about there is Telekinetic Blast - the description makes it sound like it always knocks back, but having used it quite a lot, it seems like it sometimes doesn't when I would expect it to.
If I were making an Empath now, for the purposes of PvP, I would probably avoid Archery (redraw time on bow, nothing you can't get from other sets utility-wise), Dark (AoEs aren't great for PvP, and you hardly need another self-heal), Energy (just one knockback doesn't really stand up to the other secondaries utility powers), and Radiation (the disorient power is very short-range). That leaves you with Elec, Psy, and Sonic. I'd probably go with Psy or Sonic on the basis that a lot of people with no status protection are picking up Acrobatics for PvP, which means they can resist one of your holds. They won't, however, resist a disorient. In an arena match you can probably expect everyone to have Break Frees or an Empath Clear Minding them a lot of the time anyway, but status effects can really save you from people chasing after you in one of the PvP zones, especially if you use Fly to get around.
If, on the other hand, you really want to do some damage... Archery still has the redraw every time you switch between your primary and secondary, and it's mostly highly-resisted Lethal damage. I'd probably still avoid Dark, too (again, AoEs aren't so great in PvP, and it's not the best damage anyway). Radiation has a couple of AoEs which won't be so useful in PvP, but you could pick and choose from it - the disorient is very short range, though. I think the others are perfectly viable choices, though, for dishing out some damage. Much like in PvE, psychic damage isn't resisted by most people, and the attacks have a nice secondary effect (-recharge), so I'd be very tempted by that. You might have trouble if you run into one of the few people who do have psy resist, but since I doubt you'd be soloing in PvP with any Empath build, it wouldn't really be a problem.
That got ridiculously long, sorry. I've played my Empath in PvP a fair amount, although I really stick to the zones. If you have any specific build questions on that end of things, I'd be glad to make another stupidly long post.
[ QUOTE ]
Dark Blast: Dark Pit (AoE disorient), Tenebrous Tentacles (AoE immob), Life Drain (tohit debuff and small self-heal)
[/ QUOTE ] Just...no, that power is very, very bad.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Dark Blast: Dark Pit (AoE disorient), Tenebrous Tentacles (AoE immob), Life Drain (tohit debuff and small self-heal)
[/ QUOTE ] Just...no, that power is very, very bad.
[/ QUOTE ]
I wasn't saying anything about the quality of the powers in that list, MaX. I was just pointing out which utility powers are in each set. I've heard it's awful (though I've never tried it), but more importantly for an Empath, as I pointed out, there's just no need for another self-heal anyway.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Dark Blast: Dark Pit (AoE disorient), Tenebrous Tentacles (AoE immob), Life Drain (tohit debuff and small self-heal)
[/ QUOTE ] Just...no, that power is very, very bad.
[/ QUOTE ]
I have it on my empath... and I quite like it, so there!
Actually, the most use I get out of this power is when soloing my empath... hardly ever use it when teamed but if for some bizarre reason I decide that what I want to do is solo one of my missions then this power comes into its own. None of my powers do much damage, this is no exception, but once I had some heals slotted on it I get an average sized heal out
[ QUOTE ]
Hi. i just bought this game. Ive got a few friends that played it a few years ago and now coming back so im gonna start playing with em and i feel like playing a support class. We already got a group so wont be a problem finding people to play with. Any one got a good idea of a nice Support/Heal build for pvp ?
[/ QUOTE ]
Welcome to the game
For a while I used to have one of every Defender, but the ones I've played the most have been Radiation, Empathy and Storm.
Personally, I'd go with what feels right to you
Empathy is pure team support, so is Force Field; but others can make foes weaker - like Radiation, Dark and Storm. Some are inbetween. Try a few out, get them to level 6 - pick one you like the feel off
I heartily recommend sonic as a secondary. Since I made my FF/sonic I've pretty much stuck to sonic as a secondary for all my defender alts.
For defenders it's 20% resist debuff per blast, which gets really crazy once your attacks cycle faster and you can whip out a shriek, scream, shriek, shout combo that will drop things incredibly quickly.
The set also has some great soloing tools but lacks decent AoE damage. Single target damage is spectacular though. You will feel like a blaster at times, especially if your primary has -Res debuffs as well. Pair it with sonic or TA primaries (which have two stackable -Res debuffs each) and you can be giving your team 100+% resist debuffage if you blast a lot. I notice the difference easily when I'm playing my sonic/sonic. Bosses just disintegrate.
I have no idea if there is a -Res debuff cap or if it just affects your damage immediately and pushes you towards your damage cap. My sonic/sonic was teamed with a dark/*, dark/* and rad/rad. With two tar patches, an enervating field and a disruption field the mobs were vaporised in seconds and I threw a sonic siphon onto the bosses for another 30% as well. I can't imagine how crazy it would have been if we had all taken sonic secondaries and spammed Howl at those mobs! 
P.S. Storm is the most fun powerset in the game but I don't think that it pairs particularly well with a sonic secondary.
[ QUOTE ]
P.S. Storm is the most fun powerset in the game but I don't think that it pairs particularly well with a sonic secondary.
[/ QUOTE ]
I beg to differ. I've had no problems with the combo and I think they work really well together.
Do you not find hurricane a pain when you want to use shout? I can just see you having to get within knockback range to use it and accidently spreading out the mobs all the time... and siren's song is one of the best sonic powers but just doesn't feel very storm compatible as most of your storm powers will break sleep.
I'm sure it "works" but of all the secondary sets it looks like the one with the least synergy. They are both my favourite sets though. I can imagine that if you are in an uberteam and just use FR, snowstorm and howl most of the time that it would be a great combo. By uberteam I mean when you find that the entire spawn is dead in about 5 seconds.
Nope. I don't have Siren's or Shout. I find that I can easy solo missions on invincible (apart from AVS :P), and that I can greatly contribute to the average team. Out of the Sonic Secondary I have - Shriek, Scream, Amplify, Screech and Dreadful Wail.
You might want to look at controllers aswell, with heavy on the empathy secondary. My advice would be illusion/empathy controller-best support class (imo) in the game, it also rocks in PvP.
[ QUOTE ]
I think Dark's heal is more powerful, and can be placed easier too.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know alot about Dark, but if your thinking of Life Drain, like Max said its rubbish. The Pet is good, but you don't tell it when to heal or not.
Probably referring to twilight grasp, which is a truly phenomenal heal. I'd go so far as to say it is the best aoe heal in the game (as it is easier to control than the kinetics heal)
Hi. i just bought this game. Ive got a few friends that played it a few years ago and now coming back so im gonna start playing with em and i feel like playing a support class. We already got a group so wont be a problem finding people to play with. Any one got a good idea of a nice Support/Heal build for pvp ?