When I log onto a defender, i AM a defender. I dont become a healer, debuffer/buffer, I just defend people. Different sets have different ways. But they all defend. Even kinetics defends by shortening fight time and using a melee heal 
When i want a balanced team and i pick a defender i shouldnt have to care what type, all that matters is i play in the right way to help them help the team better.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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If it was frosty I would understand the need for more healers But Atta is just a big green baby :P
All I could do was healing aura and heal other...Two buttons over..and over..and over again.
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Are you kidding me about Frosy being tougher than Atta? I managed to Solo Frostie with my Empathy'Psionic Defender (or should that be healer?)
As far as an empath being boring to play "pre buff" with "only two buttons" I have had some of my most frantic game play in those situations! I was racing around like a scalded jack rabbit trying to reach players whos health bars I could see going into the red.
Finally, if everything is under control and there is no healing actully needed in a fight (rare in most PUGs I concede!) then Empaths do have a secondary that can do bit of blasting.
I do feel that there is a particular attitude or mindset you need to relly enjoy the Defender AT and the Empath in particular. This boils down to the fact that they contribute "indirectly" to the fights in most cases.
I also think that those posters that diss on the Defenders/Healers are often those who cannot enjoy them or fail to appreciate their subtlety.
Still each to their own. We Champions of the AT will keep on bailing 'em out with nary a crumb of recognition for our eforts. LOL
The problem is this: A big portion of the population likes healers (empaths) alot more then other defender types.
I think that is ignorant.
Statements against that attitude are against that attitude not against the empath power set.
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If it was frosty I would understand the need for more healers But Atta is just a big green baby :P
All I could do was healing aura and heal other...Two buttons over..and over..and over again.
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Are you kidding me about Frosy being tougher than Atta? I managed to Solo Frostie with my Empathy'Psionic Defender (or should that be healer?)
As far as an empath being boring to play "pre buff" with "only two buttons" I have had some of my most frantic game play in those situations! I was racing around like a scalded jack rabbit trying to reach players whos health bars I could see going into the red.
Finally, if everything is under control and there is no healing actully needed in a fight (rare in most PUGs I concede!) then Empaths do have a secondary that can do bit of blasting.
I do feel that there is a particular attitude or mindset you need to relly enjoy the Defender AT and the Empath in particular. This boils down to the fact that they contribute "indirectly" to the fights in most cases.
I also think that those posters that diss on the Defenders/Healers are often those who cannot enjoy them or fail to appreciate their subtlety.
Still each to their own. We Champions of the AT will keep on bailing 'em out with nary a crumb of recognition for our eforts. LOL
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I've never found Atta to be much of a problem, though frosty allways makes me aware of any mistakes I make, and allways highlights the weakness of any PUG.
I did not have to do any racing around, the pugs I got into were brutaly efficient. I only had to use my secondaries a couple of times to draw aggro from a fellow squishy.
Though a couple of smaller groups I was with recently were much more frenetic (all blaster but me) :P
Secondary powersets? Lies I tell you! Lies!!
((thats a joke))
Usualy its a view held by people who are poor team players and suffer from the "Me" syndrome. This game is about "Me" this team exists for "Me", you will all support "Me" so "I" can have fun.
As an aside this did remind me of my first empath/rad defender I made. It was my second character and I pretty much geared it up to be nothing more than a combat medic.. All the green powers and as many attacks as I could get.
So I probably contributed to the stereotype there
At the time my reasoning was sound..I was petrified of being a buff/debuffer as it looked fairly complex and something that if you sucked at the whole team would dieeeee.
Heh, I even respeced out CM to take the /rad snipe power and tactics. At the time that made sense too , I solo'd a lot as I had 250M RAM (ten minute zone loading times) and CM was a pretty pointless power for me.
It worked for quite a while too, but then I was teaming with a fairly regular group of people and our sets complimented each other quite well..Then I tried a Grav/Kin troller and have not looked back at that empath since Throqing out the buffs and holds is much more fun and when it works really does feel like a job well done
So I wonder if Empaths are the "starter" set for defenders,and if that explains some of the misunderstanding about defenders generely. (Though I still say borking the game by using the standard AT pattern of "warrior" "Ranger" "Mage" "thief""cleric" "wibbly" does not help).
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Usualy its a view held by people who are poor team players and suffer from the "Me" syndrome. This game is about "Me" this team exists for "Me", you will all support "Me" so "I" can have fun.
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never a truer word said... not great people to team with the majority of the time!
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Usualy its a view held by people who are poor team players and suffer from the "Me" syndrome. This game is about "Me" this team exists for "Me", you will all support "Me" so "I" can have fun.
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never a truer word said... not great people to team with the majority of the time!
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Great players work as a TEAM always there to assist other people with other sets so that everyone can reach their maximum potential. There is too much scrapper/blapper or scranker mentality in the game whereby people are playing because for example they are a more or less self sufficient scrapper in a way that actually compromises the more vulnerable sets in the team. It could be a case of the more vulnerable set taking a plant because the scrapper wanted to show how l33t he was. I solo mobs with my scrapper but when i do, i say nobody join in, i dont even expect to be healed and am doing it to test my toon. Other people however try to solo mobs away from the rest of the team and expect help, they may not be able to keep aggro and they might not of seen to keep the path to them clear for any defender to come safely. I see this all too often. A scrapper could make a bad pull in order to show his uberness, have everyone get him through his low survivability points, then by not keeping aggro, have other people compromised and then laugh when they are the only one left standing. Also the amount of people who seem to think they have a personal healer when the rest of the team need attention too is unbelieveable but thats when some defenders should stop and let the idiots die.
EDIT:its okay for tanks too expect a personal healer if they can keep ALL the aggro and id sure as hell kick anyone who wont let me herd and consolidate.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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EDIT:its okay for tanks too expect a personal healer if they can keep ALL the aggro and id sure as hell kick anyone who wont let me herd and consolidate.
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Well, in this case there wouldn´t be too much healing needed for the rest of the team anyway. 
That said, the amount of scrappers who overestimate their tanking ability (especially the aggro management part) is truly astonishing... just as the amount of debt they can cause for the rest of the team.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
'EDIT:its okay for tanks too expect a personal healer if they can keep ALL the aggro and id sure as hell kick anyone who wont let me herd and consolidate'
but that is the me me me attitude!
paraphrased: its not ok for everyone else, except tanks, of which i am one and if you dont be my personal healer - allowing me to have MY fun i'll kick you.
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@ExtraGonk
Uuuhm, not really. If the tanker is really good at grabbing aggro (like that fire tanker I used to team with) he will need a dedicated healer, because if he goes down there will be stray aggro galore which - in most cases - is not fun for anyone.
On the other hand if he does have a dedicated healer behing him he can keep the aggro of more mobs (without dying himself) making AoEs more efficient and speeding things up, thus increasing the fun for most players. Boom-tactics work considerably better with this kind of setup.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
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'EDIT:its okay for tanks too expect a personal healer if they can keep ALL the aggro and id sure as hell kick anyone who wont let me herd and consolidate'
but that is the me me me attitude!
paraphrased: its not ok for everyone else, except tanks, of which i am one and if you dont be my personal healer - allowing me to have MY fun i'll kick you.
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As an empath of which i am one, heals go alot further on the tanker than being spread about the team, as do lucks and respites when you dont even have a defender. Its actually good sense for any tanker imo to not risk the need to have to need a heal or buff when getting hit by 16 enemies whilst a blaster is getting healed from being hit by just one more. Heal aura isnt that great a heal, and heal other and absorb pain can only be done to one person at a time so having to heal alot of people at the same time who are dispersed is just asking for trouble whereas healing just the tanker isnt. Someone will faceplant and it could be someone key to the teams survivability ie the tank, controller or the defender themself. The team can be like a pyramid of cards you take one from the bottom and the rest go down.
As a debuffer of which i am every type of it pays for the tanker to include every last enemy amongst the debuff zones.
Even with aoe heals its good to keep them and the team in one place and one place alone.
Its just good team dynamics to me for the tank to be centre of attention no matter what AT i play. I like things from the experience of playing every AT:
Buff tank so tank can herd safely.
Tank taunt controls a tight packed mob so controller or debuffer cant get aggro when they act.
Tight packed mobs means all enemies get debuffed no strays look for debuffer due to being taunt controlled.
Control mob for immediate damage mitigation, no strays look for controller due to being taunt controlled.
Scrapper to bosses or any undesireable, no bosses look to get more vulnerable and are taken down in good time with rest of the mob, scrappers could if necessary taunt bosses and make life easier for tank momentarily.
Blasters aoe tightpacked mob with no chance of getting attacked back, all is multihit for low fight duration.
No deaths done that way. Whole arcs can be done easily.
But not everyone likes to play the same way thats why people play with likeminded people to have fun and i kick people who compromise the way the rest of my team are happy playing cos normally its only one person who doesnt like what i do in a team. They dont want debt cos one guys idea of fun outweighed the team.
I wont tank for a team that doesnt let me play my tank as i see i should. I didnt make a tanker to play like a scrapper. If i want to play a scrapper ill play one. I wouldnt want to level up a trick archer with never being able to effectively play like one and anyone who makes a toon like a dark defender will not be ignored as a valid set and I will play my tank to help them play as they must surely be intended.
With stormies tanks can be made nigh on pointless alot to not even get to call what the tank does as even tanking as they can do is whats known as active defense but saying that every team can function without a tank although with a tank taking aggro everyone else is at less risk and free to perform their tasks better without having to get into personal fights for survival and keep things to where they are combining powers on many foes as opposed to splintering and splitting up.
A tank is no more important than anyone else. But are capable of allowing other sets through multihit capability at less risk do their jobs to maximum effect. Those tanks that dont are chaos tankers. I believe chaos tanking can work, is actually good fun but isnt the most effective way.
So I am not about me, I like to see people play their toons to maximum effect and if one person wants to cause pointless anarchy and debt for the rest of the team they damn well will get kicked. Besides I am playing a hero simulator not a game to see who on the team can cause the first teamwipe because they wanted a look at me i got skills moment.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Exactly. That way it is a whole different ballgame if it is a decent tank demanding more attention by the healer or if it is a scrapper wanting a private healer who on the other hand doesn´t care for all the stray aggro he caused by running through two spawns to get to that boss he wants to fight.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
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A tank is no more important than anyone else. But are capable of allowing other sets through multihit capability at less risk do their jobs to maximum effect. Those tanks that dont are chaos tankers. I believe chaos tanking can work, is actually good fun but isnt the most effective way.
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The idea of opening every fight with a tight herding session while no one else is allowed move from their assigned spot bores me to tears so I guess that makes me a chaos tanker. Generally I'd prefer to adapt my playstyle to fit with a team rather than forcing the team to adapt to "the one true way". For me fun > effectiveness and I'd rather sacrifice some of my effectiveness as a tanker if the result is that the other team members have more fun. A little chaos (not necessarily so much chaos that people die) can go a long way to adding enjoyment to a mission. I imagine for some people mission after mission that consist of a procession of herded and tightly packed enemies would be pretty boring.
Each to their own I suppose.
On the Defender side of things it's not all bad at the low levels. When I was playing my solo FF defender in the Hollows I had a few people wish me luck after they saw my search comment about having no bubbles or buffs and that inviting me to their team would lead to death and debt. One fella wanted me to join the team anyway even though all I'd contribute is low-ish damage
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In Soviet Russia, mission farm you!
Oh, that´s why it is one of the most important jobs of a tank is to assess the situation. There are few thing more boring than watching (or not even watching) the tank run around through multiple rooms just to amass a nice herd. (This is by far less efficient than boring.)
In many cases all a good tank (in this case that means: fast aggro-grabber) has to ask for is to be allowed to run in first. Not too boring for the rest of the team to stand back for two to three seconds, I guess.
But in some cases it´s just too alluring to herd a little bit, like when there is a large room full of mobs with a nice corner to pull them around.
So, sometimes efficiency and fun are not mutually exclusive depending (among other things) on the tank being either an intelligent/experienced player or a one-trick-pony.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
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A tank is no more important than anyone else. But are capable of allowing other sets through multihit capability at less risk do their jobs to maximum effect. Those tanks that dont are chaos tankers. I believe chaos tanking can work, is actually good fun but isnt the most effective way.
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The idea of opening every fight with a tight herding session while no one else is allowed move from their assigned spot bores me to tears so I guess that makes me a chaos tanker. Generally I'd prefer to adapt my playstyle to fit with a team rather than forcing the team to adapt to "the one true way". For me fun > effectiveness and I'd rather sacrifice some of my effectiveness as a tanker if the result is that the other team members have more fun. A little chaos (not necessarily so much chaos that people die) can go a long way to adding enjoyment to a mission. I imagine for some people mission after mission that consist of a procession of herded and tightly packed enemies would be pretty boring.
Each to their own I suppose.
On the Defender side of things it's not all bad at the low levels. When I was playing my solo FF defender in the Hollows I had a few people wish me luck after they saw my search comment about having no bubbles or buffs and that inviting me to their team would lead to death and debt. One fella wanted me to join the team anyway even though all I'd contribute is low-ish damage
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You can point blank mobs, or you can herd one mob away from another depending on the situation. But either way making mobs tight for the safety of others is paramount to the playing of a hero tanker. As a debuffer a tanker with no solid taunt control can powerdebt me and have me serve no point in even trying to debuff a mob through immediately getting debt after. If someone makes a toon they should get to see the best effect of that toon and with minimum worries at being able to do their job.
I am not one who will need a empath immediately after finding out i invited a trick archer to the team. As my empath i have been invited to teams with a rad and a kin but the 2 tanks said they needed me still. The amount of teams with 3 defenders to them on defiant is laughable!
I do not tank to faceplant people, i do not tank with faceplanters and anyone who plays in a way that compromises other people is more a villainous infiltrater in the team than a hero. I am a roleplayer btw i roleplay a hero, not an xp merc, not a show off, not a get one up on someone else pvp player, i bought the game to play a hero.
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Not too boring for the rest of the team to stand back for two to three seconds, I guess.
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That is in fact my minimum requirement 
or atleast till i get my aoe opener done.
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Exactly. That way it is a whole different ballgame if it is a decent tank demanding more attention by the healer or if it is a scrapper wanting a private healer who on the other hand doesn´t care for all the stray aggro he caused by running through two spawns to get to that boss he wants to fight.
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This is what i dont allow for in the slightest i dont allow for everyones type of fun and i dont care to. Peoples idea of whats good or not will differ and they can play with likeminded people.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
I've done gr8 PuG's and sucky PuG's, but that's just life, I always PuG, usually when I'm not picked up I'll start one myself.
Now having pretty much played most of the AT's or played with some a lot, I usually have a general idea what they can do and I pick up people's playstyle's easily. So PuG's haven't been much of a worry.
At times things go wrong and people learn from them, when they don't, or I notice that people are disheartened and go on about how can we do this? I'll usually step up with a plan (oooo ego boost) otherwise I like keeping my fingers stilled and letting the team find their balance.
I've played a Tank (Fire/Fire) and (ego boost again) I've done well by him. Having played with my SG mates with him a lot, I had dedicated empaths and due to my own playstyle I grab and hold as much aggro as I can, keeping track of enemies and allies and trying to spot when a squishie's gotten aggro outside of my range and then pull it off 'em.
Now playing a empath, I sometimes raise my eyebrows at tanks that don't keep aggro on them, but nothing much I can do about it, I also more appreciate the value of Tankers and how much I musta had my SG'mate Empaths hearts beating in their throats as my health went from Green straight to Red ( Ok, so I started off thinking I was going to skrank :P )
I think the general problem with the "OMGZ WE NEAD A HEAL0RZ" mentality is that Heals are VERY noticable, compared to the more subtle bonuses of the other Defending Primaries. Unfortunately there's not much that can be done about that except trying to keep educating people that Defenders don't HAVE to be their person Heal0rz and that other Defenders do have a valueable and useful place.
Now... what was I rambling on about?
I was in a good team the other night, the invul tank absolutly loved me when his nicely herded group got the TA treatment. I think defenders do better if groups are herded, but it does get boring. Dark, Kinetics, Rad and TA all have area debuffs that are useful. Forcefields, Empathy and Sonics do well with either nicely herded groups or chaos.
I haven't had any trouble recently on my TA and my debuffs did make a difference. I get lots of comments about how the team is doing more damage, hitting alot or getting through mobs faster when i'm around. I also get to brown peoples pants when i fire off flash arrow.
My TA ups peoples damage by about 54% and builds a nice safe haven around the tanker. Tankers only need to use their heal at the start of my debuffing. If that result isnt worth herding for then i dont know especially when you apply all the other bonuses involved. When tanks dont herd my very first debuff may only serve a purpose of getting me aggro, and a +4 boss coming my way isnt appreciated.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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I was talking with regards to individual defenders not power sets. Even so it does not change the fact that being a healer is NOT bad.
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